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By Larry, May 23, 2010 3:27 pm

Listen/Download – Premiers – Funky Monkey

Greetings all.

The new week is here, and odd as it may seem, I face it with guarded optimism.
Despite the nasty surprise that our local Vietnamese restaurant (home of sublime banh mi and pho) had closed – which we discovered as we drove up to the front door – things are on an uptick of sorts.
My health issues seem to have temporarily leveled off, and next week will see the arrival of the 2010 Funky16Corners Blog Pledge Drive, for which I am cooking up something very groovy indeed. I won’t spill the beans quite yet, but I assure you that something cool is afoot in the land of the funky corners.
The tune I bring you today is a little something I picked up in a trade with my man DJ Bluewater. He always packs some heat in his sale box, and I am always ready and willing to grab some of it for my crates, whether by exchange of folding money or by barter.
I haven’t been able to find out a whole lot about the Premiers or their song ‘Funky-Monkey’.
The J.O.B. label, named for its founders Joe Brown and James Burke Oden was a Chicago blues label that issued its first platter in 1949, a side by St. Louis Jimmy (aka James Burke Oden). Between 1949 and 1974, J.O.B. released dozens of sides by a variety of artists including Snooky Pryor, Sax Kari, Willie Cobbs and a cat named Eddie ‘Mr Kleen’ Clark.
Sometime around 1970, Clark wrote, produced and arranged the Premiers’ ‘Funky-Monkey’ for J.O.B.
This was the only 45 that the group would record for the label.
Interestingly enough, ‘Funky-Monkey’ was also issued on the Mississippi-based Odex label.
‘Funky-Monkey’ – which gets started with some tight, snappy drums – includes a sly, repeated guitar line, climbing bass, horns and of course, lots of (I’m assuming) human-produced, monkey sound effects. The Premiers don’t overdo it with the monkeyshines, but there is just enough to push ‘Funky-Monkey’ up against the novelty side of things.
This is not to say that the record is not funky, which it most certainly is, and there were tons of similarly adorned sides out there in the classic funk era. I mean honestly, line this up against the beginning of the Meters’ ‘Chicken Strut’ and it ends up looking like the very model of subtlety.
What you end up with is a nice little slice of urban funk, more than competently performed and altogether groovy.
I haven’t been able to ascertain if these Premiers (and there were several) went on to record anything else.
I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll be back on Wednesday.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, May 20, 2010 4:10 pm

Horace Andy

Listen/Download – Horace Andy – Show and Tell

Greetings all.

The end of the week is here, and I’m feeling mellow (as a cello), so I figured I drop some sweet island soul on you.
This is one of those times, where I wish I had a selection of paragraph-long explanations linked in the sidebar, so instead of belaboring a point made in this space several times in the past, I could instead insert a footnote/hyperlink, which – when followed – could present the boilerplate, i.e. a shorthand of sorts.
That system never being put in place, I will instead try to distill the thought into a single sentence:

I love reggae, collect it when I can, but qualify the statement by saying that I in no way present myself as an expert on the subject.

How’s that?
That said (briefly) I recently grabbed a handful of nice reggae 45s, including a couple of nice soul covers. I was tempted to do another all-Jamaican week, but decided against it, feeling it might be cooler to spread out the individual sides over the course of the coming months, including the reggae as a seasoning of sorts.
Though I’ve danced around the idea a little bit in the past, I would say that although there is a stylistic divergence based largely in the rhythms specific to Jamaica and its denizens recording abroad (especially in the UK), much of the music described as reggae, ska, rock steady and what have you during the 60s and 70s is so closely related to (and often derivative of) R&B, soul and funk that it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to just wrap it all up in the same bag, and then to go ahead and slice it up by sub-genre.
There are clear differences, but the roots are in most cases the same, and though it has largely been a one way street (i.e. passing from the US to Jamaica but rarely in the opposite direction) there has been a lot of sharing of material.
Today’s selection is a great example thereof.
Horace Andy is one of the great Jamaican vocalists of the 70s and beyond, having worked and lived in his home country, the US and the UK, eventually working in dub and even triphop, collaborating with Massive Attack.
The song I bring you today is a fantastic, laid back cover of Al Wilson’s huge 1974 soul (and pop) hit ‘Show and Tell’. I haven’t been able to date this recording conclusively, though it wouldn’t seem to be any later than 1981 (when it saw issue on the Studio One label). I suspect it’s probably from a few years before that.
The tune adapts well to the reggae rhythm, with some tasteful, subdued lead guitar moving in and out of the mix. Andy’s sweet tenor – at times lifting into falsetto – is supported by female backing singers. The arrangement is spare compared to the original by Wilson, but since Andy is a completely different kind of singer, it works well.
It’s very groovy indeed and I hope you dig it.

