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By Larry, March 30, 2017 11:01 am

Listen/Download – Obie Plenty – Beef Stew MP3

Greetings all.

The end of the week is upon us, and so it’s Funky16Corners Radio Show time again. We come to you each and every Friday with the best in soul, funk, jazz and rare groove, all on original vinyl. You can subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, listen on your mobile device via the TuneIn and Stitcher apps, dig it on Mixcloud, or granb yourself and MP3 right here at Funky16Corners.com

The tune I bring you today is something of a mystery.

]If you drag your ears over here on a regular basis, you know that I dig food songs, and funny songs, and funky songs as well, so when a funny, funky food song rolls along you know I’m going to grab it for my playbox.

Obie Plenty’s ‘Beef Stew’ was released in 1967, and as far as I can tell it ios the only 45 ever to come out under that name (which appears to be a play on the name of the character B.O. Plenty from the Dick Tracy comic strip.

All signs point to ‘Obie Plenty’ being and alias of Harold Thomas of the Masqueraders, who is credited with writing and producing this single.

‘Beef Stew’ is a funky (dig that rolling bass line) novelty, with the singer going back and forth with his Mom about what’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner (beef stew, natch) and complaining about the repetition.

There’s not much substance (certainly not as much as actual beef stew) but the tune is groovy, danceable, and lots of fun, and probably should have been more successful (as far as I can tell it charted briefly at one station in Connecticut before fading away into obscurity).

If anyone knows the true identity of Obie Plenty, please make note in the comments.

I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll see you all next week.

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.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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By Larry, March 28, 2017 12:12 pm

Listen/Download – Clifton White and the Royal Knights – The Warm Up Pt1 MP3

Greetings all.

I haven’t been able to discover much about Clifton White and the Royal Knights, other than that they probably hailed from Louisiana, and recorded for the Goldband subsidiary ANLA in the late 60s and early 70s.

‘The Warm Up’ (released in 1968) has been in my crates for a long, long time, no doubt picked up during one of my periodic New Orleans/Louisiana vinyl dragnets from back in the day.

Not only is ‘The Warm Up’ a great slice of relatively low-fi soul/funk, but it’s worth picking up for the spoken word jive as well.
You get the introductions, including the best of all, when White (I assume) decides to ‘give the drummer some’, at which point he introduces:

‘Leroy, is better known as MOOCHIE!’,

and the back and forth between White and a female singer who exalts the keyboard player,

‘Sweet Daddy Black Keys Foster playing on the white keys tonight!’.

I haven’t been able to find a picture of the band, but I did track down this 1969 clipping from a Beaumont, TX college paper about Clifton White and the Royal Knights playing a party on campus!

There’s some great, hard charging action from the band, and the musicianship has a certain roughness to it, especially the bass and drums (even the lead guitar) which – while not bad – are not exactly tight and slick, giving ‘The Warm Up’ a certain soul/garage feel that I dig.

I hope you dig it, too, and I’ll see you all on Friday.

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.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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By Larry, March 21, 2017 9:29 am

Funky16Corners: Bold Soul Sisters 3

Clydie King – Never Stop Loving You (Minit)
Barbara Acklin – Be By My Side (Brunswick)
Jo Armstead – Stone Good Lover (Giant)
Maxine Brown – You Upset My Soul (Wand)
Betty Harris – I’m Gonna Git Ya (Sansu)
Linda Lyndell – What a Man (Volt)
Bernice Willis – Confidence (Okeh)
Brenda Lee – Proud Mary (Decca)
Delores Hall – W-O-M-A-N (Keymen)
Mary Wells – Don’t Look Back (Jubilee)
Dianne Brooks- Walking On My Mind (TRC)
Ella Fitzgerald – Savoy Truffle (Reprise)
Gloria Jones – Look What You Started (Minit)
Jeanne and the Darlings – It’s Unbelievable (How You Control My Soul) (Volt)
Sari and the Shalimars – You Walked Out On Me Before (Veep)
Funky Sisters – Do It To It (Aurora)
Shirelles – No Sugar Tonight (RCA)
Jean Knight – Helping Man (Stax)
Linda Carr – Discover Me (Capitol)
Bobbettes – Looking For a New Love (Mayhew)
Kim Weston – Danger Heartbreak Dead Ahead (People)
Little Betty Baker – Stop Boy (All Platinum)

Listen/Download – Funky16Corners – F16C: Bold Soul Sisters 3 MP3

Greetings all.

