Comments (4)

By Larry, May 18, 2010 5:39 pm

Vida Blue (top), Albert Jones (bottom left), Choker Campbell (bottom right)

Listen/Download – Albert Jones – Vida Blue

Greetings all.

The tune I bring you today is something that found its way into my ears in a rather roundabout way.
A while back, my man DJ Prestige traveled over to the UK, and while he was there he did some digging (natch) and sat in with UK legend DJ Andy Smith on his radio show. It was during that show that he spun a couple of his UK finds, one of which was today’s selection. I dug the tune a lot, so I set out in search of my own copy, and fortunately I turned one up rather quickly (and cheaply).
The tune in question, ‘Vida Blue’ by Albert Jones (from 1971) is a stomping funk tribute to the early 70s Oakland A’s hurler of the same name.
Jones was a Detroit area singer who recorded for a number of labels including Tri City, Bump Shop, Kapp (one of the Kapp 45s duplicated material originally released on Tri City) and Candy Apple from the late 60s to the mid 70s. Much of his work was under the auspices of Walter ‘Choker’ Campbell, a saxophonist/bandleader who recorded a number of records under his own name before going to work running the Motown road band, eventually recording for the label as well.
After Campbell left Motown, he started his own set of labels, including Tri City. Moonville, and Ultra City, with artists like Jones, Betty Renay, the Soul Merchants (I’m not sure if this is the same group that recorded for the Stax subsidiary Weis Records) and Lee Moore.
Albert Jones recorded four singles for Tri City, the last of which was ‘Vida Blue’.
Oddly enough, the flip side of this 45 is a country version of the same song by a singer named Tom Newton. Since the single was released to capitalize on the popularity of the ball player, it seems likely that the genre switch on the flip was engineered to double the chances that the record might be a hit (though I can imagine most people – like myself – being surprised one way or the other when they flipped the record over).
The Albert Jones side is tight, and to be honest, where else are you going to hear a funk 45 that namechecks Harmon Killebrew and Carl Yastrzemski?
Jones would go on to record a full LP (‘The Facts of Life’) for the Campbell and the Candy Apple label in 1977. One of the tracks from that LP, ‘Mother Nature’ was later sampled by Common for the song ‘Be’.
I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll be back later in the week with something cool.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for something psychedelic by the Byrds

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

You can also follow Funky16Corners on Twitter

Comments (5)

By Larry, May 13, 2010 3:56 pm

The Emperors: Edgar Moore 2nd from right

Listen/Download – The Emperors – Karate Boogaloo

Listen/Download -The Emperors – Mumble Shingaling

Greetings all.

I hope the end of the week finds you all well.
A few days back I got word that Edgar Moore, one of the founding members of one of my favorite 60s soul groups, the Emperors had passed away.
I’ve been a huge fan of the Emperors since I started digging up their 45s back in the day, from their sole chart hit ‘Karate’ (Top 40 in the Fall of 1966) , to their cover (which, depending on the day you ask me I may indicate to be the superior version) of Don Gardner’s ‘My Baby Likes To Boogaloo’.
You can head over to the Funky16Corners web zine to check out a piece I wrote about the group many years ago, but suffice to say, over the course of the handful of 45s they recorded the Emperors laid down a fantastic take on the whole sock soul thing with the same garagey edge you hear on some of Chuck Edwards’ 45s (was it something in the Pennsylvania water??).
The group formed in Harrisburg, PA but recorded all of their 45s in Philadelphia.
Today I bring you both sides of a 45 that I was unaware of for years, until I happened upon it at a record show. I had always assumed the Emperors three Mala 45s to be the entirety of their output, until I grabbed their sole Brunswick 45, ‘Karate Boogaloo’ b/w ‘Mumble Shingaling’.
Recorded in 1967 and produced – like their earlier 45s – by Philly radio personality George Wilson – this is a funkier side of the Emperors, with the core of their original sound still present, but with a stripped down production style.
‘Karate Boogaloo’ – which begins with some weird, clearly overdubbed crowd noise – includes some cool percussion, rhythm guitar and of course the Emperor’s harmonies. ‘Mumble Shingaling’ features some great, shambolic guitar and organ. It’s the kind of record that makes you wonder what the Emperors – like so many groups that bumped up against the end of the era of pure soul into the sound of funk – might have done had they continued to make music.
This is the last thing they did before the group broke up seeing a partial regrouping as Emperors Soul 69 for the Futura label out of their home base of Harrisburg, PA.
As has been the case for some years now, aside from digging up the original 45s (which a quick online search will reveal to be considerably more expensive than they used to be), your best bet is to grab the Philly Archives CD reissue which includes all of their best work.
I hope you dig the song, and that you raise a glass in memory of Edgar Moore.

