Today’s selection (above)
The mighty Fame Studio (below)
There’s soul between those bricks…
Listen/Download – The Inclines – Pressure Cooker Pt 1
Listen/Download – The Inclines – Pressure Cooker Pt2
Greetings all.
I hope the new week finds you all well.
The heat (in measure of actual temperature) has seen a decline. Unfortunately this was met with an incline in the humidity, so while it is not technically as hot as it was last week, it is just as uncomfortable, so, instead of catching fire when you step out of the house, you merely start to melt.
The 45 I bring you today is something that was initially passed on to me years ago by my man Haim, who had a spare copy of the 45, which although it was in rough condition, since it cost me exactly nothing I was (and still am) grateful, and placed it in the crates as what we record nerds refer to as a space-holder/keeper copy.
I dug ‘Pressure Cooker Pts 1&2’ by the Inclines, and kept my eyes peeled for an opportunity to upgrade.
Just such an opportunity was encountered at this year’s All-45 Show in Allentown.
I’d already pretty much emptied my wallet when I happened upon a dealer I did not know, and started digging in what soon turned out to be a box full of excellent funk and soul 45s. There was only one problem…
Not a single one of these gems was priced, and there was no indicator anywhere on the table as to how much this fine gentleman might be asking for his stock.
This is rarely a good thing, since such discoveries are often met with a stock playlet, inevitably leading to my disappointment.
It kind of goes like this (with me trying to find a satisfying middle ground between looking like a rube and/or a shark):
Me: Um, how much for the 45s?
Dealer: Oh, let me take a look at those..hmmmmm…that’s a good one….so’s that…
Me: Oh, uh, I don’t know those…they looked cool.
Dealer: How about $200 for the lot?
Me: Gulp…
Aaaand scene!
(Magnify the discomfort in the above situation when LPs are involved)
However, once in a great while, an unpriced box of 45s is just what it seems, i.e. a random collection of stock that a dealer wants to move.
That was the deal this time, and I minted up on two faves (the Emperors ‘Mumble Shingaling’ and today’s selection) at the extremely beneficial price of two US dollars per, which was more than amenable. I took my records and skulked away.
Now I haven’t been able to nail down a whole lot of info on the Inclines. They seem to have released two 45s on Atco, one as the Inclines and one under the name of group member Tyrone McCollum.
They seem to have hailed from either northern Georgia or southern Tennessee, having recorded a few records for the Chattanooga based Gil label.
‘Pressure Cooker Pts 1&2’ was originally released on the Hawk label (I have no idea where that label was based but wouldn’t be surprised if it was from the same region).
Today’s selection was recorded at the storied Fame studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama in 1969 and is a fantastic, mid-tempo slice of southern instrumental funk. The first part is dominated by the horns, with a repeated riff which drops out for a saxophone solo. The bass, drums and electric piano form a thick, muddy bottom that gives the relaxed, slightly jazzy tune a funky kick.
The flip side (make sure to download side 2) sees the keyboards come to the front, with the electric piano and organ both getting time to shine.
It’s a very cool record precisely because it’s so laid back. It has a kind of ‘nighttime’ vibe to it, not quite as spooky as a side like ‘Nickol Nickol’ by the Brothers of Hope, but moving in that direction.
I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back on Wednesday.
Listen/Download – Clay Tyson – If You See a Ring Around Your Bathtub (Baby You Know I’ve Left You Clean)
Greetings all.
I hope you’ve all avoided melting in the ungodly heat. I’m still solvent but on the verge of liquefaction should I spend more than my allotted time in the sun. Like my ancestors before me, I am a pale man, with white-blond hair and my love for sunshine is decidedly one-sided. My childhood is filled with repeated, drastic episodes of sunburn, only repeated in adulthood during simultaneous bouts of alcohol consumption (as in ‘Oh come on, a little sun never hurt anyone!’, except – of course – me, who spent the next week clutching a bottle of aloe and praying for death).
I fear that my Irish/Viking genes have been passed on to both of my sons, who look like Casper and any one of the ghostly trio. They cannot head to the beach without shirts, sunscreen and hats lest they burst into flames. It’s that bad.
There was a very brief window, right after I moved into my first apartment (which was a block from the beach) where I spent time at the beach every day, rationing my time in the sun where I developed something like a mid tan, but decided that the discomfort of sand in my pants outweighed any ‘healthy glow’, so I never tried again.
That said, I sit here now, ensconced in conditioned air, tapping away at yon laptop in an effort to get the blogging done before I nod off.
Before I start, make sure to check out the Funky16Corners Radio Show this Friday night at 9PM EST at Viva internet radio. This week – as in all weeks – what you’ll be hearing is the best in funk, soul, jazz and rare groove, brought to you in living, crackling color, harvested from original vinyl sources and mixed live for your delectation.
You should also fall by the Gentleman’s Guide to Midnite Cinema podcast to dig the filmic discussion, and to sample my inaugural contribution of a weekly, funky track (see episode #89).
Also, stop by Iron Leg where I go on at length in reflection about 25 years of zine (paper and web) production by yours truly.
