Category: Soul

Best of F16C – Forbidden City Organs

By , January 21, 2018 12:33 pm

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Funky16Corners Radio v.80 – Forbidden City Organs

Recorded Live in NYC 1-27-10

Playlist

Louis Chachere– A Soulful Bag (Central)
Hank Marr – The Out Crowd (Wingate)
Turtles – Buzz Saw (White Whale)
Albert Collins – Cookin’ Catfish (20th Century Fox)
Wynder K. Frog – Oh Mary (UA)
Don & the Goodtimes – Turn On (Wand)
Dave Lewis – Searchin’ (Piccadilly)
Earl Van Dyke – Soul Stomp (Soul)
Toussaint McCall – Shimmy (Ronn)
Georgie Fame – El Bandido (Imperial)
La Bert Ellis – Batman (A&M)
James Brown – Shhhhhhhh (For a Little While) (King)
Mohawks – Champ (Philips/NL)
Ross Carnegie – The Kid (El Con)
John Phillip Soul and His Stone Marching Band – That Memphis Thing (Pepper)
Bill Doggett – Honky Tonk Popcorn (King)
Lou Garno Trio – Chicken In the Basket (Giovanni)
Hindal Butts – In the Pocket (M-S)
Warm Excursion – Hang Up Pt1 (Pzazz)
Soul Tornado’s – Crazy Legs (Westwood)
Charles Earland – Sing a Simple Song (Prestige)
Art Butler – Soul Brother (Epic)
Memphis Black – Why Don’t You Play the Organ Man (Ascot)

Funky16Corners Presents: Forbidden City Organs –
Recorded Live 1/27/10

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Greetings all.
This is another dip into the Funky16Corners archives, a live, all-Hammond set that I did at Forbidden City (with my man DJ Bluewater)  almost exactly eight years ago.
It’s packed with 45RPM goodness, so pull down the ones and zeroes and dig it.
Keep the Faith
Larry
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Greetings all, and welcome back to the Funky16Corners-adelic-superfragelistic thing for another week.

Before we get started, I want to say that after serious consideration with the Funky16Corners board of directors, and close consultation with some serious heads (not the least of whom being my man DJ Prestige) I have decided not to deep six the old versions of the blog (WordPress and Blogger). While I did deactivate all active content links on both sites (replacing them with redirects where necessary), since I was unable to do a full export of the WordPress blog, and could not bring over the comments on the old blog posts, AND since I consider reader commentary to be an important part of the process (mainly because so many of you contribute information via those posts) I figured it would benefit all parties to keep the old sites up and running (with any luck as long as this sentence).

Anything you might travel back there to hear, can now be heard here in the new Funky16Corners Radio Podcast and Guest Mix Archives.

The mix you see before you today was supposed to be up in this space on Friday, but I just had too damn much to do, and so I had to put it off for a couple of days. I think, however that you will be pleased when you pull down the ones and zeros and stuff it in your ears.

For you see (hear), Funky16Corners Radio v.80* is just about an hour of high octane, Hammond fueled groove grease guaranteed to get you off your ass, slipping and sliding across the floor, with the hip-shaking, and the wild gesticulation, and the shaking of the hair, gospel wailing and general good times.

Big words those, but I think once the sounds have been ingested, you will concur.

It all started thusly…

Back before Christmas, my lovely wife asked me what I wanted as a holiday gift. I generally reply to these queries with a shrug and a ‘Don’t worry ‘bout me on account of I pretty much have everything I need’. However, this year there was something I had my eye on, so I sent my wife the link, and ‘Bob’s yer uncle’ a brand new digital recorded dropped into my stocking.

My main motivation in requesting this new bit of hardware was so that my casting of the pods would be facilitated, but as is the norm when I get a new toy, I find some other, more interesting way to put it to work, and so I did.

