{"id":3494,"date":"2013-01-01T15:08:02","date_gmt":"2013-01-01T20:08:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=3494"},"modified":"2013-02-14T11:45:20","modified_gmt":"2013-02-14T16:45:20","slug":"marva-whitney-1944-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=3494","title":{"rendered":"Marva Whitney 1944 – 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Example\"
\n<\/strong>
\nMiss Marva Whitney<\/strong><\/p>\n

Listen\/Download Marva Whitney – It’s My Thing<\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/del><\/p>\n

Listen\/Download Marva Whitney – Things Got To Get Better (Get Together)<\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/del><\/p>\n

Listen\/Download Marva Whitney – This Girl’s In Love With You<\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/del><\/p>\n

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

It was just a few days short of Christmas (the very day that the Godfather of Soul<\/strong> slipped the surly bonds of earth but six years ago) that word filtered down to me that the mighty Marva Whitney<\/strong> had died.<\/p>\n

Marva Whitney \u2013 one of the great divas of the classic era of the James Brown Revue<\/strong> – was born in Kansas City, KA in 1944, where she grew up performing gospel music.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until the mid-60s that she made the move to the secular side of soul, eventually joing James Brown<\/strong> and recording her first 45 with his organization in 1967.<\/p>\n

During her tenure with Brown, running from 1967 to 1970, she recorded more than a dozen 45s and three albums (one unreleased) before moving on to record sides for T-Neck, Forte and Excello.<\/p>\n

She left music for a time in the 1980s before returning to perform with various and sundry James Brown alumni, eventually working with Osaka Monauril<\/strong> (big ups to DJ Pari<\/strong> who was instrumental in her return to the studio), recording new music and touring extensively in the 2000s.<\/p>\n

Whitney had one of the most powerful voices in the realm of classic funk.<\/p>\n

Though she didn’t have much in the way of commercial success in her heyday, Whitney is treasured both by crate diggers, who verily worship her hard-hitting funk sides, but also by the hip hop side of things for heavily sampled tracks like ‘Unwind Yourself’.<\/a><\/p>\n

The three tunes I\u2019m posting today have all appeared at Funky16Corners<\/strong> over the years and are staples in my crates and playlists.<\/p>\n

The first is my personal favorite. \u2018It\u2019s My Thing\u2019 \u2013 an obvious \u201canswer\u201d to the Isleys \u2013 was her biggest hit, making it into the R&B Top 20 in the Spring of 1969.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a killer from its opening notes, and right up there with the best singles of James Brown\u2019s King-era. The instrumental backing is rock solid, yet fairly rudimentary, with Marva\u2019s remarkable voice dragging the whole show behind her in the dust.<\/p>\n

The second is another banger, which ought to be familiar to listeners of the Funky16Corners Radio Show<\/strong>, via the whole song, but also from the sample of her voice that graces so many drops. \u2018Things Got to Get Better (Get Together)\u2019 is a fast mover with a tasty horn chart that propels the song from the bottom up. There\u2019s a fantastic live performance clip from he show \u2018Music Scene\u2019 in 1969, with Marva laying it down in front of the mighty James Brown band that must be seen,not just for the undeniable power of the music, but for Ms Whitney\u2019s platinum afro, which is a thing to behold.<\/a><\/p>\n

The last track is something extra special that I was introduced to some years back when Dave Withers<\/strong> guested at the Asbury Park 45 Sessions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Marva Whitney\u2019s \u2018This Girl\u2019s In Love With You\u2019 (a distaff remake of the huge Herb Albert<\/strong> hit) from 1969 is one of those records that ought to be much better known. Every time I play it out I see the same reaction that I had the first time I heard it, that being \u201cwhere has this record been all my life?\u201d.<\/p>\n

It is in turns sweet, funky and a remarkable contrast to the harder edged stuff in Marva\u2019s catalog. I\u2019m not sure who did the arrangement, but it\u2019s fantastic and the fact that this record doesn\u2019t seem to have charted anywhere just makes me shake my head.<\/p>\n

Though some of Marva Whitney\u2019s old-school vinyl can be hard to come by and costly, you can find her 2006 comeback LP with Osaka Monaurail \u2018I Am What I Am\u2019 in iTunes, and most of her classic tracks can be found on the \u2018James Brown\u2019s Funky Divas\u2019 collection (along with a lot of other indispensable music).<\/p>\n

I hope you dig the sounds, and when you get a chance, get down in memory of the great Marva Whitney.<\/p>\n

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

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

 <\/p>\n

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

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>
\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

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

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

 <\/p>\n

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.<\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miss Marva Whitney Listen\/Download Marva Whitney – It’s My Thing Listen\/Download Marva Whitney – Things Got To Get Better (Get Together) Listen\/Download Marva Whitney – This Girl’s In Love With You Greetings all It was just a few days short of Christmas (the very day that the Godfather of Soul slipped the surly bonds of […]<\/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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11,17,14,77,67,102,12,18],"tags":[163,166,164],"class_list":["post-3494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funk","category-funk-45","category-funky16corners","category-james-brown","category-obituary","category-samples","category-soul","category-soul-45","tag-funk","tag-funky16corners","tag-soul"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-Um","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494","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=3494"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3614,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494\/revisions\/3614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}