Category: Soul Jazz

Funky16Corners 2019 Pledge Drive!

By , June 16, 2019 10:45 am

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Funky16Corners Presents: Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache
A Solid Hour of Soul For Dancers 

Isley Brothers – Got To Have You Back (Tamla)|
Bandwagon – Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache (Epic)
Teri Nelson Group – Love Is Getting Better (Kama Sutra)
Yvonne Fair – Just As Sure As You Play (You Will Pay) (Smash)
Little Richard – Whole Lotta Shaking Going On (Veejay)
Billy Graham and the Escalators – Ooh Poo Pah Doo (Atlantic)
Anna King- If You Don’t Think (Smash)
Jimmy Jones – Don’t You Just Know It (Parkway)
Bobby Whitlock – And I Love You (HIP)
Big Dee Irwin – Discotheque (Roulette)
Aldora Britton – Do It With Soul (Columbia)
Betty Everett – I Can’t Hear You No More (Veejay)
Monti Rock III – For Days and Days (Mercury)
Johnny Moore – A Dollar Ninety Eight (Wand)
Maxine Brown – Anything You Do Is Alright (Wand)
Jun Mayuzumi – Black Room (Capitol JP)
Spyder Turner – Dream Lover (MGM)
Sweet Inspirations – Just Walk In My Shoes (Atco)
Bobby Lester – Hang Up Your Hang Ups (Columbia)
Johnny Daye – I Need You (Stax)
Toni Lamarr  – If I Didn’t Love You (Buddah)
Capitols – We Got a Thing That’s In the Groove (Karen)
Delcords – Just a Little Misunderstanding (UP)
Joe E Young and the Toniks – Get That Feeling (Toast)
Alvin Cash and the Crawlers – Do It One More Time (the Twine) (Mar V Lus)

Listen/Download -Funky16Corners: Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache – 114MB Mixed MP3

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Funky16Corners Presents: Loose and Groovy
An Hour of Instrumental Wonderfullness Packed With Breaks!

Dizzy Gillespie – Stomped and Wasted (GWP)
Sonny Cox – Chocolate Candy (Bell)
Cal Tjader – The Tra La La Song (Skye)
George Shearing, the Quintet and the Amigos – Aquarius (MPS/BASF)
Gordon Staples and the String Thing – Get Down (Tamla)
Bob Dorough – A Taste of Honey (MMO)
Harry J All Stars – Spyrone (Harry J)
Impact of Brass – So Far So Good (Rare Earth)
Al Serafini his Electronic Sax and Orchestra – Lil Rosey (Audio Fidelity)
Willie Bobo – Grazing In the Grass (Verve)
Odell Brown and the Organizers – Day Tripper (Cadet)
Terumasa Hino Quintet – Snake Hip (Capitol JP)
Lou Garno Quintet – Chicken In the Basket (Giovannia)
Johnny Frigo Quartet – Dance of Love (Orion)
Richard Fudoli – Gwee (Date)
Soulful Strings – Zambezi (Cadet)
The Touch – Pick and Shovel (LeCasVer)
Soul Searchers – Think (Sussex)

Listen/Download -Funky16Corners: Loose and Groovy – 87MB Mixed MP3

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Greetings all.

The Funky16Corners 2019 Allnighter/Pledge Drive is here!

Things are looking (much) different this year.

This is the 10th year of doing a pledge drive here at Funky16Corners, and the landscape, and (forgive the use of the word) ‘mission’ of Funky16Corners has evolved fairly drastically since the blog opened it’s doors nearly 15 years ago (not counting the webzine years).

The world of music blogging is not what it once was. The way people access music and information on the web is a whole different thing than it was when I started. Traffic is a small fraction of what it once was.

The main thrust of what I do here at Funky16Corners has also changed significantly.

Starting with single-song blog posts in the early days, moving on to DJ mixes, then the beginning of the Funky16Corners Radio Show (which is nearing the 500 episode mark!), then the various and sundry guest mixes, in and outside of the pledge drive context.

