Cameo Communalism

CHECK LIST **** Great Balls of Fire *** Good Vibrations ** Maybe Baby * Running on Empty

***CAMEO. “Machismo.” Mercury. If Larry Blackmon was just a little bit more creative and had just a little more to say, Cameo’s albums might stand tall alongside those by the likes of Sly & the Family Stone and George Clinton’s several incarnations. As it is, Cameo ranks with the best of the Ohio Players (innuendo intact) and Earth, Wind & Fire (without the cosmic slop).

What Cameo shares with all those acts is a sense of communalism that injects a kind of life in the records. Though this is clearly Blackmon’s concept at work, he (like Sly Stone and Clinton) has no problem sharing the spotlight with his pardners.

Then, of course, there’s the relentless funk. Like 1986’s irresistible “Word Up!,” “Machismo” is as chock full o’ playful grooves as Prince’s unreleased “Black Album”--though at times they get stretched to the point they wear thin. But Blackmon varies things with the wistful “In the Night” (featuring trumpet from Miles Davis!) and the reggae “Dkwig.”

As for the thematic content: See album title (and such song titles as “Promiscuous” and “Pretty Girls”). But here too, Blackmon varies the message with the acc-cent-tu-ate the positive numbers “I Like the World” (don’t worry, be happy . . . ) and “Skin I’m In.”

Still, there are those nagging “ifs” that pull this up short of the exceptional work Blackmon seems be capable of. If only. . . .