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By Larry, December 20, 2012 12:07 pm

John Lee Hooker

Listen/Download John Lee Hooker – Blues For Christmas

Greetings all

I hope all is festive in your corner of the world. Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas you can still catch a wave of good will (but look out for the tsunami of consumerism) and bask in the sweet, holiday vibe.

Though I have posted tracks by blues artists in the space before, they have almost exclusively been of the soul/funk crossover variety.

This is not one of those.

The mighty John Lee Hooker is one of my favorite artists.

That said track I bring you today is not one of his finest, though it may well be his drunkest.

The Hook himself doesn’t sound all that inebriated (though he does at one point cry out ‘I’m wasted!”, so there’s that…), but the backing “band” is something else entirely.

“Blues for Christmas’ was recorded in 1959, and it sounds like Hooker finished up his 12th set of the night, started out the door and then, struck by inspirado rounded up the drunkest, least competent bunch of has-been be-boppers he could find and dragged them into the studio.

It was there that they cracked open another 50 gallon drum of atomic egg nog and set to work.

To describe the recording as “woozy” doesn’t really do it justice.

You can almost hear the horn section nodding off in the background, their eyes getting more and more bloodshot, the wind coming out of their axes potent enough to knock a buzzard off a shitwagon.

There are points where you almost wonder of the trumpet and sax players accidentally picked up each other’s instruments by mistake.

The only thing that could make it better would be a superannuated ecdysiast lazily swinging her well-padded hips to the beat (the tenor player even breaks into ‘Night Train’ for a few bars).

It may not be the merriest Christmas song around, but you definitely get the sense that a whole lot of merriment was had earlier in the evening.

I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back on Monday with more holiday cheer.

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 (7)

By Larry, May 10, 2012 10:22 am

Little Milton means it ladies!

Listen/Download Little Milton – Just a Little Bit

Greetings all.

I hope the end of the week finds you all well.

I should remind 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 can’t make it at airtime you can always come by the blog and grab yourself a downloadable MP3 of the show (and more than 100 archived episodes) over the weekend.

If you travel through the highways and byways of the Funky16Corners then you will already know that I am often preoccupied with the species known as the soulful bluesman.

During the classic era these giant roamed the earth, guitars (and or harmonicas) in hand dominating any ecosystem they happened to stomp in.

You had your Syl Johnson, Junior Wells, Alberts King and Collins, and, perhaps the souliest of them all, Little Milton.

During a long and fruitful career he laid down some of the finest example of the sub-genre, especially groovers like ‘Grits Ain’t Groceries’ (his reworking of Little Willie John’s ‘All Around the World’) and ‘More and More’ (covered ably by Blood Sweat and Tears).

I grab Little Milton 45s wherever I find them because his work was consistently and reliably good.

It was only in the last year that I finally encountered one of his LPs in the field. It was a ‘Greatest Hits’ but it included several tracks I didn’t have yet so I grabbed it and took it home.

Among the new (to me) cuts was Milton’s outstanding coverof Rosco Gordon’s 1959 classic ‘Just a Little Bit’.

I already had the 1965 cover by Roy Head (done in the style of his previous hit ‘Treat Her Right’) but despite the fact that it was a Top 20 R&B hit in 1969 I had never heard Little Milton’s version of the song.

Milton takes the song at a somewhat slower, ever so slightly funky tempo, adding in plenty of organ and of course his own sweet voice.

It is not in any way earth-shattering – the song has after all been covered dozens of times – but it is a groovy tune and any Little Milton is quality Little Milton, and so I bring it to you.

I hope you dig it, and I’ll see you when I see you.

Keep the faith

Larry

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 (7)

By Larry, February 16, 2012 2:06 pm

Slim Harpo

Listen/Download -Slim Harpo – Baby Scratch My Back

Greetings all.

It has been another busy week here at the Funky16Corners compound, with hospital visits and sundry other responsibilities that simply must be taken care of lest the world wind off of its axis.

First, a bit of important business to get out of the way.

