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By Larry, December 31, 2013 1:56 pm

Miss Della Reese

 Listen/Download – Della Reese – It Was a Very Good Year MP3

NOTE: I had something else ready to go for today, but this morning someone posted Frank Sinatra’s version of ‘It Was a Very Good Year’ to mark the New Year, and I thought “Why not post the astoundingly good version by Miss Della Reese in the same spirit here at Funky16Corners!”

So that’s what I’m doing.

It has actually been a pretty good year here at base camp.

My wife’s health has continued to improve, the kids are healthy and happy, and I’m not doing too poorly myself. 

It already looks like 2014 will bring some opportunities to DJ, and of course the Funky16Corners blog and radio show will continue apace.

I hope all of you have had a good year,and if not, that 2014 has nothing but good things in store for you and yours.

That said, I’ll see you all on Friday.

Happy New Year!

Larry

Originally posted 3/27/11 

>>Greetings all.

How’s by you?

All is as well as can be expected on my end of the interwebs.

The weekend was relatively uneventful, and despite anything the calendar says, Spring has yet to arrive in any real way.

I should mention that I have a couple of very groovy DJ gigs in the pipe, details to follow soon.

I’m not going to be able to make it to the Allentown 45 show this year, but I don’t really mind.

The vinyl gods have been good to me these last few months, bringing in all manner of cool stuff, including a couple of longtime white whales, as well as a bunch of low priced, but uniformly excellent groovers.

I’ve also been edging up to the second big push in the reorganization of the Funky16Corners Record Vault and Podcasting Nerve Center, which always yields cool stuff from deep in the crates that had been unjustly neglected.

I just dug out a groovy Northern 45 last week that I had either forgotten about – or more likely – had not listened to closely the first time I found it. I like when stuff like that happens.

The tune I bring you today is one of the aforementioned white whales, which I chased like Ahab for a long time before finally landing it late last year.

When you mention the name Della Reese to folks, the reaction you get depends on generational variables.

Folks my parent’s age remember her career as a pop/jazz vocalist that produced a couple of big hits in the late 50s.

Younger folks will remember her mainly as a TV actress, on shows like ‘Touched By an Angel’.

Sit down with a couple of hip DJs, and you very well may hear tell of a lesser known, but truly interesting part of her career, when despite a lack of commercial success she managed to make some very soulful, very danceable records.

Back in the early days of the blog (2005) I featured one of these sides, Ms. Reese’s excellent take on Gene McDaniels’ soul jazz epic ‘Compared to What’, recorded for AVCO in 1969.

The tune I bring you today hails from 1966, and like that session was made with jazz trumpeter Bobby Bryant (search the F16C Podcast Archive for some of his groovier tracks) and his band.

The tune ‘It Was a Very Good Year’, was written in 1961 by Ervin Drake. It was originally recorded by the Kingston Trio, but the song will forever be identified with Frank Sinatra, who recorded – and had a hit with the song – in 1966.

The Sinatra version is a doleful lament, sung by an old man looking back on his life.

Della Reese’s version is a radical reworking of the song, both lyrically (she embellishes the verses) and stylistically. Arranged by Bryant, the song is recast as a funky, hard charging cri de coeur, less wistful than the musical equivalent of a fist in the air. Reese sings the song like someone who despite a colorful past, is looking forward to bigger and better things.

Her vocal is powerful, often sounding as if she was testing the limits of the recording equipment.

The band is on fire, with a pumping Hammond and remarkable drums. The recording has a very hot sound, and the snare and kick drum are – next to Della – the loudest things on the record.

This is one of those records that would have languished in obscurity, had it not been revived by DJs on the jazz dance scene in the UK. It has become increasingly popular with funk and soul DJs, and was reissued by the Jazzman label (with a live version on the B-side).

As far as I can tell, this version is not in print on CD and the 45 can be quite expensive, so unless you need one to play out, slip the ones and zeros on your pod-like-thingy and dig.<<

Keep the faith

Larry

  ______________________________________________________________________________________

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.

Comments (4)

By Larry, October 27, 2013 10:57 am

Harvey Mandel

Listen/Download Harvey Mandel – Wade In the Water Pt1

Listen/Download Harvey Mandel – Wade In the Water Pt2

Greetings all

We’re going to start off the week with something a little special.

We return – after a little more than a year – to the old Funky16Corners/Iron Leg Twin Spin.

I’m not sure why I haven’t done one of these in a while, since my brain is always making connections like this (not sure if it was working like that before I started writing about music or if it’s something that developed concurrently).

The song featured today is one of my all-time favorites, ‘Wade In the Water’ (featured here a few months back by the John Bishop Trio). ‘Wade In the Water’ is a spiritual that goes back well over a century, and has been interpreted countless times in both gospel and secular settings.

