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By Larry, March 9, 2010 5:03 pm

Mr. Willie Tee

Listen/Download – Willie Tee – Sweet Thing

Greetings all.
I hope that the middle of the week find you all well, especially those of you within driving distance of the Big Apple. I’ll be spinning tonight (Wednesday 3/10) at Master Groove @Forbidden City, and it’d be great to meet up with some more of you good people. I have a very special, downtempo Mod Soul set line up, which I think you’ll dig. The beer will be cold, the food is excellent, and of course the vinyl (spinning at 45RPM) will be worth the trip. I hope to see you there.

A few weeks back, when I dropped the Northern Soul mix, I made mention of the fact that one of the best records in that mix (the Four Larks ‘Groovin’ at the Go Go’), which was a long time white whale of mine eventually made it’s way into my crates via a very cool, and extremely generous reader who found a mint copy of the record and sent it to me. Today’s selection arrived at the Funky16Corners record vault in much the same way.
Late last year, my man Tarik (who’ll also be spinning tonight at Botanica alongside the mighty Mr. Finewine) connected with me via the interwebs to tell me about some digging he’d been doing down in New Orleans. Naturally I was jealous, but also glad to hear that someone was excavating vinyl in the Crescent City. Not long after we’d chatted, a package arrived in the mail, and in addition to some cool stuff for the little Corners, Tarik sent me some very cool 45s, my favorite of which is today’s selection.
If you’re a fan of New Orleans soul and funk, the name Willie Tee (nee Turbinton) ought to be a familiar one. In addition to mid-60s records under his own name for NOLA and Atlantic (1965s ‘Walking Up a One Way Street’ is a big fave with the soulies), Willie went on to form the Gaturs* with his brother Earl, and made some of the best instrumental funk 45s to come out of New Orleans in the early 70s. He was also an accomplished jazz musician.
In the years before and after the Gaturs, Tee made a number of excellent records for a variety of local (Hot Line, Bonatemp, Gatur) and national (Atco, UA, Capitol) labels, up until his untimely passing in 2007.
Today’s selection, ‘Sweet Thing’ was released on the Gatur label in 1973. It’s one of Willie Tee’s funkiest outings, with a real, slick uptown sound that sounds like it could have been pulled from a blaxploitation soundtrack. Not only do you get Willie’s fine vocals and funky electric piano, but there are layers of wah-wah guitar and classy strings. I also dig the mix of drum set and hand drums. The last time I dropped this at the Asbury Park 45 Sessions it had a couple of the other DJs running up to the turntables to see what it was.
Yet another great funk 45 from the Big Easy.
I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back on Friday

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, March 7, 2010 7:00 pm

The Eight Minutes

Listen/Download – The Eight Minutes – Here’s Some Dances

Greetings all.
I hope everyone enjoyed Hammond Week 2010, and you’re good and ready to slip inside a couple of nice funk 45s.
Before we get going I have a programming note, that being my return to Master Groove @ Forbidden City this Wednesday for some more of that good funk and soul spun at forty-five revolutions per minute. As always, I’ll be joining DJ Bluewater and M-Fasis, and if you’re going to be in the area (that being New York City, on Avenue A between 13th and 14th Streets) you should fall by, grab some cold beer and perhaps a steamed dumpling or two and soak up the sounds.

