Mason & Dixon – Soul Power
Mason and Dixon
Listen/Download – Mason and Dixon – Soul Power MP3
Greetings all.
The track I bring you today is something I picked up while I was out digging on the strength of the song, that being a cover of Derek Martin’s ‘Soul Power’.
I had never heard of Mason and Dixon before, and there’s precious little information out there about them.
Their names were Bobby Mason and Tony Dixon, and they appear to have fronted a showband that was based in and popular around New England from the late 60s into the late 70s.
The recorded an album for Tower in 1969 and then singles for Buttercup and Metronome in the early 70s.
The Buttercup connection is the most interesting.
The label was owned by Teddy Randazzo, and was relatively short-lived, releasing only five singles between 1970 and 1971, two by Mason and Dixon, one by Sheila Anthony, and two by Derek Martin.
Martin’s Buttercup 45, ‘The Moving Hands of Time’ is a fantastic, moody piece of psych/soul, which I will bring to you if I ever get my hands on a clean copy.
I’ll assume that Mason and Dixon got their hands on ‘Soul Power’ (also written by Randazzo) because of the label’s connection to Martin, who had recorded the song for the Detroit label Tuba, and then had it picked up by Volt in 1967.
The Mason and Dixon version is very cool indeed, with funky bass, horns and a great dual vocal by the singers.
As far as I can tell none of their stuff met with any national success, with the flipside of this 45 (a medley of MacArthur Park and I Don’t Want To Cry) charting at a single station in Missouri.
It’s a groovy 45, and if anyone has any more info about the band, please drop me aline in the comments.
Until next week
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Keep the faith
Larry
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Themocracy
I hope that parliament’s appreciate the nod to their great hit I just want to testify and how ironic is it that to Northern soul singers have the name Mason and Dixon align they were afraid to cross
I hope that the parliaments appreciate the nod to the great hit I just want to testify and how ironic is it that 2 Northern soul singers were born with the name Mason and Dixon a line they weren’t afraid to cross musically