The JBs – Hot Pants Road
These Are the JBs!
Listen/Download The JBs – Hot Pants Road
Greetings all.
I don’t know about you all, but I would like to hit the middle of the week on the funky tip.
What better way to do that than a visit with out old friends, the mighty JBs.
“The JBs? Again?!” you exclaim.
Sure, sure, sure… the JBs have appeared in this space many times over the years, and I can assure you that thanks in large part to the incredible depth and quality of their discography they will do so, again and again until I have no more JBs to share with you.
They were – as a group and individually – right, tight and out of sight, with extra credit given due to the fact that they were led (much of the time) by the tromboniest of all the funky trombonists, the mighty Fred Wesley, and worked in service of the Minister of the Super Heavy Funk, James Brown, (mentioned on the label of this 45 no less than four times) backing him on all of his records and following his lead on their own.
‘Hot Pants Road’ from 1972 is worth hearing for its own powerful goodness but because it ties in with one of the more interesting footnotes in all of James Brown-dom.
Some years back (five years ago, in fact) I wrote up a very interesting 45 in this space by the AABB (Above Average Black Band), who were in fact a pseudonymous JBs recording at the behest of Soul Brother Number One who had his hot pants in a twist because he felt that the funky Scots in the AWB (Average White Band) (I see what you did there James…) were stealing his game with their hit ‘Pick Up the Pieces’.
He had the JBs go back into the studio and hit back with a tune they called ‘Pick Up the Pieces One By One’ which was for all intents and purposes a very slightly reworked version of the song you see before you today.
‘Hot Pants Road’ is by far the superior version of the tune, at least as far as the funk quotient is concerned with some extra-tight rhythm guitar and a nice organ solo right down the middle (The AABB reworking is a little lighter and disco-fied, which is cool, but not AS cool, if you know what I mean).
This isn’t to say that you oughtn’t pack a copy of each in case of a funky emergency.
I hope you dig it, and I’ll see you all on Friday.
Keep the faith
Larry
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Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).
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
No complaints over here.When you’ve played ’em all you can start again!!