The tune I bring you today is something I picked up a while back, mainly on the strength of the Identify label. For those of you that aren’t familiar, it was a James Brown-related imprint, and until I found this 45, the only one I’d ever seen in person was theA.A.B.B. 45 ‘Pick Up the Pieces One By One’, featured here many moons ago.
The disc was cheap (probably because of a noticeable edge warp, but since it was so unusual I decided to risk the dough and take it home.
Good thing too, because when I finally got to give it a spin, I realized that what I had was not only funky, but also funny, making it yet another entry in the soulful comedy sweepstakes (wherein I have a bunch of similar sides and ought to get down to making a mix).
The performer was a cat named Clay Tyson, who according to what little I’ve been able to find was a ‘chitlin circuit’ comic who hooked up with the Godfather of Soul and released a couple of 45s; one on King, and the one you see before you today (in addition to a number of other records on other labels).
When I was researching this record I happened upon a previous post over at the mighty Stepfather of Soul blog (and if you are not familiar, you should get…familiar that is) where my man Jason says that the King 45 (which I do not own) is pretty much the same two routines on the Identify disc, redone with different backing tracks.
What you get here with ‘If You See a Ring Around Your Bathtub…’ , is James, jiving alongside Mr. Tyson (with the JB’s I’ll assume) with a tight funk groove. Oddly enough, it’s pretty much like any James Brown record of a similar vintage, only you get a series of so-so jokes (which James seemed to think were HILARIOUS) instead of the HYEEAAHH!s and YOWW!s and whatnot. I’m not suggesting that this is as good as a James Brown or JBs 45 (though in a lot of ways, that’s what it is), but that the funk is right, tight and naturally, out of sight, and since the tune is co-credited to the mighty Fred ‘Trombonicus Rex’ Wesley, you know it’s a quality sound.
I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back on Monday.
Listen/Download – Lyn Collins – Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose
Greetings all.
Welcome to the middle of the first authentic, brain-baking, sweat-inducing heatwave of the summer of two-thousand-ten.
The Fourth of July festivities were an authentic pain in the ass. The fam and I have been heading down to Asbury Park for the fireworks for the last three years, on account of it’s been a very chill scene. Unfortunately/fortunately, the restoration of Asbury Park, which has made the town a very cool place to be has increased its appeal to the point where the 4th of July turned the city into a veritable mob scene with near-gridlock conditions, and the Funky16Corners-mobile and all that sailed upon her were forced out of Asbury Park, first to Ocean Grove (which was also packed to capacity) and then further south into Bradley Beach* until we located a parking space (my three-year-old son ‘Thanks for parking Daddy!!’) well over a mile away (maybe two) from the fireworks about 10 seconds before the fireworks commenced.
We were a long way from the boom-boom, but the rockets red glare was still visible and the kids dug it, so all things considered it was enough of a success to keep the peace (but also enough to let Mrs Corners and I know that we were going to have to retool the entire Independence Day experience next year).
That said, I couldn’t very well let the descent of the oppressive heat go by without whipping a little bit of volcanic funk on you as the accompanying soundtrack.
Hows about some Lyn Collins? I thought you might like that…
Arguably the pinnacle of that rarified species known as James Brown’s Funky Divas, Miz Collins, aka the Female Preacher is best remembered as the woman responsible for the 1972 atomic explosion known as ‘Think (About It)’ one of the funkiest records ever recorded and the very heavily sampled source for the heart and soul of Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock’s ‘It Takes Two’, a 45 that I pack in my record box on the reg on account of it’s a funky killer all on its own.
The record I bring you today is something from a few years further down Lyn Collins discography, her 1974 cover of the Godfather’s 1969 hit, ‘Give It Or Turnit A Loose’. For some bizarre reason I was unaware of this record’s existence until recently, and when I heard it I was filled with an odd mixture of ‘DAMN this record’s hot’ and ‘Where has this been all my life?’ but more importantly ‘Where can I get myself a copy?, the answer to the last question being answered within a few weeks.
Aside from being Soul Brother Number One, Mr Dynamite, Mr Please Please Please and the Hardest Working Man In Show Business, James Brown was above all an astute judge of talent, packing his band with dead on the super heavy funk players, and his stable of performers with some of the finest female soul and funk singers to have ever graced this mortal coil. I mean, sure Lyn Collins was bad-ass, but when you step back and realize that she stood alongside voices like Vicki Anderson and Marva Whitney it’s an awful lot to take in.
Collins’ version of the tune is updated to the slightly smoother, certainly more synthesized 1974-era funk, but it still kicks ass in a BIG way. There’s all the crispness of your run of the mill James Brown production, as well as the complex, clockwork funk, but there’s something else at work, the heart of which is Lyn Collin’s mighty voice.
Collins had the ability to leap from a soulful growl to a jagged edged scream in no time at all, and she does so several times in the course of this record.
While there are synthesizers, and it was 1974, and I don’t doubt for a second that this record set any number of discotheques afire, there’s never any question that the music pouring from the grooves is anything but funk.
So, get up out of your seat, on your feet and start moving your ass. If you thought you were done sweating, you have another think coming brothers and sisters.
