{"id":455,"date":"2010-04-25T12:29:51","date_gmt":"2010-04-25T17:29:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.lunarpages.net\/?p=455"},"modified":"2015-02-04T08:56:34","modified_gmt":"2015-02-04T13:56:34","slug":"norman-whitfieldrose-royce-sunrise-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=455","title":{"rendered":"Norman Whitfield\/Rose Royce – Sunrise \/ Water"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>\"Example\"<\/strong>
\n
\nThe Master: Norman Whitfield<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Listen\/Download -Norman Whitfield and Rose Royce – Water <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Listen\/Download -Norman Whitfield and Rose Royce – Sunrise <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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

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

I hope you\u2019re all well, and ready to dig into something interesting.
\nA few weeks back on Record Store Day, I headed in Asbury Park to see my man DJ Prestige<\/strong> lay down an in-store set at Hold Fast. I grabbed some cool looking LPs on the cheap, one of which was the soundtrack to \u2018Car Wash\u2019. It certainly seemed like it was worth it, if only for the title track by Rose Royce<\/strong>.
\nWell, I get home and hook up the turntable for a marathon digi-ma-tizing session, and soon discovered that the \u2018Car Wash\u2019 OST was a much deeper beat that I could have imagined.
\nThe album credits the compositions, production and arrangement all to the mighty Norman Whitfield<\/strong>, and the playing to the band Rose Royce (who Whitfield found when they were backing Edwin Starr<\/strong>).
\nAnyway, while needle dropping my way through the two LPs, I discovered a couple of really cool instrumentals, both clearly the work of the man who created several psyched out\/atmospheric epics when he was working at Motown.
\nWhat really struck me was how much of the sound of these two songs, though recorded in 1976, linked back to Whitfield\u2019s 1970 era productions, blending them with a touch of blaxploitation soundtrack feel. I haven\u2019t seen \u2018Car Wash\u2019 in years, but these tracks, \u2018Water\u2019 and \u2018Sunrise\u2019 make me want to check it out to see how they were used in the film.
\nThe first of these \u2018Water\u2019 is really more of a short vamp\/theme stretched out for three and a half minutes, which is kind of what you\u2019d expect to hear as background in a motion picture. There are some vocals in the beginning, but they\u2019re no more prominent that the repeated bass, piano and guitar lines that run almost constantly through the piece, interrupted only by a short string drop (which at times is reminiscent of \u2018Papa Was a Rolling Stone\u2019) and the occasional harp flourish (same there). Things do pick up a little at about the two minute mark, with the addition of some funky bass, but settle right back into the groove before long.
\nThe real treat here is the almost eleven minute epic \u2018Sunrise\u2019. The tune starts out with someone working a ride cymbal like a gong, and then the unusual (incongruous) sound of a trumpet running a scale, quickly breaking out into something that would have sounded perfect behind Shaft as he stalked an evildoer through the back alleys of some urban hellhole.
\nWhitfield builds the song, layer by layer, with the bass, strings, tight, snapping drums, guitar, and then electric piano and horns. There are in fact two different electric pianos, alternating between a lighter, tinkling riff, and a one playing a much more wide open, molasses thick chord. The use of hand drums as accents, as well as occasional bursts of wah-wah guitar drop in like carefully placed exclamation points.
\nIt\u2019s a very tasty jam, and the arrangement\/production by Whitfield is next level. There\u2019s no doubt in my mind that \u2018Sunrise\u2019 would have fit in perfectly (with lyrics added of course) on any of the early 70s Temptations LPs.
\nThe sad thing is, that Whitfield – in my eyes nothing less than a soulful visionary \u2013 after the early 90s backed away from the console, not doing much of anything in his final years. It\u2019s not like he didn\u2019t have a remarkable body of work behind him already, especially his mid-60s to early 70s Motown sessions as songwriter, producer and arranger, but you can\u2019t help but wonder what he might have done with some of the nu-soul crowd.
\nThat said, I hope you dig the tracks, and I\u2019ll be back later in the week with something cool.<\/p>\n

Peace<\/strong><\/p>\n

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


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

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

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

PS Head over to Iron Leg for some prime, mid-60s Sunset Strip pop<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

<\/strong>PSS Check out Paperback Rider too.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

You can also follow Funky16Corners on Twitter <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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

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

The Master: Norman Whitfield Listen\/Download -Norman Whitfield and Rose Royce – Water Listen\/Download -Norman Whitfield and Rose Royce – Sunrise Greetings all. I hope you\u2019re all well, and ready to dig into something interesting. A few weeks back on Record Store Day, I headed in Asbury Park to see my man DJ Prestige lay down […]<\/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":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":[11,14,30,12,56],"tags":[163,166,164],"class_list":["post-455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funk","category-funky16corners","category-lp-tracks","category-soul","category-soundtrack","tag-funk","tag-funky16corners","tag-soul"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-7l","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455","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=455"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5433,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions\/5433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}