Category: Disco/Not Disco

Ken Munson – Fly Robin Fly Pts 1&2

By , November 7, 2010 3:55 pm

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Ken Munson

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Listen/Download – Ken Munson – Fly Robin Fly Pt1

Listen/Download – Ken Munson – Fly Robin Fly Pt2

 

Greetings all.

I hope the new week finds you all well.

The tune I bring you today is something I tracked down in my seemingly never ending search for funky flute forty-fives (never have to look far for alliteration…).

Ken Munson has appeared in this space a few times, with tracks from his modestly named 1973 ‘Super Flute’ LP.

Despite trying, I have never been able to track down anything but circumstantial evidence that would illuminate the history of Mr. Munson.

The two non-LP 45s I have seem to indicate that he worked in the New York metropolitan area, but other than that, not much comes up.

If you recall Funky16Corners Radio v.87- Wind of Change, you’ll already know I dig the sound of the flute, especially when utilized in a jazz or funk setting. This is certainly an acquired tast, but it should already be obvious that I have acquired it.

Today’s selection is a cover of the 1975 hit by the Silver Convention. The Munich, Germany based disco group (basically producers Silvester Levay and Michael Kunze) had hits with both ‘Fly Robin Fly’ and ‘Get Up and Boogie’, both of which have a certain, oddly laid back (I say oddly because these were dance records) feel that is at once very ‘70s’, and also a little bit disconcerting. Perhaps they were tapping into some kind of Quaalude consciousness, but one expects a certain amount of propulsion in a record intended for the dancefloor.

Ken Munson remedies this by pushing up the tempo a little bit, as well as dialing up the funk just a tad. The addition of brass that doubles the flute leads, as well as some groovy electric piano (I’d love to know who the pianist is) and guitar add some soul jazz flavor as well.

Make sure you stick around for Part 2, since there’s a cool flute/drum breakdown where Munson really tears it up.

I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back on Wednesday with something cool.

Peace

Larry


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F16C Soul Club Presents – Funky16Corners Live in DC

By , November 5, 2010 7:10 am

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F16C Soul Club Presents: Funky16Corners Live In DC, 9/25/10

Playlist

Average White Band – Pick Up the Pieces (Atlantic)
Lyn Collins – Think (About It) (People)
Mongo Santamaria – Lady Marmalade (Vaya)
Manu Dibango – New Bell (Atlantic)
Isley Brothers – Fight the Power (T-Neck)
Gladys Knight & the Pips – Thank You Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin (Soul)
Hoctor – Gold Coast (Hoctor)
Bobby Byrd – I Know You Got Soul (King)
Barrett Strong – Stand Up and Cheer For the Preacher (Epic)
LTD – Every Time I Turn Around (Back In Love Again) ()
Billy Preston – Outta Space (A&M)
Eddie Kendricks – Keep On Truckin’ (Tamla)
O’Jays – I Love Music Pt1 (PI)
Joe Bataan – Latin Strut (Mericana)
Louie Ramirez – Do It Any Way You Wanna (Cotique)
Joe Bataan – Shaft (Fania)

You can check out this mix in the Funky16Corners Soul Club Archive

Greetings all.

As previously stated, at the time you’re reading this, I will be away on vacation with the wife and the little Corners, releasing this post in a timely fashion from a remote location.

I figured this would be a good time to drop the set I recorded at Marvin on my DC trip back in September.

Marvin is a very cool place, but with a decidedly different vibe than I’m used to, i.e. I can’t rock the house with a stack of vintage funk 45s. This is not to say (as you’ll see above) that funk 45s cannot be rocked, just that the mix has to be peppered with things from a little later on the timeline.

The records are – as always – aimed to please the dancers with a taste of disco blended into the overall flavor.

I actually dig doing this, especially since I get to expand the palette as it were, spinning records that don’t fit inside the context of a vintage funk/soul night.

I’m not making a claim to be breaking any new ground, just mentioning that I dig flexing those muscles a little bit now and then.

It took me a long time to warm up to (read, ‘understand’) disco, and the more I dig into the good stuff, the more I wish I knew, and of course, had more of it on vinyl.

That said, pop this one in, and shake it up a little.

Don’t forget to tune into the Funky16Corners Radio Show, Friday at 9PM at Viva Radio. This week is an hour-long tribute to the late Weldon McDougal III and the Harthon sound or Philadephia soul.

Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you on Monday.

Peace

Larry

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The Commodores – Machine Gun

By , August 26, 2010 4:37 pm

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The Commodores

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Listen/Download – The Commodores – Machine Gun

 

Greetings all.

