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By Larry, April 18, 2010 4:30 pm

Funky16Corners Radio v.85 – Open For Business

Playlist

Listen/Download 90MB/256KB Mixed MP3

Welcome back to the ongoing saga of the Funky16Corners blog, its author, a huge, ever-pulsing mountain of records and his efforts to rein it all in and make some sense of it (both physically and philosophically).
I spent the first part of the weekend checking out the mighty DJ Prestige doing an in-store set at Hold Fast in Asbury Park, while also (of course) picking up a handful of LPs to celebrate Record Store Day. Pres brought the heat (as expected) and then the fam and I headed out for some of those good Long Branch hot dogs and a couple of other errands, followed by some serious work in the Funky16Corners Record Vault and Podcasting Nerve Center.
The renovation is almost done, with some fine tuning remaining here and there, with the disposal of much trash yet to be completed (I suspect a trip or two to the town dump maybe in order). After undoing a veritable Gordian knot of old-school computer equipment (as well as moving/storing a huge amount of data, most of it blog-related, onto a new 1TB drive), it’ll all have to be reconfigured over the next few days. I have my work cut out for me, but things are going to be so much easier when I’m done that it’ll be more than worth it.
This early and unexpected edition of the Funky16Corners Radio thing is evidence of said project, and a small bit of celebration that it is in fact coming to fruition. The first thing I did (after getting the room somewhat organized) was the installation of the home DJ setup (see above). This had been both a long time coming, and extremely satisfying when it was finished.
Following a few days of getting all my sonic ducks in a row (cableing, knob-turning, equalizing and whatnot), I hooked up the digital recorder, grabbed my road cases and pulled out a small stack of 45s and mixed them live, on the spot.
Aside from a certain, unifying feel (funk, soul and funky soul, natch), I didn’t concentrate all that much on pre-selection of the tunes herein. I grabbed something interesting to kick things off, and as that record rotated, I pulled a handful of others out of the box, picked one (or two, or three, depending on how deep a handful fate was dealing me) that I thought might fit, cued it up on the second turntable and repeated the process until a little over forty-five minutes later the needle on the last record hit the run-off groove. Not unlike how I do it when I’m spinning at the Asbury Park 45 Sessions or any other live date. It’s one of those things where you hope you’ve stocked your record box properly, and you let inspirado take you by the hand and lead where it will.
There are a lot of old faves here, as well as a couple of tracks that will return to be blogged on their own in the not too distant future. As has been the policy with ‘live’ mixes, there is no accompanying zip file, but remember that this is not going to be the ongoing F16Radio format. Think of it as a special bonus to stuff into your ears on Monday.
I hope you dig the mix, and I’ll be back later in the week with something groovy.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, April 15, 2010 4:26 pm

Le ‘Q’ on the cover of Smackwater Jack

Listen/Download -Quincy Jones – Ironside

Greetings all.

What is being up with you?
The ongoing Funky16Corners Record Vault project took a great leap forward yesterday with the new DJ set-up (improvements to which were financed by my slot machine winnings over vacation*) going on line. The rig was cobbled together using some donated speakers (thanks Cenzo), an old amp/tuner, my existing “good” turntable, and augmented with the new turntable and mixer. I expect that I’ll be spending some time hobbling around the old learning curve, but before long I should be cranking out some more ‘live’ mixes, as well as putting a somewhat sharper edge on my turntable skills.
In other, also important news, I’m getting upgraded to a nicer time-slot over at Viva Internet Radio, so as of next week (April 23) the Funky16Corners Radio Show will be airing at 9PM on Friday nights. This is a very groovy development, and I cab assure that with the addition of the home DJ thingy I’ll be laying down some live mixes, so fall by.
That said, the tune I bring you today is something I definitely plan on dropping in an upcoming set, Quincy Jones’s 1971 reading of the ‘Ironside’ theme.
For those of you too young to remember, ‘Ironside’ was a hit TV show (premiering in 1967) that featured Raymond Burr as a paraplegic, San Francisco police detective who went around solving crimes from the back of a specially engineered van (certainly no more ludicrous than much of what you’ll see spilling from the idiot box these days). The very groovy theme was penned by none other than the mighty Quincy Jones
The version you’re hearing this fine day appeared on Jones’s 1971 LP ‘Smackwater Jack’. I can’t say with one hundred percent certainty, but I suspect that like the version of ‘Hikky Burr’ on the same album, this take on the ‘Ironside’ theme was also re-recorded/embellished for that LP.
The whole affair manages to encapsulate a jazzy soundtrack feel, with some funky bass (Chuck Rainey), electric piano (Bob James), flute (Hubert Laws) and soprano sax (Jerome Richardson), taking the original theme and stretching it out for some solos. Jones manages to bring on the heavy brass without drowning out the rhythm section. This version starts out (like the TV theme) with something (synthesizer, I assume) imitating a police siren, with the Fender Rhodes bubbling underneath until the flute comes in to state the theme. There’s some groovy wah-wah guitar running in the background, and until the trumpet solo comes in, the feel is as much jazz rock as it is jazz. Aside from the impressive names listed above, the session was a who’s who of jazz and studio heavies, with Jones sharing producing duties with Phil Ramone and bass legend Ray Brown.
Very solid indeed.
I hope you dig it and I’ll be back on Monday.

