Comments (1)

By Larry, April 6, 2014 10:46 am

Spanish Picture Sleeve and 45

Listen/Download Ray Charles – I Don’t Need No Doctor

Greetings all

The new week is here, and as I am feeling (temporarily) invigorated, I thought it wise to whip something especially heavy on you all to make sure you all are as well.

Ray Charles needs no introduction, but for those of you that have been asleep at the wheel (or too young to know better), Brother Ray was one of the giants of 20th century music.

He was one of the (if not THE) most important transitional figures in the birth of soul music, building bridges from jazz, to R&B and on into soul (and beyond).

Ray Charles’s catalog was the famous Walt Whitman quote ‘I am large, I contain multitudes’ taken musical form.

While his almost half-century long discography touches on a wide variety of sounds, the effect is less like genre-hopping than it is the history of music being refracted through the prism of Ray Charles.

The tune I bring you today is what any sane observer would rate a stone classic, and is perhaps the finest, pure soul record that Brother Ray ever laid down.

This has a lot to do with the song’s authors, Nick Ashford, Valerie Simpson and Jo Armstead, the trio that had penned his #1 R&B hit ‘Let’s Go Get Stoned’.

‘I Don’t Need No Doctor’, which grazed the R&B Top 40 in December of 1966 is as hard-hitting a number as he laid down in the 60s.

Opening with a wild bass note, and then exploding into a thundering piano/bass/drums trio, the song builds subtly, adding percussion, horns (dig the competing horn lines later on in the song) and finally the Raelettes until it’s a veritable juggernaut.

The centerpiece is – of course – the voice of Ray Charles, one of the great, elemental sounds ever associated with the making of music.

That ‘I Don’t Need No Doctor’ wasn’t a bigger hit kind of boggles the mind (at least my mind) today, but a look back at the charts from the end of 1966 proves once again that the mid-60s was a remarkable time for music. Charles was competing for airtime/chart space with Wilson Pickett, the Supremes, Bobby Darin, Question Mark and the Mysterians, The Four Tops, the Yardbirds, the Hollies and dozens of others*. Listening to airchecks from 1966 and 1967 is a remarkable experience, making me wish I’d been beyond old enough (I was four years old) to soak it all in.

That said, you and I can take all the time we want to dig it now.

See you on Wednesday.

Keep the faith

Larry

*Himself included. Charles had no less than eight hits in the R&B Top 40 in 1966 and 1967!

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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived! The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock. They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US). Click here to go to the ordering page.

Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (2)

By Larry, April 3, 2014 12:28 pm

Euro P/S for ‘Wan-Tu-Wah-Zuree’

Listen/Download George Tindley – Wan-Tu-Wah-Zuree

Greetings all

The end of the week is rolling in, and so is the Funky16Corners Radio Show, coming to you this and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio. If you can’t be there at airti,e you can always stay abreast of the best in funk, soul, jazz and rare groove (all on original vinyl) by subscribing to the show as a podcast in iTunes or by grabbing an MP3 here at the blog.

Today’s selection is one of those records that I scooped up in an early Philly soul dragnet.

If you take one look at the label for George Tindley’s ‘Wan-Tu-Wah-Zuree’ it sends up a variety of Philadelphia-identifying red flags, most especially the names of Bobby Eli, Len Barry and John Madara.

When I first picked up the 45, I had no idea who George Tindley was.

As it turns out, he had a long and interesting performing history, which ended in 1970 with the release of this 45.

Tindley was a Philadelphia-area singer who got his start in the early 50s with the Dreams, a group that recorded several sides for the Savoy label in 1954.

He eventually joined Steve Gibson and the Red Caps, with whom he recorded a number of well-remembered doowop 45s in 1959 and 1960, before Tindley took over leadership duties (changing the group name to the Modern Red Caps), continuing on into 1966.

He eventually recorded three solo 45s for Wand in 1969 and 1970, all with Madara. One of them, ‘So Help Me Woman’ co-written by a young Daryl Hall.

His excellent cover of Marvin Gaye’s ‘Ain’t That Peculiar’ made it into the R&B Top 40 in  the summer of 1969, with this record just missing that mark  in the Spring of the following year.