As most of you probably know, these are dark times for music blogs.

The copyright wars are getting hotter all the time, with domains seized, blogs shut down and threats being issued on the reg.

Funky16Corners, one of the longer lived blogs of its kind, has been extraordinarily lucky over the years in that we have not once (knock wood) been on the receiving end of threats, take-down notices or other negative feedback related to the posting of music.

For the longest time, I kept things going as usual, with all of the Funky16Corners Radio Podcast mixes posted in the archive containing the individual files and a fairly relaxed attitude to breaking the links on the single tracks in the regular posts.

A while back I tightened the reins a bit on the regular posts, pulling down the tracks after a 10 day period so that Funky16Corners remained true to its spirit as an educational resource.

Then, a few months ago it became apparent that less, shall we say, “dedicated” bloggers were indemnifying themselves against difficulty by deep linking (posting links on their blogs directly to the URLs on my server) to my tracks, not to mention the same thing being done (in a much more mechanical fashion) by rogue MP3 services that scour the internet for content to offer their visitors.

Despite the fact that I was breaking the links in my posts, they were still available to anyone who had deep-linked or in some other way recorded the full URL of the tracks.

My initial reaction to this was to relocate my on-line archive (which I use frequently to access tracks for mixes and tribute posts to artists that had passed on) and to move tracks to “off-line” locations after the aforementioned 10-day period.

The more I thought about the situation the more I decided that I needed to take whatever steps I could to protect Funky16Corners without compromising the “mission” (for lack of a better word) of the blog.

As a result, I did some restructuring at the server level, as well as removing the ZIP file links from the Podcast Archive.

All of the mixed MP3 files remain, but access to individual tracks has, at least for the time being, been removed.

I know that some of you will be disappointed – the archive is one of the most heavily traveled parts of the site – but this is something I felt needed to be done.

I have always felt that what I do here at Funky16Corners – as well as most of the blogs I link to – is much different than the popular idea of music blogging.

I have never posted full albums here, and the music I do post is always posted along with commentary and historical context.

I’m happy to say that in the many cases where I have been contacted by an artist that was featured here or a member of their family, the feedback has always been positive.

Unfortunately, the reality of blogging in 2012 is that the worst possible scenario could descend at at minute, and I owe it to myself to make this environment as “safe” as possible.

Hopefully the status quo will be maintained.

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That said, I should also remind you that the Funky16Corners Radio Show takes to the airwaves of the interwebs Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio. If you cannot make the scene at airtime, you can always come by the blog on Saturday and pick up an MP3 of the show.

Also (yes, there’s more…) the post I recently did about the passing of the great Johnny Otis has been republished on the Greek culture website The Goddess of the Hunt!

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What better way to face such chaos than a bit of mellow (bot not too mellow), soulful (just the right amount of soul) Louisiana blues.

Does the name Slim Harpo set your ears vibrating and your feet moving just so?

Though I can’t remember the exact day, I do know the year that the sounds of Mr James Moore (aka Slim Harpo) first breached the redoubts of my ears.

It was sometime back in Nineteen and Eighty Seven that my brother from another mother, the Bluesman handed me a brick of cassettes, all of which contained the sounds from whence he got his sobriquet.

There, alongside the Kings (Albert and BB) was a tape featuring the sounds of the mighty Slim Harpo.

While the name was at the time familiar (no doubt due to British Invasion coverage of his catalog by cats like the Rolling Stones, the Kinks and Them) I had never heard the originals.

I was in for a treat.

While I listened to all of those tapes, the one that took up permanent residence in my automobile was the Slim Harpo collection.

There was something very groovy about Slim’s voice and harmonica that shot right into the pleasure centers of my brain.

Years of reflection have led me to the conclusion that this was probably due to the fact that the music of Slim Harpo, while bluesy, was not entirely “the blues”, swimming in a swamp of R&B, soul and even country sounds, and it was all wrapped up in his unique voice.