It was about a year ago that I was tuned in to my man Kris Holmes’s radio show and he dropped the mind-bending track you see before you today.

Upon first listen, I thought I was hearing an unreleased Soulful Strings cut, or at least something that had the involvement of Richard Evans. I immediately popped open a messaging window and asked Kris who I was hearing.

The answer was, Harvey Mandel.

If you’ve spent a large part of your life reading about, and listening to music, Harvey Mandel is one of those names that pops up frequently (especially in the late 60s) enough to make itself known, but never prominently enough to explain why.

After a little digging, I discovered that Mandel was – for a hot minute at the end of the 60s – one of those free-range, guitar gunslingers who seemed to be everywhere.

He got his start in Chicago, playing with Charlie Musselwhite, before findig his way (like so many others) out to San Francisco. He recorded his first solo album, ‘Cristo Redentor’ (which included ‘Wade In the Water’) in 1968, splitting his time between Los Angeles and Nashville.

Mandel’s version of ‘Wade In the Water’ kicks the door down with a big, fat drumbreak (‘Fast’ Eddie Hoh on the kit, Armando Peraza on congas) before the piano* and bass join in (in unison), paving the way for the strings and the many voices of Harvey’s guitar.

When Mandel starts playing, he layers on the fuzz, before switching to a clearer, more ringing tone.

The string arrangement is by Nick DeCaro, who worked in a wide variety of pop settings (Randy Newman, Lorraine Ellison, Little Feat) as an arranger and producer through the 60s and 70s.

Mandel’s ‘Wade In the Water’ manages to tap into a certain soul jazz feel and still be deeply psychedelic. Presenting it as an instrumental (certainly not the first, Ramsey Lewis had a fairly significant hit with his version in 1966 (R&B #3, Pop #19, and a big Northern side) illustrates how powerful the melody is.

If it seems simple it is only a mark of the perfection of its structure, which in turn allows an improviser like Mandel to run circles around it without ever losing sight of its core.

‘Wade In the Water’ is one of those songs that sounds like something deeper/elemental. That it has been around as long (longer) as recorded music, and is the very definition of ‘spiritual’, in the broadest, Joseph Campbell sense of the word makes versions like this (and the one I have posted over at Iron Leg) cut so deep.

‘Wade In the Water’ (pulled from the 45, so you get it in two, juicy parts) is a heavy, heavy record, great for your head (in a hippie stylee) or just for your ears.

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

Keep the faith

Larry  

*Note – Thanks to Monk1950 for letting me know that the piano player was NOT the famed guitarist but a different person entirely. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ 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.

Comments (1)

By Larry, February 24, 2013 2:55 pm

Funky16Corners Presents: No Bad Trip – Black Wah-Wah 1969-1974

Magictones – Good Old Music (Westbound)
Doug Anderson – Hey Mama Here Comes the Preacher (Janus)
Earth Wind and Fire – Bad Tune (WB)
Bloodstone – Bo Diddley (London)
Bo Diddley – Pollution (Chess)
Jake Wade and the Soul Searchers – Searching for Soul Pt2 (Mutt)
Nat Turner Rebellion – Plastic People (DelValiant)
Fantastic Epics – Fun and Funk Pts 1&2 (Tories)
Jackson 5 – I’ll Bet You (Motown)
Eddie Bo and the Soul Finders – The Rubber Band Pt1 (Knight)
Young-Holt Unlimited – The Devil Made Me Do Dat (Cotillion)
Joe Simon Band – Oon-Guela Pt2 (SS7)
Jimmie Preacher Ellis – I Gotta See My Baby (Round)
The Eight Minutes – Here’s Some Dances (Jay Pee)
Fugi – Mary Don’t Take Me On No Bad Trip Pts1&2 (Cadet)
E. Rodney Jones, Larry and the Hippies Band – Right On Right On (Sex machine) (Westbound)
Brothers of Hope – Nickol Nickol (Gamble)

Listen/Download -Funky16Corners Presents No Bad Trip – 109MB Mixed Mp3/256K

Greetings all.

The mix you see before you is another one of those jams that I previewed on Mixcloud for a while before whipping it on you here at the Corners.

Though you may recognize a couple of the tracks as things you’ve seen here in the past, No Bad Trip is one of those things that was bouncing around in my head for a good long time, taking form gradually,adding tracks here and there as I remembered something groovy that fit just right. It was revised and reworked a few times until I thought I had happened upon the perfect admixture.

The overall feel – as it were – is one of the time after psychedelia and all of its practical trappings – wah wah pedals, echoplex and freak flags of all varieties hoisted high – began to make their way into black music.

