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By Larry, July 18, 2010 2:03 pm

The painting of Gene from the cover of ‘Organ Out Loud’ by Jack Lonshein

Gene Ludwig at the organ (Circa 1965)

Listen/Download – Gene Ludwig -Sticks and Stones

Listen/Download – Gene Ludwig – The Vamp

Listen/Download – Gene Ludwig – Blues For Mr Fink

Listen/Download – Gene Ludwig – House of the Rising Sun

Listen/Download – Gene Ludwig – Comin’ Home Baby

Listen/Download – Gene Ludwig – Moanin’

Greetings all.
As I mentioned in Friday’s post, I got the very sad news last week that Hammond master Gene Ludwig had passed away at the age of 72.
If you’re one of the rare few that’s been on the Funky16Corners tip since the web zine days, you know I ride for the Hammond organ in a big way, from the greasiest R&B, to pure soul, soul jazz and funk, I have never been able to get enough of the Hammond sound.
Gene Ludwig was one of the last of what I would call the accepted past masters of the jazz organ. He was a contemporary of Brother Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff, Dr Lonnie Smith, Seleno Clarke and pretty much everyone else that was part of the jazz organ explosion of the 50s and 60s.
What Gene was also a part of was the great – mostly unexplored – Pennsylvania organ tradition. One of the really interesting things I picked up out of years of collecting and researching Hammond records was how many great players hailed from the Keystone State (and not just Philly). The man that launched a thousand organ combos, the mighty Jimmy Smith as well as Jimmy McGriff, Charles Earland, Richie Varola, Greg Hatza, Papa John and Joey DeFrancesco, Shirley Scott and of course Gene Ludwig all got their start in the bars and nightclubs of Pennsylvania, in both the big cities and out in the hinterlands. Was it something in the water? An abundance of organs (or bars/lounges with organs in them)?
In his obit Gene was quoted as saying that he turned on to R&B (and organ players) by listening to Pittsburgh radio legend Porky Chedwick. Pittsburgh has a long history as a kind of isolated Shangri La for R&B and soul fans where any number of brilliant but obscure records are worshipped by the locals because they were circulated on the radio and at dances.
Whether this had anything to do with spawning organists, as opposed to just fans of the sound, I have no idea, but it is intriguing.
Gene Ludwig – a native of the wester PA town of Twin Rocks started out as a pianist, and had his ‘road to Damascus’ moment when he saw Jimmy Smith perform at a Pittsburgh club called the Hurricane in 1957.
Ludwig went on to have a 50 year career as one of the great proponents of the Hammond, recording locally as well as on national labels like Mainstream and Atlantic.
He was really what I would consider (at least for my taste) the consummate organist in that he approached the instrument from a jazz perspective (with serious chops to match) yet was not afraid to cut loose and burn on the keyboard, expanding into the realms of R&B and soul.
I’ve consumed a lot of virtual ink rambling on about this or that ultra-raw organ 45, but the best Hammond players, no matter how soulful or funky all came to the instrument from the jazz roots.
Gene Ludwig was old enough to hear the early rumblings of the Hammond sound from the jazz/jump/R&B nexus of cats like Wild Bill Davis, Bill Doggett and Milt Buckner, and mastered the instrument in the wake of the mid-50s scene when Jimmy Smith rewrote the book on jazz organ.
The ensuing expansion of the electronic organ, as both a performance platform and recorded instrument was wide ranging on both established jazz labels like Blue Note, Prestige, Riverside and Atlantic, but as my crates will attest, on countless tiny local labels eager for a piece of the action. It’s not at all hard to imagine walking into a bar in 1965, strolling up to the jukebox and seeing the organ stylings of a regional favorite among records from out of town.
Gene Ludwig was both a regional player (probably half of his discography is rooted locally) and an internationally known master of his instrument who headlined and worked as a sideman (replacing Don Patterson in Sony Stitt’s late 60s band).
Gene remained devoted to the Hammond, and a glimpse at his web site will reveal that he was playing, recording and above all staying relevant right up until his unexpected and tragic passing.
He was a musician of great taste with an ear for that perfect soul jazz vibe, yet was also conversant in standards (which any organist working the clubs in the 60s would have had to have been) and was by all accounts an unfailingly generous soul when it came to mentoring younger players.
Though I never got to meet Gene or his wife Pattye in person, I was lucky enough to correspond with them over the years (Gene had no bigger booster than Pattye), including an interview I did with the master back in 2005.

The Gene Ludwig Trio in the 1960s (above) and reunited in 2004 (below)

