Funky16Corners

The Nat Turner Rebellion – Tribute To a Slave

By Larry, August 26, 2012 3:01 pm

Major Harris

~~Listen/Download The Nat Turner Rebellion – Tribute To a Slave~~

Greetings all

It’s good to be back in the saddle here at the Corners.

The fam and I spent the week on vacation, half of which saw yours truly sick enough to go to the doctor.

Fortunately I made a snappy comeback and we managed to have to some fun, and I even got in a very fruitful dig in on the way home (digimatizing in the background as I write this).

I hope the new week finds you all well, and that you’re ready for something heavy from my Philly crates.

Every once in a while (though not so much anymore) you stumble upon a very groovy 45 with a name conjures up images of “one-off”-ness, i.e. the single recorded effort of a groovy but obscure/lost band/artist.

The first time I found a disc by the Nat Turner Rebellion, I instantly thought this was the case.

The record in question – ‘Tribute To a Slave’ on the Delvaliant label – popped up while I was excavating the hinterlands of the Pennsylvania Dutch Country. It looked cool, sounded even cooler and took a place of pride in my Philly crates.

That was more than ten years ago.

Over the course of the next few years, I found two more 45s by the group on two more labels (Philly Groove and Philly Soulville), and started to recognize some familiar names on the labels.

The fist of these was Major Harris (the group is sometimes listed at the Nat Turner Rebellion featuring Major Harris), a singer that would have a huge hit in 1975 with’Love Won’t Let Me Wait’.

The other was Joe Jefferson, Philly area songwriter/producer/label honcho (he ran the Del-Val imprint).

As it turns out, Major Harris and Joe Jefferson were in fact brothers, and cousins of MFSB guitarist Norman Harris (who produced and co-wrote at least one of their 45s).

It took me a while to reconcile the vocalist on the Nat Turner Rebellion sides with the singer of ‘Love Won’t Let Me Wait’.

Where the latter is the ne plus ultra of mid-70s, late night, bedroom soul, the Nat Turner Rebellion sides are funky, and sometimes militant (the group name having its own racial/political meaning), sounding like the product of an especially hip Blaxploitation soundtrack.

The cut I bring you today, ‘Tribute To a Slave’ is a tiny bit more subdued than the flip (the very cool ‘Plastic People’ which can be heard in Funky16Corners Radio V.1 – Funky Philadelphia) but the vocal interplay in the group, in the Temptations stylee, is outstanding, as is the guitar/electric sitar riff running through the record.

The lyrics are a tribute (natch…) to the group’s namesake, calling out to him in the racial climate of the early 70s, closing with the repeated chant of ‘We ain’t slaves no more!’.

The production is first-rate, and I’m more than a little surprised that the group – especially with this record – didn’t make more of a splash.

Since Major Harris left to join the Delfonics in 1971, the assumption is that most of the NTR tracks predate that departure.

There are at least four different 45s on three different labels, and rumors of others as well.

If anyone has any info on the other members of the group, please drop me a line.

I hope you dig the track, and I’ll see you later.

Keep the faith

Larry

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