Posts tagged: R&B

Hal Driggers and the Key Brothers – Brown Baggin’ bw Black Pepper

By , February 25, 2018 12:58 pm

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Listen/Download – Hal Driggers and the Key Brothers – Brown Baggin’ MP3

Listen/Download – Hal Driggers and the Key Brothers – Black Pepper MP3

Greetings all.

I hope the new week finds you well.

The track I bring you today dropped into my crates a few years back, solely on the strength of the sounds packed into the grooves.

I had no idea who Hal Driggers was/is (still don’t). It’s not an expensive record, but – and this is the important part – it cooks.

A cursory listen will reveal that ‘Brown Baggin’ is a very spare rewrite of Robert Parker’s ‘Barefootin’, with the gist moving away from dancing and going all the way over to the surreptitious consumption of alcohol, hidden inside the brown bag of the title.

“Brown Baggin’ is a mover, taking the foundation of the Parker classic and running with it.

The flipside, ‘Black Pepper’ is a wild slice of R&B with some hot rhythm guitar and organ.

The context clues on the label, and a Google-i-zation reveal that the 45 was originally released on the North Carolina Cheeco label as by Hal Driggers and the Six Key Brothers (with the descriptor ‘six’ removed for the Atlantic pressing).

My seasoned ears suggest to me that Mr Driggers is a white fella, which is neither here nor there, though along with the geographical location it suggests to me that he might have been part and parcel of the many white R&B bands working in the south (and on the Beach Music scene) at the time.

I have not been able to track down any information on the Key Brothers, either.

Driggers and the Key Brothers did one more 45, for the Philadelphia-based Star Time label.

If any of you fine folks have any info on Driggers or the Key Brothers, please drop me a line.
Until next week.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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If you dig what we do here or over at Funky16Corners, please consider clicking on the Patreon link and throwing something into the yearly operating budget! Do it and we’ll send you some groovy Funky16Corners Radio Network (and related) stickers!

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Funky16Corners Mardi Gras Pt2 – Keep the Fire Burning

By , February 11, 2018 11:52 am

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Warren Lee – Star Revue (Deesu)
Mac Rebennack and the Soul Orchestra – The Point (AFO)
Candy Phillips – Timber Pt1 (Atlantic)
Tommy Ridgley – In the Same Old Way (Ronn)
Eddie Lang – Something Within Me (Seven B)
Aubrey Twins – Love Without End Amen (Epic)
Bates Sisters – So Broken Hearted (Nola)
Benny Spellman – I Feel Good (Atlantic)
Chitlins – Sugar Woman (Pala)
Curley Moore – Soul Train (Hot Line)
Danny White – Cracked Up Over You (Decca)
Eldridge Holmes – Emperor Jones (ALON)
Irma Thomas – What Are You Trying To Do (Imperial)
Lee Dorsey – Do Re Mi (Fury)
Robert Parker – Secret Service (Nola)
Zodiacs – Surely (Deesu)
Betty Harris – Trouble With My Lover (Sansu)
Eddie Bo – Fence of Love (Seven B)
Jesse Hill – My Children My Children (Chess)
John Williams and the Tick Tocks – Do Me Like You Do Me (Sansu)
Lee Calvin – You Got Me (Sansu)
Mary Jane Hooper – That’s How Strong My Love Is (World Pacific)
Aaron Neville – A Hard Nut To Crack (Parlo)
Skip Easterling – Keep the Fire Burning (ALON)
Alvin Robinson – Seaching (Tiger)
Dr John – Big Chief (Atco)

 

Listen/Download – Funky16Corners Keep the Fire Burning MP3

Greetings all.

What you see before you is a special, all-new (all New Orleans!) mix for Mardi Gras 2018.

Funky16Corners Boogaloo Mardi Gras, first posted in 2012 has rerun in this space every year since then.

As I have procured lots of excellent New Orleans vinyl in the interim, I thought that it behooved me to dig back into the crates and whip something new on y’all.

F16C: Keep the Fire Burning is just a hair over an hour of high quality New Orleans soul 45s, all of which are suitable for rug-cutting, second lining and however you are moved when the music comes on.

Allen Toussaint and Eddie Bo are both heavily represented as songwriters, producers, arrangers and in Eddie’s case, performer, and there are lots of other Crescent City masters (and mistresses) getting down in the grooves.

