F16C Soul Club Presents – Vincent the Soul Chef – I Learned It By Watching You
Playlist
Intro-Partnership for a drug-free America PSA circa 1987
01 Stanga-Little Sister (Stone Flower)
02 Disco Kid-Funkhouse Express (Disko)
03 Get Down-Kay Gees (Gang)
04 Supersound-Jimmy Castor Bunch (Atlantic)
05 Funky Granny-Kool & The Gang (De-Lite)
06 Funk To The Folks-Creative Source (Sussex)
07 Everybody Needs Sonebody-King Floyd (Chimneyville)
08 The Funky Robot Pt. 1-Dave Cortez (All Platinum)
09 Take Me Back-Syl Johnson (Twinight)
10 Tell Me What You Want-Jimmy Ruffin (Chess)
11 Right On Right On Right On-Milt Grayson (Peak)
12 30 60 90-Willie Mitchell (Hi)
13 Whatever Happened To Superman-Captain Freak & The Lunacycle Band (Phil LA Of Soul)
14 Lily-Manu Dibango (Atlantic)
15 The Girl From Kenya-Fabulous Counts (Moira)
16 Everybody Wants To Be Free-Amnesty (Lamp/Now-Again)
17 I Got So Much Trouble On My Mind Pt. 2-Joe Quarterman (GSF)
18 Wind Your Clock-Naomi Davis (Daptone)
19 I’m The Man-Chris Jones (Goodie Train)
20 Sophisticated Sissy-Rufus Thomas (Stax)
21 The Chop-Privates Hammond Orchestra (Starla)
22 The Funky Judge (Instrumental)-Bull & The Matadors (Toddlin’ Town)
Endtro-Partnership for a drug-free America PSA circa 1987
I hope the new week finds you all well.
The mix you see before you is the newest installment in the groovy juggernaut known as the Funky16Corners Soul Club.
The name of the mixer should be familiar to fans of soul and funk blogging, that being the mighty Vincent the Soul Chef of Fufu Stew. I’ve known Vincent for a few years now, and can tell you from personal experience that he knows his shit, can handle a couple of turntables with the best of them, and has exquisite taste in music (which when you get down to it is really the bedrock).
What the Soul Chef has cooked up for us is over an hour of tasty funk – a bouillabaisse if you will – composed of breaks, beats, thumping bass, wah wah guitar and vocals, with ingredients foraged in New Jersey, DC, San Fran, Memphis, New Orleans, Chitown and many points in between.
Vincent uses only the freshest funk, prepared with skill and whisked to your table so you might fill up on the good stuff.
I’ve given this one a couple of spins, and I’m sure you’ll dig it.
So fix yourself a plate, and make sure to head over to Fufu Stew.
F16C Soul Club Presents – Tony C: Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky
Playlist
Pyrahnna Sound-La Turbie Pyrahanienne-Sound
John Schroeder-Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag-Marble Arch
Bobby Hutcherson-Rain Every Thursday-Blue Note
Yusef Lateef-Bishop School-Atlantic
Jean King-The In Crowd-HBR
Ray Johnson-Funky Way-Inarts
Jackie Paine-Go Go Train-Jetstream
Betty Harris-Ride Your Pony-Sansu
Georgie Fame-Last Night-International
Lebron Bros-Proud Mary-Cotique
Bamboos of Jamaica-Hard to Handle-Hansa
Cher-For What It’s Worth-Atco
Mary Holmes-Soul Brother-Nassau
Jimmie Willis-Soul Power-ORR
Cliff Sabb-The Mule-Roulette
Pacers-Skeeter Dope-Alley
Soul Inheritors-Eleanor Rigby pt 2-Jerhart
The Packers-Pure Soul-Puresoul
Katie Webster-Hell or High Water-Goldband
Frank Howard & the Continentals-Do what You Wanna Do-Deluxe
Johnny Blue-Crazy Crazy-Friar
Nu Sound Express-Ain’t It Good Enough-Silver Dollar
Ray Weatherspoon-Stop Stuffin and Start Sho Nuffin-Satan
I hope the new week finds you all well.
