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By Larry, April 27, 2017 11:34 am

Timothy Wilson

Listen/Download – Timothy Wilson – Got To Find a New Love MP3

Greetings all.

The end of the week is here, and so then is the Funky16Corners Radio Show podcast, which comes to you each and every Friday with the finest in soul, funk, jazz and rare groove, all on original vinyl. You can subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, listen on your mobile device via the Stitcher and TuneIn apps, check it out on Mixcloud, or grab yourself an MP3 at Funky16Corners.com

We got the sad news this week of the passing of the great Timothy Wilson.

Wilson, who was 73 had a long string of singles (and one LP) , starting in Tiny Tim and the Hits in the late 50s, then the Serenaders on VIP (with George Kerr and Sidney Barnes) and under his own name from 1965 on into the late 70s.

Wilson, who had a high, sweet tenor voice has appeared in this space before, with his stellar cover of the Supreme’s ‘Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart’ from 1969.

The 45 I bring you today hails from a few years earlier in 1967, but was also produced by his old bandmate George Kerr.

‘Got To Find a New Love’ starts out slow and mellow, with a repeated piano riff, but picks up steam quickly, with horns, vibes and some nice harmony backing vocals. It definitely packs enough heat for the dance floor and has a following with the Northern Soul crowd. Wilson’s lead vocal is great, at times treading the line between tenor and falsetto.

Interestingly enough, this was the B-side of the 45, and the A-side, the sweet, pleading ‘Baby Baby Please’ hit #45 on the R&B charts in 1967, having some regional pop success as well.

Wilson went on to tour extensively as the lead singer of the modern version of Frankie Lymon’s Teenagers.

He will be missed.

See you 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.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too

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By Larry, March 19, 2017 10:35 am

Charles Edward Anderson Berry of St Louis, Missouri…

Listen/Download – Chuck Berry – Back Too Memphis MP3

Greetings all.

Last night, as I sat down to dinner I was greeted by the sad news that the mighty Chuck Berry – 90 years young – had slipped the surly bonds of earth, motorvating into the great beyond.
Berry, along with Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino, was one of the last living originators of rock’n’roll. Considering that the music took solid form 60 years ago, it’s a miracle that anyone who was there at the beginning is still standing, and I can’t help but think that we need to gather the remaining few and put them in protective custody, outside of the icy reach of death.
Unfortunately, the last few years have been a seemingly endless parade of similar losses, and its continuation is both painful and inevitable.
I wrote the celebration of Chuck (below) late last year on the occasion of his birthday, and though the temptation is to stack more celebratory words on the woodpile, I can’t really think of much more to say than I did then, though I will leave you with one more thought.
The last thing I did yesterday (the last thing I do EVERY day) was to get in some deep listening before bed.
I put on the first disc of ‘The Anthology’, the 2000 compilation which should really be regarded as the gold standard of Chuck Berry collections, of which there are many.
Here we had songs that I have heard countless times over the years, yet they were still capable of revealing hidden layers, surprising and delighting me in new ways.
Here you have Chuck Berry as poet, humorist, rock star, eternal teenager, American man of letters and often prophet without honor in his own country.
Do yourself a favor, and pull out some Chuck Berry records/CDs/MP3s, sit down and really listen. Close your eyes and let Berry paint his pictures, and tap into the real, hopeful, dynamic spirit of America, realizing that it is being conjured up by a man who was at times as much a victim of this country’s cruelties as he was his own flaws, yet still managed to make it seem like the wildest, shiniest, coolest place to be alive.
Remember that Chuck Berry.
Rest easy brown eyed handsome man.
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Originally posted 10/18/16…

I come to you today with a previously unscheduled communique on the occasion of the 90th (holy shit…) birthday of the mighty Chuck Berry.

It is tempting to say – considering what the initial response would be from most people who actually remember who Chuck Berry is – that Mr B has managed to outlive his greatness.

There is little disputing the fact that Chuck Berry hasn’t made a significant recording for more than 40 years. His last chart hit was in 1972, and ironically (considering what many people remember him for today) it was ‘My Ding-a-ling’ (it hurts to type that).

Chuck’s ding-a-ling having been the source of much of his troubles….

That said, it would be downright tragic if those of us that knew better, weren’t continuously engaged in reminding people how monumental and long-lasting Chuck Berry’s musical/cultural footprint was prior to 1972, and raising hell about how that mark has been minimized by an ugly combination of race, cultural appropriation, the simple passage of time (and the death of the American attention span) and decades of gross misunderstandings of rock’n’roll.

Chuck Berry was a goddamn genius.

His numerous peccadilloes aside (and frankly, aside from the demonstrably pervy stuff – and if that’s a sticking point Rock and Roll Penitentiary is going to be a very crowded place…Jimmy Page…COUGH) it would be very difficult for anyone without tin ears to make even a cursory survey of his oeuvre and not come out on the other side hail hail-ing Chuck Berry.

From the intial shot across the bow, ‘Maybelline’ in 1955, Chuck stomped into, and right through America’s consciousness (at least the consciousness of the emerging youth culture and Black America – he rode the R&B charts as aggressively as the Pop charts) laying a granite-strong musical foundation, without which little else of rock consequence would have been built in the rest of the 50s and all through the 60s.

Of course, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, and in a more elemental way (maybe they were in the quarry cutting out the granite in the first place) giants like John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and Jimmy Reed, were right there beside him, but Chuck is – at least in my opinion – the most important of all in a purely musical sense.

Though it seems like a painfully obvious thing to say now, Berry was black. He was physically black, which in the 1950s and early 1960s was clearly a huge pain in the ass for the person wearing the skin, especially if he managed to intrude upon the artificial quietude of White America, and it got old Chuck into all kinds of extra trouble he probably would have been spared had he been, say, as white as an Elvis or Jerry Lee, two other rockers with a taste for teenage girls.

The glaring hole in his chart history indicates the period (1960-1963) when Chuck Berry went to prison for violating the Mann Act. The story of how he ended up in prison is a complicated one, and undoubtedly the kind of thing that people before him and after him (mostly, but not exclusively white) walked away from. That Berry didn’t walk, but sat on ice for what should have been three of the most productive years at the peak of his career, and climbed right back onto the charts in 1964 with some of the best stuff he ever did is a testament to his greatness (and also to what might have been).

All of the great early figures of rock were synthesizers, of blues, gospel, jump blues/R&B, and most of them were explosive stylists in both sound and presentation, but Chuck Berry’s stew – even though it appeared seamless to the naked ear – was a much weirder, finer thing altogether.

