Sam Butera

 

Listen/Download – Sam Butera – Love Bandit

 

Greetings all.

I hope that your world is just as groovy as can be.

I’m coming off a very busy, yet oddly relaxing weekend.

The fam and I managed to hit up a great barbecue where we hung with some very old, end very excellent friends, and I was working on the new annex to the Funky16Corners Blogcasting Nerve Center and Record Vault family of fine interwebs products.

What am I speaking of you ask???

Well, since I’ve been having so much fun doing the weekly Funky16Corners Radio Show over at Viva Radio, and then archiving the shows here at the blog, I got the itch to expand upon the theme.

Initially the thought was to do something like a second, shorter edition of the Funky16Corners Radio Show, to be posted here.

That still may happen, but ultimately I took a different tack, and worked up a show based on the goings on at the other blog in the Funky16Corners family, that being Iron Leg.

Iron Leg – if you haven’t been there – is where I rap about music from the same general time period that I cover here (60s/70s), but the concentration is not on funk and soul, but rather pop and rock, covering garage punk, psychedelia, sunshine pop and the like.

I know that many of the folks that fall by Funky16Corners will not necessarily find those sounds to their liking, but I also know that a lot of you are like me, i.e. musically omnivorous – where all good music is worth hearing – and will dig at least some of what I post at Iron Leg.

That said, the Iron Leg Radio Show will be posted once a month (for now), and since it is not bound by the same time constraints as the Funky16Corners show, will generally in and around 90 minutes (though this inaugural episode runs over two hours).

If this sounds like a bag you might find yourself in, motor on over to Iron Leg to check out the playlist, and if that tickles your fancy, pull down the ones and zeros and give it a listen.

I think you’ll dig it.

Now, here at Funky16Corners, I figured I’d open things up this week with something interesting, so adjust your reading glasses and your earholes and get yourself some Sam Butera.

I’ve covered the late, great Mr. Butera here a number of times, mainly in his capacity as the bandleader for the equally late, also great Louis Prima.

Though Prima and Butera are mainly known for a very swinging variety of jump jazz (the very root of rock and roll), as the years wore on, and stylistic relevance outpaced their old sound, Prima and the Witnesses – the backing band usually billed as ‘Sam Butera and …’ – recorded some funky stuff, usually for Prima’s custom label.

Though billed as ‘Love Bandit’, what you’re actually hearing here is a funky reworking of Johnny Guitar Watson’s R&B classic ‘Gangster of Love’ (though the Cadets also recorded the song in 1956 with the ‘Love Bandit’ title).

Interestingly, though Butera and the Cadets before him used the same basic set of lyrics as Watson, neither one uses his tune.

Butera’s version takes the song at a funky, sock soul pace and Sam plays up the humorous aspect of the lyrics with a band that I assume has to be the Witnesses and some female backing singers.

The arranger Maxwell Davis and the producer Bill Lazerus both spent a lot of years working at Modern Records on records by folks like Lowell Fulsom and BB King.

I have no hard data on when this was released, but I have seen a discography for the Coliseum label – which features some jazz artists like Count Basie and others that look like studio orchestras covering pop hits – with material that would seem to place this in the range of 1966 or 1967. This is only an educated guess, so if any of you good folks know for sure, and I’m wrong, please let me know.

Anyhoo, I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back on Wednesday with something cool.

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 recr 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.

 

One Response to “Sam Butera – Love Bandit”

1. Alan says:

   June 7, 2019 at 2:06 pm

   I found an old hard disk of mine recently and on it was this gem. I downloaded it here a long time ago when the internet was a different place and music had to be incredibly compressed. I hit google to see if there was a better quality version out there (there isn’t…) and up popped the blog. I can’t believe you’re still going. So, thank you for your efforts, kudos for your longevity and, if you’ve still got the original WAV, any chance of a re-up in better than 128kbps quality?