Comments (2)

By Larry, April 22, 2014 11:20 am

Willie Mae ‘Big Mama’ Thornton

Listen/Download Big Mama Thornton – Wade In the Water

UPDATE: I just found out that Cultures of Soul has just reissued ‘Wade In the Water’ on 45 as part of the Andy Smith’s Jam Up Twist box set. It’s a great collection (put together by a great DJ) and a fantastic way to get this burner – among others – on 45.

Greetings all

The middle of the week is here and so in service of defeating the doldrums, I bring you something guaranteed to melt your face, and/or make your hair stand on end.

I do not recall where I first heard Big Mama Thornton’s epic reading of ‘Wade In the Water’ but I do remember being knocked back on my heels.

I have already mentioned in this space that the song in question is a big favorite of mine, and as such I like to pick up new versions wherever I find them.

What is most interesting is the fact that ‘Wade In the Water’ is at its base a gospel song with roots in the underground railroad.

Though is has been rerecorded in a number of non-gospel settings, most of those (or at least the ones I’m familiar with) were usually instrumental (though the rock version by Clover is a marked exception).

The version you see before you today, by Willie Mae ‘Big Mama’ Thornton takes the song, strips it down to a skeletal framework (tossing the ‘gospel’ out the window) and rebuilds it as something else entirely.

Most people know of Big Mama Thornton for her original recordings of ‘Hound Dog’ (later done by Elvis) and ‘Ball and Chain’ (turned into a showcase by Janis Joplin).

Thornton. A singer, harp player and drummer had been recording blues and R&B since the early 1950s.

By the mid-1960s she had relocated to the San Francisco Bay area, and started recording for Arhoolie records.

She recorded ‘Wade In the Water’ in 1968, and it was released as a 45 (rare and expensive) but also released on the compilation ‘Ball and Chain’ (released in 1968 and 1974 and much less expensive).

Her version burns rubber like a top fuel dragster (one friend has referred to it as ‘the punk rock version’) and just gets faster and harder as it goes on. Big Mama wails, and the guitar solo by Bee Houston is killer.

It’s hard to listen to a record this elemental and singularly powerful without wondering why it wasn’t a hit.

The likely explanation is that it was a record ‘out of time’. It is light years heavier than most rock music from the time, and I can’t imagine what it must have sounded like to the blues fest crowds that she was playing to at the time.

It’s a lot closer to the MC5 than it is to Muddy Waters.

This, in addition to the fact that lyrically, Thornton divorces the song completely from its gospel roots, choosing instead to rebuild the lyrics as a loose, bluesy riff serving only to deliver her remarkable voice. It’s as if someone harnessed a hurricane and pressed it into the grooves of a record.

Heavy, heavy stuff.

I hope you dig it as much as I do.

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 (4)

By Larry, March 18, 2014 10:36 am

Listen/Download Willie Tomlin – Check Me Baby

Greetings all

I thought we’d do the middle of the week with a fairly new arrival in the Funky16Corners crates.

A buddy of mine puts up a sales list every few weeks, and since he a collector (of no small taste) himself, the offerings are always very interesting.

The last time he put up some 45s on eBay, there was one in particular that caught my eye, and then (naturally) my ear.

I had never heard of Willie Tomlin, and I’m guessing that if you don’t already own this record, you haven’t either.

It would appear that he recorded only one 45, and when it was done, was so satisfied with the badassery therein, he vowed never to record another.

‘Check Me Baby’, which was released in 1969 is a recitation of what has been known on the streets as a very strong pimp hand.

Willie (who I’m assuming from the sounds on both sides of this 45 was a blues-based cat with a foot in the world of soul) lays down a laundry list of how-bad-am-I-isms that’ll blow your mind.

The delivery is oddly off-hand, as if Willie was wandering through the studio with a couple of fine ladies draped on his arms and stopped to whip a world-class brag on the crowd.

‘I wear my Botany 500 when I Funky Broadway

My Petrocelli when I Philly Freeze…

I spend a G-note nightly just to keep the girls mine…

I buy my suits from Hippie Land – Cal-eye-phone-eye-ay…

I mean check me baby, I’m one cat that’s clean

All the girls call me to see the soul of the new breed

Six feet deuce baby, teased and tan, a healthy hunk of any woman’s man

I mean like check me, I’m one cat that’s clean…

And on, and on, with the private plane expensive cologne, Moroccan leather shoes, jade cufflinks, diamond watch etc etc

Though he doesn’t say so, you know there’s a revolver and a straight razor in there somewhere.

This is certainly not the first (or the only) brag-fest set to vinyl, but it is unique in its breadth and the matter-of-factness of its delivery.

Like I said, I can’t find any information on Willie Tomlin, especially any trace of any additional recordings.