NOTE: Don’t forget to check out the Funky16Corners Radio Show on Viva internet radio this Friday night at 9PM. It’s a funk 45 exercise, so you won’t want to miss it!
See you on Monday.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for a a glimpse at the sound of Billy Joel…circa 1967

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

You can also follow Funky16Corners on Twitter

Comments (6)

By Larry, May 11, 2010 7:55 pm

Foster Sylvers

Listen/Download – Foster Sylvers – Misdemeanor

Greetings all.

I come to you this midweek with something groovy.
Last year during one of my DJ trips down to Washington, DC the mighty DJ Birdman was gracious enough to take me hither and yon, over both hill and dale for some of the best digging I’ve done in a long time.
Though the District of Columbia is the capitol of our great country, it should also be rechristened the Cheap Used LP Capitol of the East Coast. Though 45 come ups were few and far between – albeit quite rewarding when I did find them – the DC metro area is awash in bargain basement used LPs. When I finally got back to Jersey and opened the back of the Funky16Cornersmobile, I was almost (not completely, just almost) embarrassed by the huge stack of albums wedged between my duffel bag and my flight case.
In addition to a bunch of longtime wants, and a grip of stuff that Birdman was kind enough to turn me on to, I also brought back a couple of records I might have passed on, were they not priced between twenty-five cents and a dollar, rendering them all but irresistible.
One of these was the disc you see before you today, a record jammed into my digger’s memory bank by its constant appearances on other people’s finds lists.
Though I knew of the Sylvers (their ‘Boogie Fever’ was a huge AM radio hit back when I was a kid), I had no idea that Foster Sylvers had recorded – and had hits – on his own. The tune I bring you today was a hit (Top 10 R&B, Top 40 Pop) back in the Spring of 1973, eventually becoming an especially ripe bit of sample bait years later when it would be chopped and looped more than a dozen times for folks like Big Daddy Kane, Heavy D and eventually Aaliyah, which is likely why those in the crate digging set were sweating it so heavily (and why the LP often changes hands for between 30 and 40 bucks, the 45 sometimes going for more than that).
Now, I’m all over a sweet break when I hear it, having spent some time punishing a drum set in my youth. I’m not sampling or flipping anything myself, but there’s something magical about a great sample, even more so when the song it comes from is especially nice.
Such is the case with Foster Sylvers’ ‘Misdemeanor’. Taken at face value, ‘Misdemeanor’ is a pleasing bit of sweet sounding kiddie funk (Foster was all of 11 years old when the song hit the charts, come to think of it, so was I…). Affix your headphones and dig a little deeper into the track and I think you’ll find yourself pleasantly surprised, since wrapped around Sylvers’ boyish vocals are all kinds of groovy sounds.
First off, the drums and bass are cracking, but close your eyes and sink into the arrangement and all of a sudden you’re digging the wild lead guitar snaking around the track, bits of celeste and percussion here and there, and a hypnotic rhythm guitar track that kind of rises and falls as the song progresses. The arrangement by Jerry Peters (who also co-produced the album) is really something else.
There are a few other interesting tracks on the album, but overall you have to remember that it was probably assembled for sale to whatever passed for ‘tweens’ back in 1973.
I hope you dig the track (give it a couple of close listens and see how it sneaks up on you), and I’ll be back later in the week.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for a couple of tunes by an interesting Scottish band

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

You can also follow Funky16Corners on Twitter

Comments (3)

By Larry, May 4, 2010 7:34 pm

Maskman and the Agents

Listen/Download – Maskman and the Agents – My Wife, My Dog and My Cat

Greetings all.