So pull down the ones and zeroes, get out your um-ba-rella and Mardi Gras!

See you next week

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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If you dig what we do here or over at Funky16Corners, please consider clicking on the Patreon link and throwing something into the yearly operating budget! Do it and we’ll send you some groovy Funky16Corners Radio Network (and related) stickers!

Example

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Dennis and the Supertones – Superman Lover b/w Doin’ the Superman

By , May 14, 2017 9:45 am

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Listen/Download – Dennis and the Supertones – Superman Lover MP3

Listen/Download – Dennis and the Supertones – Doin’ the Superman MP3

Greetings all.

Before we get started this week I have some important news.

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Starting this Wednesday, 5/17 from 10PM to 12, and every Wednesday going forward at that time I will be doing a new weekly show on the WFMU Give the Drummer Radio stream called Testify! This show (which had a couple of dry runs elsewhere, earlier on) will see yours truly in a more free-form bag, taking the worlds of Funky16Corners and Iron Leg and mashing them together, with soul, rock, funk, pop, garage, psyche, R&B, Now Sound, jazz and anything else I think sounds good. The show will originate live from the Funky16Corners Subterranean Blogcasting Nerve Center and Record Vault, and will be archived thereafter.

So if your ears are free Wednesday night, turn them toward WFMU.org, click on the Give The Drummer stream and dig what it is that I am putting down.
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The tracks I bring you today are yet another small, but groovy chapter in the very interesting career of Ed Townsend.

Townsend got his start as a hit singer in his own right, with ‘For Your Love’ in 1958, went on to write songs for Theola Kilgore (For the Love of My Man), later co-wrote ‘Let’s Get It On’ with Marvin Gaye, and in between was part of Perry and the Harmonics, and the group I bring you today, Dennis and the Supertones.

The group recorded only one 45 – ‘Superman Lover’ b/w ‘Doin’ the Superman’ – in 1963, and that, as they say, was that.

Both tunes (which are separated by a hair’s breadth of originality) lean heavily in the direction of the mighty Rivingtons (the “ZOOM ZOOM ZOOMS” are right out of he Papa Oom Mow Mow playbook) and are a very cool slice of R&B-going into-soul.

Interestingly enough, ‘Superman Lover’ was covered later that same year by a group called Andy and the Marglows (brothers Andy, Jimmy and Terry Huff) on Liberty.

It’s the kind of party-starting stuff that I dig the most, and I hope you dig it, too.

See you all on Wednesday.

And, while you’re at it, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

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.

Johnny and the Expressions – Something I Want To Tell You

By , April 23, 2017 8:24 am

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Listen/Download – Johnny and the Expressions – Something I Want To Tell You MP3

Greetings all.

Considering that many of you return to work filled with dread and shattered nerves, every now and then I like to get the week rolling with something sweet and mellow.

Johnny and the Expressions hit the charts (Top 20 R&B, #80 Pop) in 1966 with ‘Something I Want To Tell You’, one of those great transitional records that brought the harmonies of doowop into the soul era.

I don’t know much about the group, other than they recorded a string of 45s for Josie in 1965 and 1966, and that lead singer Johnny Wyatt had also recorded with the earlier group Rochell and the Candles who had a hit in 1961 with ‘Once Upon a Time’.

‘Something I Want To Tell You’ is one of those records that could have emerged right out of doowop, but the arrangement gives away that this is from the soul era.

Opening with rhythm guitar and bass, Wyatt comes in with his falsetto lead, followed by the rest of the group in harmony. A subtle horn section, in league with some ringing vibes makes for a great, romantic, late night side.

The record has since become a fave on the lowrider soul scene.

The flip ‘Where Is the Party’ is a faster moving number, but sounds like a much earlier side.

It’s very groovy record indeed, and not at all expensive, so go and get yourself one for your playbox.

I hope you dig it, 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.

Cannibal and the Headhunters – Zulu King / Shotgun

By , March 5, 2017 11:42 am

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Cannibal and the Headhunters

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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.

