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By Larry, March 19, 2015 11:51 am

Greetings all.

The end of the week is here, and that means that it’s time to warm up the old radiola and tune in the dulcet tones of the Funky16Corners Radio Show. We come 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. If you can’t fall by at airtime, you can always subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, listen on your mobile device through the TuneIn app, or grab yourself an MP3 here at the blog.

I’m closing out the week with a record that is a very heavy bit of funky business, as well as an old favorite of mine.

Though most seasoned diggers’ hearts would be set aflutter by the sight of the Rojac label, it would likely only boil over into a full-scale infarction if it turned out to be the Third Guitar’s “Baby Don’t Cry’, the most sought-after 45 on the label.

That certainly is a banger, but even a brief look at the Rojac discography will reveal that there is much treasure to be dug therein, including sides by Big Maybelle, Kim Tolliver and the man on today’s selection, Mr Lavell Hardy.

Hardy’s 1967 killer ‘Don’t Lose Your Groove’ was one of the first really heavy 45s that I was lucky enough to dig up and has remained a steady favorite all these years.

Hardy only ever recorded two 45s (both for Rojac), and seems to have had a level of popularity over in the UK where ‘Don’t Lose Your Groove’ was picked up and released on the CBS subsidiary, Direction label.

‘Don’t Lose Your Groove’ is a stellar bit of early days funk, with some heavy guitar and horns, and a searing Pickett-esque vocal by Hardy. I really dig the bass guitar, and the drums are nice and heavy, up to and including the break at 1:47.

Interestingly, while trying to dig up some info on Hardy, I discovered that the year after ‘Don’t Lose Your Groove’, Lavell Hardy was involved in a scheme to take a young singer named Vickie Jones and bring her to Florida

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The article about the hoax/tour (above) and the fake-Aretha, Vickie Jones (below)

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where she was to masquerade as Aretha Franklin on a series of concert dates! Hardy got busted, and according to articles in Jet and a number of newspapers, including one called the Afro-American, Aretha and her lawyers were interested in pressing charges against Hardy (who is decribed more than once as an ‘itinerant hairdresser’, but is also described as “wearing his hair in a beautifully sculptured six-inch bush”).

I haven’t been able to find any information about the ultimate disposition of the case, but it certainly makes for an interesting footnote to the Lavell Hardy story!

I hope you dig the song as much as I do, and I’ll see you 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.

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, March 17, 2015 12:05 pm

Willie Bobo

Greetings all.

I thought I’d whip a little Latin jazz/boogaloo on you to usher you over the hump.

One would assume that most of you were already familiar with the music of the mighty Willie Bobo.

Though Bobo came up as a percussionist with leaders like George Shearing, Cal Tjader and Mongo Santamaria, he made his biggest mark as a solo artist.

His 1960s Verve recordings are not only excellent, but were popular enough that they are still fairly easy to track down.

His cover of Len Barry’s ‘1-2-3’ (rendered here as ‘1-2-3 (Uno Dos Tres)’ was the title track from Bobo’s 1965 LP of the same name.

Taken at a brisk pace, with some tasty horns and the sinuous of guitar by Gabor Szabo, it’s not hard to imagine a discotheque full of swingers grooving to this one.

Grab yourself a copy of the 45, and you also get the mighty ‘Fried Neckbones and Some Home Fries’ on the flip.

If you haven’t got any Bobo heating up your crates, get out there and start digging. You will not regret it.

I hope you dig the sounds.

See you 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.

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, March 15, 2015 11:39 am

Lou Johnson

Greetings all.

Lou Johnson is one of those names that pops up all over the 1960s soul timeline, sometimes in settings that almost make it seem like you’re dealing with different artists.

He first made his mark working with Burt Bacharach and Hal David, recording early versions of ‘Reach Out For Me’ ‘(There’s) Always Something There To Remind Me’ and ‘Kentucky Bluebird (Take a Message Martha)’ that would go on to be better known by singers like Dionne Warwick and Sandie Shaw.

He also recorded records that became favorites of the UK soul crowd, including ‘Magic Potion’ and the Northern Soul fave ‘Unsatisfied’.

Unfortunately, despite his fantastically smooth voice, and a wealth of remarkable material, his commercial success was limited, having his last brush with the charts in 1965 with ‘A Time To Love A Time To Cry’.

He had been recording for Big Top/Big Hill since 1962. One of the last things released on him by the labels was a 1966 session with Allen Toussaint, in which Johnson recorded a version of the Bacharach/David classic ‘Walk On By’.

It is a really unsual arrangement of a familiar song, with some decidedly New Orleans piano tossed into the mix. You can really hear Toussaint’s hand in the arrangement and Johnson’s vocal is inspired.