As I said, this week we’ll be getting down to a couple of excellent funk 45s, all recent acquisitions. Consider it a middle course of sorts, cleansing the palate from the Hammond grooves of the previous week and in preparation of what will hopefully be another live mix from the decks at Forbidden City.
The first of the weeks 45s is something I grabbed off of a set sale list last year after a short sample convinced me that to do otherwise would be foolish. Good thing to, since ‘Here’s Some Dances’ by the Eight Minutes is a groover.
The Eight Minutes were what collector types now refer to as a ‘kiddie band’, i.e. their ranks were composed entirely of children and adolescents. While it would be tempting to see these acts as a reaction to the success of the Jackson Five, keep in mind that a lot of this stuff predates the successes of the brothers from Gary, Indiana. The Five Stairsteps were charting with their Windy C sides as early as 1966 and the Eight Minutes (also from the Chicago area) released their first single in 1968.
The Eight Minutes, composed of children from the Goggins (Hank, Ricky and Ronald) and Sudduth (Hedda, David and Wendel) families originally came together in 1967 as the Soul Impacts. They changed their name and started recording as the Eight Minutes (after adding Juwanna Glover and Carl Monroe, i.e. Minutes seven and eight) and released their first 45 on the S.I.M. label in 1968 (which included ‘Here’s Some Dances’) , and then signed with the Jay Pee label. They recorded four singles for Jay Pee, the third of which includes a re-recording of ‘Here’s Some Dances’. They eventually went on to record an album and a couple of 45s for the Perception label before breaking up in the early 70s.
‘Here’s Some Dances’ is an especially groovy side, working the time tested dance craze angle (with shout outs to the Push and Pull among other steps). The vibe has a rocked up, somewhat psychedelic edge to it, with some tasty wah wah guitar and wailing organ (as well as a drum break) that sounds as if the kids had been listening to Sly and the Family Stone.
The Jay Pee version of ‘Here’s Some Dances’ was comped a few years back by the good people at the Numero Group on “Home Schooled: The ABC’s of Kid Soul”.
It’s a very cool side, and I hope you dig it.
I’ll be back on Wednesday with something from New Orleans.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, February 25, 2010 6:54 pm

The Killer, in a quiet moment…

Listen/Download -Jerry Lee Lewis – Shotgun Man

Greetings all.

