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By Larry, September 3, 2015 11:39 am

Crossing the Pond – An Hour of Transatlantic Organ Heavies!
Dave Russell with the Wright Sounds – Harlem Shuffle Pt2 (Jemal)
New London Rhythm and Blues Band – Soul Mate (Vocalion)
Casey and the Pressure Group – Powerhouse (Wizdom)
Andre Brasseur – Pow Pow (MFP)
Bob Kuban and the In Men – Batman (Musicland USA)
Dave Baby Cortez – Popping Popcorn (Okeh)
Four Instants – Watermelon Man (Society)
The Pop Ups – Lurking (HBR)
George Semper – Get Out Of My Life Woman (Imperial)
Cocktail Cabinet – Breathalyser (Page One)
Merritt Hemmingson – The Letter (RCA)
Trudy Pitts – Bucket of Soul (Prestige)
Troy Thompson Band – 1-2-3 (Dee Dee)
Donald Seward – Studio B Funk (Revolution)
Inez and Charlie Foxx’s Swinging Mockin Band – Shimmy (Dynamo)
Graham Bond Organisation – Wade In the Water (Ascot)
Wynder K Frog – Dancing Frog (UA)
Shotgun Express – Curtains (Columbia UK)
Brother Jack McDuff – But It’s Alright (Atlantic)
Wildare Express- Why Am I Treated So Bad (Brunswick)
Mohawks – Ride Your Pony (Pama)
Ross Carnegie – Cool Dad (El-Con)
James Brown – Shhhhhhhh (For a Little While ) (King)

Listen/Download – Crossing the Pond: An Hour of Transatlantic Hammond Heavies! MP3

Greetings all.

The end of the week is upon us, which mean that it’s Funky16Corners Radio Show time! Join me this and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio for the best in funk, soul, jazz and rare groove – all on original vinyl! If you can’t be there at airtime you can always subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, listen on your mobile device via the TuneIn app, or grab yourself an MP3 here at the blog.

Frequent fliers here at Funky16Corners know that I have a Hammond organ jones, and it has been quite a while since it has evidenced itself – in mix form, anyway – here on the blog.

So, I sat down, dug through the crates and whipped together a delicious meringue of Hammond (and other) organ sides for your delectation entitled ‘Crossing the Pond: An Hour of Transatlantic Hammond Heavies!“.

The catch -as they say – is that the music in question is split right down the middle, with about half of it originating overseas. Most of the foreign stuff is from the UK, but you also get groovers from Holland, Sweden, Belgium and right over our Northern border in Canada.

There are a couple of old faves, some folks that have appeared here at the blog in single posts,and a couple of very cool records/performers that have never appeared here in any form.

You get an hour of the good stuff to keep your ears (and hopefully your feet) busy, so dig in and I’ll see you all on Monday.

Keep the faith

Larry

____________________________________________________________________________

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

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

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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By Larry, August 30, 2015 11:38 am

Hank Ballard

Listen/Download – Hank Ballard – Come On Wit’ It MP3

Greetings all.

Like any sharp character, you need only see that familiar black and orange King label (with the Godfather’s head, too…natch) to know that there is goodness in the offing.

This time out we get yet another tasty side from the mighty Hank Ballard.

Ballard, who’s chart heyday (with the Midnighters) was almost a decade in the rear view mirror laid down this side in 1969.

His resurrection at the hands of James Brown may not have been a huge commercial success, but will go down in history as a real ‘solid’ on JB’s part, and as providing some of the best music in Ballard’s discography.

‘Come On Wit’ It’, (flip side of ‘Blackenized’) co-written by Ballard, Brown and Bud Hobgood is a great bit of chugging funk with a punchy bass line and some bright horns.

Ballard’s vocal is packed with raspy goodness (I love the repeated refrain of ‘Groovy to the bone!’).

Oddly, only one of Ballard’s later King 45s – ‘How You Gonna Get Respect’ – made it into the R&B charts, breaking into the Top 20 in November of 1968.

Fortunately most of his funky stuff (aside from his LP which can be expensive) is relatively affordable and not too hard to track down.