Just for the record, my lovely wife has returned home from the hospital, sore and fatigued but on her way to recovery.
I realized last night (after I had already retired for the evening) that I had forgotten to post the mixed MP3 of this weeks Funky16Corners Radio Show from Viva internet radio, so I have done so. It’s an all-Lou Courtney special, and you might want to give it a listen because the fidelity problems caused by the Viva interface have been corrected in the mix. There’s a lot of great music in there, so give it a listen when you get a chance.
Today marks the return of the Funky16Corners Soul Club with a fantastic contribution from my man in the UK, Tony Crampton. A former contributor to Jazz Syndicate Radio (for whom I contributed a guest mix way back when) and respected club DJ, Tony is also a man with impeccable musical taste.
As I’ve mentioned in this space more than once, Tony has a great ear for funk and soul and has many a time turned me on to cool things I hadn’t yet heard.
Mr. Crampton works from a wide ranging palette, including library music, Latin sounds, R&B, funk and soul, and his mixes are always filled with all kinds of wonderful surprises.
This one is no exception, with soul sounds from New Orleans, Jamaica, the UK and all over the USA.
So, pull down those ones and zeros and dig in, on account of everything Tony C does is indeed funky.
See you later in the week.
Greetings all, and welcome to the 2010 Funky16Corners Pledge Drive, beer blast and chili cook-off (well…just the first one, really, but I wouldn’t mind some cold beer and hot chili alongside the funk and soul 45s).
This is the fifth year I’ve come to you with my hand outstretched, asking that those of you that are so inclined, and of course can afford to, donate some small sum to contribute to the upkeep of the Funky16Corners empire (as it is).
To go into the WABAC machine for a moment, this all started four years ago, when Funky16Corners was the only blog I did, and was operated at very little cost, employing the same cheapo file storage and bandwidth that I used for the Funky16Corners web zine.
Then, out of the blue the good people at BoingBoing, a VERY heavily traveled site, linked to one of my posts, and in a single day Funky16Corners got enough traffic to erase a months worth of bandwidth, just about shutting things down.
It was at that point that I checked in with some of my more, how do they say ‘web savvy’ friends, who informed me that I should probably take the opportunity to move the whole shebang to a paid server space where storage and bandwidth spikes would not present such an issue.
So, I signed up and moved on to bigger and better things.
As a result, I started the yearly Pledge Drive in an attempt to offset the cost of the server.
In the years that followed, the Funky16Corners Radio Podcast (and the ensuing archive, the most heavily attended section of the site) got started, the blog moved from Blogger to WordPress, and then this year, following some menacing behavior by the otherwise wonderful folks at the free WordPress service, I crated up the whole mess and made the move to run the WordPress software (a related but separate entity from the blog host) our of my own server space. While doing that, I redesigned the blog, opened the Guest Mix Archive and watched my stats drop and subsequently rebound as the rest of the world adjusted their links accordingly. Of course, the fact that I only just discovered that I neglected to set up the post archives properly, means that they’ve been offline from when the blog moved in January until yesterday. That didn’t help.
As in previous Pledge Drives, I wanted to do something special to mark the occasion. This year’s shindig evolved out of a recent change, in the blog, and the real world as well.
The last year has seen two important acquisitions in the Funky16Corners equipment arsenal. First and foremost, last Christmas my wife got me a portable digital recorder. Second – thanks to an unexpected windfall from a rare trip to the slot machines – I finally picked up a second turntable and a mixer, completing my home DJ set-up.
What this new equipment allowed me to do was (among other things) to record, and present to you, ‘live’ DJ mixes. The first of these appeared at Funky16Corners via sets recorded live at Master Groove in New York City. Later on, after the Funky16Corners Record Vault and Podcast Lab was up and running, I started to record mixes from my own turntables.
It was after I posted one of these, with the caveat that mixes recorded live would not have accompanying zip files of individually recorded tracks (for obvious, labor intensive reasons), that a reader (thanks Michael!) suggested that these mixes have their own section of the blog, and their own numbering sequence.
I had been thinking of something similar, and decided to take this idea a step further.
