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By Larry, March 26, 2013 5:27 pm

Listen/Download – Henry Lumpkin – Soul Is Takin Over MP3

Greetings all.

For the next week or so, while the F16C fam get in a well deserved bit of rest and relaxation, I’ll be republishing some of my favorite tunes from the Funky16Corners Archives. I hope you dig the sounds, and I’ll be back soon.

Larry

Originally posted 11/09/2008

I hope all is well on your end and you found the weekend to be both restorative and fun-filled (not always the same thing, y’know).

I figured I get the week started with something lively, raw and soulful.

The tune I bring you today is one of the last 45s recorded by Mr. Henry Lumpkin.

Lumpkin was one of the early lights of Motown, recording two 45s for the label in 1962. One of those 45s happened to be the original version of the R&B/soul standard ‘Mojo Hannah’ later covered by Larry Williams, Betty Harris and Tammi Lynn among others.

Lumpkin’s time at Motown was over almost as soon as it got started, but it was there that he made an important connection, that being songwriter and producer Robert Bateman.

Five years after his stint with Motown he hooked up again with Bateman, and the man who was by then Bateman’s partner – and a big favorite here at Castle Funky16Corners – Mr. Lou “Hot Butter’n’All” Courtney.

It was with Bateman and Courtney (as co-composers and producers) that Lumpkin made what is perhaps the greatest record of his career, 1967s ‘Soul Is Takin’ Over’.

If you’ve been sitting around, wasting away, wondering when your next dose of soul clapping was going to arrive, I’m here to let you know that Dr. Soul is about to fall by with your prescription.

‘Soul is Takin’ Over’ is a dance-floor pounder from the git go, with the aforementioned soul clapping, throbbing bass, guitar, piano and drums, all dragged around the studio by Lumpkin’s razor sharp delivery of the anthemic chorus. If ever a soul 45 was seeming engineered specifically for use as a drunken sing/dance-along, ‘Soul Is Takin’ Over’ is it.

Unfortunately, no matter how good the record is – and it is, good that is – it’s yet another example of a fantastic 45 that got lost in the shuffle, ultimately doing nothing to advance its singer’s career.

Lumpkin would make one more 45 for Buddah, and the promptly fell off the face of the earth.

No matter.
Make sure you pull down the ones and zeros, and the next time you have the gang over for a rug-cutting session, get’em lit and throw this one on, open the windows and piss off your neighbors.

I hope you dig it.

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, March 24, 2013 3:15 pm

The lovely Miss Mary Wells

Listen/Download – Mary Wells – Can’t You See (You’re Losing Me)

Greetings all.

For the next week or so, while the F16C fam get in a well deserved bit of rest and relaxation, I’ll be republishing some of my favorite tunes from the Funky16Corners Archives. I hope you dig the sounds, and I’ll be back soon.

Larry

Originally posted 10/19/2010

Once again I’m neck deep in a busy week, but what better time for an invigorating and restorative shot of soul?

Like anyone who tuned into an oldies station in the 1970s (or 80s, 90s or 00s) Motown looms large.

Unfortunately – and I’ve spoken on this issue at length in the past – what you basically get in that format is the same dozen of so songs by the label’s biggest artists, repeated ad infinitum to the point of nausea.

It was just such a situation that turned me off to the wonders of Motown for a long time, until many years later, when the sounds of Northern Soul came into my life.

Though the phrase Northern Soul, used as a descriptive can be unbelievably wide-ranging, were you to approach it from the broadest possible angle, what you’re hearing is musicians and singers, in and out of Detroit making an effort to duplicate the soul sounds coming out of that city, in and out of Motown (and I say in and out because so many Motor City records on other labels were played by the same general group of musicians creating the magic for Berry Gordy).

One of those oft-repeated songs was ‘My Guy’ by Mary Wells. A big hit in the Spring of 1964, that song cemented Mary Wells in the minds of a generation (and beyond).

What a lot of folks don’t know, is that Wells left Motown soon after, and spent the rest of the decade bouncing to 20th Century Fox, Atco and Jubilee, making a few minor dents in the charts but nothing like her time at Motown.

Despite that fact, she continued to make great music, including today’s track, recorded in 1966 for Atco.