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

Keep the faith

Larry

____________________________________________________________________________

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

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

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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By Larry, August 25, 2015 12:20 pm

Don Julian and the Larks

Listen/Download – Don Julian and the Larks – Shorty the Pimp Pt1 MP3

Listen/Download – Don Julian and the Larks – Shorty the Pimp Pt2 MP3

Greetings all.

Don Julian, with the Meadowlarks (an early, integrated doowop group) and then the Larks, was a West Coast R&B/soul/funk fixture in the 50s, 60s and 70s, recording for a variety of labels, like RPM, Specialty and Money.

The Larks worked their way through classic soul styles, with Julian and the group making their way right into funk by the early 70s.

‘Shorty the Pimp’ is a masterpiece of Blaxplo-funk, and has something of a mysterious provenenance.

The track (anda few others that found release on 45) were supposedly part of a soundtrack to an unreleased blaxploitation movie called ‘Shorty the Pimp’, which, considering the cinematic reach of the song is entirely believable.

That, and the fact that the deep, spoken voice on the track is none other than Don Julian’s running buddy, Richard ‘Louie Louie’ Berry!

‘Shorty the Pimp’ is a slow grooving, funky mover, mixing falsetto vocals, group harmony and the aforementioned narration with some of the finest lyrics ever composed about life on the streets. There’s lots of cool rhythm guitar and organ working its way in and out of the mix.

Julian and the Larks would also create the soundtrack for the film ‘Savage’ around the same time.

‘Shorty the Pimp’ was sampled almost two decades later by Too Short on his own track of the same title.

‘Shorty the Pimp’ appeared on the rare Don Julian and the Larks LP ‘Super Slick’, but if you don’t have a coupla hundo burning a hole in your pocket, you can score a copy of this most excellent 45 for a fraction of that.

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

Keep the faith

Larry

____________________________________________________________________________

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

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

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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By Larry, August 20, 2015 11:39 am

Freddy – Henchi and the Soulsetters

Listen/Download – Freddy – Henchi and the Soulsetters – Folsom Prison MP3

Listen/Download – Freddy – Henchi and the Soulsetters – Popcorn Baby MP3

Greetings all.

The end of the week is here, and so then is the Funky16Corners Radio Show, coming to you each and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio, with the best in funk, soul, jazz and rare groove, all on original vinyl. You can listen live, subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, listen on your mobile device via the TuneIn app, or grab an MP3 out of the archive here at the blog.

Freddy-Henchi and the Soulsetters were one of those bands – like Benny Gordon and the Soul Brothers – that worked relentlessly, playing on the road and recording a string of 45s for a variety of labels (Onacrest, Tower, Bell, Reprise) for years, never really breaking through like they should have.

Formed in Phoenix, AZ in the mid 60s, they eventually moved to Los Angeles, then again to Colorado where they would continue to play, in one form or another well into the 80s.

Led by Freddie Gowdy and Marvin ‘Henchi’ Graves, the band recorded one 45 for Tower in 1969, and while it might not have made any impact on the charts at all, it is as solid as they come.

The A-side is a funk reworking of Johnny Cash’s ‘Folsom Prison Blues’, and as insane as that concept sounds, Freddy-Henchi and the Soulsetters make it happen.

Opening with a false/country start, the band drops down into a heavy groove, transforming the song into a hard-hitting, minor-key work of genius. I mean, it WAS 1969, and people were doing all kinds of crazy things (musically and otherwise), and I can understand how the very idea of a funk take on a country classic might have been off-putting to some people, but this record is REALLY good.

I dig the haunting strings running underneath (they almost sound like a mellotron), and when the band breaks into a quote from ‘Hey Jude’, all bets – as they say – are off.

The flipside, the extremely heavy ‘Popcorn Baby’ owes a serious debt to Dyke and the Blazer’s hit from the previous year, ‘Funky Walk’. Built on a pounding drum beat, and some Hendrix-level wah wah guitar, the record is a killer.

The group would go on to have some local success with their cover of Major Lance’s ‘Um Um Um Um Um’ in 1970, and then to lay down the funk 45 classic ‘Funky To the Bone’ for Reprise in 1972.

I hope you dig this 45 as much as I do, and I’ll see you all on Monday.