To get things started, I should let you know that due to some pressing personal business, this will be the last post this week. Nothing tragic, just stuff that needs to be attended to, so I figured I whip something extremely tasty on you to keep you going until Monday.
Back in January I heard of the passing of the great Harmon Bethea, aka the Maskman. On his own, and with the able assistance of the Agents, Bethea laid down a heap of smoking soul and R&B through the 60s. According to his Washington Post obit, he first strapped on the mask in 1964, and at that time he was hardly a spring chicken, having already turned 40!
The record I bring you today was an early (and momentous) arrival in my funk 45 crates, having been procured more than a decade ago, and has been, since the very first listen a big fave in the Funky16Corners household (my wife can quote lyrics from this one!).
The history of 20th century black music, from blues to jazz, to R&B, to soul and funk has a long history of humor running through it. Sometimes this came in the form of folks who were humorists first, i.e. comedians like Pigmeat Markham, Cliff Tyson and Timmie Rodgers branching out into music. In the case of Maskman and the Agents, the infusion of humor was secondary, as in the case of the mighty Slim Gaillard, hilarity was seasoning, tossed into a pot already simmering with musical quality.
‘My Wife, My Dog and My Cat’ from the Spring of 1969 is – at least in my opinion – the finest (and funniest) thing Maskman and the Agents ever laid down. A minor R&B hit, the tune is the fast-moving tale of a slightly slippery character who cannot get away with anything, thanks to a vigilant wife and a pair of traitorous pets.
Maskman decides to fall by a swinging house party – in spite of his wife’s warnings – and madness ensues.
The description of the party, and its attendees ( a couple of honeys who were ‘fat as a country possum stuffed with sweet potatoes’) is incredibly funny, as is Maskman’s food order, including pigs feet, hot rolls, greens with fatback and potato salad.
Naturally, things collapse as soon as Mrs. Maskman gets home and our hero is betrayed by his once loyal pets, his german police dog (which he raised from a pup) tearing off his crazy suit and causing him to ‘run out from under his hat’.
Solid, solid stuff…funny as hell and funky as well.
Maskman we hardly knew ye.

NOTE: Don’t forget to check out the Funky16Corners Radio Show on Viva internet radio this Friday night at 9PM. It’s a Hammond LP track blowout, so you won’t want to miss it!

See you all next week

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for a repost of a great tune by the late Lynn Redgrave

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

You can also follow Funky16Corners on Twitter

Comments (4)

By Larry, April 25, 2010 12:29 pm

The Master: Norman Whitfield

Listen/Download -Norman Whitfield and Rose Royce – Water

Listen/Download -Norman Whitfield and Rose Royce – Sunrise

Greetings all.