The week is at an end, and if I’m lucky, by the time you’re reading this the fam and I will be away on the vacay, as it were (thus I’m canning and vacuum sealing this one a few days in advance).
I meant to drop this one a while back, since I picked up the 45 last year when I was spinning with DJ Birdman down in DC. Unfortunately, which is often the case around here as my mind deteriorates more rapidly each day, I neglected to take a picture of the 45, then I filed it away in the giant heaving mass of vinyl that sits behind me while I type this. However, recently, while I was pulling some records for to be digimatized, I happened upon the Commodores Greatest Hits LP, so in essence what you’re hearing is the 45, what you’re seeing is the LP, but since it’s all the Commodores, you’ll have to bear with me.
I have to admit that I wrote the Commodores off for years, thanks in large part to the lame, middle of the road and largely un-soulful solo career of Lionel Richie.
No matter that ‘Brick House’, the official funk song of elderly relatives (which they all dance to at weddings), is actually quite good, it all blended together for me into one big, unpleasant heap.
My bad.
Years back, I’m sitting there watching the movie ‘Boogie Nights’, and all of a sudden a very groovy song comes on the soundtrack in a discotheque scene, and I’m all ‘What’s that?” and then the credits rolled around and I was all “The Commodores, eh?” and therein lies a minor re-evaulation thereof.
That, and the fact that a cursory listen will set your ears a-tingling when you recognize the sample from the Beastie Boys ‘Hey Ladies’ pop in.
All that aside, ‘Machine Gun’ is a badass number packed end to end with enough clavinet to blow your mind, some very tasty wah-wah guitar and – if I might – not a single note of Lionel Richie’s melodious voice to screw things up.
The Commodores came together in the late 60s at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and signed to Motown releasing their first album (also titled ‘Machine Gun’) in 1974. The title track (written by guitarist Milan Williams) was a hit in 1975, and despite the presence of synthesizers (or maybe because of it) ‘Machine Gun’ manages to be solidly funky, and eminently danceable (without being stereotypically disco-ey, though it was clearly a hit on the dance floor).
I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back on Monday.

Peace

Larry


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Lyn Collins – Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose

By , July 6, 2010 6:37 pm

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Lyn Collins

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Listen/Download – Lyn Collins – Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose

 

Greetings all.

Welcome to the middle of the first authentic, brain-baking, sweat-inducing heatwave of the summer of two-thousand-ten.
The Fourth of July festivities were an authentic pain in the ass. The fam and I have been heading down to Asbury Park for the fireworks for the last three years, on account of it’s been a very chill scene. Unfortunately/fortunately, the restoration of Asbury Park, which has made the town a very cool place to be has increased its appeal to the point where the 4th of July turned the city into a veritable mob scene with near-gridlock conditions, and the Funky16Corners-mobile and all that sailed upon her were forced out of Asbury Park, first to Ocean Grove (which was also packed to capacity) and then further south into Bradley Beach* until we located a parking space (my three-year-old son ‘Thanks for parking Daddy!!’) well over a mile away (maybe two) from the fireworks about 10 seconds before the fireworks commenced.
We were a long way from the boom-boom, but the rockets red glare was still visible and the kids dug it, so all things considered it was enough of a success to keep the peace (but also enough to let Mrs Corners and I know that we were going to have to retool the entire Independence Day experience next year).
That said, I couldn’t very well let the descent of the oppressive heat go by without whipping a little bit of volcanic funk on you as the accompanying soundtrack.
Hows about some Lyn Collins?
I thought you might like that…
Arguably the pinnacle of that rarified species known as James Brown’s Funky Divas, Miz Collins, aka the Female Preacher is best remembered as the woman responsible for the 1972 atomic explosion known as ‘Think (About It)’ one of the funkiest records ever recorded and the very heavily sampled source for the heart and soul of Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock’s ‘It Takes Two’, a 45 that I pack in my record box on the reg on account of it’s a funky killer all on its own.
The record I bring you today is something from a few years further down Lyn Collins discography, her 1974 cover of the Godfather’s 1969 hit, ‘Give It Or Turnit A Loose’. For some bizarre reason I was unaware of this record’s existence until recently, and when I heard it I was filled with an odd mixture of ‘DAMN this record’s hot’ and ‘Where has this been all my life?’ but more importantly ‘Where can I get myself a copy?, the answer to the last question being answered within a few weeks.
Aside from being Soul Brother Number One, Mr Dynamite, Mr Please Please Please and the Hardest Working Man In Show Business, James Brown was above all an astute judge of talent, packing his band with dead on the super heavy funk players, and his stable of performers with some of the finest female soul and funk singers to have ever graced this mortal coil. I mean, sure Lyn Collins was bad-ass, but when you step back and realize that she stood alongside voices like Vicki Anderson and Marva Whitney it’s an awful lot to take in.
Collins’ version of the tune is updated to the slightly smoother, certainly more synthesized 1974-era funk, but it still kicks ass in a BIG way. There’s all the crispness of your run of the mill James Brown production, as well as the complex, clockwork funk, but there’s something else at work, the heart of which is Lyn Collin’s mighty voice.
Collins had the ability to leap from a soulful growl to a jagged edged scream in no time at all, and she does so several times in the course of this record.
While there are synthesizers, and it was 1974, and I don’t doubt for a second that this record set any number of discotheques afire, there’s never any question that the music pouring from the grooves is anything but funk.
So, get up out of your seat, on your feet and start moving your ass. If you thought you were done sweating, you have another think coming brothers and sisters.
See you on Friday.