If you know any different, drop me a line.

See you on Friday.

Keep the faith

Larry

PS Willie was such a badass, he apparently moved the Rocky Mountains to Maine.

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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 (5)

By Larry, March 9, 2014 3:45 pm

The Staple Singers

Listen/Download The Staple Singers – Step Aside

Greetings all

I hope that the new week finds you all well.

While I really dig gospel music – especially old school – I have never really been a collector of the sound.

It’s a genre that I don’t know much about, so while I may dip my toe in every once in a while, I have yet to fully immerse myself.

That said, even though their early recordings are firmly in the gospel tradition, I like to think of the mighty Staple Singers as sui generis.

This has everything to do with the guitar of Roebuck ‘Pop’ Staples.

Listening to the group’s pre-Stax recordings is like witnessing a mystical collision of the sacred and the profane, with Pop’s Delta guitar lines winding in and out of the rich harmonies like an interloper.

There are other instruments present (bass, drums) but they’re marked by a plain-ness and subtlety that renders them practically invisible.

Listening to Pop’s guitar (with it’s roots in the masters he heard as a young man, including Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson and Son House) amble through the songs it almost as if the ghosts of those roadhouse men are being chased down a dirt road by the holy spirit.

The song I bring you today is an unusual one that has become a firm favorite of mine since I first heard it.

‘Step Aside’ – written by Pervis Staples – is an almost dirge-like number, with lyrics that cast the struggle for civil rights as a battle (the references to ‘foreign soil’ and ‘foreign land’ are particularly stark).

The moments where Pop steps in with his high tenor to cry ‘Step aside!’ it sounds as if he’s raising his hand and crying out from the amen corner.

It is a remarkable piece of music, that like everything else they did during this period transcends both gospel and soul, turning into something else entirely.

I hope you dig it, and I’ll 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 (0)

By Larry, February 2, 2014 11:02 am

Gus Jenkins

Listen/Download Gus Jenkins – Chittlins

Greetings all

A while back I was reading the always excellent Echoes In the Wind blog and I saw that my man Whiteray had posted a very interesting looking song.

As an inveterate soul 45 hound, I am constitutionally unable to pass by a song entitled ‘Chittlins’ for any reason, so I had to stop, unsheathe my ears and have a listen.

Good thing I did, too, on account of the fact that Gus Jenkins’ ‘Chittlins’ is a little slice of late night, smoky, uptown bar perfection.

Jenkins was a pianist/singer who had an earlier hit (as ‘Gus Jinkins’) in 1956 with the tune ‘Tricky’ on the Flash label.

A lo-fi affair, with Gus’s piano dueling with an organ and some groovy guitar, ‘Tricky’ sounds like it could have been recorded at any time between 1945 and when it actually hit the charts.

Jinkins/Jenkins appears to have recorded a handful of 45s for Flash in the late 50s, one for Pioneer International in 1960, and then a few years of radio silence before a couple of discs for Tower in 1964.

‘Chittlins’, which made it into the R&B Top 30 in November of 1964 is the kind of thing you’d expect to hear on the radio during a late night road trip.

The production is much better than his earlier hit, and the piano and the guitar (especially the guitar) sound as if they’d been woven in and out of a skyline full of electric lights and clouds of cigarette smoke.

The flip side – ‘You’ll Be The One’ – is a pretty straight ahead blues vocal with some nice horn backing and a great vocal by Jenkins. Once again, the guitarist is outstanding (I’d love to know who it was).

Jenkins went on to record one more 45 for Tower, and then a couple of sides, including the funky ‘Funk With a Feeling’ for the General Artist imprint (it seems ‘Chittlins’ was either reissued, or rerecorded for General Artists at some point).

So turn down the lights, pour yourself a drink, and give this one a spin or three.

I hope you dig it, and I’ll 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 (0)

By Larry, January 16, 2014 12:08 pm

Miss Tina Britt

Listen/Download Tina Britt – Who Was That

Greetings all

The end of the week is nigh, so I will once again inform you that the Funky16Corners Radio Show takes to the airwaves of the interwebs this and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio. If you have a previous engagement, you can always keep up with the show by subscribing to it as a podcast in iTunes, or by grabbing and MP3 here at the blog.

The song I bring you today is the second and last hit that Tina Britt placed in the R&B charts.

Though she was fairly well-recorded – a half dozen 45s and an LP – there isn’t much information out there on Miss Tina.

I first found my way to her mighty voice via her powerful 1969 cover of Don Covay’s ‘Sookie Sookie’, a funky classic.

Britt, who first hit the charts with the Ashford/Simpson/Jo Armstead penned ‘The Real Thing’ in 1965 (also recorded by the Chiffons and Betty Everett), seems to have hailed from Florida. Her singing had a bluesy edge to it, displayed to fine effect on ‘Who Was That’.

