With These Hands / a Million to One

Digitally remastered two-fer containing a pair of albums from the soul vocal outfit on one CD. Life after Carnival Records found The Manhattans recording for the Deluxe label, where they cut some charmers. "With These Hands" is the closest The Manhattans came to recording an album of standards or pop material. The album's ten songs consist of five standards and five cold-blooded originals. You can't help but feel the aching pain in "It's Gonna Take a Lot to Bring Me Back," a R&B hit slow weeper that oozes soul. "Give Him Up" displays the quintet's lovely up tempo harmony; and the tear jerking "If My Heart Could Speak" became a slow, tenderly sung ballad and one of their best. The next DeLuxe single, released in late 1971, paved the way for upcoming Manhattans smashes later in the 70's. The title track already has many of the basic elements that the future success sound was built on and became a slowly swaying melodic and beautiful ballad. The single peaked at #47 on the US Soul and # 114 US Pop Charts, and, although it didn't break into the Hot 100, this single was closest to the crossover the group had enjoyed so far. The album was not only the second, but also the last Manhattans album on the DeLuxe label, appearing on the Billboard Soul Charts and stayed there for fifteen weeks, peaking at #35. In the afterglow of "One Life to Live", also "Back Up" climbed quite high on the charts. The non-single sides including "You on My Mind", a cute ballad, "Strange Old World", and finally the psychedelic rock-dancer titled "Teenage Liberation".