Johnson spent some time recording for Atlantic/Cotillion in the late 60s, but by 1971, he had moved on to Volt.

Volt sent him back to work with Toussaint in New Orleans, where they recorded the LP ‘With You In Mind’ (composed almost entirely by Toussaint).’

‘Frisco Here I Come’ has a nice, funky edge to it, with a long guitar-heavy intro, before the bass comes in to set the rolling tempo. Johnson is joined by female backing singers and a string section in the chorus, and then later on in the tune by a wild sounding organ.

It should have been a hit, but the only trace of radio play I can find is a single appearance on a New Orleans chart from the Spring of 1971.

It would appear that after ‘With You In Mind’, Johnson did not record again, apparently relocating to the West coast and working as a nightclub singer.

You can find a lot of Johnson’s work on iTunes (including ‘With You In Mind’ repackaged/retitled as ‘Crazy About You’).

I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll see you 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.

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By Larry, March 8, 2015 11:05 am

Ike and Tina Turner

Greetings all.

I hope the new week finds you all well.

The record you see before you is yet another testament to the idea that playing the long game, i.e. waiting until the time is right to strike, is essential to bagging the white whales that haunt the record collector’s soul.

Ike and Tina Turner’s version of ‘Dust My Broom’ (first recorded by Robert Johnson in 1937 – though with earlier roots than that – but popularized by Elmore James in 1952) is a very popular 45 on the Northern Soul and mod scenes, and as a result the competition for copies is often fierce. While at its hottest it’s not crazy expensive (running between 60 and 100 dollars), copies get snapped up quickly.

So, I held off for a long time, hoping that I’d find myself a copy in the “real world” (y’know, outside in the sun, where record hounds fear to tread), but this strategy bore no fruit.

Then, one day it pops up on Ebay, looking a little rough, graded a little low, but I knew (and trusted) the seller, so I put in my bid, sat back and waited to be outbid yet again.

Imagine my surprise when the auction ended – with yours truly as the winner – leaving me with what the kids (I don’t know what kids, but humor me…) call an eight-dollar-hollar*!

Eight lowly, wrinkled smackeroos. Ain’t that a bitch?

Ike and Tina’s 1966 version of ‘Dust My Broom’ dispenses with the age-old tempo/structure (just imagine that famous Elmore James guitar vamp) rebuilding the tune on an aggressive 4/4 frame, with Tina and the Ikettes trading lines while the band (including, believe it or not, what sounds like an electric harpsichord!) charging hard behind them.

It’s not hard to understand how this became such a popular dance floor record, even if it met with almost complete
commercial indifference when it was released.

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

Keep the faith

Larry

 * I mean, the label’s a bit rough, but I don’t play the labels, if you know what I mean…

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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.

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By Larry, March 5, 2015 2:16 pm

Sweet Inspirations

Greetings all.

The end of the week is here, so it’s time to remind you that the Funky16Corners Radio Show takes to the airwaves of the interwebs each and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio. If you can’t be there at airtime, you can subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, listen on your mobile device through the TuneIn app, or grab yourselves an MP3 here at the blog.

I thought I’d close out the week with a very nice version of one of my favorite songs.

‘Why (Am I Treated So Bad)’ was written by Roebuck ‘Pop’ Staples and first recorded by the Staple Singers in 1965 (and then reworked and rerecorded with Larry Williams in a funkier version in 1967).

It became something of soul/gospel standard, being covered by a number of artists over the next few years.

When I was out digging last year I happened upon the 45 you see before you today, by the Sweet Inspirations.

One of the greatest examples of vocalists that were primarily back-up singers moving into the spotlight, the Sweet Inspirations were Cissy Houston, Sylvia Shemwell (sister of Judy Clay) , Estelle Brown and Myrna Smith.

The group found its roots in the Drinkard Singers, one of the more important gospel groups of the late 50s and early 60s.

They recorded as backup singers for a wide variety of soul and R&B singers before getting the chance to record under their own name in 1967.

‘Why (Am I Treated So Bad)’ was the A-side of their first 45 for Atlantic, and is an interesting link to their gospel roots and the ability of the song to pass back and forth between gospel and popular presentations.

This has everything to do with the singers, and with the fact that Pop Staples constructed a song that was as much a civil rights anthem as it was a gospel song.

The Sweet Inspirations take it at a pace that seems a touch slower than the original, with their voices set against a thumping bass and swampy guitar (a tip of the hat to the OG).

Their version made it into the R&B Top 40 in 1967, with their biggest hit, ‘Sweet Inspiration’ coming the following year.