See you on Friday.
Peace
Larry
*Yes, I know these town names are meaningless to people outside of the area. Please bear with me…
I hope you’re all good and ready to crash into what promises to be a slamming holiday weekend.
Assuming that the weather holds out the fam and I will be down at the Asbury Park boardwalk for the third year in a row to groove on the fireworks this Sunday.
I’m really starting to feel the summer in a positive way. The humidity has departed (a temporary state of affairs, but you take it where you can get it) and the sun has been shining on a regular basis, so the time is right for some summery sounds.
Before we get rolling I have a couple of pieces of business to take care of. First, beginning with next week’s podcast, yours truly has been asked to contribute a funky track each week to the Gentleman’s Guide To Midnite Cinema podcast, which, if the title wasn’t explanation enough, concerns itself with the world of film, with a concentration on genre flicks. You should fall by their web site and check things out (you can also access the episodes via iTunes).
Second, you should make sure to check out this week’s edition of the Funky16Corners Radio Show on Viva internet radio for more of the good stuff. It runs every Friday night at 9PM EST and is archived here as a downloadable MP3 file the following day.
I featured a track from pianist Pete Jolly’s ‘Seasons’ album in a couple of different Funky16Corners Radio mixes, but the cut I bring you today is, as the kids say, that real shit.
‘Seasons’, recorded in a single 1970 session, and largely improvised in the studio is as close as any album comes to being the perfect, groove oriented electric piano album.
Produced by Herb Alpert and featuring a group that included Paul Humphrey on drums and Milt Holland and Chuck Berghofer on bass, ‘Leaves’ is something of a lost work of genius, and decidedly ahead of its time.
The album is made up of a series of fairly brief cuts, arranged as a concept album of sorts, but unlike so many rock concept albums, weighted down with ponderous lyrics and ‘meaning’, ‘Seasons’ is entirely instrumental, which means all the concept you’re forced to deal with is in the form of a musical feel. I suppose it’s entirely possible that Jolly could have applied a completely different set of titles to the pieces and rewired the ‘concept’, but the whole thing works so well, you kind of find yourself forgetting all about any connective tissue and just letting yourself float away on the groove.
‘Springs’ starts off with the sparest bits of percussion and bass until Jolly drops in with a ringing keyboard (according to Odub at Soul Sides, a Wurlitzer electric piano). I love how the bass, drums and piano all get stronger in the tiniest increments, almost to the point that you don’t notice it happening unless you rewind and concentrate on one instrument specifically. What starts out as a whisper turns into a funky, nighttime groove, like closing your eyes and feeling a warm summer breeze move past.
Jolly didn’t record much else with this kind of a feel, which makes ‘Seasons’ all the more amazing.
You should really get your hands on a reissue of ‘Seasons’. I think you’ll find yourself listening to it in a loop, digging it a little deeper each time.
I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back on Monday.
F16C Soul Club Presents – Tony C: Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky
Playlist
Pyrahnna Sound-La Turbie Pyrahanienne-Sound
John Schroeder-Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag-Marble Arch
Bobby Hutcherson-Rain Every Thursday-Blue Note
Yusef Lateef-Bishop School-Atlantic
Jean King-The In Crowd-HBR
Ray Johnson-Funky Way-Inarts
Jackie Paine-Go Go Train-Jetstream
Betty Harris-Ride Your Pony-Sansu
Georgie Fame-Last Night-International
Lebron Bros-Proud Mary-Cotique
Bamboos of Jamaica-Hard to Handle-Hansa
Cher-For What It’s Worth-Atco
Mary Holmes-Soul Brother-Nassau
Jimmie Willis-Soul Power-ORR
Cliff Sabb-The Mule-Roulette
Pacers-Skeeter Dope-Alley
Soul Inheritors-Eleanor Rigby pt 2-Jerhart
The Packers-Pure Soul-Puresoul
Katie Webster-Hell or High Water-Goldband
Frank Howard & the Continentals-Do what You Wanna Do-Deluxe
Johnny Blue-Crazy Crazy-Friar
Nu Sound Express-Ain’t It Good Enough-Silver Dollar
Ray Weatherspoon-Stop Stuffin and Start Sho Nuffin-Satan
I hope the new week finds you all well.
Just for the record, my lovely wife has returned home from the hospital, sore and fatigued but on her way to recovery.
I realized last night (after I had already retired for the evening) that I had forgotten to post the mixed MP3 of this weeks Funky16Corners Radio Show from Viva internet radio, so I have done so. It’s an all-Lou Courtney special, and you might want to give it a listen because the fidelity problems caused by the Viva interface have been corrected in the mix. There’s a lot of great music in there, so give it a listen when you get a chance.
Today marks the return of the Funky16Corners Soul Club with a fantastic contribution from my man in the UK, Tony Crampton. A former contributor to Jazz Syndicate Radio (for whom I contributed a guest mix way back when) and respected club DJ, Tony is also a man with impeccable musical taste.
As I’ve mentioned in this space more than once, Tony has a great ear for funk and soul and has many a time turned me on to cool things I hadn’t yet heard.