It was at the last Asbury Park 45 Sessions that I brought my recorder along and attempted to record my set right off the board. I thought everything had gone swimmingly, until I got up the next morning, transferred the file onto my laptop and discovered that Einstein (that’s me, heh heh…) hadn’t read the instructions properly, and what I had recorded was not the mix off the board, but all the ambient noise surrounding it. I tossed that one into the old electronic wastebasket and set my sights on my next set at Master Groove.

Well my friends, it was a success.

I had spoken to my host the esteemed DJ Bluewater about what I would play this time, and I suggested a ‘theme set’ of sorts. He thought this was a good idea, so I sat down in the midst of my record vault and started digging. I had originally thought I might do a Northern Soul thing (next time out maybe) but I happened upon a clump of solid Hammond 45s, so I took that as a sign and continued in that direction.

What you have here is an actual live mix, recorded directly from the booth monitor line on the mixer, no fiddling/editing involved.

If you’ve visited with me here over the years, you’ll already be aware that I am a first class Hammond organ nut, and my crates run deep. When I started pulling stuff to compose my set, I extracted enough records for three or four sets, and then sat down with the turntable and selected a little over an hour’s worth of faves.

The records you’ll hear in this mix are the very cream of the dancefloor Hammond crop, with lots of your big keyboard wranglers (Messrs Earland, Doggett, McCall, Lewis, Van Dyke, Frog and Carnegie) a couple of unusual sources (Albert Collins and the Turtles, yes, the Turtles) and a few things you may not have heard before.

As stated previously, my intention here was to whip something up to get the dancers moving, so if you’re playing this inside your corporate veal pen, try not to spill your coffee/disturb your neighbor. If you’re on the bus, piping it in via earbuds, don’t be surprised if your neighbor attempts to administer first aid, since you may appear to be involved in convulsions of some sort.

That said, I will refrain from further comment, letting the sounds speak for themselves.

I hope you dig the mix, and rest assured that I will endeavor to bring you more of the same (both live, and organ mixes) in the coming months.

Peace

Larry

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Best of Funky16Corners: Queens

By , January 14, 2018 11:12 am

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Funky16Corners Presents: Queens
Vicki Gomez – Boys Are a Dime a Dozen (ABC/Paramount)
Rita and the Tiaras – Gone With the Wind Is My Love (Dore)
Apollas – Mr Creator (WB)
Clara Ward – The Right Track (Verve)
Gloria Jones – Heartbeat Pt1 (Uptown)
Sandy Wynns – Love Belongs To Everyone (Champion)
Tina Britt – The Real Thing (Eastern)
Brenda Lee – Dancing In the Street (Decca)
Candy and the Kisses – Keep On Searching (Scepter)
Dorothy Berry – Shindig City (Planetary)
Marie Queenie Lyons – Drown In My Own Tears (Deluxe)
Mirettes – Now That I Found You Baby (Mirwood)
Bobbettes – Tighten Up Your Own Home (Mayhew)
Funky Sisters – Soul Woman (Aurora)
Ella Fitzgerald – These Boots Are Made For Walkin’ (Salle)
Sari and the Shalimars – No Reason To Doubt My Love (Veep)
Judy Clay – Sister Pitiful (Atlantic)
Lesley Gore – Take Good Care (Of My Heart) (Mercury)
Barry St John – Cry Like a Baby (GRT)

Listen/Download – Funky16Corners Presents: Queens 86MB Mixed MP3

Greetings all.

What you see before you is one of the mixes I did for the 2016 Funky16Corners Allnighter/Pledge Drive.

‘Queens’ has long been a fave of mine, and a few weeks back, while using it as the pre-show for the Funky16Corners Radio Show, I was digging it so much that I thought it deserved a re-posting.

So here it is, just about an hour of the finest female 45s, mostly in a Northern bag but with just a touch of funky soul, and album tracks in my crates.

So pull down the ones and zeros and give it a spin.

I hope you dig it.

See you all next week.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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The Pazant Brothers – Toe Jam b/w Skunk Juice

By , January 7, 2018 12:25 pm

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The Pazant Brothers

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Listen/Download – The Pazant Brothers – Toe Jam MP3

Listen/Download – The Pazant Brothers – Skunk Juice MP3

Greetings all.