I first heard this tune via my man Agent 45, who had picked it up on a mispressed/labeled 45. When I heard ‘Cant’ You See (You’re Losing Me)’ I flipped my wig.

What a fucking stormer!

Not only is the song a bit of Northern Soul genius (that honking baritone sax is the shit!), with a powerful, propulsive dancer’s beat, but the song itself is a killer.

Written by none other than Barrett Strong (another tie back to Motown), and recorded in Chicago with a brilliant arrangement by Sonny Sanders, another former Detroiter who had worked on a number of classics at the Golden World label, ‘Can’t You See (You’re Losing Me)’ is yet another example of a record that should have been a huge hit, yet only finds its reward in the hearts of soulies decades on.

‘Can’t You See (You’re Losing Me)’ has since become a staple of my Northern Soul box, and always brings someone up to the decks to see what’s playing.

Love, love, love this record.

I hope you do too,

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 (5)

By Larry, March 21, 2013 11:42 am

Funky16Corners Presents: Soul Version

Jackie Mittoo – Hip Hug (Coxsone) – Booker T & The MGs
Gaylettes – Son of a Preacherman (Steady) – Dusty Springfield
Dobby Dobson – Don’t Make Me Over (Pama Supreme) – Dionne Warwicke
Federalman – Soul Serenade (Steady) – King Curtis
Ken Boothe – Gonna Take a Miracle/Version (Hulk) – Royalettes
Winston Wright – Heads or Tails (Green Door) – Booker T & the MGs
Lorna Bennett – Breakfast In Bed (Harry J) – Dusty Springfield
Byron Lee – Who Done It (Dynamic) – Monk Higgins
Pioneers – Papa Was a Rolling Stone (Trojan) – Temptations
Horace Andy – Show and Tell (Money Disc) – Al Wilson
Pat Rhoden – Living For the City (Attack) – Stevie Wonder
Byron Lee – Shaft (Dynamic) – Isaac Hayes
Winston Samuels and the Cintones – Let’s Get It On (Clintone) – Marvin Gaye
Byron Lee – Hot Reggay (Dynamic) – James Brown
Shark Wilson and the Basement Heaters – Make It Reggay(version) (Ashanti) – James Brown
Pat Rhoden – Boogie On Reggae Woman (Horse) – Stevie Wonder
Alton Ellis – La La Means I Love You (Mr Tipsy) – Delfonics
Tomorrows Children – Sister Big Stuff (London) – Jean Knight

Listen/Download -Funky16Corners Presents Soul Version – 109MB Mixed MP3/256K

Greetings all.

I hope all is well on your side of the universe, and that you’re all ready for the weekend.

Don’t forget that the Funky16Corners Radio Show hits the airwaves of the interwebs this and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio. If you can’t be there at the time of broadcast, you can always subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, or grab an MP3 (or two, or 100) out of the archive here at the blog.

The fam and I are taking some time off to chill in the coming weeks (which will be filled with specially selected reposts of some of my fave tunes from the archives) so I figured I’d leave you with something special until I’m back behind the keyboard again.

The mix you see before you is the fruit of what I like to call one of my “special boxes”.

The Funky16Corners record vault is lined, floor to ceiling (in some places) with crates of LPs and boxes of 45s, and sprinkled liberally with a grip of those old-timey, pasteboard, 45 carrying cases.

As pretty much any collector does, I grab those cases wherever I find them, first and foremost because they’re cool looking, but because – and I’m pretty sure you figured this out already – I’ve got lots and lots of 45s that need a place to stay.

I mentioned the “boxes” before, those being the purpose-made 45 storage boxes that hold over 100 discs each. There are lots of those.

However, my collection has its niches, certain sub-genres, not collected as aggressively as others (for a variety of reasons, though usually boiled down to issues of availability), and many of these niches get packed away in those smaller boxes.

There’s one for disco 45s, one for rockabilly/instro 45s, and the one that gave up today’s sounds, the reggae and ska 45s.

I’ve been a huge fan of ska and reggae since I was in high school, when the Two-Tone revival was in full swing and I was led by bands like the Specials to investigate the first-wave of ska, going back to the mid-60s.

