Roy Head – Driving Wheel

By , October 1, 2017 9:15 am

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Roy Head

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Listen/Download – Roy Head – Driving Wheel MP3

Greetings all.

The tune I bring you today is from what is by far the funkiest album by one of the great white R&B/soul singers of the classic era.

Roy Head, formerly of the Traits was a bona fide Texas legend. Posessed of a great, raspy voice and excellent taste in material, Head had his first hit in 1965 with ‘Treat Her Right’ (which became a standard) for Back Beat and even though he didn’t cozy up to the charts much more after that, continued recording quality stuff into the 1980s.

The tune I bring you today hails from the excellent 1970 LP ‘Same People’, which contains a number of amazing tracks (including covers of the Sir Douglas Quintet’s ‘She’s About a Mover’ and Dyke and the Blazers’ ‘Let a Woman Be a Woman’).

The original version of ‘Driving Wheel’ was recorded in 1936 by Roosevelt Sykes (aka The Honeydripper) and went on to become a blues standard, with Little Junior Parker taking it into the R&B Top 5 in 1961 and Head himself recording it for Back Beat in 1966.

Here Head lays into the tune in a funky way, with blazing horns and a chugging Hammond organ laying the foundation underneath.

If you can get your hands on a copy of the album (which I sought after and increasingly scarce) do so with a quickness. You will not be disappointed.

I will surely post other tracks from it in this space in the future.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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One Response to “Roy Head – Driving Wheel”

  1. Jim Grathwohl says:

    Good call on this one, Larry. I dig the well recorded bottom. If the rest is as good as you say, this album sounds like a lost gem.

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