The single you see before you today is one of those “Holy shit, look at those titles, how can I not buy this?” 45s.

I knew of the Pazant Brothers via their sought after work with the Beaufort Express, but hadn’t heard of either of these cuts (Toe Jam and Skunk Juice, from 1969) before.

At least that’s what I thought, until I gave the 45 a spin and the tune(s) sounded awfully familiar.

It took me a few minutes to arrange/assess the sounds coming off the record, bt it wasn’t long before I figured out what I was hearing were two ‘variations’ on Lionel Hampton’s mighty soul jazz banger, ‘Greasy Greens’.

I did a little digging and discovered a few things.

First off, ‘Greasy Greens’ wasn’t written by Hampton, but rather by Ed Bland, who happened to be the guy credited with both sides of the Pazant Brothers 45.

Second, I dug a bit more and found out that Eddie Pazant, the woodwind playing brother in the duo had been a member of Hampton’s band when he recorded ‘Greasy Greens’, both in the studio version on Glad Hamp in 1967 and the live version on the ‘Newport Uproar’ LP from 1968.

Alvin Pazant, the trumpeter had played with Pucho and the Latin Soul Brothers.

While the OG of ‘Greasy Greens’ lives up to its title, the reworkings of the song as ‘Skunk Juice’ and ‘Toe Jam’ (seriously?) are funkier, slightly shambolic (featuring some wild guitar) and both feature a young sister shouting out the titles over the music.

The Pazant Brothers recorded a handful of 45s for GWP, RCA and Priscilla in the late 60s and early 70s, before waxing their album ‘Loose and Juicy’ (which featured some of the 45 tracks) for Vanguard in 1975, with production (and five compositions) by Ed Bland.

It is a great, funky 45, and I hope you dig it.

See you all next week.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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Isley Brothers – Testify Pts 1&2

By , December 31, 2017 10:57 am

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The Isley Brothers (with some obscure sideman)

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Listen/Download – The Isley Brothers – Testify Pt1 MP3

Listen/Download – The Isley Brothers – Testify Pt2 MP3

Greetings all.

I feel secure telling you that the 45 I bring you today is undisputably one of the most mind-bendingly, blazing soul 45s of all time.

As much as I thought I knew the Isley Brothers, I was for a long time largely ignorant of their earlier, pre-funky work.

I found my way to their 1964 45 ‘Testify Pts 1&2’ via two similar paths, those being the eary work of Jimi Hendrix (who wails on this record) and the work of one of his most prominent disciples, Stevie Ray Vaughn.

I was lucky enough to have seen Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble in the early days of their national renown, including one ear-shredding performance at a local night club.

One of the tunes Stevie did on his first album was a cover version of ‘Testify’, which I had no idea was a cover version for literally decades.

It was only researching the early soul/R&B work of Jimi Hendrix that I found out that ‘Testify’ had originally been done as a vocal by the mighty Isley Brothers.

To say that the Isley Brothers version of ‘Testify’ is amazing is to damn it with faint praise.

Their performance amounts to six minutes of amen corner cum Apollo Theater wildness in which the Isley’s perform their asses off, all the while tipping their hats to Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, The Beatles, Jackie Wilson, James Brown, and even themselves.

The band is ON FIRE, and you can almost see the Isley Brothers moving around the stage.

‘Testify’ is one of the live-est sounding 45s I have ever heard, and moves at a breakneck pace from start to finish.

I hope you dig it as much as I do, and I’ll see you all next week.

Happy New Year!

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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Stretch/Margaret Singana – Why Did You Do It

By , December 17, 2017 12:37 pm

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Stretch

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Margaret Singana

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Listen/Download – Stretch – Why Did You Do It MP3

Listen/Download – Margaret Singana – Why Did You Do It MP3

Greetings all.

As has been said here many a time before, one must keep their ears peeled and open at all times if the flow of interesting music is to continue into one’s crates. The reords you see before you today at a testament to that very thing.