He recorded his first record for Excello in 1957, and had his first hits in the early 60s and his first (and only) R&B Number One hit with the record you see before you today ‘Baby Scratch My Back’ in 1966.

The groovy thing is, that while there is something undeniably laconic about Slim Harpo’s music, the more you listen to this record in particular the more you realize how danceable it is.

It’s not a hard-charger, but it possesses a groove as thick as molasses.

Sadly, Slim Harpo died in 1970 at the age of 46, felled by a heart attack.

If you dig this cut, head out and grab yourself a copy of ‘The Best of Slim Harpo’ and get hip to a master.

See you on Monday.

Peace

Larry

Also, make sure that you check out the POAC link below (click on the logo). It’s a fantastic organization that provides services to our local autism community, with education and recreational events, and any contribution you could make would be greatly appreciated.

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 (9)

By Larry, January 26, 2012 2:56 pm

Magic Sam

Listen/Download -Magic Sam – I’ll Pay You Back

Greetings all.

Welcome to the end of yet another week at the Les Corners Seize Funkee.

It behooves me to remind you that were you to tune into Viva Radio Friday night at 9PM you would encounter (once again) the Funky16Corners Radio Show, where yours truly whips the funk, soul, jazz and rare groove on the masses via the airwaves of the interwebs. If this is an appointment you are unable to make at the time of broadcast, you can always come by here over the weekend and pick yourselves up an MP3 of same.

This week’s show is especially interesting if you dig the “now” sounds of soul and funk with new stuff from Japan, the good ole US of A, and Australia.

That all said, the tune I bring you today is something out of the blues guys go funky bag.

What’s particularly interesting is that the blues guy in question is the mighty Magic Sam and the funky tune in question is yet another iteration of the thousand-petaled lotus known as ‘It’s Your Thing’.

Magic Sam Maghett was a generation younger than many of the bluesmen that made the trek from Mississippi to Chicago, and his approach to the blues guitar was a new(er) one.

One need only listen to his recordings for labels like Cobra and Delmark to realize that he was on to something new.

Unfortunately, he was felled by a heart attack in 1969 (not long after he recorded this 45) and never really got to build the kind of discography that might have elevated him into a position of prominence.

The tune in question, ‘I’ll Pay You Back’ is something I knew only as an instrumental (‘Sams Funck’) for years until I scored a copy of the 45 and had the opportunity to flip it over.

When I did I was pleasantly surprised not only because of its basic coolness, but also because I finally realized that ‘I’ll Pay You Back’ was in fact a vehicle rebuilt on the Isley Brothers’ ‘It’s Your Thing’ frame.

Along with Archie Bell and the Drells ‘Tighten Up’, ‘It’s Your Thing’ was one of the most imitated and borrowed from songs of the late 60s. It was on the R&B charts for 14 weeks in the Spring of 1969 (4 weeks at Number One).

Magic Sam reprises the song’s title and rhythmic structure, but lays his own guitar style on top of things, and the lo-fi production by Bobby Rush (a master of the soulful blues himself, who is also credited with the writing the song) gives the whole affair a rougher edge, less funky than muddy.

We can only wonder how far Magic Sam might have gone had he not met such a premature end.

I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll I’ll see you all on Monday.

Peace

Larry

Also, make sure that you check out the POAC link below (click on the logo). It’s a fantastic organization that provides services to our local autism community, with education and recreational events, and any contribution you could make would be greatly appreciated.

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 (2)

By Larry, October 25, 2011 11:58 am

Ellen McIlwaine

Listen/Download – Ellen McIlwaine – Toe Hold

Listen/Download – Ellen McIlwaine – Up From the Skies

Greetings all.

I was wandering (not aimlessly) through the vast expanse of digimatized music looking for something to tickle my fancy and after picking out a few particularly tasty things and setting them aside for the full blogging treatment, I tripped over something very cool indeed.

Ellen McIlwaine is another one of those artists that I read about long before I heard any of her music.