Peace

Larry


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*Yes, I know these town names are meaningless to people outside of the area. Please bear with me…


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Hamilton Bohannon – South African Man

By , June 17, 2010 12:19 pm

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Hamilton Bohannon

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Listen/Download – Hamilton Bohannon – South African Man

Greetings all.

The end of the week is here, and it would appear that the summer weather may be returning as well (which is a good thing since the actual summer is only a few days away).
It’s Father’s Day this weekend, so I’m going to spend as much time chilling with my sons (and my lovely wife of course, without whom I would not be a father) and reflecting on how much my life has changed in the last decade (for the better, natch…).
The tune I bring you today is something I picked up a while back and have been exploring – at my leisure – ever since. A couple of other tracks from this album have seen inclusion in Funky16Corners Radio mixes, but I’ve saved the best for last.
If you’re a crate digger, or just a serious fan of funk and soul, you have certainly heard of Hamilton Bohannon.
Bohannon got his start drumming for Stevie Wonder and working at Motown as a percussionist and arranger during the 60s. After he moved on from Motown he signed with the Brunswick Records subsidiary Dakar where he would record several albums through the 70s.
Today’s selection, ‘South African Man’ is a long, funky, mid-tempo jam that didn’t make much of a dent stateside but was a dance floor hit over in the UK in 1975, the first of a half dozen hits he had in that country over the next seven years.
A lot has been said about Bohannon as a pioneer of disco, but his work is a lot closer to the Loft-era sounds discussed here in the past than any of the stereotypical sounds of the disco era.
‘South African Man’ is just about six minutes* of ‘vamp’, with a drum and bass heavy riff, augmented with clavinet and wah-wah guitar. The lyrics of the song – as they are – don’t really say much which is kind of surprising considering a song with this title in the heart of the apartheid era, but ultimately, ‘South African Man’ is less about thought and protest than it is about dance floor grinding in the club. And when I say grinding, I’m not kidding, since ‘South African Man’ lingers dangerously close to a porno-soundtrack vibe, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but yet another reminder that the hypnotic rhythms of the club aren’t just about dancing in the, how do they say, vertical position…
That said, slap this one on, stir yourself up an icy cocktail and enjoy the warm breezes of summer before they become (inevitably) oppressive.
See you on Monday.

Peace

Larry


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*Oddly listed as seven minutes long on the LP…


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Disco/Not Disco Pt3 – Cymande – Bra

By , February 11, 2010 6:57 pm

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Cymande

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Listen/Download – Cymande – Bra