NOTE: Don’t forget to check out the Funky16Corners Radio Show on Viva internet radio this Friday night at 9PM.

Have a great weekend.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, May 19, 2010 3:44 pm

JJ Barnes

Listen/Download – JJ Barnes – Don’t Bring Me No Bad News

Seriously. No more this week. PLEASE.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, May 18, 2010 5:39 pm

Vida Blue (top), Albert Jones (bottom left), Choker Campbell (bottom right)

Listen/Download – Albert Jones – Vida Blue

Greetings all.

The tune I bring you today is something that found its way into my ears in a rather roundabout way.
A while back, my man DJ Prestige traveled over to the UK, and while he was there he did some digging (natch) and sat in with UK legend DJ Andy Smith on his radio show. It was during that show that he spun a couple of his UK finds, one of which was today’s selection. I dug the tune a lot, so I set out in search of my own copy, and fortunately I turned one up rather quickly (and cheaply).
The tune in question, ‘Vida Blue’ by Albert Jones (from 1971) is a stomping funk tribute to the early 70s Oakland A’s hurler of the same name.
Jones was a Detroit area singer who recorded for a number of labels including Tri City, Bump Shop, Kapp (one of the Kapp 45s duplicated material originally released on Tri City) and Candy Apple from the late 60s to the mid 70s. Much of his work was under the auspices of Walter ‘Choker’ Campbell, a saxophonist/bandleader who recorded a number of records under his own name before going to work running the Motown road band, eventually recording for the label as well.
After Campbell left Motown, he started his own set of labels, including Tri City. Moonville, and Ultra City, with artists like Jones, Betty Renay, the Soul Merchants (I’m not sure if this is the same group that recorded for the Stax subsidiary Weis Records) and Lee Moore.
Albert Jones recorded four singles for Tri City, the last of which was ‘Vida Blue’.
Oddly enough, the flip side of this 45 is a country version of the same song by a singer named Tom Newton. Since the single was released to capitalize on the popularity of the ball player, it seems likely that the genre switch on the flip was engineered to double the chances that the record might be a hit (though I can imagine most people – like myself – being surprised one way or the other when they flipped the record over).
The Albert Jones side is tight, and to be honest, where else are you going to hear a funk 45 that namechecks Harmon Killebrew and Carl Yastrzemski?
Jones would go on to record a full LP (‘The Facts of Life’) for the Campbell and the Candy Apple label in 1977. One of the tracks from that LP, ‘Mother Nature’ was later sampled by Common for the song ‘Be’.
I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll be back later in the week with something cool.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, May 16, 2010 4:18 pm

The Mighty Wayne Cochran!!

Listen/Download – Wayne Cochran – Goin’ Back to Miami

Greetings all.

