{"id":1939,"date":"2011-10-09T11:05:58","date_gmt":"2011-10-09T16:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.lunarpages.net\/?p=1939"},"modified":"2012-02-22T12:36:37","modified_gmt":"2012-02-22T17:36:37","slug":"earth-wind-and-fire-moment-of-truth-bad-tune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=1939","title":{"rendered":"Earth Wind and Fire – Moment of Truth \/ Bad Tune"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Earth Wind Dashikis Afros and Fire
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Listen\/Download – Earth Wind and Fire – Moment of Truth <\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/del><\/p>\n

Listen\/Download – Earth Wind and Fire – Bad Tune <\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/del><\/p>\n

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

It is now time for all good men (and women, natch<\/em>) to get themselves together and ease on into a brand new week.<\/p>\n

Fall is in full swing, with the cool air, and the leaves and all that mess and I\u2019m feeling productive.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t been doing much fieldwork (of the vinyl variety), but what I have managed to pick up has been excellent, not to mention the products of in-house excavation, in which yours truly gets down into the crates and spends some time with unjustly neglected records.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s selections are the fruit of just such a search, and their neglect was decidedly unjust (undue\/unfair?<\/em>).<\/p>\n

A while back when I was fortunate to be down spinning the records in Washington I was lucky enough to slip in some quality digging time alongside my man DJ Birdman<\/strong>. I brought home a grip of tasty stuff that trip (DC always treats my crates well) and among the haul were the first two albums by Earth Wind and Fire.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cEarth Wind and Fire!\u201d you say. \u201cI can get those at my local Goodwill for the cost of a shiny quarter!\u201d<\/p>\n

Not these you can\u2019t my friends, because you\u2019re probably thinking of their CBS stuff when they were having all of those big hits we all know so well (or maybe you can but you’ll need to give me the address of your local Goodwill<\/em>).<\/p>\n

However, did you know that they did two albums for Warner Brothers in the early 70s?<\/p>\n

Neither did I (initially) but when I found out some years ago those records went on the old want list, because if you dig some EWF, you know that an earlier, grittier version thereof would very well kick some ass.<\/p>\n

And it (they) did.<\/p>\n

Maurice White<\/strong> and Wade Flemons<\/strong> (who had some collectible, pre-EWF 45s under his own name) had been working together in Chicago during the 60s, before relocating to Los Angeles near the end of the decade, where they were joined by Verdine White<\/strong> and a large crew of others to form the first version of Earth Wind and Fire.<\/p>\n

Their first, self-titled album was recorded in 1970 and released in 1971, and while it does display tastes of the later EWF, there\u2019s a heavier funk at work here, crossed with progressive elements.<\/p>\n

The two tunes I bring you today illustrate both sides of that coin.<\/p>\n

\u2018Moment of Truth\u2019 is a serious mover, with some incredibly solid bass playing by Verdine (he\u2019s so much more than just a fine and fancy head of hair) and a horn section that won\u2019t quit.<\/p>\n

\u2018Bad Tune\u2019 has something of a flavor of the times, with a little bit of that Afrocentric hippy thing weaving in and out of the funk (electric kalimba anyone?), opening quietly, getting heavy and then dissolving into a trippy, jazzy sound with some nice guitar by Michael Beal,<\/strong> before picking up heat yet again with some fuzz bass.<\/p>\n

And \u2013 this is the cool part<\/em> – they manage to pack all that into less than five minutes, displaying a shocking economy for the time.<\/p>\n

If you dig what you hear, while the individual albums are hard to come by, after their mid-70s success with CBS, WB reissued both of their EWF albums as a budget two-fer which is a little bit easier to find.<\/p>\n

I hope you dig it, and I\u2019ll see you all on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

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

 <\/p>\n

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


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

Also, make sure that you check out the POAC link below (click on the logo). It’s a fantastic organization that provides services to our local autism community, with education and recreational events, and any contribution you could make would be greatly appreciated.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

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 too.<\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Earth Wind Dashikis Afros and Fire Listen\/Download – Earth Wind and Fire – Moment of Truth Listen\/Download – Earth Wind and Fire – Bad Tune Greetings all. It is now time for all good men (and women, natch) to get themselves together and ease on into a brand new week. Fall is in full swing, […]<\/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":[43,46,11,14,30,12],"tags":[171,163,166,164],"class_list":["post-1939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chicago-soul","category-digging","category-funk","category-funky16corners","category-lp-tracks","category-soul","tag-chicago-soul","tag-funk","tag-funky16corners","tag-soul"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-vh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939","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=1939"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2433,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939\/revisions\/2433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}