It would be fair to say that the bulk of the ska and reggae in my hands is on CD, especially old comps and the later (excellent) Trojan mini-box sets.

However, I’m always on the lookout for Jamaican vinyl, often seeking out favorite records (some of which – Winston Wright, Pioneers, Shark Wilson – are in this mix) and grabbing cool stuff whenever I encounter it in the field.

As the contents of this mix show, I’m a big fan of reggae covers of American soul tunes, of which there are many.

The groovy  thing – and something I’ve discussed in this space before – is that despite the stylistic delineation, what you’re hearing is still demonstrably soul music (albeit with a reggae beat).

The influence of American R&B and soul on Jamaican music is undeniable, with many powerhouse AM radio stations, in cities like New Orleans and Miami sending out American pop to the islands.

What you hear isn’t mere “coverage”, if you will, but rather some truly great singers like Ken Boothe and Alton Ellis, and instrumentalists like Winston Wright, Jackie Mittoo and Byron Lee, interpreting some of the finest material available at the time.

Soul Version is composed of just about an hour of my favorites, running (like my personal tastes) from sweet soul, to organ instrumentals, to funk and just a touch of dub.

Many of these records have appeared here at Funky16Corners over the years, either by themselves or in mixes.

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

Keep the faith

Larry

PS I just realized I took a picture of the wrong Pioneers 45…sorry ’bout that.
___________________________________________________________________________________________

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, March 19, 2013 11:14 am

Nu Sound Express Ltd

Listen/Download Nu Sound Express Ltd – I’ve Been Trying

Greetings all

The tune I bring you today is both a very groovy cover, as well as a neglected b-side.

Back in the day, when I was first tracking and bagging soul and funk 45s, the Nu-Sound Express Ltd were one of the first big scores.

This is not to say that any of their records are big-money hustlas (to borrow a term from our insane friends) but rather that at the time, they were a group both obscure and excellent when my crates were not heavily burdened with same.

There isn’t a lot of information out there on the group, but what is available suggests that they were from New Jersey, and were associated with Jersey City impresario Paul Kyser.

Kyser had produced acts like Jimmy Briscoe and the Little Beavers, Sound Generation, the Super Disco Band, Calender and the band that Nu Sound Express would morph into a few years later, Rhyze.

Nu Sound Express Ltd recorded two cool 45s, both for the Silver Dollar label (at least one of which was issued in Europe – with a cool picture sleeve – on the Discophon label) in the early 70s.

The a-sides of their 45s, ‘Ain’t It Good Enough’ and ‘One More Time You All’ were both cool examples of uptempo early 70s funk (the second being a ‘sequel’ of sorts to the first).

The tune I bring you today is the flipside of ‘Ain’t It Good Enough’, and if you didn’t recognize the title, also a cover of the Impressions 1965 Top 40 R&B hit ‘I’ve Been Trying’.

It took me a few years to warm to this side, first and foremost because back then I wasn’t grooving to too many ballads, but also because it has a certain loose, almost lo-fi feel to it.

The impression I get is that Kyser blew most of the budget on the A-side, leaving the group with a much sparer palette with which to work.

What you get is a touch of street corner harmony, with a spoken intro and low key instrumental backing (with a slightly out of tune piano). The cool thing is that the singing is very nice indeed, with a refreshing lack of slickness that sets it apart from almost everything else that was happening at the time.

‘I’ve Been Trying’ is a throwback to an earlier time and an interesting contrast to the funk of its flip.

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 (3)

By Larry, March 17, 2013 12:26 pm

Timmy Shaw

Listen/Download Timmy Shaw – Gonna Send you Back To Georgia (City Slick)

Greetings all

If you’ve been loitering here under the streetlamp at Funky16Corners for a few years, you probably heard this song (the James Carr cover)when I posted it back in 2009.

At the time, I mentioned how surprised I was when I spun that particular 45 and realized that it was a take on the song that I had known by the Animals as ‘Send You Back To Walker’.

When I posted it, I did some digging and discovered that the James Carr tune was not only not the OG, but came after the one by our friends from Newcastle upon the Tyne, which itself was a cover of the O-est of G’s, which (not coincidentally) you see before you this fine day.