Hey everybody!
Welcome to the new week.
Is everyone ready to get their eyebrows singed?
In the many years (decades) that I’ve been chasing records, there are records that I will seek forever, ultimately unrequited.
Then, with a tip of the chapeau to the supernatural, there are the records that are meant to be mine, pushed into my view, and delivered to my crates by the intervention of what the denizens of the mystic east once referred to as kismet.
Today’s selection is one of them.
Not too long ago, I purchased a video collection of performances from a Detroit dance party show, mainly because it featured video of one of my all time faves, the mighty Jerry-O. So, some time goes by and eventually the DVD popped through the mailslot, after which I had only to wait for some of that good ‘alone’ time, on account of nobody else in this crib has the slightest interest in watching fuzzy, third generation bootleg video of people they don’t know, lip-synching on a long forgotten TV show while a bunch of bored teenagers do the frug in the background.
That time finally came, and I settled in with a cold drink and some potato chips to enhance the viewing experience.
Things started out well enough, with some footage of Detroit garage greats the Rationals (I’m a big garage punk fan, too) and rolled right along to a variety of 1966/67 stuff, all groovy. In fact there were (including today’s selection) no less than three mindbending revelations (for me anyway) that will all appear in this space in the weeks to come.
Anyway, I’m really digging this video, when who should pop up on the screen but my old fave, Mr Wayne Cochran.
If you don’t know Wayne Cochran, you really ought to, because in the annals of whiteboy soul, Wayne and his giant, psychedelic mushroom cloud of a hairdo cast a big shadow. When you first see film of him performing it is immediately clear that he was trying his damndest to be the white, chubbsy-ubbsy James Brown (circa 1965), but when you have the chance to soak in the breadth of his catalog you begin to realize that he was something more than that, i.e. possessed of a genuinely unique, remarkably enthusiastic take on rock and soul music.
Anyway, I was watching the video, and then the host of the show introduces Wayne and says that he’s going to do a song called ‘Goin’ Back to Miami’.
“OK”, I thought. “I’ve never heard this one before”.
Then, in a flash, the entire landscape of Cochranistan underwent a radical change, erupting in a white hot blast of flame that pretty much knocked me on my ass.
I mean, holy flaming fuckballs…I’d heard a lot of Wayne Cochran, but none of it, no matter how right, tight and out of sight came within a mile of ‘Goin’ back to Miami’.
It was as if Wayne got ahold of Otis’s ‘I Can’t Turn You Loose’, poured rocket fuel all over it and threw a match on it.
BLAMMO!!!
My eyes were rolling, my hair was standing on end and the musical card catalog in my head was upended and spilled on the floor, never to be properly shuffled again.
There was Wayne, poured into a suit three sizes too small, swiveling about the stage while the band, complete with capes (no shit!) work it out behind him.
There’s a video out there of Cochran performing this same song live on the Jackie Gleason show, with Wayne in a suit the color of a key lime pie absolutely burning up the stage, working the call and response with the band, that has to be the craziest thing Gleason ever whipped on the folks at home. It’s not hard to picture some old guy smacking the side of his TV set wondering what the fuck had gone wrong.
So, once things came to a halt, I tore into the interwebs in search of a vinyl copy of same.
Imagine the depth of my crestfallen-ness when I came up snake eyes.
No matter where I looked – aside from CD comps – I could not locate ‘Goin’ Back to Miami’ anywhere.
I saved the search, and went back and assuaged myself by playing the video repeatedly.
A few days later, I repeated my search and found a copy, up for auction, with one bid (standing at 99 cents) from a seller who lived about five minutes from my house.
I assumed that the first bidder must have laid down a serious chunk of change, so I entered a significant maximum bid, instantly driving the price up to the princely sum of one dollar and thirty seven cents (!?!?) which is where it stayed until the auction ended, with yours truly the victor (to whom, according to legend, belong the spoils*).
It was as if the keeper of the great book of vinyl suddenly noticed a forgotten, dog-eared page, opened it and discovered that it had been written that this very banger of a 45 was destined for my record box, and with a wave of his hand (or magic wand, or tone arm), made it so.
A few days later the 45 hopped out of the mailbox and into my greedy meathooks right onto the turntable, and the next thing you know, abba-zabba, zip-a-dee-doo-dah, biff-bang-pow, I’m playing it, and replaying it at the kind of high volume generally reserved for amped up teenagers, the hard of hearing and those of us swept up in a transformative religious experience (my case being the latter).
And so, I placed it on the platter and let the wonderfulness flow up through the stylus where it passed into the computer, transmuted into the ones and zeros of legend so that this two minutes and forty seconds of nuthouse soul might be shared with you all.
So strap yourself in, crank up the volume and let it rip.
You will not be disappointed.
I promise.
You can thank me later.

Peace

Larry

*This particular scenario has played itself out, in very similar ways, many times before. Enough so, that were I a superstitious/religious type I might be inclined to suspect some kind of divine intervention.

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By Larry, May 13, 2010 3:56 pm

The Emperors: Edgar Moore 2nd from right

Listen/Download – The Emperors – Karate Boogaloo

Listen/Download -The Emperors – Mumble Shingaling

Greetings all.

