FROM DA BRICKS

Leon Ware – ‘What’s Your World’
taken from Leon Ware (United, 1972)

Leon Ware – ‘What’s Your World’ (FDB Self-Indulgent Edit)

Ever since stumbling across the soundtrack to The Education of Sonny Carson that included a past subject for the FDB Slice Of Soul series, I’ve been hankering after more Leon Ware. Unfortunately it transpires that several of his records have never received the reissue treatment, and secondhand copies of even the more well-known albums cost a little more than I’m usually willing to spend on one of my sessions of indulgence on Amazon. Fortunately for me, the exceptional 4 Brothers Beats recently posted up his self-titled solo studio debut from 1972, a record that has several excellent moments, but no song has grabbed me as emphatically during my initial period of acquaintance with the LP as the beautiful ‘What’s Your World’.

Wonderfully atmospheric and expertly arranged, this particular song is proof positive of Ware’s musical genius that has seen him work with pretty much everybody who’s anybody in the annals of 1970’s soul. Credits with Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson, Minnie Riperton and Marvin Gaye only scratch the surface of his career and yet these names alone would prove a high accolade in their own right. ‘What’s Your World’ makes it clear why his services have been so frequently enlisted, a song that hasn’t left the back (and for the most part, the front) of my mind since discovering it at the beginning of the week. The song is enjoyed best in its entirety as it allows the listener to fully appreciate the nuances of the arrangement, but I can’t resist aiming your focus at the opening 30 seconds or so as it is nothing short of sublime, with the drop into the verse at the 0.23 mark and the introduction of Ware’s vocals sending shivers down my spine every single time.

As bonus material I’ve actually chopped and spliced together a couple of one and two-bar sequences in the ultimate act of self-indulgence. Holding onto the allusion that I’d actually ‘produced’ something, I even played this to my tutor group of kids at school, one of whom described it as ‘magical’. Rather than explain to them that all I’d done was rearrange someone else’s music in the most basic of ways, I chose to bask in the glory for a minute: if you can’t live the dream in a company of fourteen year-olds, then when can you? Hope you enjoy it as much as I have done for the last 24 hours.