Comments (0)

By Larry, July 6, 2010 6:37 pm

Lyn Collins

Listen/Download – Lyn Collins – Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose

Greetings all.

Welcome to the middle of the first authentic, brain-baking, sweat-inducing heatwave of the summer of two-thousand-ten.
The Fourth of July festivities were an authentic pain in the ass. The fam and I have been heading down to Asbury Park for the fireworks for the last three years, on account of it’s been a very chill scene. Unfortunately/fortunately, the restoration of Asbury Park, which has made the town a very cool place to be has increased its appeal to the point where the 4th of July turned the city into a veritable mob scene with near-gridlock conditions, and the Funky16Corners-mobile and all that sailed upon her were forced out of Asbury Park, first to Ocean Grove (which was also packed to capacity) and then further south into Bradley Beach* until we located a parking space (my three-year-old son ‘Thanks for parking Daddy!!’) well over a mile away (maybe two) from the fireworks about 10 seconds before the fireworks commenced.
We were a long way from the boom-boom, but the rockets red glare was still visible and the kids dug it, so all things considered it was enough of a success to keep the peace (but also enough to let Mrs Corners and I know that we were going to have to retool the entire Independence Day experience next year).
That said, I couldn’t very well let the descent of the oppressive heat go by without whipping a little bit of volcanic funk on you as the accompanying soundtrack.
Hows about some Lyn Collins?
I thought you might like that…
Arguably the pinnacle of that rarified species known as James Brown’s Funky Divas, Miz Collins, aka the Female Preacher is best remembered as the woman responsible for the 1972 atomic explosion known as ‘Think (About It)’ one of the funkiest records ever recorded and the very heavily sampled source for the heart and soul of Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock’s ‘It Takes Two’, a 45 that I pack in my record box on the reg on account of it’s a funky killer all on its own.
The record I bring you today is something from a few years further down Lyn Collins discography, her 1974 cover of the Godfather’s 1969 hit, ‘Give It Or Turnit A Loose’. For some bizarre reason I was unaware of this record’s existence until recently, and when I heard it I was filled with an odd mixture of ‘DAMN this record’s hot’ and ‘Where has this been all my life?’ but more importantly ‘Where can I get myself a copy?, the answer to the last question being answered within a few weeks.
Aside from being Soul Brother Number One, Mr Dynamite, Mr Please Please Please and the Hardest Working Man In Show Business, James Brown was above all an astute judge of talent, packing his band with dead on the super heavy funk players, and his stable of performers with some of the finest female soul and funk singers to have ever graced this mortal coil. I mean, sure Lyn Collins was bad-ass, but when you step back and realize that she stood alongside voices like Vicki Anderson and Marva Whitney it’s an awful lot to take in.
Collins’ version of the tune is updated to the slightly smoother, certainly more synthesized 1974-era funk, but it still kicks ass in a BIG way. There’s all the crispness of your run of the mill James Brown production, as well as the complex, clockwork funk, but there’s something else at work, the heart of which is Lyn Collin’s mighty voice.
Collins had the ability to leap from a soulful growl to a jagged edged scream in no time at all, and she does so several times in the course of this record.
While there are synthesizers, and it was 1974, and I don’t doubt for a second that this record set any number of discotheques afire, there’s never any question that the music pouring from the grooves is anything but funk.
So, get up out of your seat, on your feet and start moving your ass. If you thought you were done sweating, you have another think coming brothers and sisters.
See you on Friday.

Peace

Larry

*Yes, I know these town names are meaningless to people outside of the area. Please bear with me…

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for a look at one of my favorite pop bands

Comments (6)

By Larry, July 4, 2010 5:19 pm

The Many Faces of Arthur Conley

Listen/Download – Arthur Conley – Love Got Me

Greetings all.