‘Wan-Tu-Wah-Zuree’  – the title of which is a corruption of the Zulu phrase for ‘good people’ – sounds a lot like the kind of thing the Temptations were recording at Motown around the same time, but the backing track is 100% Philadelphia (listen for those Vince Montana vibes).

The record, which has a funky, upbeat rhythm with a pop edge, ought to have been a hit, but only managed minor regional airplay in and around Philadelphia.

It does not appear that Tindley worked as a performer after that, though he does have a number of production and arranging credits (C and the Shells, Pucho and the Latin Soul Brothers, Evelyn Champagne King) in the 1970s.

I have seen a reference that indicates that Tindley passed away in the 1990s, but aside from that the trail goes cold.

I hope you dig the track, and I’ll see you all on Monday.

Keep the faith

Larry

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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived! The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock. They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US). Click here to go to the ordering page.

Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (0)

By Larry, March 30, 2014 11:53 am

The Four Pennies in their later incarnation as the Hearts of Stone

Listen/Download The Four Pennies – You’re a Gas With Your Trash

Greetings all

I hope the new week finds you well.

Before we get started, I should direct you over to the archive page for my man Studebaker Hawk’s ‘Acapulco Nights’ radio show (on WMUA 91.1FM in Amherst, MA) where he has posted this week’s (3/29) episode, which included a tribute to Funky16Corners.

Make sure to bookmark the site because next week the show will include a special mix, put together by yours truly.

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The tune I bring you today is another one of those things that popped up on a sales list, sounded interesting (and was inexpensive), so I decided to scoop it up.

The song in question, ‘You’re a Gas With Your Trash’ (how could I pass up a title like that?) by the Four Pennies is a very groovy slice of mid 60s soul.

I had initially assumed (you know how that works…) that they were a Chicago group, due to the fact that they were on Brunswick.

When I finally started to poke around for information (finding some conflicting data) it turned out that the Four Pennies (not the UK beat group of the same name) had actually originated in Knoxville, Tennessee.

They got their start in the early 50s as the Five Pennies, eventually becoming (with a number of personnel changes along the way) the Chimes, and the 4 Jokers, evolving into the Four Pennies in the early 60s.

One of the group’s early members was none other than Clifford Curry, who recorded a number of cool soul 45s in the 60s including ‘She Shot a Hole In My Soul’.

They recorded two 45s for Brunswick in 1967, with ‘You’re a Gas With Your Trash’ coming out first.

Though the 45 was produced by James Chavis, I cannot confirm that this was the same guy that ran Chavis records in Delaware, which released a number of rare soul, garage and gospel 45s.

The song is a fast-moving dancer with lots of high harmonies and a honking sax that ties it to a slightly earlier R&B sound.

The Four Pennies would eventually evolve into the Hearts of Stone, recording an album for the Motown subsidiary VIP in the early 70s.

I hope you dig the track, and I’ll see you all on Wednesday.

Keep the faith

Larry

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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived! The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock. They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US). Click here to go to the ordering page.

Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (2)

By Larry, March 27, 2014 11:48 am

Carlos Malcolm (right) at work in the studio

Listen/Download Carlos Malcolm – Don’t Walk

Greetings all

The week is coming to a close once again, so I will take this opportunity to remind you that the Funky16Corners Radio Show takes to the airwaves of the interwebs this and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio. If you are unable to join me at airtime, you can keep up with the show by subscribing to it as a podcast in iTunes or by grabbing an MP3 at the blog.

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Before we get started today, I should mention that Funky16Corners turns up (#73) in the Style of Sound list of the Top 100 Most Influential Music Blogs.

This is very groovy indeed (nice to know, as always, that someone is out there digging what I do), but also cause for a few thoughts about music blogging over the long haul.

Funky16Corners will reach its 10th anniversary this November, and things – as they often do on the interwebs – have changed drastically during that time.

By any measure, the ‘boom’ days of music blogging have passed. Traffic has slacked off considerably since the heady days of the mid-to-late aughts when blogs seemed to be appearing (and dropping away) at a remarkable rate.

I don’t know what the actual stats are, but from personal experience I can say that most blogs don’t last very long at all, few getting past the first few posts, and those that do closing down over time, either  due to lack of interest from the blogger or their audience.