I hope the end of the week finds you all well.
A few days back I got word that Edgar Moore, one of the founding members of one of my favorite 60s soul groups, the Emperors had passed away.
I’ve been a huge fan of the Emperors since I started digging up their 45s back in the day, from their sole chart hit ‘Karate’ (Top 40 in the Fall of 1966) , to their cover (which, depending on the day you ask me I may indicate to be the superior version) of Don Gardner’s ‘My Baby Likes To Boogaloo’.
You can head over to the Funky16Corners web zine to check out a piece I wrote about the group many years ago, but suffice to say, over the course of the handful of 45s they recorded the Emperors laid down a fantastic take on the whole sock soul thing with the same garagey edge you hear on some of Chuck Edwards’ 45s (was it something in the Pennsylvania water??).
The group formed in Harrisburg, PA but recorded all of their 45s in Philadelphia.
Today I bring you both sides of a 45 that I was unaware of for years, until I happened upon it at a record show. I had always assumed the Emperors three Mala 45s to be the entirety of their output, until I grabbed their sole Brunswick 45, ‘Karate Boogaloo’ b/w ‘Mumble Shingaling’.
Recorded in 1967 and produced – like their earlier 45s – by Philly radio personality George Wilson – this is a funkier side of the Emperors, with the core of their original sound still present, but with a stripped down production style.
‘Karate Boogaloo’ – which begins with some weird, clearly overdubbed crowd noise – includes some cool percussion, rhythm guitar and of course the Emperor’s harmonies. ‘Mumble Shingaling’ features some great, shambolic guitar and organ. It’s the kind of record that makes you wonder what the Emperors – like so many groups that bumped up against the end of the era of pure soul into the sound of funk – might have done had they continued to make music.
This is the last thing they did before the group broke up seeing a partial regrouping as Emperors Soul 69 for the Futura label out of their home base of Harrisburg, PA.
As has been the case for some years now, aside from digging up the original 45s (which a quick online search will reveal to be considerably more expensive than they used to be), your best bet is to grab the Philly Archives CD reissue which includes all of their best work.
I hope you dig the song, and that you raise a glass in memory of Edgar Moore.

NOTE: Don’t forget to check out the Funky16Corners Radio Show on Viva internet radio this Friday night at 9PM. It’s a funk 45 exercise, so you won’t want to miss it!
See you on Monday.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, May 11, 2010 7:55 pm

Foster Sylvers

Listen/Download – Foster Sylvers – Misdemeanor

Greetings all.

I come to you this midweek with something groovy.
Last year during one of my DJ trips down to Washington, DC the mighty DJ Birdman was gracious enough to take me hither and yon, over both hill and dale for some of the best digging I’ve done in a long time.
Though the District of Columbia is the capitol of our great country, it should also be rechristened the Cheap Used LP Capitol of the East Coast. Though 45 come ups were few and far between – albeit quite rewarding when I did find them – the DC metro area is awash in bargain basement used LPs. When I finally got back to Jersey and opened the back of the Funky16Cornersmobile, I was almost (not completely, just almost) embarrassed by the huge stack of albums wedged between my duffel bag and my flight case.
In addition to a bunch of longtime wants, and a grip of stuff that Birdman was kind enough to turn me on to, I also brought back a couple of records I might have passed on, were they not priced between twenty-five cents and a dollar, rendering them all but irresistible.
One of these was the disc you see before you today, a record jammed into my digger’s memory bank by its constant appearances on other people’s finds lists.
Though I knew of the Sylvers (their ‘Boogie Fever’ was a huge AM radio hit back when I was a kid), I had no idea that Foster Sylvers had recorded – and had hits – on his own. The tune I bring you today was a hit (Top 10 R&B, Top 40 Pop) back in the Spring of 1973, eventually becoming an especially ripe bit of sample bait years later when it would be chopped and looped more than a dozen times for folks like Big Daddy Kane, Heavy D and eventually Aaliyah, which is likely why those in the crate digging set were sweating it so heavily (and why the LP often changes hands for between 30 and 40 bucks, the 45 sometimes going for more than that).
Now, I’m all over a sweet break when I hear it, having spent some time punishing a drum set in my youth. I’m not sampling or flipping anything myself, but there’s something magical about a great sample, even more so when the song it comes from is especially nice.
Such is the case with Foster Sylvers’ ‘Misdemeanor’. Taken at face value, ‘Misdemeanor’ is a pleasing bit of sweet sounding kiddie funk (Foster was all of 11 years old when the song hit the charts, come to think of it, so was I…). Affix your headphones and dig a little deeper into the track and I think you’ll find yourself pleasantly surprised, since wrapped around Sylvers’ boyish vocals are all kinds of groovy sounds.
First off, the drums and bass are cracking, but close your eyes and sink into the arrangement and all of a sudden you’re digging the wild lead guitar snaking around the track, bits of celeste and percussion here and there, and a hypnotic rhythm guitar track that kind of rises and falls as the song progresses. The arrangement by Jerry Peters (who also co-produced the album) is really something else.
There are a few other interesting tracks on the album, but overall you have to remember that it was probably assembled for sale to whatever passed for ‘tweens’ back in 1973.
I hope you dig the track (give it a couple of close listens and see how it sneaks up on you), and I’ll be back later in the week.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, May 9, 2010 8:37 pm