As promised, I bring you the third installment in the Bold Soul Sisters series, the second having run last week and the first, a short eleven years ago.

This mix – while still funky – dials down the funk quotient a bit,, with things taking on a slightly mellower, soulful vibe (also drawing the selections from a slightly wider time period).

There are a lot of very tasty records herein, including a couple of old faves, a few very interesting covers, and hopefully a bunch that you haven’t heard before.

What they all have in common is a deep groove, a 45RPM format, and some of the most righteous soul sisters ever to play the game.

As always, I hope you dig it.

I’ll see you all on Friday.

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.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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By Larry, March 14, 2017 11:48 am

Funky16Corners: Bold Soul Sisters 2

Toby Lark – Shake a Hand (Cotillion)
Faith White – Manhandle (Columbia)
Diane Johnson – Queen Bee (Buluu)
The Loading Zone – No More Tears (RCA)
Odia Coates – Showdown (UA)
Apollas – Seven Days (WB)
Marie Franklin – You Ain’t Changed (Maverick)
Tami Lynn – Mojo Hanna (Cotillion)
Lotti Golden – Sock It To Me Baby/It’s Your Thing (Atlantic)
Otisettes – You’re All I Want (Epic)
Dee Dee Sharpe – You’re Just a Fool In Love (Atco)
Erma Franklin – Gotta Find Me a Lover (Brunswick)
Dottie Cambridge – He’s About a Mover (MGM)
Etta James – Groove Me (Chess)
Judy Clay – Sister Pitiful (Atlantic)
Mary Wells – Soul Train (Jubilee)
Myra Barnes – Super Good Pt1 (King)
Vicki Anderson – I’m Too Tough For Mr Big Stuff (Brownstone)
Ikettes – There Was a Time (UA)
Jackson Sisters – I Believe In Miracles (Prophecy)

Listen/Download – Funky16Corners – F16C: Bold Soul Sisters 2 MP3

Greetings all.

I hope everyone (at least those of you in the northeast) are riding the storm out, whether you’re soaked and windblown (like us here at the Jersey Shore) or buried under the snow like everyone to the north and west of us is.

I have something very special for you this (not so) fine day.

Last week – as has become something of a tradition every March 8th – I reposted the Funky16Corners Bold Soul Sisters mix for International Women’s Day. That mix, first posted back in 2006 is a longtime fave and packed from end to end with funky burners from the ladies.

As I reposted it last week it occurred to me that I ought to put together  sequel, and I set down to gather together the best funk and funky soul stuff that I had gathered in the eleven years since the first mix.

There was soo much groovy stuff, that I decided to to two new mixes (cleverly titled Bold Soul Sisters 2 & 3), one of straight up funk and one with the funk quotient dialed down a bit (but not too far).

I’ll be running Part 2 today, and Part 3 next week.

It is (with three exceptions) an all-45 mix, and aside from a couple of bigger names, I think you’ll find that a lot of this is probably new to you.

So dig in, pull down the ones and zeroes and – of course – get funky.

I’ll see you all on Friday.

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.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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By Larry, March 12, 2017 11:01 am

Listen/Download – Bull and the Matadors – The Funky Judge MP3

Listen/Download – Bull and the Matadors – The Funky Judge (instrumental) MP3

Greetings all.

Time to get the new week rolling with something fun and funky, as well as a taste of that Hammond juice as well.

Before we get started, my new (roughly) monthly show, Testify!, on the WFMU Rock’n’Soul Ichiban Stream debuted today. It’s an intersection of the Funky16Corners and Iron Leg vibes. I archived it over at Iron Leg, so check it out when you get  chance.

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Bull and the Matadors ‘The Funky Judge’ has been since the dawn of the funk 45 collecting era, one of those basic, DNA-level building blocks of your basic funk crate.

It’s a groovy, funny, and relatively easy to score 45 on one of the great Chicago labels.

It has enough punch for the dance floor, and enough of that jive to get people singing along.

‘The Funky Judge’ was a pretty sizable hit, making it into the R&B Top 10 in 1968 and the Pop Hot 100 (higher in a bunch of East Coast and Midwest markets), and got new life when it was reissued as part of the Rhino ‘Beg, Scream and Shout’ boxed set in 1997.

