Truth and Soul by Fishbone

Truth and Soul, Fishbone's second album, came out on Columbia on September 13, 1988, with David Kahne producing, and it opens by throwing down a gauntlet: a cover of Curtis Mayfield's "Freddie's Dead" from Super Fly. The Los Angeles crew had been together since their school days in 1979, and the founding six were all still aboard: Angelo Moore on vocals and sax, John Norwood Fisher on bass, his brother Philip "Fish" Fisher on drums, Kendall Jones on guitar, Walter Kibby on trumpet and vocals, and Christopher Dowd on keyboards and trombone.

The record careens between ska, punk, funk, reggae, blues and soul without apology, and for the first time the band cranks the amps into hard rock and metal territory too. The horns punch, the grooves bounce and the whole thing feels like a party that might turn into a riot. "Ma and Pa" and "One Day" are the tracks the countdowns hung on to.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.