Funky16Corners Pays Tribute to Billy Miller

By , January 3, 2017 11:56 am

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Original artwork by Tim Smith

Mighty Hannibal – Jerkin’ the Dog (Shurfine)
Andre Williams – Rib Tips (Avin)
Andre Williams – Cadillac Jack (Checker)
Bunker Hill – Hide and Go Seek (Intermission)
Jon Thomas – Hot Tip (Mercury)

Nathaniel Mayer and the Fabulous Twilights – Village of Love (Fortune)
Dr Ross – Cat Squirrel (Fortune)
Arthur Griswold – Pretty Mama Blues (Fortune)
Dave Hamilton and his Peppers – The Beatle Walk (Fortune)

Sparkletones – Black Slacks (ABC-Paramount)
Carl Holmes and the Commanders – Mashed Potatoees Pt1 (Atlantic)
Duals – Oozy Groove (Infinity)
Kipper and the Exciters – Drum Twist (Torch)
Marvelle and the Blue Mats – A Dance Called the Motion (Dynamic Sound)

Bobby Parker – Watch Your Step (V-Tone)
Rivingtons – Papa Ooo Mow Mow (Liberty)
Turtles – Buzz Saw (White Whale)
Eskew Reeder – Green Door (Minit)
Magnificent Malochi – Mama Your Daddy’s Come Home (Brunswick)

Listen/Download – Funky16Corners Pays Tribute to Billy Miller from the WFMU Rock and Soul Ichiban Stream 1/1/17 MP3

Greetings all.

What you see before you today is a downloadable version of a radio show I put together for the WFMU Rock and Soul Ichiban Stream, which ran this past Sunday, January 1, 2017.

The grand poobah of the WFMU/Ichiban, Debbie D asked me to participate in a five hour long birthday tribute to the great Billy Miller, who passed away this past November.

As explained in a post I wrote just after he died, Billy and his wife Miriam Linna were a huge influence on my own musical and pop cultural sensibilities starting in the early 80s via their mighty zine Kicks and later through their work with their label Norton Records.

Norton/Kicks were devoted to plumbing the depths of musical history and paying overdue tribute to some of the wildest, largely unsung artists ever to make records, in garage punk, rockabilly, R&B, soul, surf and beat.

When Debbie asked me to put together a portion of the birthday tribute, I wanted to assemble a collection that reflected the vibe that Billy and Miriam put out into the world and its effect on my own work at Funky16Corners and Iron Leg.

This hour-long set includes plenty of soul and R&B, but also some stuff you wouldn’t normally hear at Funky16Corners, including some rockabilly, and early rock instros.

I think it all fits together well, and I hope you dig it.

So pull down the ones and zeros, 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.

Freddy King – Christmas Tears

By , December 20, 2016 11:34 am

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Freddy King

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Greetings all.

We continue our tunes for the holidays with the flipside of a Freddy King record I posted last year around this time ‘I Hear Jingle Bells’).

This side is the bluesier, more melancholy ‘Christmas Tears’.

Released in 1961, and written by pianist Sonny Thompson (who plays on the track) and R.C. Wilson, it features King as rock solid guitarist (the role for which he is best known) and as an excellent vocalist (the part of the equation that is often forgotten).

King had a great tenor voice with enough flexibility to soar high into the rafters whenever he needed to.

It is a groovy one, indeed, and I hope you dig it.

We’ll be back right before Christmas with the Funky16Corners Christmas Party Mix.

Until then, be safe, be jolly (and if you don’t celebrate Christmas, just keep on being cool), and stay warm.

 

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.

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).

 

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PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

The Queen Meets the King aka Happy Birthday Jimi Hendrix

By , November 27, 2016 12:24 pm

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The Queen and the King: Richard and Jimi, on stage

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Listen/Download – Little Richard – I Don’t Know What You’ve Got, But It’s Got Me Pt1 MP3

Listen/Download – Little Richard – I Don’t Know What You’ve Got, But It’s Got Me Pt2 MP3

Greetings all.

 

It occurred to me that today (11/27) was the birthday of none other than Jimi Hendrix.

Though I have always been a huge fan of Jimi’s post-Blue Flames work (i.e. Experience/Band of Gypsys), this being the Funky16Corners blog, we have dedicated ourselves to the soulful side of things, and Jimi had himself some experience (pun intended) on that side of the stylistic fence as well.

So much so, that I dedicated an entire episode of the Funky16Corners Radio Show to Jimi’s early work (and his influence on the soul and funk world) this June.