Though there were other people of color getting heavy at the time, much of this can be traced directly to the dayglo doorstep of Jimi Hendrix – with the Experience and Band of Gypsys – as well as Sly Stone,  Funkadelic, Norman Whitfield and any other artist during that time period liberally mixing psychedelics into their funk and vice versa.

This is really a story of “gates swinging both ways”, with all manner of “you got your funk in my rock”, “but you got your rock in my funk” going on, as well as an expression of the general eclecticism of the time, with African sounds making themselves heard with Joe Simon and Earth Wind and Fire, the evolution of Bo Diddley from old-school charger into fairly convincing new-style far outness and the explicit psyche out of Fugi.

As your physician I strongly recommend that you ingest this mix through headphones of some kind, so that you don’t miss any of the sonic goodness.

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

Keep the faith

Larry

___________________________________________________________________________________________

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.

Comments (1)

By Larry, January 31, 2013 1:17 pm

Roger and the Gypsies – Pass the Hatchet Pt1 (Seven B)
Professor Longhair – Big Chief Pt2 (Watch)
Bobby Marchan – Shake Your Tambourine (Cameo/Parkway)
Diamond Joe – Gossip Gossip (Sansu)
Eddie Bo – Hook and Sling Pt1 (Scram)
Lee Dorsey – Four Corners Pt1 (Amy)
Dixie Cups – Two Way Poc A Way (ABC)
Earl King – Street Parade (Kansu)
Meters – Cardova (Josie)
David Batiste and the Gladiators – Funky Soul Pt2 (Instant)
Bobby Williams – Boogaloo Mardi Gras Pt2 (Capitol)
Curly Moore – Sophisticated Cissy (Instant)
Ernie K Doe – Here Come the Girls (Janus)
Larry Darnell – Son of a Son of a Slave (Instant)
Explosions – Hip Drop Pt1 (Gold Cup)
Rubaiyats – Omar Khayyam (Sansu)
Warren Lee – Funky Belly (Wand)
Willie Tee – Sweet Thing (Gatur)
Danny White – Natural Soul Brother (SSS Intl)
Lee Dorsey – Who’s Gonna Help Brother Get Further (Polydor)
Oliver Morgan – Roll Call (Seven B)
Eddie Bo – Can You Handle It (Bo Sound)

Listen/Download -Funky16Corners Presents Boogaloo Mardi Gras! – 85MB Mixed Mp3/192K

Greetings all.

I hope you all are well.

I should start by reminding you that the Funky16Corners Radio Show will air (as it does every week) Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio. If you can’t be there at airtime you can subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes or grab yourself an MP3 here at the blog.

The mix you see before you is something I put together last year to commemorate Mardi Gras, and in a rare show of foresight on my part I got it up and ready to go on time this year.

It is packed with old faves including some stellar Mardi Gras-specific numbers with which you can second line to your heart’s content.

I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back with some more groovy stuff on Monday.

Keep the faith

Larry

___________________________________________________________________________________________

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.

Comments (0)

By Larry, December 4, 2012 3:48 pm

Drummers Jim Gordon (left) and King Errison (right)

Listen/Download Incredible Bongo Band – Let There Be Drums

Greetings all

Welcome to the middle of another spectacularly crisp, post-Thanksgiving, pre-Yule day.

The tune I bring you today is a little something I grabbed on a recent dig, and on object lesson in how sometimes you really don’t need to hear a record to know it’s going to be good.

Any beat fiend worth their wax is already hip to the sounds of the Incredible Bongo Band, especially their version of Jerry Lordan’s oft-recorded ‘Apache’, one of the ur documents of hip hop.

The IBB’s first LP ‘Bongo Rock’ is fairly rare and sought after, mainly for ‘Apache’.

However, there is much to dig on ‘Bongo Rock’, up to and including the album’s opening track (and one of its singles), which you see before you presently, ‘Let There Be Drums’.

Like many of the tunes on ‘Bongo Rock’, ‘Let There Be Drums’ is a cover, in this case of Sandy Nelson’s 1961 hit.

Written by Nelson and producer/writer/guitarist Richie Podolor, ‘Let There Be Drums’ was, like so much of Nelson’s catalog, a percussion feature meant to highlight his skill on the skins.

Since the IBB was a similar showcase (created by producer Michael Viner), this time for drummer Jim Gordon and percussionist King Errison, the recordings were aimed in the same general direction.

‘Let There Be Drums’ may lack the crisp breakbeats of ‘Apache’ there are still plenty of slamming drums (do you ever really ever get sick of walls of well recorded drums?) and some cool guitar.

As far as I can tell ‘Let There Be Drums’ was only sampled in 2007 by Buck 65 on the track ‘Dang’.

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

Keep the faith

Larry

___________________________________________________________________________________________

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.