The tunes I bring you today represent a cross-section of the sound of Gene Ludwig through the 1960s. As far as I can tell all of these cuts feature his classic 60s-era trio which featured Randy Gelispie (or Gillespie, I’ve seen it spelled both ways) on drums and Jerry Byrd on guitar.
A few of these cuts have been featured here in the past, but they deserve to be heard again.
The first track is the Ludwig’s trio’s smoking version of the Henry Glover/Titus Turner classic ‘Sticks and Stones’, which appeared as a two-part 45 in 1963 (I’ve spliced the two parts together). The trio’s playing is spot on, relaxed yet generating a considerable amount of heat, and Gene is in rare form. I’ve heard there’s at least one other unissued side from that date, a version of ‘High Heel Sneakers’.
Next up is a track discussed here in the past, the brilliant ‘The Vamp’, which appeared as a 45 and on the LP ‘The Educated Sound of Gene Ludwig’ in 1965. If you haven’t heard ‘The Vamp’ strap yourself in because it’s a killer. Improvised in the studio by the trio, it featured Gene on the organ, Byrd on guitar and Gelispie on tambourine only. It has the feeling of an after-hours session gone wild, and is probably my favorite moment in Gene’s discography.
‘Blues For Mr. Fink’ and ‘House of the Rising Sun’ are both culled from an oddball 1960s compilation called ‘The Keyboards’ on the Time label, which features Gene Ludwig, and five other players performing in a wide variety of disparate styles. None of the album’s 20 tracks are attributed to anyone specific, but I knew of the Ludwig tracks from other sources (which is why I picked it up).
My suspicion has always been that all of the Gene Ludwig material on that record came from his time with the Mainstream label, since Bob Shad is credited with A&R on the jacket, and a few of the tracks also appear on the 1964 Mainstream LP ‘Organ Out Loud’.
The last two tracks appeared on what I would consider to be one of the great soul jazz organ sessions of the classic era, the aforementioned ‘Organ Out Loud’. Here Gene and the trio work it out on two classics of the genre (the LP also included wonderful versions of Cannonball Adderley’s ‘Sermonette’ and Horace Silver’s ‘The Preacher’), Bob Dorough and Ben Tucker’s ‘Comin’ Home Baby’ and Bobby Timmons’ ‘Moanin’.
‘Comin’ Home Baby’ is taken at a touch more relaxed pace than you usually hear, but the group keeps it moving and grooving, and Gene takes a wild solo.
‘Moanin’ on the other hand takes off like a rocket and never slows down. It’s the kind of performance that makes me want to step into the WABAC machine and hear the group in some smoky lounge. Gene’s fingers fly over the keys while the rhythm section provides a rock solid bottom.
If you ever get a chance to get your hands on any of his 60s albums or 45s (and there’s still a couple of things I have yet to track down) do yourself a favor and do it.
You still have the chance to hear his more recent recordings, which are uniformly excellent.
That all said, it’s so sad to have to talk about this great music in light of Gene’s passing.
He was a great musician, and by all accounts as solid a human being as has passed this way.
He will be missed.
My sincere condolences go out to his wife Pattye.
See you later in the week.

Peace

Larry

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PS Head over to Iron Leg for some classic British Beat

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By Larry, July 15, 2010 5:53 pm

Wardell Quezerque – ‘The Creole Beethoven’

Listen/Download – Willie Harper – A Certain Girl

Greetings all.
Before we get started I should note that I heard the sad news this morning that one of my all time faves, Gene Ludwig,  – master of the Hammond organ –  has passed away. I wanted to put together a suitable tribute, so I’ll be pulling some records from the crates and digimatizing them for a tribute post on Monday. Please keep his wife Pattye in your thoughts.
The tune I bring you today is a cut by one of my favorite New Orleans singers.
Oddly enough, as obscure as he is, Willie Harper is one of the first NOLA vocalists I had in my crates, via the fairly common and extremely cool ‘But I Couldn’t’ on ALON records. This was the very first single released on Allen Toussaint and Joe Banashak’s ALON imprint and the flipside ‘A New Kind of Love’ was a local hit. He would go on to record five singles for ALON.
I don’t know anything about Harper’s life, but as a huge fan of both New Orleans music and Allen Toussaint his voice has been a familiar one for years.
Harper recorded on and off through the 60s, like many other singers, almost exclusively with Allen Toussaint. He recorded under his own name for ALON and Sansu (two 45s under his own name, ‘You You‘ and ‘Here Comes The Hurt‘) , and as one half (with Toussaint) of Willie and Allen (’I Don‘t Need No One‘) , as part of the Rubaiyats (the storming ‘Omar Khayyam’, also basically Willie and Allen) and as a backing singer on a number of Toussaint productions for Benny Spellman and Ernie K Doe.
Speaking of K Doe, it was he that first recorded Toussaint’s ‘A Certain Girl’ in 1961. It went on to be a British Invasion favorite, with covers by the Yardbirds, the Animals, the First Gear, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders and the Paramounts (featuring Gary Brooker and Robin Trower, later of Procol Harum).
Willie Harper recorded ‘A Certain Girl’ for Tou-Sea in 1968, and it’s turned into one of my favorite, purely soul sides out of the Crescent City.
I’ve always found the Tou-Sea (that’s Toussaint & Marshal Seahorn) label to be an interesting footnote in late 60s New Orleans music. As far as I can tell the label’s discography isn’t very lengthy*, and the releases I’ve come across are all on the grittier side. How they decided to place these particular sides (including 45s by Warren Lee, Harper and Gus ‘The Groove’ Lewis), I don’t know, but as Dan Phillips of the mighty Home of the Groove blog has noted, some of the Tou-Sea sides were not specifically Toussaint projects. Some of them, including today’s selection, were produced and arranged by none other than Wardell Quezerque (billed here as both ‘Big Q’ and ‘DC Wardell’.
It is a constant source of regret that I haven’t made a closer study of Quezerque’s production and arranging work (god knows my crates are filled with his work).
He was prolific, and probably, among the “Big Three’ in New Orleans – Toussaint, Eddie Bo and himself – the biggest hitmaker. He was the man behind NOLA records, and produced and arranged for just about anyone who was anyone in the Crescent City, hitting the charts with Professor Longhair, Earl King, Tami Lynn, Robert Parker, King Floyd and Jean Knight among many others. He also worked as a producer and arranger for many non-New Orleans artists like the Pointer Sisters, BB King, and Ruth Brown.
Harper’s version of the tune features a prominent horn section, with just a touch of that relaxed, New Orleans tempo. Harper is – as always – in fine voice (improvising new lyrics here and there) , backed by a female chorus.
It’s a great 45, and maybe proof that someone out there ought to collect the stuff that Harper recorded during the 60s (and early 70s) into a comp.
I hope you dig it and I’ll be back on Monday.

