Hot Sauce Featuring Rhonda Washington Good Woman Turning Bad: The Complete Volt Recordings

If Stax had managed to stave off bankruptcy just a little longer, there’s a good chance that Hot Sauce would have seen their album issued; it was planned and allocated a Volt catalogue number. The group began as a one girl, two boy trio but quickly became a solo vehicle for the astoundingly soulful voice of St Louis’ Rhonda Washington. Most of the tracks were not cut at Stax, but at Royal Studios, home of the Hi Sound, with strings and things added later in Detroit. Rhonda Washington’s recordings are among the earthiest issued on Volt during the label’s later years, when studio activity was increasingly taking place away from Memphis. Hot Sauce only charted with two of a total of five singles, ‘Bring It Home (And Give It To Me)’ and a version of ‘Stop Doggin’ Me’ that blows Johnnie Taylor’s original into the middle of next week. The others might have done better if promotional budgets had not been cut as the 70s unfolded and the company gradually imploded.