I hope you’re all well, and ready to dig into something interesting.
A few weeks back on Record Store Day, I headed in Asbury Park to see my man DJ Prestige lay down an in-store set at Hold Fast. I grabbed some cool looking LPs on the cheap, one of which was the soundtrack to ‘Car Wash’. It certainly seemed like it was worth it, if only for the title track by Rose Royce.
Well, I get home and hook up the turntable for a marathon digi-ma-tizing session, and soon discovered that the ‘Car Wash’ OST was a much deeper beat that I could have imagined.
The album credits the compositions, production and arrangement all to the mighty Norman Whitfield, and the playing to the band Rose Royce (who Whitfield found when they were backing Edwin Starr).
Anyway, while needle dropping my way through the two LPs, I discovered a couple of really cool instrumentals, both clearly the work of the man who created several psyched out/atmospheric epics when he was working at Motown.
What really struck me was how much of the sound of these two songs, though recorded in 1976, linked back to Whitfield’s 1970 era productions, blending them with a touch of blaxploitation soundtrack feel. I haven’t seen ‘Car Wash’ in years, but these tracks, ‘Water’ and ‘Sunrise’ make me want to check it out to see how they were used in the film.
The first of these ‘Water’ is really more of a short vamp/theme stretched out for three and a half minutes, which is kind of what you’d expect to hear as background in a motion picture. There are some vocals in the beginning, but they’re no more prominent that the repeated bass, piano and guitar lines that run almost constantly through the piece, interrupted only by a short string drop (which at times is reminiscent of ‘Papa Was a Rolling Stone’) and the occasional harp flourish (same there). Things do pick up a little at about the two minute mark, with the addition of some funky bass, but settle right back into the groove before long.
The real treat here is the almost eleven minute epic ‘Sunrise’. The tune starts out with someone working a ride cymbal like a gong, and then the unusual (incongruous) sound of a trumpet running a scale, quickly breaking out into something that would have sounded perfect behind Shaft as he stalked an evildoer through the back alleys of some urban hellhole.
Whitfield builds the song, layer by layer, with the bass, strings, tight, snapping drums, guitar, and then electric piano and horns. There are in fact two different electric pianos, alternating between a lighter, tinkling riff, and a one playing a much more wide open, molasses thick chord. The use of hand drums as accents, as well as occasional bursts of wah-wah guitar drop in like carefully placed exclamation points.
It’s a very tasty jam, and the arrangement/production by Whitfield is next level. There’s no doubt in my mind that ‘Sunrise’ would have fit in perfectly (with lyrics added of course) on any of the early 70s Temptations LPs.
The sad thing is, that Whitfield – in my eyes nothing less than a soulful visionary – after the early 90s backed away from the console, not doing much of anything in his final years. It’s not like he didn’t have a remarkable body of work behind him already, especially his mid-60s to early 70s Motown sessions as songwriter, producer and arranger, but you can’t help but wonder what he might have done with some of the nu-soul crowd.
That said, I hope you dig the tracks, and I’ll be back later in the week with something cool.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for some prime, mid-60s Sunset Strip pop

PSS Check out Paperback Rider too.

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

You can also follow Funky16Corners on Twitter

Comments (3)

By Larry, April 22, 2010 8:21 pm

Listen/Download -Hank Herb – Ali Funky Thing Pt1

Listen/Download -Hank Herb – Ali Funky Thing Pt2

Greetings all.

I hope that the end of the week finds you well.
Me, not so much… I have been assailed by a bug that has left me feverish and singularly unmotivated. Had I not experience the tiniest bit of improvement as the day wore on, I wouldn’t be posting at all. But you know how I am, neither rain, nor sleet or whatever…