Bull and the Matadors, James Lafayette “Bull” Parks, Milton Hardy, James Otis Love and Robert Holmes hailed from East St Louis, IL and recorded a handful of 45s for Chicago’s Toddlin’ Town label between 1967 and 1969.

Their only other chart success seems to have been centered around Chicago and St Louis.

Naturally, ‘The Funky Judge’ ties into the late 60s ‘Here Come de Judge’ craze, based in a routine by Pigmeat Markham that was made famous when riffed upon by Sammy Davis, Jr on ‘Rowan and Martin’’s Laugh-In’, spawning a whole shitstack of records by all kinds of people, as well as countless high school sophomores wandering the halls repeating ‘Here Come de Judge’ ad nauseum.

The Bull and the Matadors 45 featured a groovy lead vocal with some nice backing vocals, a funky base coat and a wild bit of feedback at the end.
In an extra added attraction, the flipside (also called ‘The Funky Judge’) is a groovy Hammond instro (played by I known not whom).

The other Bull and the Matadors 45s I’ve heard are excellent, though in amuch more conventional (non-novelty) soul vein.

‘The Funky Judge’ was covered (pretty nicely) a few years later by none other than the J Geils Band.

I hope you dig the tracks, and I’ll see you all 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.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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By Larry, March 9, 2017 2:12 pm

Funky16Corners: Hello L.A. Bye Bye Birmingham

Bobbie Gentry – Okalona River Bottom Band (Capitol)
Billy Lee Riley – Mississippi Delta (Mojo)
Artie Christopher – Stoned Soul (Atlantic)
Cher – I Walk On Gilded Splinters (Atco)
Buzz Clifford – Hawg Frog (Dot)
Joe South – Motherless Children (Capitol)
Kin Vassy – Hello LA Bye Bye Birmingham (UNI)
Lonnie Mack – Too Much Trouble (Elektra)
Nat Stuckey – Clean Up Your Own Backyard (RCA)
Roy Head – Don’t Want To Make It Too Funky (In the Beginning) (ABC/Dunhill)
Area Code 615 – Stone Fox Chase (Polydor)
John Randolph Marr – Sarah (WB)
Skip Easterling – Hoochie Coochie Man (Instant)
Tony Joe White – Whompt Out On You (Monument)
Kelly Gordon – If That Don’t Get It It Ain’t There (Capitol)
Charlie McCoy – Minor Miner (Monument)

Listen/Download – Funky16Corners – F16C: Hello L.A. Bye Bye Birmingham MP3

Greetings all.

The end of the week is here and I will take this opportunity to remind you that the Funky16Corners Radio Show hits the airwaves of the interwebs each and every Friday with the best in soul, funk, jazz and rare groove, all on original vinyl. You can subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, listen on your mobile device via the Stitcher and TuneIn apps, check it out on Mixcloud, or grab yourself an MP3 right here at Funky16Corners.com

Also, my (roughly) monthly jawn at WFMU’s Rock’n’Soul Ichiban stream – Testify! –  commences this very Sunday morning, March 12th at 11AM, and if you dig the sounds you hear both here and over at Iron Leg, it would behoove you to tune in your internet radiola (just got to the WFMU page and click on the Ichiban Stream) and dig it.

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That all said, what you see before you is the result of one of a number of ongoing obsessions (and musical workaholism) that finally reached a tipping point this past week when I got my hands on a record I’d been wanting for a long time (and bookends the original Honky Style mix which is ten years old this year) .

That record – Buzz Clifford’s ‘Hawg Frog’ – is in many ways the ne plus ultra of swamp funk sides.

The mix gets its title from a song that’s kind of a cornerstone of the sound, written by Mac Davis and Delaney Bramlett and recorded by no less than three artists in the mix (though I only included my fave, by Kin Vassy).

Swamp funk, country funk, white Southern soul, call it what you want – and really, it deserves a bunch of different names because as a style it’s kind of diffuse, with a bunch of things, funk, rock, soul, country, blues, psychedelia and R&B all intersecting in a variety of ways – the only real common denominator (at least in this mix) being the caucasianosity of the perpetrators.

