{"id":3515,"date":"2013-01-20T11:33:48","date_gmt":"2013-01-20T16:33:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=3515"},"modified":"2013-02-14T11:48:28","modified_gmt":"2013-02-14T16:48:28","slug":"x-citers-unlimited-soul-to-billie-joe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=3515","title":{"rendered":"X-Citers Unlimited – Soul To Billie Joe"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Listen\/Download X-Citers Unlimited – Soul To Billie Joe<\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/del><\/p>\n

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

Welcome to the week, this one devoted, in a completely arbitrary manner, to instrumentals.<\/p>\n

I just happened to be wading through the digimatization\/storage folders deciding what to post, and one instrumental led to another and before you know it – Bob’s yer uncle<\/em> – here we are.<\/p>\n

We begin the week with a record that fits the very definition of \u2018un-Google-able\u2019.<\/p>\n

First and foremost, the band in question, the X-Citers Unlimited<\/strong>, had a name that invites all manners of misspelling and misplaced punctuation (a hyphen\u2026really?<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Second, and this is the real killer, both sides of the disc are covers of other people\u2019s material, meaning that you have no \u201cin-band\u201d songwriting credits to expand a search.<\/p>\n

Third, it would appear that this is the only record ever released by this band, making it impossible to triangulate using other 45s.<\/p>\n

The only available clues come courtesy of the fact that the X-Citers Unlimited recorded for a well-known label \u2013 which makes it possible to date the record to 1967 \u2013 and that it was produced by a guy that should be familiar to fans of 60s soul, Mr Wally Roker.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Using that date and name, and combining it with previous knowledge of Mr Roker\u2019s working environment during that time, I\u2019d be willing to venture a guess that this was a West Coast band.<\/p>\n

And that \u2013 as they say \u2013 is that.<\/p>\n

Dead Endsville.<\/em><\/p>\n

That said, one can always take solace in the quality of the music in the grooves, which in this case is fine indeed.<\/p>\n

The reworking of Bobbie Gentry\u2019s<\/strong> \u2018Ode To Billie Joe\u2019 (presented here as \u2018Soul To Billie Joe\u2019) is a hard charging bit of funky soul with some tasty Latin percussion and plenty of brass.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s groovy because unlike the vast majority of the probably hundreds of cover versions of the tune, it does not hew to the original tempo.<\/p>\n

The flip, a cover of \u2018Hang On Sloopy\u2019 is much more explicity boogaloo-ish.<\/p>\n

It is a very cool 45 indeed, and I hope that you dig it (and that, if you know anything else about it, you\u2019ll drop me a line).<\/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":"

Listen\/Download X-Citers Unlimited – Soul To Billie Joe Greetings all Welcome to the week, this one devoted, in a completely arbitrary manner, to instrumentals. I just happened to be wading through the digimatization\/storage folders deciding what to post, and one instrumental led to another and before you know it – Bob’s yer uncle – here […]<\/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":[58,11,14,66,12],"tags":[163,166,164],"class_list":["post-3515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cover-songs","category-funk","category-funky16corners","category-instrumental","category-soul","tag-funk","tag-funky16corners","tag-soul"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-UH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515","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=3515"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3623,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515\/revisions\/3623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}