I’ll start with a bit of news, that bring that the Funky16Corners Radio Show on Viva internet radio just got a prime timeslot upgrade, and will now be airing Friday evenings at 9PM EST. I’ve been doing this show for a while now, but got bumped out of my original slot and into a severely crappy one. That has now been remedied, and there will be some changes in the offing. Thanks to the completion of the Funky16Corners Record Vault and Podcasting Nerve Center, all of my shows at Viva (starting with next week 4/30) will be recorded and mixed live on the old ones and twos. I have yet to work out getting the spoken parts done that way (right now I record them after I’m done) but I will try to figure it out.
So, if you’re hanging at home (or god forbid, the office) at 9PM on Friday, tune us in over the interwebs for the best in funk, soul, jazz and rare groove.
The tune I bring you today is a bit of a mystery. I can’t honestly remember where I picked this 45 up (though I’m certain it was an E-dig), I do remember getting it home and scratching my head a bit.
The record in question is ‘Ali, Funky Thing Pts 1&2’ by Hank Herb. The record is also (quite clearly to anyone that’s heard the OG) ‘Al, Funky Thing’ by Chuck Cornish (sampled by Cypress Hill). Why this was pressed and credited to the pseudonymous Mr. Herb (they still give songwriting credit to Chuck Cornish, and it’s on the ‘Chuck’ label), I have no earthly idea. I’m sure I thought I was getting some obscure cover version (of an already obscure song) when in fact I was getting the same exact record on a different label.
I don’t know much about Chuck Cornish. He was from New Orleans, and he only recorded a handful of 45s. One of these, the laid back but funky ‘Blue Eye Brother and Soul Get Along’ was featured in this space a few years ago and is a fave.
‘Ali, Funky Thing’ is as you might expect, a funky tribute to the boxing great, with some fantastic twangy guitar and a great horn section. Other than that, as Gertrude Stein once said of her childhood home, ‘There’s no there there’. If anyone has any more info, as to Cornish, or why this was issued in the form you see before you today, please drop me a line.
I’m going to bed.
Have a great weekend.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for an obscure mid-60s 45…

PSS Check out Paperback Rider too.

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

You can also follow Funky16Corners on Twitter

Comments (11)

By Larry, April 18, 2010 4:30 pm

Funky16Corners Radio v.85 – Open For Business

Playlist

Listen/Download 90MB/256KB Mixed MP3

Welcome back to the ongoing saga of the Funky16Corners blog, its author, a huge, ever-pulsing mountain of records and his efforts to rein it all in and make some sense of it (both physically and philosophically).
I spent the first part of the weekend checking out the mighty DJ Prestige doing an in-store set at Hold Fast in Asbury Park, while also (of course) picking up a handful of LPs to celebrate Record Store Day. Pres brought the heat (as expected) and then the fam and I headed out for some of those good Long Branch hot dogs and a couple of other errands, followed by some serious work in the Funky16Corners Record Vault and Podcasting Nerve Center.
The renovation is almost done, with some fine tuning remaining here and there, with the disposal of much trash yet to be completed (I suspect a trip or two to the town dump maybe in order). After undoing a veritable Gordian knot of old-school computer equipment (as well as moving/storing a huge amount of data, most of it blog-related, onto a new 1TB drive), it’ll all have to be reconfigured over the next few days. I have my work cut out for me, but things are going to be so much easier when I’m done that it’ll be more than worth it.
This early and unexpected edition of the Funky16Corners Radio thing is evidence of said project, and a small bit of celebration that it is in fact coming to fruition. The first thing I did (after getting the room somewhat organized) was the installation of the home DJ setup (see above). This had been both a long time coming, and extremely satisfying when it was finished.
Following a few days of getting all my sonic ducks in a row (cableing, knob-turning, equalizing and whatnot), I hooked up the digital recorder, grabbed my road cases and pulled out a small stack of 45s and mixed them live, on the spot.
Aside from a certain, unifying feel (funk, soul and funky soul, natch), I didn’t concentrate all that much on pre-selection of the tunes herein. I grabbed something interesting to kick things off, and as that record rotated, I pulled a handful of others out of the box, picked one (or two, or three, depending on how deep a handful fate was dealing me) that I thought might fit, cued it up on the second turntable and repeated the process until a little over forty-five minutes later the needle on the last record hit the run-off groove. Not unlike how I do it when I’m spinning at the Asbury Park 45 Sessions or any other live date. It’s one of those things where you hope you’ve stocked your record box properly, and you let inspirado take you by the hand and lead where it will.
There are a lot of old faves here, as well as a couple of tracks that will return to be blogged on their own in the not too distant future. As has been the policy with ‘live’ mixes, there is no accompanying zip file, but remember that this is not going to be the ongoing F16Radio format. Think of it as a special bonus to stuff into your ears on Monday.
I hope you dig the mix, and I’ll be back later in the week with something groovy.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PPS – Make sure to fall by Iron Leg for some late 60s pop.

