The Final Solution: Brotherman Original Soundtrack

Dead ends and missed chances

rarely sound as funky and soaring as the soundtrack to Brotherman. A movie proposed and possibly scripted but never

ultimately made, Brotherman was

the brainchild of a group of Chicago ad men turned would-be producers who never

got their project off the ground. But they did get far enough to commission a

soundtrack in 1974, tapping the talented (though unwittingly, unfortunately

named The Final Solution) for the project. The group didn't have a script but,

working with songwriter Carl Wolfolk, they were able to draw on a one-line

theme ("The pusher who became a preacher"), a city rich in the sound of Curtis

Mayfield, and a few years' worth of blaxploitation soundtracks.

If finished, the soundtrack

to Brotherman might have joined

the ranks of blaxploitation's best. As is, the recordings are still pretty

fascinating. Lead singer Allen Brown has a confident, though not always

pitch-perfect, falsetto, and the spare guitar Wolfolk dropped in (to be

replaced later when strings and horns were to be added) give songs like "Brotherman"

and "I Don't Care" a sound that's more innovative than the finished tracks

might have sounded. The movie never happened. The group never got much further

than reworking The Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" for a Sunkist ad. The tapes

sat largely unheard. But the grooves remain in place.