Berry’s music blended R&B (as well as pure blues, and even jazz) with a huge dose of country (if he was a car he’d be running down rockabilly singers right and left) and it was all assembled with a songwriting talent as big as just about anyone who people take seriously as a songwriter, including everyone from Tin Pan Alley, Broadway or anywhere else.

He was an absolutely brilliant lyricist in a time when anything that appealed to teenagers was immediately dismissed by critics, and was a powerful enough performer, and record-maker (sometimes mutually exclusive pastimes) to drill those lyrics, many of them purely poetic, deep into the brains of a generation of Americans in a way that made them seem like they’d always been there, like the green grass and the blue sky.

It isn’t often that a popular musical figure has an impact like that, but Chuck Berry did.

Bo Diddley and Little Richard were elemental, as was Chuck Berry, but his contributions were further reaching, making their way into the DNA of culture and stringing themselves up on the double helix like a set of Christmas lights.

He was a 30 year old man preaching (and converting) legions of teenagers by speaking to them in their own language and making them dance, which as far as pearl-clutching Middle America was concerned was pure corruption. Cultural miscegenation.

And they were right.

Too bad.

So sad.

Sometimes things have to die for a reason and McCarthyite American needed stake driven through its ugly heart, and Chuck was – along with a bunch of others- right there, hammering away.

If you don’t already, see if you can get your hands on the compilation ‘Chuck Berry – The Anthology’, released in 2000 by Chess/MCA.

Though old Chuck has been anthologized, rehashed and repackaged dozens of times over the years, this 2-CD set (which you can still get in iTunes) is as fine a distillation of his catalog as you’re likely to find.

Clocking in at just over two hours (even if you omit the 4:18 of ‘My Ding-A-Ling’) it manages to present a solid picture of why I said everything I just said about Berry, as well as why he was an idol at his peak, why the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Pretty Things (among many others) worshiped at his altar, and why you should ignore every stupid thing Chuck Berry has done in his life (or has had done to him) and listen to his music.

Because the music is what’s important here, and it is VERY IMPORTANT.

And for those of you who think all Chuck Berry songs sound the same, you are wrong, because Chuck Berry’s songs don’t sound the same any more than Mozart does, and the only way you’re going to figure it out is to stop treating it all like wallpaper and use your ears like a vault instead of a kitchen junk drawer.

It’s all there.

So go get it – or head to a decent record store, or to Amazon, or anywhere they stock fine Chuck Berry music – and set aside two hours to listen to it. And when you’re done (unless you’re already hip and have been shaking your head in assent the whole time you were reading this) see if you don’t think differently about him.

I think you will.

The song I bring you today isn’t on that comp, because it comes from the chart desert that stretched from the end of 1964 to the arrival of ‘My Ding-A-Ling’ in 1972.

That period, when Chuck was recording for Mercury and Chess alternates between treading water and making some of the most interesting and neglected music of his career.

It would be a lie to say that these years were as significant as 1955-1964, but to hear Chuck whipping a little soul into the mix, and keeping his eyes on the prize, hands on the wheel before colliding with (and climbing onto) the Nostalgia Express is a thing of beauty.

Today’s selection, ‘Back To Memphis’ was recorded in Memphis (on the album, titled, unsurprisingly, ‘Chuck Berry In Memphis) with the American Studios band, and produced by Roy Dea and Boo Frazier.

‘Back To Memphis’ has something unusual in Chuck Berry records, that being a big, fat bottom, with the bass and drums pushing the record along like a kick in the ass, with the horn section and Chuck’s guitar at the wheel. It is a dance floor killer, and a reminder that Berry was a force to be reckoned with.

Unfortunately, nobody was listening here in the US, though ‘Back To Memphis’ was a Top 40 hit on the pirate station Radio London, in the UK (1966’s ‘Club Nitty Gritty’ had also been a hit on the pirates, charting on Radio London, and Radio City, both).

So go home tonight and play some Chuck Berry. Open the windows, turn the speakers toward the street and crank it up until your neighbors start dancing, or hammering on your front door, in which case turn it up more.

Happy Birthday Chuck.

Keep the faith

Larry

*Thank you, Jim Bartlett

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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.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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By Larry, November 22, 2016 10:17 am

Miss Sharon Jones

Listen/Download – Sharon Jones – Just Dropped In To See What Condition My Condition Was In MP3

Listen/Download – Sharon Jones, Lee Fields and the Dap-Kings – Stranded In Your Love MP3

Greetings all.

This has been an exceptionally tough couple of weeks (this is the fourth memorial post in a row).

Sometimes it feels like the universe is out to get us.

Among the many losses, and in many ways the most painful, was the passing of Miss Sharon Jones.

Jones, the brightest light of the modern funk/soul world, and front woman for the mighty Dap-Kings lost a long battle with cancer at the age of 60.

Jones, who only really got to start climbing the ladder of musical success at the age of 40, had worked as a corrections office in Rikers Island in NYC and an armed guard, before joining up with Daptone.

She was born in Augusta, GA (There was a time…) and sang her entire life, fronting wedding bands and wailing in choir lofts, all the while stretching and honing her powerful voice.

Starting in 1996 she recorded a hot string of 45s and LPs, and became the most famous proponent of the classic soul revival (I’m sure there’s a better term, but I have neither the time nor the energy to hash that out right now), working her way up from the clubs to worldwide fame, backed by the hottest band in the land.

My feelings about the various and sundry modern acts working the classic style have wavered between indifference and pure joy, but I can assure that Miss Sharon Jones brought nothing but the latter.

I was never fortunate enough to see her and the Dap-Kings live, but their recorded work has brought me much pleasure over the years.

The two tracks I bring you today are longtime favorites of mine.

The first is Jones reworking of Bettye Lavette’s 1968 arrangement of Mickey Newbury’s ‘Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)’*.

Released in 2004, it is a smoking take on the song (taking it just a touch faster than Lavette) , with Jones singing beautifully all the way through.

The second is a duet with another soul survivor, Lee Fields (Jones was discovered singing backup on a Fields session), and as a perfect example of ‘revivalist’ soul that meets and exceeds the quality of the music from the classic era.

‘Stranded In Your Love’ (which appeared on the 2005 album ‘Naturally’), is an epic (nearing 6 minutes) duet that starts out with a little spoken back and forth between Jones and Fields, but then drops down into a deep, deep number.

The singing, playing (by the Dap-Kings) and the song itself (beautifully written by Gabriel Roth) are simply remarkable. Had this record come out in 1968 in a limited run of 500 copies, modern day collectors would be killing each other to get a copy.

It’s one of those records that I absolutely need to listen to more than once when I put it on. It hits all of those pleasure centers in the brain, and is a reminder of just how good soul music can be.

There is so much painful irony in the fact that Sharon Jones was taken from us just when she was reaching her peak, but sometimes that’s how it is.