Of the early records included in that broadcast, my favorite – because it represents an intersection of two of the great musical forces of the second half of the 20th century – is Little Richard’s 1965 ‘I Don’t Know What You’ve Got, But It’s Got Me Pts 1&2’.

Recorded in a NYC session with Hendrix, Don Covay (the author of the tune), Billy Preston, and Bernard Purdie, ‘I Don’t Know What You’ve Got, But It’s Got Me’ is a beautiful, gospel-inflected slice of deep soul, showing a side of Little Richard you don’t get to hear too often.

Little Richard represents something deeper than mere music for me. He is an elemental force, tying together rock, soul, R&B and gospel and his cultural impact was immeasurable.

He is best known as a screamer and a shouter (of which there were none better), but to hear him open up and get deep like he does in ‘I Don’t Know What You’ve Got, But It’s Got Me’ is something special indeed.

Though Hendrix plays on the tune, this is in no way a guitar tour de force, which is cool because he would do plenty of that later on, but the way the guitar winds in and out of the fairly spare mix, and the almost funereal horn section is wonderful.

Richard spends the first half of the record delivering a straight up ballad (with someone, maybe Covay, singing backup deep in the mix). The second half opens with a monologue by Richard, which gets melodramatic, and edges right up to the border of hysterical, yet gets reined in before dropping back into the song.

It’s another one of those records that demands repeated listens.

I love it.

I’m also including the link to the entire episode, where there are a number of other early  45s where you can hear Jimi clearly.

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Show #319. Originally broadcast 06/10/2016

The Soul Roots of Jimi Hendrix

Don Covay – Mercy Mercy (Rosemart)
Isley Brothers – Testify Pts 1&2 (T-Neck)
Little Richard – Dance a Go Go (Vee Jay)
Little Richard – I Don’t Know What You’ve Got (But It’s Got Me) Pts 1&2 (Vee Jay)

Ray Sharpe – Help Me (Get The Feeling) Pts 1&2 (Atco)
Billy LaMont – Sweet Thang (20th Century Fox)
Lonnie Youngblood – Go Go Shoes/Go Go Place (Fairmount)
Lonnie Youngblood – Soul Food (That’s What I Like) (Fairmount)
Lonnie Youngblood – Goodbye Bessie Mae (Fairmount)

Johnny Jones and the King Casuals – Purple Haze (Brunswick)
Booker T and the MGs – Foxy Lady (Stax)
Kossie Gardner – Fire (Dot)
Phil Upchurch – Crosstown Traffic (Cadet)
Rotary Connection – Burning of the Midnight Lamp (Cadet Concept)
Ellen McIlwaine – Up From the Skies (Polydor)
Idris Muhammad – The Power of Soul (Kudu)

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

Mose Allison 1927 – 2016

By , November 20, 2016 10:38 am

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Mose Allison, chilling in his far out chair, in the woods…

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Listen/Download – Mose Allison – The Seventh Son

Listen/Download Mose Allison – Young Man (Blues)

Listen/Download Mose Allison – I’m Not Talking

Listen/Download – Mose Allison – Baby Please Don’t Go

Listen/Download – Mose Allison – I Love the Life I Live 

Listen/Download – Mose Allison – Your Mind Is On Vacation

 

Greetings all

 

This is a repost/augmentation of a post I wrote back in 2013. Last week was an especially heavy one for music lovers, with the loss of Leonard Cohen, Leon Russell, Billy Miller of Norton Records and lastly (but never leastly) the mighty Mose Allison.

Mose was 89 years old and had only recently given up playing live.

He was one of my all time favorites, a foundational artist in my sensibility and an absolute master.

I’m adding a couple of other Mose classics to the links below.

If you know, dig. If you do not get familiar.

I’ll see you on Wednesday – L

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Have you heard about Mose?

Allison, that is…aka the Sage of Tippo…aka the smoothest badass to ever prop himself up at a piano and lay it down.

If you – like me – has made a study of the roots of rock, especially the British Invasion, or just surveyed the history of coolness, then you have certainly crossed paths with the mighty Mose.

Mose Allison has the kind of voice/manner that immediately brings to mind the black-and-white, beatnik cool of the 1950s. Jack Kerouac’s America, in which one was free to roam the highways and back roads of this great country, partaking in, and becoming part of the great tableaux, digging and being dug in equal measures.