I have to begin by sending out my thanks to all of the amazing DJs that have been generous with their time and their records over the years, all of whom I am proud to have featured at Funky16Corners.

The last few years have seen my move into live radio broadcasts, with Funky16Corners Radio Show and Testify!, my show for WFMU’s Give the Drummer Radio appearing weekly, and the Iron Leg Radio Show (nearing 100 episodes) monthly.

As a result of the workload associated with this change, the frequency of blog posts has decreased to once a week.

This year I decided that I needed to take a break from the Allnighter/Summer of Soul format, if only to ease off of the workload associated with putting it all together (and maybe spend a little more time with the fam while they’re home for the summer).

In it’s place I have created two brand new, hour-long mixes.

The first, Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache is an hour of dancefloor soul, with a grip of new and recent arrivals in the Funky16Corners crates.

The second. Loose and Groovy is a collection of instrumentals, many of them funky, packed with breaks and loopable grooves for days.

The focus on using Patreon to raise money to pay the bills around here (paying for server space/bandwidth and broadcast fees) has proven to make a lot of sense, moreso than the previously used Paypal model.

If you dig any of the stuff I do here, any of the radio shows, or the mix archives, or even if you’re one of the few that still read the blog posts, please consider signing up for Patreon and making a small, recurring, monthly donation of a few dollars.

You can click on the link below.

It’s pretty simple, very safe and a great way to keep Funky16Corners up and running for another year.

So thanks in advance, and enjoy the tunes!

Keep the Faith

Larry

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The pledging will continue this year with Patreon (click here or on the logo below to go to the Funky16Corners page) , where you will be able to spread your contributions out over the entire year, which will help cover the ongoing server/broadcast/hardware expenses. This year has seen the move to 100 percent live broadcasting (Mixlr.com/Funky16corners)  and continued hardware and software upgrades at Funky16Corners central, to keep the radio/podcasting experience as seamless and groovy as possible. So please dig deep so we can continue to do the same, and if you’re already a Patreon donor, please accept my heartfelt thanks!

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I am also including a Paypal donation button (below) if you’d rather donate in a lump sum instead of the rolling donation in Patreon.





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So, download and dig the mixes, keep digging the radio shows!

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

Keep the faith

Larry

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PS Head over to Iron Leg when you have a minute!. <

Charles Earland – (You Caught Me) Smiling

By , June 9, 2019 9:09 am

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Charles Earland

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Listen/Download – Charles Earland – (You Caught Me) Smiling MP3

Greetings all.

I come to you today with an exceptionally tasty bit of Hammond goodness, courtesy of one of my all time faves, the mighty Charles Earland. It is made all the more tasty by its roots as a Sly and the Family Stone cover.

Earland was the preeminent second-wave (post Jimmy Smith) Pennsylvania Hammond giants, getting his start in the early 60s and then moving on to a solid career all the way through the 90s until his passing in 1999. His early, local Philly 45s are classics, as are all the albums he made for the soul jazz powerhouse Prestige Records.

Today’s selection is the opening track on his 1972 LP ‘Live at the Lighthouse’.

Recorded at the storied jazz club in Hermosa Beach, CA, it’s a fantastic set with Earland leading a tight band.

The song, originally titled ‘You Caught Me Smilin’ (truncated to ‘Smiling’ here) originated on Sly and the Family Stone’s 1971 LP ‘There’s a Riot Goin’ On’. The original, vocal version of the song has a kind of dreamy/stoned vibe to it. Earland’s cover lights a bit of a fire under it, with a big Hammond sound that sometimes verges on (but never crossed into) distortion.

The album as a whole is quite good, but this track is by far my fave.

I hope you dig it, 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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If you dig what we do here or over at Funky16Corners, please consider clicking on the Patreon link and throwing something into the yearly operating budget! Do it and we’ll send you some groovy Funky16Corners Radio Network (and related) stickers!

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Little Richie Varola – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf

By , April 14, 2019 9:13 am

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Little Richie Varola

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Listen/Download – Little Richie Varola – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf MP3

Greetings all.