Many of the best remembered music blogs have gone the way of the dodo, though if you take a stroll through my blogroll there are still lots of great ones out there, like Fleamarket Funk, Soul Sides (which appears adjacent to F16C in the list), The B-Side, AM, Then FM and Home of the Groove.

When I look at the Style of Sound list, there are only a half dozen or so names I recognize, which I think says a lot about how much the blogging landscape has changed since I got involved in 2004.

That said, check out the list, and click around. You might discover something cool.

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Today’s selection is another one of those reminders that it always pays to register the important facts, and use them to dig a little deeper when you can.

As a funk fan (with a minor in the Jamaican variety thereof) I was already familiar with the name Carlos Malcolm.

‘Straight Out of the Ghetto’, by Malcolm and his band the Fireburners (oddly enough, also recorded for an American label, Ahmad Jamal’s AJP imprint) is a killer bit of funk.

What I did not know, until I spied an LP on a friend’s sale list, was that Malcolm had been recording well before that tune, with a very interesting history indeed.

Born in Panama to Jamaican parents, Malcolm spent time in both of those countries growing up, eventually becoming a successful bandleader in Jamaica during the 50s and 60s.

He had recorded ska in Jamaica, but came to New York in the late 60s to record for the Roulette label.

The album he recorde for Roulette, 1968’s ‘Don’t Walk: Dance’ is an interesting mix of sounds, including jazz, latin, and as you’ll hear in today’s selection, a bit of boogaloo.

The album’s title (sort of) track, ‘Don’t Walk’ is an outstanding example of the kind of mixture Malcolm was working with at the time. It sounds like a Latinized variation on Lee Morgan’s ‘Sidewinder’, mixing percussion (vibes and drums) with waves of horns, with the trombones (Malcolm’s instrument) and trumpets playing a call and response game.

The whole thing has a very groovy mid-60s discotheque feel, danceable, but with some juice for your ears as well.

Malcolm, who spent a fair amount of time living and working (not always as a musician) here in the US, left music for a time (working in publishing) but returned to it in the 1990s.

I hope you dig the track, and I’ll see you all on Monday.

Keep the faith

Larry

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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived! The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock. They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US). Click here to go to the ordering page.

Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (0)

By Larry, March 23, 2014 12:15 pm

Zulema Cusseaux

Listen/Download Zulema – Telling the World Goodbye

Greetings all

I’m coming out of the weekend feeling a touch somnolent, so I thought I’d whip out something funky to get the motor running, as it were.

Zulema Cusseaux may not be well-remembered today, but in the early 70s she was making some fine music.

Hailing from Tampa, FLA, she was part of a local group, the Lovelies that was discovered by Van McCoy and renamed Faith Hope and Charity.

That group had two hits in 1970 – So Much Love (#14 R&B) and Baby Don’t Take Your Love (#36 R&B) – before Zulema left the group (which would continue to have hits into the late 70s) to go solo.

She signed to the Sussex label, recording her first solo LP ‘Zulema’ in 1972.

Today’s selection ‘Telling the World Goodbye’ (from her second LP ‘Ms. Z’) was her first solo hit, making it just inside the R&B Hot 100 in 1973.

Produced by Bobby Taylor, ‘Telling the World Goodbye’ is a funky number recorded with a who’s who of West coast studio heads.

The tune has that very groovy, funk on the way to disco feel that was coming to prominence around that time (note the presence of Eddie Kendricks collaborator Leonard Caston on piano), making it a treat for the feet as well as the ears.

Zulema would chart three more times between 1973 and 1979, recording one more LP for Sussex, three for RCA and one for LeJoint before the end of the 70s.

She would eventually leave the music business to lead the band in her church, passing away in 2013 at the age of 66.

I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll see you all on Wednesday.

Keep the faith

Larry

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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived! The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock. They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US). Click here to go to the ordering page.

Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (0)

By Larry, March 20, 2014 12:31 pm

The Nilsmen, smoking them, cuz they got ’em…

Listen/Download The Nilsmen – Le Winston

Greetings all

The end of the week is upon us so I will remind you once again to check out the Funky16Corners Radio Show, this and every Friday night on Viva Radio. You can also keep up with the show by subscribing as a podcast in iTunes, or by grabbing an MP3 here at the blog.