Mr. Crampton works from a wide ranging palette, including library music, Latin sounds, R&B, funk and soul, and his mixes are always filled with all kinds of wonderful surprises.
This one is no exception, with soul sounds from New Orleans, Jamaica, the UK and all over the USA.
So, pull down those ones and zeros and dig in, on account of everything Tony C does is indeed funky.
See you later in the week.
I hope everyone – at least those of you so effected – is weathering the heat wave in good health.
It has been brutally hot, and occasionally humid as well here in the Northeast…the kind of hot where it takes miles of high speed driving before the air conditioning is able to cool down the inside of the car, which is OK too, since driving with the windows opening is like watching a cake bake from inside the oven.
It’s been a busy week hereabouts, with my beloved – Mrs Corners – heading into the hospital to meet her own health challenge this weekend. It’s getting to the point where we may have to look into bionic replacement parents to care for our children while we spend all of our time with our friends in the medical profession.
It is surely a drag, but since you gotta do, what you gotta do (as they say), we gotta do this, so keep your fingers crossed.
I hope everyone has been digging the latest edition of Funky16Corners Radio, and I thought it would be fitting to close out the week with something else that is both jazzy and funky.
The tune in question is something written by a younger jazz master, interpreted by one of his forefathers in a late career (successful) attempt at relevance, that being a very tasty rendering of Herbie Hancock’s ‘Chameleon’ as performed by the mighty Lionel Hampton.
Mr. Hampton’s funky sides have appeared in this space before and I have previously rhapsodized about how groovy it was that a man who came to prominence caressing the vibes alongside Benny Goodman in the 1930s lit things up again in the 60s and 70s with all things soulful and funky.
On both his own Glad-Hamp imprint, as well as Brunswick Records, Hampton got down with some decidedly contemporary sounds with both small groups and his own big band.
I had previously heard – and dug – a live, big band version of ‘Chameleon’ by Hampton, when I was going through a friend’s sale box and discovered a studio version of the tune on Glad-Hamp. Fortunately for me another friend happened to have his portable turntable there and I was able to give the record a spin, discovering that the studio version was just as tasty – if not tastier – that the one I already had. The dude in question was letting the record go for a very reasonable price, so I grabbed it for my record box and brought it home.
So, I hope you dig it, and remember to tune in to the Funky16Corners Radio Show on Viva internet radio, this Friday night at 9PM EST, with the episode available here for download on Saturday.
Have a great weekend and I’ll be back on Monday.
Stan Kenton & Orchestra – 2002 Zarathustrevisited (Creative World)
Frank Wess – Wessward Ho (Enterprise)
Larry Willis – Out On the Coast (Groove Merchant)
Gary Burton – Vibrafinger (Atlantic)
Gary McFarland – On This Site Shall Be Erected (edit) (Skye)
Jimmy Smith – Hang’Em High (Pride)
Phil Upchurch – Elektrik Head (Cadet)
Pete Jolly – Prairie Road (A&M)
Hampton Hawes – Don’t Pass Me By (Prestige)
Neal Creque – Jasmine (Cobblestone)
Roy Meriwether – Mean Greens (Capitol)
Eddie Jefferson – Psychedelic Sally (Prestige)
I hope the new week finds you well.
I was just sitting here in the Funky16Corners Record Vault and Podcasting Nerve Center, when I realized that in all the new equipment/live mix/pledge drive hysteria, it had been something like three months since the last ‘regular’ Funky16Corners Radio mix, i.e. one with the drops and the accompanying zip file and the whole – as they used to say in the olden days – ‘shooting match’, and as a result, I felt that I should get my – as they still say today – shit together, dip into the digimatized stock and get something going. So, I did.
Things being what they are, that being busy, both with the real world moves and the blog stuff, the old Funky16Corners mix schedule (as it was) has been stretched out somewhat. This has not however resulted in a lack of content, in fact the net result has been more music, with the Soul Club mixes (expect more of those from myself and guest selectors in the coming months) and the recent addition of archived/MP3 versions of the show I do weekly for Viva internet radio. As a result there’s probably more to listen to here than any sane person could digest, so dig in, slap some of the good stuff on your portable MP3 delivery device and stuff it in your ears (as time allows).
That said, I have whipped up a new mix, and I think you’ll dig it. Funky16Corners Radio v.86 – Elektrik is both jazzy and funky, with lots of the good stuff you’ve come to expect as part of the Funky16Corners Radio experience, with a perfect vibe for a warm summer night.
Things get started with something that surprised even me, that being Stan Kenton’s funky, fusion-y take on Deodato’s reworking of Strauss’s ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’, cleverly titled ‘2002 Zarathustrevisited’ (Oh, Stan….), wherein the often overwrought master of heavily brassed West Coastery lets his sideburns grow in and hands the baton over to the younger cats in the band. Unlike similar sounds emitting from the Woody Herman organization, I have little faith that the man with his name on the bandstand had much to do with this one, and as a result, it is very groovy indeed. Frank Wess works a very cool, vaguely trippy (heavily echoed) and somewhat funky sound with ‘Wessward Ho’. Alongside his most excellent flute work, there’s plenty of vibes, wah wah guitar and clavinet to being up the soulful quotient. If you can get your hands on a copy of the 1970 ‘Wess to Memphis’ album, do so, because unlike so many of his hard bop contemporaries, Wess was able to work very well in a more modern bag.