We can be thankful that she left behind so much great music.

She will be missed.

See you on Friday.

Keep the faith

Larry

*Listed on Newbury’s album as ‘Just Dropped In’, Lavette’s 45 as ‘What Condition My Condition Was In’, on the First Edition hit with the parenthetical phrase, and on the Sharon Jones 45 without parentheses…

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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.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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By Larry, November 20, 2016 10:38 am

Mose Allison, chilling in his far out chair, in the woods…

Listen/Download – Mose Allison – The Seventh Son

Listen/Download Mose Allison – Young Man (Blues)

Listen/Download Mose Allison – I’m Not Talking

Listen/Download – Mose Allison – Baby Please Don’t Go

Listen/Download – Mose Allison – I Love the Life I Live 

Listen/Download – Mose Allison – Your Mind Is On Vacation

Greetings all

This is a repost/augmentation of a post I wrote back in 2013. Last week was an especially heavy one for music lovers, with the loss of Leonard Cohen, Leon Russell, Billy Miller of Norton Records and lastly (but never leastly) the mighty Mose Allison.

Mose was 89 years old and had only recently given up playing live.

He was one of my all time favorites, a foundational artist in my sensibility and an absolute master.

I’m adding a couple of other Mose classics to the links below.

If you know, dig. If you do not get familiar.

I’ll see you on Wednesday – L

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Have you heard about Mose?

Allison, that is…aka the Sage of Tippo…aka the smoothest badass to ever prop himself up at a piano and lay it down.

If you – like me – has made a study of the roots of rock, especially the British Invasion, or just surveyed the history of coolness, then you have certainly crossed paths with the mighty Mose.

Mose Allison has the kind of voice/manner that immediately brings to mind the black-and-white, beatnik cool of the 1950s. Jack Kerouac’s America, in which one was free to roam the highways and back roads of this great country, partaking in, and becoming part of the great tableaux, digging and being dug in equal measures.

Mose Allison – born and raised in Mississippi – sat himself down at the piano and made his first record in 1957, and hasn’t stopped being one of the coolest of cats since then.

I don’t think I heard Mose until I was all but drowning in the British beat/R&B thing, up to and including the sounds of Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, which is important because if Mose Allison had never recorded a note, old Clive Powell would likely disappear from the face of the earth.

The first time I heard Mose, an overloaded socket in theback of my brain threw sparks and I realized how much Georgie idolized and emulated him, as well as all of the Brits who looked to him as a songwriter and interpreter of songs.

It was Mose that wrote ‘Parchman Farm’ (John Mayall and everyone else with a blues fetish), ‘Young Man Blues’ (the Who) and ‘I’m Not Talking’ (the Yardbirds) among many others, and laid down what I would consider to be the definitive interpretation of Willie Dixon’s ‘Seventh Son’.

I’m including the last three tunes here today, so that you might head out and dig for your own stack of Mose Allison records, that you can whip out and impress the ladies at your next soiree.

Both ‘Young Man Blues’ and ‘The Seventh Son’ hail from Allison’s landmark 1963 ‘Mose Allison Sings’ LP for Prestige.

‘Young Man Blues’ – clocking in at less than a minute and a half – is a laid back meditation, barely a whisper compared to the angry box of TNT that the Who detonated on ‘Live at Leeds’.

Mose’s take on ‘The Seventh Son’ is a masterpiece of relaxed, swinging Zen, every note perfectly placed, a wonder. He takes the Mississippi hoodoo boasts of the OG and delivers them in a matter-of-fact way that puts the text in boldface.

‘I’m Not Talking’, from 1964’s ‘The Word From Mose’ on Atlantic, is once again, the placid, almost dehumidified-it’s-so-dry foundation on which the mighty Yardbirds built a souped-up, nitro-fueled funny car with which they blew the doors off of the ‘For Your Love’ album in 1965.

The grooviest thing of all is that for all of the influence he pushed out, Mose himself was always more like a shadow, hanging back, just being, than anyone who took their marching orders from his records. He spent the last 50-plus years making music of high quality, crossing the border back and forth between the blues and jazz, always being more himself than anything else and that was all he ever needed to be.

If you’re not hip to Mose, get there.

That is all.

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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By Larry, November 17, 2016 11:56 am

Esquerita aka the Magnificent Malochi

Listen/Download – The Magnificent Malochi – Mama Your Daddy’s Come Home MP3

Listen/Download – The Magnificent Malochi – As Time Goes By MP3

Greetings all.

I will begin, as I always do on Friday by reminding you to twist the dials of your Radiola to tune in the Funky16Corners Radio Show, which drops each and every Friday with the best in funk, soul, jazz and rare groove, all on original vinyl.

This week’s show is a very special (and special format) tribute to David Mancuso, so make sure to subscribe in iTunes, or listen on TuneIn, Stitcher, Mixcloud or grab and MP3 right here at Funky16Corners.com

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Billy and Miriam in their natural environment
(photo by Eilon Paz from the mighty Dust & Grooves book) and Kicks (inset)

This has been an exceptionally harsh week for music fans, losing Leon Russell, Leonard Cohen, Mose Allison, and Norton/Kicks co-founder Billy Miller, who passed away after a heartbreaking battle with diabetes and cancer.

It pains me to have to write these memorials, but if you what I do you kind of have to. We  pay tribute to our fallen heroes in the hopes that by putting it out into the universe, someone, somewhere will come to know them, or know them better.

While I wouldn’t say that I knew Billy very well, he was a presence in my life for close to 30 years, and via the work he and his wife Miriam Linna did in the greatest zine that ever was, Kicks, he was a huge influence on my writing, musical/cultural sensibilities and continuous devotion to the DIY cause.

Back in the early 80s, when I was first discovering music in the realms of garage punk, rockabilly and R&B, fanzines were a major part of that discovery, and none was more important than Kicks.

Billy and Miriam created a road map to the forgotten wildmen and women of music and pop culture, infusing a trainspotter’s knack for arcana with a healthy dose of humor and boundless enthusiasm.

Though it should be clear to anyone that hits up either of my blogs or podcasts that this kind of stuff runs through my veins, back in the 80s that love was multiplied exponentially because it was infused with the excitement that comes from discovery and insatiable appetite for same.

Kicks was a bible for my friends and I, and as I started my own zines – which I have been doing on and off, on paper and on the interwebs for 32 years now – the style that Billy and Miriam created was a consistent touchstone. If you ever see me lapsing into the patois of a an early 60s overnight hepcat DJ (which I often do) that is 150% Kicks right there.

They were coolness personified, and a constant reminder that no matter how deep, or obsessed I would get about some things, I was never within a thousand miles of their level of devotion, knowledge or their reach when talking about it.