Peace

Larry

*I’ve seen listings for – but largely haven’t heard – releases on Tou-Sea by Mill Evans, Jay Roy, Ray Algere, Zilla Mayes and Johnny Green (Algere being the only one of those I’m familiar with)

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By Larry, July 13, 2010 4:18 pm

The Mighty Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley

Greetings all.
I hope that the middle of the week finds you all in a soul jazz kind of mood.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time over the course of the life of this blog discussing, compiling, exploring and above all digging soul jazz.
One of the elements of that discussion (though if I’m doing all the talking is it really a discussion?) is the issue of pure soul jazz, that being music that meets the definition of soul(ful) jazz, blending R&B, soul and or funk with a post-hard-bop base in a manner that creates something new that displays, yet transcends the listed ingredients.
There are a number of artists for whom soul jazz was a specialty, and of those, a few who created enduring ‘standards’ of the genre like Bobby Timmons, Freddie McCoy, Eddie Harris and the man who composed the tune I bring you (served four different ways) today, the mighty Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley.
Adderley composed and first recorded the tune ‘Sack O’Woe’ in 1960. Of the countless soul jazz songs that I have collected over the years, ‘Sack O’ Woe’ is probably my favorite. It is propulsive enough to be danceable (Adderley was great at stuff like that) , soulful, spare but not too spare, and a great launching point for soloists.
It’s one of those songs that when I find a new version I try to add it to my stack because in hands of almost any competent musician it releases something special, and every once in a while I like to post multiple versions of a great song so you can get a feeling for the breadth of sounds that covers of a classic can yield.
The four versions of the song I bring you today date from the 60s, 70s and 90s (?!?)

The Omega Men

Listen/Download – The Omega Men – Sack O’Woe (Live 1997)

My all-time favorite version is by a band of fairly modern vintage called the Omega Men. Featuring a number of veterans of the Pennsylvania end of the garage/mod revival (from the Cellar Dwellars and Stump Wizards) , the Omega Men, featuring the organ work of the sole non-male member of the band Susan Mackey, really set fire to Adderly’s classic. You can catch it on iTunes as part of a comp called ‘Rock Don’t Run Vol 3’, or you can track down their 1997 CD ‘The Spy Fi Sound of the Omega Men’. The version included here has been digimatized from a video of the band performing live in 1997. The fidelity is pretty good and the playing is first-rate. It isn’t much of a stretch to imagine the sound of the Omega Men as a close approximation of what you might have heard on-stage in the UK circa 1965, where the organ combos of masters like Georgie Fame, Brian Auger and Graham Bond were re-imagining the US soul jazz and R&B that gave them inspiration.

The Mar-Keys horn section (Packy Axton, right)

Listen/Download – The Mar-Keys – Sack O’Woe (1961)

As I said before, Adderley’s original dated from 1960. The Mar-Key’s smoking Memphis version is from a year later. It has that solid Stax sound and I really dig the organ solo. If my chronology is correct this also features a pre-MGs Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn on guitar and bass, as well as Packy Axton, later of the many mysterious incarnations of the Packers on sax. Note the horn intro that approximates the band’s only hit, ‘Last Night’.

The legendary Les McCann

Listen/Download – Les McCann – Sack O’Woe (1963)

The version by the equally mighty Les McCann is from 1963, and features McCann on piano and a fantastic guitar solo by Joe Pass. It’s by far the jazziest version of the tune here. Les McCann is a true giant of the soul jazz genre, having had bona fide hits (like ‘Compared to What’ with Eddie Harris) and can be counted on to give this classic a righteous reading.

Julian Tharpe

Listen/Download – Julian Tharpe – Sack O’Woe (197?)

The fourth and last version of ‘Sack O’ Woe’ is (as far as I can tell) and early-to-mid 70s recording by a Nashville cat named Julian Tharpe.
Tharpe was a Music City sessioner and touring player who often worked with guitar legend Jimmy Bryant and was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 2008. His LP ‘Jet Age’ featured Tharpe playing a variety of styles, covering pop, rock, country and the soul jazz of ‘Sack O’ Woe’. I picked up this album specifically for the version of today’s selection, and it proved to be an interesting one.
I always dig hearing pedal steel guitar used outside of a strictly country context, especially on soul records like Peggy Scott and Jo Jo Benson’s ‘Soulshake’, which featured another Nashville steel legend, Pete Drake.
Tharpe’s version of ‘Sack O’Woe’ is very cool, and it’s worth it if only to hear the Adderley classic interpreted on such an unusual instrument.
I hope you dig all four versions, and if you’re not familiar with Cannonball Adderley’s work, start looking because he laid down decades of fantastic music in straight jazz and funky sessions.
See you on Friday.

Peace

Larry

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PS Head over to Iron Leg for a remembrance of the late Tuli Kupferberg of the Fugs and some Canadian sunshine pop

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By Larry, July 11, 2010 1:58 pm

Today’s selection (above)
The mighty Fame Studio (below)
There’s soul between those bricks…

Listen/Download – The Inclines – Pressure Cooker Pt 1

Listen/Download – The Inclines – Pressure Cooker Pt2

Greetings all.
I hope the new week finds you all well.
The heat (in measure of actual temperature) has seen a decline. Unfortunately this was met with an incline in the humidity, so while it is not technically as hot as it was last week, it is just as uncomfortable, so, instead of catching fire when you step out of the house, you merely start to melt.
The 45 I bring you today is something that was initially passed on to me years ago by my man Haim, who had a spare copy of the 45, which although it was in rough condition, since it cost me exactly nothing I was (and still am) grateful, and placed it in the crates as what we record nerds refer to as a space-holder/keeper copy.
I dug ‘Pressure Cooker Pts 1&2’ by the Inclines, and kept my eyes peeled for an opportunity to upgrade.
Just such an opportunity was encountered at this year’s All-45 Show in Allentown.
I’d already pretty much emptied my wallet when I happened upon a dealer I did not know, and started digging in what soon turned out to be a box full of excellent funk and soul 45s.
There was only one problem…
Not a single one of these gems was priced, and there was no indicator anywhere on the table as to how much this fine gentleman might be asking for his stock.
This is rarely a good thing, since such discoveries are often met with a stock playlet, inevitably leading to my disappointment.
It kind of goes like this (with me trying to find a satisfying middle ground between looking like a rube and/or a shark):

Me: Um, how much for the 45s?
Dealer: Oh, let me take a look at those..hmmmmm…that’s a good one….so’s that…
Me: Oh, uh, I don’t know those…they looked cool.
Dealer: How about $200 for the lot?
Me: Gulp…

Aaaand scene!

