Jackie Lee – The Duck Pts 1&2
His name is Jackie Lee!
Listen/Download – Jackie Lee – The Duck Pt1
Listen/Download – Jackie Lee – The Duck Pt2
Greetings all.
I hope everyone had a most groovy weekend.
I got to spend a lot of quality time with the little Corners, since they have an inexplicably long Presidents Day weekend, which isn’t such a bad thing since any four year old who knows who Abraham Lincoln is OK in my book.
I’ve been ensconsed in the Funky16Corners Record Cave and Blogcasting Nerve Center with my headphones affixed to my head (is there anywhere better?) working on mixes, radio shows and digimatization of raw vinyl (soulful alchemy, as it were).
I was also pulling out Northern Soul vinyl for my guest spot at Spindletop @ Botanica in NYC this Monday night (2/21). It’s a very groovy scene there, and our host Perry Lane trusts me to bring nothing but the best vinyl available (out of my crates anyway) to spin for the people. I guarantee you a soulful good time, should you choose to join us. Things get rolling at 10PM, and I would suggest that you lace up your dancing shoes.
It is in that spirit that I bring you two halves of a great side by one of my favorite West Coast soul stars, the mighty Jackie Lee (aka Earl as in Bob &, as well as a few other choice pseudonyms).
Earl Nelson (his real name) aka Jackie Lee was a prolific recording artist during the late 50s and all through the 60s, hitting the charts with the Hollywood Flames, Bob & Earl and under the Jackie Lee pseudonym. I’m not going to go into it in too much depth, but if you get a sec, pop on over to Soulful Kinda Music and take a gander at his discography, which is likely to give you whiplash.
The tune I bring you today is his biggest hit as Jackie Lee, ‘The Duck’ which was a Top 40 hit in 1965.
What you’re hearing here is the two part version of ‘The Duck’ which appeared on the Mirwood LP of the same name, and the interesting thing is, that as far as I can tell Pt2 never appeared on a 45.
This is a stereo mix (slap on the headphones and pan it back and forth, the separation is pretty drastic) which is bright and really brings the pulsing backing to the fore, with the horns, the vibes and the background singers.
I really dig Pt2 where it almost sounds as if Lee was flying by the seat of his pants and improvising over the backing track. I love where the background singers come in with ‘His name is Jackie Lee!’.
It’s a storming dancer, and indicative of the kind of stuff I’ll be spinning at Spindletop.
I hope you dig it, and I hope to see some of you good people there.
Peace
Larry
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PS Head over to Iron Leg for an unusual cover of one of the greatest records of the 60s.
Themocracy
Hi Larry, Even without the music I’d love reading your posts – I love your style! Thanks, Marie
I’m 99% sure I have The Duck on 7″ with part 2 on the B-side. It’s upstairs somewhere – I’ll have to double check what label it’s on, but I’m guessing it’s a UK release since that’s where I live.
@Marie – Thanks!
@Martin – Let me know what you find. I was working off of a US Mirwood discgraphy, but didn’t even consider.overseas pressings.
No problem; I went and found it and took pics of the A and B sides. It’s on Contempo-Raries; apparently released in 1975, according to this, so it’s a re-release, but it is a US label:
https://www.45cat.com/record/cs9017
And here are the pics:
https://i1126.photobucket.com/albums/l614/Martin_Herron/photo.jpg
https://i1126.photobucket.com/albums/l614/Martin_Herron/photo2.jpg
Sorry, I went a bit punctuation mad in that last sentence of the last post…
Thanks Martin!
Larry,WTF! I’ve just fired this up, Wow! That mix is the coolest cave sound I’ve ever heard, it’s like ahead of our time and this was recorded when? Genius.
I’m late to the party, but I wanted to say thanks all for clearing this all up, and to Larry for the digitisin’!
I’ve had the Mirwood 45 for many years, but only got the Contempo issue w/ Pt 2 (same as Martin’s) recently and I was confused, so I looked it up and yeah – question answered…
I think I prefer the Olympics version, but Jackie’s Pt 2 *is* very cool, and it’s good to have new life breathed into an old fave.