I’ve featured tracks by pianist Larry Willis in a couple of previous mixes, and for good reason too, since he was a master of a certain extra-hot, era-specific, electric piano sound. The tune ‘Out On the Coast’ take the soul jazz vibe and funks it up without drifting into the land of fusion. It’s serious enough to be jazz, but with enough get down in it to work as funk.
If you’re familiar with some of the more ethereal work of vibist Gary Burton you may find ‘Vibrafinger’ to be a somewhat jarring experience. Here, instead of the soothing chimes of the vibraphone, Burton offers up a heavily treated, electrified and distorted sound, accompanied by some heavy guitar and drums.
‘On This Site Shall Be Erected’ is an edited (by me) version of the first track on Gary McFarland’s concept album ‘America the Beautiful’. Thanks no doubt to the fact that he was co-owner of the label, his work for Skye Records is at times very far out, ranging from his soft and mellow vocalizing alongside his vibes, to heavier orchestral work, which, like this track, sometimes got funky. With guitar by Eric Gale and drums by Bernard Purdie, ‘On This Site Shall Be Erected’ moves from a brief avant garde section, directly into a few short minutes of big band funk.
Though you’re probably familiar with the Booker T and the MGs version of the movie theme ‘Hang’Em High’ (a Top 10 hit in 1968), you’ll probably dig Jimmy Smith’s long-form take on the tune from the ‘Black Smith’ album. You get to hear Jimmy work the Hammond alongside a piano (almost the whole time) and he does a predictably great job.
Next up is something a little spacey from the king of Chicago studio axemen, Mr. Phil Upchurch. ‘Elektrik Head’ from his 1969 LP ‘The Way I Feel’ sees Upchurch getting all up inside the echoplex, managing to be jazzy, soulful and passably psychedelic all at the same time.
Things mellow out a little bit – yet remain funky – with ‘Prairie Road’ by pianist Pete Jolly. A track from the largely improvised and wholly excellent ‘Seasons’ album, it features Jolly on the electric piano, and none other than Paul Humphrey on the drums. If you can score this on vinyl, good for you (it took me a while). If you can’t, grab it in reissue because it really has to be heard in its entirely. GREAT record. Hampton Hawes was featured in the electric piano mix earlier this year. ‘Don’t Pass Me By’ is another fantastic cut from his 1972 ‘Universe’ album. Neal Creque is another great, underrated musician and composer who is better known for his work as a sideman (with Mongo Santamaria among others) than for his solo work (probably because there’s not a lot of it…). ‘Jasmine’ is from his 1972 ‘Contrast’ album, and features some West Indian flavor mixed in with the funky jazz, sounding like a younger, hipper cousin to Sonny Rollins’ ‘St Thomas’. Roy Meriwether recorded a fair amount of major label jazz sides, but it’s his private press stuff that is sweated the hardest by the collectors and beat diggers. His version of Eddie Harris’s ‘Mean Greens’ appeared on his Capitol LP ‘Soul Knight’. He takes the tune at a faster, more aggressive pace than Harris did on his OG.
This edition of the Funky16Corners Radio thang closes out with a very groovy track by the father of vocalese, Mr. Eddie Jefferson. I wish I could say I had a copy of the rare 45 of Jefferson’s version of Horace Silver’s ‘Psychedelic Sally’, but I’ll settle for the LP. Not very psychedelic, but quite funky, this sees Jefferson in a very modern bag.
I hope you dig the sounds, and I’ll be back later in the week with something cool.
Listen/Download – Hamilton Bohannon – South African Man
Greetings all.
The end of the week is here, and it would appear that the summer weather may be returning as well (which is a good thing since the actual summer is only a few days away).
It’s Father’s Day this weekend, so I’m going to spend as much time chilling with my sons (and my lovely wife of course, without whom I would not be a father) and reflecting on how much my life has changed in the last decade (for the better, natch…).
The tune I bring you today is something I picked up a while back and have been exploring – at my leisure – ever since. A couple of other tracks from this album have seen inclusion in Funky16Corners Radio mixes, but I’ve saved the best for last.
If you’re a crate digger, or just a serious fan of funk and soul, you have certainly heard of Hamilton Bohannon.
Bohannon got his start drumming for Stevie Wonder and working at Motown as a percussionist and arranger during the 60s. After he moved on from Motown he signed with the Brunswick Records subsidiary Dakar where he would record several albums through the 70s.
Today’s selection, ‘South African Man’ is a long, funky, mid-tempo jam that didn’t make much of a dent stateside but was a dance floor hit over in the UK in 1975, the first of a half dozen hits he had in that country over the next seven years.
A lot has been said about Bohannon as a pioneer of disco, but his work is a lot closer to the Loft-era sounds discussed here in the past than any of the stereotypical sounds of the disco era.
