Nathaniel Mayer (and his hay-er…)

Listen/Download Nathaniel Mayer and the Fabulous Twilights – Village Of Love

Greetings all

The close of another week is at hand, and so then is the Funky16Corners Radio Show, which hits the airwaves of the interwebs this and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio.

If you cannot join us at airtime, you can always keep up with the soul by subscribing to the show as a podcast in iTunes, or by grabbing an MP3 here at the blog.

I know I already posted the Valentines Day mix, but when I sat down to hammer out a few future blog posts, I happened upon something in the on deck circle that I knew I had to post, even if some of you will be getting it the day after the holiday.

I spend a lot of time working my way through the old Billboard R&B charts, and always make my way into the right margin to see if a given record ever made its way into the pop charts. This is always an interesting indicator of how much an artist managed to crossover (if at all). The absence of a pop chart position – especially in the listing for an artist that was very popular in the R&B charts – is also important evidence of the divide that often existed between black and white audiences.

I’m always surprised to find out that artists that I would have assumed were one-hit wonders had substantial chart runs on the R&B side of things.

As someone who spent a lot of time as a kid listening to oldies radio, I am shocked by how many times I find a record that did crossover into the Pop Top 40 that never made it onto oldies playlists.

Such is the case with ‘Village of Love’* by Nathaniel Mayer and the Fabulous Twilights, which was an R&B Top 20 hit (grazing the Pop Top 20) in 1962.

Mayer’s music didn’t pop up on my radar until he made a comeback in the early 2000s on labels like Fat Possum (where he recorded and toured with the Black Keys) and Norton.

The Detroit-born Mayer recorded for the legendary Fortune label from 1961 to 1966 (hitting only once with ‘Village of Love’) and then all but disappeared (with the exception of one 45 in the early 80s) until 2004. His Fortune sides – like ‘I Had a Dream’ and ‘From Now On’ – are as raw and dynamic as they are rare and expensive (very…).

‘Village of Love’ is one of those great records that bridge the gap between R&B/doowop vocal harmony and the early years of soul. The instrumental and vocal backing have a foot planted firmly in the 1950s, but Mayer’s wailing pulls the whole thing into the 60s. I especially dig the part at about 55 seconds in where the guitar starts to solo and the drums and handclaps are bouncing around in the reverb.

It’s the kind of record that played at the appropriate volume verily compels you to get off your ass and move out onto the dance floor.

Sadly, Nathaniel Mayer only managed to squeeze in a few comeback years before being felled by a series of strokes in 2008.

You can find his best stuff, old and newer on iTunes.

I hope you all dig the record, and I’ll see you on Monday.

Keep the faith

Larry

 

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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived!

The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock.

They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US).

Click here to go to the ordering page.
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).

 

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.