The group left Atlantic in 1970, but continued to record late into that decade for labels like Stax and Caribou.

I hope you dig the cut, 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.

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, March 3, 2015 2:16 pm

Vicki Anderson

Greetings all.

How about something tasty from the James Brown galaxy of stars to get you over the hump?

I am continually surprised by the amount of James Brown and related records that I don’t know, and I grab pretty much whetever I find in the field on King, I-Dentify, BrownStone, People or Polydor with any of the JB-signifiers (often enough, his smiling face right there on the label).

Such was the case when I found myself a copy of the 45 you see before you, Vicki Anderson’s 1971 ‘I’m Too Tough For Mister Big Stuff (Hot Pants)’.

Here we have a 45 of value to record collector types as an ‘answer’ record (as part of the Jean Knight-originated ‘Big Stuff’ continuum, not to mention the parenthetical “hot pants” tacked on at the end), and to funk 45 heads for the Vicki Anderson content, since she hardly lent her pipes to anything that wasn’t a stone gas.

The tempo is relaxed – as these things go – yet still packs a punch. Written by one of James Brown’s guitar slingers, Hearlon ‘Cheese’ Martin, the song has a kind of odd rhythmic push, especially in regard to the way Anderson delivers the lyric.

You get to hear how ‘James Brown is down and Wilson Pickett is wicked’, as well as how ‘the cats in Watts are cool if you aren’t a fool’, and Vicki, one of the most powerful voices in Brown’s orbit, is on point.

The flipside, ‘Sounds Funky’ (written by Clarence Reid and Willie Clarke) is a rocked up instrumental with some heavy guitar and piano.

I hope you dig the song, 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.

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, March 1, 2015 12:59 pm

Darondo

Greetings all.

I thought I’d start the week off with something very special indeed.

My deep and abiding appreciation for sweet, harmony soul took a long time to take root. As has been discussed here many times over the years, my soul fandom started out with roots in rough, raucous southern soul, and I still have a decided taste for fast-moving, soul party 45s.

That said, having opened my ears sufficiently, and listened (really, listened) to what was out there, I have come to love soul balladry, and as those things go, there are few better records in the canon than Darondo’s ‘Didn’t I’.

Strangely enough, I remember when Darondo (full name Darondo Pulliam) was rediscovered, partly by Justin Torres, who reported the story as it unfolded on a soul/funk message board I frequented. It was years before I actually heard his music, and when I did, I was blown away.

Darondo (his name is misspelled on the 45) was a San Francisco Bay area performer who recorded three rare 45s in the early 70s, and then kind of fell off the face of the earth until Gilles Peterson revived interest in his music when he started playing ‘Didn’t I’ on his BBC radio show*.

Anyway, a while back I had some filthy lucre burning a hole in my pocket and decided that the time was right to go out and find myself a copy of the ‘Didn’t I’ 45 for my crates. It didn’t take very long, and thanks to a friend who pointed me in the direction of a Bay Area record dealer, I was able to score the disc at a lower than anticipated price (always sweet).

Ultimately, the price was irrelevant, since – as you’ll hear when you pull down the ones and zeroes – this is the kind of record that is worth whatever you have to pay to get it.

‘Didn’t I’ is as remarkable a serving of soul as you’re ever likely to find.

Sublime is an accurate (yet inadequate) word for the artistry packed in the grooves of this 45. Opening with Darondo’s guitar, then joined by bass, it starts off simply, but when joined by his voice and the organ and strings, its many wonders are revealed.

Darondo moves back and forth between a falsetto, and an Al Green-like growl, and his delivery is in turns raw and exceptionally beautiful.

‘Didn’t I’ is proof, once again, that high quality is no guarantee of success. Here we have a remarkably well written song, and well made record, that repeatedly surprises and delights as it unfolds, yet was met by commercial indifference.

I have often written about how – at least in my approximation – a great record is like a journey in which all of the right turns are taken at the right time, moving the traveller in the right direction. Here, Darondo navigates the various sections of the song, and more than once manages to emerge in extraordinary places.

One of these comes at 1:50, when the title is repeated, backed by pulsing organ and strings. It’s a musical moment capable of moving me to tears with its beauty.

The flipside, ‘Listen to My Song’ is also great, especially the interplay between the eerie sounding organ and the acoustic piano. It reminds me of the kind of thing Lou Bond was doing in Memphis around the same time.

Fortunately, you don’t need to drop the big bucks to dig the sounds of Darondo. You can find his stuff on CD, or pick it up via iTunes.

Sadly, Darondo passed away in 2013.