Peace

Larry

*Only significant in that as a general rule I don’t gamble (no moral objection, I just like to spend my money on records). If you see me at the track, it’s because I like horsies. I hit the jackpot (as it was) playing the penny slots. That’s right – pennies. 30,000 of them…

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By Larry, April 13, 2010 4:51 pm

Larry Birdsong

Listen/Download -Larry Birdsong – Fairly Well

Greetings all.

I don’t know about you (since only a some of you reside in the same general geographic sphere as yours truly) but this grey, cold(er) weather is bringing me down. I know I always complain about being beat – like a rented mule – but that’s pretty much part and parcel of having two little kids.
That, and the fact that I got word yesterday that Master Groove is going on hiatus for an unspecified length of time. I was really digging bringing my records into NYC to spin at Forbidden City, and knowing that a semi-regular gig is going off the rails is a first class drag. So FEH to that, and let’s all keep our fingers crossed that whatever screwed the deal gets unscrewed and when it does we can all meet up in the City for some funk 45s, dumplings and cold beer.
That out of the way, what better way to turn the heat up (at least temporarily) than with a tasty bit of southern funk?
Though I knew his name, until I saw the flipside of today’s selection featured over at Queen City Crates, I hadn’t heard the music of Mr. Larry Birdsong.
Based in Nashville, alongside folks like Johnny Jones and the King Casuals and Frank Howard and the Commanders, Birdsong mixed R&B, blues, soul and funk on records that he recorded for labels like Excello, Champion, Cherokee, Sur-Speed and Ref-O-Ree from the mid-50s into the 70s, eventually finding himself in Gospel in the 80s.
Birdsong recorded three 45s for Ref-O-Ree in 1969. Today’s selection, ‘Fairly Well’ appeared as the b-side to the second of those records, ‘Digging Your Potatoes’. While ‘Digging…’ is the wilder, more upbeat side of the record (you can hear it a QCC by clicking the link above) , ‘Fairly Well’ has lots to offer as well.
I really dig the way Birdsong’s gospel-inflected vocals wail over the top of the deep, funky track. The drums are tight, the organ just this side of churchy, and the backing vocals have one foot in the amen corner and the other in the footlights. Things start out on a socially conscious tip before dipping onto the dance floor with namechecks for the Popcorn, the Cissy Strut, the ‘James Brown’, and in a supremely confident move, Larry raps that you ain’t seen nothin’ yet until you’ve seen him do the ‘Larry Birdsong’.
In a soulful hat trick, that’s right, up tight, and (of course) out of sight.
I hope you dig the record, and I’ll be back on Friday with something groovy.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, April 11, 2010 3:02 pm

Listen/Download -James Coit – Black Power

Greetings all.

Welcome once again to the beginning of what should be another stellar week at the Funky16Corners blog.
The weekend was a busy one, with operations commencing on the restructuring of the Funky16Corners Record Vault. Many records were moved, much junk was taken out to the trash cans and I went back to the drawing board to try and figure out how to consolidate the computer equipment (some of which is going to be retired) and construct a surface on which to install my DJ setup.
Since the closest I’ve ever come to being a carpenter is owning a Carpenter’s record, this may prove more daunting than it sounds. I suspect that whatever I manage to put together will be both sturdy, and incredibly unattractive, but since it will be covered from end to end by turntables, a mixer and a couple of big speakers, I’m allowing myself a certain amount of aesthetic leeway.
I’ll probably get it figured out this week (the first in a long time that isn’t packed with appointments and such), so I’ll keep you posted on my progress.
The tune I bring you today is another one of those that has proven especially resistant when it comes to digging up facts.
‘Black Power’ by James Coit was something I picked up from a friend last year after hearing a short but extremely intriguing sound clip. When I finally got to give both sides of the record a thorough listening to, I was more than pleased with my purchase.
Aside from the music, the first thing I noticed was that it appeared that the record (or at least the label, Phoof) was from Long Island, NY, affixed with the snappy slogan: “Featuring the Bayport Echo Sound of Long Island”.
Both sides of the record are excellent in their own way. ‘Black Power’ opens with catchy, fast moving guitar riff, followed by some heavy drums and sharp horns. Mr Coit drops in with a rough and ready, Eddie Floyd-esque vocal. The lyrics are – if not exactly as militant as the title might suggest – certainly topical and powerful, and might be even more so if the composition thereof weren’t credited to someone named ‘Mike Szymanski’.
The flip side, ‘Phillandrine’ is a mid-tempo, melodic number with a very catchy chorus and an incongruous, psychedelic interlude.
One of the very few things I was able to find out about ‘Black Power’ is that it enjoyed a period of popularity on the Northern Soul scene (Wigan Casino specifically) in the late 70s. It is a storming dancer, but not at all what one would consider a stereotypical ‘Northern’ side.
Other than that (and the fact that it appears to have been bootlegged/reissued a few times for the UK market) my searching has yielded nothing. If you know anything else about Messrs Coit or Szymanski, Phoof records or the Bayport Echo Sound of Long Island, please drop me a line.
I’ll be back on Wednesday with some more soul.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, April 8, 2010 5:24 pm