Assuming that you read the title of the post, you know by now that the tune was written and first recorded by a cat named Timmy Shaw (though his Ma and Pa knew him as Jake Hammonds, Jr).

Shaw, who co-wrote the tune with Johnnie Mae Matthews was a Detroit-based singer who waxed the tune in 1964.

Shaw recorded a number of 45s for local labels, with ‘Gonna Send You back To Georgia’ having originally been released under it’s parenthetical title ‘City Slick’ earlier that year on the Audrey imprint.

The Wand version grazed the outer reaches of the R&B Top 40 in January of 1964.

The original version of the tune is a hard-charging, highly danceable number with some very tasty guitar and a great vocal by Shaw, who reminds me a little of Gary US Bonds.

Timmy Shaw – one can assume he pulled in a couple of bucks from the Animals cover – only recorded a few more 45s (for Premium Stuff and Big Hit), the last in 1968 before dropping out of sight.

He passed away in 1986.

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

Keep the faith

Larry

PS What’s a Sternphone??
___________________________________________________________________________________________

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 (4)

By Larry, March 14, 2013 11:44 am

Ricky Allen

Listen/Download Ricky Allen – Cut You A Loose

Greetings all

The end of the week is nigh and so must be the Funky16Corners Radio Show, Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio. If you cannot join me at airtime, you can always subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes or grab an MP3 here at the blog.

Now…I hope you’re all strapped in securely and have ingested your blood pressure medicine and all necessary sedatives.

I only mention this because the record I’m going to whip on you this fine day is likely to blow your doors off, set your hair on end and (if you’re lucky) drive you into the kind of convulsions often recognized as “dancing”.

I first heard Ricky Allen’s ‘Cut You A Loose’courtesy of my friend Michael Newman’s ‘Hinky Dinky Time’ radio show.

It was one of those times where I heard a record for the first time (happens a lot at DJ nights) and the intersections of the pleasure and acquisition centers of my brain light up at exactly the same time.

Gotta hear that record again, and gotta get me a copy to stash in my play box, in that exact order.

It didn’t take me too long to find a nice, clean copy of the 45, and when it did fall through the mail slot I digimatized it forthwith and put the digital copy on a loop.

Like Bobby Parker’s ‘Watch Your Step’, ‘Cut You A Loose’ is one of those records that lives in the mystical land where blues and soul (and rock’n’roll) coexist peacefully, breeding at will and producing offspring like this.

‘Cut You A Loose’ was a Top 20 R&B hit in August of 1963 and Allen (who was born in Nashville but relocated to Chicago in the late 50s) went on to record a handful of 45s in a similar vein through the 60s.

After I’d digested this tune, it occurred to me that it sounded familiar. It wasn’t until I’d played it a dozen or so times that it occurred to me that ‘Cut You A Loose’ bore an interesting resemblance to another record, that being Dave Baby Cortez’s ‘Getting To the Point’.

As far as I can tell, ‘Cut You A Loose’ came first (by a few months), with ‘Getting To the Point’ being a rather savage, Hammond-driven “homage”, if you will.

‘Cut You A Loose’ became a Chicago blues standard of sorts, with cover versions by James Cotton, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, and Koko Taylor among others (I have no idea how this song didn’t become a staple of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s repertoire).

Allen apparently retired in the early 70s to run a limousine business and a laundry, before returning to the festival circuit years later.

This record is as powerful 2:47 of music as you’re likely to find, and I hope you dig it as much as I do.

See you soon.

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, March 12, 2013 11:54 am

Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee

Listen/Download Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee – People Get Ready

Greetings all

Here’s an odd one.

Many, many moons ago I was out digging and happened upon the 45 you see before you today.

When I saw a version of ‘People Get Ready’ by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee I had to double check and make sure it was in fact the Curtis Mayfield song.

Indeed it was.

This was a record that cried out for further investigation, and since it was on sale for a shiny United States quarter, I paid the man and brought it home, where it languished for a good long time.

When I first recorded it I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.

Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee were known mostly as a folk blues act, having joined forces for the first time in 1942.