I hope the new week finds you well.
The tune I bring you today was something of a nice surprise from an odd digging session last year.
I’d been tipped off to a store I’d never been to before, and went hoping that I’d be coming home with the proverbial butt-load of soul 45s, and perhaps and LP or two.
Well, I rolled up on the place and at first glance it had all the look of soul vinyl nirvana. Old store, small town, boxes of records on the sidewalk…you know the drill.
When I got inside it wa almost immediately apparent that what I was faced with was something else entirely.
There were very few 45s (of any variety, let alone soul/funk) and what appeared to be mountains of non-soul LPs lining the aisles which were roughly a foot wide. It was the kind of place that seemed like it might cave in at any moment, and thanks to the close quarters, the digging was somewhat difficult.
I did manage to score a couple of cool 45s (some of which have already appeared in this space), and a huge pile of cheap pop and rock LPs (all Iron Leg type stuff).
There was a soul/funk LP section, but it was by and large fairly common and uninteresting stuff.
With a few minor exceptions, one of which included today’s selection.
I’ve always felt oddly ambivalent toward Arthur Conley, and to be honest, I’m not sure why.
Though he might be orbiting in the vicinity of the one hit wonder galaxy (he actually had a couple), the hits he did have were fantastic. Who among you can stand up and say truthfully that their head hasn’t started bobbing and their feet moving when either ‘Sweet Soul Music’ or ‘Funky Street’ came on the radio?
But other than those two songs, and his participation on the Soul Clan’s ‘Soul Meeting’, I can’t say I’d ever heard anything else by Conley.
By all reports Conley had an odd, spotty and itinerant career, his intersection with Otis Redding having been it’s highlight. He recorded several 45s (for several labels), and a few Lps before relocating to Europe and changing his name in the 70s. He passed away in the Netherlands in 2003.
Anyway…one of the LPs I managed to grab that day was Conley’s ‘Shake Rattle and Roll’ album.
When I got the record home and got down to work digimatizing, I heard something very familiar. It took me a while to figure out where I’d heard ‘Love Got Me’ but when I did it was one of those smack yourself in the head moments when you realize that a song you’ve known and loved for years was in fact a cover, in this instance the coverers being the Inmates and the coveree, Mr Arthur Conley.
Back when I was in high school, and a big fan of the end of the new wave spectrum in which bands were stirring the embers of what would erupt a few years later as the garage/mod revival, one of the bands that I really dig was the Inmates. It was via the Inmates that I first heard songs originated by the Standells (Dirty Water), Jimmy McCracklin (The Walk) and thought it took me 30 years to realize it, Arthur Conley.
One of the really interesting things about Conley is, that despite his status as a kind of minor, peripheral figure in the annals of soul, he wrote a fair amount of his own material, ‘Love Got Me’ being one of his best. The song illustrates the fact that although Conley was far from a major stylist (and sitting in the shadow of Otis wasn’t helping him in that respect) he was capable of writing and performing some top notch soul material.
The ‘Shake Rattle and Roll’ album, which features a couple of excellent tracks like Conley’s own ‘Hand and Glove’ and the Penn/Oldham killer ‘Keep On Talking’ is available on a two-fer CD with ‘Sweet Soul Music’. Pick that up (along with a 45 of ‘Funky Street’) and you’ll pretty much have all the Arthur Conley you’ll ever need.
I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll be back on Wednesday with something cool.

Peace

Larry

PS The latest Funky16Corners Radio Show is up and ready for download (just click on the Radio Show tab in the header…)

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for a look at one of my favorite pop bands

Comments (2)

By Larry, July 3, 2010 10:20 am

Gene and his porkpie hat contemplating the Hammond

Listen/Download -Gene Ludwig – The Vamp

Listen/Download -Gene Ludwig – Well You Needn’t

NOTE: I just found out that one of my favorite organists (and an all around good guy) the mighty Gene Ludwig is in the hospital. If you follow the Hammond-mania herein, you’ll already know that I hold Mr Ludwig in very high esteem. He’s not only responsible for a number of Hammond classics, but he’s still going strong well in his 70s, making music today that can stand proudly alongside his classic work.
Let’s all send out some good vibes and hope that Gene is healthy and back behind the keyboard as soon as possible.

This is a re-post of a couple of Ludwig classics from this year’s Hammond Week.

– Larry

Greetings all.

I hope the end of the week finds you well. I, on the other hand fell backwards through the front door of my house yesterday, landing flat on my back in a pile of toys. While my sons thought this was hilarious (I’m sure I would too if I’d observed it happening to someone else), I sit here feeling much like someone who fell backwards into a pile of toys, i.e. sore. I’m trying not to dwell on how much my own stupidity contributed to this accident. To do so would only make my back hurt more than it does.
I’ve decided to close out Hammond Week 2010 with an old favorite by one of the true masters of the instrument, Mr. Gene Ludwig.
I was lucky enough to interview Mr. Ludwig a few years back, and when you get a second you should pop on over to the old Funky16Corners web zine to read up on the read ups.
The tune I bring you today is the very first Gene Ludwig record I ever heard, courtesy of my man Haim. Back in the day, when he still lived on this side of the country, Haim – aware of my Hammond addiction – had a record that he simply had to play for me, and that record was ‘The Vamp’.
You all know what a nut I am for organ records, and as soon as the needle hit the wax on the Travis 45 of ‘The Vamp’ my hair pretty much stood on end. A fantastic showcase for Ludwig’s keyboard skills, ‘The Vamp’ is also something much more.
There, in its two minutes and thirty six seconds resides a perfect encapsulation of the meaning of soul jazz. Featuring Ludwig on the organ, Jerry Byrd on guitar and Randy Gillespie leaving his drums for a turn on the tambourine, ‘The Vamp’ (so named since it was basically built on a riff in the studio) moves at a fairly brisk pace, yet, thanks to the absence of the full drum set, manages to generate an air of relaxed cool.
The tune opens with Ludwig’s fingers flying all over the keys, with short, rhythmic chops by Byrd as Gillespie pulls his tambourine out of the amen corner and goes to town. It’s at the minute mark that the organ and guitar switch places, with Gene comping on the organ as the guitarist solos at length until Ludwig comes back in to restate the main theme just before the fade out.
There, in well under three minutes resides pure, 1965, smokey night club, jukebox perfection. Back in 2007 I included ‘The Vamp’ (recorded from the 45, this somewhat cleaner version coming from the LP ‘The Educated Sound of Gene Ludwig’) in Funky16Corners Radio v.24.5 ‘Old School Hammond’, but since not everyone that follows the blog was around back then, and more importantly, it’s such an amazing record, I figured that I ought to bring it back for this year’s week long celebration of the instrument.
I’m also including – from the same album – Gene’s take on my idol Thelonious Monk’s (in his time, a survivor over the long haul, much like Mr. Ludwig) ‘Well You Needn’t’. It gives you a chance to hear the master’s jazz chops as he and the group dig in for six and a half minutes of pure, listening pleasure.
I’m happy to say that Gene Ludwig – 73 years young – is still working it out on the Hammond in 2010, with a full slate of dates. Make sure you check out his website for samples of his (excellent) recent recordings, as well as videos* some recent performances.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s selections, and I’ll be back next week with some funk.
Have a great weekend.