PPPS Make sure to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

Comments (10)

By Larry, April 15, 2010 4:26 pm

Le ‘Q’ on the cover of Smackwater Jack

Listen/Download -Quincy Jones – Ironside

Greetings all.

What is being up with you?
The ongoing Funky16Corners Record Vault project took a great leap forward yesterday with the new DJ set-up (improvements to which were financed by my slot machine winnings over vacation*) going on line. The rig was cobbled together using some donated speakers (thanks Cenzo), an old amp/tuner, my existing “good” turntable, and augmented with the new turntable and mixer. I expect that I’ll be spending some time hobbling around the old learning curve, but before long I should be cranking out some more ‘live’ mixes, as well as putting a somewhat sharper edge on my turntable skills.
In other, also important news, I’m getting upgraded to a nicer time-slot over at Viva Internet Radio, so as of next week (April 23) the Funky16Corners Radio Show will be airing at 9PM on Friday nights. This is a very groovy development, and I cab assure that with the addition of the home DJ thingy I’ll be laying down some live mixes, so fall by.
That said, the tune I bring you today is something I definitely plan on dropping in an upcoming set, Quincy Jones’s 1971 reading of the ‘Ironside’ theme.
For those of you too young to remember, ‘Ironside’ was a hit TV show (premiering in 1967) that featured Raymond Burr as a paraplegic, San Francisco police detective who went around solving crimes from the back of a specially engineered van (certainly no more ludicrous than much of what you’ll see spilling from the idiot box these days). The very groovy theme was penned by none other than the mighty Quincy Jones
The version you’re hearing this fine day appeared on Jones’s 1971 LP ‘Smackwater Jack’. I can’t say with one hundred percent certainty, but I suspect that like the version of ‘Hikky Burr’ on the same album, this take on the ‘Ironside’ theme was also re-recorded/embellished for that LP.
The whole affair manages to encapsulate a jazzy soundtrack feel, with some funky bass (Chuck Rainey), electric piano (Bob James), flute (Hubert Laws) and soprano sax (Jerome Richardson), taking the original theme and stretching it out for some solos. Jones manages to bring on the heavy brass without drowning out the rhythm section. This version starts out (like the TV theme) with something (synthesizer, I assume) imitating a police siren, with the Fender Rhodes bubbling underneath until the flute comes in to state the theme. There’s some groovy wah-wah guitar running in the background, and until the trumpet solo comes in, the feel is as much jazz rock as it is jazz. Aside from the impressive names listed above, the session was a who’s who of jazz and studio heavies, with Jones sharing producing duties with Phil Ramone and bass legend Ray Brown.
Very solid indeed.
I hope you dig it and I’ll be back on Monday.

Peace

Larry

*Only significant in that as a general rule I don’t gamble (no moral objection, I just like to spend my money on records). If you see me at the track, it’s because I like horsies. I hit the jackpot (as it was) playing the penny slots. That’s right – pennies. 30,000 of them…

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for psyched up country (or countried up psyche)

PSS Check out Paperback Rider too.

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

You can also follow Funky16Corners on Twitter

Comments (2)

By Larry, April 13, 2010 4:51 pm

Larry Birdsong

Listen/Download -Larry Birdsong – Fairly Well

Greetings all.