McGhee, the singer and guitarist (brother of Stick McGhee of ‘Drinkin’ Wine Spo-dee-o-dee’ fame) had played with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and followed/studied with Blind Boy Fuller.

Harp player Sonny Terry had been accompanying Fuller until the latter’s death, after which he teamed up with McGhee.

Now, I mentioned that Terry and McGhee were best known (to me, anyway) as folk blues players, but as it turns out, they spent the early part of their career working at a more popular/mainstream success. They recorded jump blues and R&B under a few different names during the 40s and 50s, only really getting firmly into their better known bag riding the wave of the folk/blues revival in the late 50s/early 60s.

When I first listened to this version of ‘People Get Ready’ I was surprised by the arrangement, in which Terry and McGhee change the tempo, moving away from the gospel feel of the original (and many ensuing covers) and settling into a rootsy, ever so slightly funky groove that reminds me of some of Taj Mahal’s ish from around the same time.

As it turns out the single was pulled from the 1973 LP ‘Sonny and Brownie’, which featured an all-star backing group (Arlo Guthrie, Sugarcane Harris, John Mayall, Michael Franks) and a variety of contemporary covers, including Randy Newman’s ‘Sail Away’, a couple of Franks’ songs and some originals.

As I said before, the re-arrangement might see a little jarring at first, but after a listen or two it starts to make complete sense (at least to me, your mileage may vary…).

Something unusual to feed your ears in the middle of the week.

I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back 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 (1)

By Larry, March 8, 2013 11:27 am

Originally posted July 2006

1. Thelma Jones – The House That Jack Built (Barry) 2. Gladys Knight & The Pips – The Nitty Gritty (Soul) 3. Ike & Tina Turner – Bold Soul Sister (Blue Thumb) 4. Tina Britt – Sookie Sookie (Veep) 5. Ann Sexton – You’re Losing Me (Seventy Seven) 6. Viola Wills – Sweetback (Supreme) 7. Martha Turner – Dirty Old Man (Royal American) 8. Shirley Vaughn – Escape (Columbia) 9. Ruby Andrews – You Made a Believer Out Of Me (Zodiac) 10. Helena Hollins – Baby You’re Right (Stonegood) 11. Monica – I Don’t Know Nothing Else To Tell You But I Love You (Toxsan) 12. Lyn Collins – Mama Feelgood (People) 13. Gi Gi – Daddy Love (Sweet) 14. Erma Franklin – Baby What You Want Me To Do (Shout) 15. Yvonne Fair – Say Yeah Yeah (Dade) 16. Brenda & The Tabulations – Scuze Uz Y’All (Top & Bottom) 17. Cold Blood – You Got Me Hummin’ (San Francisco)

Listen/Download Funky16Corners Radio V.6 – Bold Soul Sisters

Greetings all

This is a little bit of an impromptu groove.

I was posting a couple of tracks over on Facebook to commemorate International Women’s Day and it occurred to me that I really ought to dip back into the archives and whip this mix on you (in furtherance of the same idea).

Here you get a mix dynamite sister funk (and soul) that ought to serve as a reminder of some of the many strong and talented female voices in those realms.

So click on the link, or pull down the ones and zeros and let the music play.

See you on Monday.

Keep the faith

Larry

PS Don’t forget to tune into the Funky16Corners Radio Show, tonight at 9PM on Viva Radio!
___________________________________________________________________________________________

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, March 5, 2013 12:53 pm

The Staple Singers (l-r) Cleotha, Pops, Pervis and Mavis

NOTE: a reader says that I have the family members
misidentified in the picture above. Can anyone confirm this?

Listen/Download Staple Singers – For What It’s Worth

Greetings all

Got a little sad news last week when word came down that Cleotha Staples, the eldest of the singing siblings had passed away at the age of 78 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Staples, the soprano of the group – alongside sister Mavis, brother Pervis (who left the group in 1968) and father Roebuck ‘Pop’ Staples – may have taken the lead only rarely, but her voice was an important part of the group’s wall of sound (perhaps a more apt use of that colloquialism). There are few things in music as powerful as the sum of several strong voices and the Staples were mighty indeed.

Though there were countless soul singers that got their start and training singing gospel in church (many often recording gospel before working in the secular realm), the Staples were already a famous gospel group prior to their huge crossover success with the Stax label.

