{"id":1241,"date":"2011-01-23T16:01:33","date_gmt":"2011-01-23T21:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.lunarpages.net\/?p=1241"},"modified":"2014-08-01T10:32:53","modified_gmt":"2014-08-01T15:32:53","slug":"gene-west-in-the-ghetto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=1241","title":{"rendered":"Gene West – In the Ghetto"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Example\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gene West (aka Barry White)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Example\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Listen\/Download – Gene West – In the Ghetto <\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/del><\/p>\n

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Greetings all.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

I hope the world is treating you all well at the dawn of a brand new week.<\/p>\n

It was a groovy – if frigid – weekend, with me and the little corners having a boys day on Saturday, and then on Sunday Miles and I went out for some digging and Vietnamese food.<\/p>\n

We headed over to the once great Record Store That Shall Not Be Named (even though it’s near a major NJ Ivy League university…) and much to my surprise I scored some cool LPs, despite the fact that whoever is pricing the new arrivals section appears to also be sniffing glue. The place really is a huge crapshoot these days, which – when you have to drive almost an hour to get there – makes it difficult to get motivated, but sometimes it’s actually worth the trip.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know about you all, but I\u2019m sure that if they ever lock me up in a padded cell, it will have something to do with my obsession with cover songs, who was being covered and who was doing the covering.<\/p>\n

The tune I bring you today is something I knew nothing at all about until stumbling over it recently, the musical equivalent of finding a twenty dollar bill in the street.<\/p>\n

What caught my eye was not the song title (I was still unaware that this was the same song that Elvis<\/strong> made famous), but the mention that the artist in question, a certain Gene West<\/strong>, was in actuality the master of sexy, soulful sounds, Mr. Barry White.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Once I got my hands on the record (at what turned out to be a very nice price, always cool<\/em>) it was immediately apparent that this was the same \u2018In the Ghetto\u2019, written by Mac Davis<\/strong> and taken onto the charts by Elvis.<\/p>\n

The voice delivering the tune was unmistakably that of Barry White.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, in the short time between the end of his tenure working with Bronco\/Mustang records, and the launch of his extremely successful solo career, Barry White was at loose ends. During this time (1967 \u2013 1970) White did a lot of studio work, as well as writing lost gems like \u2018Doin\u2019 the Banana Splits\u2019 for \u2013 of course \u2013 the Banana Splits<\/strong>.<\/a> And recording today\u2019s selection.<\/p>\n

Why he (or the folks at Original Sound) thought that \u2018Gene West\u2019 sounded better than Barry White I do not know (perhaps contractual entanglements, though his real name appears on the label as arranger), but the record, released in the summer of 1970 is a lost classic.<\/p>\n

Despite any fondness one might have for Elvis\u2019s version (I haven\u2019t got much\u2026), White takes the tune from a dark, almost maudlin place and funks it up, adding a layer of defiance to the lyrics that are completely absent in the earlier recording.<\/p>\n

Oddly, White was a big Presley fan. I\u2019ve read anecdotes that state that when a teenaged White, just having finished a jail sentence for stealing $30,000 worth of tires, heard Presley\u2019s \u2018It\u2019s Now Or Never\u2019 he decided to devote himself to a career on music, for which I will say for the first and last time in my life, \u2018Thanks Elvis!\u2019<\/p>\n

I hope you dig the tune.<\/p>\n

Peace<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Larry<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"Example\"<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

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If you want one of the new Funky16Corners stickers (free, of course) click here for info.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press<\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

PS Head over to Iron Leg for some classic 1965 LA garage folk.<\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gene West (aka Barry White)   Listen\/Download – Gene West – In the Ghetto   Greetings all. I hope the world is treating you all well at the dawn of a brand new week. It was a groovy – if frigid – weekend, with me and the little corners having a boys day on Saturday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[58,11,17,14,12,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cover-songs","category-funk","category-funk-45","category-funky16corners","category-soul","category-soul-45"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-k1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1241"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4998,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241\/revisions\/4998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}