An R&B Top 40 hit in November of 1968, is a funky blues, with some tasty guitar (perhaps composer James Peterson?) and a punchy drum/bass sound.

There’s an interview with Britt where she mentions that she really considered herself a blues singer, she didn’t like ‘The Real Thing’, and that Juggy Murray wasn’t forthcoming with the royalties for her hits.

Though I’m not sure when the interview was from, Britt mentions recording some new music, so be on the lookout for that.

I hope you dig the track, 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.

Comments (2)

By Larry, December 19, 2013 12:09 pm

Charles Brown

Listen/Download Charles Brown – Merry Christmas Baby (1970)

NOTE:  Don’t forget to tune into this year’s Funky16Corners Radio Show Christmas special. It airs on Friday night 12/2o at 9PM on Viva Radio. If you are out making merry at that hour, you can catch up by subscribing to the show as a podcast in iTunes.

Enjoy!

Greetings all

As mentioned in our previous post, of Ike and Tina Turner KILLING ‘Merry Christmas Baby’, the original version was recorded by Charles Brown with Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers in 1947.

The tune became a holiday standard, and was covered by many people (including Ike and Tina, Chuck Berry, Otis Redding, Booker T and the MGs, Kenny Burrell and Bruce Springsteen).

Brown himself returned to the well frequently over the years, recording the song anew many times.

The version I bring you today is something I dug up this past summer on a record safari to the Finger Lakes region of New York.

When I saw it, I was unaware of Brown’s many rerecordings, and assumed it to simply be a later pressing of the tune.

When I finally got home and gave it a spin, it was immediately clear – via the wah-wah guitar – that what I was hearing was a recording of a much later vintage.

A little bit of research revealed that Brown had redone the tune for Jewel records (along with a new version of ‘Please Come Home For Christmas’) in 1970.

Though I haven’t been able to track down any session info (I really wish I knew who the guitarist was) I think it’s a safe assumption that it is Brown himself tickling the ivories.

His voice – in the words of Slim Gaillard, “mellow like a cello” – one of the finest/smoothest that ever was, was still in fine shape (and would remain so for many years) and the vibe is relaxed.

What amazes me about this song in particular is how flexible it is.

You can line up the versions that have appeared in this space – or on the Funky16Corners Radio Show – by Ike and Tina, Otis Redding and the Soulful Strings – next to Brown’s, and marvel at how different the song (a fairly simple blues) manages to sound in each interpretation.

I love to hear Charles Brown’s voice (right up there with Lou Rawls for pure listening pleasure) and he clearly dug this song.
I hope you do too.

See you next week with some more holiday soul!

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 (3)

By Larry, June 18, 2013 11:26 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

Greetings all

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.

Comments (10)

By Larry, May 26, 2013 1:01 pm

Greetings all.

Welcome to the 2013 Funky16Corners Allnighter and Pledge Drive.

Those of you that fall by F16C on the reg will already be familiar with our yearly do, in which I ask some of the finest selectors I know to dip into their crates and put together mixes (from a wide variety of styles, but always soulful) for your listening pleasure.

This being the interwebs, with the selectors coming to you from points all over the map (NJ, New Zealand, NY, UK, Ohio, Minnesota), and all of you good people spread even further afield, we get together for this virtual “Allnighter” (in the tradition of the great soul clubs the world over) once a year.

There are two basic reasons for this, both equally important.

First and foremost, we try to raise some dough (via Paypal donation, see links below) to fund the server costs associated with keeping Funky16Corners (and Iron Leg) up and running. This includes the regular, thrice-weekly blog posts, as well as the Podcast, Soul Club, Guest Mix and Radio Show Archives (collectively holding well over 200 mixes of all kinds).

Second, is of course the fact that music – to paraphrase Willie the Shake – is the food of life, and so we assemble here to play on.

Blogging is for many – creators and readers alike – a transitory thing, but for the selectors here, and for many of the people that stop by here on a regular basis, music, especially soul, funk and jazz is life. These are no mere “collectors’. The mix-makers that you see here (and in all the previous years) have devoted a tremendous amount of time (not to mention,resources) to studying the sounds you will soon hear pouring out of your speakers.

Just the other day I saw someone bemoaning the overuse of the word “curating”, but I assure you that it applies to the work of every one of the people involved in this enterprise.

We all collect these sounds because we love them, but we have also all spent time sharing them, on blogs, and more importantly in live venues because we want to spread the word.

When I approach my fellow DJs to put together mixes for the Allnighter, I do so with complete confidence that they will select to impress, and impress they have.