(Magnify the discomfort in the above situation when LPs are involved)

However, once in a great while, an unpriced box of 45s is just what it seems, i.e. a random collection of stock that a dealer wants to move.
That was the deal this time, and I minted up on two faves (the Emperors ‘Mumble Shingaling’ and today’s selection) at the extremely beneficial price of two US dollars per, which was more than amenable. I took my records and skulked away.
Now I haven’t been able to nail down a whole lot of info on the Inclines. They seem to have released two 45s on Atco, one as the Inclines and one under the name of group member Tyrone McCollum.
They seem to have hailed from either northern Georgia or southern Tennessee, having recorded a few records for the Chattanooga based Gil label.
‘Pressure Cooker Pts 1&2’ was originally released on the Hawk label (I have no idea where that label was based but wouldn’t be surprised if it was from the same region).
Today’s selection was recorded at the storied Fame studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama in 1969 and is a fantastic, mid-tempo slice of southern instrumental funk. The first part is dominated by the horns, with a repeated riff which drops out for a saxophone solo. The bass, drums and electric piano form a thick, muddy bottom that gives the relaxed, slightly jazzy tune a funky kick.
The flip side (make sure to download side 2) sees the keyboards come to the front, with the electric piano and organ both getting time to shine.
It’s a very cool record precisely because it’s so laid back. It has a kind of ‘nighttime’ vibe to it, not quite as spooky as a side like ‘Nickol Nickol’ by the Brothers of Hope, but moving in that direction.
I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back on Wednesday.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for some Canadian sunshine pop

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By Larry, July 8, 2010 8:28 pm

Clay Tyson

Listen/Download – Clay Tyson – If You See a Ring Around Your Bathtub (Baby You Know I’ve Left You Clean)

Greetings all.
I hope you’ve all avoided melting in the ungodly heat. I’m still solvent but on the verge of liquefaction should I spend more than my allotted time in the sun. Like my ancestors before me, I am a pale man, with white-blond hair and my love for sunshine is decidedly one-sided. My childhood is filled with repeated, drastic episodes of sunburn, only repeated in adulthood during simultaneous bouts of alcohol consumption (as in ‘Oh come on, a little sun never hurt anyone!’, except – of course – me, who spent the next week clutching a bottle of aloe and praying for death).
I fear that my Irish/Viking genes have been passed on to both of my sons, who look like Casper and any one of the ghostly trio. They cannot head to the beach without shirts, sunscreen and hats lest they burst into flames.
It’s that bad.
There was a very brief window, right after I moved into my first apartment (which was a block from the beach) where I spent time at the beach every day, rationing my time in the sun where I developed something like a mid tan, but decided that the discomfort of sand in my pants outweighed any ‘healthy glow’, so I never tried again.
That said, I sit here now, ensconced in conditioned air, tapping away at yon laptop in an effort to get the blogging done before I nod off.
Before I start, make sure to check out the Funky16Corners Radio Show this Friday night at 9PM EST at Viva internet radio. This week – as in all weeks – what you’ll be hearing is the best in funk, soul, jazz and rare groove, brought to you in living, crackling color, harvested from original vinyl sources and mixed live for your delectation.
You should also fall by the Gentleman’s Guide to Midnite Cinema podcast to dig the filmic discussion, and to sample my inaugural contribution of a weekly, funky track (see episode #89).
Also, stop by Iron Leg where I go on at length in reflection about 25 years of zine (paper and web) production by yours truly.
The tune I bring you today is something I picked up a while back, mainly on the strength of the Identify label. For those of you that aren’t familiar, it was a James Brown-related imprint, and until I found this 45, the only one I’d ever seen in person was the A.A.B.B. 45 ‘Pick Up the Pieces One By One’, featured here many moons ago.
The disc was cheap (probably because of a noticeable edge warp, but since it was so unusual I decided to risk the dough and take it home.
Good thing too, because when I finally got to give it a spin, I realized that what I had was not only funky, but also funny, making it yet another entry in the soulful comedy sweepstakes (wherein I have a bunch of similar sides and ought to get down to making a mix).
The performer was a cat named Clay Tyson, who according to what little I’ve been able to find was a ‘chitlin circuit’ comic who hooked up with the Godfather of Soul and released a couple of 45s; one on King, and the one you see before you today (in addition to a number of other records on other labels).
When I was researching this record I happened upon a previous post over at the mighty Stepfather of Soul blog (and if you are not familiar, you should get…familiar that is) where my man Jason says that the King 45 (which I do not own) is pretty much the same two routines on the Identify disc, redone with different backing tracks.

What you get here with ‘If You See a Ring Around Your Bathtub…’ , is James, jiving alongside Mr. Tyson (with the JB’s I’ll assume) with a tight funk groove. Oddly enough, it’s pretty much like any James Brown record of a similar vintage, only you get a series of so-so jokes (which James seemed to think were HILARIOUS) instead of the HYEEAAHH!s and YOWW!s and whatnot. I’m not suggesting that this is as good as a James Brown or JBs 45 (though in a lot of ways, that’s what it is), but that the funk is right, tight and naturally, out of sight, and since the tune is co-credited to the mighty Fred ‘Trombonicus Rex’ Wesley, you know it’s a quality sound.
I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back on Monday.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for thoughts about 25 years of DIY/zine work by yours truly…

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By Larry, June 29, 2010 7:56 pm

Dolly Parton and her hair…

Listen/Download – Dolly Parton – Busy Signal

Greetings all.