I don’t know about you (since only a some of you reside in the same general geographic sphere as yours truly) but this grey, cold(er) weather is bringing me down. I know I always complain about being beat – like a rented mule – but that’s pretty much part and parcel of having two little kids.
That, and the fact that I got word yesterday that Master Groove is going on hiatus for an unspecified length of time. I was really digging bringing my records into NYC to spin at Forbidden City, and knowing that a semi-regular gig is going off the rails is a first class drag. So FEH to that, and let’s all keep our fingers crossed that whatever screwed the deal gets unscrewed and when it does we can all meet up in the City for some funk 45s, dumplings and cold beer.
That out of the way, what better way to turn the heat up (at least temporarily) than with a tasty bit of southern funk?
Though I knew his name, until I saw the flipside of today’s selection featured over at Queen City Crates, I hadn’t heard the music of Mr. Larry Birdsong.
Based in Nashville, alongside folks like Johnny Jones and the King Casuals and Frank Howard and the Commanders, Birdsong mixed R&B, blues, soul and funk on records that he recorded for labels like Excello, Champion, Cherokee, Sur-Speed and Ref-O-Ree from the mid-50s into the 70s, eventually finding himself in Gospel in the 80s.
Birdsong recorded three 45s for Ref-O-Ree in 1969. Today’s selection, ‘Fairly Well’ appeared as the b-side to the second of those records, ‘Digging Your Potatoes’. While ‘Digging…’ is the wilder, more upbeat side of the record (you can hear it a QCC by clicking the link above) , ‘Fairly Well’ has lots to offer as well.
I really dig the way Birdsong’s gospel-inflected vocals wail over the top of the deep, funky track. The drums are tight, the organ just this side of churchy, and the backing vocals have one foot in the amen corner and the other in the footlights. Things start out on a socially conscious tip before dipping onto the dance floor with namechecks for the Popcorn, the Cissy Strut, the ‘James Brown’, and in a supremely confident move, Larry raps that you ain’t seen nothin’ yet until you’ve seen him do the ‘Larry Birdsong’.
In a soulful hat trick, that’s right, up tight, and (of course) out of sight.
I hope you dig the record, and I’ll be back on Friday with something groovy.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for a Dylan cover

PSS Check out Paperback Rider too.

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

You can also follow Funky16Corners on Twitter

Comments (1)

By Larry, April 8, 2010 5:24 pm

Funky16Corners After Dark Pt2 – Mixed for Delirious Sunrise

Playlist

Intro

Listen/Download 134MB/256KB Mixed MP3

No Zip File

As promised I have returned with the second hour of the show I put together for the Delirious Sunrise program.
Once again, it is firmly packed with heavy, yet oddly laid back sounds, including a large number of personal favorites.
It’s the end of the week, and I’m just about exhausted (mentally and physically) so I can’t recall – even after a couple of surveys – what in this mix has or has not appeared in this space already (a lot of it clearly has).
That said, I hope you dig it (and that you pulled down the ones and zeros for the first half as well, if you haven’t, make sure you, on account of it’s very groovy, very moody and the perfect complement to the second half, which is this…).
In other – mercifully brief – news, the long planned renovation of the Funky16Corners Record Vault is about to commence, including installation (fina-f*cking-ly) of a home DJ set up. I mentioned last week that I came home from vacation with some ill gotten gains, squeezed out of the slot machines in Connecticut, which I promptly rolled over and invested in a second turntable and a mixer. As soon as I get a bunch of stuff boxed up, hundreds of LPs off of the floor and into a wall unit of some kind (I hope I don’t have to go back to Ikea), and build a surface on which to set up the equipment (as well as some speakers) you can expect a new era of live mixes here, and I can spend some time working on my (admittedly rudimentary) turntable skills.
I will also be returning to Master Groove @ Forbidden City (Ave A between 13th and 14th in NYC) on Wednesday April 21st for some more of the good stuff spread over the turntables at the speed of 45 revolutions per minute. If you are in the area and are so inclined, pencil the date in your planner and fall by. It’d be great to see you, and since things are getting warmer every day it might make for a nice night in the city.
So, until I return on Monday with some funk, have yourself a great weekend and dig the sounds.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PPS – Make sure to fall by Iron Leg for a classic guitar instro

PPPS Make sure to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

Comments (9)