I hope every has spent the week ingesting Funky16Corners Radio v.82, on account of it’s packed from end to end with positively stellar soul 45s, each and every one deserving of close, individual scrutiny, but also groovy in a bunch (like bananas).
I’m already ruminating on the composition of my next Master Groove set, and a couple of recent acquisitions seem to be pointing me in a specific direction (yet to be revealed). Since it appears we’re going to spend the weekend buried in snow (again) I’ll have plenty of time to mull the subject over.
Also, a special word of thanks to Gregorious over at Ourstage for a very nice write-up on Funky16Corners!
Today’s selection is yet another in an ever growing string of tasty records, knowledge of which was imparted to me by the mighty Tony C over in the UK. Every once in a while Tony will drop me a line singing the praises of a record, and I know by now, if I’m not already familiar with it, I’d better find myself one because I’m going to dig it. That’s what they refer to as brand loyalty. Over the decades of my digging career (aren’t careers supposed to make you money??) I’ve been very fortunate in that any generosity I’ve given has come back to me tenfold.
This has a lot to do with hanging with other vinyl heads who know their stuff. If you head out on an expedition, and you have the benefit of another person’s digging skill set, shared information will always result in more cool records. My man Haim has been namechecked in this space countless times, because he has turned me on to an equal number of amazing records.
I’ve never had the opportunity to dig with Tony, but it is clear, via our correspondence that we dig the same kinds of music. Thanks to the fact that nobody knows all the great soul and funk records, and most people don’t know the same records, we are informed by one another when something cool comes along.
I’ve always thought that those in the collector/dj community who thrive on exclusivity – i.e. crate digger ‘secret squirrel’-isms* – were doing themselves, and the rest of us a huge disservice. There’s something unbelievably childish/selfish about things like that. Congratulations! You’ve found a wonderful piece of music and you’re going to keep it to yourself, so you, and only you can listen to it while locked in your mother’s basement, covered in potato chip crumbs and your own, special stink.
Kinda sad, n’est ce pas?
The record I bring you today is one of those 45s that I’d never come across until Tony brought it to my attention. I grabbed myself a copy, dug it a lot, and as a result I’m able to pass it along to you fine people this very day.
I have always been a fan of Jerry Lee Lewis. Of the giants that are blasted into rock’n’roll’s Mt Rushmore – Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley – it has always been a close race between Mr Penniman and Mr Lewis (with Mr Diddley coming in a very close third) as to who should be placed at the top of the pantheon.
Despite a very uneven career, it has always been clear to me that the Killer is one of the realest of the real, and this is in spite of the fact that he is a world class reckless badass. Head over to YouTube and take a gander at the man in performance, wrestling with his piano (and his unraveling pompadour), shooting sparks out of every part of his being and generally rolling like a juggernaut through the teenagers of the late 1950s. Only Little Richard – like Jerry Lee with a caboose full of dynamite – rocked harder, crazier and badder, specially since he was doing it in a segregated society.
As I said before, for one of the true giants of his era Jerry Lee didn’t have a tremendous amount of success. He only had about a half dozen significant hits (mostly in 1957/58) and by the early 60s most of his chart appearance consisted of covers of other people’s material. By the mid-60s he had switched labels, leaving Sun for Smash, and was weaving in and out of his stylistic lane.
It’s important to note at this point that while Lewis spent much of the 60s jumping back and forth between rock, country and soul (yes, soul) this wasn’t really much of a change. All of those elements were present to varying extents from the very beginning of his career, and it’s likely that any point where one of those influences became more pronounced than the others, someone else (like his record company) were attempting to push him where they thought he’d sell some records.
Today’s selection, ‘Shotgun Man’, which appeared on Lewis’s 1967 LP ‘Soul My Way’ – while unmistakably Jerry Lee Lewis – veers off into unusual directions. Those in the know might slap a ‘Mod soul’ label on this one, partly because of who the artist is, but also because it combines aspects of mainstream soul music (as it was in 1966/67) with older R&B roots and just a touch of propulsive rock’n’roll. I’d even go as far as to say that a little more emphasis on ‘the one’ would have nudged this into proto-funk territory (or at least hard edged sock soul). Penned by Jerry Lee’s road manager/brother-in-law Cecil Harrelson, ‘Shotgun Man’ makes references to a number of songs (‘Seventh Son’ ‘Agent 00 Soul’) and people (Howling Wolf, disc jockey John R) and at times sounds like James Brown pushed through a hillbilly strainer. There are points where it reminds me of some of his old labelmate Charlie Rich’s more soulful material.
I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back on Monday

Peace

Larry

*In saying this, I don’t include the Northern Soul practice of ‘cover-ups’, or exclusive dubs in the world of reggae soundclash, which are more a part of the theatricality of the experience. There’s an element of competition, but it’s less about keeping it to yourself than it is about bringing something special to the night.

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By Larry, February 18, 2010 6:04 pm

The Average White Band

Listen/Download -Average White Band – Person to Person

Greetings all.

I come to you at the end of the week on the brink of exhaustion.
In addition to my regular fatherly, husbandly and bloggerish duties, I spent last night in New York City, meeting some groovy people, and most importantly, spinning some soul 45s.
It was another excellent evening at Master Groove @ Forbidden City with my cohorts DJ Bluewater and M-Fasis, both of whom laid down very tasty sets of funk and soul.
I put together an all Northern Soul set, and was planning on recording it live, but as luck would have it, I left the house without the proper cable to attach the recorder to the board, so the live recording was not to be.
However, as we speak, despite the fact that any sane person would be in bed, catching up on lost sleep, I’m sitting here recording that set at home, so that I can bring it to you on Monday.
As a result, I’m going to make this entry short, sweet and Master Groove-related.
The last time I did a set at Forbidden City, my man M-Fasis, who always drops something that blows my mind, whipped a familiar disc on the turntable that made my head turn. Way back in the day, when I had my first copy of the Average White Band’s ‘AWB’ album, the song that really blew my mind (aside from ‘Pick Up the Pieces’) was a a little number called ‘Person to Person’. Back in January, when M-Fasis played this very record, two things occurred to me.
First, why was I sleeping on this most excellent 45?
Second, why hadn’t someone sampled that very tasty guitar lick?
The answer to the first question is one of those basic ‘forest for the trees’ conundrums, in which your’s truly is surrounded by mountains of vinyl, and sometimes I get preoccupied and forget stuff.
The answer to the second question is, but of course the song has been sampled, at least twenty times by folks like Big Daddy Kane and Public Enemy.
So, there you go.
So how about some of that tasty Scottish funk to get your weekend started?
I’ll get back to work on that mix, and I’ll see you on Monday.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, February 2, 2010 8:03 pm

