Edwin Starr, Easin’ In | Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶

In the 102nd edition of Throwback Vibez (2024), we recollect and reflect on “Easin’ In” by Edwin Starr.

The vibes, the vibes, those Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶! Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶 is a column that celebrates awesome songs from the past.  The records that grace this column are older, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re ancient – no fossils 🦴! All genres of music are welcome. In the 102^nd edition of Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶 (2024), we recollect and reflect on “Easin’ In” performed by Edwin Starr.

“There’s a man comin’ to town / He don’t wanna know that he’ll be around / So he’s easin’ in.” Uh-oh! Oh, snap! Those lyrics alone paint a vivid portrait.  The late, great Edwin Starr brings those and plenty more lyrics to life on “Easin’ In”. “Easin’ In” is the second track from the soundtrack of the Blaxploitation film, Hell Up in Harlem.  Starr helmed the entirety of the soundtrack.  “Easin’ In” is the most popular song from the soundtrack and one of Starr’s best songs. Freddie Perren wrote the song.  Perren and Fonce Mizell produced it.

The man Edwin Starr sings about on “Easin’ In” is bad! In the second verse, Starr characterizes him as “dangerous, sly, and shifty / If he should happen to write your name down / Don’t you try to fly outta town!” As Starr sings, he sounds incredibly soulful.  He gets a lift from marvelous background vocals, particularly in the simple but infectious chorus: “Easin’ in / Slick as he can, he’s easin’ in (Easin’ in).” But before there’s ever a not sung, the instrumental gets “Easin’ In” started right.  The bass line is epic.  The groove established by drums and percussion is sickening. Additional instruments – keys, organ, and guitar – create one of the funkiest, soulful songs of the 1970s.  There is no way you listen to “Easin’ In” and your body isn’t movin’ and groovin’.

Edwin Starr // Hell Up in Harlem (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) // Motown // 1974

Edwin Starr, Easin’ In: Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶 No. 102 (2024) [📷: Brent Faulkner / The Musical Hype; Motown; OpenClipart-Vectors, Speedy McVroom from Pixabay]