Eddie Holland

Listen/Download – Eddie Holland – Leaving Here

Greetings all.

I hope you all had a good weekend.
I was recovering from yet another surgical adventure (expected if not planned) and walked out of the hospital knowing that there will be more in the future.
It’s not just that this has become a huge inconvenience, but even moreso a constant source of demoralization. I wouldn’t even mind that much of it didn’t require trips to the hospital, and usually anaesthesia. It always takes me a couple of days to get right after a procedure, thanks in large part to the haze that tends to follow you around after you’ve been put under. There isn’t even that much physical pain involved. I have a fairly high threshold for discomfort, but the pain in this case takes the form of a kind of wave of inconvenience, with people having to take off work, babysitters procured and an already tight schedule getting a couple of new speedbumps inserted into it.
I for one will be fine in a couple of days. The problems I have are not generally painful (providing that the proper medical steps have been taken) but I’m always haunted by the specter of another visit to the doctor/radiologist/hospital, which in most cases, I’d trade for a little actual pain.
My whining aside, I am spending the weekend (when this was written) chilling, doing nothing remotely strenuous and trying to get my brain back on the tracks.
The tune I bring you today has been a huge fave for decades, but it was a few years before I actually heard the version you see before you today.
Back in the garage/mod days, one of the really important UK R&Beat touchstones was the music of the Birds. If you paused for a second there, you’re not alone since the band in question existed during the same time period as the US Byrds (McGuinn, Clark, Hillman et al) and there was some legal friction when the US band alit in the UK.
Fortunately for the UK band, the few, brilliant records they created could never be confused with folk rock of any variety. The Birds laid down some of the heaviest, razor sharp versions of US R&B ever recorded, as well as a couple of well crafted originals, and eventually a bit of freakbeat to close things out.
One of their finest records, and a huge number among my crowd at the time was their version of Eddie Holland’s ‘Leaving Here’. The song was covered by some of their contemporaries as well, but nobody came within a mile of the Birds for pure heat.
My own band at the time, the Phantom Five tore up our own ragged but right version of ‘Leaving Here’ pretty much every time we plugged in.
As I stated previously, it was a few years before I heard the original, eventually picking it up on a ‘Hard to Find Motown’ CD comp that turned me on to a fair number of other classics. The song would eventually be covered by the Who, the Tages, Jimmy Hannah and the Dynamics (a personal fave) and eventually by Motorhead and Pearl Jam.
Truth be told, though I dug the Holland OG from the start, it was a few more years before it edged the Birds version out of my consciousness and took the lead.
It was a while (like two more decades) before I’d grab my own copy of the Holland 45, with the gods of the interwebs smiling on me as I picked it up for what the mighty Ralph Kramden once referred to as a ‘mere bag of shells’.
Holland was – of course – part of songwriting legends Holland/Dozier/Holland. Though all three members of the famous triumvirate recorded their own records, Eddie Holland was by far the most prolific, recording well over a dozen singles (mostly for UA and Motown) between 1958 and 1964. ‘Leaving Here’ (written by Holland and Lamont Dozier) was released in 1963, and while it didn’t make much of a dent Stateside, quickly became a fave of London’s R&B obsessed longhairs.
Eddie Holland’s original is a fast moving dancer with piano and horns providing the backing, and a prominent snare drum laying down the beat. Holland’s vocal is great, though it’s not hard to understand why he would have settled for a lucrative career as a composer and producer considering the talent he was surrounded by on a daily basis.