Though I have done a fair number of guest mixes for other blogs/sites, I have never (aside from a collaboration with my man DJ Prestige) ever hosted guest mixes by other DJs here at Funky16Corners.
Taking a page from the ‘two birds with one stone’ book, I decided that this year’s Pledge Drive would be a great time for the opening of what I’m calling the Funky16Corners Soul Club.
The Soul Club will be a repository for live mixes (whether recorded in the club, or on the decks at home), both by yours truly, and by DJs whoes work and sensibility I respect.
The Funky16Corners Soul Club will be opening with a virtual ‘Allnighter’, that being a collection of eight separate mixes (two by me to open and close the festivities, six by others). Once you pull down the ones and zeros you’ll be able to simulate, in the home setting, free of sweat (other people’s anyway), spilled beer (same there) and the like, a full evening (and then some) of high quality, professionally mixed funk and soul music.
When I decided to put this together, I put out some feelers to some of my favorite DJs, including the core of the Asbury Park 45 Sessions Crew, Brian Poust aka Agent45, and DJ Tarik Thornton and asked them to contribute mixes for the grand opening of Soul Club.
If you’ve been a reader of this blog for any length of time, you’ve definitely heard about DJs Prestige, Prime Mundo, Bluewater and M-Fasis. I’ve been spinning with the Asbury Park 45 sessions crew for almost three years now, and during that time have developed a huge amount of respect for my fellow resident selectors.
Though I’ve DJ’d with a lot of people, my time with the AP45 crew has been a serious learning experience. These DJs have not only skills, and deep crates, but above all it’s their extraordinary taste that makes them great. I’ve written about it in this space before, but I have to reiterate how often an AP45 Sessions turns into a learning experience with one (or often more) DJ running up to the decks to see what another selector is spinning. There are many hot 45s in my DJ box that can be traced directly back to the AP45 Sessions, whether from one of the residents, or from one of the many distinguished guests that have graced us with their presence over the years.
DJ Prime Mundo may very well have the deepest crates of any working chef (including well known digger Julia Child). He applies the same levels of care and imagination to his DJ sets as he does to his food. Prime Mundo is – like every DJ represented here – a tireless digger with exceptional taste.
DJ Bluewater, in addition to being a longtime resident selector on the AP45 crew is the founder of Master Groove in NYC and a well regarded drum’n’bass DJ. He is a self described ‘funk 45 nerd’ and a connoisseur of heavy, heavy breakbeats.
M-Fasis, DJ and producer is the master of digging up and uncovering the heaviest records you’ve never heard of (or never expected). A resident at both the Asbury Park 45 Sessions and Master Groove, he also makes beats and produces.
Brian Poust, aka Agent45 is, in addition to running the most excellent Georgia Soul web site and blog, is one of the most respected soul DJs working today. Based out of Georgia, but traveling far and wide to spin funk, soul and gospel, Brian always brings the heat.
DJ Tarik Thornton is a native of New Orleans who has DJ’d (in clubs and on the radio) all over the country. He has a generosity of spirit, and like all the other DJs here, excellent taste in music. He started in college radio at WTUL in New Orleans, before relocating to New York City, and eventually Milwaukee, WI where he met up and started working with the crew at Burn Hearts. He has since spun with DJ Finewine (WFMU), Justin Salinas and the Hot Pants crew as well as the Hipshaker DJs in Minneapolis.
I don’t expect many of you to listen to these mixes end to end (though considering the amount of heat therein, you could do much worse with the next seven plus hours of your life) but the interwebs and MP3s being what they are, you can pull them down, file them however you like and soak up the good stuff at your leisure.
Once again, if you dig what I do here at Funky16Corners (and over at Iron Leg as well), and the current economy hasn’t left you destitute, please take the time to click on the Paypal link and toss a couple of shekels into the hat to help keep things going. It would be greatly appreciated, and since I’m going to keep working on this blog as long as time (and money) allow, it’ll keep the long list (close to 100) of mixes up and growing.
Over the last ten years, with the web zine, the blogs and getting to spin records in a variety of settings, the whole Funky16Corners ‘thing’ has become a big part of my life. The reason for this (aside from obvious matters of time spent) has a lot to do with the interaction these efforts bring me with many cool people, including the collectors and DJs, but also with the folks who just plain love the music and take the time to come out to the gigs or stop by the blog to add to the conversation, or just to say ‘Hi!’.