What you here is roughly eight-and-a-half hours (in nine mixes) of the finest in funk, soul, latin, rocksteady, blues, disco, and Northern, put together by some of the best in the biz.

Funky16Corners is – and always has been – a not-for-profit enterprise. I have never taken ads here at the site and hopefully never will.

What I ask, is that if you dig what we do here, and you have the resources to do so, please throw a couple of bucks our way to keep the machine running for another year.

Everyone that donates five dollars or more will receive a Funky16Corners 2013 Allnighter Badge, F16C sticker, and one of our Keep Calm and Stay Funky stickers as well.

The Funky16Corners Blog will enter its 10th year of existence this year and though I’d probably still be at it if no one was paying attention, it’s much cooler doing it for folks like you!

So, I’ll offer you my thanks once again, and hopefully we’ll all be together again this time next year for more of the same.

Keep the Faith
Larry

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Click here to donate to Funky16Corners!

NOTE: It has been brought to my attention that the donation button has been experiencing technical difficulties. If you can’t get it to work, you can always log into Paypal and send the money to this address:

funky16corners@lycos.com

Thanks

Larry

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The Soul City – Everybody Dance Now (Goodtime)
Ross D Wyllie – Do the Uptight (A&M)
Popular Five – Little Bitty Pretty One (Minit)
Chuck Jackson and Maxine Brown – Can’t Let You Out of My Sight (Wand)
The Naked Truth – The Shingaling Thing (RCA)
Brenda Lee – Time and Time Again (Decca)
Derek Martin – Sly Girl (Tuba)
Shirelles – No Doubt About It (Scepter)
Robert Walker and the Soul Strings – The Blizzard (RCA)
The Trends – The Soul Clap (ABC)
The Tempests – Would You Believe (Smash)
Robert John – Raindrops, Love and Sunshine (A&M)
Kim Weston – Helpless (Gordy)
Earl Cosby – Ooh Honey Baby (Mirwood)
Four Pennies – You’re a Gas With Your Trash (Brunswick)
Ray Charles – I Don’t Need No Doctor (ABC)
Jo Armstead – I Feel an Urge (Giant)
Soul Sisters – Good Time Tonight (Sue)
OV Wright – Baby Mine (Goldwax)
The Velvelettes – He Was Really Saying Something (VIP)
Ronnie Love – Chills and Fever (Dot)
Little Caesar and the Empires – Everybody Dance Now (Inst) (Cameo/Parkway)

‘Everybody Dance Now’ is just under an hour of top shelf, hard charging Northern Soul, including some old faves as well as a grip of recently excavated heat that I think you’ll dig (and a couple of surprises too!).

Listen/Download Funky16Corners – Everybody Dance Now!
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Tony C: Feeling Good F16C Pledge drive 2013
Jean Dushon-Feeling good-Cadet
Merced Blue Notes-Whole lotta nothing-Tri Phi
Junior Wells-I’m gonna cramp your style-Bright Star
The Marvels-Forget about that mess-Sensation
Buddy Ace-Baby please don’t go-Duke
Buddy Greco-Twistin’ to the blues-Coronet
JJ Barnes-Won’t you let me in-Rich
The Charmaines-I idolise you-Kent
Joe Simon-Troubles-Hush
The Young Holt Trio-Ain’t there something that money can’t buy-Brunswick
Sonny Raye-Whip it on me-Jetstream
Pearl Woods-Sippin’ sorrow-Charge
BB King-16 tons-Crown
Ricardo Ray-Nitty Gritty-Alegre
Jack Constanzo-Evil ways-Discomoda
Willie Bobo-Be’s that way-Tico
Charlie Palmieri-Uptight-Atlantic
Tito Ramos-Big T-Cotique
The Beginning Of The End-Come down baby-Alston
The Soul Creations-Funky jive-GES
Tommy Wills-KC drive-Juke
Spanky Wilson-You-Mothers
Big Ella-It takes a lot of loving-Lo Lo
Eddie Parker-I need a true love-Triple ‘B’ Records

Tony Crampton is a UK based DJ/Collector whose mixes should be immediately familiar to readers of Funky16Corners. He has excellent taste, and gets frequent shout-outs here at F16C for records that he first put me onto.