Funky16Corners After Dark Pt2 – Mixed for Delirious Sunrise

Playlist

Intro

Listen/Download 134MB/256KB Mixed MP3

No Zip File

As promised I have returned with the second hour of the show I put together for the Delirious Sunrise program.
Once again, it is firmly packed with heavy, yet oddly laid back sounds, including a large number of personal favorites.
It’s the end of the week, and I’m just about exhausted (mentally and physically) so I can’t recall – even after a couple of surveys – what in this mix has or has not appeared in this space already (a lot of it clearly has).
That said, I hope you dig it (and that you pulled down the ones and zeros for the first half as well, if you haven’t, make sure you, on account of it’s very groovy, very moody and the perfect complement to the second half, which is this…).
In other – mercifully brief – news, the long planned renovation of the Funky16Corners Record Vault is about to commence, including installation (fina-f*cking-ly) of a home DJ set up. I mentioned last week that I came home from vacation with some ill gotten gains, squeezed out of the slot machines in Connecticut, which I promptly rolled over and invested in a second turntable and a mixer. As soon as I get a bunch of stuff boxed up, hundreds of LPs off of the floor and into a wall unit of some kind (I hope I don’t have to go back to Ikea), and build a surface on which to set up the equipment (as well as some speakers) you can expect a new era of live mixes here, and I can spend some time working on my (admittedly rudimentary) turntable skills.
I will also be returning to Master Groove @ Forbidden City (Ave A between 13th and 14th in NYC) on Wednesday April 21st for some more of the good stuff spread over the turntables at the speed of 45 revolutions per minute. If you are in the area and are so inclined, pencil the date in your planner and fall by. It’d be great to see you, and since things are getting warmer every day it might make for a nice night in the city.
So, until I return on Monday with some funk, have yourself a great weekend and dig the sounds.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, April 6, 2010 5:29 pm

Funky16Corners After Dark Pt1 – Mixed for Delirious Sunrise

Playlist

Listen/Download 138MB/256KB Mixed MP3

No Zip File

The mix you see before you today (the second part of which will be posted on Friday) is the first hour of the show I put together for the Delirious Sunrise show on WLUW.
Considering that the show airs from 4AM to 6AM, I wanted to whip up a downtempo blend, at times funky, but in that twilight, laid back, noir-ish way that characterizes those few, quiet hours before the dawn.
Though many of the tracks included in these two hours have appeared in this space before (whether as part of a Funky16Corners Radio mix or individually) the assemblage thereof is new, and if I say so myself, pretty tasty, at least as laid out for the time in question.
I’ve gone into my deep and abiding love for my iPod in this space (and over at Iron Leg) several times in the past. Though I could be considered a ‘late adapter’, to say that the last few years have seen the iPod become an integral part of my daily (and nightly) routine would be a drastic understatement.
My daily life – thanks to a variety of factors – can be fairly hectic, sometime rising to the level of brain-scrambling, and those few, precious hours after the kids have taken to their beds (those not devoted to working on the blogs) are often spent wandering around in one or both (I have one devoted to video) of the old MP3 delivery devices.
Aside from the occasional stint in the automobile, most of my intensive listening – the time when I dig particularly deeply into a record – is done right before passing out for the night.
With the lights out and the earbuds in place, I can elevate the volume, and jump wildly from song to song, genre to genre until I latch onto something that grabs my ears in a special way, drills down into my psyche, and eventually finds its way into this space, alongside my ruminations. It’s really the only time of day where things get quiet enough (within and without) to approach music the way that it deserves.
It kind of takes me back to the days when I’d go to sleep every night with the radio next to my pillow, listening to everything from music stations to weird (at least the early 70s version of ‘weird’) talk radio, to the local ABC TV affiliate with a signal that could be heard at the very bottom of the FM dial.
After I get to the point where I’m too tired to go on any more, I pick something meditative, running the gamut from Nick Drake, to Mississippi John Hurt, Thelonious Monk, Ravi Shankar, or Kraftwerk or whatever, turn over and surrender myself to sleep.
Thanks to the fact that I’ve always had a hard time getting to sleep (less so these days, for obvious reasons), and staying there, I always go to sleep listening to something – music or spoken word – and often put things on when I wake up during the night so that I can get back to sleep.
Though I have no idea about the science of the matter, I have always found that having music playing while I sleep helps me dream (or at least have more interesting dreams), and has enough of a soothing effect so that when sleep is interrupted (hitting the pleasure centers of the brain and masking background noise) it can be reestablished.
I’m not completely sure that everyone will take this as an endorsement, but for the last few weeks, these two mixes (I have them linked together in a playlist) have been the soundtrack to my nights. There are a lot of deep records over the course of these two hours, and I find no matter where I hit the mix timewise, I always get a little bit of that ‘Oh, cool…’ feeling, and my overactive brain downshifts a little and all is once again well.
Whether or not you (the listener) decides to employ it in the same way, or as a calming (yet oddly stimulating) companion to your waking hours, I hope you find that I have selected them well, and that you dig them too.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, April 4, 2010 12:38 pm