I only knew Billy in passing, having spoken to him briefly (and shared a bill once when our bands played together) a number of times over the years (including once, a million years ago in the Court Tavern where I broached the subject of what was – in retrospect – some painfully obvious rockabilly 45 that I had found, and Billy was kind enough to humor me, saying “Oh yeah, that’s a rare one.” without rolling his eyes), but because we connected on Facebook, and had a large number of mutual friends, I followed the progress of his illness, always hoping that he would turn a corner, level off and spend another 25 years filling the world with great music.

Sadly that turn never came, and he went on to join the departed heroes he sang the praises of in the great beyond.

Via Kicks and Norton, I was exposed to countless artists that I had never heard of (Hasil Adkins, Ronnie Dawson, and thanks to them the name Groovey Joe Poovey has been bouncing around in my brain for 30 years) and filled in the blanks of others that I knew but not well (especially Bobby Fuller and Andre Williams). But of the musicians that they championed and introduced to me, none looms larger than Esquerita.

Esquerita, aka Eskew Reeder was not only musically explosive/flamboyant, but visually as well, demonstrated by the fact that he became a kind of pictorial mascot for Kicks and Billy and Miriam’s monumental record/books label Norton (especially after their brush with destruction in Hurricane Sandy).

The connection is so deep for me, that I am unable to see a picture of Esquerita or play one of his records without thinking of Kicks/Norton.

The record I offer up today as a sort of New Orleans second line tribute to Billy (on the day of his homegoing) is an unusual, one-off (further) pseudonymous 45 by Esquerita, released under the name The Magnificent Malochi* (in a Kicks-ian coincidence, sounding like an old school, UHF-TV wrestler) in 1968, recorded in Los Angeles with Mac Rebennack and Harold Battiste (you can hear more about it in Funky16Corners Radio Show Episode #336, the New Orleans/LA Connection).

The first side, ‘Mama Your Daddy’s Come Home’ (written oddly enough by James Weatherly of the sunshine pop group the Gordian Knot?!?) is a stomping, gospel infused soul shouter.

The flipside is a deep, deep cover of the old standard ‘As Time Goes By’ (long associated with Dooley Wilson’s performance as Sam in the film ‘Casablanca’), which is delivered in an unforgettable style by Esquerita, sounding like he’d taken over the choir loft in a church for a little inebriated fun.

And what better way to pay tribute to a man that made it his life’s work to turn the world on to records like this?

So pull down the ones and zeros, and raise a glass tonight in honor of one of the great musical forces of late 20th (and 21st) century America. Send his wife and friends your sympathy, and know that he made the world a infinitely wilder, more fun, more musical place.

Adios, Billy.

See you on Monday

Keep the faith

Larry

• PS Thanks to my man Tarik Thornton for introducing me to the Magnificent Malochi 45

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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.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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By Larry, July 3, 2016 11:22 am

Sir Mack Rice

Listen/Download – Sir Mack Rice – Mustang Sally MP3

Listen/Download – Sir Mack Rice – I Gotta Have My Baby’s Love MP3

Listen/Download – Sir Mack Rice – Love Sickness MP3

Greetings all.

As I said on Friday (yes, we’re bookending the weekend with obits) the giants of classic soul are falling at an alarming rate, and we were reminded of this last week with the passing of the mighty Sir Mack Rice.

Born Bonny Rice in Mississippi in 1933, by the 1950s he had relocated to Detroit where he would join one of the most important early soul groups, the Falcons, which would be home to singers like Wilson Pickett, Eddie Floyd, and Joe Stubbs (brother of Levi and an unsung hero of Motor City soul).

Rice is best remembered to the general public today as the author of ‘Mustang Sally’, one of the most ubiquitous of all classic 1960s soul tunes, via the hit by Wilson Pickett, and then its revival on the wedding circuit in the cover by the Commitments.

Rice was unusual in that the importance of his career is split pretty evenly between his work as a singer and songwriter.

He made a number of excellent 45s over the years for Blue Rock, Stax, Atco, Capitol and Truth, as well as writing songs for artists like the Staple Singers (Respect Yourself), Rufus Thomas (Breakdown, Funky Penguin) and others.

Rice had a smooth, tenor voice with a Southern twang, and considering the excellence of his songs, should have been a much bigger deal in his day. Sadly he only had two R&B hits in his career, Mustang Sally in 1965 and Coal Man in 1969.

The tracks I bring you today are my faves by Rice. I would have been remiss were I not to begin with the original (and little heard these days) version of Mustang Sally.

Produced by no less a light than Andre Williams, Rice’s version is very cool, yet it’s easy to see how Pickett’s incomparable, powerful voice grabbed the attention of the public.

The next two tracks are both sides of Rice’s second Stax 45 (and the last in his first stint with the label), ‘I Gotta Have My Baby’s Love’ and ‘Love Sickness’.

Yet another entry in the “how was this not a hit’ sweepstakes, I first encountered ‘I Gotta Have My Baby’s Love’ tucked away on an old Jerry Blavat comp from the 60s (the Geater had excellent taste). It’s a fast moving bit of classic Stax, co-written by Sir Mack and Booker T and the MGs. It features some blazing horns, remarkably heavy drums and great piano.

The flipside, ‘Love Sickness’ finds it self closer to mid-tempo, and features a very groovy chorus and some interesting chord changes.

Sir Mack Rice, despite that fact that his work is best known to soul collectors, was an important part of the machinery of 60s soul.

He will be missed.

See you all on Wednesday.

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.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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By Larry, November 29, 2015 11:17 am

Skip Easterling

Listen/Download – Skip Easterling= I’m Your Hoochie Koochie Man MP3

Listen/Download – Skip Easterling – Ooh Poo Pah Do MP3

Listen/Download – Skip Easterling – Too Weak To Break the Chains MP3

Listen/Download – Skip Easterling – I’m Your Man MP3

Greetings all.

Late last week, while I was checking an old e-mail account and found a notification of a comment on the oldest version of the blog.

The comment itself was semi-cryptic, but when I followed it to the original post I realized that the commenter was telling me that James ‘Skip’ Easterling, one of the great blue-eyed soul singers out of New Orleans had passed away.

Oddly enough, initial searches turned up a death notice, but no mention in any of the local New Orleans papers (since remedied).

Easterling, long a favorite of mine had a recording career that lasted from 1961 into the mid 70s, making a string of 45s for New Orleans labels like Ron, Alon and Instant (he also had at least one self-released 45 that I’ve never heard).

Easterling got his start wavering between R&B and pop sounds, but by the time he went into the studio with Eddie Bo in 1967, he was firmly in the soul camp.