Listen/Download Tony C: Feeling Good
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Kris Holmes – Greenville and Beyond

Slim Willis – I Say That
Little Eddie – There’ll Be A Day
Virgil Griffin – If You Can’t Go
The Trademarques – I Can Set You Free
Chick Willis – My Bowlegged Woman
Heavenly Kings Singers – If You Wake Up In The Morning
Vikki Styles – Mark My Words
The Premiers – Funky Monkey
The Perails – Boss Walk
The Cherries – You Know You Gonna Need Me
Vicki Williams – Your Love Makes Me Stay
L. Johnson Jr. – You Gotta Have Soul
W. Williams & Sonny Wash – Don’t Lie To Me Lover
Spencer Jackson Family – Bring Back Peace To The World
Johnny Littlejohn – Can’t Be Still
Johnny Nix – Matchbox
Pops Porter – Baby Put Your Legs Upside The Wall
Willie Buck – Get Down & Disco To The Blues
Bobby Williams – Soul Party
Ervin Little – Teach Me How To Boogaloo

Kris Holmes ‘Greenville and Beyond’ mix is an extension of the website he created to track the wide variety of records associated with several Greenville, Mississippi labels and their Chicago connections. Kris is one of the premier DJ/Collectors in New Zealand, rocking it in live venues and on his show the Sunday Shuffle on Radio Ponsonby (which can be heard Saturday nights here in the US). He has exquisite taste, and has been a big influence on new additions to the crates here at Funky16Corners.

Listen/Download Kris Holmes – Greenville and Beyond
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Reaching Onward – A FleamarketFunk.com All 45 Excursion
Studio G’s Beat Group – Hi Bird/ Licorice Soul
Quantic and His Combo Barbaro – Enyere Kumbara/ Tru Thoughts
Lonnie liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes – Goddess of Love/ Flying Dutchman
Big Pimp Jones – The Smokeout/ Recordbreakin’
Hard Proof – Dragon/ Kept Records
The Jive Turkeys – No Answer/ Colemine
Yambu – Sunny/ Motuno
The T.M.G.’s – Agravation/ Funk 45
The DT6 – Don’t Doubt Me/ Starla
East L.A. Carpool – Linda Chicana/ GRC
Victor Green – The Ghetto/ Rejoint
Sir Ali Bengal – ABX (Instrumental)/ Our Label Records
Banda União Black – Yeah Yeah Yeah/ Vampi Soul

A Word from DJ Prestige

“Once again I’m honored to put together a guest mix for Larry at Funky 16 Corners. Today I’ve dug into my collection of 45s and pulled out a bunch of sides that I built around the intro from Sun-Ra. For the most part, these 45s represent a lot of the future of Funk, Soul, and who will be carrying on the torch of funky music in general in the years to come playing right along side a few older tracks that lend themselves nicely to this mix. Record labels like Colemine, who offer up The Jive Turkeys, Kept, who give us the Afro Beat of Hard Proof out of Austin, TX, The DT6 on Starla coming out of Scotland, Big Pimp Jones from Philly on Recordbreakin’, Our Records Label and Sir Ali Bengal out of Germany, and Quantic out of the UK represent a small amount of artists doing it like they did in the late 60’s and early 70’s. Some of these limited edition 7″s will be the sought after 45s in years to come. They’re recorded in the same manner as the originators, and each band lends it unique sound to the time line of music. I’ve also included some older sides such as Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes, a Disco Soul cover of “Sunny” by Yambu, a Latin influenced Donnie Hathaway cover from Victor Green, some Psychedelic Library Hammond Funk from Studio G’s Beat Group, as well as some West Coast Lowrider Soul with East L.A. Carpool. Each one of these bands, no matter if it the present day or the past has been reaching outward to put out good music, and that’s what I want to do with this mix. Please enjoy. DJ Prestige, Flea Market Funk 2013″

Listen/Download DJ Prestige: Reaching Onward
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Tarik Thornton: TCB
James Black and the Southern University Stage Band- Ole Wine ( Intro)- Whit
Oliver Morgan- Roll Call- Seven B
Gene Chandler- Soul Hootenany Part 1- Constellation
Temptations- Girl, Why You Wanna Make Me Blue- Gordy
Little Eva- Get Ready/Uptight- Spring
Seven Souls – I Still Love You- Okeh
Natural Four-I Thought you Were Mine – ABC
Claude Huey- Drifting – M.I.O.B
Richard Brown- Sweet & Kind- SteeleTown
Gino Washington- What Can A Man Do- Washpan
Charles Brimmer- This Feeling in My Heart- Broadmoor
The Pearls – Shooting High- Lamp
The Symphonic Four- Who Do You Think Your Fooling Part II- Sudan
Bob & Gene- It’s Not What You Know It’s Who You Know
Aaron Neville- Hercules- Mercury
Willie Joe – Funny Thing- Pure Black Soul
Detroit Emeralds- You’re Getting Too Smart- Westbound
Eddie Floyd- Stealing Love- Stax
The 13th Amendment – The Stretch – Slave
James Brown – I’ll Go Crazy – King

Tarik Thornton is a New Orleans native who has relocated to the Midwest. He has worked as part of a number of top DJ crews, and guested at some of the hottest nights around the country. He is always digging, and never fails to bring the heat.