‘South African Man’ is just about six minutes* of ‘vamp’, with a drum and bass heavy riff, augmented with clavinet and wah-wah guitar. The lyrics of the song – as they are – don’t really say much which is kind of surprising considering a song with this title in the heart of the apartheid era, but ultimately, ‘South African Man’ is less about thought and protest than it is about dance floor grinding in the club. And when I say grinding, I’m not kidding, since ‘South African Man’ lingers dangerously close to a porno-soundtrack vibe, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but yet another reminder that the hypnotic rhythms of the club aren’t just about dancing in the, how do they say, vertical position…
That said, slap this one on, stir yourself up an icy cocktail and enjoy the warm breezes of summer before they become (inevitably) oppressive.
See you on Monday.
Listen/Download – Ross Carnegie & Co. – Open Up Your Mind
Greetings all.
I hope the new week finds you all well.
I spent Thursday, Friday and the rest of the godforsaken weekend dealing with yet another in a seemingly endless parade of kidney-related roadblocks. Long story short, one of the newer kidney stones (which weren’t supposed to be happening) became dislodged from its home in the “meat” of the kidney (as my doctor likes to call it) and scored itself an eagle, dropping directly into the ureter, which in accordance with Murphy’s Law, was too narrow to afford it egress. As a result, my doctor (always properly cautious) dragged me back into the surgi-center and reinserted a stent, so that my sole, remaining kidney would not fail. How’s that for fun?
This all sounds a lot worse than it is. Aside from being a huge inconvenience (with the added risks of anesthesia), if the greatest minds of the urological/nephrological world could figure out why I’m still getting stones, and cause it to cease, there would be no problem at all.
Until then, I’m trapped in this bizarre loop where I go through another surgical procedure, only to discover another speed bump when I emerge on the other side.
That (and the fact that I had to take my sick three-year-old to the doctor) is why there was no Friday post.
But, all is – if not well – at least back to the status quo, so continue on I will.
The tune I bring you today is something of a slightly later vintage by a great producer of Hammond 45s, Mr. Ross Carnegie.
I first heard/heard of Mr. Carnegie via the legendary ‘Vital Organs’ comp which featured his song ‘Cool Dad’, as well as his visage on the cover.
Some years later, deep into my own Hammond obsession I scored a copy of ‘The Kid’ (as featured in Funky16Corners Radio v.48), also very groovy.
Anyhoo, the tune I bring you today falls somewhat later in Mr. Carnegie’s limited discography, bears no date but the sound in the grooves suggests to me a recording sometime in the early-to-mid 70s.
Ross Carnegie emigrated to New York from Canada as a young man to work as a jazz pianist. He ended up working not only on piano but mastering the Hammond organ as well, eventually leading his own band which featured a young Alphonse Mouzon on drums in the late 60s.
Later on, Carnegie became known (at least locally) as the pianist in the White Plains, NY Nordstroms department store.
Today’s selection, ‘Open Up Your Mind’, credited to Ross Carnegie and Co. , is a funky, semi-blaxplo experience with all manner of keyboards – analog and synthesized – horns, police whistles and chants (no doubt courtesy of the ‘& Co.’ of the title) of ‘Open up your mind’.
While there are elements that would later come to signify disco, this is most decidedly a non-disco affair (though Carnegie would later release the tune ‘F-Minor Disco’ on his El-Con label, using the same exact catalog number as ‘Open Up Your Mind’).
I hope you dig the tune, and, assuming I’m not hit by a bus or falling space junk, I’ll be back mid-week.
Greetings all, and welcome to the 2010 Funky16Corners Pledge Drive, beer blast and chili cook-off (well…just the first one, really, but I wouldn’t mind some cold beer and hot chili alongside the funk and soul 45s).
This is the fifth year I’ve come to you with my hand outstretched, asking that those of you that are so inclined, and of course can afford to, donate some small sum to contribute to the upkeep of the Funky16Corners empire (as it is).
To go into the WABAC machine for a moment, this all started four years ago, when Funky16Corners was the only blog I did, and was operated at very little cost, employing the same cheapo file storage and bandwidth that I used for the Funky16Corners web zine.
Then, out of the blue the good people at BoingBoing, a VERY heavily traveled site, linked to one of my posts, and in a single day Funky16Corners got enough traffic to erase a months worth of bandwidth, just about shutting things down.
It was at that point that I checked in with some of my more, how do they say ‘web savvy’ friends, who informed me that I should probably take the opportunity to move the whole shebang to a paid server space where storage and bandwidth spikes would not present such an issue.
So, I signed up and moved on to bigger and better things.
As a result, I started the yearly Pledge Drive in an attempt to offset the cost of the server.
In the years that followed, the Funky16Corners Radio Podcast (and the ensuing archive, the most heavily attended section of the site) got started, the blog moved from Blogger to WordPress, and then this year, following some menacing behavior by the otherwise wonderful folks at the free WordPress service, I crated up the whole mess and made the move to run the WordPress software (a related but separate entity from the blog host) our of my own server space. While doing that, I redesigned the blog, opened the Guest Mix Archive and watched my stats drop and subsequently rebound as the rest of the world adjusted their links accordingly. Of course, the fact that I only just discovered that I neglected to set up the post archives properly, means that they’ve been offline from when the blog moved in January until yesterday. That didn’t help.