I hope you’re all having a good week, and that you’ve taken the time to check out Tony C’s F16C Soul Club mix, on account of it’s a banger.

I think it’s safe to assume that many of you are already scraping your jaws off of the floor, having read the name of today’s artist, Dolly Parton.
Allow me to ‘splain…
[cliché] The 60s were a turbulent time [/cliché].
The above statement is true on many levels, and aside from the politics and social upheaval, musically things were going nuts. Take a look at a random Top 40 chart from any week between 1964 and 1968 and you are in for some real surprises.
The pop music scene of the mid 60s was incredibly diverse (maybe more diverse than at any other time) and within that diversity, where Frank Sinatra and Ed Ames bumped up against the Turtles and the Buffalo Springfield, there formed a vast, diffuse crucible of sorts where all of those crazy threads were – on occasion – woven together in very unusual ways.
Part of this weaving was deliberate, wherein some enterprising soul, perhaps used to doing things one way, decided to take a shot at another part of the market.
It was just such a shot that made today’s selection.
I can’t recall exactly where I first heard Dolly Parton’s ‘Busy Signal’, but I do remember being knocked flat on my ass when I did.
I doubt there are many among you who don’t already know who Miss Parton is, but I also doubt there are more than a few of you who had any idea that her discography harbored anything this interesting (outside of a country music context, natch…).
The world of ‘blue-eyed soul’ (which is kind of a bullshit term, since if a record is soulful there really ought not be a need to make note of the race of the performer, and yes I know I’ve used it here but when I get some extra time I’ll cook up something more appropriate, and yes your suggestions are welcome…) is generally the province of performers who were mainly, or at least peripherally performers of music in a soul, funk or R&B style. When you listen to folks like Billy Harner, Mitch Ryder, Steve Colt etc, what you hear is an artist devoted to recreating the sound of black music.
When you take a look at the long and distinguished discography of Dolly Parton, you generally see something else, that being a country singer.
I have no idea how she came to record ‘Busy Signal’, but the other name on the label, composer and producer Ray Stevens give us a clue or two.
Stevens, who had his first pop hit in 1962 with ’Ahab the Arab’ (his forte was novelty records) and his last in 1975 with ’Misty’ was, in addition to his own recording career, a busy songwriter, producer and session musician on the Nashville scene of the 1960s. He recorded with Brenda Lee, Brook Benton, the Blue Things, BJ Thomas and countless others in his many capacities.
The records he worked on, as well as his own recordings indicate that he was able to tap into a wide variety of styles, from rock’n’roll, to country, to pop.
‘Busy Signal’ is a perfect example of the fact that he was also conversant in soul.
The record opens – not surprisingly – the sound of a busy signal, created with human voices. Dolly drops in with the initial statement of the lyric, followed by a wonderful shift marked with the sound of a snare drum and a chorus of backing singers. While her voice is readily recognizable, the style she uses here travels in that grey area where girl group sounds cross over into soul, which of course could lead into another discussion of country music as “soul” music of another kind, and all the various and sundry intersections of the two, usually racially segregated styles in the actually segregated south. There’s certainly a book or two that could be written about the way white and black artists were exchanging (actively and passively) musical ideas and the countless amazing records that came out of that bubbling stew pot.
‘Busy Signal’ was released late in 1965, and as far as I can tell met with little success (though the flip side is fairly traditional, mid-60s Nashville country). Whether Steven’s was deliberately attempting a soul record, or just happened to toss the right ingredients into the pot at random, the world may never know.
Naturally, as if often the case with unusual, soulful records bouncing around the periphery of soul itself, ‘Busy Signal’ enjoys a certain level of popularity with the Northern Soul crowd over in the UK. It’s a record that can get fairly expensive, and one I chased for a long time (and was outbid on more than once). I can’t help but sense an element of kismet in the fact that when I did finally get myself a copy I grabbed it for less than three flimsy US dollars (my hands shaking pretty much from the time I won it to the moment my trusty mail carrier brought it to the house). It only got here this week, but I felt I had to move it right to the front of the queue. I hope you dig it as much as I do.
Peace

Larry

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PS Head over to Iron Leg for some mid 60s pop

Comments (15)

By Larry, June 15, 2010 4:26 pm

Dobby Dobson

Listen/Download – Dobby Dobson – Don’t Make Me Over

Greetings all.