Listen/Download Tarik Thornton – TCB
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Prime Mundo: Positive/Negative – A Live Mixtape
alzo & udine – c’mon and join us (mercury)
jim ford – i wanta make her love me (sundown)
truth – i can’t go on (roulette)
southside movement – i’ve been watching you (20th century)
stevie wonder – i was made to love her (tamla)
trapeze – what is a woman’s role (threshold)
bo diddley – go for broke (chess)
yardbirds – baby what’s wrong (sire)
fiesta dance party – summertime (fiesta)
jesse morrison – tell me, can you feel it (a-bet)
edwin starr – easin’ in (motown)
charles spurling – popcorn charlie (king)
the watts 103rd street rhythm band – 65 bars and a taste of soul (warner bros)
gilberto sextet – yes i will part 1 (tico)
albert collins – thaw out (blue thumb)
jerry maccain – juicy lucy (jewel)
charlie earland – sing a simple song (prestige)
aluar horns (nonesuch)
mongo santamaria – fingers (vaya)

DJ Prime Mundo is one of the OG Asbury Park 45 Sessions crew. He’s got a spectacular ear for the finest in funk, soul and jazz his turntable skills are next level. No matter how much you think you know, you will always find  something new to dig in his mixes.

Listen/Download DJ Prime Mundo – Positive/Negative
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DJ Bluewater Presents: Turn To This Sound
The Vibrators – I’m Depending On You
Alton Ellis – The Preacher
Roland Alphonso – How Soon
The Fugitives – Cantelope Rock
The Maytals – Bim Today Bam Tomorrow
Roy Shirley – The Prophet
Prince Buster’s All Stars – All In My Mind
The Gaylads – Joy In The Morning
The Uniques – My Woman’s Love
The Modifies – Death In The Arena
Slim Smith – Burning Desire
Glen Adams – Mighty Organ
The Dee Set – I Know A Place
Max Romeo – She’s But A Little Girl
Roy Shirley – Don’t Be Afraid
The Gladiators – Fling It Gimme
Sound Dimension – More Scorcher
Tony Brevett – Don’t Get Weary
The Ethiopians – Selah
The Rulers – Let My People Go
Lee Perry – Whup Whop Man
Teddy King & Prince Buster – Mexican Divorce
Derrick Morgan – Too Bad
The Soul Brothers – Windell
Ken Boothe & Norma Frazer – Give Me The Right

DJ Bluewater is another member of the Asbury Park 45 Sessions crew. He is as deep into the rocksteady 45 game as he is with funk and soul. He has been contributing mixes to the Funky16Corners Pledge Drives since the beginning.

Listen/Download DJ Bluewater – Turn To This Sound

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Funkdefy: Take Time To Know Her
Roy “C” – I Found-A-Man In My Bed – Pan Records
The Esquires – Listen To Me – Bunky Records
Tony Fox – Do It To It – Calla Records
The Soul Sisters – Think About The Good Times – Sue Records
Bobby Lewis – Tossin’ and Turnin’ – Beltone
Charles Spurling – Popcorn Charlie – King
William Alexander, Jr. and the Dukes – Give Me One More Chance – Aphrodisiac
Mary Jane Hooper – That’s How Strong Love Is – World Pacific Audition Records
Harvey Scales – What’s Good For You (Don’t Have to be Good to You) – Stax Records
Jay Dee Bryant – Get It (Come On and Get It) – Enjoy Records
Johnnie Taylor – Take Care Of Your Homework – Stax
J. J. Jackson – But It’s Alright – Calla Records
Otis Redding – Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag (Live) – ATCO Records
Tony Clarke – Ghetto Man – Chicory Records
Don Gardner – My Baby Likes To Boogaloo – Tru-Glo-Town
Dyke And The Blazers – Funky Bull Pt. 1 – Original Sound
George Torrence & The Naturals – Lickin’ Stick – Shout
Billy Stewart – Summertime – Chess
Percy Sledge – Take Time To Know Her – Atlantic

A Word from DJ RP

FUNKDEFY, located in Columbus Ohio, is the longest running Funk-N-Soul dance party of Central Ohio. Founded in 2004, the Crew is an ensemble group of crate diggers and beat battlers. Not only have they been throwing monthly all vinyl dance parties, but in years past introduced live Soul to Columbus, heating up the city with their combination of dance parties on wax mixed with some incredible live bands, including The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker, The Budos Band and Eli “Paperboy” Reed & The True Loves. The following contribution was put together by founder DJ RP for your audio pleasure. You can hear other mixes of theirs on Soundcloud and see updates about them on Facebook. The crew hopes you will become part of, and a friend of, the funky collective.

