Opening with the sound of someone peeing,
Blowfly on Tour is a typically filthy slab of late-night party
funk from the crazed alter ego of old-school
R&B producer
Clarence Reid, and recorded when he was relatively new at this sleazy game (no one bothered to put a date on this album, but the presence of lewd covers of
Isaac Hayes's
"Theme from Shaft" and
Stevie Wonder's
"If You Really Love Me" suggests this was waxed around 1971). The vibe on this session is loose, as if
Reid and some buddies threw this together off the top of their heads in the studio late one night in the same time it took to record, but the grooves are funky and natural, and everyone involved seems to be having a good time (including the audience who can be heard whooping it up here and there). The theme of the album is supposedly the many freaky events
Blowfly and his gang witnessed while out on the road, which is just a jumping-off point for 40 minutes of typical
Blowfly raunch, including a takeoff on
Isaac Hayes's long version of
"By the Time I Get to Phoenix" that's transformed into a paean to the ravages of venereal disease, and a
James Brown anthem rewritten as
"I'm a Freak and I'm Proud." Between the gloriously gross fruit of
Reid's imagination and the in-the-pocket grooves of his crew of Miami session men,
Blowfly on Tour ranks as one of the dirty rapper's better albums, though no one without a healthy enthusiasm for jokes about oral sex should investigate the man's body of work. ~ Mark Deming
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