Greetings all.

As promised, today marks the very first time I’ve hosted a guest post, i.e. a piece written by someone other than me. Not too long ago Eric from Record Racks suggested a post swap (you can see the post I did for Record Racks here) and naturally, I was amenable.

Eric chose to put together a review of the recent Now Again reissue of the rare LP by Virginia’s Equatics.

I hope you dig it, and make sure to head over to check out what’s going down at Record Racks.

In other news, I’ve put together a two-hour mix, in a ‘late night’ stylee for my man Arvo at the Delirious Sunrise program on WLUW at Loyola University that will air this Tuesday, April 6 from 4 to 6AM. It will be archived at Posterity Playlists and then eventually posted in this very space. Make sure to check it out.

Peace

Larry

The Equatics

Listen/Download -The Equatics – Santana Pt2
From Doin It!!! (Now Again, 2010)

By Eric Luecking of Record Racks

I remember playing in the school band throughout middle school and part of high school, and never do I recall us sounding as sweet and professional as the likes of Kashmere Stage Band out of Houston, Texas; The Diplomatics out of Indianapolis, Indiana; or this group, The Equatics, out of Hampton, Virginia. These bands give studio musicians a run for their money and make 99% of the rest of local school bands sound like they just picked up an instrument, which may be true for many.

Whether or not these groups were as proficient with their musical chops due to fewer distractions (the internet), the product of an era where there was a focus on true musicianship (face it, it’s mostly lost these days on up-and-comers), a greater commitment to in-school music programs (prior to the big dollars athletics now bring in), or just a collision of a mishmash of factors that culminated in the same place at the same time is a topic that could be vigorously debated. But that’s a different discussion for another day.

Band members Carlton Savage, Benjamin Crawford, Wayne Jones, Calvin Billups, Renon Sumpter, Daniel Slade, Alvin Paige, Leo Davis, and Crawford’s coach Frank Johnson stirred some mean soul stew with their only album. It’s unclear how many copies were pressed, but we do know that it was funded by Pepsi after the kids won two separate contests sponsored by Pepsi, one of which was to write a jingle for the company to be aired locally.

“Doin It!!!” features a few covers including their take on the Isaac Hayes classic “Walk On By” and another on their state’s neighbor’s prodigal son Bill Withers “Ain’t No Sunshine.” These covers stand strong as the band refuses to wilt under the pressure of performing songs that were wildly popular at the time and have since become staples of the songbook of America. Even on the remake of Brenda And The Tabulations’ “The Touch Of You,” which isn’t as strongly revered in musical history books, they breathe a touch of fresh air in replacing vocals, including the doo wop backdrops, with a jazz leaning trumpet lead.

Showcasing their skills even further is “Santana,” divided into two parts, and questionably separated by the previously mentioned Tabulations remake. Each part has musical sections that are either the same riff or a very close interpretation of it, but both smoke with a fury. Led by an upfront rhythm guitar that doesn’t try to overpower you with your typical leading solo guitar shtick, it’s cemented with aggressive bass plucking by Crawford. You even get a short solo on organ at no extra charge.

Their original material is just as fascinating, much of it as pleading balladry. “Coach” had a lifelong dream of a singing career that never materialized before or after this set, but you get a sense of satisfaction listening to him aspiring to attain his dreams. Even if this album would have had greater distribution and amassed an audience of talent scouts, he still may not have garnered much attention from the music industry. That’s not to say his vocals on the rhetorical “Where Is Love?” are bad (they aren’t), but merely to say he was competent enough to carry out the task. After all, failing to reach the stars isn’t really failure at all when you consider that most people’s dreams never even leave the ground.