A while back I was immersed in a viewing of ‘Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ when a funky song popped up on the soundtrack that got my ears perked right up.

A dash of Googling and IMDB-ing led me to the track ‘Why Did You Do It’ by Stretch.

I had never heard of the band or the song, but dug it a lot, so I started looking around and discovered the the tune was a UK Top 20 and dance floor hit in 1975.

The group was led by Elmer Gantry (aka Dave Terry) former lead singer of UK psych group Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera and former Curved Air member Graham ‘Kirby’ Gregory.

They released the 45 on the UK Anchor label also home to Ace, and (for some odd reason) all of the UK versions of Alice Cooper’s albums.

The original Stretch version of ‘Why Did You Do It’ is a very groovy piece of funky rock with a solid backbeat and bass combo that butts right up against disco without trading too heavily on that territory, and a fantastic vocal by Gantry.

The other version I bring you today was recorded a few years later by South African vocalist Margaret Singana.

Her take on the song, from her ‘Tribal Fence’ album was released here in the US on the Casablanca label.

Singana’s album is a mix of traditional African sounds, soul and disco, and featured production and guitar work from future Yes member Trevor Rabin (also a native South African).

The production on Singana’s version is a little slicker (with a very nice guitar solo by Rabin) , but her excellent voice features heavily. Her album also contains a nice version of James Brown’s ‘It’s a Man’s Man’s World’.

I hope you dig both versions of the tune, and I’ll see you all next week.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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El Chicano – Coming Home Baby

By , December 10, 2017 12:17 pm

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El Chicano

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Listen/Download – El Chicano – Coming Home Baby MP3

Greetings all.

I hope the new week finds you all well.

I have been digging-econo of late, and so when I dipped into a Discogs store and found a grip of interesting looking one-dollar 45s, I thought I’d grab me some and see how it played out (if you will). Most of the things I picked up hardly amounted to ‘taking a chance’, seeing that they were either very cheap, or by reliably great artists (or both).

One of those purchases sits before you today, East LA giants El Chicano’s smoking version of Bob Dorough and Ben Tucker’s oft-recorded ‘Coming Home Baby’.

The group’s version of Gerald Wilson’s ‘Viva Tirado’ was a substantial hit in 1970, and though they continued to record/release music for the next decade, they never really had another big hit.

This is not to say that they weren’t making good music, as today’s selection will attest.

‘Coming Home Baby’ hit the charts a dozen different times between Mel Torme’s brilliant version in 1962 and 1971.

El Chicano’s version, a blazing, overmodulated Hammond feature only charted very briefly in a few California markets, but it is among the finest versions I have heard.

Cramming almost five and a half minutes onto one side of a 45, the El Chicano version has a hot, live sound with just enough Latin percussion in the mix to remind you who your listening to.

In addition to the general hotness of this 45, it should serve as a reminder that El Chicano’s stuff is uniformly excellent and as our friends in the UK are wont to say, ‘cheap as chips’, so go out and get you some.

See you next week.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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Johnny Watson – Coke

By , December 3, 2017 11:32 am

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Johnny Watson

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Listen/Download – Johnny Watson – Coke MP3

Greetings all.

One of the great pleasures of record digging/collecting is the unexpected find, as in ‘I had no idea this very familiar artist did anything like this’ which describes this week’s selection to a tee.

A few years ago I picked up a Johnny Watson solo 45 off of a friend’s list, on which the man who was so famous a guitarist that it became part of his name (i.e. Johnny Guitar Watson) was featuring not on the six-string razor but rather surprisingly on the old 88s!

I dug the 45 a lot, and started to look around for information on the circumstances leading to its recording, and I was very surprised indeed to discover that Watson had recorded an entire album of instrumentals for Okeh in 1967.

This was during the heart of his association with Larry Williams, who just happened to have co-produced the album in question (entitled ‘Bad’) with Watson himself.

The record sees Watson featuring on both piano and guitar on a wide range of contemporary covers of tunes by folks like Eddie Floyd, Ray Charles, Sam and Dave and the Four Tops among others, mixed in with a couple of groovy originals, of which today’s selection is one.