The other day I was rummaging through my crates (edging up to, but not quite crossing over into a frenzy of reorganization) and I happened upon the disc you see before you.

Long (long) time a favorite of mine, ‘Le Winston’  is one of those records that has been banging around my subconscious for so long that I was convinced that I had already written it up.

Turns out that – no, I hadn’t – though it had appeared in a mix or two, and made a few appearances on the Funky16Corners Radio Show over the years.

Recorded some time in the late 60s by a Swedish group called the Nilsmen, ‘Le Winston’ (and it’s funky flip ‘The Sandstep’) was issued by the RJ Reynolds tobacco company (thus the RJR label) a few times (with a few different picture sleeves) over the years to promote different brands of cigarettes.

‘Le Winston’ is a fine, hard-charging Hammond instro, guaranteed to light up the dance floor.

While I may not be digging for organ 45s as diligently as I was a few years back, I still love the sound and pick up new (to me) groovers whenever I find them.

This record is a testament to the value of keeping your ears open.

Despite what the occasional inflated ego will tell you, there isn’t a crate digger in the world who is 100% responsible for their collection.

If you have any interest at all in expanding your musical horizons, you keep your eyes and ears open.

I am always on the lookout for collectors and DJs with tastes complementary or at least tangential to my own. You can never know all the good records, and listening to other people’s mixes can really expose you to records you never would have found on your own.

I remember rapping with my man DJ Bluewater at one of the old Asbury Park 45 Sessions gigs, and marveling at how many amazing records I’d seen on another DJs playlist that were completely new/unknown to me.

He dropped a very solid bit of wisdom on me, that being ‘there’s probably a grip of things on your playlists that THEY haven’t seen or heard before either’.

I’ve been very lucky to spin beside folks with both excellent taste and very deep crates, and I hardly ever leave a gig without something new tacked on to my want list.

Now, take that concept and apply it to the internet, where you can connect and interact with DJs/diggers at a significant geographic remove, and the potential for new discoveries grows exponentially.

I can trace my knowledge of ‘Le Winston’ directly to a playlist (many, many years ago) by the great DJ Soulmarcosa, late of the Carolinas, presently burning up the decks in California.

His knowledge of US soul and funk is next level, but when it comes to international sounds, there’s no one better.

There are more than a few burners in my crates that I can trace directly back to one of his mixes/set lists.

So, props offered up, and if you’re out in LA, check him out in person.

As far as I can tell the Nilsmen never recorded anything else (at least under this name).

If you dig the sounds, it shouldn’t be hard to score your own copy, as Nilsmen 45s and plentiful and not terribly expensive.

I hope you dig it, and I’ll see you all on Monday.

Keep the faith

Larry

  _________________________________________________________________________________________

Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived! The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock. They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US). Click here to go to the ordering page.

Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (4)

By Larry, March 18, 2014 10:36 am

Listen/Download Willie Tomlin – Check Me Baby

Greetings all

I thought we’d do the middle of the week with a fairly new arrival in the Funky16Corners crates.

A buddy of mine puts up a sales list every few weeks, and since he a collector (of no small taste) himself, the offerings are always very interesting.

The last time he put up some 45s on eBay, there was one in particular that caught my eye, and then (naturally) my ear.

I had never heard of Willie Tomlin, and I’m guessing that if you don’t already own this record, you haven’t either.

It would appear that he recorded only one 45, and when it was done, was so satisfied with the badassery therein, he vowed never to record another.

‘Check Me Baby’, which was released in 1969 is a recitation of what has been known on the streets as a very strong pimp hand.

Willie (who I’m assuming from the sounds on both sides of this 45 was a blues-based cat with a foot in the world of soul) lays down a laundry list of how-bad-am-I-isms that’ll blow your mind.

The delivery is oddly off-hand, as if Willie was wandering through the studio with a couple of fine ladies draped on his arms and stopped to whip a world-class brag on the crowd.