Though they had recorded folk/protest material before, their cover of the Buffalo Springfield’s hit ‘For What It’s Worth’ (originally posted here in 2009) probably seemed like bold and unusual choice.

The original version had been a hit in January of 1967 (recorded just a month earlier), as a reaction to the Sunset Strip riots.

The Staple Singers version came out in September of that year, and despite the LA country rock roots of the song, they did a little k-turn and drove it right through church.

Opening with Pops Staples’s unmistakable, Delta-soaked guitar, the group harmonies – soaring over a simple drum and handclap rhythm track – have a richness and power that make the record (in no way a popular success) a landmark of sorts.

As I wrote in 2009, ‘For What It’s Worth’ has a broad enough reach to transfer easily from the youth culture to the civil rights movement seamlessly.

The Staple Singers recorded for Epic from 1964 to 1968, when they made the move to Stax, having their first big hit with ‘Heavy Makes You Happy’ in 1970. They had their last hit in 1984 with a cover of the Talking Heads’ ‘Slippery People’.

Following the death of Pops Staples in 2000 (the year after their induction into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame) the group disbanded. Not long after that Cleotha developed Alzheimer’s, leaving sister Mavis the only remaining performing member of the family group.

I hope you dig the track, 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 (1)

By Larry, February 28, 2013 12:46 pm

The Fantoms

Listen/Download The Fantoms – Junk

Greetings all

I hope everyone’s ready for the weekend.

Since it is almost Friday, I should remind you all that the Funky16Corners Radio Show comes on this and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio with the finest in funk, soul, jazz and rare groove, all on OG vinyl. If you can’t be there for the broadcast you can always subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, or you can grab an MP3 here at the blog.

The record I bring you today is an old fave of mine out of my NOLA crates, which would have been posted a long time ago if I hadn’t lost it.

The thing is, I didn’t know I’d lost it, until I had to move some old computer equipment in my record room and happened upon a handful of 45s that had apparently slipped down between an old CPU and the desk where my turntable coffin is perched.

My heart sank when I saw the 45s (especially when I saw which ones they were…there were a couple of valuable discs there), but fortunately they were sitting straight up and down, and nowhere near a heat vent, so they were for all intents and purposes, unscathed (no cracks either, Thank you vinyl Jeebus!).

The 45 in question, the Fantoms’ ‘Junk’ is something I picked up years ago, after their earlier disc, the completely mental ‘Mau Mau’ (which you can hear in Funky16Corners Radio v.10 – Funky Nawlins Vol. 2) flipped my wig.

‘Junk’ is a very groovy, is much more sedate affair, with the band settled into an early 70s groove, with the funky flute (a big fave of mine), the organ and percussion in a bag that reminds me a little of a more far out version of Traffic’s ‘Rock’n’Roll Stew’.

The Fantoms (originally the Fabulous Fantoms) were together from the late 60s into the late 70s, and were contemporaries of groups like the Meters and David Batiste and the Gladiators.

They recorded for Marty Lewis’s Big Deal label (also home to Anthony Butler and the Invaders and Jimmy Hicks) and released 45s on that label and Power Funksion.

The Fantoms apparently found a great deal of success on the local scene, but never broke through nationally.

It’s a groovy little disc, and I hope you dig it.

Have a great weekend 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, 2013 1:17 pm

Dig the groovy promo shot of Louis Chachere that I picked up a few years ago!

Listen/Download Louis Chachere – A Soulful Bag

Greetings all

I hope the day finds you well, and ready for some solid Hammond grooves.

Regular visitors to Funky16Corners as well as Hammond aficionados will already be familiar with the name Louis Chachere via his mighty slice of funky jazz, ‘The Hen’.

That 45 is just this side of brutal and unrelenting, packed not only with Chachere’s blazing organ, but also the guitar and drums, both of which (though the players are unknown to me) brilliant.

‘The Hen’ is both danceable and satisfying on a purely musical level, which is why it is sought after by DJs the world over.

I though for many years (erroneously as it turns out) that ‘The Hen’ was a one-off bit of genius, and that Chachere, having made his mark, vanished into the ether.