Keep the faith

Larry

_______________________________________________________________________________

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

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

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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By Larry, August 11, 2015 10:49 am

Listen/Download – Slim Willis Band – I Say That MP3

Greetings all.

I have to start things out by sending out a big (HUGE) thank you to my man Kris Holmes, through whom I first encountered today’s monster of a 45.

Back when Kris was doing his weekly radio thing on Radio Ponsonby in NZ, he dropped this heater one night and it went directly onto my want list.

As it turns out, most of the available info on the 45 comes to us via Kris’s ‘Greenville and Beyond’ project, in which he tracks the various and sundry threads passing into, through and beyond a group of Mississippi-based labels.

Interestingly enough, though this 45, The Slim Willis Band ‘I Say That’ bears a Mississippi address, it was boiled up in Chitown.

‘I Say That’ is one of those records that is both amazing, and confounding at the same time.

Ostensibly a blues side, yet undeniably funk as well, it brings with it a kind of brilliant, sui generis production that makes you wonder why it isn’t much better known.

What ‘I Say That’ sounds like, is a conglomeration of 60s garage band, Southside electric blues, and then an extra helping of Southside-electric-blues-UK-ripoff, a la Led Zeppelin, cooked long and slow in a cauldron in the back of a tin-roof shack somewhere.

The way the bass and drums throb relentlessly, and the Little Walter-on-LSD echoed harp dancing around in the mix ricochet off of each other (not to mention the sax-o-mo-phone) is a thing to behold.

It’s one of those records that sounds like a genre unto itself, which it ought to be, but instead it’s the sole purvey of 45 collector types like you and me, which is fine, too.

As far as I can tell, this is of an early 70s vintage. Willis recorded singles for a variety of labels, and you can probably grab yourself a copy of this one in the $40.00 range (results may vary..).

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

Keep the faith

Larry

_________________________________________________________________________________________

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

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

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (0)

By Larry, August 6, 2015 2:24 pm

M-Fasis – Funk’s a Helluva Drug
1)intro-Ray Scott-cocaine skit
2)the rock-atomic rooster (union crest)
3)public service message-Kenny rankin (atlantic)
4)don’t down me people-memphis soul (AR)
5)funkadelic sound-little beaver (CAT)
6)you keep me hanging on-hugh masekela (chisa)
7)i’d like to see more of you-the mob (colossus)
8)give me a happy day-heart (king)
9)yolanda-bobby bland (abc)
10)midnight snack-mystic moods (sound bird)
11)papa was too-joe tex (dial)
12)macumba-titanic (epic)
13)i wanna be-zuelma (rca)
14)ain’t no love-bobby bland (dunhill)
15)there’s a dj-samson & Delilah (indigo)
16)tuck’s theme-Bill Deal & the rhondells (mgm)
17)hot pants-norma & the heartaches (marmaduke)
18)what do you want-natural gas (firebird)
19)if i could make…-rance allen (stax)
20)natural carbonation-utica club (rca)
21)i get off on you-lydia pense & cold blood (abc)
22)yellow sunshine-yellow sunshine (tsop)
23)tierras lejanas (basillo) 24)football-mickey & the soul generation (maxwell)
25)gotta keep you dancing-ken willis (quicksilver)
26)y te quiero y te adoro-kico mindoza (lumi)
27)mr. starlight-Jonny barfield (ss international)

Listen/Download – M-Fasis – Funk’s a Hell of a Drug MP3

Greetings all.

The end of the week is upon us once again, so I will remind you that the Funky16Corners Radio Show will hit the airwaves of the interwebs this Friday night at 9pM on Viva Radio. If you cannot be there at airtime, you can subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, listen on your mobile device via the TuneIn app, or grab an MP3 here at the blog.

What you see before you is a brand spanking new mix from my old-school Asbury Park 45 Sessions compadre, M-Fasis.

As has been stated in this space many times in the past, M-Fasis is a master crate digger. I always looked forward to see what heat he would drop in his sets. He has great, wide-ranging taste and a fantastic ear for hidden beats and breaks that most people would miss.

His new mix – ‘Funk’s a Helluva Drug’ – is a great collection of grooves. I dig it a lot, and I think you will, too.