The record he made with Bo, ‘Keep the Fire Burning’ b/w ‘The Grass Is Greener’ is one of the finest mid-decade 45s to come out of the Crescent City, with a smoking dancer on one side and a heartfelt ballad on the flip.

Easterling’s sojourn with Bo was brief, and by 1970, he was in the studio with Huey Piano Smith, recording for Instant.

Smith’s late-period work for Instant is consistently good, and largely unheralded since so many of the post-3300 (catalog numbers, when Smith was doing most of his work for the label) 45s are very scarce (there are a bunch I’m still looking for).

Easterling’s first two 45s for Instant are his best, and oddly enough still fairly easy to track down.

His version of the old Willie Dixon standard ‘I’m Your Hoochie Koochie Man’ is a wild, smoothly funky reworking of the song that owes a debt to King Floyd’s ‘Groove Me’. The arrangement, with electric piano and tastefully applied horns (and flute!) is a subtle masterpiece.

The record was a hit in New Orleans and some other southern markets, but was sadly the high water mark of Easterling’s chart success.

The flip is a very nice version of Jesse Hill’s ‘Ooh Poo Pah Do’, which features a great vocal by Easterling and great playing by the band (listen to the electric piano ooze up through the mix).

His next 45 is one of those records that is painfully obscure, but ought to be regarded as one of the finest records to come out of New Orleans in the early 70s.

‘To Weak to Break the Chains’ (written by Huey Smith) combines, R&B, soul, funk and even a touch of timely psychedelia (dig that backwards guitar!), all wrapped in a stellar vocal performance by Easterling. The tune has an off-kilter, purely New Orleans rhythm to it, with some remarkable interplay between the drums, horns and rhythm guitar.

That record’s flipside, ‘I’m Your Man’ rolls in a slower groove, with some nice flute and vibes accents.

All told, Easterling laid down 15 (maybe 16) 45s in his career, and like so many great singers in New Orleans never really broke through outside the city limits despite the quality of his catalog.

He did continue to perform, appearing at at least one of the Ponderosa Stomp shows.

There was a UK compilation of his recordings that came out in the late 80s on the Charly label, but as far as I can tell, aside from some shady looking comps in iTunes, his work is almost completely out of print.

So dig these tunes, watch for a tribute on the Funky16Corners Radio Show in the new year, and raise a glass to a really groovy singer.

See you on Wednesday.

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.

Comments (2)

By Larry, November 24, 2015 12:13 pm

Sylvester and Cynthia, side by side

Listen/Download – Sly and the Family Stone – Dance to the Medley MP3

Listen/Download – Sly and the Family Stone – Sing a Simple Song MP3

Greetings all.

This morning saw the sad news that the mighty Cynthia Robinson, trumpeter and hype lady for Sly and the Family Stone had passed away at the age of 69.

Cynthia was there at the very beginning and played with Sly almost to the end of the Family Stone (long after many of the founders had jumped ship).

Sly and the Family Stone were by any measure one of the truly great soul bands of the 1960s.

They were racially, sexually and sonically integrated, mixing black and white, male and female and soul and rock (and funk) and were the very definition of the word ‘badass’.

The Family Stone were super-tight on stage (there are plenty of clips on YouTube for those that need proof), and I included them in my list of great soul performances last year.

Cynthia and Rose Stone were no mere window dressing either, holding their own as serious, solid musicians, helping Sly shape and deliver the group’s amazing music.

The two tracks i’m posting are personal favorites, both of which show Cynthia at her very best.

‘Dance to the Medley (Music Is Alive/Dance In/Music Lover)’ fills most of the first side of 1968’s ‘Dance to the Music’ LP. It’s a performance tour de force, and gives you an idea of the raw power of the band. It also includes one of my all time fave Sly tunes ‘Music Lover’, which appeared over the years as a component of a few different Sly and the Family Stone medleys (but never recorded on its own).

‘Sing a Simple Song’ needs no introduction, other than to mention that it is one of the UR documents of funk. Just brilliant.

So take some time out of your day to pull some Family Stone out of your crates (real or digital) and raise a glass to a pioneer, Miss Cynthia Robinson.

See you all on Friday.

Keep the faith

Larry

____________________________________________________________________________

Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived! The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock. They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US). Click here to go to the ordering page.

Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (11)

By Larry, November 10, 2015 1:06 pm

Al Tousan – Java (RCA)
The Stokes – Whipped Cream (ALON)
Ernie K Doe – Mother In Law (Minit) 1961
Diamond Joe – Fair Play (Minit)
Benny Spellman – Fortune Teller (Minit)
Lee Dorsey – Ride Your Pony (Amy)
Warren Lee – Star Revue (Deesu)
Willie Harper – But I Couldn’t (ALON)
Eldridge Holmes – Emperor Jones (ALON)
Irma Thomas- What Are You Trying To Do (Imperial)
Diamond Joe – Gossip Gossip (Sansu)
Betty Harris – Trouble With My Lover (Sansu)
O’Jays – Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette) (Imperial)
Rubaiyats – Omar Khayyam (Sansu)
Rubaiyats – Tomorrow (Sansu)
Willie and Allen – I Don’t Need Nobody (Sansu)
Joe Williams and the Jazz Orchestra – Get Out Of My Life Woman (SS)
Bettye Lavette – Nearer To You (Silver Fox)
John Williams and the Tick Tocks – Blues Tears and Sorrows (Sansu)
Willie West – Fairchild (Josie)
Eldridge Holmes – If I Were a Carpenter (Deesu)
Willie Harper – A Certain Girl (Tou Sea)
Lee Dorsey – Everything I Do Gohn Be Funky (From Now On) (Amy)
Lee Dorsey – Give It Up (Amy)
Pointer Sisters – Yes We Can Can (Blue Thumb)
Robert Palmer – Sneaking Sally Through the Alley (Island)
Boz Scaggs – Hercules (Columbia)
Esther Phillips – From a Whisper to a Scream (Kudu)
Allen Toussaint – Southern Nights (Reprise)

Listen/Download – Toussaintiana – An Allen Toussaint Memorial 152MB Mixed MP3

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NOTE: I normally put up a Friday post, but people really seem to be digging the Allen Toussaint Memorial mix, and if anyone deserves some extra time on the front page of Funky16Corners, he is the man. I will be back on Monday with another Toussaint tune (which, oddly enough, I wrote up the day before he passed), so check back then, and make sure to check out this week’s Funky16Corners Radio Show podcast, available in iTunes, on your mobile device via the TuneIn app, or as a download here at the blog.

Keep the Faith

Larry

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Greetings all.

I come to you today with tears in my eyes and a very heavy heart, indeed.