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

Keep the faith

Larry

*Ironically, it wasn’t until recently that I made the connection and realized that I already knew one of Darondo’s other 45s, the funky ‘Let My People Go’, after hearing it on the Sound of Funk Vol 2’ back in the 90s.

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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.

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By Larry, February 26, 2015 1:25 pm

The Tempests

Greetings all.

The end of the week is at hand, and so is this week’s episode of the Funky16Corners Radio Show, which takes to the shimmering airwaves of the interwebs each and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio. If you can’t join me 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.

The disc I bring you today is yet another fine example of the largely blue-eyed soul/R&B movement know as “beach music”.

Starting in the Carolinas and southern Virginia in the 1960s, and based around the dance known as the Shag, the sounds were provided by a vast array of R&B/soul show bands, most of which were mostly (or more often completely) white.

The racial aspect of the scene is relatively complicated, in that it arose from music recorded by black artists (Tams, Showmen, Drifters etc), yet the live bands on the scene (Swingin’ Medallions, O’Kaysions, Bill Deal and the Rhondells etc.) – due, no doubt to the fact that this was all happening in the segregated South – were mostly white.

There is of course a long history of white R&B/soul artists in the south, many of them, in Memphis, Muscle Shoals, and Atlanta, collaborating with black performers, either in the background, as composers and producers (Joe South, Dan Penn, Chips Moman, Spooner Oldham etc) or as backing musicians (in the studio or on the road).

The heyday of beach music was in the 1960s (the term came into use midway through the decade) and there are many excellent recorded examples of the sound.

The Tempests – a white band fronted by a series of black singers – recorded a grip of 45s and an LP for Smash in 1967 and 1968. The group’s original lead singer was Mike Williams, who went on to record ‘Lonely Soldier’ for Atlantic in 1967. He was replaced by vocalist Hazel Martin who appears on the two tracks I bring you today.

The uptempo ‘Would You Believe’ was the Tempests highest charting number, stalling just outside the Hot 100 in 1967. It features some great organ, hard charging horns and a solid vocal by Martin. It has lots of dance-floor appeal, which is why it has grown in popularity in the soul clubs of the UK (along with ‘Someday’ a track from their LP).

The flipside, ‘You (Are the Star I Wish On)’ is a great, pleading, southern soul ballad, with a killer vocal by Martin.

After leaving Smash, the Tempests recorded two 45s for Polydor in the early 70s, before breaking up later in the decade.

Some of the Tempests would go on to form and record as the Backyard Heavies.

The ‘Would You Believe’ LP has been reissued on CD and is fairly easy to find.

To learn more about the beach music scene (and its bands) I will refer to you the “Heeey Baby Days’ website. A companion piece to a huge, comprehensive book (which sadly looks to be out of print and quite expensive) the site is still a valuable resource (click on the ‘bands’ and ‘photos’ links on the front page).

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

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, February 24, 2015 2:17 pm

Mister Rufus Is Back!

Greetings all.

I come to you today, yet again, to preach a chapter from the gospel of the World’s Oldest Teenager.

If the mighty Rufus Thomas ever made a bad record, I have yet to encounter it, and as is often the case, I usually endeavor to crowbar as much of his groove juice into the mix here at Funky16Corners as I can without overplaying my (or his) hand.

The banger I bring you today is another bit of evidence that a record need not be funk, to be funk-y, and that the Stax ‘factory’ (if you will) was turning out product of unquestionably high quality during their peak years.

Written by Porter, Hayes and Jones (David, Isaac and Booker T), ‘Sister’s Got a Boyfriend’ hits on all of the required Rufus Thomas bullet points, i.e. fun, funny, heavy, soulful and danceable.

The record is also a lesson in dynamics, opening with a little call and response between Rufus and the backup singers, not unlike a dumptruck backing up slowly, beeping to warn you of its approach, and then at around 11 seconds, lifting up and unloading a ton of bricks on your head.

The combination of bass and drums (and that bass drum is as deep and wide as Grand Canyon) creates a seismic shift in the record (and hopefully in the dancers as well), abetted by a simple piano line and some tasty horns.

Rufus wails over it all, bringing you the tale of young love/lust moving forward in the face of armed parental resistance. At some point in the song (and I have no idea why) the dog gets pneumonia. It’s a wild time all around.

So, as is always my presecription, if you haven’t got any Rufus, go out and get you some, and if you do (have some) go and get some more, because there’s no such thing as too much.

See you 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.

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, February 22, 2015 12:03 pm

Clarence ‘Frogman’ Henry

Greetings all.

I hope the new week finds you all well.