Today’s feature is one of my all time favorite, obscure Hammond organ burners.

Little Richie Varola did almost all of his recorded work – save the album you see above – as the organist for Louis Prima.

Born in central Pennsylvania (what was in the water in PA that produced so many Hammond players?), Varola joined up with Prima in the 1960s after a starting up playing in the lounges of Atlantic City and Las Vegas.

He was a keyboard prodigy, capable of lightning-fast speed and showmanship.

He recorded his sole LP as a solo artist in 1968 for the Verve label, backed by Sam Butera and the Witnesses.

The album was a combination of popular organ features like ‘Walk On the Wild Side’ and today’s selection ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’, standards and contemporary pop like Tom Jones’s ‘It’s Not Unusual’.

‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’ was first recorded by Jimmy Smith in 1964 and quickly became something of a Hammond standard, being recorded by James Brown, Graham Bond, the Dynamics, The Pieces of Eight and even the Buckinghams.

Varola’s version of ‘Who’s Afraid…’ starts out with a quote from the James Bond theme, storming into a 100MPH version of the song with unbelievable keyboard work by Varola.

His speed and precision on the Hammond is remarkable and it’s not hard to see why Butera recruited him for Prima’s band.

Varola played on a couple of Louis Prima albums before leaving the group in 1972.

He was apparently working toward a jazz-rock fusion sound when he was killed in a car accident in 1974 at the age of 30.

I can only imagine what he might have been capable of musically had he lived.

As far as I can tell his album has never been reissued, so if you dig the sound you’ll have to find yourself an original copy.

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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If you dig what we do here or over at Funky16Corners, please consider clicking on the Patreon link and throwing something into the yearly operating budget! Do it and we’ll send you some groovy Funky16Corners Radio Network (and related) stickers!

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Chip and Dave – Seventh Round

By , April 7, 2019 2:46 pm

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Listen/Download – Chip and Dave – Seventh Round MP3

Greetings all.

The track I bring you today is proof yet again that the Pacific Northwest scene of the 1960s – filled with rock bands with deep R&B roots –  is a gift that keeps on giving.

I have absolutely no recollection of how I first encountered Chip and Dave’s ‘Seventh Round’ (though I suspect it was an Ebay search for ‘organ 45s’) but I was very happy indeed when I slipped it under the needle.

Chip and Dave were the drum and piano/organ duo of Chip Rawson and Dave Immer, who – with the addition of various and sundry vocalists and instrumentalists – were an Oregon-based outfit that made two 45s in 1965 and 1966.

‘Seventh Round’ appeared on their first record, which came out on Sure Star in 1965 and was picked up by Jerden the following year.

The tune is a raw, fast moving, Ray Charles-influenced instrumental opening with drums (they even helpfully included the time signature on the label!) and piano, soon joined by the organ.

It’s the kind of record you can imagine a roomful of kids tearing it up to back in the day.

There’s almost no info out there about Chip and Dave, but the fact that their 45 was picked up by Jerden suggests to me that it must have had a certain amount of regional popularity. Their second 45 (for Decca) charted briefly in Washington (state) early in 1967.

Immer appears to have had at least one solo 45, on the PNW label Burdette in the early 70s.

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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If you dig what we do here or over at Funky16Corners, please consider clicking on the Patreon link and throwing something into the yearly operating budget! Do it and we’ll send you some groovy Funky16Corners Radio Network (and related) stickers!

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Georges Raudi – Stercok

By , December 9, 2018 11:58 am

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The Picture Sleeve

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Listen/Download – Georges Raudi – Stercok MP3

Greetings all.

The track I bring you today is one of those things that I first encountered back in the old Soulstrut days, and managed to pick up a few years later.

The track ‘Stercok’ originated on the soundtrack to a 1970s French TV series about the cat burglar Arsene Lupin (about whom other films had been made, before and after this show).

The ‘soundtrack’ as it was, was restricted to two sides of a 45. One side a terrible Jacques Dutronc song, and the other, this very groovy, funky Hammond instrumental.