News came through this morning that the mighty Allen Toussaint passed on to his reward after performing a concert in Spain.

There is hardly a day that goes by that I don’t have a piece of music that he touched, whether as a writer, performer, arranger or producer (or all of the above) bouncing around in my head, playing loudly in my ride or coming out of my mouth with varying degrees of competency.

Toussaint was by any measure a giant of 20th century music.

His reach as a composer, populating the modern popular music songbook with a wide variety of standards – instrumental and vocal – was vast. I’d be willing to be that almost everyone over a certain age knows at least one Allen Toussaint composition (whether they know it’s his or not).

He was a master of combining the sounds of his native New Orleans with the broader palette of popular music.

He was also an impeccable judge of talent. Aside from the many artists he ushered into the charts, there were many, many others – equally brilliant – that are mostly unknown outside of New Orleans and record collector circles.

He first recorded in 1958 under the nom de record ‘Al Tousan’, waxing an album for RCA that included the original version of ‘Java’, made into a huge hit five years later by his New Orleans compatriot Al Hirt.

Toussaint’s early work as a composer/producer included records by Lee Dorsey, Ernie K-Doe (the huge 1961 hit ‘Mother In Law’), Willie Harper, and Irma Thomas.

Through the 1960s he was a virtual machine, writing, producing and arranging records for a who’s who of New Orleans talent, including a number of singers, like Willie Harper, Eldridge Holmes and Diamond Joe Maryland who – though they never really broke into the mainstream – he took under his wing, making record after amazing record.

As soon as I heard about Toussaint’s passing this morning, I started jotting down notes, trying to cover not only his bigger hits, but some of the incredible records he made that are little known outside of the collectors world.

I wanted to make a mix that took his hits into consideration, but also examples of his vast catalog of things that ought to be better known.

Things get started with his original, 1958 version of ‘Java’, as well as the 1965 record by his group the Stokes, a minor hit in 1965 that went on to jam itself into the public consciousness when used (in a cover by Herb Alpert and the Tjuana Brass) as incidental music on ‘the Dating Game’, ‘Whipped Cream’.

Ernie K-Doe’s 1961 ‘Mother In Law’ is not only one of the biggest New Orleans hits of the 60s, but one of the best-known songs to come out of the city in the pop era. Featuring backing vocals by Benny Spellman and piano by Toussaint, the record is perfect encapsulation of the New Orleans sound.

Diamond Joe’s 1962 ‘Fair Play’ isn’t a Toussaint composition (it was written by Earl King and Allen Orange), but the stunning arrangement is his doing. It has long been one of my favorite records in any genre, and its use of autoharp is positively inspired.

Benny Spellman’s 1962 ‘Fortune Teller’ (backed with the original recording of ‘Lipstick Traces’) was not only a great record on its own, but went on to inspire many covers, mainly by rock bands in the UK where it became a standard of sorts.

Lee Dorsey’s 1965 ‘Ride Your Pony’ is another Toussaint song that went on to be covered many times. Dorsey, who had been recording steadily since the late 50s, hadn’t had a significant hit since 1961’s ‘Ya Ya’, and ‘Ride Your Pony’ put him back into the Top 40.

Warren Lee did a lot of recording with Toussaint, but his only chart success (a minor hit in 1966) was the rollicking ‘Star Revue’ (another personal fave). Co-written by Lee and Toussaint (with backing vocals by AT) it had some popularity in regional markets like Philadelphia.

As I mentioned earlier, Toussaint had a habit of sticking with singers he liked, and Willie Harper was near the top of that list. Toussaint wrote and produced Harper’s 1962 two-sider ‘But I Couldn’t’ b/w ‘A New Kind of Love’, which was a minor regional hit in Chicago. A few years later, he would record Harper for Sansu, as a solo, and together as the duos Willie and Allen and the Rubaiyats.

Edridge Holmes has long been one of my favorite singers, and his discography is made up almost exclusively of records he made with Allen Toussaint. ‘Emperor Jones’, recorded in 1965 is a great example of Toussaint’s ability to keep his ears open to sounds outside of the Crescent City. Written and recorded in New Orleans by two natives of the city, ‘Emperor Jones’ sounds every bit of a Curtis Mayfield production from Chicago.

Toussaint turned his ear even further north for Irma Thomas’s 1965 ‘What Are You Trying to Do’, which is as close he got to the Motown sound.

Diamond Joe’s 1967 ‘Gossip Gossip’ is the record that made me into a New Orleans fanatic back in the day. I first heard it on a Charly Records comp and it blew my mind. It was the first original Sansu 45 that I bought and remains today a bona fide lost classic. It is largely unknown outside of New Orleans, yet it is – at least in my opinion – among the first rank of 1960s soul 45s, with an amazing performance by Diamond Joe and a stunning arrangement by Toussaint (that’s him talking at the beginning of the record).

Betty Harris was not originally from New Orleans, but aside from a few early 45s, she worked almost exclusively in that city, under the auspices of Allen Toussaint. Though their 1967 collaboration ‘Nearer To You’ was their only chart hit, they made many of the finest records to come out of New Orleans in the 60s. ‘Trouble With My Lover’ is a great bit of proto-funk, featuring thumping bass and drums, and a remarkable vocal by Harris.

The O’Jays had their first big hit with their 1965 cover of ‘Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette)’ which despite the greatness of Benny Spellman’s original, remains my favorite version of the song.

The next two tracks are both sides of the only 45 ever recorded by the Rubaiyats, aka Allen Toussaint and Willie Harper. I had to include both sides of the record since they include one of the best upbeat soul sides that Toussaint ever made, ‘Omar Khayyam’ as well as the beautiful ballad ‘Tomorrow’. These are followed by the same duo under their own names, aka ‘Willie and Allen’, with the slow, almost dreamlike ‘I Don’t Need Nobody’.

Next up are a couple of inspired covers of tunes from the Toussaint catalog, with Joe Williams 1966 cover of Lee Dorsey’s ‘Get Out Of My Life Woman’ (another song that was covered dozens of times) and Bettye Lavette’s 1969 R&B hit cover of Betty Harris’s ‘Nearer To You’.

John Williams and the Tick Tocks made two excellent 45s with Toussaint for the Sansu label. ‘Blues Tears and Sorrows’ from 1967 is one of the finest soul ballads that Toussaint ever wrote, with a great vocal by Williams, yet another great singer who never hit outside of New Orleans.

Willie West’s 1970 ‘Fairchild’ is not only one of the coolest things Toussaint ever wrote or recorded, but it had fair amount of mystery attached to it, in which it was suspected that the promo and the stock copies had different mixes. No less an authority than Matt ‘Mr Finewine’ Weingarden informs me that this is NOT the case. The rumor started when CD reissues of ‘Fairchild’ came out with the wrong master (stripped of the horns). As far as I know nobody has a definitive answer as to the provenance of the secondary master, but it never saw (nor was it intended to see) the light of day on vinyl.