By Larry, April 6, 2010 5:29 pm

Funky16Corners After Dark Pt1 – Mixed for Delirious Sunrise

Playlist

Listen/Download 138MB/256KB Mixed MP3

No Zip File

The mix you see before you today (the second part of which will be posted on Friday) is the first hour of the show I put together for the Delirious Sunrise show on WLUW.
Considering that the show airs from 4AM to 6AM, I wanted to whip up a downtempo blend, at times funky, but in that twilight, laid back, noir-ish way that characterizes those few, quiet hours before the dawn.
Though many of the tracks included in these two hours have appeared in this space before (whether as part of a Funky16Corners Radio mix or individually) the assemblage thereof is new, and if I say so myself, pretty tasty, at least as laid out for the time in question.
I’ve gone into my deep and abiding love for my iPod in this space (and over at Iron Leg) several times in the past. Though I could be considered a ‘late adapter’, to say that the last few years have seen the iPod become an integral part of my daily (and nightly) routine would be a drastic understatement.
My daily life – thanks to a variety of factors – can be fairly hectic, sometime rising to the level of brain-scrambling, and those few, precious hours after the kids have taken to their beds (those not devoted to working on the blogs) are often spent wandering around in one or both (I have one devoted to video) of the old MP3 delivery devices.
Aside from the occasional stint in the automobile, most of my intensive listening – the time when I dig particularly deeply into a record – is done right before passing out for the night.
With the lights out and the earbuds in place, I can elevate the volume, and jump wildly from song to song, genre to genre until I latch onto something that grabs my ears in a special way, drills down into my psyche, and eventually finds its way into this space, alongside my ruminations. It’s really the only time of day where things get quiet enough (within and without) to approach music the way that it deserves.
It kind of takes me back to the days when I’d go to sleep every night with the radio next to my pillow, listening to everything from music stations to weird (at least the early 70s version of ‘weird’) talk radio, to the local ABC TV affiliate with a signal that could be heard at the very bottom of the FM dial.
After I get to the point where I’m too tired to go on any more, I pick something meditative, running the gamut from Nick Drake, to Mississippi John Hurt, Thelonious Monk, Ravi Shankar, or Kraftwerk or whatever, turn over and surrender myself to sleep.
Thanks to the fact that I’ve always had a hard time getting to sleep (less so these days, for obvious reasons), and staying there, I always go to sleep listening to something – music or spoken word – and often put things on when I wake up during the night so that I can get back to sleep.
Though I have no idea about the science of the matter, I have always found that having music playing while I sleep helps me dream (or at least have more interesting dreams), and has enough of a soothing effect so that when sleep is interrupted (hitting the pleasure centers of the brain and masking background noise) it can be reestablished.
I’m not completely sure that everyone will take this as an endorsement, but for the last few weeks, these two mixes (I have them linked together in a playlist) have been the soundtrack to my nights. There are a lot of deep records over the course of these two hours, and I find no matter where I hit the mix timewise, I always get a little bit of that ‘Oh, cool…’ feeling, and my overactive brain downshifts a little and all is once again well.
Whether or not you (the listener) decides to employ it in the same way, or as a calming (yet oddly stimulating) companion to your waking hours, I hope you find that I have selected them well, and that you dig them too.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PPS – Make sure to fall by Iron Leg

PPPS Make sure to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

Comments (0)

By Larry, April 5, 2010 9:48 am

Greetings all.

If you’re up in the early morning hours, or – even better- if you reside on the other side of the Atlantic and see the sun long before we do, you might want to tune in to WLUW (Loyola University/Chicago) (locally on the wireless, elsewhere over the interwebs) for the Delirious Sunrise program at 4AM CST (5AM Eastern Daylight Time, make adjustments for your own time zone).
I’ve put together a two-hour mix of crepuscular wonderfulness for my man Arvo who broadcasts all night long on WLUW this Tuesday. It will be archived at Posterity Playlists and then posted in this very space later this week. All you night owls, insomniacs and speed freaks make sure to twist the dials (or the browser of your choice) and check it out.

Peace

Larry