I used to see her early records (including the album she recorded with her first band, Fear Itself) were perennials on crate diggers ‘finds’ lists, and then back in the 90s I picked up a compilation of her Polydor recordings.

What that collection revealed was a very talented and multi-faceted performer.

McIlwaine, who spent her early years in Japan (her family were missionaries) found her way to New York in the mid-60s where she shared stages with a wide variety of blues and folk performers.

Like many of her contemporaries, she was less interested in being shoehorned into a single genre, instead choosing to weave her own mixture of blues, rock, jazz, soul and folk/world sounds.

The two tracks I bring you today come from her first solo album, 1972’s ‘Honky Tonk Angel’, one side of which was recorded live at the Bitter End in NYC.

The first – her cover of the Isaac Hayes/David Porter* classic ‘Toe Hold’ is a great example of how a largely acoustic band can still manage to be funky (thanks in large part to McIlwaine’s guitar playing).

McIlwaine is also a particularly talented and interesting singer who manages to kind of sail all over the map without ever losing her way. While I was digging for information about the record I happened upon one of Robert Christgau’s old Consumer Guide reviews of this album where he makes the point that while at first impression her vocals might seem ‘overambitious’ she manages to succeed by virtue of the power of her instrument.

I’ve never been a big fan of ‘oversingers’ but I have to agree with the old sage that unlike so many others (especially in these times where vocal acrobatics seem to be the go to substitute for soul), McIlwaine has the wherewithal, balancing talent with taste, to stay just inside the lines.

The second track is a particularly groovy cover of the Jimi Hendrix Experience track ‘Up From the Skies’. It always bugs me that so many people seem to forget that Jimi had a soulful side. McIlwaine’s treatment of ‘Up From the Skies’ taps into – and expands on – that sound.

If you can find either of her first two solo albums (or the CD comp that collects them) grab them. Her later stuff moves further into an electric/rock sound but is still pretty cool.

She still records and performs today, and her recent stuff is particularly interesting, mixing her guitar with tabla and harmonium (dig her cover of ‘Take me To the River’).

I hope you dig the tunes, and I’ll be back on Friday with something cool.

Peace

Larry

* Recorded by Johnnie Taylor, Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave among others

Also, make sure that you check out the POAC link below (click on the logo). It’s a fantastic organization that provides services to our local autism community, with education and recreational events, and any contribution you could make would be greatly appreciated.

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, October 20, 2011 11:43 am

Freddy King

Listen/Download – Freddy King – San-Ho-Zay

Greetings all.

The end of yet another week has arrived which means it’s time for me to remind you all that the Funky16Corners Radio Show will be back pulsing through the airwaves of the interwebs this Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio with the finest in funk, soul, jazz and rare groove all engineered to keep your ears wiggling and your feet sliding across the floor. If you can’t make the soiree, fall by this very blog on Saturday to pick up the show in easy to use MP3 form to be listened to at your leisure.

I come to you today to tell you that Freddy King was a mighty man.

Nine feet tall, hands like country hams, feet like canal boats and a high, shiny conk that outshone the sun whenever he picked up his tiny guitar.

Of course none of that is true, but were this a just world Freddy King would stand astride the world of the guitar the same way Paul Bunyan towered over any run of the mill forest.

He was a master of the guitar, but not in any of the teenage wet dream virtuoso way of so many of those he influenced.

Freddy King made it look easy.

I have to thank my buddy the Bluesman, who lo these many years ago hit me up with a handful of cassettes (remember those?) of cats like Slim Harpo, Albert King and of course Freddy, all of which helped me lock into the blues, at least enough so that I could proceed on my own.

The thing I remember most, especially with Freddy and Albert (no relation) is how much of the UK rock ‘masters’ I realized had appropriated their sounds and styles. Had either of these gents succumbed to a childhood illness old Slowhand would still be mopping up a chip shop somewhere instead of rolling around naked in piles of hundred pound notes.

That said, I don’t dig out my Bluesbreakers albums much these days, but I do find myself dialing up Freddy King on the old iPod, digging the way the power of his guitar solos rise up and transcend the pops and crackles of the 45s they were recorded from.

