Dyke and the Blazers – Funky Broadway Pt1
Dyke and the Blazers
Listen/Download Dyke and the Blazers – Funky Broadway Pt1
Greetings all.
I should remind you that the Funky16Corners Radio Show takes to the airwaves of the interwebs this and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio. If you can’t make it at airtime you can always come by the blog and grab yourself a downloadable MP3 of the show (and more than 100 archived episodes) over the weekend.
Also, it’s looking like the 2012 Funky16Corners Pledge Drive/Allnighter will lift off on 6/18, so get your ears all oiled up and ready!
I was rooting around in the crates a while back in search of delicious, musical truffles when what should I happen upon but the record you see before you today.
It was one of those occasions when I look at what most would consider a very basic, meat and potatoes funk/soul 45 and marvel at the fact that in more than seven years of blogging in this space, that it has never been featured.
Whether this is due more to the fact that it is so common, i.e. ignored passively, or because the innate record snob in me thought it beneath me (or the blog, or whatever) and thus taken for granted, I cannot say.
It is a fact that I own ever single 45 ever recorded by Dyke and the Blazers (excepting of course the ultra-rare original issue of this very song on the Artco label).
It is also a fact that from the release of that 45 in 1967, Arlester ‘Dyke’ Christian and band recorded several great 45s all of a remarkably consistent quality.
That ‘Funky Broadway’ was hugely influential – even if the Wicked Pickett eclipsed Dyke et al, riding the song all the way to Number One where the Blazers stalled in the midst of the Top 20 – bears mentioning, since it was recorded over and over (and over) again by singers, instrumentalists (especially organists) and was one of (if not THE) first ‘Funky’ tunes (in name) to hit the charts in a big way.
‘Funky Broadway’, in the fashion of so many great funk records – especially those by James Brown – was in essence a groove dug deep. What you get over the course of two and a half minutes (part one, only) is a greasy, lo-fi vamp with prominent organ comping, rudimentary(but heavy) bass and drums and horns that are right, tight and out of sight, all basically laying the foundation for Dyke and his raspy voice.
The history of the “band” is decidedly convoluted, but the capsule history is that Dyke came out of Buffalo, found his way to Phoenix, AZ with a touring band, where he recorded ‘Funky Broadway’ for Artco, which was then picked up by Original Sound. Over the course of the next few years Dyke and the Blazers ended up as Dyke and a Bunch of LA Studio Heads, with which he stayed in the R&B Top 40 (and hovered in and around the Pop Hot 100) well into 1970, his career eventually hitting a wall when he was shot dead on the streets of Phoenix in the Spring of 1971.
I don’t think I’d be telling tales out of school if I were to to state that Dyke and the Blazers are both underplayed (on what’s left of radio and on turntables in the clurrrrb) and underappreciated (everywhere else).
Their unfortunately brief catalog contains several prime examples of heat, including ‘Let a Woman Be a Woman Let a Man Be a Man’ and ‘We Got More Soul’ and despite the revolving cast of backing musicians, Dyke’s voice maintained a consistency over the few years they were recording.
‘Funky Broadway’ is among his best.
I hope you dig, and I’ll be back on Monday.
Keep the faith
Larry
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Themocracy
Have no fear … in Columbus, OH we play something from Dyke and the Blazers EVERY MONTH. Hipsters shake and shimmy and even the BBoys and BGirls do their thing on the floor. Always a crowd pleaser and a head turner at our monthly shindig we call FUNKDEFY. Even though this is the first time I’ve commented here, I dig all your posts. Keep the faith … Cheers!
Dyke & The Blazers work our here in Western Mass. One of my all time faves, I love the whole catalog.
After finding one Dyke & the Blazers 45 in my early days of collecting I never passed up any others. Not a flop in the bunch.