You get some of the bigger names associated with the stylistic miasma, like Tony Joe White, Joe South and Bobbie Gentry, some of the lesser known folks, like Kin Vassy, Billy Lee Riley and John Randolph Marr, background characters like Kelly Gordon, Nashville heads like Charlie McCoy, Area Code 615 and Nat Stuckey and even a couple of unexpected names like Cher, Lonnie Mack and Buzz Clifford.

It’s sometimes funky (with a couple of very tasty drum breaks), usually twangy, often soulful, and with the soul of a mud-caked cottonmouth snake hidden out in the wheel well of bus taking Highway 55 from Memphis to New Orleans.

So pull down the ones and zeroes, and dig it.

I’ll see you all on Monday.

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.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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By Larry, March 7, 2017 10:17 am

Jackey Beavers

Listen/Download – Soul Continentals – Goobah (African Twist) MP3

Greetings all.

The record you see before you is an old fave, which I picked up on (though didn’t get a copy of until a couple of years ago) way back in the early days of my Hammond organ obsession.

When I started digging around for info about the Soul Continentals, I was initially surprised to see that they seemed to have hailed from Detroit (their one other 45 was on the Jaber label out of Michigan), but after digging further, was even more surprised to find out that they were led by none other than Jackey Beavers!

You read about Jackey in this space before relating to his work in Johnny (Bristol) and Jackey, who did the original version of ‘Someday We’ll Be Together’. Beavers went on to record a bunch of 45s on his own for a variety of labels.

It was only recently that I discovered that the ‘R. Beavers’ listed as the composer/producer of ‘Goobah (African Twist)’ and its flipside ‘Bowlegs’ was in fact Jackey Beavers (his real name being Robert).

I’m not sure, but I suspect that Beavers is the keyboard player on this track, which features piano and organ.

Though the flipside ‘Bowlegs’ is faster moving number with some very hard hitting drums, ‘Goobah (African Twist)’ , released in 1968, moves at a more deliberate pace, with a groovy organ soloing over drums and hand percussion, with minor vocal interjections, and a very cool reverbed guitar solo.

As Hammond instros go, it’s a killer, and well worth whatever it takes to move one into your playbox (and a lot cheaper than their earlier Jaber 45 which can cost hundreds).

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

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.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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By Larry, March 5, 2017 11:42 am

Cannibal and the Headhunters

Listen/Download – Cannibal and the Headhunters – Zulu King MP3

Listen/Download – Cannibal and the Headhunters – Shotgun MP3

Greetings all.

I hope the dawning of a new week finds you all well.

Today’s selections are part of the continuum created by my ongoing obsession with the sounds of East LA/Chicano R&B, soul and funk.

Cannibal and the Headhunters are one of the best known of the East LA bands by virtue of their memorable name, and the fact that they had one of the signature hits of the scene, that being their 1965 version of Chris Kenner’s ‘Land of 1,000 Dances’, in which the famous ‘Na Na Na Na Na’ chant was added to the song forever more.

I picked up the group’s 1965 LP of the same title a while back, and posted their cover of James Brown’s ‘Out of Sight’ here in 2007.

A few years ago, I was out digging and happened upon another (previously unknown to me) Cannibal LP on the Date label. I recognized some of the same songs from the first LP, but there were a bunch of new tracks as well, so I took the plunge.

When I got the album home and started digitizing the contents, it was obvious that some of the tracks were the same, but a several of them were new.
It looks like after their success with the local Rampart label, Date (specifically Richard Gottehrer of the Strangeloves) decided to take a run at getting Cannibal and the boys a bigger piece of the market. They reassembled the ‘Land of 1,000 Dances’ album, omitting a couple of tunes and recording a few new ones.

The two tracks I bring you today include one track from the original iteration, and one from the new one (though they both appear on the Date LP).

The new track is a cool, midtempo R&B number called ‘Zulu King’. Written by East LA scene fixture Chick Carlton (a black Kansas City transplant who sang with the integrated group the Majestics, as well as writing material for a number of other groups), ‘Zulu King’ runs with a booming bass line, drums and well placed horns, with Cannibal and the Headunters laying some sweet harmonies on top of things.

A few years later, the group Free Movement (‘I’ve Found Someone Of My Own’) re-recorded the song as ‘Son of the Zulu King’.

The second track should be much more familiar, that being a stomping cover of Junior Walker and the All Stars ‘Shotgun’. It features some groovy rhythm guitar and combo organ, as well as excellent group harmonies.