‘I wear my Botany 500 when I Funky Broadway

My Petrocelli when I Philly Freeze…

I spend a G-note nightly just to keep the girls mine…

I buy my suits from Hippie Land – Cal-eye-phone-eye-ay…

I mean check me baby, I’m one cat that’s clean

All the girls call me to see the soul of the new breed

Six feet deuce baby, teased and tan, a healthy hunk of any woman’s man

I mean like check me, I’m one cat that’s clean…

And on, and on, with the private plane expensive cologne, Moroccan leather shoes, jade cufflinks, diamond watch etc etc

Though he doesn’t say so, you know there’s a revolver and a straight razor in there somewhere.

This is certainly not the first (or the only) brag-fest set to vinyl, but it is unique in its breadth and the matter-of-factness of its delivery.

Like I said, I can’t find any information on Willie Tomlin, especially any trace of any additional recordings.

If you know any different, drop me a line.

See you on Friday.

Keep the faith

Larry

PS Willie was such a badass, he apparently moved the Rocky Mountains to Maine.

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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived! The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock. They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US). Click here to go to the ordering page.

Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (3)

By Larry, March 16, 2014 12:56 pm

Jimmy Holiday

Listen/Download Jimmy Holiday – The New Breed

Listen/Download Jimmy Holiday – Love Me One More Time

Listen/Download Ron Moody and the Centaurs – The New Breed

Greetings all

I hope the new week finds you all welland in rapt anticipation of the oncoming Spring (despite all meteorological evidence to the contrary).

Today’s selections come to you well in advance of my original plans, thanks to a special request from a reader.

Naturally the story of how I got this record is quite convoluted (aren’t they all?).

A while back, a friend on Facebook posted a clip of a song called ‘The New Breed’ by a band called Ron Moody and the Centaurs.

It was a very groovy song indeed, and a little bit of research revealed that they were a white R&B band from Richmond, Virginia who recorded one 45, ‘The New Breed’ b/w ‘If I Didn’t Have a Dime’.

I wanted a copy of the 45, so I added it to my watch list and grabbed it when it popped up.

This is where things move into the ‘easier said than done’ category.

The package arrived, and I opened it to find…the wrong record.

I contact the seller who says that he must have sent the Ron Moody 45 to some guy in Germany (who was supposed to get the record that I got) and as soon as he gets it back from him, he’ll send it to me.

I figured I was never going to see the 45, but after going back and forth with the seller for a few months, it finally showed up!

I’m glad it did because the Centaurs version swings in a Beach Music stylee (the group had a following on that scene) and is very cool.

So I dig a little deeper and discover that ‘The New Breed’ was in fact a cover, having been originally recorded by a singer named Jimmy Holiday.

While the Centaurs version was cool, it paled (no pun intended) in comparison to Holiday’s original.

So I figured (as I always do…) that I ought to find myself a copy of the OG.

I checked Ebay (usually a good, basic gauge of whether or not a record is readily available), found a copy (graded VG) for five bucks and pulled the trigger.

When the record arrived, I discovered that the seller had under-graded the 45 (always cool) and also that the flip-side, ‘Love Me One More Time’ was a killer as well.

As it turns out, Jimmy Holiday was an interesting cat, indeed.

He recorded frequently through the 60s and early 70s, waxing more than two dozen 45s (and at least one LP) for labels like Everest, Diplomacy and Minit, all the while working as a songwriter, co-writing ‘Put A Little Love In your Heart’ for Jackie DeShannon, and working as a staff writer for Ray Charles’s Tangerine label.

He had a Top 10 R&B hit with “How Can I Forget’ in 1963 and placed one record a year into the R&B Top 40 in 1966, 1967 and 1968, as well as scoring a minor regional hit in a duet with Clydie King on ‘Ready, Willing and Able’ in 1967.

‘The New Breed’ b/w ‘Love Me One More Time’ was the first of his two 45s for the Diplomacy label in 1965*.

‘The New Breed’ is a hard charging floor-filler, with propulsive rhythm guitar and piano and a powerful horn section.

‘Love Me One More Time’ has a slightly heavier R&B edge, with a wailing vocal by Holiday.

The arrangements are by Jimmy Long who did a lot of work for Motown (Temptations, Four Tops, Gladys Knight and the Pips).

Sadly, Jimmy Holiday passed away in 1989, at the age of only 52.