As in previous Pledge Drives, I wanted to do something special to mark the occasion. This year’s shindig evolved out of a recent change, in the blog, and the real world as well.
The last year has seen two important acquisitions in the Funky16Corners equipment arsenal. First and foremost, last Christmas my wife got me a portable digital recorder. Second – thanks to an unexpected windfall from a rare trip to the slot machines – I finally picked up a second turntable and a mixer, completing my home DJ set-up.
What this new equipment allowed me to do was (among other things) to record, and present to you, ‘live’ DJ mixes. The first of these appeared at Funky16Corners via sets recorded live at Master Groove in New York City. Later on, after the Funky16Corners Record Vault and Podcast Lab was up and running, I started to record mixes from my own turntables.
It was after I posted one of these, with the caveat that mixes recorded live would not have accompanying zip files of individually recorded tracks (for obvious, labor intensive reasons), that a reader (thanks Michael!) suggested that these mixes have their own section of the blog, and their own numbering sequence.
I had been thinking of something similar, and decided to take this idea a step further.
Though I have done a fair number of guest mixes for other blogs/sites, I have never (aside from a collaboration with my man DJ Prestige) ever hosted guest mixes by other DJs here at Funky16Corners.
Taking a page from the ‘two birds with one stone’ book, I decided that this year’s Pledge Drive would be a great time for the opening of what I’m calling the Funky16Corners Soul Club.
The Soul Club will be a repository for live mixes (whether recorded in the club, or on the decks at home), both by yours truly, and by DJs whoes work and sensibility I respect.
The Funky16Corners Soul Club will be opening with a virtual ‘Allnighter’, that being a collection of eight separate mixes (two by me to open and close the festivities, six by others). Once you pull down the ones and zeros you’ll be able to simulate, in the home setting, free of sweat (other people’s anyway), spilled beer (same there) and the like, a full evening (and then some) of high quality, professionally mixed funk and soul music.
When I decided to put this together, I put out some feelers to some of my favorite DJs, including the core of the Asbury Park 45 Sessions Crew, Brian Poust aka Agent45, and DJ Tarik Thornton and asked them to contribute mixes for the grand opening of Soul Club.
If you’ve been a reader of this blog for any length of time, you’ve definitely heard about DJs Prestige, Prime Mundo, Bluewater and M-Fasis. I’ve been spinning with the Asbury Park 45 sessions crew for almost three years now, and during that time have developed a huge amount of respect for my fellow resident selectors.
Though I’ve DJ’d with a lot of people, my time with the AP45 crew has been a serious learning experience. These DJs have not only skills, and deep crates, but above all it’s their extraordinary taste that makes them great. I’ve written about it in this space before, but I have to reiterate how often an AP45 Sessions turns into a learning experience with one (or often more) DJ running up to the decks to see what another selector is spinning. There are many hot 45s in my DJ box that can be traced directly back to the AP45 Sessions, whether from one of the residents, or from one of the many distinguished guests that have graced us with their presence over the years.
DJ Prime Mundo may very well have the deepest crates of any working chef (including well known digger Julia Child). He applies the same levels of care and imagination to his DJ sets as he does to his food. Prime Mundo is – like every DJ represented here – a tireless digger with exceptional taste.
DJ Bluewater, in addition to being a longtime resident selector on the AP45 crew is the founder of Master Groove in NYC and a well regarded drum’n’bass DJ. He is a self described ‘funk 45 nerd’ and a connoisseur of heavy, heavy breakbeats.
M-Fasis, DJ and producer is the master of digging up and uncovering the heaviest records you’ve never heard of (or never expected). A resident at both the Asbury Park 45 Sessions and Master Groove, he also makes beats and produces.
Brian Poust, aka Agent45 is, in addition to running the most excellent Georgia Soul web site and blog, is one of the most respected soul DJs working today. Based out of Georgia, but traveling far and wide to spin funk, soul and gospel, Brian always brings the heat.
DJ Tarik Thornton is a native of New Orleans who has DJ’d (in clubs and on the radio) all over the country. He has a generosity of spirit, and like all the other DJs here, excellent taste in music. He started in college radio at WTUL in New Orleans, before relocating to New York City, and eventually Milwaukee, WI where he met up and started working with the crew at Burn Hearts. He has since spun with DJ Finewine (WFMU), Justin Salinas and the Hot Pants crew as well as the Hipshaker DJs in Minneapolis.
I don’t expect many of you to listen to these mixes end to end (though considering the amount of heat therein, you could do much worse with the next seven plus hours of your life) but the interwebs and MP3s being what they are, you can pull them down, file them however you like and soak up the good stuff at your leisure.
Once again, if you dig what I do here at Funky16Corners (and over at Iron Leg as well), and the current economy hasn’t left you destitute, please take the time to click on the Paypal link and toss a couple of shekels into the hat to help keep things going. It would be greatly appreciated, and since I’m going to keep working on this blog as long as time (and money) allow, it’ll keep the long list (close to 100) of mixes up and growing.