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By Larry, March 28, 2010 4:12 pm

Funky16Corners Radio v.84 – Moving Between Dimensions

Playlist

Listen/Download 123MB/256KB Mixed MP3

Listen/Download 90MB Zip File

The new week is here, and as previously planned, I’m posting this new edition of the Funky16Corners Radio thang from the road, since the fam and I are on vacation.
I figured I could do a couple of regular-sized posts from wherever we are, but it occurred to me that since I had a few mixes worth of tracks stockpiled for just such an occasion, that I ought to put a mix together for the week and be done with it.
That said, Funky16Corners Radio v.84 – Moving Between Dimensions is another one of those funky, jazzy things that I like to assemble every once in a while, on account of that’s how I roll. Things are generally upbeat, but there are a couple of detours into the spiritual realm, ever so slightly far out but still melodic and groovy.
Things get up to speed quickly with a track by the mighty Blackbyrds. The ‘Blackbyrds Theme’ is one of the funkier tracks from their 1974 ‘Flying Start’ LP. Dig that tasty break.
Roy Meriwether made an appearance in this space not too long ago. He was one of the preeminent (if not the best known) soul jazz pianists of the 60s and 70s, recording first for major labels and then waxing a couple of private press dates (including the ultra-rare ‘Nubian Lady’). ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free’ is from his ‘Jesus Christ Superstar Goes Jazz’ LP and starts out mellow, eventually picking up a nice funky pace.
Vibist Mike Mainieri got his start playing fairly straight-ahead jazz (he even played with Paul Whiteman?!?) but by the late 60s was getting further out, working an early fusion vibe. His 1968 session ‘Journey Through an Electric Tube’ (no doubt a reference to the vibes themselves) features mellow grooves (like ‘The Bush’) and sidemen like Jeremy Steig and Chuck Rainey.
I’m a huge fan of jazz flute (as you’ll see in an upcoming mix) and Frank Wess was one of the greats. Alongside players like Sam Most, Buddy Collette and the mighty Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Wess (who like those instrumentalists played a number of wind instruments) started out playing modern jazz, ending up signed to the Stax subsidiary Enterprise where he recorded 1970’s ‘Wess To Memphis’. An excellent, forward thinking session, ‘Wess to Memphis’ has plenty of soulful moments while managing to maintain a jazz edge. ‘Underhog’ features some very nice, echoey flute work.
Eddie Jefferson was one of the early masters of vocalese, laying down vocals over some of the most famous jazz melodies of the day. His reworking of Miles Davis’s ‘So What’, from his 1969 Prestige session ‘Body and Soul’ may not be terribly funky (like a few of the album’s other cuts) but it is one of his finest performances.
Pianist Gene Harris is best known for his decade (plus) long work with the Three Sounds. ‘Feeling Me Feeling You’ is from his 1974 solo album ‘Astral Signals’.
Another recent Funky16Corners post featured the great Hammond player Dr Lonnie Smith. ‘Hola Muneca’ is another track from the 1971 ‘Mama Wailer’ album, which featured a who’s who of the CTI/Kudu stable, including Grover Washington Jr., Airto, Billy Cobham and Ron Carter.
Bobby Hutcherson is one of the great vibraphonists to record for the Blue Note label in the 60s and 70s. In addition to several amazing sessions as a leader, Hutcherson was also a very busy sideman on many of the label’s sessions. ‘Print Tie’ is a track from his 1970 ‘San Franscisco’ LP, which he recorded with sax legend Harold Land.
I mentioned both flute jazz in general, and Jeremy Steig specifically, above. Steig – famous among the crate diggers of the world for ‘Howling For Judy’ (sampled by the Beastie Boys) – recorded a number of albums for Blue Note and Solid State in the late 60s and early 70s, all along the same lines, i.e. vaguely funky, infused with far out hippiosity and tip-toeing just along the edge of “out”. ‘Rational Nonsense’ was on the 1969 LP ‘This is Jeremy Steig’.
Pianist Larry Willis appeared on Funky16Corners Radio v.81 with ‘153rd St Theme’. The funky – yet mellow – electric piano feature ‘Journey’s End’ is from the same album.
Eddie Harris made some of the finest soul jazz of the 60s and 70s during his tenure at Atlantic Records. Both alone, and with Les McCann he went a long way to defining the sound, and with his electrified saxophone, paving the way for the onrush of fusion. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the ‘Silver Cycles’ album, do so with haste, since it includes ‘Smoke Signals’. Funky, spacey and soulful, it’s a landmark recording.
It is with a tip of the hat to the jazzy rock cats, that I bring you Brian Auger and Julie Driscoll with ‘Road to Cairo’. Though they have often been placed amongst the UK freak set, Auger, with his jazz organ chops, and Driscoll, the soulful diva in a caftan made some amazing music in the late 60s, from pure soul jazz, to funky soul to borderline psychedelia.
This edition of the Funky16Corners Radio podcast closes out with a very cool cover, saxophonist Lou Donaldson (backed by no less than Charles Earland on the Hammond, Idris Muhammad on the skins and Melvin Sparks on the guitar) doing his thing with Lee Dorsey’s ‘Everything I Do (Gohn Be Funky From Now On).
I hope you dig the mix, and I’ll be back next week with some more of the good stuff.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, March 25, 2010 4:22 pm

Winston Samuels (left) with Desmond Dekker (center)

Listen/Download -Winston Samuels and the Clintones – Let’s Get It On

Greetings all.