Mose Allison – born and raised in Mississippi – sat himself down at the piano and made his first record in 1957, and hasn’t stopped being one of the coolest of cats since then.

I don’t think I heard Mose until I was all but drowning in the British beat/R&B thing, up to and including the sounds of Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, which is important because if Mose Allison had never recorded a note, old Clive Powell would likely disappear from the face of the earth.

The first time I heard Mose, an overloaded socket in theback of my brain threw sparks and I realized how much Georgie idolized and emulated him, as well as all of the Brits who looked to him as a songwriter and interpreter of songs.

It was Mose that wrote ‘Parchman Farm’ (John Mayall and everyone else with a blues fetish), ‘Young Man Blues’ (the Who) and ‘I’m Not Talking’ (the Yardbirds) among many others, and laid down what I would consider to be the definitive interpretation of Willie Dixon’s ‘Seventh Son’.

I’m including the last three tunes here today, so that you might head out and dig for your own stack of Mose Allison records, that you can whip out and impress the ladies at your next soiree.

Both ‘Young Man Blues’ and ‘The Seventh Son’ hail from Allison’s landmark 1963 ‘Mose Allison Sings’ LP for Prestige.

‘Young Man Blues’ – clocking in at less than a minute and a half – is a laid back meditation, barely a whisper compared to the angry box of TNT that the Who detonated on ‘Live at Leeds’.

Mose’s take on ‘The Seventh Son’ is a masterpiece of relaxed, swinging Zen, every note perfectly placed, a wonder. He takes the Mississippi hoodoo boasts of the OG and delivers them in a matter-of-fact way that puts the text in boldface.

‘I’m Not Talking’, from 1964’s ‘The Word From Mose’ on Atlantic, is once again, the placid, almost dehumidified-it’s-so-dry foundation on which the mighty Yardbirds built a souped-up, nitro-fueled funny car with which they blew the doors off of the ‘For Your Love’ album in 1965.

The grooviest thing of all is that for all of the influence he pushed out, Mose himself was always more like a shadow, hanging back, just being, than anyone who took their marching orders from his records. He spent the last 50-plus years making music of high quality, crossing the border back and forth between the blues and jazz, always being more himself than anything else and that was all he ever needed to be.

If you’re not hip to Mose, get there.

That is all.

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.
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).

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PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

The Magnificent Malochi Sings Billy Home….

By , November 17, 2016 11:56 am

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Esquerita aka the Magnificent Malochi

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Listen/Download – The Magnificent Malochi – Mama Your Daddy’s Come Home MP3

Listen/Download – The Magnificent Malochi – As Time Goes By MP3

Greetings all.

I will begin, as I always do on Friday by reminding you to twist the dials of your Radiola to tune in the Funky16Corners Radio Show, which drops each and every Friday with the best in funk, soul, jazz and rare groove, all on original vinyl.

This week’s show is a very special (and special format) tribute to David Mancuso, so make sure to subscribe in iTunes, or listen on TuneIn, Stitcher, Mixcloud or grab and MP3 right here at Funky16Corners.com

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Billy and Miriam in their natural environment
(photo by Eilon Paz from the mighty Dust & Grooves book) and Kicks (inset)

This has been an exceptionally harsh week for music fans, losing Leon Russell, Leonard Cohen, Mose Allison, and Norton/Kicks co-founder Billy Miller, who passed away after a heartbreaking battle with diabetes and cancer.

It pains me to have to write these memorials, but if you what I do you kind of have to. We  pay tribute to our fallen heroes in the hopes that by putting it out into the universe, someone, somewhere will come to know them, or know them better.

While I wouldn’t say that I knew Billy very well, he was a presence in my life for close to 30 years, and via the work he and his wife Miriam Linna did in the greatest zine that ever was, Kicks, he was a huge influence on my writing, musical/cultural sensibilities and continuous devotion to the DIY cause.

Back in the early 80s, when I was first discovering music in the realms of garage punk, rockabilly and R&B, fanzines were a major part of that discovery, and none was more important than Kicks.

Billy and Miriam created a road map to the forgotten wildmen and women of music and pop culture, infusing a trainspotter’s knack for arcana with a healthy dose of humor and boundless enthusiasm.