It’s a great soul dancer, and I hope you dig it as much as I do. I’ll be back later in the week with more music (and less complaining).

And, despite all the aggravation, know that I won’t be leaving here any time soon.

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, May 4, 2010 7:34 pm

Maskman and the Agents

Listen/Download – Maskman and the Agents – My Wife, My Dog and My Cat

Greetings all.

To get things started, I should let you know that due to some pressing personal business, this will be the last post this week. Nothing tragic, just stuff that needs to be attended to, so I figured I whip something extremely tasty on you to keep you going until Monday.
Back in January I heard of the passing of the great Harmon Bethea, aka the Maskman. On his own, and with the able assistance of the Agents, Bethea laid down a heap of smoking soul and R&B through the 60s. According to his Washington Post obit, he first strapped on the mask in 1964, and at that time he was hardly a spring chicken, having already turned 40!
The record I bring you today was an early (and momentous) arrival in my funk 45 crates, having been procured more than a decade ago, and has been, since the very first listen a big fave in the Funky16Corners household (my wife can quote lyrics from this one!).
The history of 20th century black music, from blues to jazz, to R&B, to soul and funk has a long history of humor running through it. Sometimes this came in the form of folks who were humorists first, i.e. comedians like Pigmeat Markham, Cliff Tyson and Timmie Rodgers branching out into music. In the case of Maskman and the Agents, the infusion of humor was secondary, as in the case of the mighty Slim Gaillard, hilarity was seasoning, tossed into a pot already simmering with musical quality.
‘My Wife, My Dog and My Cat’ from the Spring of 1969 is – at least in my opinion – the finest (and funniest) thing Maskman and the Agents ever laid down. A minor R&B hit, the tune is the fast-moving tale of a slightly slippery character who cannot get away with anything, thanks to a vigilant wife and a pair of traitorous pets.
Maskman decides to fall by a swinging house party – in spite of his wife’s warnings – and madness ensues.
The description of the party, and its attendees ( a couple of honeys who were ‘fat as a country possum stuffed with sweet potatoes’) is incredibly funny, as is Maskman’s food order, including pigs feet, hot rolls, greens with fatback and potato salad.
Naturally, things collapse as soon as Mrs. Maskman gets home and our hero is betrayed by his once loyal pets, his german police dog (which he raised from a pup) tearing off his crazy suit and causing him to ‘run out from under his hat’.
Solid, solid stuff…funny as hell and funky as well.
Maskman we hardly knew ye.

NOTE: Don’t forget to check out the Funky16Corners Radio Show on Viva internet radio this Friday night at 9PM. It’s a Hammond LP track blowout, so you won’t want to miss it!

See you all next week

Peace

Larry

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By Larry, May 3, 2010 2:40 pm

It has come to my attention that some anti-virus/web security programs have tagged the Funky16Corners blog as a site harboring malware.

I looked into this (via Symantec/Norton which we subscribe to) and what is happening is that another site that uses Lunarpages (the company where I pay for server space) does indeed harbor malware. In their infinite wisdom, Symantec/Norton has flagged all of lunarpages.net as hostile, so whenever you come to ANY site on their servers, you get the error message.

I tried to contact Norton about this but their system requires placing a confirmation file at the root of the server, which I cannot do. I contacted Lunarpages and submitted a support ticket with the address of the offending site. This site is in no way related to Funky16Corners, nor are you in any danger coming to this (my) page.

I apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced as a result of Norton’s f*ck up, but I’ve done what I can do.

Thanks

Larry

Comments (8)

By Larry, May 2, 2010 6:19 pm

The Mighty Ray Charles

Listen/Download – Ray Charles – Living For the City

Greetings all.