Peace

Larry

*There’s a great version of Gene and his group playing one of my favorite soul jazz standards, Percy Mayfield’s ‘River’s Invitation’

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg too

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

You can also follow Funky16Corners on Twitter

Comments (12)

By Larry, June 29, 2010 7:56 pm

Dolly Parton and her hair…

Listen/Download – Dolly Parton – Busy Signal

Greetings all.

I hope you’re all having a good week, and that you’ve taken the time to check out Tony C’s F16C Soul Club mix, on account of it’s a banger.

I think it’s safe to assume that many of you are already scraping your jaws off of the floor, having read the name of today’s artist, Dolly Parton.
Allow me to ‘splain…
[cliché] The 60s were a turbulent time [/cliché].
The above statement is true on many levels, and aside from the politics and social upheaval, musically things were going nuts. Take a look at a random Top 40 chart from any week between 1964 and 1968 and you are in for some real surprises.
The pop music scene of the mid 60s was incredibly diverse (maybe more diverse than at any other time) and within that diversity, where Frank Sinatra and Ed Ames bumped up against the Turtles and the Buffalo Springfield, there formed a vast, diffuse crucible of sorts where all of those crazy threads were – on occasion – woven together in very unusual ways.
Part of this weaving was deliberate, wherein some enterprising soul, perhaps used to doing things one way, decided to take a shot at another part of the market.
It was just such a shot that made today’s selection.
I can’t recall exactly where I first heard Dolly Parton’s ‘Busy Signal’, but I do remember being knocked flat on my ass when I did.
I doubt there are many among you who don’t already know who Miss Parton is, but I also doubt there are more than a few of you who had any idea that her discography harbored anything this interesting (outside of a country music context, natch…).
The world of ‘blue-eyed soul’ (which is kind of a bullshit term, since if a record is soulful there really ought not be a need to make note of the race of the performer, and yes I know I’ve used it here but when I get some extra time I’ll cook up something more appropriate, and yes your suggestions are welcome…) is generally the province of performers who were mainly, or at least peripherally performers of music in a soul, funk or R&B style. When you listen to folks like Billy Harner, Mitch Ryder, Steve Colt etc, what you hear is an artist devoted to recreating the sound of black music.
When you take a look at the long and distinguished discography of Dolly Parton, you generally see something else, that being a country singer.
I have no idea how she came to record ‘Busy Signal’, but the other name on the label, composer and producer Ray Stevens give us a clue or two.
Stevens, who had his first pop hit in 1962 with ’Ahab the Arab’ (his forte was novelty records) and his last in 1975 with ’Misty’ was, in addition to his own recording career, a busy songwriter, producer and session musician on the Nashville scene of the 1960s. He recorded with Brenda Lee, Brook Benton, the Blue Things, BJ Thomas and countless others in his many capacities.
The records he worked on, as well as his own recordings indicate that he was able to tap into a wide variety of styles, from rock’n’roll, to country, to pop.
‘Busy Signal’ is a perfect example of the fact that he was also conversant in soul.
The record opens – not surprisingly – the sound of a busy signal, created with human voices. Dolly drops in with the initial statement of the lyric, followed by a wonderful shift marked with the sound of a snare drum and a chorus of backing singers. While her voice is readily recognizable, the style she uses here travels in that grey area where girl group sounds cross over into soul, which of course could lead into another discussion of country music as “soul” music of another kind, and all the various and sundry intersections of the two, usually racially segregated styles in the actually segregated south. There’s certainly a book or two that could be written about the way white and black artists were exchanging (actively and passively) musical ideas and the countless amazing records that came out of that bubbling stew pot.
‘Busy Signal’ was released late in 1965, and as far as I can tell met with little success (though the flip side is fairly traditional, mid-60s Nashville country). Whether Steven’s was deliberately attempting a soul record, or just happened to toss the right ingredients into the pot at random, the world may never know.
Naturally, as if often the case with unusual, soulful records bouncing around the periphery of soul itself, ‘Busy Signal’ enjoys a certain level of popularity with the Northern Soul crowd over in the UK. It’s a record that can get fairly expensive, and one I chased for a long time (and was outbid on more than once). I can’t help but sense an element of kismet in the fact that when I did finally get myself a copy I grabbed it for less than three flimsy US dollars (my hands shaking pretty much from the time I won it to the moment my trusty mail carrier brought it to the house). It only got here this week, but I felt I had to move it right to the front of the queue. I hope you dig it as much as I do.
Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for some mid 60s pop