Though it should be clear to anyone that hits up either of my blogs or podcasts that this kind of stuff runs through my veins, back in the 80s that love was multiplied exponentially because it was infused with the excitement that comes from discovery and insatiable appetite for same.

Kicks was a bible for my friends and I, and as I started my own zines – which I have been doing on and off, on paper and on the interwebs for 32 years now – the style that Billy and Miriam created was a consistent touchstone. If you ever see me lapsing into the patois of a an early 60s overnight hepcat DJ (which I often do) that is 150% Kicks right there.

They were coolness personified, and a constant reminder that no matter how deep, or obsessed I would get about some things, I was never within a thousand miles of their level of devotion, knowledge or their reach when talking about it.

I only knew Billy in passing, having spoken to him briefly (and shared a bill once when our bands played together) a number of times over the years (including once, a million years ago in the Court Tavern where I broached the subject of what was – in retrospect – some painfully obvious rockabilly 45 that I had found, and Billy was kind enough to humor me, saying “Oh yeah, that’s a rare one.” without rolling his eyes), but because we connected on Facebook, and had a large number of mutual friends, I followed the progress of his illness, always hoping that he would turn a corner, level off and spend another 25 years filling the world with great music.

Sadly that turn never came, and he went on to join the departed heroes he sang the praises of in the great beyond.

Via Kicks and Norton, I was exposed to countless artists that I had never heard of (Hasil Adkins, Ronnie Dawson, and thanks to them the name Groovey Joe Poovey has been bouncing around in my brain for 30 years) and filled in the blanks of others that I knew but not well (especially Bobby Fuller and Andre Williams). But of the musicians that they championed and introduced to me, none looms larger than Esquerita.

Esquerita, aka Eskew Reeder was not only musically explosive/flamboyant, but visually as well, demonstrated by the fact that he became a kind of pictorial mascot for Kicks and Billy and Miriam’s monumental record/books label Norton (especially after their brush with destruction in Hurricane Sandy).

The connection is so deep for me, that I am unable to see a picture of Esquerita or play one of his records without thinking of Kicks/Norton.

The record I offer up today as a sort of New Orleans second line tribute to Billy (on the day of his homegoing) is an unusual, one-off (further) pseudonymous 45 by Esquerita, released under the name The Magnificent Malochi* (in a Kicks-ian coincidence, sounding like an old school, UHF-TV wrestler) in 1968, recorded in Los Angeles with Mac Rebennack and Harold Battiste (you can hear more about it in Funky16Corners Radio Show Episode #336, the New Orleans/LA Connection).

The first side, ‘Mama Your Daddy’s Come Home’ (written oddly enough by James Weatherly of the sunshine pop group the Gordian Knot?!?) is a stomping, gospel infused soul shouter.

The flipside is a deep, deep cover of the old standard ‘As Time Goes By’ (long associated with Dooley Wilson’s performance as Sam in the film ‘Casablanca’), which is delivered in an unforgettable style by Esquerita, sounding like he’d taken over the choir loft in a church for a little inebriated fun.

And what better way to pay tribute to a man that made it his life’s work to turn the world on to records like this?

So pull down the ones and zeros, and raise a glass tonight in honor of one of the great musical forces of late 20th (and 21st) century America. Send his wife and friends your sympathy, and know that he made the world a infinitely wilder, more fun, more musical place.

Adios, Billy.

See you on Monday

Keep the faith

Larry

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  • PS Thanks to my man Tarik Thornton for introducing me to the Magnificent Malochi 45

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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.

G.L. Crockett – Every Hour, Every Day

By , November 13, 2016 9:16 am

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G.L. Crockett

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Listen/Download – G.L. Crockett – Every Hour, Every Day MP3

Greetings all.

I hope that the new week finds you all well.

The record you see before you this fine day is something I picked up at a record show a long time ago, thanks to the presence of ‘It’s a Man Down There’, a Top 10 R&B hit in 1965 and an iteration of the Sonny Boy Williamson song ‘One Way Out’ that was redone to great success by the Allman Brothers a few years later.

While that particular track is a very groovy, very mellow Jimmy Reed-esque number with that juke joint drive, it is the flipside of the 45 that we gather to discuss.

‘Every Hour, Every Day’ is one of those records, like Tommy Tucker’s ‘Long Tall Shorty’ that takes a little time before it hits its stride, but when it does it is something else indeed.

