Barbara Lynn – Club A Go Go
Miss Barbara Lynn
Listen/Download – Barbara Lynn – Club A Go Go
Greetings all.
I hope everyone had themselves a very groovy holiday weekend.
The weather, in a wholly unexpected turn of events, has been spectacular. I say unexpected, since the preceding weeks were completely saturated in rainfall, to a depressing extent.
Fortunately for all, the sun finally appeared, the temperature has risen and summer is at last upon us.
Here in the Funky16Corners Blogcasting Nerve Center and Record Vault, preparations continue apace for this year’s Pledge Drive, with mixes arriving from some of my (and your) favorite selectors, and a couple of good ones percolating on my own turntables. We’ve got a really nice stylistic range in this year’s mixes. I think you’ll dig the results, so stay tuned.
The tune I bring you today is one of my favorite cuts by one of the great names in Texas soul, and someone I consider to be an underrated (or at least under-celebrated) performer, Miss Barbara Lynn.
Barbara Lynn (born Barbara Lynn Ozen in Beaumont, TX in 1942) is that rarest of birds (as least as far as 60s soul is concerned) a woman with a guitar.
With a career that spans 50 years (she had her first hit, ‘You’ll Lose a Good Thing’ in 1962), Lynn laid down some spectacularly good soul records for labels like Jamie, Tribe, Atlantic and Jetstream.
Lynn, in addition to the seeming novelty of her guitar, has a wonderful, expressive voice, as fitting on ballads like ‘You’ll Lose a Good Thing’ and powerful upbeat numbers like the sought after (and much covered) dance floor fave, ‘I’m a Good Woman’.
Following her stretch with Jamie records, Lynn recorded four singles for Huey P Meaux’s Tribe label in 1966 and 1967, all of them excellent.
Today’s selection ‘Club A Go Go’ was her last 45 for Tribe in 1967.
Paired with the Joe Tex tune ‘Watch the One (That Brings the Bad News)’, ‘Club a Go Go’ is a swinging ‘go out and hit the dance floor’ number, with a call to ‘Meet me on down to Shorty’s club!’. The tune features some blazing horns, great tandem bass and piano, and a guitar solo that sounds like it was lifted from any half-dozen New Orleans 45s from the same period.
As Miss Lynn says repeatedly, ‘You got to have soul’.
Barbara Lynn would move to Atlantic (1967-1973) where she would record classics like ‘You’re Losing Me’* and eventually to Jetstream, where she would record the excellent (and rare, and expensive) ‘Movin’ On a Groove’.
She left music for a while to raise her family, but eventually came out of retirement, and is back playing and recording today.
Though it would appear that Barbara Lynn’s Atlantic recordings are out of print on CD, there are a number of releases of her Jamie material, and a great comp pairing her and Jean Knight and the recordings they both made for the Tribe and Jetstream labels.
I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll be back on Friday.
Peace
Larry
* A song that bears an uncanny resemblance to Al Kent’s Detroit Northern classic ‘You’ve Got To Pay the Price’
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
Themocracy
Great stuff. I heard she played Ponderosa Stomp and still has it.
Huey Meaux died about a month ago and I still haven’t seen a good recap of his storied career. Wiki said that he did some prison time in the 90’s for underage porn so that may have something to do with it….
I saw Barbara Lynn four years ago. She sounded great and looked great.
@Porky – That’s the big problem with Meaux. Huge musical presence but that conviction taints any discussion of his work.
@Jeff – Where’d you see her?
She played a rockabilly festival at our local casino.