‘Coke’ (hmmmmm…) is hard charging number featuring Watson’s guitar, piano and a tastefully applied horn section.

It has plenty of soulful, au-go-go flavor, and would work nicely on the dance floor.

I don’t think the album has ever been reissued. There was only the one 45 released from the LP.

I hope you dig the sounds, and I’ll see you all next week.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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Cliff Nobles – Love Is Alright

By , November 26, 2017 11:39 am

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Cliff Nobles

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Listen/Download – Cliff Nobles – Love Is Alright MP3

Greetings all.

The track I bring you this week is one of those 45s that is probably in 99% of every soul collection, yet I wonder how many people have flipped it over to play this side.

The flipside, ‘The Horse’ by Cliff Nobles and Co was one of the biggest hits of 1968, hugely influential, spawning dozens of ‘horse’ and horse-related records and making its way into the repertoire of every hip marching band in the land.

That said, today’s selection, the vocal version of the tune – retitled as ‘Love Is Alright’ is a bit of funky genius, and in a lot of ways is my preferred side of the record.

I always thought it was deely ironic that a vocalist like Cliff Nobles had his biggest hit on a record where his voice does not appear, and a look at the charts would suggest that almost nobody (except the New Orleans station WYLD) thought to flip the record over and play the ‘Love Is Alright’.
This is a damn shame because Nobles’ vocal is right tight and outtasight.

His discography (before and after ‘The Horse’) is fairly brief, and his only other chart success was a minor regional hit with ‘The More I Do For You Baby’ few months before ‘The Horse’ broke.

It’s a groovy number, and I hope you dig it.

I hope you dig the sounds, and I’ll see you all next week.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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Machito and His Orchestra – Baby I Love You

By , November 19, 2017 11:48 am

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Machito

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Listen/Download – Machito and His Orchestra – Baby I Love You MP3

Greetings all.

You already know that I’d fill a bathtub in Latin soul and roll around in it if I could (TMI??), so imagine my delight when I happened upon the 45 you see before you today.

I knew of the might Machito (aka Francisco Raúl Gutiérrez Grillo) who was recording rhumba as far back as the early 1950s.

Like so many of his contemporaries, faced with the rising popularity of boogaloo, Machito went into the studio in 1968 with arranger/composer Bert DeCoteaux and laid down an entire album of (mostly) Memphis soul covers (and one groovy DeCoteaux original).

The obviously-titled ‘Machito Goes Memphis’ is not only smoking hot from start to finish, but also (at the writing) still relatively inexpensive.

Machito and his orchestra cover Booker T and the MGs. Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Eddie Floyd, Sam Cooke, and on this track, Aretha Franklin.

The band hits a nice groove, with the drums, bass and percussion laying down the bottom. It is – like the rest of the album – a headnodder, just Latin enough for the boogaloo fans and soulful enough for everyone else (though a considerable crossover is to be expected).

As far as I can tell, Machito never took this direction again.

I hope you dig the track and I’ll see you all next week.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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Billy Lee Riley – Don’t Fight It b/w Mississippi Delta

By , November 12, 2017 1:02 pm

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Billy Lee Riley

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Listen/Download – Billy Lee Riley – Don’t Fight It MP3

Listen/Download – Billy Lee Riley – Mississippi Delta MP3

Greetings all.

If you already know the name of Billy Lee Riley, you very well might be surprised to see him here at Funky16Corners.

Along with his band the Little Green Men he waxed some smoking rockabilly sides for Sun Records in the mid-50s, including ‘Red Hot’ (later covered by Robert Gordon) and ‘Flying Saucers Rock and Roll’.

However, as the years went on, Mr Riley found his way to the R&B side of the street (though there is a case to be made that having worked in rockabilly he was already half the way there).

In 1962 he was the man behind the Megatons’ ‘Shimmy Shimmy Walk’, and as the decade moved on he recorded a wide variety of material, including a fair amount of soul covers.