Welcome to the middle of the week.
I’d like to get things started by addressing a comment left in a recent post (about the latest episode of the Funky16Corners Radio Show) that I was somehow ‘scraping the bottom of the barrel’.
This pissed me off for a couple of reasons, First and foremost that I’ve tried to maintain Funky16Corners as a positive site, and would hope that those of you that stop by to participate would honor that concept. This doesn’t mean that I expect a constant flow of praise (or any praise at all…). If I get something wrong, or you really don’t dig what I’m doing, you’re more than welcome to say so. I’d just rather you do it in a constructive fashion.
Not knowing the commenter in question, and considering the brevity and brusqueness of his comment, I can’t be sure exactly what it was that he saw as the “bottom of the barrel”, but since the show remarked about was composed entirely of reggae, ska and rock steady, I’ll go ahead and assume that was the nature of the problem.
The Funky16Corners blog has been around for more than five years (and the web site almost five more years before that) and those of you that have been along for a longer section of the ride already know that the sounds posted and written about in this space might at first appear to be very diverse, but like one of those crazy 3-D magic eye pictures, given the proper amount of concentration, a clearer picture will come into focus.
What you will end up seeing in this case is an illustration of my musical sensibility, at least as it applies to the history of black music in the latter part of the 20th century (and occasionally beyond). Over the years Funky16Corners has featured mainstream soul, funk, jazz, Northern Soul, fusion, breaks and beats, island soul (i.e. all parts of the reggae/ska continuum), library music, funky prog, R&B, all styles of music that have captured my interest over more than 30 years of listening and collecting music, and all connected, whether or not the connection is immediately obvious.
I’ll readily admit that my tastes have not always been so broad, and I also understand that many people come to the blog with much more specific interests. I understand that not everyone is going to dig a record like Judy Street’s ‘What’, or the Horace Andy 45 I posted a few weeks ago, but that’s cool since the interwebs are an unspeakably vast place where you will undoubtedly find something else to listen to until our tastes intersect (as they will inevitably do) once again.
Not everyone digs as many kinds of music (or books, or movies, or TV shows) as I do, but as anyone who knows me well will tell you (especially my wife) my brain is kind of crazy like that, and that I have managed to divert part of my ongoing stream of consciousness in one place as well as I have is something of a miracle (which is why I maintain a second blog).
This also has a lot to do with time. I’ll be 48 years old this year, and thanks to growing up in a house where music was treasured I’ve been listening to, collecting and studying music since I was a kid. While there are people out there that might be able to devote almost four decades to a much narrower focus – something that has produced great scholarship on specific genres of music like jazz and the blues – I’ve spent much of that time following my ears wherever they go. There have certainly been periods of extreme concentration, where I got deep into a specific sound to the exclusion of everything else, but since it’s all about the connections, I always come to a fork in the road less traveled and continue on to something new.
While the focus at Funky16Corners has always been fairly clear, there is hardly a style of music that I don’t listen to. Though the largest part of my collecting is reflected in the music written about here and at Iron Leg, someone getting a closer look at the stuff that lines the walls of the Funky16Corners Record Vault and Podcasting Nerve Center might walk away with more questions asked than answered, but that’s OK too.
The tune I bring you today is another Jamaican 45, by an artist that has been featured here once before (as part of Funky16Corners Radio v.74), Dobby Dobson.
I’ve mentioned here in the past that I got into Jamaican music via the UK mod/Two-tone revival of 70s and 80s (though the first ska cover I ever heard was the Hooters version of Don Drummond’s ‘Man In the Street’), and though I’ve come to love later reggae and dub, I always find my way back to ska and rock steady. Though the rhythms were often different, there is no denying that the sounds coming out of Jamaica and the UK in the 60s were anything but another variety of the music we call soul.
Dobby Dobson started recording in the 60s as part of the duo of Chuck and Dobby, and later with groups like the Virtues. He went on to record as a solo artist for a variety of Jamaican labels and producers, eventually working as a producer himself before emigrating to the US.
Dobson’s outstanding cover of the Bacharach/David tune ‘Don’t Make Me Over’ (a 1963 Top 40 hit for Dionne Warwick) is interesting for a couple of reasons. If the organ intro sounds familiar it’s because it’s basically a lift of the melody of the Tornados 1962 worldwide hit ‘Telstar’. How the organist (or producer Rupie Edwards) came to this unusual juxtaposition is a mystery, but ultimately it’s a groove. The song also works really well, lifted from its original off-waltz time arrangement and placed into the chugging rock steady rhythm. Dobson’s vocal may lack the epic scope of Warwick’s original, but that’s cool too since it’s interesting to hear the song delivered from the male perspective.
I haven’t been able to nail down an exact date on this 45 (since it appears to have been released on a few different labels) but it looks to have been recorded in 1969 or 1970.
I hope you dig the tune (and understand where I’m coming from) and I’ll be back later in the week.

Oh, and I assure you, I’m NOWHERE near the bottom of the barrel…

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, June 13, 2010 4:00 pm

Mr. Ross Carnegie at work on the Hammond

Listen/Download – Ross Carnegie & Co. – Open Up Your Mind

Greetings all.

I hope the new week finds you all well.
I spent Thursday, Friday and the rest of the godforsaken weekend dealing with yet another in a seemingly endless parade of kidney-related roadblocks. Long story short, one of the newer kidney stones (which weren’t supposed to be happening) became dislodged from its home in the “meat” of the kidney (as my doctor likes to call it) and scored itself an eagle, dropping directly into the ureter, which in accordance with Murphy’s Law, was too narrow to afford it egress. As a result, my doctor (always properly cautious) dragged me back into the surgi-center and reinserted a stent, so that my sole, remaining kidney would not fail.
How’s that for fun?
This all sounds a lot worse than it is. Aside from being a huge inconvenience (with the added risks of anesthesia), if the greatest minds of the urological/nephrological world could figure out why I’m still getting stones, and cause it to cease, there would be no problem at all.
Until then, I’m trapped in this bizarre loop where I go through another surgical procedure, only to discover another speed bump when I emerge on the other side.
That (and the fact that I had to take my sick three-year-old to the doctor) is why there was no Friday post.
But, all is – if not well – at least back to the status quo, so continue on I will.
The tune I bring you today is something of a slightly later vintage by a great producer of Hammond 45s, Mr. Ross Carnegie.
I first heard/heard of Mr. Carnegie via the legendary ‘Vital Organs’ comp which featured his song ‘Cool Dad’, as well as his visage on the cover.
Some years later, deep into my own Hammond obsession I scored a copy of ‘The Kid’ (as featured in Funky16Corners Radio v.48), also very groovy.
Anyhoo, the tune I bring you today falls somewhat later in Mr. Carnegie’s limited discography, bears no date but the sound in the grooves suggests to me a recording sometime in the early-to-mid 70s.
Ross Carnegie emigrated to New York from Canada as a young man to work as a jazz pianist. He ended up working not only on piano but mastering the Hammond organ as well, eventually leading his own band which featured a young Alphonse Mouzon on drums in the late 60s.
Later on, Carnegie became known (at least locally) as the pianist in the White Plains, NY Nordstroms department store.
Today’s selection, ‘Open Up Your Mind’, credited to Ross Carnegie and Co. , is a funky, semi-blaxplo experience with all manner of keyboards – analog and synthesized – horns, police whistles and chants (no doubt courtesy of the ‘& Co.’ of the title) of ‘Open up your mind’.
While there are elements that would later come to signify disco, this is most decidedly a non-disco affair (though Carnegie would later release the tune ‘F-Minor Disco’ on his El-Con label, using the same exact catalog number as ‘Open Up Your Mind’).
I hope you dig the tune, and, assuming I’m not hit by a bus or falling space junk, I’ll be back mid-week.

