{"id":4529,"date":"2014-01-12T11:20:55","date_gmt":"2014-01-12T16:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=4529"},"modified":"2014-01-12T11:20:55","modified_gmt":"2014-01-12T16:20:55","slug":"the-contours-first-i-look-at-the-purse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=4529","title":{"rendered":"The Contours – First I Look at the Purse"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The Contours<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

Listen\/Download The Contours – First I Look at the Purse<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Listen\/Download The J Geils Band – First I Look at the Purse<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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

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

The tune I bring you today is one of those soul tunes I knew and loved years before I started collecting 45s.<\/p>\n

My record collecting\/listening past is filled with a variety of landmarks, some which make complete sense (i.e. the shortest distance from point a to point b) and some a little bit more circuitous.<\/p>\n

Back when I was a longhaired teenager who wanted little more out of life than to bash on my drums, listen to music and sleep (not necessarily in that order) I found myself \u2013 as was often the case \u2013 browsing the cut-out bins at the local Music Den.<\/p>\n

Music Den was that fossil of a bygone age, a chain record store which could be found in various guises (depending on your region) in malls all over the country.<\/p>\n

Aside from the local flea market, that was pretty much the only place I had to go to buy music, which was then records and cassettes.<\/p>\n

Though I can\u2019t be 100% positive, I suspect that I had little or no folding money on my person, but I was no doubt determined to bring some new music home with me.<\/p>\n

What I found that day was one of a series of WEA cassette twofers. The massive, multi-label conglomerate was reissuing albums, two per tape, in budget cardboard slipcases (no fancy shmancy plastic cases here) by a variety of artists in their vast catalog.<\/p>\n

If memory serves, over the course of a year I picked up more than a few of these, at least one by Joni Mitchell<\/strong>, and the second (the pertinent one for today\u2019s post) by the J. Geils Band.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Those of you that weren\u2019t there in the 70s may not think much of the Geils band as more than a relic of the album rock age, but those that know (especially as the band\u2019s early years are concerned) will tell you that they were once something heavier indeed.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not completely certain what the second album on that cassette was (though I think it might have been \u2018Monkey Island\u2019) but it was the first side of the tape that cracked open my ears a little bit wider.<\/p>\n

The band\u2019s self-titled debut \u2013 from 1970 \u2013 was a surprise indeed.<\/p>\n

It sounded nothing like the stuff I\u2019d heard by the band on the radio, sounding more like a fired up version of Chicago blues than anything.<\/p>\n

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

The greasier, 1970 edition of the J. Geils Band<\/strong><\/p>\n

That album not only introduced me to a hotter side of the J. Geils Band, but also to Otis Rush<\/strong> (\u2018Homework\u2019), John Lee Hooker<\/strong> (\u2018Serves You Right To Suffer\u2019) Albert Collins<\/strong> (\u2018Sno Cone\u2019) and most importantly, the Contours<\/strong> (I would learn later that lead singer Peter Wolf<\/strong> was an inveterate record collector and probably had a lot to do with the variety of sounds covered by the group).<\/p>\n

It was the Geils Band cover of \u2018First I Look At the Purse\u2019 \u2013 which I wouldn\u2019t have recognized as a cover if I hadn\u2019t seen Smokey Robinson\u2019s<\/strong> name on it \u2013 that really grabbed me.<\/p>\n

The song had a solid groove, and the lyrics were hilarious.<\/p>\n

In retrospect the J. Geils Band must have been quite a breath of fresh air in the hippified scene of 1970.<\/p>\n

Flash forward about ten years, and I finally got to hear the original by the Contours and I dug it even more.<\/p>\n

Though they are best known for their 1962 classic \u2018Do You Love Me\u2019, the Contours are for me (much like the Velvelettes<\/strong>) a Motown group that should have (and probably would have, given the opportunity) been much bigger.<\/p>\n

The Contours original (it just missed the R&B Top 10 in the summer of 1965) is a fast moving (much faster than the Geils cover), soul-clapping killer, with the rhythm guitar and piano pounding in tandem and the drums (listen to the kick drum hits) punching through the mix.<\/p>\n

The Contours would make it into the R&B Top 40 eight times between 1962 and 1967.<\/p>\n

The J. Geils Band would end up in much poppier (and more successful) place than they started, with 80s hits like \u2018Centerfold\u2019.<\/p>\n

It was a long way from Otis Rush, but sometimes that\u2019s just how it is.<\/p>\n

I hope you dig the track. And I\u2019ll see you on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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

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

\"Example\"<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong> <\/strong> \u00a0<\/strong> ___________________________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived!<\/strong> The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock.<\/strong> They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US).<\/strong> Click here to go to the ordering page.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

<\/strong> \"Example\"<\/strong><\/a> \"Example\"<\/strong><\/a> \u00a0 <\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

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

The Contours   Listen\/Download The Contours – First I Look at the Purse Listen\/Download The J Geils Band – First I Look at the Purse Greetings all I hope the new week finds you all well. The tune I bring you today is one of those soul tunes I knew and loved years before I […]<\/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":[58,137,14,69,64,12,18],"tags":[166,164],"class_list":["post-4529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cover-songs","category-detroit","category-funky16corners","category-original-versions","category-rb","category-soul","category-soul-45","tag-funky16corners","tag-soul"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-1b3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4529","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=4529"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4554,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4529\/revisions\/4554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}