Comments (5)

By Larry, June 27, 2010 4:34 pm

F16C Soul Club Presents – Tony C: Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky

Playlist

You can check out this mix in the Funky16Corners Soul Club Archive

I hope the new week finds you all well.
Just for the record, my lovely wife has returned home from the hospital, sore and fatigued but on her way to recovery.
I realized last night (after I had already retired for the evening) that I had forgotten to post the mixed MP3 of this weeks Funky16Corners Radio Show from Viva internet radio, so I have done so. It’s an all-Lou Courtney special, and you might want to give it a listen because the fidelity problems caused by the Viva interface have been corrected in the mix. There’s a lot of great music in there, so give it a listen when you get a chance.
Today marks the return of the Funky16Corners Soul Club with a fantastic contribution from my man in the UK, Tony Crampton. A former contributor to Jazz Syndicate Radio (for whom I contributed a guest mix way back when) and respected club DJ, Tony is also a man with impeccable musical taste.
As I’ve mentioned in this space more than once, Tony has a great ear for funk and soul and has many a time turned me on to cool things I hadn’t yet heard.
Mr. Crampton works from a wide ranging palette, including library music, Latin sounds, R&B, funk and soul, and his mixes are always filled with all kinds of wonderful surprises.
This one is no exception, with soul sounds from New Orleans, Jamaica, the UK and all over the USA.
So, pull down those ones and zeros and dig in, on account of everything Tony C does is indeed funky.
See you later in the week.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

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

PPPS Make sure to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

Comments (5)

By Larry, June 20, 2010 4:21 pm

Funky16Corners Radio v.86 – Elektrik

Playlist

I hope the new week finds you well.
I was just sitting here in the Funky16Corners Record Vault and Podcasting Nerve Center, when I realized that in all the new equipment/live mix/pledge drive hysteria, it had been something like three months since the last ‘regular’ Funky16Corners Radio mix, i.e. one with the drops and the accompanying zip file and the whole – as they used to say in the olden days – ‘shooting match’, and as a result, I felt that I should get my – as they still say today – shit together, dip into the digimatized stock and get something going.
So, I did.
Things being what they are, that being busy, both with the real world moves and the blog stuff, the old Funky16Corners mix schedule (as it was) has been stretched out somewhat. This has not however resulted in a lack of content, in fact the net result has been more music, with the Soul Club mixes (expect more of those from myself and guest selectors in the coming months) and the recent addition of archived/MP3 versions of the show I do weekly for Viva internet radio. As a result there’s probably more to listen to here than any sane person could digest, so dig in, slap some of the good stuff on your portable MP3 delivery device and stuff it in your ears (as time allows).
That said, I have whipped up a new mix, and I think you’ll dig it.
Funky16Corners Radio v.86 – Elektrik is both jazzy and funky, with lots of the good stuff you’ve come to expect as part of the Funky16Corners Radio experience, with a perfect vibe for a warm summer night.
Things get started with something that surprised even me, that being Stan Kenton’s funky, fusion-y take on Deodato’s reworking of Strauss’s ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’, cleverly titled ‘2002 Zarathustrevisited’ (Oh, Stan….), wherein the often overwrought master of heavily brassed West Coastery lets his sideburns grow in and hands the baton over to the younger cats in the band. Unlike similar sounds emitting from the Woody Herman organization, I have little faith that the man with his name on the bandstand had much to do with this one, and as a result, it is very groovy indeed.
Frank Wess works a very cool, vaguely trippy (heavily echoed) and somewhat funky sound with ‘Wessward Ho’. Alongside his most excellent flute work, there’s plenty of vibes, wah wah guitar and clavinet to being up the soulful quotient. If you can get your hands on a copy of the 1970 ‘Wess to Memphis’ album, do so, because unlike so many of his hard bop contemporaries, Wess was able to work very well in a more modern bag.
I’ve featured tracks by pianist Larry Willis in a couple of previous mixes, and for good reason too, since he was a master of a certain extra-hot, era-specific, electric piano sound. The tune ‘Out On the Coast’ take the soul jazz vibe and funks it up without drifting into the land of fusion. It’s serious enough to be jazz, but with enough get down in it to work as funk.
If you’re familiar with some of the more ethereal work of vibist Gary Burton you may find ‘Vibrafinger’ to be a somewhat jarring experience. Here, instead of the soothing chimes of the vibraphone, Burton offers up a heavily treated, electrified and distorted sound, accompanied by some heavy guitar and drums.
‘On This Site Shall Be Erected’ is an edited (by me) version of the first track on Gary McFarland’s concept album ‘America the Beautiful’. Thanks no doubt to the fact that he was co-owner of the label, his work for Skye Records is at times very far out, ranging from his soft and mellow vocalizing alongside his vibes, to heavier orchestral work, which, like this track, sometimes got funky. With guitar by Eric Gale and drums by Bernard Purdie, ‘On This Site Shall Be Erected’ moves from a brief avant garde section, directly into a few short minutes of big band funk.
Though you’re probably familiar with the Booker T and the MGs version of the movie theme ‘Hang’Em High’ (a Top 10 hit in 1968), you’ll probably dig Jimmy Smith’s long-form take on the tune from the ‘Black Smith’ album. You get to hear Jimmy work the Hammond alongside a piano (almost the whole time) and he does a predictably great job.
Next up is something a little spacey from the king of Chicago studio axemen, Mr. Phil Upchurch. ‘Elektrik Head’ from his 1969 LP ‘The Way I Feel’ sees Upchurch getting all up inside the echoplex, managing to be jazzy, soulful and passably psychedelic all at the same time.
Things mellow out a little bit – yet remain funky – with ‘Prairie Road’ by pianist Pete Jolly. A track from the largely improvised and wholly excellent ‘Seasons’ album, it features Jolly on the electric piano, and none other than Paul Humphrey on the drums. If you can score this on vinyl, good for you (it took me a while). If you can’t, grab it in reissue because it really has to be heard in its entirely. GREAT record.
Hampton Hawes was featured in the electric piano mix earlier this year. ‘Don’t Pass Me By’ is another fantastic cut from his 1972 ‘Universe’ album.
Neal Creque is another great, underrated musician and composer who is better known for his work as a sideman (with Mongo Santamaria among others) than for his solo work (probably because there’s not a lot of it…). ‘Jasmine’ is from his 1972 ‘Contrast’ album, and features some West Indian flavor mixed in with the funky jazz, sounding like a younger, hipper cousin to Sonny Rollins’ ‘St Thomas’.
Roy Meriwether recorded a fair amount of major label jazz sides, but it’s his private press stuff that is sweated the hardest by the collectors and beat diggers. His version of Eddie Harris’s ‘Mean Greens’ appeared on his Capitol LP ‘Soul Knight’. He takes the tune at a faster, more aggressive pace than Harris did on his OG.
This edition of the Funky16Corners Radio thang closes out with a very groovy track by the father of vocalese, Mr. Eddie Jefferson. I wish I could say I had a copy of the rare 45 of Jefferson’s version of Horace Silver’s ‘Psychedelic Sally’, but I’ll settle for the LP. Not very psychedelic, but quite funky, this sees Jefferson in a very modern bag.
I hope you dig the sounds, and I’ll be back later in the week with something cool.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PPS – Make sure to fall by Iron Leg for a taste of epic art pop.

