Lou Bond
Listen/Download Lou Bond – That’s the Way I Always Heard It Should Be
Listen/Download Lou Bond – To the Establishment
Greetings all
This is the end of another week, so it is – as always – time to remind you to tune in to the Funky16Corners Radio Show. It airs this and every Friday night at 9pm on Viva Radio, and can be subscribed to as a podcast in iTunes or picked up as an MP3 here at the blog.
I was saddened the other day when word came down the line that Lou Bond had passed away.
Bond (born Ronald Edward Lewis) , who in his short career laid down just two 45s and one amazing LP is less a “cult” artist than an unjustly/tragically forgotten one.
Bond recorded two very cool 45s in 1966 and 1967 while in Chicago (rooming with none other than Sidney Barnes!), the groovy midtempo ‘What Have I Done’ for Fontana and the uptempo Northern flavored ‘You Shake Me Up’ for Brainstorm.
He recorded his only LP, the self-titled ‘Lou Bond’ for the short-lived Stax subsidiary We Produce in 1974.
‘Lou Bond’, which was reissued by Light In the Attic in 2010 (there was a brief digital reissued by Stax prior to that) is a truly remarkable piece of work.
Record collectors/music hounds are constantly bombarded with “lost” albums and rediscoveries that – following the flavor of the month pattern – are often less interesting than they first appear.
‘Lou Bond’ is a rare and powerful exception to that rule.
I first heard about the record years ago when it was popping up with regularity in ‘finds’ lists on a message board I used to frequent.
I finally got my hands on a copy of the album back in 2007 and had my mind blown.
Though he was unmistakably a soul singer, one need only look at the pictures of Bond on his album cover to get the message that he was in other bags as well.
Bond was starting off in a soul groove, but also mixing jazz, folk and contemporary pop into his sound.
‘Lou Bond’ draws from a wide range of influences, most notably Marvin Gaye and Isaac Hayes, but also a variety of early 70s singer songwriters (soul and non).
It’s important to note that among the album’s six tracks, three of them were written or co-written by Bond, the other three being covers of songs by Bill Withers, Carly Simon and Jimmy Webb.
The album moves effortlessly between intimate moments and lush orchestration, with Bond touching on love, the environment and politics.
The two tracks I bring you today are my favorites from the album.
I’ve always found Carly Simon’s ‘That’s the Way I Always Heard It Should Be’ to be one of the most haunting and uniquely dark singles of the early 70s. Bond’s take on it rinses out some of the darkness, replacing it with a hopeful tone (due in large part to a short, spoken prelude).
The eleven-minute-plus ‘To the Establishment’ bears the influence of Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On’, with Bond taking things in a looser, free-form direction that might almost be described as a hippie vibe.
Both tracks are solid stylistic indicators of the sounds that can be found on the rest of the album.
The big mystery in relation to Bond has always been two-fold.
First, how did Stax/We Produce decide to let an unknown commodity like Bond stretch out like he did, with the backing of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra?
Second, why didn’t an album this good make a bigger impression?
The answer to the first question may very well be that this was 1974, and record companies were still taking chances like that all the time. Bond was prodigiously talented, and it’s not hard to imagine someone hearing Bond singing his (and others) songs and handing him a blank check.
The answer to the second question probably has something to do with the impending collapse of Stax.
Bond was already on one of the most sparsely populated Stax sub-labels. We Produce only released albums by three artists – the Temprees, Ernie Hines and Bond, releasing a 45 by one additional artist – Lee Sain (who brought Bond to the attention of Stax), at a time when when the mothership was spreading itself mighty thin.
As far as I can tell ‘Lou Bond’ was poorly promoted/distributed, and Bond himself had to contend with the fact that the concept of a black singer/songwriter (outside of the accepted funk/soul mold) was not an easy fit in the musical landscape of the time.
The sad fact is that after his one LP, Bond never recorded again.
His music was sampled a number of times (by Outkast and Prodigy among others), and the Light In the Attic reissue brought his amazing talent back into the light of day.
If you get the chance, check out the nearly hour-long interview (audio) with Bond posted at the Light In the Attic web site.
You can still get the Light In the Attic reissue (with bonus tracks) on iTunes. If you dig what you’re hearing here today, I assure you that you’ll like the rest just as much.
I hope you dig it, and I’ll see you all on Monday.
Keep the faith
Larry
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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived!
The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock.
They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US).
Click here to go to the ordering page.
Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).
PS Head over to Iron Leg too.
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