NOTE: In relation to comments on the previous post: If by some chance, you happen to be the world’s most bad-ass reggae collector and find yourself, how shall we say, underwhelmed by this selection, please keep it to yourself.

Thanks – The Mgmt.

Friday is here, and I for one couldn’t be happier. I’m tired (but not sick, thank jeebus), and while my allergies seem to be at bay, I’ve done too much this week, and expect to have to do more before it’s through.
I’ve put together four hours of new mixes, one each for Funky16Corners and Iron Leg (since I’ll be on vacation next week) and a special two-hour radio show that will be dropping early in April (more details to follow).
As a result, my brain isn’t functioning at peak levels (time for an upgrade?), and I’m in dire need of a nap; A really long, quiet, peaceful nap with a soft blankie and a soulful lullaby or two until I drift off to the land of nod.
I’ll try to get this entry typed up and posted before I succumb to slumber, but I can’t make any guarantees, so if it suddenly drifts off into gibberish, you’ll know why.
The tune I bring you today keeps us rooted in the Caribbean, moving northward to Jamaica.
This is one I grabbed last week at the Allentown record show, one of the last 45s I purchased before leaving for home. I was making one last circuit to see what I’d missed, and spied a box marked ‘Jamaican’. It was fairly small, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to take a look.
It didn’t.
In addition to the very groovy tune I bring you today, I also scored a longtime want (the Heptones ‘Book of Rules’) taking both home for less than a fiver.
Today’s selection is by an artist that I’d never heard of (thought it turns out that I had in fact heard him) before, but the fact that it was both cheap, and a Marvin Gaye cover (and you know I love me some soulful reggae) made me snap it up.
When I got out to the car and had a chance to give it a spin, I knew I’d made a wise investment.
Winston Samuels (recording here with the Clintones) spent the better part of the 1960s recording ska and rock steady 45s for a variety of labels working with producer Lindon Pottinger, before joining Desmond Dekker and the Aces in 1967. Samuels recorded with, but did not tour with the Aces, reportedly saying that he was unable to fly out of Jamaica because “Rastas did not fly on iron birds”.
I haven’t been able to date Samuel’s cover of Gaye’s ‘Let’s Get It On’, but I would have to assume that it was from 1973 or later, since that’s when the OG hit the charts.
Samuel lays down an excellent vocal over a tasty reggae backing, with some nice organ, sounding like it was written to be recorded in the reggae stylee.
I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll be back on Monday (posting from the road) with a new edition of Funky16Corners Radio.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, March 23, 2010 5:22 pm

Listen/Download -The Gemini Brass – Rock the Boat

Greetings all.

The tune I bring you today is something I picked up a long time ago at one of the Asbury Lanes Garage/Record sales. I’d been wanting to blog it for a while, and had it digimatized, but every time I wanted to write about it I realized that I had forgotten to photograph the label, after which I promised myself that I’d dig it out, and then – as is often the case – promptly forgot about the matter, sending it right back to the bottom of the heap.
It’s just like that sometimes.
Fortunately, my brain is like a sweater fresh out of the dryer, i.e. full of static and as a result covered with the stray socks and lint of memory. When I sit down to go through the crates, whether to work up a new mix, or pull some 45s for a live DJ set, the fragments of memory often shake loose as I see a record in passing, and I create a whole separate pile of stuff, filed under ‘things I need to record’, ‘things I need to photograph’ and more often than not ‘records I thought were lost for good’ (with today’s selection falling into the last two categories).
The record in question is ‘Rock the Boat’ by the Gemini Brass.
A cover of the 1974 Top 20 hit by the Hues Corporation, this 45 sent up all kinds of red flags when I pulled it out of the box.
Weird label I’d never seen before: CHECK
Cover of a funk and/or soul tune: CHECK
Indication that said record is from a foreign country: CHECK
Possible to procure said record for less than a dollar: CHECK
When I got the record home and gave it a spin I was pleasantly surprised. It starts at an absolutely speeding tempo with all kinds of percussion and shouts from the band before the horns and some kind of cheesy combo organ fall in to state the theme. There are vocals, but they don’t really take the lead, serving more as accents to the instrumental track (it’s almost as the lead vocal had been removed, leaving the backing vocalists by themselves). The whole thing is kind of frantic
The little I’ve been able to discover about the Gemini Brass indicates that they were a working brass band from the Caribbean island of Trinidad. They recorded several 45s and at least two albums (the latter of which appears to have been recorded/released in Canada), playing both traditional calypso as well as covers of contemporary funk/soul material. A couple of their tracks have been comped, with their version of the African Music Machine’s ‘Black Water Gold’ appearing on Kon and Amir and DJ Muro’s ‘Kings of Diggin’, and ‘You Don’t Love Me’ on the Strut comp ‘Calypsoul ‘70’.
The issue of ‘Rock the Boat’ presented here is the Trinidadian OG, and the record was also released in the US on the Brooklyn-based Calypso label Charlies.
The Gemini Brass version of ‘Rock the Boat’ is frantic to the point where only the most athletic (or most intoxicated) folks on the dance floor would be able to keep up, but the record is so infectious I can imagine most people at least giving it a try.
I hope you dig the cut, and I’ll be back on Friday.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, March 21, 2010 5:30 pm