PPPS Make sure to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

Comments (2)

By Larry, June 17, 2010 12:19 pm

Hamilton Bohannon

Listen/Download – Hamilton Bohannon – South African Man

Greetings all.

The end of the week is here, and it would appear that the summer weather may be returning as well (which is a good thing since the actual summer is only a few days away).
It’s Father’s Day this weekend, so I’m going to spend as much time chilling with my sons (and my lovely wife of course, without whom I would not be a father) and reflecting on how much my life has changed in the last decade (for the better, natch…).
The tune I bring you today is something I picked up a while back and have been exploring – at my leisure – ever since. A couple of other tracks from this album have seen inclusion in Funky16Corners Radio mixes, but I’ve saved the best for last.
If you’re a crate digger, or just a serious fan of funk and soul, you have certainly heard of Hamilton Bohannon.
Bohannon got his start drumming for Stevie Wonder and working at Motown as a percussionist and arranger during the 60s. After he moved on from Motown he signed with the Brunswick Records subsidiary Dakar where he would record several albums through the 70s.
Today’s selection, ‘South African Man’ is a long, funky, mid-tempo jam that didn’t make much of a dent stateside but was a dance floor hit over in the UK in 1975, the first of a half dozen hits he had in that country over the next seven years.
A lot has been said about Bohannon as a pioneer of disco, but his work is a lot closer to the Loft-era sounds discussed here in the past than any of the stereotypical sounds of the disco era.
‘South African Man’ is just about six minutes* of ‘vamp’, with a drum and bass heavy riff, augmented with clavinet and wah-wah guitar. The lyrics of the song – as they are – don’t really say much which is kind of surprising considering a song with this title in the heart of the apartheid era, but ultimately, ‘South African Man’ is less about thought and protest than it is about dance floor grinding in the club. And when I say grinding, I’m not kidding, since ‘South African Man’ lingers dangerously close to a porno-soundtrack vibe, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but yet another reminder that the hypnotic rhythms of the club aren’t just about dancing in the, how do they say, vertical position…
That said, slap this one on, stir yourself up an icy cocktail and enjoy the warm breezes of summer before they become (inevitably) oppressive.
See you on Monday.

Peace

Larry

*Oddly listed as seven minutes long on the LP…

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for an unusual John Lennon cover

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

You can also follow Funky16Corners on Twitter

Comments (15)

By Larry, June 15, 2010 4:26 pm

Dobby Dobson

Listen/Download – Dobby Dobson – Don’t Make Me Over

Greetings all.