Listen/Download Funkdefy – Take Time To Know Her
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F16C Presents: Are You Ready For This
Jackson Sisters – I Believe In Miracles (Prophecy)
Brothers – Are You Ready For This (RCA)
Papa John Creach – Joyce (Tom Moulton Mix) (Buddah)
Johnny Hammond Smith – Los Conquistadores Chocolates (Milestone)
Eddie Kendricks – Going Up In Smoke (Tamla)
Muscle Shoals Horns – Breakdown (Bang)
Charles Mann – Do It Again (ABC)
Touch – Love Hangover (Breaking Down) (Brunswick)
Lyn Collins – Rock Me Again & Again & Again & Again & Again & Again (People)
JBs – All Aboard the Funky Soul Train (Polydor)
Silvetti – Spring Rain (Salsoul)
Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes – Bad Luck (Tom Moulton Remix) (Philadelphia International)
Ray Charles – Compared to What (Atlantic)

‘Are You Ready For This’ includes all manner of funky disco, disco-y funk, and even a couple of similarly inclined tunes from the Northern Soul canon. Mostly 45s, a couple of 12’s and an LP track here and there.

Listen/Download Funky16Corners – Are You Ready For This?
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Click Here To Donate to Funky16Corners

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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).

If you want one of the new Funky16Corners stickers (free, of course) click here for info.

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Comments (0)

By Larry, May 21, 2013 2:17 pm

Junior Wells

Listen/Download Junior Wells – Girl You Lit My Fire

Greetings all

I have been hard at work preparing for the 2013 Funky16Corners Allnighter/Pledge Drive.

Almost all of the participating DJs are present an accounted for, this year’s groovy premiums are ready to go (more on that on Friday) and we ought to be up an running for next week.

This years mixes are blazing hot, with a most of the familiar heads working it out, as well as a couple of new contributors that really bring their best stuff.

Funk, Northern Soul, Reggae, Disco, R&B, you name it, you’ll hear it. So get ready to download (and hopefully donate).

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I will assume that most of you with a passing interest in the blues will have heard the name Junior Wells before.

Over a three decade period, alone and alongside the mighty Buddy Guy (among others) Wells laid down some of the finest vocals and harp wailing to come out of the Chicago scene.

What Junior Wells also did, was cross over – frequently – into the worlds of funk and soul during the mid to late 60s.

While pretty much every blues artist made an attempt to cast a wider sonic net during these years (some more convincingly than others) few had as natural an aptitude for it as Wells did.

The records he made for the Chicago-based Bright Star and Blue Rock (a Mercury subsidiary) labels are great examples of his ability to both rev up the blues and perform convincing soul music.

The tune I bring you today, ‘Girl You Lit My Fire’ was Wells’s second single for Blue Rock in 1968.

Arranged by none other than the great Charles Stepney, ‘Girl You Lit My Fire’ – despite it’s obvious tip of the hat to a certain Doors hit (RIP Ray…) , is a hard charging, horn driven bit of funky soul (the drums are especially tight) with a powerful vocal by Wells.

The flipside (like several of his 45s from the period) leans more in the blues direction, with a cover of GL Crockett’s ‘There’s a Man Down There’ (better known in the Allman Brothers version as ‘One Way Out’).

All of Wells’s 45s from this period are worth picking up, and thankfully not terribly hard to come by.

I hope you dig the sounds, and I’ll see you all 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 (4)

By Larry, March 14, 2013 11:44 am

Ricky Allen

Listen/Download Ricky Allen – Cut You A Loose

Greetings all

The end of the week is nigh and so must be the Funky16Corners Radio Show, 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 or grab an MP3 here at the blog.

Now…I hope you’re all strapped in securely and have ingested your blood pressure medicine and all necessary sedatives.

I only mention this because the record I’m going to whip on you this fine day is likely to blow your doors off, set your hair on end and (if you’re lucky) drive you into the kind of convulsions often recognized as “dancing”.

I first heard Ricky Allen’s ‘Cut You A Loose’courtesy of my friend Michael Newman’s ‘Hinky Dinky Time’ radio show.

It was one of those times where I heard a record for the first time (happens a lot at DJ nights) and the intersections of the pleasure and acquisition centers of my brain light up at exactly the same time.

Gotta hear that record again, and gotta get me a copy to stash in my play box, in that exact order.

It didn’t take me too long to find a nice, clean copy of the 45, and when it did fall through the mail slot I digimatized it forthwith and put the digital copy on a loop.

Like Bobby Parker’s ‘Watch Your Step’, ‘Cut You A Loose’ is one of those records that lives in the mystical land where blues and soul (and rock’n’roll) coexist peacefully, breeding at will and producing offspring like this.

‘Cut You A Loose’ was a Top 20 R&B hit in August of 1963 and Allen (who was born in Nashville but relocated to Chicago in the late 50s) went on to record a handful of 45s in a similar vein through the 60s.

