London Fogg – Easy Mover
London Fog(g) and the Continentals
Listen/Download – London Fogg – Easy Mover
Greetings all.
I hope everyone had themselves a groovy weekend and haven’t succumbed to the ungodly heat and humidity.
I thought we had it bad here in Jersey, but it seems our friends in the Midwest are sizzling, so as your physician I recommend that you stay in the air conditioning, pour yourself something cold and restrict yourself to the heat generated by high quality soul and funk in your headphones.
With that in mind, I bring you something cool.
A little while back I indulged my organ 45 jones by finally picking up a copy of London Fogg’s ‘Trippin’ 45. As solid a Hammond junkie as exists, I’d certainly known of the record for years, but had neither scored a copy in the field, nor found one elsewhere at a reasonable price. This time out it appeared on a friend’s set sale list, so I grabbed it.
When it fell through the mail slot I gave ‘Trippin’ a spin, and was happy to see that it was a funky and organ-tastic as I recalled.
Then – as is my wont – I flipped it over and gave the flip a spin, assuming (via the title ‘Easy Mover’) that what I was going to get was a mellow(er) instrumental.
When the needle hit the wax and the grooves started to give up their bounty I was both surprise and pleased to hear not an instrumental but a slow, funky female vocal feature. It was so surprising in fact that I set upon the interwebs to seek out information on the band.
As it turns out, this particular 45 was issued twice, first on the Dayton, Ohio (the band’s hometown) Gold Stars label, and then picked up for national distribution on Imperial. The assemblage –as listed on the label of the first pressing – was London Fog (one “G”, the band) and the Continentals (the singers).
These groups came together during high school in Dayton (unusual in that they were a racially integrated band), and recorded their single in 1969.
The Continentals were Quinn Moorman, Bozie Black, Loretta Reid (lead vocal on ‘Easy Mover’) and John Mortimer. The London Fog were Gary Kaiser (organ), Bud Kraft and Ed Toll (gtr), Vince DiSalvo (dr), Dan Connaughton (bass), Tony Giambrone and Gary Moon (tenor sax), Robert Pennington (trombone) and Mike Riley (alto sax).
‘Easy Mover’ was a regional hit, supposedly selling quite briskly. The song was actually written by Brenda Lee Jones, “Jean” of “Dean and Jean” who recorded a number of 45s from the late 50s through the mid-60s.
I hope you dig the tune and I’ll be back on Wednesday.
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
Themocracy
Very nice find!
Seriously diggin this one… Thanks! … How about the A side?
great find, it has a bit of a classic rock feel to it, definitely would like to check out the other side if possible.
Wow, great one – and apparently pretty rare too. I just went to Gemm Music to find a copy and the cheapest one was $78+. So I will have to be content with this fine rip you so generously have shared. Thank you.