{"id":52,"date":"2010-01-24T02:16:27","date_gmt":"2010-01-24T02:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.lunarpages.net\/?p=52"},"modified":"2010-01-25T10:50:09","modified_gmt":"2010-01-25T15:50:09","slug":"funky16corners-christmas-lenox-ave-little-drummer-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=52","title":{"rendered":"Funky16Corners Christmas – Lenox Ave – Little Drummer Boy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally Posted 12\/22\/09<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Chuck Rainey<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Listen\/Download -Lenox Avenue – Little Drummer Boy <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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

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

Christmas is just about here and things are well underway at the Funky16Corners <\/strong>compound. The menorah has been extinguished and packed away for another year and the Christmas tree has been put in place, lit, and otherwise decorated, awaiting the arrival of jolly St. Nick and a pile of presents for the little Corners.
\nThis has been a challenging but rewarding year, all but two weeks of which were spent as a newly minted stay at home dad. It was a big move leaving the job I worked at for twenty-four years (some good, some ultra-suckworthy<\/em>), but I haven\u2019t regretted it for a second. I do miss some of the folks I used to see every day, but when I left there I got to spend my days with my two wonderful sons. The stress level at the Funky16Corners crib took a nosedive, and while it\u2019s been a lot of work, it has been the kind of work that I wouldn\u2019t trade for anything.
\nHere at the blog, it has been a most excellent year, with another great year with the Asbury Park 45 Sessions<\/strong> crew (big ups to Prestige, Prime Cuts, Jack the Ripper, Bluewater, M Fasis <\/strong>and all the guest selectors) and couple of fantastic road trips to spin records down in Washington, DC. The inward flow of vinyl has been excellent (if reduced somewhat) and this year\u2019s Funky16Corners Pledge Drive was once again a big success, keeping the blog and the Funky16Corners Radio Podcast Archive up and running for another year.
\nI\u2019d like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of you that stop by here in the reg to partake in the conversation, because you make it all worthwhile.
\nThe Funky16Corners blog celebrated its 5th anniversary this year, and with any luck we\u2019ll keep thing rolling for another five years or more<\/em>.
\nThe tune I bring you today is something I picked up this year (and oddly enough I can\u2019t remember the circumstances of its arrival in my crates). It\u2019s a funky take on that old holiday chestnut \u2018The Little Drummer Boy\u2019 by a group called Lenox Avenue<\/strong>. This, their sole 45 was released on Chess in 1970.
\nThough I haven\u2019t been able to find any info on the group, the names on the label suggest to me that this may in fact be an early incarnation of the group that recorded an album a few years later under the name the Chuck Rainey Coalition <\/strong>(on the Skye label).
\nBassist Rainey and his cohorts \u2013 including keyboardist Richard Tee<\/strong> \u2013 were major hired hands in the New York (and elsewhere, natch<\/em>) studio scene, showing up on all kinds of records from the late 60s onward.
\nLenox Avenue\u2019s take on \u2018The Little Drummer Boy\u2019 is taken a slow, but funky pace with some groovy female backing voices. As I mentioned a while back when I posted the equally cool George Conedy<\/strong> version of the tune, this has never been one of my fave Christmas carols, yet when someone injects it with a dose of funk, I really dig it.
\nI hope you dig it too, and that those of you that celebrate the holiday have a very groovy Christmas, and those of you that don\u2019t still partake in some of the fellowship of the holiday season (one of the few times of the year people see to go out of their way to be nice).
\nHave a great rest of the week and I\u2019ll see you all next week.
\nPeace (and I mean it, man\u2026<\/em>)<\/p>\n

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

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

NOTE: I recently did a short interview about the role of the guitar in classic funk. Check it out over at Jemsite.<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

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

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

PS Head over to Iron Leg for some Christmas pop.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Originally Posted 12\/22\/09 Chuck Rainey Listen\/Download -Lenox Avenue – Little Drummer Boy Greetings all. Christmas is just about here and things are well underway at the Funky16Corners compound. The menorah has been extinguished and packed away for another year and the Christmas tree has been put in place, lit, and otherwise decorated, awaiting the arrival […]<\/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-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-Q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","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=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions\/122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}