Lou Johnson

 

Greetings all.

I hope you all have your Hammond groove pants on.

I first heard Ross Carnegie’s ‘Cool Dad’ (like so many other organ classics) on the legendary ‘Vital Organs’ comp, though it took me something like 15 years before I got around to filing a copy of the OG 45.

Carnegie was a pianist/organist working out of the New York area who is best known (to record collectors, anyway) for a series of self-released 45s he put out between the mid-60s and the late 70s.

‘Cool Dad’ , which I haven’t been able to date exactly, but I’d be willing to bet came out sometime in the mid-to-late 60s, is a hard-charging soul groover, with some especially heavy (and well recorded) drums, pulsing bass, tastefully applied horns, and – of course – Mr Carnegie’s wailing Hammond organ.

The flipside ‘Win. Lose or Draw’ is slightly ‘cooler’, featuring a reapeated figure delivered by the flute and trumpet in unison, before the flute steps out front to solo, followed of course by the Hammond.

Though I’ve seen this 45 billed as funk (I suspect the drums have something to do with that), it really hews closer to classic-era Hammond soul jazz, like Wild Bill Davis’s ‘Breaking Out’ and Hank Marr’s ‘White House Party’, which is a groovy thing since those are two of the finest platters to emit the sound of the organ.

As I mentioned when I wrote up his later ‘Open Up Your Mind’ 45 back in 2010, Carnegie worked as a bandleader,music educator and later became well-known in the area as the pianist in residence at the White Plains location of the Nordstroms department store.

‘Cool Dad’ b/w ‘Win Lose or Draw’ is probably the most expensive of Carnegie’s 45s, running between 40 and 100 bucks, but if you pull down the ones and zeroes and give it a listen, I think you’ll agree that it’s worth every penny.

I hope you dig it, and I’ll see you on Wednesday.

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.