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By 1967 Earland had joined Lou Donaldson’s band, and with them recorded three LP’s for Blue Note, ‘Say It Loud’, ‘Hot Dog’ and ‘Everything I Play Is Funky’ (on which he shared Hammond duties with Lonnie Smith). Between 1967 and 1970 Earland also recorded sessions as a sideman on Prestige with Rusty Bryant (‘Soul Liberation’) and Boogaloo Joe Jones (‘Right On’).

It is very difficult to say definitively when Earland began his solo recording career. Of the existing solo work that seems to pre-date the ‘Black Talk’ LP, there are 4 45’s (for Quaker Town, Greezie, Choice and Eldorado) and one LP (‘Soul Crib’ for Choice). There are discographies that list ‘Soul Crib’ as a 1966 date, but there are reasons to believe that that is incorrect. Matters are confused further because of a fair amount of bootleg/unofficial recordings that hit the market in the wake of ‘Black Talk’. It doesn’t help that Earland was fairly itinerant in his recording habits, playing major label dates for Blue Note and Prestige but occasionally returning to local Philadelphia labels as late as 1969.

If you follow Earland’s stylistic evolution, starting out as a jazzier player and gradually adding a certain amount of soul and funk to his sound, it seems likely that the Quaker Town 45, ‘Daily Double Pts 1&2’ is his first recording. Quaker Town was a local Philadelphia Label for which Earland had done some producing (including the Jean Wells 45 ‘Song of the Bells’). The tune (which sounds as if the audience noises had been dubbed in after the fact) is a swinging, minor-key outing.

The Greezie 45, ‘Midnight Hour’ b/w ‘Rescue Me’ is his first real jukebox burner. Though both of these songs were originally hits in 1965, the fact that this 45 was recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s  studio in Englewood Cliffs, NJ for a Newark, NJ label suggests that it was done sometime after Earland joined Donaldson’s band. The only other 45 on the label that I’ve been able to find is a garage-punk 45 by the 7^th Cinders which came out in 1966.

The same goes for the LP and 45 that Earland recorded for Choice (also a Newark, NJ label). The LP was recorded at Van Gelders, and though it features Earland’s partner Jimmy Ponder on guitar, it also features Walter Perkins (out of Chicago) on drums, and George Coleman on tenor sax . Coleman had played with Perkins in the MJT+3 and had briefly replaced John Coltrane in the Miles Davis Quintet. It seems unlikely Earland would have had access to players like this had he not already been recording for Blue Note.

The ‘Soul Crib’ LP leans more toward the jazz side of things, featuring no fewer than five standards, one swinging original ‘The Dozens’ (one side of the Choice 45 with ‘Strangers in the Night’ on the flip), and a bizarre free/out improv piece called ‘Mus’ Be LSD’ that seems completely out of place.