Aside from a very solid vocal by West, the record also includes a sound that Toussaint would make a lot of use of around that time, acoustic guitar. It was used prominently here, on his masterful and imaginative arrangement of Tim Hardin’s ‘If I Were a Carpenter’ for Eldridge Holmes (another personal favorite) and again on Lee Dorsey’s ‘Everything I Do Gohn Be Funky (From Now On)’.

Oddly enough, despite the fact that Willie Harper was a Toussaint favorite, and ‘A Certain Girl’ a Toussaint song, his 1968 recording of it was produced and arranged by Wardell Quezerque.

Lee Dorsey’s late 60s/early 70s funky 45s are some of the most interesting things that Toussaint worked on. Often featuring the Meters, and employing unusual arrangements – like the borderline psychedelic funk of ‘Give It Up’, these records mark the collaboration of Toussaint and Dorsey as a particularly fruitful one.

That said, the next two songs were originally part of that collaboration. The Pointer Sisters 1973 version of ‘Yes We Can Can’ was their first big hit and had become a funk 45 standard.

Robert Palmer’s version of ‘Sneaking Sally Through the Alley’ comes from his 1974 debut, which featured contributions from the Meters and Little Feat. His funky version of ‘Sneaking Sally Through the Alley’ was originally part of a long medley with Little Feat’s ‘Sailing Shoes’ and Palmer’s own ‘Hey Julia’ that you ought to check out when you get a chance.

‘Hercules’ is known to most folks via the original recording by Aaron Neville, but I really dig Boz Scaggs little-heard 1974 take on the song, one of Toussaint’s best.

Esther Phillips’ version of Toussaint’s ‘From a Whisper To a Scream’ from her 1972 album of the same name is a reworking of Toussaint’s original version from his 1970 LP (also of the same name). It’s really interesting to hear Phillips, a truly great singer work her way through the emotional ups and downs of the song.

The mix closes out with Allen Toussaint’s original version of the song that Glen Campbell had a megahit with in 1977, ‘Southern Nights’. Toussaint’s original, from 1975 is a long way from the upbeat singalong of Campbell’s version, sounding more like a lullaby, with his vocals sounding like they were channeled through a Leslie speaker, giving it a dreamlike feel.

While this selection is by no means comprehensive, hopefully it will provide a doorway into Toussaint’s long and amazing discography.

I hope you dig it, and that you take the time tonight to raise a glass in honor of a brilliant man.

See you on Friday.

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.

Comments (0)

By Larry, October 8, 2015 12:43 pm

Dave Pike

Listen/Download – Dave Pike – Sweet Tater Pie MP3

Greetings all.

The end of the week is nigh, and so then is the Funky16Corners Radio Show,which comes to you each and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio. If you can’t be there at airtime, you can keep up with the show by subscribing to the podcast in iTunes, listening on your mobile device via the TuneIn app, or grabbing yourself an MP3 here at the blog.

This has been a rough week for music, with the passing of New Orleans drumming giant Smokey Johnson, singer Billy Joe Royal, and then yesterday the news came down that the mighty Dave Pike had slipped the surly bonds of earth.

If you don’t know (though you should) Pike was one of the pioneers of the groovy side of 60s and 70s soul jazz.

He got his start playing straight ahead jazz with Paul Bley in the late 50s, then moving on for an extended period of time playing in the bands of flautist Herbie Mann (who produced today’s selection), an artist that he was similar to in artistic temperament, if not long term commercial success.

Pike was, as a master of the vibes and the marimba, and explorer in musical styles (amplifying his vibes early on in his career), working (like Mann) all manner of world music sounds into his work as well as healthy doses of soul, funk and even pop.

His late 60s/early 70s) work with the Dave Pike Set alongside guitarist Volker Kriegel included groundbreaking soul jazz and rare groove, sought after by DJs and collectors the world over.

The selection I bring you today is a single, which originally appeared on Pike’s 1966 LP ‘Jazz for the Jet Set’, which featured him exclusively on marimba with a group that also included Herbie Hancock making a rare appearance on organ.

Written by Rodgers Grant (who also penned ‘Yeh Yeh’ for Mongo Santamaria, which went on to be a cornerstone of Georgie Fame’s repertoire), ‘Sweet Tater Pie’ (originally waxed by Mongo in ’63)  is a classic bit of hard-charging, dance-floor-ready soul jazz.

Pike manages to rein in the woodier sound of the marimba, and it’s very cool to hear Herbie working it out on the Hammond. Jimmy Lewis’s bass adds a throbbing undercurrent to the proceedings, helping Grady Tate to keep it in the pocket.

If you dig what you hear, I would highly suggest that you head out and find yourselves some of the Dave Pike Set, especially the ‘Infra-Red’ album, the deep track ‘Mathar’, and my personal fave (of which I wish I owned an OG), his 1969 ‘Got the Feelin’ set, which is a classic.

Pike was a master, and continued to play and record until 2010, when ill health forced his retirement.

I hope you dig the sounds, and that you take the opportunity to head out and dig deeper into the music of Dave Pike.

See you 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.

Comments (0)

By Larry, July 7, 2015 10:40 am

Little Bob and that mighty 45!

Listen/Download – Little Bob and the Lollipops – I Got Loaded MP3

Greetings all.

I had something else in the on-deck circle for today, but then this morning, what should pop up in my feed by word that Camille ‘Little’ Bob had passed away at the age of 78.

The record he made in 1965 with his band the Lollipops, ‘I Got Loaded’ is one of the all-time great party platters, and one of my personal favorites.

I originally wrote it up a decade ago in the early days of the Funky16Corners blog, so I thought that I’d repost that article, and the song again in tribute to the man.

So dig it.

– Larry

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Originally posted 7/25/05

“I like to sing in the car.

There…I said it. Some people sing in the shower. I sing in the car.

When I’m driving to or from work (usually the only time I’m alone in the car), and a great song comes on, I’ll start singing at the top of my lungs, drumming on the steering wheel and generally making a fool of myself.

I can’t vouch for how this looks from other cars, but I’d guess it falls somewhere between amusing and disturbing (I guess depending on how you process the image of a great big guy covered in tattoos who looks like he’s yelling at no one in particular…).

Not every song will send me into such a state. One song that does (every time) is ‘I Got Loaded’ by L’il Bob and the Lollipops.