One of my favorite sidelines (and they are legion) is finding later records by artists that I had relegated to an earlier time. That these are discoveries to me is due in part to the fact that the later records are usually obscure, but also because of the ‘blind spot’ of R&B success.

This ‘blind spot’ as it is manifests itself with R&B/soul artists that had some degree of crossover success, and then seemingly faded from the limelight. What in fact happened many times, is that while they may have lost favor with pop audiences, many of these artists continued to place records on the R&B charts and black radio.

Other times, they didn’t even have that luxury, and were merely making a stab at a new/more contemporary audience.

Clarence ‘Frogman’ Henry is best known for his 1956 hit ‘Ain’t Got No Home’, and ‘But I Do’ from 1961. He was a singer/pianist and a New Orleans fixture, and while he may have left the charts after 1961, he continued to record through the 1960s and 1970s.

The record I bring you today is a very groovy 1965 cover of a song that Hank Ballard had recorded with the Midnighters in 1956.

‘Tore Up Over You’ takes the Midnighter’s original and bumps up the tempo, tossing in some combo organ that sounds like it was borrowed from a Sir Douglas Quintet session. The bass and guitar push things along with an excellent vocal by Clarence and some female backing singers.

I know I say this a lot, but this really is one of those records that should have been a hit. It’s got plenty of kick to it, fits in very nicely with the 1965 musical zeitgeist and I wouldn’t hesitate to drop it for a room full of dancers. As far as I can tell, it did absolutely nothing when it was released, relegating it to the ‘to be rediscovered’ file, from whence I bring it to you.

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.

Comments (2)

By Larry, February 19, 2015 12:05 pm

Miss Bettye Swann

Greetings all.

The end of the week is here, and so is the Funky16Corners Radio Show. We come 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. If you cannot be there at airtime, you can always subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, listen on your mobile device through the TuneIn app, or grab an MP3 here at the blog.

The tune I bring you today is another fine example of how no matter how much you dig, and listen and learn, there is always something new to dig.

While I knew the name Bettye Swann, I had never heard any of her music, until I was fortunate enough to find the 45 you see before you today.

Swann was a native of Louisiana who relocated to Los Angeles in the 1950s.

She started recording for the Money label in 1964 and had her first hit the following year with ‘Don’t Wait Too Long’.

She recorded ‘Make Me Yours’ in 1967, and had an R&B #1 hit with it (making it into the Pop Top 20 as well).

‘Make Me Yours’ is a great mid-tempo number with a punchy bass, some sweet vibes and a stellar vocal by Bettye.

The flipside, ‘I Will Not Cry’ takes a similar tempo in a ballad direction, and despite the chart success of the A-side, is my fave of the two songs (both penned by Swann).

Following a run with Money that ended in 1967, Swann resurfaced with Capitol in 1968, and then Atlantic in 1971, having R&B hits with both labels.

The really groovy thing is, if you are not inclined to dig for OG vinyl, there are comps available of Swann’s Money and Capitol sides available on CD and iTunes.

I hope you dig the sounds, 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 (0)

By Larry, February 17, 2015 1:54 pm

Leon Haywood

Greetings all.

Today’s selection is an early side by a guy that I find very interesting, indeed.

Most casual soul fans will be aware of Leon Haywood via his biggest early hit, the sweet soul of ‘It’s Got To Be Mellow’, and R&B Top 20 hit in the summer of 1967.

However, do a little digging, and a little b-side flipping, and before you know it you’ve discovered that Mr Haywood had something of a double life going on.

In addition to be an excellent singer, Leon Haywood knew his way around a keyboard (mainly organ).

His very first 45 was a blazing organ instro version of Percy Mayfield’s ‘A River’s Invitation’, and many of his early 45s sport instrumental b-sides.

Haywood was also the organist of record (as it were) on the Packers 1965 ‘Hole In the Wall’, one of those soul records that had an influence far beyond it’s chart success would suggest. Keep your eyes peeled in this space for a mix I’ve been working on involving various and sundry Packers/Hole In the Wall variations, rip-offs and homages, or which there were many (and many of which featured Mr Haywood).

That said, his early sides for the Fat Fish label feature Haywood on vocals, organ and piano, which is where we come to today’s selection, ‘Skate A While’. Released in 1966, ‘Skate a While’ is the 45-only vocal take of the the LP track ‘The Fat Fish’, which – unsurprisingly – falls quite neatly in line with the ‘Hole In the Wall’ stylistic continuum, if you will. You get Leon laying down an excellent,soulful vocal over a tight band, led by his piano, the only bummer being that the whole thing clocks in at just 1:52!

It’s a great bit of classic-era soul party, and I hope you dig it as much as I do.

Have a great weekend, 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.

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.