Peace

Larry

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Comments (3)

By Larry, June 12, 2010 10:43 am

Greetings all.

Just a note to let you know that last night’s edition of the Funky16Corners Radio Show has been posted as a downloadable MP3 file and is available in the Radio Show Archive. It’s an island soul special, with ska, rock steady and reggae, including many groovy soul covers.

Stop in and check it out.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, June 10, 2010 4:11 pm

Greetings all.

Thanks to some unexpected and decidedly unwelcome crap that just crowbarred itself into my life, I spent the time I’d usually be writing, digimatizing et al, behind the wheel of the Funky16Cornersmobile. As a result the regularly scheduled Friday posts – here and over at Iron Leg – will be preempted.
Fortunately, I have to turn in my Viva Radio shows a week in advance, so the Funky16Corners Radio Show will go off this Friday night at 9PM EST as scheduled.
It’s a good one this week – if I say so myself – with a collection of reggae soul that I think you’ll dig.
Make sure you tune in via the interwebs, and if you can’t, either pick up the stream at Viva afterward, or wait until Saturday and I’ll have the episode archived here for download.
I should be back on Monday.
Until then….

Peace

Larry

PS If you haven’t done so already,now might be a good time to catch up with the F16C Soul Club and archived F16C Radio Show mixes…

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By Larry, June 8, 2010 3:33 pm

Miss Gloria Jones

Listen/Download – Gloria Jones – Tainted Love

Listen/Download – Judy Street – What

Greetings all.

The middle of the week is here, so what better time for a couple of very tasty bits of Northern Soul (with a very interesting backstory)?
As someone who experienced the 80s firsthand, I have to admit that I don’t find nostalgia aimed in that direction all that entertaining, especially since so many of the nostalgic aren’t old enough to have weathered it the first time.
You see, alongside MTV, crazy haircuts and quirky new wave music, there was of course the reality of the Reagan era, during which the American right kicked open the door and let in the wide variety of religious and political pests that 30 years down the line have completely infested this country.
So, you’ll understand if I’m not in my garage slapping together a time machine so that I can take the ride all over again.
This is not to say that the music was all bad, since a lot of it was very good. The best of new wave was in essence high quality reworking of the 60s pop palette.
One of the biggest new wave hits, that has become a major musical symbol of the era, is Soft Cell’s 1981 hit ‘Tainted Love’.
I’ll even cop to digging it the first time around, years before I had any idea that it was a synthesized reworking of a Northern Soul anthem.
In fact, a few years on, during the whole mod/garage explosion of the mid-80s, when I was initially clued in to the fact that the song had originally been recorded by a singer named Gloria Jones, I was still a decade away from even the tiniest inkling about the existence of the Northern Soul movement.
As a result, I didn’t consider Soft Cell’s covering of ‘Tainted Love’ to have any more subtext that Phil Collins’ execrable mangling of the Supremes’ ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’.
Flash forward twenty-five odd years and yours truly is neck deep in the sounds of the Northern movement, with all manner of storming Wigan faves spilling out of my record boxes. I’m rambling around YouTube looking for videos of Northern Soul dancers (and of you haven’t seen them, you simply must on account of it’s a wild bag that they were/are in) and I happen upon a short documentary that featured lots of the acrobatic terpsichorian delights.
About six minutes into the video a song came on the soundtrack that knocked me on my ass with its propulsive tempo and pop hooks. A little bit of the Googling, and I discover that the record in question was called ‘What’ by a singer named Judy Street.
A little more exploration on the interwebs and I found myself a copy of same, since I wanted to give it a good home and hear it blasting over some of those big club speakers we all love so much.
Once I had my hands on the 45 (a 1977 era reissue, but more on that in a minute) I started digging into my reference books, and back on the web and I discovered something very interesting about ‘What’, that were I a bigger Soft Cell fan, or a resident of the UK, I might have already been aware of, that being that the group had their second UK hit with this very song, which, not at all coincidentally was also a huge Northern Soul anthem.
‘Hmmmmm…’ says I, realizing that I was going to have to dig a little bit further.
Two hits in a row by one of the great synth-pop acts of the 80s, both yanked from the Northern Soul canon was indeed a curious thing.
As it turns out, aside from the odd juxtaposition of styles, it wasn’t that curious at all.
But first, a little musical history.
Gloria Jones was still a teenager when she was discovered by songwriter/producer Ed Cobb (who also penned ‘Every Little Bit Hurts’ for Brenda Holloway) in 1964. The following year she recorded Cobb’s ‘Tainted Love’ for the Champion label.
Jones’ version of the song was – when I finally heard it – a real shocker, every bit as propulsive and soulful as the Soft Cell cover was wan, dissipated and blasé. It was immediately obvious how it had become a very popular spin on the dance floors in the North of England.
Jones went on to record a stack of 45s for Uptown and Minit in the 60s, eventually going on a European tour with the cast of ‘Hair’, where she met none other that former ace face converted into post-psychedelic mushroom gobbler Marc Bolan of T-Rex. She and Bolan fell in love and had a son, performing together until his untimely death in 1977, after which Jones returned to the US and recorded both as a solo and as a backing vocalist.
Jones was herself a songwriter, composing a number of songs for Motown artists, co-writing ‘If I Were Your Woman’ for Gladys Knight and the Pips.
There isn’t much information out there about Judy Street. Her original version of ‘What’ was recorded for HB Barnum’s LA-based Strider label in 1966 (I’ve never seen a picture of the original label), and promptly dropped off the face of the earth. Interestingly enough there was another (inferior) recording of ‘What’ by Melinda Marx (daughter of Groucho, seriously) on VeeJay. Come 1977, and Judy Street’s recording is a popular Northern Soul spin, so much so that John Anderson reissued it on his Grapevine label, where it went on to become the label’s biggest selling 45.
It was during this time period that a young lad named Marc Almond was (according to famed DJ Russ Winstanely) a habitue of the storied Wigan Casino, where he first heard, requested and danced to the records you see before you this fine day.
A few years later, he had the good creative sense to cut a small but significant segment of one scene and paste it on top of another, creating two pop hits (one huge, one not so much). Chances are while any number of soulies were poleaxed when they heard Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love’ and ‘What’ on their radios (or saw them on Top of the Pops), the vast majority of the pop audience had little or no inkling of where these songs had come from, or that so many of their countrymen and women had been dancing to the original versions of these songs for years.
I don’t know about you, but I find this kind of cross-pollination to be very interesting, and the kind of thing that the post-modern, post-internet, post-everything else culture has all but erased. Would such a scenario be possible today, where McLuhan’s Global Village has rendered international communication and sharing of obscure facts but a mouse-click away? I doubt it.
Either way, I hope you dig the tunes and I’ll see you all on Friday.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, June 6, 2010 2:41 pm