Welcome to the middle of the week.
I’d like to get things started by addressing a comment left in a recent post (about the latest episode of the Funky16Corners Radio Show) that I was somehow ‘scraping the bottom of the barrel’.
This pissed me off for a couple of reasons, First and foremost that I’ve tried to maintain Funky16Corners as a positive site, and would hope that those of you that stop by to participate would honor that concept. This doesn’t mean that I expect a constant flow of praise (or any praise at all…). If I get something wrong, or you really don’t dig what I’m doing, you’re more than welcome to say so. I’d just rather you do it in a constructive fashion.
Not knowing the commenter in question, and considering the brevity and brusqueness of his comment, I can’t be sure exactly what it was that he saw as the “bottom of the barrel”, but since the show remarked about was composed entirely of reggae, ska and rock steady, I’ll go ahead and assume that was the nature of the problem.
The Funky16Corners blog has been around for more than five years (and the web site almost five more years before that) and those of you that have been along for a longer section of the ride already know that the sounds posted and written about in this space might at first appear to be very diverse, but like one of those crazy 3-D magic eye pictures, given the proper amount of concentration, a clearer picture will come into focus.
What you will end up seeing in this case is an illustration of my musical sensibility, at least as it applies to the history of black music in the latter part of the 20th century (and occasionally beyond). Over the years Funky16Corners has featured mainstream soul, funk, jazz, Northern Soul, fusion, breaks and beats, island soul (i.e. all parts of the reggae/ska continuum), library music, funky prog, R&B, all styles of music that have captured my interest over more than 30 years of listening and collecting music, and all connected, whether or not the connection is immediately obvious.
I’ll readily admit that my tastes have not always been so broad, and I also understand that many people come to the blog with much more specific interests. I understand that not everyone is going to dig a record like Judy Street’s ‘What’, or the Horace Andy 45 I posted a few weeks ago, but that’s cool since the interwebs are an unspeakably vast place where you will undoubtedly find something else to listen to until our tastes intersect (as they will inevitably do) once again.
Not everyone digs as many kinds of music (or books, or movies, or TV shows) as I do, but as anyone who knows me well will tell you (especially my wife) my brain is kind of crazy like that, and that I have managed to divert part of my ongoing stream of consciousness in one place as well as I have is something of a miracle (which is why I maintain a second blog).
This also has a lot to do with time. I’ll be 48 years old this year, and thanks to growing up in a house where music was treasured I’ve been listening to, collecting and studying music since I was a kid. While there are people out there that might be able to devote almost four decades to a much narrower focus – something that has produced great scholarship on specific genres of music like jazz and the blues – I’ve spent much of that time following my ears wherever they go. There have certainly been periods of extreme concentration, where I got deep into a specific sound to the exclusion of everything else, but since it’s all about the connections, I always come to a fork in the road less traveled and continue on to something new.
While the focus at Funky16Corners has always been fairly clear, there is hardly a style of music that I don’t listen to. Though the largest part of my collecting is reflected in the music written about here and at Iron Leg, someone getting a closer look at the stuff that lines the walls of the Funky16Corners Record Vault and Podcasting Nerve Center might walk away with more questions asked than answered, but that’s OK too.
The tune I bring you today is another Jamaican 45, by an artist that has been featured here once before (as part of Funky16Corners Radio v.74), Dobby Dobson.
I’ve mentioned here in the past that I got into Jamaican music via the UK mod/Two-tone revival of 70s and 80s (though the first ska cover I ever heard was the Hooters version of Don Drummond’s ‘Man In the Street’), and though I’ve come to love later reggae and dub, I always find my way back to ska and rock steady. Though the rhythms were often different, there is no denying that the sounds coming out of Jamaica and the UK in the 60s were anything but another variety of the music we call soul.
Dobby Dobson started recording in the 60s as part of the duo of Chuck and Dobby, and later with groups like the Virtues. He went on to record as a solo artist for a variety of Jamaican labels and producers, eventually working as a producer himself before emigrating to the US.
Dobson’s outstanding cover of the Bacharach/David tune ‘Don’t Make Me Over’ (a 1963 Top 40 hit for Dionne Warwick) is interesting for a couple of reasons. If the organ intro sounds familiar it’s because it’s basically a lift of the melody of the Tornados 1962 worldwide hit ‘Telstar’. How the organist (or producer Rupie Edwards) came to this unusual juxtaposition is a mystery, but ultimately it’s a groove. The song also works really well, lifted from its original off-waltz time arrangement and placed into the chugging rock steady rhythm. Dobson’s vocal may lack the epic scope of Warwick’s original, but that’s cool too since it’s interesting to hear the song delivered from the male perspective.
I haven’t been able to nail down an exact date on this 45 (since it appears to have been released on a few different labels) but it looks to have been recorded in 1969 or 1970.
I hope you dig the tune (and understand where I’m coming from) and I’ll be back later in the week.