Though the cut is credited to Georges Raudi and His Orchestra, it seems the artists name is correctly spelled ‘Rodi’.

Georges Rodi was a keyboardist and composer with a ton of credits as a sideman and several albums under his own name.

‘Stercok’ (I have no idea what the title refers to) starts out with a punchy drum roll, followed by thumping bass, distorted rhythm guitar and lots of atmospheric, Hawkshaw-esque organ work. There are also piano solos (probably Rodi, as well).

The feel is very much a perfect late 60s/early 70s discotheque-au-go-go vibe, and I can definitely picture it being used as the background to a swinging scene.

Interestingly, for a groovy, French-only 45 release, ‘Stercok’ isn’t terribly expensive or hard to track down, so go get yourself a copy.

I hope you dig it, 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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If you dig what we do here or over at Funky16Corners, please consider clicking on the Patreon link and throwing something into the yearly operating budget! Do it and we’ll send you some groovy Funky16Corners Radio Network (and related) stickers!

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Walter Wanderley – Kee-Ka-Roo

By , February 18, 2018 12:00 pm

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Walter Wanderley

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Listen/Download – Walter Wanderley – Kee-Ka-Roo MP3

Greetings all.

Welcome back to the Funky16Corners thing for another week of musical wonderfulness.

The track I bring you today is a long (loooong) time fave, introduced (and initially gifted) to me by my buddy Haim.

Haim used to turn me on to all kinds of cool music, and one day he played Walter Wanderley’s ‘Kee-Ka-Roo’ for me and just about blew my mind.

You all know that I’m a certified Hammond nut, and while I knew of Wanderley (already owning a couple of his boss nova LPs) I had no idea he had anything like this in his arsenal.

Wanderley was a Brazilian organist who had a significant recording/playing career in his native country before hitting the charts in 1967 with ‘Summer Samba’, which became one of the best known/most popular ‘easy’ instrumentals of the 1960s (which would gain ever more reknown via the vocal version he recorded with Astrud Gilberto under the title ‘So Nice’).

‘Kee-Ka-Roo’ originated on his 1967 album of the same name.

Where ‘Summer Samba’ was all smooth bossa jazz, ‘Kee-Ka-Roo’ is a swinging slice of Brazil-au-go-go, mixing sharp, hard-hitting drums with cuica, and guitar.

It sounds like it was custom made for a discotheque scene in a period film.

The band on ‘Kee-Ka-Roo’ is amix of Brazilian and American players (including Bobby Rosengarden who laid down some similarly cool drums on a number of Enoch Light-related things).

It makes me wish that Wanderley had done some more music in this vein.

I dig it a lot and I hope you do too.

Until next time,

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

Keep the faith

Larry

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If you dig what we do here or over at Funky16Corners, please consider clicking on the Patreon link and throwing something into the yearly operating budget! Do it and we’ll send you some groovy Funky16Corners Radio Network (and related) stickers!

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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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Harold Johnson – Greensleeves

By , December 24, 2017 1:34 pm

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Harold Johnson

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Listen/Download – Harold Johnson – Greensleeves MP3

Greetings all.

I hope that the new week and the holiday season finds you all well.

The tune I bring you today is a Christmas favorite that got its start as decidedly secular English folk ballad in the 1500s, eventually being appropriated as the Christmas song ‘What Child Is This’ in 1865.

It has been recorded countless times in a variety of styles by a long list of performers.

Today’s selection, by jazz pianist Harold Johnson appeared on his 1970 LP ‘Wide Open’.

‘Wide Open’ is a fantastic example of alternately funky/straight soul jazz piano laying down a selection of originals and contemporary covers.

Johnson’s version of ‘Greensleeves’ gets off to a hot start with congas and bass, before being joined by a hard-hitting drummer, and then Johnson himself.

It is an aggressive arrangement of a song that is usually delivered in a much more languid style, and it works very well indeed.

Johnson and his group had recorded two earlier albums, one on the small LA H.M.E. label and the second (like this one) for Revue.