I hope you dig the tunes, and I’ll see you all on Wednesday.

Keep the faith

Larry

*’The New Breed’ was also issued on Kent in 1967 but replacing ‘Love Me One More Time’ with a tune called ‘I Can’t Stand It’

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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived! The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock. They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US). Click here to go to the ordering page.

Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (0)

By Larry, March 13, 2014 11:34 am

The Jon-Lee Group (aka Jon – Lee and the Checkmates

Listen/Download TheJon-Lee Group – Pork Chops

Greetings all

The end of the week is approaching so it’s time to remind you that the Funky16Corners Radio Show sends its sounds out into the airwaves of the interwebs this and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio. If you can’t be there at airtime, you can keep up with the show by subscribing to it as a podcast in iTunes or by grabbing an MP3 download here at the blog.

The jam I bring you today is one of my favorite discoveries of the last year, and the way I found it is, as the kids say, cray-cray.

Some of you may know that I also write about 60s pop/garage etc over at my other blog, Iron Leg. It was in my capacity as an Iron Legger that I was involved in doing some research related to 60s sunshine poppers the Cowsills.

I was chasing down a lead about a band called Bodine (that recorded an LP in 1969, produced by Billy Cowsill) when I discovered a fantastic site devoted to the band Rhinoceros, which shared some members with Bodine as well as the Daily Flash (great, mid-60s folk rock group) and a group I’d never heard of called Jon-Lee and the Checkmates.

As it turns out, some of the Rhinoceros guys got their start in Jon-Lee and the Checkmates (later the Jon-Lee Group), a mid-60s white R&B/soul band from Toronto.

Though they performed widely and recorded a number of tracks, only one single was ever released, ‘Bring It Down Front’ b/w ‘Pork Chops’ (on ABC in the US and Sparton in Canada.

The a-side is a mid-tempo, Stax-ish soul harmony number, but it is the flipside that really blew my mind.

‘Pork Chops’ (written by Duke Edwards, later of Duke Edwards and the Young Ones on Prestige) is a mind-blowing, wig-flipping ass-kicker of a Hammond instrumental.

It’s not hard to hear the roots of Rhinoceros’ hit ‘Apricot Brandy’ (which featured Jon-Lee organist Michael Fonfara as well as Duke Edwards) in ‘Pork Chops’, but the earlier record is about ten times as manic.

Taken at breakneck speed, ‘Pork Chops’ features wailing organ, pounding bass and drums and just enough fuzz guitar to let you know that it was 1967.

The Jon-Lee Group wouldn’t last much longer, with Fonfara and singer John Finley (the Jon in Jon-Lee) leaving to join Rhinoceros at the end of 1967.

This is a blazing track, and I hope you like it as much as I do.

See you on Monday.

Keep the faith

Larry

 PS There’s some great video of Jon-Lee and the Checkmates performing live!

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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived! The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock. They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US). Click here to go to the ordering page.

Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (0)

By Larry, March 11, 2014 11:04 am

Hank Ballard

Listen/Download Hank Ballard – Blackenized

Greetings all

One of the great things that James Brown was responsible for (in addition to the one, true, superheavy funk) was the rebirth of Hank Ballard’s career.

Ballard, an R&B pioneer who had a string of hits that stretched from 1953 (‘Get It’ with the Royals) to 1961 (several classics as the leader of the Midnighters) was an major influence on JB.

By the time he started recording with Brown in the late 60s, Ballard had been away from the charts for half a decade.

Working with Brown, he had his comeback hit in 1968 with ‘How you Gonna Get Respect (When You Haven’t Cut Your Process Yet)’ which made it into the R&B Top 20.

He recorded a string of excellent 45s (and an LP) over the course of the next few years.

Today’s selection ‘Blackenized’ (written by Brown) was released in 1969.

Like his previous hit, ‘Blackenized’ works the same black empowerment angle, with a funky band (dig that flute) and a great vocal/recitation by Ballard.

There are times where Hank crosses the line from the sublime into the ridiculous – such as his exhortation ‘You don’t have to be like an Oreo cookie, Brother. Black on the outside and white on the inside’, but it’s such a groovy track you kind of roll with it.

