{"id":2766,"date":"2012-05-24T13:13:05","date_gmt":"2012-05-24T18:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=2766"},"modified":"2012-06-21T15:53:58","modified_gmt":"2012-06-21T20:53:58","slug":"viola-wills-if-you-could-read-my-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=2766","title":{"rendered":"Viola Wills – If You Could Read My Mind"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Listen\/Download Viola Wills – If You Could Read My Mind<\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/del><\/p>\n

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

I hope the end of the week finds you all well.<\/p>\n

I should remind you that the Funky16Corners Radio Show<\/strong> takes to the airwaves of the interwebs this and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio.<\/a><\/strong> If you can’t make it at airtime you can always come by the blog and grab yourself a downloadable MP3 of the show (and more than 100 archived episodes) over the weekend.<\/p>\n

The tune I bring you today is something that came as a bit of surprise to me the first time I heard it\u2026sort of.<\/em><\/p>\n

The first time I heard a disco version of Gordon Lightfoot\u2019s<\/strong> 1971 hit \u2018If You Could Read My Mind\u2019 was on the soundtrack to the movie \u201854\u2019. I thought it was very cool and set out in search of the record, only to discover that the version in the film was a re-recording (by Stars on 54<\/strong>) of the original disco-ization<\/em> of the song.<\/p>\n

That version, which you see before you today, was recorded in 1980 by Miss Viola Wills.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The surprising part, at least for me, was that all I ever knew of Viola Wills was her killer, early 70s funk 45 \u2018Sweetback\u2019 (which you can hear in Funky16Corners Radio v.6 \u2013 Bold Soul Sisters<\/strong><\/a>).<\/p>\n

I had always assumed that Wills was just another one-shot funk singer and hearing her sing something like this was jarring.<\/p>\n

Of course if I\u2019d bothered to do any digging at all I would have soon discovered that Viola Wills had a number of phases in her long career.<\/p>\n

She was first discovered in her native LA by Bronco-era Barry White<\/strong>, and recorded several 45s during the 1960s (some of them written and produced by White).<\/p>\n

She recorded \u2018Sweetback\u2019 in 1971 (Wikipedia says that she performed the song on Soul Train!<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

The most successful stage of her career comes during the disco era, when she placed records near the top of the Dance charts a number of times in the late 70s and early 80s, imcluding \u2018If You Could Read My Mind\u2019 which hit #2 in 1980.<\/p>\n

Wills version of the song, so far removed from it\u2019s acoustic, singer\/songwriter origins actually makes for a fantastic disco record.<\/p>\n

Despite his folkie origins, Lightfoot was an accomplished pop songwriter, and the melody translates well into Wills\u2019 upbeat, dance floor interpretation.<\/p>\n

While it certainly may not be everyone\u2019s cup of disco, I dig it a lot and I hope you do too.<\/p>\n

See you next week.<\/p>\n

Keep the faith<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

<\/strong>\"Example\"<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>
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\nAlso, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

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

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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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Viola Wills Listen\/Download Viola Wills – If You Could Read My Mind Greetings all. I hope the end of the week finds you all well. I should remind you that the Funky16Corners Radio Show takes to the airwaves of the interwebs this and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio. If you can’t make […]<\/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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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":[58,32,14,12],"tags":[166,164],"class_list":["post-2766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cover-songs","category-disconot-disco","category-funky16corners","category-soul","tag-funky16corners","tag-soul"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-IC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2766","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=2766"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2891,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2766\/revisions\/2891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}