Isaac ‘Redd’ Holt Unlimited

Listen/Download – Isaac ‘Redd’ Holt Unlimited – Listen To the Drums

Greetings all.
Welcome to a previously unplanned midweek post.
My errands are done, the kids are quiet and I just finished paying a $130 traffic citation for talking on my cellphone while driving, like a jackass (which is a term I generally reserve for the people I see doing the very same thing), so I thought that being a little more productive than usual (an act of contrition, of sorts) would make me feel better. The end result is that you all get yourselves another tune, so in the words of Hot Chocolate, every 1’s a winner, baby.
Before I get to today’s selection I should get the news out of the way. Your’s truly will be returning to Master Groove at Forbidden City (Ave A between 13th and 14th Streets, NYC) for another hot set on the evening of Wednesday February 27th. Fall by if you’re in the area and feel like getting down. Even if I’m not there, try to make the scene since DJ Bluewater and M-Fasis know how to bring the heat (and the food is good too). Things get rolling at 10PM.

Master Groove February Schedule
3rd – DJ BlueWater, M.Fasis
10th – DJ BlueWater, DJ Prime Mundo, DJ Prestige
17th – DJ BlueWater, M.Fasis, Funky16Corners
24th – DJ BlueWater, M.Fasis, Mr. Robinson (Dig Deeper, BK)

Also, a reminder about the Funky16Corners Radio Show on Viva internet radio (www.viva-radio.com). I was shifted in the schedule recently and the show now drops every Thursday at 5PM. Make sure to check it out if you’re hanging around the interwebs during that time. As always, the most recent four or five shows are always archived and available for your listening pleasure.
In other interesting news, I got an e-mail from the folks at www.ACIDJAZZHISPANO.com informing me that I had been nominated for ‘DJ of the Year’. This came as quite a surprise, and I must say that I am honored. The text on the site is in Spanish, but if you follow the link here, and are so inclined, you can register and vote for your’s truly. There’s always room in the Funky16Corners trophy room for another massive loving cup.
That all said, the tune I bring you today is a little something I grabbed at the last Allentown show (not the all-45 one). If you’ve spent any time at all reading this blog, you’ll already know that I ride for Young-Holt, whether in their Trio, or Unlimited forms. Bassist Eldee Young and drummer Isaac ‘Redd’ Holt started out bringing the rhythmic heat in the Ramsey Lewis Trio, before moving off into their own thing and waxing a number of fantastic albums for Brunswick and Paula.
Holt eventually split and put his own group together, calling it Isaac Redd Holt Unlimited (not a huge change, but a change nonetheless). Between 1973 and 1975 the group released three 45s and an LP for the Paula label.
The tune I bring you today appeared as both a 45 and LP track. ‘Listen To the Drums’ sees Redd and company working a slow, funky, Moog-y vibe. Redd asks over and over again ‘Can you dig it?’, and naturally the answer is yes, especially with his drums laying down a throbbing foundation. Though not exactly danceable – sounding more like the soundtrack to one of those blacklight sex position posters – it is undeniably funky. I have yet to get my hands on the album (or the other two 45s) so I can’t vouch for the rest of the material, but I suspect it’s worth hearing.
I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll be back on Friday with some more soul.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, January 31, 2010 5:52 pm

Funky16Corners Radio v.80 – Forbidden City Organs

Recorded Live in NYC 1-27-10

Playlist

Head over to the Funky16Corners Podcast Archive to hear this mix

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

*I was rapping with my man DJ Bluewater last week about how I can’t beleive how many mixes are in the Funky16Corners and Iron Leg Archives (combined mounting up to well over 100 mixes in less than four years)

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Comments (8)

By Larry, January 28, 2010 4:49 pm

MFSB, almost definitely including everyone on this record.