As I mentioned a few weeks back, I pick up JBs 45s wherever I find them, and the same goes for Freddy King. While some of his rarer discs have evaded me, I have all the bigguns, and they don’t get any bigger than the mighty ‘San-Ho-Zay’.

He laid down today’s selection for the good folks at Federal in Nineteen and Sixty One, and though he barely hit the pop charts, ‘San-Ho-Zay’ was a Top 5 R&B hit. It wasn’t his biggest (the influential ‘Hideaway’ would hit Top 5 R&B and Top 40 Pop that same year) but it’s among his boldest, led by his axe in a way that guitar instros just don’t seem to be capable of anymore.

Interestingly, ‘San-Ho-Zay’ might also ring a bell because it was, how do they say, borrowed from a couple of New Orleans cats (see Dan Phillips great article on the history of the tune at the mighty Home of the Groove blog).

It’s a killer record and a great start to the weekend.

I hope you dig it,and I’ll be back on Monday.

Peace

Larry

Also, make sure that you check out the POAC link below (click on the logo). It’s a fantastic organization that provides services to our local autism community, with education and recreational events, and any contribution you could make would be greatly appreciated.

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 (1)

By Larry, September 20, 2011 12:10 pm

T-Bone Walker

Listen/Download – T-Bone Walker – She’s a Hit

Greetings all.

Here we all are, burrowed deep inside the week, so far in fact that we can neither turn around nor be entirely sure we’ll find our way out.

What better time for some gritty Texas blues with soul?

The name T-Bone Walker should be a familiar one, by which I am not suggesting that you do know who he is, but rather that you should, on account of he is justly legendary in the lineage of the electric blues.

Born in 1910 (as Aaron Thibeaux Walker in Linden, TX) he made his first record in 1929 for Columbia, billed as ‘Oak Cliff T-Bone’.

It was in the early 1940s, after spending the previous 15 or so years as a working musician (crossing paths with both Blind Lemon Jefferson and Charlie Christian) , and experimenting with electric guitars that T-Bone returned to wax and, in the words of the great philosophers, blew that shit wide open.

The T-Bone Walker of the 40s and 50s was in many ways the very model of the modern blues guitarist (though his sound was much more sophisticated than that, incorporating R&B and jazz) , that being a singing soloist. Walker wrote and recorded the original of one of the genre’s greatest classics, ‘Stormy Monday’, as well as groundbreaking instrumentals like ‘T-Bone Shuffle’. One of the first great lead guitar soloists, Walker was also a showman supreme, introducing sounds and stage moves that would emerge years later in the repertoire of none other than Chuck Berry, and via osmosis, one James Marshall Hendrix.

That said, by the 1960s, T-Bone was in the very same boat of many of the players of his era that being one full of holes and in immediate danger of sinking into the unforgiving brine of obscurity.

We’ve addressed the issue of blues performers stirring some soul and funk into their cauldrons, and T-Bone Walker was no exception.

By the mid-60s he had intersected with Huey P Meaux, and recorded at least an album’s worth of material, and two singles for the Crazy Cajun’s Jetstream label.

The tune I bring you today, ‘She’s a Hit’ (written by Meaux) was released in 1966 and sees Walker with his feet still planted firmly in the blues, yet managing to soul things up just enough. The song wouldn’t sound out of place coming out of Doug Sahm’s mouth at around the same time, and it manages to give T-Bone a little of the 1966 appeal without tossing out his past like so much moldy bread.

The flip, ‘T-Bone’s Back’ is a much more conventional blues shuffle.

I hope you dig the sounds, and if you have a taste for the blues, and don’t know T-Bone’s classic material, get yourself out and find some, as I can assure you that you will not regret it.

See you on Friday.

Peace

Larry

Also, make sure that you check out the POAC link below (click on the logo). It’s a fantastic organization that provides services to our local autism community, with education and recreational events, and any contribution you could make would be greatly appreciated.

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.