So pull down the ones and zeros, and get your listen on.

I’ll see you all on Monday.

Keep the faith

Larry

_________________________________________________________________________________________

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

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

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (0)

By Larry, July 30, 2015 3:09 pm

Alex Williams (left, found in an old issue of Billboard)

Listen/Download – Alex Williams and the Mustangs – Soul Strut Pt1 MP3

Listen/Download – Alex Williams and the Mustangs – Soul Strut Pt2 MP3

Greetings all.

The end of the week os upon us, and so I will remind you once again that Friday nights at 9PM is Funky16Corners Radio Show time. You can listen on Viva Radio, or you can subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, listen on your mobile device via the TuneIn app, or grab an MP3 here at the blog.

The record I bring you today is one of those funk 45s that I knew about for a long time, finally bagged a copy and was dismayed to discover that there was almost no info out there about it.

What I can tell you is that Alex Williams and the Mustangs hailed from the vicinity of Atlanta, GA, and they recorded several 45s (for Rose, Soultrack and Jewel), usually in a bluesy funk style between the late 60s and the early 70s.

‘Soul Strut Pts 1&2’ is an interesting study in contrasts.

Part two, the instrumental half of the record, is a groovy, fairly standard (if a little muddy and abruptly ended) bit of funky southern soul.

Part one, the vocal half of things, contains one of the most stunningly off-key, inept and possibly intoxicated sounding vocals I’ve ever heard. The band is in good shape, but the singer sounds as if he was too wasted to set foot in the studio, so they locked him out in the alley and hung the microphone out the window. It’s that wild.

Either way, it’s a cool 45, and I hope you dig it.

See you on Monday.

Keep the faith

Larry

_________________________________________________________________________________________

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

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

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (0)

By Larry, July 26, 2015 12:05 pm

Grant Green

Listen/Download – Grant Green – Ain’t It Funky Now Pt1 MP3

Listen/Download – Grant Green – Ain’t It Funky Now Pt2 MP3

Greetings all.

I thought it would behoove us all to get the week started on one of those heavy (but not too heavy), funky, head-nodding grooves.

Grant Green, six-string ninja, old-school jazzer, new(er) school jazz funker was one of the true greats of the post-bop into soul jazz era and a mainstay of the Blue Note stable, as both leader and sideman.

His sounds have appeared here at Funky16Corners many times over the years, both in highlighted posts and as part of mixes.

Today’s selection is the two-part 45 version of Green’s cover of James Brown’s ‘Ain’t It Funky Now’ that appeared on his 1970 ‘Green Is Beautiful’ LP.

You already know that any Blue Note ish in this vein is going to be good, but there’s something exceptional about this track, that being the drums of the mighty Idris Muhammad.

This is not to say that Mr Green and the rest of the band aren’t in fine form (especially Claude Bartee working it out on what sounds like a Varitone sax), but that the drums are hitting hard and exceptionally funky, and doing so in an almost weirdly relaxed way.

Idris is deep in the groove, and managing to be supremely funky without doing anything flashy. The way he comes back in at around 1:00, and then drops a couple of bombs right before the guitar solo is a thing of beauty.

Emmanuel Riggins keeps things pumping along on the organ, and the percussion, by Candido (on the congas) and Richie Landrum (bongos) is spot on.

This is a very tasty 45, indeed, and I dare you to listen without starting to move.

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

Keep the faith

Larry

_________________________________________________________________________________________

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

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

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (1)

By Larry, July 23, 2015 3:09 pm

Gene Ammons

Listen/Download – Gene Ammons – Chicago Breakdown MP3

Greetings all.

The end of the week is here, and so then is the Funky16Corners Radio Show, which you can dial up each and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio. If you cannot be there to dig it at airtime, you can subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, listen on your mobile device via the TuneIn app, or grab yourself an MP3 here at the blog.

With the weekend coming up, and the summer heat in the air, what better way to get your groove on than with some sublimely funky soul jazz.

The mighty Gene ‘Jug’ Ammons was not only a master of the genre, but also a second generation legend (his father was the boogie woogie virtuouso Albert Ammons).

