Cabbage Alley was the band's first album with Reprise Records after leaving Josie Records which went bankrupt in 1971.[1][4] The album's title track "Cabbage Alley" was inspired in part by Professor Longhair's "Hey Now Baby".[5] According to Lionel Batiste Sr., drummer of Treme Brass Band: "Cabbage Alley was around Perdido Street. They had a lot of musicians down there—it was almost like a [red light] district—fast women. Near the battlefield."[6]
Reception[]
Stephen Erlewine of AllMusic noted less grit and texture in this album as compared to the band's previous works. He wrote, "they still are a remarkably sympathetic, supple group and it's a pleasure to hear them play," however he did not find any particular song compelling.[1]Bob Palmer of Rolling Stone had a favorable view and wrote "even the worst cuts on Cabbage Alley have a little of the rhythmic vitality and emerging roots-consciousness that looks like the most important new development in the black popular music of the Seventies." According to Palmer, "drummer Zig Modeliste is able to impart more rhythmic variety to every bar than any American soul group has yet employed. The rest of the band often doubles on auxiliary percussion, resulting in a percussive complexity that is both a new and natural direction."[3] In his review Robert Christgau hinted at the stylistic ambiguity, or variety, of the collection and gave the album a B-rating.[7]