I’ve made many new friends, been turned on to lots of new music and most importantly found a productive outlet for my passion.
So, dig in, enjoy the music (click on the pledge links) and I’ll see you all next week.
Galt McDermot & His Orchestra – Coffin Ed & Gravedigger (UA)
Junior Walker & the All Stars – Baby You Know You Ain’t Right (Soul)
Masqueraders – I Don’t Want Nobody To Lead Me On (Wand)
Mighty Hannibal – Jerkin’ The Dog (Shurfine)
Syl Johnson – Dresses Too Short (Twinight)
Joe Hicks – Home Sweet Home Pt2 (Scepter)
Andre Williams – Loose Juice (Wingate)
Dynamics – Ain’t No Sun (Since You’ve Been Gone) (Cotillion)
Otis Goodwin – Mini Skirts (Walker-Reeder)
Junior Wells – Up In Heah (Bright Star)
James Young & the Housewreckers – Barking Up the Wrong Tree (Jet Stream)
Toddlin’ Town Sounds – The Dud (Toddlin’ Town)
Larry Birdsong – Digging Your Potatoes (Ref-O-Ree)
James Barnes and the Agents – Good and Funky (Golden Hit)
Sir Lattimore Brown – Shake and Vibrate (SS7)
Lou Courtney – Rubber Neckin’ (Chick Check’n) (Verve)
Kenny Smith – Go For Yourself (RCA)
Lee Moses – Day Tripper (Musicor)
Welcome back to the ongoing saga of the Funky16Corners blog, its author, a huge, ever-pulsing mountain of records and his efforts to rein it all in and make some sense of it (both physically and philosophically).
I spent the first part of the weekend checking out the mighty DJ Prestige doing an in-store set at Hold Fast in Asbury Park, while also (of course) picking up a handful of LPs to celebrate Record Store Day. Pres brought the heat (as expected) and then the fam and I headed out for some of those good Long Branch hot dogs and a couple of other errands, followed by some serious work in the Funky16Corners Record Vault and Podcasting Nerve Center.
The renovation is almost done, with some fine tuning remaining here and there, with the disposal of much trash yet to be completed (I suspect a trip or two to the town dump maybe in order). After undoing a veritable Gordian knot of old-school computer equipment (as well as moving/storing a huge amount of data, most of it blog-related, onto a new 1TB drive), it’ll all have to be reconfigured over the next few days. I have my work cut out for me, but things are going to be so much easier when I’m done that it’ll be more than worth it.
This early and unexpected edition of the Funky16Corners Radio thing is evidence of said project, and a small bit of celebration that it is in fact coming to fruition. The first thing I did (after getting the room somewhat organized) was the installation of the home DJ setup (see above). This had been both a long time coming, and extremely satisfying when it was finished.
Following a few days of getting all my sonic ducks in a row (cableing, knob-turning, equalizing and whatnot), I hooked up the digital recorder, grabbed my road cases and pulled out a small stack of 45s and mixed them live, on the spot.
Aside from a certain, unifying feel (funk, soul and funky soul, natch), I didn’t concentrate all that much on pre-selection of the tunes herein. I grabbed something interesting to kick things off, and as that record rotated, I pulled a handful of others out of the box, picked one (or two, or three, depending on how deep a handful fate was dealing me) that I thought might fit, cued it up on the second turntable and repeated the process until a little over forty-five minutes later the needle on the last record hit the run-off groove. Not unlike how I do it when I’m spinning at the Asbury Park 45 Sessions or any other live date. It’s one of those things where you hope you’ve stocked your record box properly, and you let inspirado take you by the hand and lead where it will.
There are a lot of old faves here, as well as a couple of tracks that will return to be blogged on their own in the not too distant future. As has been the policy with ‘live’ mixes, there is no accompanying zip file, but remember that this is not going to be the ongoing F16Radio format. Think of it as a special bonus to stuff into your ears on Monday.
