Be thankful

Everyone is missing someone today, on Thanksgiving.

Savor those memories.

Make new memories.

Enjoy the day!

“Be Thankful For What You Got,” William DeVaughn, from “Be Thankful For What You Got,” 1974. The LP on the Roxbury label is long out of print.

William DeVaughn had much to be thankful for.

He was a government employee, a draftsman who sang on the side. He wrote this in 1972. Its original title: “A Cadillac Don’t Come Easy.”

DeVaughn paid $900 to have his song recorded at a Philadelphia studio called Omega Sound. One of his producers, John Davis, was a session player with MFSB, the house band at Philly’s Sigma Sound Studios. Davis and co-producer Frank Fioravanti came up with a more sophisticated arrangement — the one heard here — and recorded it with members of MFSB at Sigma Sound.

Much of the rest of this LP has a gospel feel.