Listen/Download -Willie Smith – I Got a New Thing

Listen/Download -Cliff Driver’s Infernal Machine – I Got a New Thing (inst)

Greetings all.

I hope everyone (in a geographically appropriate radius) is enjoying the prematurely ‘spring-y’ weather. Not all that far removed from what seemed like an eternal wall of snow, we’ve been grooving on 70 degree-plus weather the last few days. Sure it’s still chilly in the early morning and after the sun goes down, but since I tend to remain indoors during those hours, I don’t mind all that much.
I took advantage of the wonderful weather to drive two hours in my car and stand around in a warehouse for two and a half hours more digging at the legendary all-45/78 record show in Allentown, PA. This has become – over the years I’ve been traveling to Allentown for record-related purposes –  quite the Pavlovian exercise, with yours truly enduring a painfully monotonous drive so that I might, like a hamster eager for num-nums, be rewarded at the end by stacks of vinyl.
Today was an especially nice trip, mainly because I scored a heap of nice stuff (split about 50/50 between soul/funk and rock/pop) and got to meet up with some groovy people.
As I was driving out to the show, I was giving some thought s to what I’d write about the experience, deciding in advance that I’d take it upon myself to counter the stereotype of record shows as a freak parade of basement dwelling, vinyl hungry Morlocks, crawling to the surface so that they might once again drag records back to their lair.
As I stood on the steps of the ‘mall’ where the show is held, waiting for the doors to open, scanning my fellow attendees, I thought that I would be unable to follow through on my hypothesis. Fortunately, once I got inside, to the actual record show, the ‘sampling’ evened out somewhat, providing much needed balance and my faith in humanity (or the dark little corner of it inhabited by record collectors) was restored.
Sure, the crowd was close to 99.9 percent male, and, thanks to the unpleasantly close quarters in which one is forced to dig, almost as smelly, but when afforded a moment to step back and soak in the scene, I realized that what I was looking at was a cross section of the ‘serious’ digger community, writ large. The age range stretched from teenagers to folks that remember what the Korean War was like (firsthand). There were doowoppers, Beatle-haircut guys (split evenly between actual “butcher-cover” grippers and garage punkers), serious (like extra-continental) out of towners from the UK and Japan, your hippity-hoppers, your blues 78 cats, soul and funk diggers, serious DJs (I had a chance to say hi to two of New York’s heaviest, Mr. Finewine and Mr. Robinson) and tons of non-descript minglers, providing the caulk binding the stylistic tiles in the room.
Something else I saw, at least on the ‘meta’ level was hundreds of hardcore music lovers. There was almost as much conversation – with old friends and new catching up and trading stories – as there was actual digging.
There’s nothing quite like moving around a tightly packed record convention – especially one like the all-45/78 show, which tends to pull in the heavy hitters – and watching the faces of people extracting a long-sought 45 from a stack of thousands, or wading through a pile of prospects with a portable turntable.
When I go to a show like this, I tend to work the middle ground, avoiding the huge, disheveled piles of randomly packed 45s, as well as the boxes where there isn’t a record to be found selling for less than one hundred dollars.
When you survey a show like this, you realize that there are people working all over the financial spectrum. You tend to hear stories about pre-show horse trading (sometimes back at the hotel the night before, sometimes – as I saw this time – out of the back seats of cars in the parking lot), and as I said before, there’s everything from heaps of cheap filler to boxes of ultra-rare gold, literally something for everyone.
No matter how much cultural snobbery there is, from both outside of and within the scene, the bottom line is that what you feel on your way out of a show like this is an atmosphere thick with satisfaction. Some of the people clutching a prized white whale that they’d been chasing (and saving for) for years, some with piles of things new to them that will provide hours of sonic exploration, and some (like me, for instance) with a little of both.
I can’t say that I scored any grails this time out (most of my remaining heavy wants are far outside my financial reach), but I did grab a couple of things from my want list, as well as a number of interesting things that I’d never heard before, which I’ll record, listen (and re-listen) to in the coming weeks and research as much as I can, eventually presenting them to you on one of the blogs.
Since I’m not done digimatizing the new stuff, the track I bring you this fine day is something I grabbed last year.
The 45 in question, ‘I Got a New Thing’ by Willie Smith, with an instrumental version on the flip credited to Cliff Driver’s Infernal Machine, is a rough and ready, bluesy funk 45. Featuring a tough, soulful vocal (Mr. Smith I presume?) and some fantastic guitar work (straight ahead, and wah-wah-i-fied), ‘I Got a New Thing’ is a serious, meat and potatoes slice of funk.
This is the kind of funk 45 that could really be used as an all-purpose stand in for the entire genre.
It’s funky (naturally).
Passably, but not slavishly James Brown-y (‘James Brown. Of All the James Browns in the world, you’re the James Brown-iest‘*).
Packed with all the proper signifiers, i.e. heavy drums, chank guitar, organ, brass punctuation and soul shouts.
And, at least in this case, largely anonymous.
Aside from the New York City address on the label (which, considering the concentration of the record biz in NYC – at least back in the day –means nothing at all) I can’t tell you much about the record in question.
The instro dub on the flip, is pretty much a straight lift of the bed from the vocal version, with a honking sax-o-ma-phone solo running around where the voice used to be. I think I prefer the vocal version, but the instrumental side is nothing to sniff at.
I hope you dig the sounds, and I’ll be back on Wednesday with something groovy.