I hope you dig the mix, and I’ll be back later in the week with something groovy.
Funky16Corners Radio v.83 – Really Together!
Recorded live at Master Groove @ Forbidden City 3/10/10
Playlist
Perry & the Harmonics – Do the Monkey With James (Mercury)
Emperors – My Baby Likes To Boogaloo (Mala)
Scatman Crothers – Golly Zonk! (It’s Scat Man) (HBR)
Dave Davani Four – The Jupe (Capitol)
Jimmy Hannah and the Dynamics – Leaving Here (Seafair/Bolo)
Rodge Martin – Lovin’ Machine (Bragg)
Bobby Parker – Watch Your Step (V-Tone)
Dave Baby Cortez – Getting’ To the Point (Chess)
Benny Spellman – Fortune Teller (Minit)
Derek Martin – Daddy Rollin’ Stone (Cracker Jack)
Chuck Edwards – Downtown Soulville (Punch)
Soul Clan – Soul Meeting (Atlantic)
Freddy Scott & Orchestra – Pow City (Marlin)
Sugar Pie DeSanto – Go Go Power (Checker)
Billy Vera & Judy Clay – Really Together (Atlantic)
Lewis Clark – Dog (Ain’t a Man’s Best Friend) (Brent)
Oliver Morgan – La La Man (Seven B)
Roy Lee Johnson – Boogaloo #3 (Josie)
Dottie Cambridge – He’s About a Mover (MGM)
Gentleman June Gardner – It’s Gonna Rain (Emarcy)
Benny Spellman – I Feel Good (Atlantic)
Brother Jack McDuff – Too Many Fish In the Sea (Prestige)
Shirley Ellis – The Nitty Gritty (Congress)
Ray Charles – Sticks and Stones (ABC)
Bobby Freeman – C’Mon and Swim Pt1 (Autumn)
As promised I have returned to you with last Wednesday’s set from Master Groove @ Forbidden City. Things just keep getting better there, with the nicer weather bringing in bigger crowds, and the quality of the records played remaining consistently high.
I know I’ve said this before, but allow me to restate the obvious once again. Much like the Asbury Park 45 Sessions (from which many of the Master Groove DJs come), Master Groove is really the place to be if you want to hear all manner of fine, funky and soulful music selected and mixed by people who really know what they’re doing. The really groovy thing is, none of the DJs, either the ‘house’ selectors DJ Bluewater and M-Fasis, or the rotating cast of guest spinners, are working the exact same kind of sounds. The records themselves are different, and the sensibilities applied to their presentation are unique, and all worth hearing. Unlike a night dedicated purely to funk 45s, or Northern soul, or any other specific genre, each of the Master Groove DJs brings an interesting spin (pun intended) on the music.
I find the night especially rewarding because my host, DJ Bluewater, has been very cool about encouraging me to change things up, thus the diversity of the mixes/sets I’ve done there.
This time out I had my mind set on either downtempo or Mod soul, and went with the latter (which turned out to be cool since on the same day I drove up to Forbidden City I got an invite to work on a long-form set for a radio show, in which the planned downtempo mix will expand to twice its original size, details to follow).
Now, my definition of ‘Mod soul’ is loosely based in a formula mixing hard dancefloor soul, soul jazz (especially Hammond grooves) and a touch of proto-soul/R&B. The end result should be (and was) danceable, tuneful and above all groovy. While I’m sure there’s a Mod or two out there that might take issue with my selections, it is (as always) impossible to please everyone.
Things get off to a rousing start with one of my all-time favorite 45s, ‘Do the Monkey With James’ by Perry & the Harmonics. I remember the day I found this 45s. I had never heard of the band, but with a title like that, how could I pass it by? Good thing I let it play too, because on another day, when I was less patient, I may very well have put the 45 back in the box after hearing a slow intro like that. Just wait until that organ kicks in. KABLAMMM!!
Most soul collectors will point you in the direction of Don Gardner’s unfuckwithable OG version of ‘My Baby Likes to Boogaloo’, but I have a soft spot in my heart for the garagey edge to the Emperors cover version. They take some of the slam out of Gardner’s version and replace it with an echoey sort of menace. Very cool.