Greetings all.
The end of the week is here, and so is the final installment in the ‘Disco/Not Disco’ series.
It’s been interesting – at least for me – in that this is something that I’d been wanting to do for a long time, and kept putting it off until I had enough time to give it the thought it deserved.
The original intent was to present a couple of what I considered to be representative tracks from David Mancuso’s Loft repertoire, so that those of you reading, who may not have heard of him before might go a little bit further and as they say, read up on your read ups. Check any and all of the books I mentioned: Tim Lawrence’s book “Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-1979”. Lawrence’s tome, along with Peter Shapiro’s ‘Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco’ (since retitled) and Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton’s ‘Last Night a DJ Saved My Life’ for a comprehensive history of club DJs, including Mancuso and his NY scene contemporaries.
The third and last song of the week is perhaps the most challenging of the three selections.
I’ve written about Cymande (a band I love a lot) in this space before.
Though they never rose to the prominence of either Booker T & the MGs or Eddie Kendricks, Cymande did hit the charts here in the US, twice in 1973. First with ‘The Message’, a Top 20 R&B hit, and then again (and for the last time) with today’s selection ‘Bra’ which hovered outside the R&B Top 50. They did make it onto the outer reaches of the Pop charts, but nothing significant, which is shame because they definitely had crossover potential.
Earlier I suggested that ‘Bra’ was the most challenging of this weeks selections. I don’t mean to suggest that it was in any way far out, but rather that its off-center groove, with stop time interplay between the percussion and the bass, with a less than ‘straight ahead’ rhythm. It’s not that I can’t imagine people getting down to ‘Bra’, but it’s definitely the kind of record that dancers might have to warm to, gradually, as opposed to a stereotypical floor-filler.
And therein lies the rub my friends, because that’s precisely the kind of chance that Mancuso would take, i.e. pulling an LP out of the crates and dropping a track – like ‘Bra’ – that while unquestionably danceable, is as valuable a listening experience as it is for dancing.
Co-written by guitarist Pat Patterson and bassist Steve Scipio, ‘Bra’ does open with rhythmically unusual riff – backed up by the song’s signature horn riff – but by the time the chorus comes in, the addition of a strong rhythm guitar propels the beat, rounding its sharp edges and settling into a more conventional groove. This is not to say that the tune loses any of its complexity, but rather, like any dozen James Brown records, the polyrythms are woven together so tightly that even someone with two left feet would be compelled to move.
The first time I had a chance to listen to Cymande’s three album discography in depth (via an old CD comp) what I got out of the experience – aside from lots of quality music – was the impression that despite the group’s marginal chart success, the listening public really missed the boat. The old saw is to indicate that an artist was ‘ahead of their time’ but in the case of Cymande I wouldn’t say that this was entirely true. This is how I described their music when writing about this track almost exactly three years ago:

“Their music was a sophisticated mixture of American soul and funk, African pop, Latin sounds, rock and all of the various and sundry intersections of those sounds. A close listen to their first LP is like a drive through Harlem in the early 70’s with your car windows down, letting snatches of Curtis Mayfield, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, Santana and a thousand lesser groups (woven securely into the fabric, but essentially lost to the ages) drift through the windows and into your ears.
There are elements of early-70’s prog-cum-stoner rock guitar, hard drums, jazzy bass and horns as well as a bedrock of polyrhythmic percussion.”

If my approximation of their sound is accurate, the conclusion you would reach is that they were very much of their time, and looking back, it seems amazing to me that they weren’t more popular. There were plenty of black acts incorporating elements of rock music into their sound, and by and large, though there are Jamaican influences (which had been popping in and out of radio playlists for much of the previous decade), they never overpower the band’s funky groove. While it’s understandable that a pop audience might not get too far into their sound, I’m puzzled that they didn’t make more inroads with the more progressive rock audience.
That said, placed against the other tracks in this week’s series, it’s ot hard at all to see why ‘Bra’ was so popular at the Loft. Earlier this week one of the readers requested that I post a Mancuso set list, so I pulled out ‘Love Saves the Day’ an retyped the list below, which doesn’t seem to represent any one night, but rather an amalgam of Loft favorites for the years 1970 to 1973. There are a fair amount of what one might consider to be ‘obvious’ dance records (James Brown, Beginning of the End, Manu Dibango*), a couple of less obvious tunes for the trainspotters, including jazz rock like Traffic’s ‘Glad’ and Brian Auger and the Trinity’s version of Eddie Harris’ soul jazz classic ‘Listen Here’, the breakbeat fave ‘The Mexican’ by Babe Ruth, as well as unusual (likely transitional, mood pieces) like the Beatles’ ‘Here Comes the Sun’ and Exuma’s ‘Exuma the Obeah Man’. While there’s a fair amount of info out there listing individual records as ‘Loft favorites’ I was unable to find any specific playlists from the venue’s early 70s heyday.
Interestingly enough, Mancuso has kept some version of his Loft going (at a number of different locations) continuously (though with decreasing frequency) right on through the disco and house music eras. He still travels internationally, putting on Loft parties around the world.
If reading in-depth studies of dance music culture isn’t your bag, see if you can track down the 2003 documentary ‘Maestro’, that follows the development of New York DJ culture from Francis Grasso in the late 60s, all the way through to the end of the Paradise Garage (with Larry Levan) in 1987. It manages to touch on most of the major players, and there are lots of interviews with people that witnessed the development of DJ/club culture while it happened.
I hope that this week’s series has been enlightening (at least musically).
I’m going to see if a hot shower will soothe the muscles and tendons I wore down shoveling snow.
Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you all on Monday.