Oddly, after 1970 Johnson worked mostly as a sideman on a string of LPs by Eddie Kendricks, Willie Hutch and others and as a composer and arranger.

I hope you dig the tune, and that you all have a happy holiday.

See you next week

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

Keep the faith

Larry

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If you dig what we do here or over at Funky16Corners, please consider clicking on the Patreon link and throwing something into the yearly operating budget! Do it and we’ll send you some groovy Funky16Corners Radio Network (and related) stickers!

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Jay Jackson & The Heads of Our Time – Listen Here

By , March 23, 2017 11:59 am

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The Majestics (left) and their singers, Shawne and Jay Jackson (right)

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Listen/Download – Jay Jackson and the Heads of Our Time – Listen Here MP3

Greetings all.

The end of the week is finally here and so I will remind you once again to dig the Funky16Corners Radio Show, which drops each and every Friday with the best of soul, funk, jazz and rare groove, all on original vinyl. You can subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, listen on your mobile device via the Stitcher and TuneIn apps, dig it on Mixcloud, or grab yourself an MP3 right here at Funky16Corners.com

The record I bring you today was something of a mystery, until Google intervened.

The 45 by Jay Jackson and the Heads of Our Time was released on Mr G records in 1969. One side was a horn-rock cop of the Joe Cocker arrangement of the Beatles ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’.

The side I bring you today is a much cooler instrumental, a cover of Eddie Harris’ soul jazz standard ‘Listen Here’.

Harris recorded the original version of the song in 1966 on his ‘Mean Greens’ LP (a very groovy take with Harris putting down his sax and playing organ and electric piano), and it was redone a bunch of times by folks like Brian Auger, Young-Holt, Valorie Keys (in a vocal), Ramsey Lewis, Freddie McCoy, and the mighty Soulful Strings.

The group hailed from Canada, and released a rare LP on Audio Fidelity, from which both of the cuts on this 45 were lifted.

Apparently most of the group, Jay Jackson (vocals), Russ Strathdee (sax), Ric Robertson (keyboards), Arnie Chycoski (horns), Bill Cudmore (sax), Orly Guerrieri (trombone), Brian Lucrow (trumpet), Jack Posluns (drums) and Chuck Vickery (bass) had played in the Toronto band the Majestics ( where Jay’s sister Shawne, who went on to have Canadian hits on her own was the co-lead singer), and Jay Jackson and the Heads of Our Time was an attempt to regroup and restage the band as a more timely jazz rock/psych outfit.

Their producer Tony Di Maria worked with a lot of Canadian and Upstate NY acts, including crossing paths with the Shannon/Cisco axis including the Rockin’ Rebels and Kathy Lynn and the Playboys (aka the LaSalles).

The group’s version of ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ is a pretty solid 1969 reapproximation of the Joe Cocker hit, but their version of ‘Listen Here’ is different and very groovy indeed.

Taken at a slightly slower pace, with a tasty Latin edge, and some groovy, jazzy lead guitar, they really dig deep into the heart of Harris’ classic. The tastefully applied horn section adds a nice punch to things as well.

The arrangement is really nice, and the piano work by Ric Robertson is excellent.

I haven’t heard the LP (which is apparently pretty far out, as well as fairly rare) but I’ll keep an eye out for it.

I hope you dig the tune, 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.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Mose Allison 1927 – 2016

By , November 20, 2016 10:38 am

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Mose Allison, chilling in his far out chair, in the woods…

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Listen/Download – Mose Allison – The Seventh Son

Listen/Download Mose Allison – Young Man (Blues)

Listen/Download Mose Allison – I’m Not Talking

Listen/Download – Mose Allison – Baby Please Don’t Go

Listen/Download – Mose Allison – I Love the Life I Live 

Listen/Download – Mose Allison – Your Mind Is On Vacation

 

Greetings all

 

This is a repost/augmentation of a post I wrote back in 2013. Last week was an especially heavy one for music lovers, with the loss of Leonard Cohen, Leon Russell, Billy Miller of Norton Records and lastly (but never leastly) the mighty Mose Allison.