After I’d digested this tune, it occurred to me that it sounded familiar. It wasn’t until I’d played it a dozen or so times that it occurred to me that ‘Cut You A Loose’ bore an interesting resemblance to another record, that being Dave Baby Cortez’s ‘Getting To the Point’.

As far as I can tell, ‘Cut You A Loose’ came first (by a few months), with ‘Getting To the Point’ being a rather savage, Hammond-driven “homage”, if you will.

‘Cut You A Loose’ became a Chicago blues standard of sorts, with cover versions by James Cotton, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, and Koko Taylor among others (I have no idea how this song didn’t become a staple of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s repertoire).

Allen apparently retired in the early 70s to run a limousine business and a laundry, before returning to the festival circuit years later.

This record is as powerful 2:47 of music as you’re likely to find, and I hope you dig it as much as I do.

See you soon.

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 (1)

By Larry, March 12, 2013 11:54 am

Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee

Listen/Download Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee – People Get Ready

Greetings all

Here’s an odd one.

Many, many moons ago I was out digging and happened upon the 45 you see before you today.

When I saw a version of ‘People Get Ready’ by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee I had to double check and make sure it was in fact the Curtis Mayfield song.

Indeed it was.

This was a record that cried out for further investigation, and since it was on sale for a shiny United States quarter, I paid the man and brought it home, where it languished for a good long time.

When I first recorded it I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.

Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee were known mostly as a folk blues act, having joined forces for the first time in 1942.

McGhee, the singer and guitarist (brother of Stick McGhee of ‘Drinkin’ Wine Spo-dee-o-dee’ fame) had played with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and followed/studied with Blind Boy Fuller.

Harp player Sonny Terry had been accompanying Fuller until the latter’s death, after which he teamed up with McGhee.

Now, I mentioned that Terry and McGhee were best known (to me, anyway) as folk blues players, but as it turns out, they spent the early part of their career working at a more popular/mainstream success. They recorded jump blues and R&B under a few different names during the 40s and 50s, only really getting firmly into their better known bag riding the wave of the folk/blues revival in the late 50s/early 60s.

When I first listened to this version of ‘People Get Ready’ I was surprised by the arrangement, in which Terry and McGhee change the tempo, moving away from the gospel feel of the original (and many ensuing covers) and settling into a rootsy, ever so slightly funky groove that reminds me of some of Taj Mahal’s ish from around the same time.

As it turns out the single was pulled from the 1973 LP ‘Sonny and Brownie’, which featured an all-star backing group (Arlo Guthrie, Sugarcane Harris, John Mayall, Michael Franks) and a variety of contemporary covers, including Randy Newman’s ‘Sail Away’, a couple of Franks’ songs and some originals.

As I said before, the re-arrangement might see a little jarring at first, but after a listen or two it starts to make complete sense (at least to me, your mileage may vary…).

Something unusual to feed your ears in the middle of the week.

I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back 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 (1)

By Larry, January 6, 2013 2:42 pm

Jimmy McCracklin

Listen/Download Jimmy McCracklin – Dog Pt1

Greetings all

Welcome to the new week.

As we discussed last week, as we marked the passing of both Marva Whitney and Fontella Bass,  2012 proved to be a severe kick in the pants for fans of soul music.

In the space of a week we lost those great singers, and the man who’s song I bring you today, the legendary Jimmy McCracklin.

McCracklin’s name first came onto my radar when the UK band the Inmates had a NY area FM radio hit (circa 1980) with their cover of his 1958 hit ‘The Walk’.

Later on (years after I first heard the record) I realized that McCracklin had co-written Lowell Fulson’s ‘Tramp’, which went on to be a big hit for Otis Redding and Carla Thomas, as well as the template for the Mohawks’ ‘Champ’.

McCracklin – who was born in the midwest but settled in the San Francisco Bay area – made his first record in 1945, but wouldn’t hit the charts until ‘The Walk’. Through the 40s and 50s he recorded for labels like Modern, Irma and Peacock, finally setting up shop with Imperial in 1962.

He waxed the record I bring you today – the very Tramp-like ‘Dog’ in 1967, a year after his last brush with the R&B charts (he had 7 R&B top 40 hits between 1958 and 1966).

As I mentioned, ‘Dog’ follows the ‘Tramp’ lead (with the addition of a female interjecting during the tune), with McCracklin rapping over a funky bass/drum line and a groovy sax solo.

Though the foundation of his sound was the blues, McCracklin was always willing to whip some soul onto the plate as well.

McCracklin continued to record with Imperial/Minit until 1970, but he kept recording for a variety of labels (and touring) into the 1990s.

He will be missed.

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.