As far as I can tell the Date-session tunes are not currently available in reissue. The iTunes version of the Rampart ‘Land of 1,000 Dances’ includes the original album and tacks on some Rampart 45-only tracks.

I hope you dig the tunes, and I’ll see you all 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.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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By Larry, March 2, 2017 11:37 am

Sari and the Shalimars

Listen/Download – Sari and the Shalimars – Too Anxious MP3

Greetings all.

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

We close out the week with a 45 by one of those groups that is fairly obscure, with a painfully brief discography, yet the records they did manage to make are all fantastic.

Sari and the Shalimars (aka the Shalimars) recorded three 45s between 1966 and 1968 for Verve and Veep, and then pretty much vanished without a trace.

Their first 45, released on Verve in 1966 as the Shalimars, ‘Stop and Take a Look at Yourself’ is revered as a Northern Soul classic.

Their two 45s for Veep, released in the Spring and Summer of 1968 are both marvels of high quality songwriting and arranging, and are a great window into that transitional period when things were just starting to get funky.

I haven’t been able to discover anything about the members of the group, though Sari, the lead singer was great.

Their two 45s are both produced by George Butler and arranged by Richard Tee.

‘Too Anxious’, written by Ronnie Savoy (who co-wrote Al Kent’s classic ‘Where Do We Go From Here’) and Rose Marie McCoy (who co-wrote one of my all time favorite songs ‘Our Love (Is In the Pocket)’) was the b-side of Sari and the Shalimars last 45.

It starts out with just voice and conga drums before exploding into a booming, funky arrangement, with loud bass, drums and guitar, that build, layer on layer until it verily explodes. The instrumental breakdown, with strings, horns and vibes is a thing of beauty.

That this record wasn’t a hit is kind of mind boggling.

I don’t think either of their Veep 45s have been comped. You can expect to see them all appear here at some point.

I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll see you all next week.

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.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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By Larry, February 28, 2017 12:47 pm

Listen/Download – Johnny Jay and the Gangbusters – You Get Your Kicks MP3

Listen/Download – Johnny Jay and the Gangbusters – Gangbusters Blues MP3

Greetings all.

Today’s selection is one of those records that I picked up at a record show, never having heard it before, taking a chance on it because I knew the tune, a cover of Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels 1966 ‘You Get Your Kicks’.

I had never heard of Johnny Jay and the Gangbusters, and I still haven’t been able to find anything out about them. The group appears to have recorded only this one 45 (in 1967) , and the information on the label isn’t very helpful, except to indicate that the record was produced by Gary Knight (aka Harold Temkin, Gary Temkin, Gary Weston), the co-writer of ‘You Get Your Kicks’ (and also co-writer, with Barbara Banks of one of the greatest soul 45s ever ‘River of Tears’).

I know it seems blasphemous to suggest this, but I think the Gangbusters version of the tune is better than the original by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels.

Though Ryder is the superior vocalist, the arrangement and playing on this version of the song is much more robust and ultimately danceable than the original.

The bass guitar is more prominent, as is the horn section and the lead guitar.

The flipside, entitled ‘Gangbusters Blues’, and credited to five separate writers (none of them Knight or his original co-writer Bob Crewe) is actually an instrumental version of ‘You Get Your Kicks’.

The 45 seems to have had some level of success on Northern Soul dance floors in the UK.

If anyone out there knows anything more about the group, please let me know.

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

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.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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By Larry, February 26, 2017 11:55 am

The LaSalles aka Kathy Lynn and the Playboys

Listen/Download – The LaSalles – La La La La La MP3

Greetings all.

Every once in a while you find yourself pulling on a loose thread, and it just keeps unravelling.

Back in the day, during the storied Asbury Park 45 Sessions, one of my compadres dropped the needle on a monstrous banger called ‘Kick-Back’ by a group I’d never heard of before called Willie Tell and the Overtures.

As was often the case, the 45 went right onto my want list, and I set out in search of a copy for my play box.

It took a while, but I finally scored a copy.

While I was searching, I stumbled on another 45 with the same A and B sides as the Willie Tell and the Overtures record, this time by the already familiar Buena Vistas (the exact same recordings, with an earlier release) .

So, down the rabbit hole I went, discovering a whole bunch of cool things in the process.

The Buena Vistas were connected to a pair of Upstate New York characters by the names of Carl Cisco and Tom Shannon, and a band by the name of Kathy Lynn and the Playboys.