Peace

Larry

The Loft – Selected Discography 1970 – 1973
From ‘Love Saves the Day’ by Tim Lawrence
Brian Auger & the Trinity – Listen Here
Babe Ruth – The Mexican
Barrabas – Wild Safari
Barrabas – Woman
The Beatles – Here Comes the Sun
Beginning of the End – Funky Nassau
Booker T & the MGs – Melting Pot
James Brown – Get Up I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine Pt1&2
James Brown – Give It Up Or Turnit a Loose
Chakachas – Jungle Fever
Cymande – Bra
Manu Dibango – Soul Makossa
Equals – Black Skinned Blue Eyed Boys
Exuma – Exuma the Obeah Man
Aretha Franklin – Ain’t No Way
Al Green – Love and Happiness
Willie Hutch – Brother’s Gonna Work It Out
Intruders – I’ll Always Love My Mama
JBs – Gimme Some More
Eddie Kendricks – Girl You Need a Change of Mind
Morgana King – A Taste of Honey
Gladys Knight & the Pips – It’s Time To Go Now
Little Sister – You’re the One
Curtis Mayfield – Move On Up
Dorothy Morrison – Rain
Van Morrison – Astral Weeks
O’Jays – Love Train
Olatunji – Drums of Passion
Osibisa – Survival
Edwin Starr – War
Traffic – Glad
Tribe – Koke
Troubadours du Roi Baudouin – Missa Luba
War – City, Country, City
War – The World Is a Ghetto

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*The story goes that it was the NY club DJs that made Manu Dibango’s ‘Soul Makossa’ a hit before it was widely available in the US, which explains the many covers/rip-offs of the tune that flooded the market before Atlantic released the song domestically

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Disco/Not Disco Pt2 – Eddie Kendricks – Girl You Need A Change of Mind

By , February 9, 2010 5:47 pm

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Eddie Kendricks

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Listen/Download – Eddie Kendricks – Girl You Need a Change of Mind