Listen/Download – Daley Diggers – I Can Dig It

Greetings all.
I hope the end of the week finds you all well.
I’m tired, bit what else is new? A long week of the normal family commitments, combined with a shitstack of interwebs labor (the blog switch-over and such) and a night in the city spinning records for the folks, I am just about ready to hibernate (if only I could…).
Speaking of the night at Forbidden City, it was a gas, with visits from some very groovy people (big ups to Per, Simon and Colin) and to my own increasing (however incremental) tech savvy, which allowed me to record the live set, which I’ll be posting on Monday. I was going to drop the solid hour of Hammond organ burners today, but errands (and, shamefully, slumber) did not allow enough time to do the write up, so Monday it is.
In bloggy news, I shut down the Podcast and Guest Mic archives over at the old blog, redirecting folks to this site. You can still get all the old content, you just have to come here to get it.
I’ve been a record collector for a long, long time. Over the years, I drift in and out of periodic fascinations with certain artists, genres and labels, and while I’m not really a completist, every once in a blue moon I find myself wandering down a blind alley. Instead of turning around and backing away into the mainstream – which would be the logical thing to do – I find myself compelled to explore further.
One such case is with the Philadelphia label Marmaduke Records.
One of the very first funk 45s I ever dug up was a copy of ‘Bo Did It’ by the Hidden Cost, which – I must admit – I mistook for a garage/psyche record (this was the mid-80s). The song title, in combination with the crazy record label – a cartoon Indian chief holding an artist’s palette, with an electrical cord reaching an outlet with the slogan ‘We Turn You On’ – suggested to me that I might have my hands on something interesting, which I did (just not what I thought).
I always thought it was a cool record, and years later, when I started concentrating on funk 45s, with a concentration in the sounds of Philadelphia, I discovered that Marmaduke Records was in fact the brainchild of Bernie Binnick, and Philly hitmaker Len Barry. Not only did they put out obscure funk 45s by the Hidden Cost, Norma and the Heartaches, the Impacts, Power Play* and others, but also created/produced the Electric Indian. Though the Electric Indian LP was released on United Artists, the initial 45 release of their breakbeat classic ‘Broad Street’ was released on Marmaduke.
What all of these records had in common – including today’s selection ‘I Can Dig It’ by ‘The Daley Diggers’ – was that the musicians involved were almost always pulled from the same pool that recorded on scores of Philadelphia records, and eventually became the core of the Philadelphia International Records house band, aka MFSB. Featuring Bobby Eli, Norman Harris, Ronnie Baker, Earl Young and Vince Montana (among others), this revolving musical cast of characters provided the backing for some of the finest soul and funk records of the 60s and 70s.
They also recorded – pseudonymously – a bunch of cool 45s, one of which was today’s selection. While the A-side was a vocalist named Larry Daley performing ‘For the Good Times’, the flip was the funky instrumental ‘I Can Dig It’, which lined up against any number of tracks in Funky16Corners Radio v.58 – Right On! Philly Funk 45 Instrumentals, is clearly the work of the same band.
‘I Can Dig It’ has a solid, mid-tempo groove, featuring Vince Montana’s vibes prominently and some in the pocket drums by Earl Young. I actually had a copy of this record for many years, that was the very definition of a record collectors “place holder”, i.e. it was all but unplayable, but kept the rest of my Marmaduke 45s company in my Philly crate. It was only recently that I managed to score a clean copy at a bargain price, and here it is today.
I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back on Monday with that new mix.

Peace

Larry

*If anyone has a copy of the Race Street Chinatown Band 45, let me know…

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