I’ve written about Scatman Crothers’ ‘Golly Zonk! (It’s Scat Man)’ before, but I must reiterate that this is becoming one of my favorite 45s. Dave Davani’s ‘The Jupe’ is a stylish, swinging slice of UK Hammond. Nuff said.
I’ve always been a huge fan of the Pacific Northwest sound. The R&B was always sharp and the rock always had a soulful edge. Jimmy Hannah and the Dynamics were an integrated combo who were one of the stars of the PNW scene. Give their version of Eddie Holland’s ‘Leaving Here’ a couple of listens. As it stands right now (and I can’t promise this won’t change), it’s my favorite version of that particular song. Rodge Martin only recorded a few 45s in his lifetime, but ‘Lovin’ Machine’, which I first heard as an 80s cover (Secret Service) of a 60s cover (Easybeats) is one of the hottest soul 45s you’ll ever come across. Look for the film of him performing this tune live on a Nashville TV show in 1966. Powerful stuff. Bobby Parker’s rave up ‘Watch Your Step’ is, in addition to being an ass kicker of a record, also provided the blueprint for a number of other records by lesser known artists like the Beatles and Led Zeppelin.
Tighten your belt, because once you hear Dave Baby Cortez’ heavy ‘Gettin’ To the Point’ your trousers may actually get blown off.
Speaking of powerful, influential records, Benny Spellman’s ‘Fortune Teller’ was covered many, many times, but I always find myself returning to the original for that Allen Toussaint piano and that rich, New Orleans feel.
The appeal of Derek Martin’s ‘Daddy Rollin’ Stone’ can be boiled down to two short words: bad ass.
You already know I’m a huge fan of Chuck Edwards, and his ‘Downtown Soulville’ is one of the truly great soul 45s. It should tell you something that no less a light than the mighty Mr. Finewine made it his signature record. The Soul Clan – Don Covay, Solomon Burke, Arthur Conley, Joe Tex and Ben E King – fulfilled every ounce of their collective promise in the top side of their only 45, ‘Soul Meeting’. One can only imagine what might have been had they sustained that level for an entire album… Freddy Scott – along with various and sundry combinations of musicians – waxed some of the heaviest soul and funk 45s to come out of Florida in the 60s. ‘Pow City’ lives up to its title in a big way. Sugar Pie DeSanto’s ‘Go Go Power’ is a stone killer, and a 45 that eluded me for a long time. Imagine my delight when I found it a few years back. It ought to have been a big hit.
Though ‘Really Together’is credited to both Billy Vera and Judy Clay, as far as I can tell Clay does not appear on the song. Relegated to the b-side of one of their 45s, ‘Really Together’ – barely two minutes long – is a real eye opener. One of those ‘where has this record been all of my life’ records.
I’ve never been able to find out anything about Lewis Clark, but ‘Dog (Ain’t a Man’s Best Friend)’ is a real floor filler. Oliver Morgan was one of the great New Orleans soul singers of the 60s. ‘La La Man’ written and arranged by the mighty Eddie Bo, was an answer record of sorts, to Morgan’s 1963 single ‘Who Shot the La La’ (also written by Bo), and features a killer vocal by Morgan, and some hot, HOT snare drum.
Atlanta’s own Roy Lee Johnson, previously of Dr. Feelgood and the Interns, recorded ‘Boogaloo #3’ in 1966. The record has an amazing swing to it, with the guitar line and the saxophone accents. I love it!
Rumor is that ‘Dottie Cambridge’, with her driving cover of the Sir Douglas Quintet’s ‘She’s (He’s) About a Mover’ was none other that Dorothy Moore who later hit the charts with ‘Misty Blue’.
Believe it or not, Gentleman June Gardner’s New Orleans classic ‘It’s Gonna Rain’ is a cover of a Sonny and Cher B-side. Believe it further or not, the Sonny and Cher original (with vocals) is a soul-garage killer. Check it out sometime.