Over the last ten years, with the web zine, the blogs and getting to spin records in a variety of settings, the whole Funky16Corners ‘thing’ has become a big part of my life. The reason for this (aside from obvious matters of time spent) has a lot to do with the interaction these efforts bring me with many cool people, including the collectors and DJs, but also with the folks who just plain love the music and take the time to come out to the gigs or stop by the blog to add to the conversation, or just to say ‘Hi!’.
I’ve made many new friends, been turned on to lots of new music and most importantly found a productive outlet for my passion.
So, dig in, enjoy the music (click on the pledge links) and I’ll see you all next week.
I just got in from mowing the lawn and I figured I’d steal some time in which to blogify, as it were.
Got me a busy shed-jool this week, so I’m trying to keep things going as smoothly as possible. In addition to the real world shit I have going every week, I have a normal blogging schedule, as well as preparation for next week’s Funky16Corners 2010 Pledge Drive. Things are moving along at a brink place, but I really need to keep my ducks in a row or else the chaos that is always on my tail is likely to overtake me and bollix up the whole deal.
The tune I bring you today is something I picked up a while back in an e-dig. After hearing a sound clip I made my bid, and fortunately for me, this record is either slept on, or does not meet the strict requirements of the funk 45 diggers of the world, because I ended up getting it for a (relative) pittance.
‘Free the Soul Man’ by La May is – I suspect, since I haven’t been able to date it conclusively – a mid-to-late 70s side created by someone (La May, I assume) who was likely the president of the local James Brown appreciation society. Like some Lee Fields (and others, I’m sure) 45s of a similar vintage, what you are hearing is something like the wake of the SS Soul Brother Number One, piloted by its funky captain who’s influence was for a time so wide ranging as to be almost inescapable (and La May clearly did not escape).
‘Free the Soul Man’, has some tight snappy drums, and a JB-esque vocal, but it also bears the mark of a later production era (as well as some synthesizers), so much so that I imagine that some of the crate diggers out there with impossibly high standards of the grit level in a funk 45 might not dig it, hearing something that is less gut-bucket than it is sequins and jheri curl and being drawn in by the orbit of the Disco Death Star.
This is not to say that ‘Free the Soul Man’ is disco, on account of it isn’t. It’s clearly funk, and even though some of those Mothership/FONK signifiers are there, the production is so enamored of James Brown that no matter how moogy/arpy things get, the good foot is still in the picture.
As far as provenance, SPQR – in its earlier days a storied R&B and soul label out of southern Virginia (with acts like Jimmy Soul, Lenis Guess and Sir Guy) – seems to have been reactivated in the 70s, since the discographies I’ve been able to find for the label seem to trail off before the end of the 60s. The label says that the tune was recorded in New York City at Guess Recording Studio (Lenis Guess???), but the label address is – as in the old days – Norfolk, VA.
If anyone knows more about La May, or the later years of the SPQR label, please drop me a line.
See you on Friday.
The new week is here, and odd as it may seem, I face it with guarded optimism.
Despite the nasty surprise that our local Vietnamese restaurant (home of sublime banh mi and pho) had closed – which we discovered as we drove up to the front door – things are on an uptick of sorts.
My health issues seem to have temporarily leveled off, and next week will see the arrival of the 2010 Funky16Corners Blog Pledge Drive, for which I am cooking up something very groovy indeed. I won’t spill the beans quite yet, but I assure you that something cool is afoot in the land of the funky corners.
The tune I bring you today is a little something I picked up in a trade with my man DJ Bluewater. He always packs some heat in his sale box, and I am always ready and willing to grab some of it for my crates, whether by exchange of folding money or by barter.
I haven’t been able to find out a whole lot about the Premiers or their song ‘Funky-Monkey’. The J.O.B. label, named for its founders Joe Brown and James Burke Oden was a Chicago blues label that issued its first platter in 1949, a side by St. Louis Jimmy (aka James Burke Oden). Between 1949 and 1974, J.O.B. released dozens of sides by a variety of artists including Snooky Pryor, Sax Kari, Willie Cobbs and a cat named Eddie ‘Mr Kleen’ Clark.
Sometime around 1970, Clark wrote, produced and arranged the Premiers’ ‘Funky-Monkey’ for J.O.B.
This was the only 45 that the group would record for the label.
Interestingly enough, ‘Funky-Monkey’ was also issued on the Mississippi-based Odex label.
‘Funky-Monkey’ – which gets started with some tight, snappy drums – includes a sly, repeated guitar line, climbing bass, horns and of course, lots of (I’m assuming) human-produced, monkey sound effects. The Premiers don’t overdo it with the monkeyshines, but there is just enough to push ‘Funky-Monkey’ up against the novelty side of things.
This is not to say that the record is not funky, which it most certainly is, and there were tons of similarly adorned sides out there in the classic funk era. I mean honestly, line this up against the beginning of the Meters’ ‘Chicken Strut’ and it ends up looking like the very model of subtlety.
What you end up with is a nice little slice of urban funk, more than competently performed and altogether groovy.
I haven’t been able to ascertain if these Premiers (and there were several) went on to record anything else.
I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll be back on Wednesday.
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