Mose was 89 years old and had only recently given up playing live.

He was one of my all time favorites, a foundational artist in my sensibility and an absolute master.

I’m adding a couple of other Mose classics to the links below.

If you know, dig. If you do not get familiar.

I’ll see you on Wednesday – L

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Have you heard about Mose?

Allison, that is…aka the Sage of Tippo…aka the smoothest badass to ever prop himself up at a piano and lay it down.

If you – like me – has made a study of the roots of rock, especially the British Invasion, or just surveyed the history of coolness, then you have certainly crossed paths with the mighty Mose.

Mose Allison has the kind of voice/manner that immediately brings to mind the black-and-white, beatnik cool of the 1950s. Jack Kerouac’s America, in which one was free to roam the highways and back roads of this great country, partaking in, and becoming part of the great tableaux, digging and being dug in equal measures.

Mose Allison – born and raised in Mississippi – sat himself down at the piano and made his first record in 1957, and hasn’t stopped being one of the coolest of cats since then.

I don’t think I heard Mose until I was all but drowning in the British beat/R&B thing, up to and including the sounds of Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, which is important because if Mose Allison had never recorded a note, old Clive Powell would likely disappear from the face of the earth.

The first time I heard Mose, an overloaded socket in theback of my brain threw sparks and I realized how much Georgie idolized and emulated him, as well as all of the Brits who looked to him as a songwriter and interpreter of songs.

It was Mose that wrote ‘Parchman Farm’ (John Mayall and everyone else with a blues fetish), ‘Young Man Blues’ (the Who) and ‘I’m Not Talking’ (the Yardbirds) among many others, and laid down what I would consider to be the definitive interpretation of Willie Dixon’s ‘Seventh Son’.

I’m including the last three tunes here today, so that you might head out and dig for your own stack of Mose Allison records, that you can whip out and impress the ladies at your next soiree.

Both ‘Young Man Blues’ and ‘The Seventh Son’ hail from Allison’s landmark 1963 ‘Mose Allison Sings’ LP for Prestige.

‘Young Man Blues’ – clocking in at less than a minute and a half – is a laid back meditation, barely a whisper compared to the angry box of TNT that the Who detonated on ‘Live at Leeds’.

Mose’s take on ‘The Seventh Son’ is a masterpiece of relaxed, swinging Zen, every note perfectly placed, a wonder. He takes the Mississippi hoodoo boasts of the OG and delivers them in a matter-of-fact way that puts the text in boldface.

‘I’m Not Talking’, from 1964’s ‘The Word From Mose’ on Atlantic, is once again, the placid, almost dehumidified-it’s-so-dry foundation on which the mighty Yardbirds built a souped-up, nitro-fueled funny car with which they blew the doors off of the ‘For Your Love’ album in 1965.

The grooviest thing of all is that for all of the influence he pushed out, Mose himself was always more like a shadow, hanging back, just being, than anyone who took their marching orders from his records. He spent the last 50-plus years making music of high quality, crossing the border back and forth between the blues and jazz, always being more himself than anything else and that was all he ever needed to be.

If you’re not hip to Mose, get there.

That is all.

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).

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PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Funky16Corners: You Gotta Have Soul

By , October 25, 2016 9:58 am

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Funky16Corners: You Gotta Have Soul!
An Hour of Soul and Funk Instrumentals