‘Every Hour, Every Day’, which makes the most of a spare, almost rudimentary backing and rough hewn (very live sounding) production almost sounds like it’s being cranked to life like an old jalopy, but when it gets rolling it is a thing of beauty.

G.L. Crockett’s history is short, and comes to a sudden end a few years after his very short discography. He came to Chicago from Mississippi, and apparently had himself a hard-driving/hard drinking lifestyle, and he died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1967.

‘Every Hour, Every Day’ resides in the rarified zone where blues, R&B and soul dwell together, never settling firmly in any of them, yet transcending all of them.

Though the production style is similar to the A side, the feel of the record is marked by an unusual beauty. The backing vocals (sounding like one bass and one falsetto) complement Crockett’s voice which comes across like a very fine grade of sandpaper. The band, guitar, bass, drums and a very prominent tambourine, is stellar and the combination of instruments and voice is very nearly hypnotic.

I can imagine you might be tempted to slip this into a mid-tempo set, but I think that everyone would eventually stop dancing so they could concentrate on the music.

I think you’ll find yourself giving this one repeated listens.

I hope you dig it, and I’ll see you 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.

Send More Chuck Berry*

By , October 18, 2016 11:12 am

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Charles Edward Anderson Berry of St Louis, Missouri…

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Listen/Download – Chuck Berry – Back Too Memphis MP3

Greetings all.

I come to you today with a previously unscheduled communique on the occasion of the 90th (holy shit…) birthday of the mighty Chuck Berry.

It is tempting to say – considering what the initial response would be from most people who actually remember who Chuck Berry is – that Mr B has managed to outlive his greatness.

There is little disputing the fact that Chuck Berry hasn’t made a significant recording for more than 40 years. His last chart hit was in 1972, and ironically (considering what many people remember him for today) it was ‘My Ding-a-ling’ (it hurts to type that).

Chuck’s ding-a-ling having been the source of much of his troubles….

That said, it would be downright tragic if those of us that knew better, weren’t continuously engaged in reminding people how monumental and long-lasting Chuck Berry’s musical/cultural footprint was prior to 1972, and raising hell about how that mark has been minimized by an ugly combination of race, cultural appropriation, the simple passage of time (and the death of the American attention span) and decades of gross misunderstandings of rock’n’roll.

Chuck Berry was a goddamn genius.

His numerous peccadilloes aside (and frankly, aside from the demonstrably pervy stuff – and if that’s a sticking point Rock and Roll Penitentiary is going to be a very crowded place…Jimmy Page…COUGH) it would be very difficult for anyone without tin ears to make even a cursory survey of his oeuvre and not come out on the other side hail hail-ing Chuck Berry.

From the intial shot across the bow, ‘Maybelline’ in 1955, Chuck stomped into, and right through America’s consciousness (at least the consciousness of the emerging youth culture and Black America – he rode the R&B charts as aggressively as the Pop charts) laying a granite-strong musical foundation, without which little else of rock consequence would have been built in the rest of the 50s and all through the 60s.

Of course, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, and in a more elemental way (maybe they were in the quarry cutting out the granite in the first place) giants like John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and Jimmy Reed, were right there beside him, but Chuck is – at least in my opinion – the most important of all in a purely musical sense.

Though it seems like a painfully obvious thing to say now, Berry was black. He was physically black, which in the 1950s and early 1960s was clearly a huge pain in the ass for the person wearing the skin, especially if he managed to intrude upon the artificial quietude of White America, and it got old Chuck into all kinds of extra trouble he probably would have been spared had he been, say, as white as an Elvis or Jerry Lee, two other rockers with a taste for teenage girls.

The glaring hole in his chart history indicates the period (1960-1963) when Chuck Berry went to prison for violating the Mann Act. The story of how he ended up in prison is a complicated one, and undoubtedly the kind of thing that people before him and after him (mostly, but not exclusively white) walked away from. That Berry didn’t walk, but sat on ice for what should have been three of the most productive years at the peak of his career, and climbed right back onto the charts in 1964 with some of the best stuff he ever did is a testament to his greatness (and also to what might have been).

All of the great early figures of rock were synthesizers, of blues, gospel, jump blues/R&B, and most of them were explosive stylists in both sound and presentation, but Chuck Berry’s stew – even though it appeared seamless to the naked ear – was a much weirder, finer thing altogether.