The story – at least as I was able to pick it apart – was that Cisco, Shannon and the aforementioned band had varying degrees of involvement (from peripheral all the way down to not at all) with the Buena Vistas 45s, most of which were in fact the work of various and sundry Funk Brothers (I still haven’t figured out how the Buena Vistas 45 got rereleased as Willie Tell et al). Cisco/Shannon also had their hands in records by the Rockin’ Rebels, Revlons and other Western NY/Detroit acts).

That said, Kathy Lynn and the Playboys were a real, working group, and they are (as far as I can discern) the people behind the smoking version of Stevie Wonder’s ‘La La La La La’ that was released on the Motown subsidiary VIP as by the LaSalles in 1966.

Though originally written and recorded by Stevie, ‘La La La La La’ is best known by the hit version by the East LA group the Blendells from 1964.

As much as I love the Blendells version, the recording by the LaSalles (yet another alias) is amazing.

Kathy Lynn (nee Kathy Keppen, who would go on to marry Playboys/Buena Vistas/LaSalles guitarist Nick Ameno) opens the tune with the traditional spoken passage, then rips into it sounding like a crazed version of Brenda Lee.

The band lays into a heavy groove, with organ, drums, bass and soul clapping, making their version of the song perfect for the dance floor.

Lynn went on to record as Lynn Terry, and it appears that a modern version of Kathy Lynn and the Playboys was playing as recently as 2012.

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

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

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By Larry, February 23, 2017 11:07 am

Dorothy Berry

Listen/Download – Dorothy Berry – Shindig City MP3

Greetings all.

The end of the week in here and that means that it is Funky16Corners Radio Show time again. We come to you each and every Friday with the best in soul, funk, jazz and rare groove, all on original vinyl. You can subscribe as a podcast in iTunes, listen on Stitcher and TuneIn (catch the show on Cruising Radio UK every Friday evening), Mixcloud, or grab yourself an MP3 right here at Funky16Corners.com.

I remember the first time I ever heard Dorothy Berry’s mighty ‘Shindig City’ – on Gail Smith’s incredible ‘Work Your Soul’ podcast – and nailed it right at the top of my want list.

It took a long time, and more than a couple of dollars to actually score a copy for my playbox, but it was a happy day indeed when I did.

Dorothy Berry is an especially interesting singer, having recorded a string of excellent singles (under her own name, with Jimmy Norman, as part of Dorothy, Oma and Zelpha, and with the African Bag All Stars – between 1962 and the early 70s, and because she was for a time, Mrs Richard ‘Louie Louie’ Berry.

‘Shindig City’ is a as booming, fast moving and danceable a soul 45 as was ever made in the classic era, and oddly enough you can thank future Bread-man David Gates for that.

No, really…DAVID GATES.

For those in the know, Gates is much more than Bread, having left behind a very long (and very good) string of records in rock, soul, rockabilly, and pop for a string of labels as writer, producer, arranger and performer from the late 50s right on up to the formation of Bread in the late 60s.
He was – like Leon Russell and JJ Cale, both of whom he worked with – part of the Oklahoma expat music scene in LA.

Gates wrote, produced and arranged ‘Shindig City’, as well as almost everything else recorded for the short-lived Dot Records subsidiary Planetary in 1964 and 1965, including both of Berry’s 45s for the label.

‘Shindig City’ – which has a fair amount of popularity on the Northern scene, like many Northern Soul faves starts with the Motown sound as a template, but takes it in a more muscular, Wall of Sound direction, seemingly testing the limits of magnetic tape to see exactly how much sound it can contain.

The drums are thundering, the horn section (specifically the trombones) creating waves of sound and Berry’s wailing vocal abetted by a female chorus.

It’s one of those records that verily drags people out of their seats and onto the dance floor, and sounds amazing coming out of a big sound system.
Though in a sane world ‘Shindig City’ should have been a big hit, it only had a brief period of regional success (in New England) in May of 1965.

Dorothy and Richard Berry (who sings backup on the flipside of this 45) would divorce in the late 60s, and she would go on to join the Ray Charles Revue as a Raelette, a job she would hold into the early 80s.

So dig this incredible record, over and over again, and if you haven’t checked out the Clyde Stubblefield tribute, please do so.

I’ll see you all on Monday.

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.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.