Ammons worked as one of the preeminent soul jazz tenor men from 1952 to his untimely death at the age of 49 (from cancer) in 1974.

‘Chicago Breakdown’ was recorded for his 1971 Prestige LP ‘My Way’ with a gang of heavies that included Idris Muhammad on drums, Chuck Rainey on bass, Roland Hanna on electric piano and Ted Dunbar on guitar.

‘Chicago Breakdown’ is credited to the album’s producer/arranger Bill Fischer, and the band lays down a very nice, mid-tempo, but still heavy groove. The bass is especially thick, and Hanna’s keyboard adds flavor all the way through.

I’ll ask you to slap on your headphones and focus in at around :45, where Ammons starts to solo, and Dunbar’s guitar is comping in the deep background (it sounds like he’s across the room) and the interplay between the sax and rhythm guitar is something to behold.

This is as tasty a piece of funky jazz as you’re likely to find on 45, so go out and get you some.

I’ll see you on Monday.

Keep the faith

Larry

_________________________________________________________________________________________

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

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

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (3)

By Larry, July 19, 2015 10:03 am

Herman ‘Hack’ Bartholomew

Listen/Download – hack Bartholomew – La La You MP3

Greetings all.

I hope the new week finds you well.

I thought we’d get things started this week with an absolutely certifiable banger.

The sounds of Hack Bartholomew first found their way into my ears some time back, via a Facebook post (I think) and I set out immediately in search of a copy for my own playbox.

This is one of those singles that not only ought to be better known, but should also be in the midst of a thick, juicy discography, instead of being a spectacular one-off, which it is.

What I have been able to find out about Hack Bartholomew is both very interesting, and only serves to make this 45 all the more mysterious.

His real name is Herman, and he was (and is) a trumpeter/vocalist from the mighty Crescent City of New Orleans.

As far as I can tell, this is not only the only record he ever made for CTI (more on that in a minute), but also the only record he ever made for a major label, PERIOD.

Bartholomew recorded ‘La La You’ and it’s flipside ‘Let Me Tell You What I Found’ sometime in 1969 or 1970 at Rudy Van Gelder’s legendary studio in Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

How Bartholomew found his way to CTI in the first place is unkown, but I suspect it may have had something to do with his New Orleans homeboy Leo Morris, better known as drum master Idris Muhammad, who was recording in the New York area, for CTI and Prestige during the time period.

‘La La You’ is remarkable in many ways, but first and foremost because it’s an anomaly in the CTI bag, as it were. You all know I dig the smooth, urbane CTI sound, and ‘La La You’ is light years funkier, rougher and wilder than just about anything else I can think of on the label.

Was it a speculative one-off, meant to make inroads into the world of soul and R&B? As far as I can tell he never recorded more than the two sides on the 45 (there is a much rarer stock issue of the 45 with both tracks. The copy I have is the two-sided promo).

As it is, ‘La La You’ is an amazing record, combining heavy, churning, guitar-heavy funk with an homage to the Delfonics ‘La La Means I Love You’ (from the previous year) in the chorus. You also get some sassy female backing vocals, and a trumpet solo by Hack!

This is one of those funk 45s that – were it rarer, as is you can probably find one for 30 to 40 bucks – people would be killing each other to get their hands on a copy.

Batholomew apparently spent more than a decade in New York, before returning to New Orleans where he continues to play the trumpet outside the Café Du Monde (his playing has been featured on the soundtrack to the TV series ‘Treme’), as well as playing in church.

I hope you dig the 45, and if you have any information on who else might have played on the session, please let me know.

See you on Wednesday.

Keep the faith

Larry

_________________________________________________________________________________________

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

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

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (0)

By Larry, July 16, 2015 1:20 pm

Willie Henderson

Listen/Download – Willie Henderson and the Soul Explosions – Funky Chicken Pt1 MP3

Listen/Download – Willie Henderson and the Soul Explosions – Funky Chicken Pt2 MP3

Greetings all.

The end of the week is here, and so I will remind you to tune into the Funky16Corners Radio Show, this and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio. If you can’t be there at airtime, you can follow the show by subscribing to it as a podcast in iTunes, listening on your mobile device via the TuneIn app, or grabbing an MP3 here at the blog.