Berry’s music blended R&B (as well as pure blues, and even jazz) with a huge dose of country (if he was a car he’d be running down rockabilly singers right and left) and it was all assembled with a songwriting talent as big as just about anyone who people take seriously as a songwriter, including everyone from Tin Pan Alley, Broadway or anywhere else.

He was an absolutely brilliant lyricist in a time when anything that appealed to teenagers was immediately dismissed by critics, and was a powerful enough performer, and record-maker (sometimes mutually exclusive pastimes) to drill those lyrics, many of them purely poetic, deep into the brains of a generation of Americans in a way that made them seem like they’d always been there, like the green grass and the blue sky.

It isn’t often that a popular musical figure has an impact like that, but Chuck Berry did.

Bo Diddley and Little Richard were elemental, as was Chuck Berry, but his contributions were further reaching, making their way into the DNA of culture and stringing themselves up on the double helix like a set of Christmas lights.

He was a 30 year old man preaching (and converting) legions of teenagers by speaking to them in their own language and making them dance, which as far as pearl-clutching Middle America was concerned was pure corruption. Cultural miscegenation.

And they were right.

Too bad.

So sad.

Sometimes things have to die for a reason and McCarthyite American needed stake driven through its ugly heart, and Chuck was – along with a bunch of others- right there, hammering away.

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If you don’t already, see if you can get your hands on the compilation ‘Chuck Berry – The Anthology’, released in 2000 by Chess/MCA.

Though old Chuck has been anthologized, rehashed and repackaged dozens of times over the years, this 2-CD set (which you can still get in iTunes) is as fine a distillation of his catalog as you’re likely to find.

Clocking in at just over two hours (even if you omit the 4:18 of ‘My Ding-A-Ling’) it manages to present a solid picture of why I said everything I just said about Berry, as well as why he was an idol at his peak, why the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Pretty Things (among many others) worshiped at his altar, and why you should ignore every stupid thing Chuck Berry has done in his life (or has had done to him) and listen to his music.

Because the music is what’s important here, and it is VERY IMPORTANT.

And for those of you who think all Chuck Berry songs sound the same, you are wrong, because Chuck Berry’s songs don’t sound the same any more than Mozart does, and the only way you’re going to figure it out is to stop treating it all like wallpaper and use your ears like a vault instead of a kitchen junk drawer.

It’s all there.

So go get it – or head to a decent record store, or to Amazon, or anywhere they stock fine Chuck Berry music – and set aside two hours to listen to it. And when you’re done (unless you’re already hip and have been shaking your head in assent the whole time you were reading this) see if you don’t think differently about him.

I think you will.

The song I bring you today isn’t on that comp, because it comes from the chart desert that stretched from the end of 1964 to the arrival of ‘My Ding-A-Ling’ in 1972.

That period, when Chuck was recording for Mercury and Chess alternates between treading water and making some of the most interesting and neglected music of his career.

It would be a lie to say that these years were as significant as 1955-1964, but to hear Chuck whipping a little soul into the mix, and keeping his eyes on the prize, hands on the wheel before colliding with (and climbing onto) the Nostalgia Express is a thing of beauty.

Today’s selection, ‘Back To Memphis’ was recorded in Memphis (on the album, titled, unsurprisingly, ‘Chuck Berry In Memphis) with the American Studios band, and produced by Roy Dea and Boo Frazier.

‘Back To Memphis’ has something unusual in Chuck Berry records, that being a big, fat bottom, with the bass and drums pushing the record along like a kick in the ass, with the horn section and Chuck’s guitar at the wheel. It is a dance floor killer, and a reminder that Berry was a force to be reckoned with.

Unfortunately, nobody was listening here in the US, though ‘Back To Memphis’ was a Top 40 hit on the pirate station Radio London, in the UK (1966’s ‘Club Nitty Gritty’ had also been a hit on the pirates, charting on Radio London, and Radio City, both).

So go home tonight and play some Chuck Berry. Open the windows, turn the speakers toward the street and crank it up until your neighbors start dancing, or hammering on your front door, in which case turn it up more.

Happy Birthday Chuck.

Keep the faith

Larry

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*Thank you, Jim Bartlett

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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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