Dr Feelgood & the Interns – Piano Red/Dr Feelgood (left), Roy Lee Johnson (3rd from right)

Listen/Download – Dr Feelgood & the Interns – Mr Moonlight

Greetings all.

Welcome back to the Funky16Corners blog.
I have to start by thanking those of you who contributed to the 2010 Pledge Drive.
While this wasn’t the best year, you’d have to be locked in a subterranean bunker somewhere to know that it REALLY hasn’t been a good year for a lot of people. That fact makes it all the more significant that some of you felt strongly enough about Funky16Corners to dig deep and send something our way.
I’ve never taken advertising on the blog (though it has been considered) for a couple of reasons.
First and foremost, I don’t like the way it looks, and second, I don’t like the way it would change the feel of Funky16Corners.
In some ways – especially thanks to the response I’ve gotten over the years at fund-raising time – Funky16Corners has always been a collaborative effort. Those of you that stop by to partake in the discussion – often furthering it with new information and other leads – and those of you (more often than not some of the same people) who chip in during the pledge drive, are what keep the blog (and the blogger) going.
Despite the fact that blogging can often devolve into solipsism, I prefer it when it breaks through to a level where it really is a shared effort, not just with the music itself, but with the feeling of the music and the history behind it.
While I’m sure there are a lot of people who just stop by to click the links and collect the MP3s, there are a lot of folks, readers, collectors, fellow DJs and musicians who take the time to join in the conversation and make the blog something greater than the sum of its parts.
I’d like to take the time to thank all of you, because without you it wouldn’t really be worth the effort.

So, THANK YOU, VERY MUCH!

Consider this yet another new beginning, recharged for another year in the blog-o-mos-phere.
If you look up at the header, you’ll notice a couple of changes.
First, as promised the Funky16Corners Soul Club is up and running, with all the mixes that were up last week (and if you haven’t checked them all out, take the time to do so because they’re all excellent).
Second, following a number of requests, I’ve mixed down and archived the last several editions of the Funky16Corners Radio Show that I do for Viva internet radio. The shows date back to the end of April when I started doing the live mixes and the show moved to its Friday 9PM (EST) time slot. There are no playlists (I back announce every song) but there are short descriptions about what you can expect in each episode.
If you haven’t yet checked out the radio show, take the time to pull down a couple of episodes and check it out. I think you’ll like it.
Also, make sure you stop by Fleamarket Funk over the next few weeks. The Asbury Park 45 Sessions crew managed to record all the sets from the 5/28 session, and DJ Prestige will be posting them up over the coming weeks.

_______________________________________________________________________________

The tune I bring you today is an old fave that I only got my hands on (in 45 form) last year.
Something you might have picked up on over the years is that I am a regular hound when it comes to the original versions of songs covered and made famous during the 60s by (mainly) white singers, mostly associated with the British Invasion. This is mainly due to the fact that I came to much of the soul music I love via these covers when I was but a lad.

Today’s selection, ‘Mr Moonlight’ by Dr Feelgood and the Interns was covered by the biggest of them all, namely the Beatles (on the US LP “Beatles 65′).
Though my youthful Beatle-mania introduced me to the Fabs version when I was about 13, it wasn’t until decades later that I heard the OG. When I did I was blown away, especially when I began to dig a little.
As it turns out, ‘Mr Moonlight’ was penned (and sung) by Mr. Roy Lee Johnson, the performer of one of my all time fave 45s, 1966s ‘Boogaloo #3’. That, and the fact that ‘Dr Feelgood’ was a pseudonym for blues legend Piano Red (aka William Lee Perryman) who was 51 when this record was recorded. Perryman, who was playing and recording with Blind Willie McTell in the mid-1930s, spent years as both a musician and under the Dr Feelgood name, as a DJ in the Atlanta area.
It is in fact Perryman singing on the 45s A-side ‘Dr Feelgood’ which was a minor R&B hit.
It was the B-side, ‘Mr Moonlight’ which would – a few years later – put more than a few dollars in the pockets of Roy Lee Johnson.
One of those records that presents a perfect bridge between the harmony records of the 1950s and the soul of the 60s, ‘Mr Moonlight’ has a melody worthy of a Tin Pan Alley standard, and Johnson’s vocal is nothing less than epic.
This is one of those songs that I can’t help wailing along with when I play it in the car (or anywhere else I think I won’t get caught).
I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back on Wednesday with something cool.

Peace

Larry

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