Booker T and the MGs – One Mint Julep (Stax)
Brothers and Sisters – Shake a Lady (Capitol)
Travis Wammack – Karate Time (Atlantic)
Watts 103rd St Rhythm Band – Brown Sugar (WB)
Chip and Dave – 7th Round (Sure Star)
Daddy Kae Trio – Shug!!! (Fairmount)
Lloyd Price Orchestra – I Heard It Through the Grapevine (Turntable)
E Rodney Jones – R&B Time Pt2 (Tuff)
Marketts – Richie’s Theme (WB)
Buena Vistas – Here Comes the Judge (Marquee)
Ricky Allen – Skate Boogaloo (Bright Star)
Sam Rhodes – Shake Your Soul Honey (Inst) (Capitol)
Alvin Cash and the Registers – No Deposit No Return (Mar V Lus)
Soul Machine – Twitchie Feet (Pzazz)
Leon and the Burners – Crack Up (Josie)
Johnny Watson – Coke (Okeh)
Little Sonny – Latin Soul (Revilot)
Gravities (Johnny Newton’s Band) – Do the Whip (Inst) (Mercury)
Sandy Nelson – I Don’t Need No Doctor (Imperial)
El Dorados – New Breed (Port)
The Peddlers – Steel Mill (CBS UK)
EJ’s Ltd – Black Bull (Back Beat)
Noble Watts – F.L.A. (Brunswick)
Les Demerle – The Raven (UA)
Soul Continentals – Bowlegs (Sound Stage 7)

Listen/Download – Funky16Corners Presents – You Gotta Have Soul 112MB/256K Mixed MP3

Greetings all.

The mix you see before you today is something I whipped up a while back for the great This Is Tomorrow blog.

It features a solid of of soul and funk instrumentals, guaranteed to make you get outcha seat and onto the floor (whether your dancing, or just on the floor is up to you).

There are a grip of recent acquisitions, including many tunes that have not appeared on the blog or the radio show before.

As always I hope that you dig it, and I’ll be back with some more stuff 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.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Johnny Gibson Trio – Beachcomber

By , October 4, 2016 10:04 am

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Johnny Gibson

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Listen/Download – Johnny Gibson Trio – Beachcomber MP3

Greetings all.

I have a very cool one today, that goes way, way back in my crates, yet took me years to kind of figure out.

I picked up ‘Beachcomber’ by the Johnny Gibson Trio years ago in one of periodic Hammond 45 sweeps. As soon as I got it, and slipped it under the needle I discovered that it had been mis-identified (as an organ instro) by the seller. I was bummed, but it wasn’t expensive enough to make an issue of it (and buyer beware and all that) so into storage it went, forgotten for years.

Flash forward a few after that and I find myself in possession of a 1967 45 by the Semi-Colons? (question mark part of the name, stick with me) performing a song of the same name.

I really dug it, and discovered in short order that the Semi-Colons? Were actually Question Mark and the Mysterians performing under an alias.

What was also cool was that the song ‘Beachcomber’ was originally written and recorded by none other than Bobby Darin in 1960.

It was only much later (after I had already written by the Semi-Colons? 45 over at Iron Leg) that I dug the Johnny Gibson Trio 45 out of a box and realized that it was a cover of the very same song.

I flipped it back onto the turntable, and it kind of blew my mind.

I have often described the experience of a kind of seasoning/maturing of the ear, in which experience allows you to understand/appreciate a piece of music much more deeply because of all that you have heard/learned between the first time you heard it and the present.

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Johnny Gibson Trio in a Billboard listing, 1964

When I finally gave the Johnny Gibson version of ‘Beachcomber’ a listen I wasn’t sitting there with visions of Hammond organs wailing in my imagination. My ears were wide open, and as soon as I heard that slightly distorted electric piano, and the relaxed, yet still deep in the groove tempo, all was well with the world.

Then (yes, it gets better) when I started to dig into the history of the Johnny Gibson Trio, another chapter in the small but interesting story was revealed.

Pianist Johnny Gibson, his brother Dwight (on drums) and bassist Ron Haste (an integrated trio, the Gibsons were African American and Haste was white) were a Toledo, Ohio group that recorded ‘Beachcomber’ for the local Twirl label in 1964, which became a local hit and was picked up for national distribution by the Laurie label. The group went on to record a few more singles for the Big Top label before breaking up.

‘Beachcomber’ was a Top 20 hit in Ohio and Detroit, which is where the Mysterians (natives of Saginaw, MI) first heard it and added it to their repertoire.

The Johnny Gibson Trio version of ‘Beachcomber’ has built up a following over the years, eventually becoming a favorite on the dance floors in the UK.

Though the Trio broke up, Gibson continued to work as a musician, eventually relocating to Europe.

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.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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