{"id":48,"date":"2010-01-24T02:14:38","date_gmt":"2010-01-24T02:14:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.lunarpages.net\/?p=48"},"modified":"2015-12-16T13:39:50","modified_gmt":"2015-12-16T18:39:50","slug":"funky16corners-christmas-flashback-1-george-conedyclarence-carter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=48","title":{"rendered":"Funky16Corners Christmas Flashback #1 – George Conedy\/Clarence Carter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally Posted 12\/17\/09<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

The time has come for Funky16Corners to get back into the Christmas groove. We are doing so by re-upping Christmas posts from years past, soon to be followed by a new Christmas track next week. I’m slacking a little on new material since I suffered through a root canal this morning.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

I hope you dig these tunes and I’ll see you all on Monday with some more holiday heat.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

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

Originally Posted December 2006<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Clarence Carter<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

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

“Listen<\/em> – Clarence Carter – Back Door Santa ” <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

“Listen<\/em> – George Conedy – El Nino del Tambor” <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Greetings all (and Ho Ho Ho).
\n<\/strong>It\u2019s time for the second annual* Funky16Corners<\/strong> Christmas post.
\nAs I\u2019ve gone over a few different times, I\u2019ve never been a big collector of (any) holiday themed funk and soul. I may pick up a piece here and there \u2013 when it turns up \u2013 but I don\u2019t generally seek it out. This is the main reason it may take a decade or so before you see me post a Christmas edition of Funky16Corners Radio. I just don\u2019t have the raw material at my disposal.
\nThat is not to say that I would ever let the time of year go by unnoticed, and this time out I have a couple of excellent funky yule logs for ye, one you may have heard, and another that you almost certainly haven\u2019t.
\nThe former may very well be my all time favorite funk\/soul Christmas record, by one of the truly great voices of 60\u2019s and 70\u2019s soul. The singer, Mr. Clarence Carter<\/strong>, the song, \u2018Back Door Santa\u2019.
\nFirst off, I suspect that someone, somewhere in the funky blog-o-sphere will be dropping this chestnut, and I don\u2019t care, on account of I love this record, and you should too, and much like spinach and yams, more than one serving will only serve to improve your overall well being.
\nThat said, Clarence rips it up here, whipping every last bit of funk they had hidden at Fame studios on you (as well as jingle bells and egg nog), with all the good Santa-related double (hardly) entendres money can buy. Get this on thy-Pod post haste, so that over the weekend, when some wet blanket tries to throw \u2018Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer\u2019 (or, God forbid that thing where the dogs bark out \u2018Jingle Bells\u2019) on at the Christmas gathering, you can parry (and thrust) with this big, jangling set of Christmas balls and really get the party started.
\nI mean, seriously\u2026how can your ears suck up this groovy gravy, and your butt fail to respond\u2013 in the words of the great Lee Dorsey<\/strong> (without whom everything you do can\u2019t be funky) \u2013 with the make-a-shake-a-make-a-hula, or however it is you likes to shake it (but don\u2019t break it).
\nBy the way, if some youngster starts tugging on your scarf when this starts playing, it\u2019s because he heard this songs very essence sampled by none other than Run DMC<\/strong> (It\u2019s Christmas in Hollis Queens!<\/em> Etc etc).
\nOn the flippity flop, I bring you the result of a happy accident (referring not to the recording of the record, but rather the circumstances by which it landed in my Crate du Hammonde).
\nThe record in question popped up a while back on the sale list of a pal of mine, who\u2019s taste in music I hold in very high regard (howdy Agent 45<\/strong>\u2026).
\nSo, on this list I see a record with the brief (but wholly sufficient description of \u201cfunky Hammond version\u201d), directly adjacent to a very reasonable price, which was at the end of a line that began with a Spanish song title (which I didn\u2019t bother to translate). So, I pay my money, some time elapses and the record in question pops through the mail slot at Funky16Corners headquarters. I whipped it on the turntable, and in a few short seconds (about as long as I suspect it will take you) it became apparent that the title was in fact \u2018The Little Drummer Boy\u2019 en Espanol.
\nI have to say that even as a tike, when they still showed the animated special of the same title, this was far from my favorite Christmas tune, certainly not the kind of thing I thought capable of funk-a-fi-zation. Little did I know that sometime in the late 60\u2019s or early 70\u2019s an organist named George Conedy<\/strong> laid down an LP of Christmas tunes for the gospel subsidiary of the Kent label, which I am assuming was the source of the music on this very 45**.<\/p>\n

All I have to say is that George took an overly solemn carol and turned it into a slow, funky jam that sounds like it dropped out of the long lost (so long lost as to never have existed..) Santa-sploitation classic \u201cSuperfly Santa the Hard Way\u201d aka \u201cHell Up in the North Pole\u201d, in which our hero, Saint Nicky, wearing a red (of course) velvet suit, and driving a red and white Caddy brings Christmas joy to all the poor kids (and a few of the better looking women) on his route.
\nI\u2019ve gone a-Googling, and as far as I can tell Mr. Conedy has vanished into the ether.
\nWell, wherever you be I say Huzzah! And Merry Christmas to you George!<\/p>\n

And the same to all of you readers. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Even if you don\u2019t celebrate Christmas, go out and suck up some of that Christmas cheer. It\u2019s good for the soul.
\nI may not post until the middle of next week (days off, visiting with the family and all that) but I promise you some excellent pre-New Years grooves.<\/p>\n

*Though this is the blogs third Christmas, for some reason I didn\u2019t do a holiday post in 2004<\/p>\n

**For some strange reason the flip side of the Conedy 45 is a recording of Billie Holiday<\/strong> singing \u2018God Bless the Child\u2019. I get the thematic connection, just not why thelong deceased BH ended up on the b-side of a George Conedy 45.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally Posted 12\/17\/09 Greetings all. The time has come for Funky16Corners to get back into the Christmas groove. We are doing so by re-upping Christmas posts from years past, soon to be followed by a new Christmas track next week. I’m slacking a little on new material since I suffered through a root canal this […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-M","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48","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=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6147,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions\/6147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}