King Curtis

 

Listen/Download – King Curtis – Pop Corn Willy
Listen/Download – King Curtis – Patty Cake (Valdez In the Country)

 

Greetings all.

I hope the end of the week finds you all robust, rosy cheeked and filled to the gills with soul.

I am – as usual – up to my substantial ass in alligators, with an exceptionally busy vacation followed immediately with an equally jam packed week.

I will save my recap of my DJ gigs in Massachusetts (which were a gas) for next week, but I did want to fill out this week’s posting with a very recent acquisition, that has (and this should come as no surprise) an interesting story attached to it.

The first part of our family vacation was occupied with an ongoing, very important errand, and as a result, when an opportunity opened up to do a little on-the-road 45 digging, I was both surprised and very pleased.

I hit a spot in upstate NY, that has – like many record stores that I haunt on the reg – seemed like a case of diminishing returns, i.e., the more I go back, the less there is to look through.

This time out was a different story, and by the time I had worked my way through the soul and funk section I had built up a nice stack of 45s to peruse, including some new (to me) stuff, one longtime want list item, 45 versions of things I previously had only on LP, as well as a couple of nice items for the trade box.

Among the new things was a King Curtis 45 with two tracks that were both previously unknown to me.

The one that caught my eye was ‘Pop Corn Willy’, which seemed – thanks to the mention of the funky snack food in the title – to be part and parcel of the 1969 dance craze.

Once I got it to the listening station, my suspicions were confirmed. It was extremely funky, and fast moving, and I gave it a spin when I took to the decks in Northampton, MA.

‘Pop Corn Willy’ is one of those cheap 45s that would likely be worth a nice chunk of change if it were rarer.

I gave the other side a brief needle drop, but since it didn’t grab me right away, I didn’t give it much thought.

When we finally returned home, and I got all my ducks in a row – including the acquisition of a brand new DJ coffin (not something you bury a DJ in, but rather a road case for two turntables and a mixer) – I sat down to digimatize the new records so that I might include them in next week’s edition of the Funky16Corners Radio Show (which by the way will air, on schedule, this Friday evening at 9PM on Viva Radio), I decided to give the King Curtis flipside a closer listen, and it’s a good thing I did too.

When I put the needle on the record, the song coming out of the speakers was pleasant enough, but after about 20 seconds it started to sound oddly familiar, and by the time the chorus rolled around I realized that although the song was titled ‘Patty Cake’, what I was actually hearing was a version of one of my favorite Donny Hathaway tunes, ‘Valdez In the Country’.

I’d first heard the song in a cover by the Soulful Strings, then by Hathaway himself, and eventually in a smoking version by Cold Blood.

The thing that bugged me though, was why it had been recorded by Mr Ousley under a different title.

As it turns out, this may very well have been the initial waxing of this composition. Hathaway himself (credited here, oddly as ‘Don Hathaway’) wouldn’t record it until 1973 on his ‘Extensions of a Man’ LP, after the Soulful Strings, Cold Blood, Nite Liters and Black Sugar (it would later be covered by George Benson).

As it turns out, the keyboardist on this session (recorded in August of 1969) was none other than Hathaway himself*, which would explain where King Curtis got his hands on the song. I don’t know for sure, but it’s possible that Curtis changed the title (the song would only appear on a non-LP 45) in an effort to keep it simple for the juke boxes and the dance floor. It’s also possible that it had yet to take on the ‘Valdez…’ title (I’ve never been able to discover the origin or significance of the title), though the Soulful Strings version, also recorded in 1969 carried the longer title.

That all said, it’s a great song (one of my favorite instrumentals), and I hope you dig it.

Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you all on Monday.

Peace

Larry

 

 

*Interestingly, Hathaway also plays on (as well as produced and arranged) the Cold Blood version, and may very well have had something to do with the Soulful Strings version as well. He was clearly proud of the composition and did a lot to get it out there.

 

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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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