Oh, and I assure you, I’m NOWHERE near the bottom of the barrel…

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for a most sophisticated TV theme

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

You can also follow Funky16Corners on Twitter

Comments (4)

By Larry, June 13, 2010 4:00 pm

Mr. Ross Carnegie at work on the Hammond

Listen/Download – Ross Carnegie & Co. – Open Up Your Mind

Greetings all.

I hope the new week finds you all well.
I spent Thursday, Friday and the rest of the godforsaken weekend dealing with yet another in a seemingly endless parade of kidney-related roadblocks. Long story short, one of the newer kidney stones (which weren’t supposed to be happening) became dislodged from its home in the “meat” of the kidney (as my doctor likes to call it) and scored itself an eagle, dropping directly into the ureter, which in accordance with Murphy’s Law, was too narrow to afford it egress. As a result, my doctor (always properly cautious) dragged me back into the surgi-center and reinserted a stent, so that my sole, remaining kidney would not fail.
How’s that for fun?
This all sounds a lot worse than it is. Aside from being a huge inconvenience (with the added risks of anesthesia), if the greatest minds of the urological/nephrological world could figure out why I’m still getting stones, and cause it to cease, there would be no problem at all.
Until then, I’m trapped in this bizarre loop where I go through another surgical procedure, only to discover another speed bump when I emerge on the other side.
That (and the fact that I had to take my sick three-year-old to the doctor) is why there was no Friday post.
But, all is – if not well – at least back to the status quo, so continue on I will.
The tune I bring you today is something of a slightly later vintage by a great producer of Hammond 45s, Mr. Ross Carnegie.
I first heard/heard of Mr. Carnegie via the legendary ‘Vital Organs’ comp which featured his song ‘Cool Dad’, as well as his visage on the cover.
Some years later, deep into my own Hammond obsession I scored a copy of ‘The Kid’ (as featured in Funky16Corners Radio v.48), also very groovy.
Anyhoo, the tune I bring you today falls somewhat later in Mr. Carnegie’s limited discography, bears no date but the sound in the grooves suggests to me a recording sometime in the early-to-mid 70s.
Ross Carnegie emigrated to New York from Canada as a young man to work as a jazz pianist. He ended up working not only on piano but mastering the Hammond organ as well, eventually leading his own band which featured a young Alphonse Mouzon on drums in the late 60s.
Later on, Carnegie became known (at least locally) as the pianist in the White Plains, NY Nordstroms department store.
Today’s selection, ‘Open Up Your Mind’, credited to Ross Carnegie and Co. , is a funky, semi-blaxplo experience with all manner of keyboards – analog and synthesized – horns, police whistles and chants (no doubt courtesy of the ‘& Co.’ of the title) of ‘Open up your mind’.
While there are elements that would later come to signify disco, this is most decidedly a non-disco affair (though Carnegie would later release the tune ‘F-Minor Disco’ on his El-Con label, using the same exact catalog number as ‘Open Up Your Mind’).
I hope you dig the tune, and, assuming I’m not hit by a bus or falling space junk, I’ll be back mid-week.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for a most sophisticated TV theme

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

You can also follow Funky16Corners on Twitter

Comments (3)

By Larry, June 12, 2010 10:43 am

Greetings all.

Just a note to let you know that last night’s edition of the Funky16Corners Radio Show has been posted as a downloadable MP3 file and is available in the Radio Show Archive. It’s an island soul special, with ska, rock steady and reggae, including many groovy soul covers.

Stop in and check it out.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for some psyche pop

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

You can also follow Funky16Corners on Twitter

Comments (0)

By Larry, June 10, 2010 4:11 pm

Greetings all.

Thanks to some unexpected and decidedly unwelcome crap that just crowbarred itself into my life, I spent the time I’d usually be writing, digimatizing et al, behind the wheel of the Funky16Cornersmobile. As a result the regularly scheduled Friday posts – here and over at Iron Leg – will be preempted.
Fortunately, I have to turn in my Viva Radio shows a week in advance, so the Funky16Corners Radio Show will go off this Friday night at 9PM EST as scheduled.
It’s a good one this week – if I say so myself – with a collection of reggae soul that I think you’ll dig.
Make sure you tune in via the interwebs, and if you can’t, either pick up the stream at Viva afterward, or wait until Saturday and I’ll have the episode archived here for download.
I should be back on Monday.
Until then….

Peace

Larry

PS If you haven’t done so already,now might be a good time to catch up with the F16C Soul Club and archived F16C Radio Show mixes…

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for some psyche pop

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

You can also follow Funky16Corners on Twitter

Comments (13)

By Larry, June 8, 2010 3:33 pm

Miss Gloria Jones

Listen/Download – Gloria Jones – Tainted Love

Listen/Download – Judy Street – What

Greetings all.