We return to the sound of Mr Benny Spellman with yet another soul classic that I first heard second-hand (via the Artwoods cover), ‘I Feel Good’. If you can find yourself a copy of this 45, flip it over for ‘The Word Game’, which recycles the instrumental track from composer Allen Toussaint’s earlier band the Stokes’ ‘Young Man Old Man’. Brother Jack McDuff’s cover of the Marvelettes ‘Too Many Fish In the Sea’ is a Hammond classic.
Though I’ve always been partial to Gladys Knight and the Pips’ funked up cover of the tune, there’s no denying the power of Shirley Ellis’ classic original version of ‘The Nitty Gritty’.
I’d like to say that the first time I heard Titus Turner’s ‘Sticks and Stones’ it was coming out of Ray Charles’ mouth, but it was another one of those cover-of-a-cover things (Secret Service covering the Zombies). Nobody did it better than Brother Ray.
This set closes out with an old favorite, co-written and produced by Sly Stone, that being Bobby Freeman’s ‘C’mon and Swim’, a heavy, serious soul party record that was actually a sizeable hit in 1964.
So, I hope you dig the set, and I’ll be back later in the week with something cool.
Listen/Download -Average White Band – Person to Person
Greetings all.
I come to you at the end of the week on the brink of exhaustion.
In addition to my regular fatherly, husbandly and bloggerish duties, I spent last night in New York City, meeting some groovy people, and most importantly, spinning some soul 45s.
It was another excellent evening at Master Groove @ Forbidden City with my cohorts DJ Bluewater and M-Fasis, both of whom laid down very tasty sets of funk and soul.
I put together an all Northern Soul set, and was planning on recording it live, but as luck would have it, I left the house without the proper cable to attach the recorder to the board, so the live recording was not to be.
However, as we speak, despite the fact that any sane person would be in bed, catching up on lost sleep, I’m sitting here recording that set at home, so that I can bring it to you on Monday.
As a result, I’m going to make this entry short, sweet and Master Groove-related.
The last time I did a set at Forbidden City, my man M-Fasis, who always drops something that blows my mind, whipped a familiar disc on the turntable that made my head turn. Way back in the day, when I had my first copy of the Average White Band’s ‘AWB’ album, the song that really blew my mind (aside from ‘Pick Up the Pieces’) was a a little number called ‘Person to Person’. Back in January, when M-Fasis played this very record, two things occurred to me. First, why was I sleeping on this most excellent 45?
Second, why hadn’t someone sampled that very tasty guitar lick?
The answer to the first question is one of those basic ‘forest for the trees’ conundrums, in which your’s truly is surrounded by mountains of vinyl, and sometimes I get preoccupied and forget stuff.
The answer to the second question is, but of course the song has been sampled, at least twenty times by folks like Big Daddy Kane and Public Enemy. So, there you go.
So how about some of that tasty Scottish funk to get your weekend started?
I’ll get back to work on that mix, and I’ll see you on Monday.
Louis Chachere– A Soulful Bag (Central)
Hank Marr – The Out Crowd (Wingate)
Turtles – Buzz Saw (White Whale)
Albert Collins – Cookin’ Catfish (20th Century Fox)
Wynder K. Frog – Oh Mary (UA)
Don & the Goodtimes – Turn On (Wand)
Dave Lewis – Searchin’ (Piccadilly)
Earl Van Dyke – Soul Stomp (Soul)
Toussaint McCall – Shimmy (Ronn)
Georgie Fame – El Bandido (Imperial)
La Bert Ellis – Batman (A&M)
James Brown – Shhhhhhhh (For a Little While) (King)
Mohawks – Champ (Philips/NL)
Ross Carnegie – The Kid (El Con)
John Phillip Soul and His Stone Marching Band – That Memphis Thing (Pepper)
Bill Doggett – Honky Tonk Popcorn (King)
Lou Garno Trio – Chicken In the Basket (Giovanni)
Hindal Butts – In the Pocket (M-S)
Warm Excursion – Hang Up Pt1 (Pzazz)
Soul Tornado’s – Crazy Legs (Westwood)
Charles Earland – Sing a Simple Song (Prestige)
Art Butler – Soul Brother (Epic)
Memphis Black – Why Don’t You Play the Organ Man (Ascot)
*NOTE: I won’t be posting zip files for this and any other live mixes…
Greetings all, and welcome back to the Funky16Corners-adelic-superfragelistic thing for another week.