In the service of complete disclosure, I should mention that prior to a few years ago, I had no idea that ‘I Got Loaded’ wasn’t a Los Lobos song (the version I first became familiar with was when they covered it back in 1984). ‘I Got Loaded’ appeared on their LP ‘How Will the Wolf Survive’ and got a fair amount of college radio play at the time. I always liked their recording of the tune, but as I said, had no idea it wasn’t an original.

So a few years ago, my buddy Keith sent me a CD called ‘New Orleans Party Classics’, a Rhino comp of old school Mardi Gras hits including cuts by the Hawketts, Al Johnson, Oliver Morgan and others. I popped the disc into the CD player and about halfway through my ears perked up. “HEYYY!”, I thought, “I know this song!”. The tune in question was ‘I Got Loaded’, but the artist was new to me. I popped open the booklet and there was all I needed to know (at least for the moment), about L’il Bob and the Lollipops.

I was surprised a second time when I checked the writing credits for the song and discovered that “L’il Bob” was also known as Camille Bob, a name I knew from the very funky 1972 cut ‘Brother Brown’ (Bob recorded funk 45s for the Soul Unlimited and Master Trak labels). It wasn’t too long before I tracked down a copy of the original 45 on the La Louisianne label (a label that still exists to this day).

Camille Bob formed the Lollipops in the mid-50’s, recording for the Goldband (see Count Rockin’ Sidney), Jin and LaLouisianne labels.

By the mid-60’s (“I Got Loaded” came out in 1965) they were performing live every Saturday on the Lafayette, LA TV station KLFY’s “Saturday Hop”. They were equally adept at swamp pop, R&B and soul, and ‘I Got Loaded’ while still a Louisiana fave, is also popular with the Beach Music crowd. They recorded an LP for La Louisianne, a second LP for Jin a few years later and are still playing today (based out of Houston, TX).

“I Got Loaded’ opens with a great guitar riff and is followed quickly by L’il Bob’s high tenor vocals and the horn section. They lyrics are as straight-forward as you’d imagine with a title like ‘I Got Loaded’. Unlike many similar tunes, this not a cautionary tale but rather an endorsement of the intoxicating pleasures of gin, whiskey and wine (variety of course, being the spice of life…).

‘I Got Loaded’ has a swinging, dance friendly tempo and is a perfect mix of swamp pop, R&B and soul (all of which the Lollipops played with equal relish).

In addition to the Los Lobos version, ‘I Got Loaded’ has been covered by Robert Cray, Van Broussard, the Boogie Kings and Elvis Costello, as well as appearing on the soundtrack to ‘Bull Durham’ (I have also seen a number of references that suggest that that L’il Bob and the Lollipops are covering Texas bluesman Peppermint Harris’s tune of the same name, but having heard his recording I can say that aside from the same title the songs have virtually nothing in common).

I hope you dig it, and I’ll see you all on Friday.”

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Don’t forget the drawing for 2015 Allnighter Donors (open until the end of next week).

The good folks at Secret Stash Records have sent along some very groovy promos as incentives for you good folks to donate to the 2015 Allnighter/Pledge Drive.

We have two pairs of two 2-record sets comprised of rare and unreleased material from the legendary Chicago soul labels Mar-V-Lus and One-Derful Records!

At the end of next week I will randomly select two winners from the list of this year’s donors to receive these incredible prizes. All you need to do (unless you’ve already kicked in, in which case you’re already eligible) is click on the Paypal button and donate at least $5.00USD to be entered for a chance to win.

All the names will go into a hat and one of the little Corners will select the winners, who will be announced in this space as well as notified via e-mail.

So get to clicking!

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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.

Comments (0)

By Larry, February 5, 2015 12:12 pm

Don Covay

Listen/Download – The Soul Clan – That’s How It Feels

Greetings all.

The end of the week is nigh, so I will remind you once again that the Funky16Corners Radio Show rolls around this and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio. If you cannot join me at airtime, you can always subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, listen on your mobile device via the TuneIn app, or grab yourself an MP3 here at the blog.

As promised on Wednesday, today we will be paying further tribute to the mighty Don Covay.

As mentioned earlier, Covay was more influential than he was famous, having written a number of amazing songs, some he recorded first, others he passed on to singers like Aretha Franklin.

Covay’s discography, covering ground from the mid-50s to the early 80s is filled with high quality music.

As I was pulling his 45s out of the crates over the past few days it occurred to me that most people had heard his more heavily covered material (like ‘Mercy Mercy’ and ‘Take This Hurt Off Me’), but there were a couple of excellent tunes hiding on some of his flipsides.

The first of the two songs I chose to feature, ‘Please Don’t Let Me Know’ appeared in 1964 on the b-side of ‘Take This Hurt Off Me’.

‘Please Don’t Let Me Know’ is one of those songs that came as a surprise when I finaly flipped over the 45 and played it. Though ‘Take This Hurt Off Me’ is cool, it the more you listen to it the more it seems to hew awfully close to the template of ‘Mercy Mercy’. ‘Please Don’t Let Me Know’ is – like ‘Long Tall Shorty’, which Covay wrote for Tommy Tucker – one of those songs that starts deceptively slowly, picking up a significant amount of steam as it progresses. It features a great, pleading vocal by Covay, and some crazy, falsetto backing vocals toward the end.

I really dig the end of the song where Covay switches up the refrain to ‘Don’t let Don know!’.

The second track is the flipside of the 1968, one-off 45 by the Soul Clan. Featuring Covay, Ben E. King, Solomon Burke, Arthur Conley and Joe Tex, and produced by Covay, the Soul Clan never really took off (for a variety of reasons). That said, their one 45 is outstanding, with the fast-moving dancer ‘Soul Meeting’ (penned by Covay, and a Top 40 R&B hit) on the A-side and the gospel-inflected ‘That’s How It Feels’ on the flip.

Co-written by Covay and Bobby Womack, ‘That’s How It Feels’ is (at least in my opinion) right up there with the finest southern soul ballads of the era. Oddly enough, and I see this as yet another testament to Covay’s talents, the members of the Soul Clan were never in the same studio, with Covay and Womack creating the backing track, and the individual singers adding their parts piecemeal in separate sessions.

That said, it’s a powerful record, and ought to be better known.

The cool thing is, if you aren’t a vinyl hound, you can get Don Covay’s Atlantic, Mercury and Philadelphia International albums in iTunes (hell, you can even get the Soul Clan album!*), so there’s no excuse not to dig in.

I hope you dig the tunes, and keep your ears peeled for a Don Covay tribute on an upcoming episode of the Funky16Corners Radio Show.

See you on Monday.

Keep the faith

Larry

*Note – ‘Soul Meeting” and ‘That’s How It Feels’ are the only “true” Soul Clan tracks on the album, with the balance of the tracks made up by individual recordings by the separate members.

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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.