West Coast/East Coast

Listen/Download – George Conedy – El Nino Del Tambor

Listen/Download – Lenox Avenue – Little Drummer Boy

Greetings all.

Today’s Christmas goodies appeared here at Funky16Corners at different times over the last five years (or so). They are both extremely cool versions of a song that I’m not particularly fond of in it’s natural incarnation, so you know they must be good for me to post them.

Dig – if you will – and stay tuned for more on the morrow.

First – George Conedy and ‘El Nino Del Tambor’

>>On the flippity flop, I bring you the result of a happy accident (referring not to the recording of the record, but rather the circumstances by which it landed in my Crate du Hammonde).

The record in question popped up a while back on the sale list of a pal of mine, who’s taste in music I hold in very high regard (howdy Agent 45…).

So, on this list I see a record with the brief (but wholly sufficient description of “funky Hammond version”), directly adjacent to a very reasonable price, which was at the end of a line that began with a Spanish song title (which I didn’t bother to translate). So, I pay my money, some time elapses and the record in question pops through the mail slot at Funky16Corners headquarters. I whipped it on the turntable, and in a few short seconds (about as long as I suspect it will take you) it became apparent that the title was in fact ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ en Espanol.

I have to say that even as a tike, when they still showed the animated special of the same title, this was far from my favorite Christmas tune, certainly not the kind of thing I thought capable of funk-a-fi-zation. Little did I know that sometime in the late 60’s or early 70’s an organist named George Conedylaid down an LP of Christmas tunes for the gospel subsidiary of the Kent label, which I am assuming was the source of the music on this very 45**.

All I have to say is that George took an overly solemn carol and turned it into a slow, funky jam that sounds like it dropped out of the long lost (so long lost as to never have existed..) Santa-sploitation classic “Superfly Santa the Hard Way” aka “Hell Up in the North Pole”, in which our hero, Saint Nicky, wearing a red (of course) velvet suit, and driving a red and white Caddy brings Christmas joy to all the poor kids (and a few of the better looking women) on his route.

I’ve gone a-Googling, and as far as I can tell Mr. Conedy has vanished into the ether.

Well, wherever you be I say Huzzah! And Merry Christmas to you George!<<

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Second – Lenox Avenue and ‘ Little Drummer Boy’ (originally posted 12/09)

>>The tune I bring you today is something I picked up this year (and oddly enough I can’t remember the circumstances of its arrival in my crates). It’s a funky take on that old holiday chestnut ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ by a group called Lenox Avenue. This, their sole 45 was released on Chess in 1970.

Though I haven’t been able to find any info on the group, the names on the label suggest to me that this may in fact be an early incarnation of the group that recorded an album a few years later under the name the Chuck Rainey Coalition (on the Skye label).

Bassist Rainey and his cohorts – including keyboardist Richard Tee – were major hired hands in the New York (and elsewhere, natch) studio scene, showing up on all kinds of records from the late 60s onward.

Lenox Avenue’s take on ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ is taken a slow, but funky pace with some groovy female backing voices. As I mentioned a while back when I posted the equally cool George Conedy version of the tune, this has never been one of my fave Christmas carols, yet when someone injects it with a dose of funk, I really dig it. <<

 

Peace

Larry

 

 

 

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One Response to “F16C Christmas Week Pt3 – Two Little (Funky) Drummer Boys”

1. jb says:

   December 21, 2011 at 10:53 am

   A few years back I snagged the entire George Conedy Christmas album somewhere on the wild Internet frontier. It’s extremely fine, and I’d love to know more about the guy, but as you note, he’s as far gone as it’s possible for anybody to be in the Internet era.