Before we get started, I want to say that after serious consideration with the Funky16Corners board of directors, and close consultation with some serious heads (not the least of whom being my man DJ Prestige) I have decided not to deep six the old versions of the blog (WordPress and Blogger). While I did deactivate all active content links on both sites (replacing them with redirects where necessary), since I was unable to do a full export of the WordPress blog, and could not bring over the comments on the old blog posts, AND since I consider reader commentary to be an important part of the process (mainly because so many of you contribute information via those posts) I figured it would benefit all parties to keep the old sites up and running (with any luck as long as this sentence).
Anything you might travel back there to hear, can now be heard here in the new Funky16Corners Radio Podcast and Guest Mix Archives.
The mix you see before you today was supposed to be up in this space on Friday, but I just had too damn much to do, and so I had to put it off for a couple of days. I think, however that you will be pleased when you pull down the ones and zeros and stuff it in your ears.
For you see (hear), Funky16Corners Radio v.80* is just about an hour of high octane, Hammond fueled groove grease guaranteed to get you off your ass, slipping and sliding across the floor, with the hip-shaking, and the wild gesticulation, and the shaking of the hair, gospel wailing and general good times.
Big words those, but I think once the sounds have been ingested, you will concur. It all started thusly…
Back before Christmas, my lovely wife asked me what I wanted as a holiday gift. I generally reply to these queries with a shrug and a ‘Don’t worry ‘bout me on account of I pretty much have everything I need’. However, this year there was something I had my eye on, so I sent my wife the link, and ‘Bob’s yer uncle’ a brand new digital recorded dropped into my stocking.
My main motivation in requesting this new bit of hardware was so that my casting of the pods would be facilitated, but as is the norm when I get a new toy, I find some other, more interesting way to put it to work, and so I did.
It was at the last Asbury Park 45 Sessions that I brought my recorder along and attempted to record my set right off the board. I thought everything had gone swimmingly, until I got up the next morning, transferred the file onto my laptop and discovered that Einstein (that’s me, heh heh…) hadn’t read the instructions properly, and what I had recorded was not the mix off the board, but all the ambient noise surrounding it. I tossed that one into the old electronic wastebasket and set my sights on my next set at Master Groove.
Well my friends, it was a success.
I had spoken to my host the esteemed DJ Bluewater about what I would play this time, and I suggested a ‘theme set’ of sorts. He thought this was a good idea, so I sat down in the midst of my record vault and started digging. I had originally thought I might do a Northern Soul thing (next time out maybe) but I happened upon a clump of solid Hammond 45s, so I took that as a sign and continued in that direction.
What you have here is an actual live mix, recorded directly from the booth monitor line on the mixer, no fiddling/editing involved.
If you’ve visited with me here over the years, you’ll already be aware that I am a first class Hammond organ nut, and my crates run deep. When I started pulling stuff to compose my set, I extracted enough records for three or four sets, and then sat down with the turntable and selected a little over an hour’s worth of faves.
The records you’ll hear in this mix are the very cream of the dancefloor Hammond crop, with lots of your big keyboard wranglers (Messrs Earland, Doggett, McCall, Lewis, Van Dyke, Frog and Carnegie) a couple of unusual sources (Albert Collins and the Turtles, yes, the Turtles) and a few things you may not have heard before.
As stated previously, my intention here was to whip something up to get the dancers moving, so if you’re playing this inside your corporate veal pen, try not to spill your coffee/disturb your neighbor. If you’re on the bus, piping it in via earbuds, don’t be surprised if your neighbor attempts to administer first aid, since you may appear to be involved in convulsions of some sort.
That said, I will refrain from further comment, letting the sounds speak for themselves.
I hope you dig the mix, and rest assured that I will endeavor to bring you more of the same (both live, and organ mixes) in the coming months.
Peace
Larry
*I was rapping with my man DJ Bluewater last week about how I can’t beleive how many mixes are in the Funky16Corners and Iron Leg Archives (combined mounting up to well over 100 mixes in less than four years)
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