Today’s selections hail from a 1967 45 for the Mojo label (Riley bounced around to Mercury, GNP Crescendo, Atlantic, HIP and then back to Sun by the end of the 60s) where he did a number of 45s and a couple of albums, including 1968’s hard to find ‘Southern Soul’.

Riley’s covers of Wilson Pickett and Bobbie Gentry are pure Memphis, with a tight, hard-hitting band and great vocals. There’s plenty of hot guitar (naturally) and some nice piano and backing vocals as well.

‘Mississippi Delta’ is especially groovy. Originally the flipside to Bobbie Gentry’s epic ‘Ode To Billie Joe’, it was – in its original version – smoking hot. Riley turns up the soulful heat just a little bit more and the horn chart and drums are excellent.

Riley’s 45s from this period aren’t too hard to find, but the albums might force you to pry open your wallet a little bit further.

I hope you dig the tracks and I’ll see you next week.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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Vicky Gomez – Boys Are a Dime a Dozen

By , November 5, 2017 10:58 am

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Vicky Gomez with Shivaree host Gene Weed

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Listen/Download – Vicky Gomez – Boys Are a Dime a Dozen MP3

Greetings all.

Today’s selection is one of those records that you’re going to be thanking me for years from now (just as I always thank the anonymous groover that turned me on to it way back when).

Unfortunatey there’s almost nothing out there about Vicky Gomez.

She appears to have been a Chicana from southern California who only ever made one 45 (the one you see before you today) in 1965.

‘Boys are a Dime a Dozen’ is a booming piece of Wall of Sound, dance floor soul that is every bit as amazing as it is obscure.

There are minute tendrils of information attached to it. The producers, Malkin-Hoffman worked in LA studios with the Wrecking Crew. One of the composers Raul Abeyta appears to have worked with Gary Usher through the 60s (including composing songs with Usher for the Super Stocks, Wayne Newton, the Neptunes, Bobby Sherman, as well as writing a couple of tracks on Usher’s ‘Astrology Album’). The other writer, Alonzo Willis penned a bunch of SoCal R&B, inclusing the Roach and Gator Tails & Monkey Ribs for Gene and Wendell, and tracks for the Crystals and Dick Dale. The best known person with a hand in the creation of the 45 is its arranger, the mighty Gene Page.

That said, it amazes me that ‘Boys Are a Dime a Dozen’ wasn’t a hit anywhere. The fact that Gomez appeared on the LA dance party show Shivaree in 1965 suggested to me that the song may have charted regionally, but I can’t even find a trace of that happening.

The record features crashing drums, multiple layers of percussion, horns and a throbbing bass guitar, all of which combine into the kind of sound that suggests Phil Spector as a touchstone.

If anyone out there knows anything else about Gomez, or the production, please let me know.

Until next week

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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Big Maybelle – 96 Tears

By , October 29, 2017 10:46 am

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Big Maybelle

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Listen/Download – Big Maybelle – 96 Tears MP3

Greetings all.

Today’s selection is a 45 that I chased after for years, only finally scoring a decent copy last year.

Big Maybelle was a star of the early years of R&B, having been recording since 1947 and having a string of hits in the early to mid 1950s.

By the time she recorded Question Mark and the Mysterians ’96 Tears’ in 1966, she was in her 40s and her career was all but over.

Her version of ’96 Tears’ takes the original and gives it a big, soulful punch, with a great repeated horn line and a confident, powerful vocal.

The cut is available on 45, but was also on her 1966 LP (with one of the weirdest cover drawings of all time) for Rojac, ‘Got a Brand New Bag’, which I’d love to find as it includes covers of tunes by the Troggs, Donovan, the Beatles, Los Bravos and Dr. West’s Medicine Show And Junk Band’s ‘The Eggplant That Ate Chicago’ (written by a young Norman ‘Spirit In the Sky’ Greenbaum).

That said, this is a dance floor burner, and I hope you dig it.

I’ll see you all next week.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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