Mr. Willie Tee

Listen/Download – Willie Tee – Sweet Thing

Greetings all.
I hope that the middle of the week find you all well, especially those of you within driving distance of the Big Apple. I’ll be spinning tonight (Wednesday 3/10) at Master Groove @Forbidden City, and it’d be great to meet up with some more of you good people. I have a very special, downtempo Mod Soul set line up, which I think you’ll dig. The beer will be cold, the food is excellent, and of course the vinyl (spinning at 45RPM) will be worth the trip. I hope to see you there.

A few weeks back, when I dropped the Northern Soul mix, I made mention of the fact that one of the best records in that mix (the Four Larks ‘Groovin’ at the Go Go’), which was a long time white whale of mine eventually made it’s way into my crates via a very cool, and extremely generous reader who found a mint copy of the record and sent it to me. Today’s selection arrived at the Funky16Corners record vault in much the same way.
Late last year, my man Tarik (who’ll also be spinning tonight at Botanica alongside the mighty Mr. Finewine) connected with me via the interwebs to tell me about some digging he’d been doing down in New Orleans. Naturally I was jealous, but also glad to hear that someone was excavating vinyl in the Crescent City. Not long after we’d chatted, a package arrived in the mail, and in addition to some cool stuff for the little Corners, Tarik sent me some very cool 45s, my favorite of which is today’s selection.
If you’re a fan of New Orleans soul and funk, the name Willie Tee (nee Turbinton) ought to be a familiar one. In addition to mid-60s records under his own name for NOLA and Atlantic (1965s ‘Walking Up a One Way Street’ is a big fave with the soulies), Willie went on to form the Gaturs* with his brother Earl, and made some of the best instrumental funk 45s to come out of New Orleans in the early 70s. He was also an accomplished jazz musician.
In the years before and after the Gaturs, Tee made a number of excellent records for a variety of local (Hot Line, Bonatemp, Gatur) and national (Atco, UA, Capitol) labels, up until his untimely passing in 2007.
Today’s selection, ‘Sweet Thing’ was released on the Gatur label in 1973. It’s one of Willie Tee’s funkiest outings, with a real, slick uptown sound that sounds like it could have been pulled from a blaxploitation soundtrack. Not only do you get Willie’s fine vocals and funky electric piano, but there are layers of wah-wah guitar and classy strings. I also dig the mix of drum set and hand drums. The last time I dropped this at the Asbury Park 45 Sessions it had a couple of the other DJs running up to the turntables to see what it was.
Yet another great funk 45 from the Big Easy.
I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back on Friday

Peace

Larry

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3 Responses to “Willie Tee – Sweet Thing”

1. alejandro says:

   March 9, 2010 at 8:35 pm

   A lot more polished than what I was used to, borderline Shaft-esque! Very cool none the less. Although I prefer some of his other outings, I really like the keyboard parts on this one. Thanks Larry, enlightening the masses as usual.

2. Jeff says:

   March 14, 2010 at 11:01 pm

   I dig! Thanks, man.

3. plit says:

   March 19, 2010 at 8:42 pm

   Tune!