{"id":3190,"date":"2012-09-30T17:40:25","date_gmt":"2012-09-30T22:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=3190"},"modified":"2012-10-20T11:00:55","modified_gmt":"2012-10-20T16:00:55","slug":"monk-higgins-and-the-specialties-big-water-bed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=3190","title":{"rendered":"Monk Higgins and the Specialties – Big Water Bed"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nMy name is Monk. Welcome to my crib…<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Listen\/Download Monk Higgins and the Specialties – Big Water Bed<\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

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

The beginning of another week is here, and the Funky16Corners fam is coming off of a very interesting weekend.<\/p>\n

This Sunday marked the John Theurer Cancer Center Celebration of Life and Liberty at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, NJ. This is an annual event where cancer survivors and their loved ones gather together to celebrate their triumphs over their disease.<\/p>\n

The Theurer Cancer Center (based out of Hackensack University Medical Center) does remarkable work treating a wide variety of cancers (including my wife’s leukemia) and this event is a life affirming gathering.<\/p>\n

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What it also was, was an opportunity to see the Queen of Soul, Miss Aretha Franklin<\/strong> perform a set of favorites – old and new – with her orchestra, which included backing vocalists led by Fonzi Thornton<\/strong><\/a>, who in his almost four decade career has graced albums by Chic, Luther Vandross<\/strong> and countless others.<\/p>\n

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\nPhotos by Jennifer Grogan<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It was great to see Aretha and to have my sons see her as well. She was in rare form with her voice as remarkable an instrument as it has ever been.<\/p>\n

It was a rare pleasure.<\/strong><\/p>\n

___________________________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

If you are a collector of records, and an inveterate reader of label \u2013 like yours truly \u2013 then the name Monk Higgins<\/strong> has surely passed before your eyes.<\/p>\n

Higgins \u2013 born Milton Bland<\/strong> \u2013 got his start in his home state of Arkansas. Folowing his graduation from Arkansas State University, he moved to Chicago to study at the Chicago School of Music.<\/p>\n

He eventually went to work as a teacher and a social worker before devoting himself to music full time.<\/p>\n

Higgins worked as a saxophonist, composer, producer and arranger on a wide variety of sessions before making it into the R&B Top 40 in 1966 with the instrumental \u2018Who Dun It\u2019.<\/p>\n

His productions for the One-Der-Ful, St Lawrence and Chess labels (among others) included sessions for Freddy Robinson, Alvin Cash, Cash McCall, Etta James, the Vontastics<\/strong> and many, many others are all worth seeking out (though he was so prolific you won\u2019t have to do much seeking).<\/p>\n

The track I bring you today hails from his 1972 LP with his band the Specialties<\/strong>, entitled \u2018Heavyweight\u2019.<\/p>\n

I picked up a sealed copy of this killer was back in my early digging days in the strength of the Higgins \u201cbrand\u201d as it were.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve gone on in depth about the value of reading labels and lodging those ubiquitous producer\/arranger\/writer credits in your brain. If you do enough of that the connections start to make themselves and before you know it your crates have grown in both size and quality.<\/p>\n

\u2018Heavyweight\u2019 produced Monk Higgins second hit under his own name, \u2018Gotta Be Funky\u2019, which grazed the outer edges of the R&B Top 20 in the spring of 1972.<\/p>\n

However, it is another, equally groovy track that I bring you today, \u2018Big Water Bed\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018Big Water Bed\u2019 starts out smooth, with some mellow organ and electric piano, but soon gets funky with the percussion and of course Higgins sax-o-mo-phone. You even get a crazy whistle, as well as some ladies chanting the title of the song, in case you forgot what it was all about.<\/p>\n

If the sax sounds familiar it\u2019s because the song was sampled by none other that Big Daddy Kane<\/strong> on his own \u2018Ain\u2019t No Half-Steppin\u2019<\/a> in 1988.<\/p>\n

I hope you dig the track, and I\u2019ll be back on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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

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

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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock.<\/strong><\/p>\n

They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US).<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to go to the ordering page.<\/strong><\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

My name is Monk. Welcome to my crib… Listen\/Download Monk Higgins and the Specialties – Big Water Bed Greetings all The beginning of another week is here, and the Funky16Corners fam is coming off of a very interesting weekend. This Sunday marked the John Theurer Cancer Center Celebration of Life and Liberty at Liberty State […]<\/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":[11,14,30,12],"tags":[171,163,166,164],"class_list":["post-3190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funk","category-funky16corners","category-lp-tracks","category-soul","tag-chicago-soul","tag-funk","tag-funky16corners","tag-soul"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-Ps","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3190","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=3190"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3268,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3190\/revisions\/3268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}