The middle of the week is here, so what better time for a couple of very tasty bits of Northern Soul (with a very interesting backstory)?
As someone who experienced the 80s firsthand, I have to admit that I don’t find nostalgia aimed in that direction all that entertaining, especially since so many of the nostalgic aren’t old enough to have weathered it the first time.
You see, alongside MTV, crazy haircuts and quirky new wave music, there was of course the reality of the Reagan era, during which the American right kicked open the door and let in the wide variety of religious and political pests that 30 years down the line have completely infested this country.
So, you’ll understand if I’m not in my garage slapping together a time machine so that I can take the ride all over again.
This is not to say that the music was all bad, since a lot of it was very good. The best of new wave was in essence high quality reworking of the 60s pop palette.
One of the biggest new wave hits, that has become a major musical symbol of the era, is Soft Cell’s 1981 hit ‘Tainted Love’.
I’ll even cop to digging it the first time around, years before I had any idea that it was a synthesized reworking of a Northern Soul anthem.
In fact, a few years on, during the whole mod/garage explosion of the mid-80s, when I was initially clued in to the fact that the song had originally been recorded by a singer named Gloria Jones, I was still a decade away from even the tiniest inkling about the existence of the Northern Soul movement.
As a result, I didn’t consider Soft Cell’s covering of ‘Tainted Love’ to have any more subtext that Phil Collins’ execrable mangling of the Supremes’ ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’.
Flash forward twenty-five odd years and yours truly is neck deep in the sounds of the Northern movement, with all manner of storming Wigan faves spilling out of my record boxes. I’m rambling around YouTube looking for videos of Northern Soul dancers (and of you haven’t seen them, you simply must on account of it’s a wild bag that they were/are in) and I happen upon a short documentary that featured lots of the acrobatic terpsichorian delights.
About six minutes into the video a song came on the soundtrack that knocked me on my ass with its propulsive tempo and pop hooks. A little bit of the Googling, and I discover that the record in question was called ‘What’ by a singer named Judy Street.
A little more exploration on the interwebs and I found myself a copy of same, since I wanted to give it a good home and hear it blasting over some of those big club speakers we all love so much.
Once I had my hands on the 45 (a 1977 era reissue, but more on that in a minute) I started digging into my reference books, and back on the web and I discovered something very interesting about ‘What’, that were I a bigger Soft Cell fan, or a resident of the UK, I might have already been aware of, that being that the group had their second UK hit with this very song, which, not at all coincidentally was also a huge Northern Soul anthem.
‘Hmmmmm…’ says I, realizing that I was going to have to dig a little bit further.
Two hits in a row by one of the great synth-pop acts of the 80s, both yanked from the Northern Soul canon was indeed a curious thing.
As it turns out, aside from the odd juxtaposition of styles, it wasn’t that curious at all.
But first, a little musical history.
Gloria Jones was still a teenager when she was discovered by songwriter/producer Ed Cobb (who also penned ‘Every Little Bit Hurts’ for Brenda Holloway) in 1964. The following year she recorded Cobb’s ‘Tainted Love’ for the Champion label.
Jones’ version of the song was – when I finally heard it – a real shocker, every bit as propulsive and soulful as the Soft Cell cover was wan, dissipated and blasé. It was immediately obvious how it had become a very popular spin on the dance floors in the North of England.
Jones went on to record a stack of 45s for Uptown and Minit in the 60s, eventually going on a European tour with the cast of ‘Hair’, where she met none other that former ace face converted into post-psychedelic mushroom gobbler Marc Bolan of T-Rex. She and Bolan fell in love and had a son, performing together until his untimely death in 1977, after which Jones returned to the US and recorded both as a solo and as a backing vocalist.
Jones was herself a songwriter, composing a number of songs for Motown artists, co-writing ‘If I Were Your Woman’ for Gladys Knight and the Pips.
There isn’t much information out there about Judy Street. Her original version of ‘What’ was recorded for HB Barnum’s LA-based Strider label in 1966 (I’ve never seen a picture of the original label), and promptly dropped off the face of the earth. Interestingly enough there was another (inferior) recording of ‘What’ by Melinda Marx (daughter of Groucho, seriously) on VeeJay. Come 1977, and Judy Street’s recording is a popular Northern Soul spin, so much so that John Anderson reissued it on his Grapevine label, where it went on to become the label’s biggest selling 45.
It was during this time period that a young lad named Marc Almond was (according to famed DJ Russ Winstanely) a habitue of the storied Wigan Casino, where he first heard, requested and danced to the records you see before you this fine day.
A few years later, he had the good creative sense to cut a small but significant segment of one scene and paste it on top of another, creating two pop hits (one huge, one not so much). Chances are while any number of soulies were poleaxed when they heard Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love’ and ‘What’ on their radios (or saw them on Top of the Pops), the vast majority of the pop audience had little or no inkling of where these songs had come from, or that so many of their countrymen and women had been dancing to the original versions of these songs for years.
I don’t know about you, but I find this kind of cross-pollination to be very interesting, and the kind of thing that the post-modern, post-internet, post-everything else culture has all but erased. Would such a scenario be possible today, where McLuhan’s Global Village has rendered international communication and sharing of obscure facts but a mouse-click away? I doubt it.
Either way, I hope you dig the tunes and I’ll see you all on Friday.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for some psyche pop

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

You can also follow Funky16Corners on Twitter