The Premiers – Funky Monkey
Listen/Download – Premiers – Funky Monkey
Greetings all.
The new week is here, and odd as it may seem, I face it with guarded optimism.
Despite the nasty surprise that our local Vietnamese restaurant (home of sublime banh mi and pho) had closed – which we discovered as we drove up to the front door – things are on an uptick of sorts.
My health issues seem to have temporarily leveled off, and next week will see the arrival of the 2010 Funky16Corners Blog Pledge Drive, for which I am cooking up something very groovy indeed. I won’t spill the beans quite yet, but I assure you that something cool is afoot in the land of the funky corners.
The tune I bring you today is a little something I picked up in a trade with my man DJ Bluewater. He always packs some heat in his sale box, and I am always ready and willing to grab some of it for my crates, whether by exchange of folding money or by barter.
I haven’t been able to find out a whole lot about the Premiers or their song ‘Funky-Monkey’.
The J.O.B. label, named for its founders Joe Brown and James Burke Oden was a Chicago blues label that issued its first platter in 1949, a side by St. Louis Jimmy (aka James Burke Oden). Between 1949 and 1974, J.O.B. released dozens of sides by a variety of artists including Snooky Pryor, Sax Kari, Willie Cobbs and a cat named Eddie ‘Mr Kleen’ Clark.
Sometime around 1970, Clark wrote, produced and arranged the Premiers’ ‘Funky-Monkey’ for J.O.B.
This was the only 45 that the group would record for the label.
Interestingly enough, ‘Funky-Monkey’ was also issued on the Mississippi-based Odex label.
‘Funky-Monkey’ – which gets started with some tight, snappy drums – includes a sly, repeated guitar line, climbing bass, horns and of course, lots of (I’m assuming) human-produced, monkey sound effects. The Premiers don’t overdo it with the monkeyshines, but there is just enough to push ‘Funky-Monkey’ up against the novelty side of things.
This is not to say that the record is not funky, which it most certainly is, and there were tons of similarly adorned sides out there in the classic funk era. I mean honestly, line this up against the beginning of the Meters’ ‘Chicken Strut’ and it ends up looking like the very model of subtlety.
What you end up with is a nice little slice of urban funk, more than competently performed and altogether groovy.
I haven’t been able to ascertain if these Premiers (and there were several) went on to record anything else.
I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll be back on Wednesday.
Peace
Larry
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Themocracy
Dear Larry
I’ve enjoyed your blog for several years, thanks for all your hard work to share the music and also to share your knowledge and enthusiasm. Really appreciate your groove!!!
Thalis
Larry, check this out, kicks ass!
Larry, FYI, the ODEX 45 is a different version of the song!
More vocals, almost as if the ODEX version was originally thought of as an “A” side and the J.O.B. version a “B” side to a single that never happened….
Colby
I’ll have to look for that now!
L