Robert Parker

Listen/Download – Robert Parker – Get Ta Steppin’ MP3

Greetings all.

The end of the week is nigh, and so then is the Funky16Corners Radio Show, which arrives each and every Friday with the best in soul, funk, jazz and rare groove, all on original vinyl. You should subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, listen on your mobile device via the TuneIn and Stitcher apps, check it out on Mixcloud, or grab yourself an MP3 right here at Funky16Corners.com

The record I bring you today is surely known to aficionados of New Orleans music, especially its funky side, but to precious few others.

To most people that know Robert Parker’s music, that knowledge begins and ends with ‘Barefootin’, not only Parker’s biggest hit, but one of the biggest hits to ever come out of New Orleans, having become a perennial on oldies stations, a favorite of the soulies as well as having been covered a bunch of times, and even having been used as a commercial jingle.

Parker recorded a grip of great stuff for the NOLA label in the mid-60s (including the excellent ‘Barefootin’ LP), but never really hit the charts after 1967, even though he continued to record for SSS Intl and eventually (from 1974-1977) Island records.

‘Get Ta Steppin’ was released on Island in 1974, and it is as good a slice of 1970s New Orleans funk as you are likely to find.

Written by Parker, and produced and arranged by Wardell Quezerge, ‘Get Ta Steppin’ has an impossibly heavy bass line and twangy guitar (possibly Meters George Porter Jr and Leon Nocentelli) and funky drums. Parker himself is in rare form, and the song is so catchy, so funky, that it seems a crime of sorts that it wasn’t a hit. As far as I can tell it didn’t get any traction in the R&B or Pop charts, even regionally.

After his brief run with Island, Parker seems to have (aside from a fake “live” set on a compilation) ceased recording entirely.

This is – as is the case with so many great New Orleans singers – a huge drag.

Fortunately for you good folks, ‘Get Ta Steppin’ is not a terribly well known or expensive 45, so get yourself a copy, drop the needle, turn up the bass and watch the dancers get down.

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

Keep the faith

Larry

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PS Head over to Iron Leg too.