The fact is, that while his discography cannot in any way be described as extensive, what he did put his hands on was first rate.

In addition to his own recordings (which you see before you today), Chachere also produced the legendary ‘Remember Me’ b/w ‘Black Is Beautiful’ 45 by the Trinikas.

I first found out about ‘Soulful Bag’ b/w ‘Shout Down’ when it popped up in an auction years ago.

The thought of a Louis Chachere 45 that was not already inside my Hammond crates drove me nuts, so I followed the auction, tossed a little long green in that direction and within a week that very record was mine.

As far as I can tell, ‘Soulful Bag’ predates ‘The Hen’ (1968/1969) by a year or two. The only other 45 I’ve been able to track down on this label is a rockabilly 45 (Max Brown) from 1964 with a lower catalog number.

It was released on the Kansas City, MO label Central (two of the three 45 issues of ‘The Hen’ came out on other KC labels, MJC and Forte) and has an earlier, soulful but not yet funky sound.

There’s a definite groove going on, and while I haven’t been able to date it, my educated guess is that it sounds like a mid-60s release (and if anyone knows for sure, please do not hesitate to let me know).

Chachere opens strong, playing in unison with a sax, repeating the theme until he gets to open up a little on the organ. The sax player takes his turn, then the guitarist, then Chachere gets to solo extensively (at least as extensively as you can on a 45).

It’s got enough get up and go for the dancefloor, so if you’re lucky enough to find yourself a copy, don’t hesitate to whip it out at your next shindig.

I hope you dig it, and I’ll see you soon.

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 14, 2013 12:14 pm

Nathaniel Mayer (and his hay-er…)

Listen/Download Nathaniel Mayer and the Fabulous Twilights – Village Of Love

Greetings all

The close of another week is at hand, and so then is the Funky16Corners Radio Show, which hits the airwaves of the interwebs this and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio.

If you cannot join us at airtime, you can always keep up with the soul by subscribing to the show as a podcast in iTunes, or by grabbing an MP3 here at the blog.

I know I already posted the Valentines Day mix, but when I sat down to hammer out a few future blog posts, I happened upon something in the on deck circle that I knew I had to post, even if some of you will be getting it the day after the holiday.

I spend a lot of time working my way through the old Billboard R&B charts, and always make my way into the right margin to see if a given record ever made its way into the pop charts. This is always an interesting indicator of how much an artist managed to crossover (if at all). The absence of a pop chart position – especially in the listing for an artist that was very popular in the R&B charts – is also important evidence of the divide that often existed between black and white audiences.

I’m always surprised to find out that artists that I would have assumed were one-hit wonders had substantial chart runs on the R&B side of things.

As someone who spent a lot of time as a kid listening to oldies radio, I am shocked by how many times I find a record that did crossover into the Pop Top 40 that never made it onto oldies playlists.

Such is the case with ‘Village of Love’* by Nathaniel Mayer and the Fabulous Twilights, which was an R&B Top 20 hit (grazing the Pop Top 20) in 1962.

Mayer’s music didn’t pop up on my radar until he made a comeback in the early 2000s on labels like Fat Possum (where he recorded and toured with the Black Keys) and Norton.

The Detroit-born Mayer recorded for the legendary Fortune label from 1961 to 1966 (hitting only once with ‘Village of Love’) and then all but disappeared (with the exception of one 45 in the early 80s) until 2004. His Fortune sides – like ‘I Had a Dream’ and ‘From Now On’ – are as raw and dynamic as they are rare and expensive (very…).

‘Village of Love’ is one of those great records that bridge the gap between R&B/doowop vocal harmony and the early years of soul. The instrumental and vocal backing have a foot planted firmly in the 1950s, but Mayer’s wailing pulls the whole thing into the 60s. I especially dig the part at about 55 seconds in where the guitar starts to solo and the drums and handclaps are bouncing around in the reverb.

It’s the kind of record that played at the appropriate volume verily compels you to get off your ass and move out onto the dance floor.

Sadly, Nathaniel Mayer only managed to squeeze in a few comeback years before being felled by a series of strokes in 2008.

You can find his best stuff, old and newer on iTunes.

I hope you all dig the record, and 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.