The Foote Files: The Sweet Inspirations
(CBS 11) - This song goes way back to my teen years and I had forgotten all about it until Shotgun Tom Kelly on SIRIUS XM 60s On 6 played it the other day, and by golly it moves you!
The Sweet Inspirations were an all-female R&B vocal group going back as far as 1950. They were once a backup group with such performers as Doris Troy and Dianne Warwick.
On the song featured today, the members were Cissy Houston (mother of Whitney Houston), Estelle Brown, Sylvia Shemwell and Myrna Smith.
In the spring of 1968, they released a song called, "Sweet Inspiration." Written by Dan Penn and Lindon Oldham, produced by Tom Dowd and Tommy Cogbill, it made it all the way to #18 on the Billboard Top 40. Running 2:50 on the Atlantic Records label, the lyrics go like this:
Need your sweet inspiration
I need you here on my mind
Every hour of the day
Without your sweet inspiration
The lonely hours of the night
Just don't go my way
A woman in love
Needs sweet inspiration
Yeah, and honey that's all I ask,
That's all I ask from you
I've gotta have your sweet inspiration
You know there just ain't no tellin'
What a satisfied woman might do
Turn this up loud and feel the emotion and harmony of this great song!