I thought we’d close out the week with something funky (and coincidentally, ‘chickeny’ as well).

Though I certainly knew of the ‘funky chicken’ dance as a kid, I don’t ever remember hearing Willie Henderson’s ‘Funky Chicken’, though, since I was 7, and not listening to black radio at the time (it barely made it into the Pop Hot 100) it was pretty easy for a white, suburban child to miss.

That said, thirty years hence, I grabbed myself a copy of the 45 and dug in with gusto.

If you area devotee of Chicago soul, the name Willie Henderson ought to be a familiar one. Starting in the late 60s, Henderson was a significant presence as a session musician (baritone sax), composer, arranger and producer, especially for Brunswick and Dakar.

He wrote for and produced a wide variety of Chicago-based artists, like Mamie Galore, Syl Johnson, the Chi-Lites, Artistics, Gene Chandler, Major Lance and many others.

Released as by Willie Henderson and the Soul Explosions, ‘Funky Chicken Pts 1&2’ was an R&B Top 20 hit early in 1970. Packed with heavy drums, chiming guitars, and of course, chicken sound effects, the song (produced by the legendary Carl Davis) is a dance floor mover, with a very tasty drum breakdown in Part 2.

Though the LP might set you back a few bucks, you should be able to file a copy of this most excellent 45 in your play box for less than ten dollars.

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

Keep the faith

Larry

_________________________________________________________________________________________

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

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

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (2)

By Larry, July 12, 2015 2:29 pm

Kool and the Gang

Listen/Download – Kool and the Gang – Funky Stuff

Greetings all.

I hope the new week finds you all well, not overly warm, and righteously funky.

______________________________________________

Before we commence with the week’s festivities, I threw the names of all the donors to the Funky16Corners 2015 Allnighter/Pledge Drive into a hat (donors who gave more than once went into the hat as many times as they donated) and the following folks won the following things, courtesy of the fine folks at Secret Stash and one prize from Fantastic Voyage:

Linda Ferguson –  2 2LP sets of the Mar-V-Lus and One-Derful labels

David Beasley  – 2 2LP sets of the Mar-V-Lus and One-Derful labels

Robert Gorney –  2 Valdons reissue 45s 

Randy Sherman  – 2 Valdons reissue 45s

Tony Crampton –  3CD set Jump Blues Jamaica Way: Jamaican Sound System Classics 1945-1960

Thanks to all of you that took the time to donate! Everything will go into the mail this week!

___________________________________________________

It is in that spirit that I relate to you a brief tale of father/son musical bonding, combined with just a touch of home team rooting.

Whilst out motoring some place or other, with the radio cranked to a suitable volume, who should pop up on the playlist but the mighty Kool and the Gang.

I took the opportunity to let my son know, that if he were ever asked to provide evidence of homegrown (New Jersey) musical greatness, he need go no further than Jersey City’s own, Kool and the Gang.

I have spoken in this space previously about how Kool and the Gang were the purveyors of some of the first funk I ever really dug (listening on the lunchroom record player back in the 5th grade in Milford Brook School, when I was the same age my son is now), with the big hits from 1973’s ‘Wild and Peaceful’, ‘Jungle Boogie’ and ‘Hollywood Swinging’ (which is what was playing on the car radio…).

Though they are best known to a younger audience for their smoother stuff (‘Joanna’) and the ne plus ultra of wedding staples ‘Celebration’, Kool and the Gang got their start as purveyors of straight up funk, with jazz on the side (good jazz, too).

They had their first R&B Top 40 hit in 1969 with the eponymous ‘Kool and the Gang’, but it would take six more stabs at the charts before they entered the R&B Top 10 with today’s selection, ‘Funky Stuff’ in 1973.

‘Funky Stuff’ is – like most of the best Kool ish – filled with blazing horns, thumping bass and drums (listen to the depth of the kick drum) and tasty guitar.

The record made it into the Pop Top 30, also a first for the group, which would blow the f*ck up with ‘Jungle Boogie’ in December of ’73, making it to Number 1 R&B and Number 4 Pop.

This is first-rate, hip-bumping party music, straight outta the Garden State.

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

Keep the faith

Larry

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

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

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.