The flip side ‘Come On Wit It’ (co-written by Ballard, Brown and Bud Hobgood) is a more conventional JB/’69 funk outing.

I hope you dig the track, and I’ll see you all on Friday.

Keep the faith

Larry

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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived! The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock. They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US). Click here to go to the ordering page.

Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (5)

By Larry, March 9, 2014 3:45 pm

The Staple Singers

Listen/Download The Staple Singers – Step Aside

Greetings all

I hope that the new week finds you all well.

While I really dig gospel music – especially old school – I have never really been a collector of the sound.

It’s a genre that I don’t know much about, so while I may dip my toe in every once in a while, I have yet to fully immerse myself.

That said, even though their early recordings are firmly in the gospel tradition, I like to think of the mighty Staple Singers as sui generis.

This has everything to do with the guitar of Roebuck ‘Pop’ Staples.

Listening to the group’s pre-Stax recordings is like witnessing a mystical collision of the sacred and the profane, with Pop’s Delta guitar lines winding in and out of the rich harmonies like an interloper.

There are other instruments present (bass, drums) but they’re marked by a plain-ness and subtlety that renders them practically invisible.

Listening to Pop’s guitar (with it’s roots in the masters he heard as a young man, including Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson and Son House) amble through the songs it almost as if the ghosts of those roadhouse men are being chased down a dirt road by the holy spirit.

The song I bring you today is an unusual one that has become a firm favorite of mine since I first heard it.

‘Step Aside’ – written by Pervis Staples – is an almost dirge-like number, with lyrics that cast the struggle for civil rights as a battle (the references to ‘foreign soil’ and ‘foreign land’ are particularly stark).

The moments where Pop steps in with his high tenor to cry ‘Step aside!’ it sounds as if he’s raising his hand and crying out from the amen corner.

It is a remarkable piece of music, that like everything else they did during this period transcends both gospel and soul, turning into something else entirely.

I hope you dig it, and I’ll see you on Wednesday.

Keep the faith

Larry

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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived! The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock. They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US). Click here to go to the ordering page.

Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (0)

By Larry, March 6, 2014 11:38 am

Betty Davis

Listen/Download Betty Davis – If I’m In Luck I Might Get Picked Up

Greetings all

The end of the week is here, and so the time is near for your weekly dose of the Funky16Corners Radio Show, coming to you via the airwaves of the interwebs this and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio. If you can’t be there at airtime, you can always keep up with the show by subscribing as a podcast in iTunes.

The tune I bring you today is something a little hard and funky from which to launch yourselves into the weekend.

I suspect that many more people have heard of Betty Davis than have actually heard her (excellent) music.

Davis, a singer, songwriter, model and muse to the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis (to whom she was married) recorded three very cool, well-regarded (if not big selling) albums between 1973 and 1975 for the Just Sunshine and Island labels (as well as a fourth album that would remain in the can until 2009).

Davis had spent the 60s moving between music (where she worked with Lou Courtney and the Chambers Brothers) and modeling, recording a couple of rare 45s in the process.

She recorded her first, self-titled LP in 1973 with a cast of San Francisco-area heavies, including several members of Sly and the Family Stone (drummer Greg Errico produced the album), Santana,  Merl Saunders the Pointer Sisters and Sylvester.

Today’s selection, the hard-hitting ‘If I’m In Luck I Just Might Get Picked Up’ was Davis’s first charting single (R&B #66 in the summer of 1973) and is typical of her hard-edged, sexually frank vibe.

What is especially groovy is that the song rocks as much as it funks (if you will) thanks not only to the instrumental end of things but also to Miss Betty’s vocals.

Davis was a genre-bender, which helped to make her music intriguing, but also made it hard for the listening public to get with the program. This is not to say that other artists mixing and matching rock and soul weren’t embraced – the 70s were after all the decade of P-Funk – but rather that there was something about Davis’s particular recipe that didn’t gel with a wider audience.

Too bad for them, since the records she made are rightly regarded as classics today.

All of her 1970s recordings have been reissued by Light In the Attic and can be picked up in hard copy or digitally.

I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll see you all on Monday.

Keep the faith

Larry

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived! The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock. They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US). Click here to go to the ordering page.

Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.