Greetings all.
As I write this, I still can’t feel the lower right side of my face, having spent the morning with the dentist and her assistant rummaging in my mouth like it was an old sofa and they’d lost a hundred dollar bill. I even got soup for lunch and STILL managed to bite my lip. Fortunately, the good doctor informs me that aside from an extraction, my dental worries for the year are at an end (until next year and the insurance starts paying again).
A look out the window at the foot or so of snow on the lawn is bad enough, but the weatherman is now forecasting another foot or so for tonight into tomorrow. Once again I ask, WTF? I don’t mind the weather as much as I’m terrified of venturing out onto the roads, alongside the large number of New Jersey residents who have no idea how to drive in the snow. Half of them are going way too slow, and the other half, cruising around in their gas sucking luxury behemoths are going way too fast, thus making the NJ highways – already a gauntlet of sorts – into a veritable death trap. With any luck, the wife and kids will have the day off, so we can stay home and sit beside the fire.
That said, it’s time to continue our week long tribute to David Mancuso and the records he played at the Loft.
Earlier this week, not long after I finished writing the post about Booker T & the MGs, it occurred to me that the vibe I got when reading about Mancuso, and his work as a DJ reminded me of a phrase I learned from a friend many years ago.
Back in the day, though (wisely) I never set foot on a surfboard, I became fascinated with the history of the sport – especially the big wave riders – and I had a couple of friends (thanks to living and working by the beach) who actually surfed. Now, the “waves” (quotes added for sarcasm) at the Jersey Shore rarely rise above a height considered safe for small children and old ladies (aside from those whipped up by the occasional Nor’Easter or hurricane). Despite this fact, no matter what time of year it is, if I take a ride along the beach –especially in the morning – there are surfers out there, making the best of what the ocean has to offer.
Why do I mention this? Because, (also) back in the day, my buddy Joe introduced me to the concept of the ‘soul surfer’. Obvious puns aside, what this refers to is an individual who is technically adept enough to compete with the big dogs, yet rides the waves solely for the sheer pleasure of it, making it into a spiritual endeavor. The more I thought about Mancuso, the Loft and the ideas he brought to the game (and how he inspired me) the more it occurred to me that it made sense to apply that term to Mancuso and those that follow(ed) in his footsteps.
I realize that there are all kinds of DJs out there, separated not only by genre, but also by their approach to spinning (though god knows the cats that actually use records are becoming an endangered species). Ideally, when you enter the DJ booth, your ultimate goal ought to be that the folks dancing, listening or both, have a good time. How good a time they have is dependent on a number of factors, the most important being the quality of the music, and the way you (the DJ) present it to the crowd.
The corner of the musical universe I tend to kick around in is generally concerned with soul and funk, of the vintage persuasion. The folks that come to hear and dance to this music are usually a mix of aficionados, i.e. your Mods and soulies that know their way around and are probably already acquainted with some of the rarer discs in my record box, and regular folks who just want to hear something they can dance to.
It probably goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) that the vast majority of DJs in this field are – like myself – what our friends in the UK refer to as anoraks and trainspotters, i.e. detail-oriented obsessives with an eye turned to the rare an obscure. The duty of this type of DJ is to balance their own love for the obscure against the true quality of the records in question (on account of the rarity of a record often- not always – has an inverse relation to the quality), and to offer up a playlist that is interesting, but ultimately satisfying to the largest possible number of people. Finding this balance isn’t always easy. I’ve seen people with incredible record collections step up to the tables and drop one ultra-rare stinkbomb after another. I’ve also seen people with less impressive crates (but spectacular taste) light up a dancefloor with dollar bin wonders.
Today’s selection from the Loft, Eddie Kendricks’ mighty ‘Girl You Need a Change of Mind’ is from the less-obscure end of the spectrum. The song appeared on Kendricks’ landmark 1972 LP ‘People Hold On’, and though it wasn’t a hit*, he was well known from his years in the Temptations, and had scored a chart hit with that album’s opening track ‘If You Let Me’. Like Monday’s tune ‘Melting Pot’, I first heard ‘Girl You Need a Change of Mind’ as a 45 edit. Unlike ‘Melting Pot’, ‘Girl…’ made an impact on me, even in its shortened version.
Written by Motown legend Frank Wilson and Anita Poree (though the 45 credits it to Poree and ex-Radiant Leonard Caston, who co-wrote a number of other songs on ‘People Hold On’), ‘Girl You Need a Change of Mind’ is the ultimate illustration of the ‘disco/not disco’ tag.
Eddie Kendricks is unquestionably one of the fathers of what came to be known as disco. The two years after ‘People Hold On’ saw him have big hits with two of the genre’s important early songs, ‘Keep On Truckin’ and ‘Boogie Down’. While ‘Girl…’ isn’t quite as explicitly “disco” as either of those tracks, all of the stylistic cues are present, albeit not fully formed. Like ‘Melting Pot’, ‘Girl…’ contains multitudes in its seven and a half minute span. Though it works wonders as a three and a half minute soul single, it passes over into the realm of dance floor epic in the album version.
The opening riff, with a simple piano riff over spare percussion – soon joined by snare drum and horn flourishes, opens up into a relatively slow (yet danceable) verse. It’s around the two and a half minute mark, with Kendricks repeated ‘What you say to that?’ refrain, that the tempo escalates, backed by a muscular rhythm guitar (right about where the 45 version fades out). Things change again around 3:45, where everything except the lead guitar and tambourine drop out, the band gradually coming back in (the piano and rhythm guitar are especially sweet here) until the drums come in strong at about 5:10. It’s at this point where the picture of ‘Girl You Need a Change of Mind’ as dance floor epic comes into full focus. Unlike many 12” singles that would drop in the coming years, ‘Girl…’ is both song enough for the radio, and (in it’s LP form) long enough for the dancers.
Things change yet again at 5:55 – and again this must have been absolutely magical over the Loft’s sound system – as we’re left with just the congas and Kendrick’s falsetto, followed in short order by the band returning to full power by the end of the record (sounding – at this stage – several years ahead of its time).
Interestingly enough, as proto-disco goes, it’s another ‘People Hold On’ track, ‘Date With the Rain’ – another big hit in the clubs that failed to score on the radio – a remarkable (but tragically short, at 2:40) dance record, that more closely fits the mold. It is also available (but much rarer) on 45.
I hope you dig the track(s), and I’ll be back on Friday with another great record.

Peace

Larry

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*CORRECTION – I just dug out my Billboard R&B Chart book, and discovered that ‘Girl You Need a Change of Mind Pt1’ (the 45 edit)  was in fact a Top 20 R&B hit.

PS: Don’t forget this Wed 2/10 at Master Groove @ Forbidden City – DJ BlueWater, DJ Prime Mundo, DJ Prestige

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