Peace

Larry

*Apologies to Charles Schulz

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By Larry, March 18, 2010 3:58 pm

Buffalo Springfield

Percy Sledge

King Curtis

Listen/Download -Percy Sledge – Kind Woman

Listen/Download -King Curtis – For What It’s Worth

Greetings all.

I hope that the end of the week finds you all well.
I seem to have found temporary respite from the seasonal onslaught of pollen, which at times feels like someone is following me around tightening a vise on my head. I suspect that the damp weather amplified the problem, but pretty much all I can do is take allergy medicine and hope that it goes away.
The tunes I bring you today are soulful covers of my all time favorite US 60s band (Tied with Arthur Lee and Love), the Buffalo Springfield.
Known to most as the group that spawned Stephen Stills and Neil Young, the Buffalo Springfield were much more than that, creating in the their short, tumultuous existence an amazing, often sublime fusion of rock, country and psychedelic sounds.
Their biggest (only) hit was 1967s ode to the Sunset Strip riots, ‘For What It’s Worth’ which was covered many times, most memorably by the Staple Singers and sampled by Public Enemy for ‘He Got Game’ (on which Stills re-recorded the chorus).
My love for the Buffalo Springfield has been a deep and abiding one. I bought my first BS record when I was 13 and still listen to the group on a fairly regular basis. The unfortunate thing is that their discography, even when augmented with unreleased material, is still quite brief, spanning only three albums, which make sit all the cooler when I come across an interesting cover of one of their songs.
I’ve always seen them as the classic ‘iceberg band’, in that what is visible above the surface is but a tiny fraction of their output. To the vast majority of people all they are is ‘For What It’s Worth’. To a small percentage of people they are known for what the members went on to do, and the tiniest percentage imaginable actually have a real idea of the depth and breadth of their work.
Last year I was out digging for 45s when I pulled a Percy Sledge single from a box and noticed the title ‘Kind Woman’.
‘No..’ I thought. ‘It couldn’t be.’
But, it was.
What was it? A cover of the very last song, on the very last album by the Buffalo Springfield; ‘Last Time Around’.
Written by Richie Furay , ‘Kind Woman’ is one of the more country-ish tunes in the band’s catalogue. Furay would go on to re-record the song solo, and with the band he would found after leaving the Springfield, Poco.
I couldn’t wait to get the record home and hear it. I was curious how Sledge would interpret the tune, and I wasn’t disappointed.
Sledge takes the country feel of the original and shifts it over into soul ballad territory, taking the verse at a reserved tempo and exploding during the chorus. There’s some great piano running underneath, as well as a nicely subdued horn arrangement.
The second track I bring you today is by the mighty King Curtis. His version of the Buffalo Springfield’s ‘For What It’s Worth’ comes from his 1967 ‘King Size Soul’ album (which also included ‘Memphis Soul Stew’). This version is taking at a relaxed pace, with lush strings, the King’s sax and some great vibrato guitar that ties it to the original. It has a great ‘late night’ feel that makes me want to play it back to back with Bobbie Gentry’s ‘Ode to Billie Joe’.
I hope you dig the tunes, and I’ll be back on Monday with some funk.

Peace

Larry

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