I hope the new week finds you all well.
It’s been a hot weekend here in New Jersey, moving from a somewhat brisk spring to a sweltering summer in the course of a few days.
Don’t get me wrong. I dig it, but the transition has been a little bit jarring.
The tune I bring you today was something I grabbed last year during a digging trip to a store that I’d never previously explored.
When I walked in and saw how few 45s they had for sale, while I wasn’t exactly crestfallen, I was a little bit pissed off. There’s nothing like driving two hours with visions of the rare 45 dancing in one’s head, only to be faced with a whole lot of nothing at the end of the line. Fortunately for me, the few 45s they did have were pretty good, and they had a surplus of nice, cheap LPs, so the day was far from a total loss.
That said, my favorite of the handful of 45s I took home that day is today’s selection, Ray Charles’ version of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Living For the City’.
To jot it all down in shorthand: No Ray Charles, NO soul music as we know it.
Though Brother Ray made some soul records in his day, he was far more important as a synthesizer of genres, blending R&B, jazz and gospel to create a discography packed from end to end with pure genius.
Recorded in 1975 (two years after the original) for his ‘Renaissance’ album, ‘Living For the City’ is some of the finest late-period stuff Charles ever did. Working electric piano and clavinet, and tearing up the vocals, Charles has the backing of a tight horn section and some funky guitar.
The best part is about halfway through the record where the band and the backing singers drop back and Ray starts to preach, and for a few moments, you kind of forget the genius of the OG and bask in the glow of Charles’ monumental talent.
There is of course the temptation to compare and contrast the careers of Stevie – who was at the top of his game in the early 70s – and Ray, who’d blazed many a trail, but by and large was no longer steering the ship, having moved to a comfortable first class berth.
That said, Charles’ performance here is remarkable, removing ‘Living For the City’ from its original, somewhat synthesized beginnings and yanking it backward just a little bit.
If for no other reason (and there are many) listen to ‘Living For the City’ as a reminder of what a game changer Ray Charles was as a singer.
I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back on Wednesday with something cool.

Peace

Larry

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Comments (2)

By Larry, April 29, 2010 4:44 pm

Bob and Earl

Listen/Download -Bob and Earl – Baby, Your Time Is My Time

Greetings all.

I hope you’re all well.

The end of the week is here, and it behooves me to remind you that Friday night at 9PM (Eastern), if you’re huddled up against the computer screen for warmth, you should most definitely point your browser toward the Funky16Corners Radio Show on Viva internet radio (see snappy new link in the sidebar). This week’s show is the first in the new format, i.e. mixed and recorded live for your delectation. There are some hot cuts in there, so fall by if you’re in the e-neighborhood.

In other news, the end of May will see the return of the Funky16Corners annual pledge drive, and I have something big in the works. I can’t say much right now, but if all the ducks fall into line, I think you’ll dig what I have planned.

Today’s selection is something surprising (for me, anyway) that I picked up as part of a big lot of old 45s early last year.
I had bid on the lot to get my hands on a psych 45 that had long eluded me, and when the box showed up on my doorstep I was pleased to discover that it also included several other excellent records that I hadn’t been counting on.
If you’ve followed the blog over the years, you’ll already know that I’m down with the whole Mirwood bag, especially the rotating cast of characters that was really just two cats, i.e. Bob and Earl (aka Bob Relf and Earl Nelson, aka Jackie Lee and on and on etc etc).
I won’t rehash the whole shebang here, except to say that I’ve come to the point in my life where Mirwood has become something of a dependable brand, i.e. if it’s on the label and I don’t know, I’m going to grab it all the same.
When I pulled Bob and Earl’s ‘Baby, Your Time Is My Time’ out of that big carton it was unsleeved, and as the scan above (and a listen to the recording) reveals, the tiniest bit road weary.
That said, it was not a song that I knew, but as soon as I gave it a spin, it became a fave.
The vast majority of the Bob and Earl/Jackie Lee sides I own are upbeat dancers. When I dropped the needle on ‘Baby, Your Time Is My Time’ I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that the pair were also capable of turning out sophisticated soul as well.
‘Baby…’, written by Relf, Nelson and label honcho Fred Smith is a mid tempo number with an absolutely stellar arrangement, with the silky strings, vibe accents, understated horns and of course great singing.
There’s a point about halfway through where things threaten to pick up speed, but a horn break and some bluesy guitar downshift, and things get right back into the groove.
It’s a really great side.
I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back on Monday.

Peace

Larry

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