{"id":7100,"date":"2017-05-09T12:32:04","date_gmt":"2017-05-09T17:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=7100"},"modified":"2017-05-09T12:32:04","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T17:32:04","slug":"betty-harris-mean-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=7100","title":{"rendered":"Betty Harris – Mean Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Miss Betty Harris<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Listen\/Download – Betty Harris – Mean Man MP3<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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

New Orleans 45 week continues with one of the finest records by one of my all time favorite singers, Miss Betty Harris.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve been following Funky16Corners<\/strong> for a long time you have seen Betty Harris pop up in this space, first on the web zine, in mixes and in individual posts.<\/p>\n

She is one of the truly great 60s soul divas, and fortunately for all of us was one of Allen Toussaint\u2019s<\/strong> go-to singers in the 1960s.<\/p>\n

Though she wasn\u2019t from New Orleans, and had a career before she started working with Toussaint, the work she did with him in New Orleans, first for Sansu and then for SSS Intl forms the core of her discography, and includes some of the very finest 45s to come out of the Crescent City during the classic soul era.<\/p>\n

Among those 45s, \u2018Mean Man\u2019 holds a special place of honor as one of the best.<\/p>\n

Recorded in 1968, written, produced and arranged by Toussaint, it exists in that sweet spot when soul was starting to evolve into funk. It features a stunning arrangement (one of his finest) with a hard-charging horn section, aggressive rhythm guitar, piano accents and female backing singers, all forming the foundation on which Harris constructed a landmark vocal.<\/p>\n

She was \u2013 like every singer that Toussaint chose to work with in the 60s, remarkably expressive, capable of heartbreaking balladry, hard-hitting sock soul and funky hollars, and there are moments in \u2018Mean Man\u2019 that are among the best ever laid down by anyone during the classic era.<\/p>\n

This is one of those records \u2013 of which there are scores from New Orleans \u2013 where it boggles the mind that it wasn\u2019t a hit. It did gain some traction in the Northeast (and of course in New Orleans) but nothing significant. Despite the consistent high quality of her recordings (before, and with Toussaint) Harris had her biggest hit in 1963, and despite making it into the R&B Top 20 with \u2018Nearer To You\u2019 in 1967, never really got the kind of acclaim she deserved.<\/p>\n

Fortunately Miss Harris is still with us, and still performing.<\/p>\n

There are a couple of compilations of her best work out there, but she really deserves a major rediscovery\/reappraisal.<\/p>\n

I hope you dig the track, and I\u2019ll see you all on Friday.<\/p>\n

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners<\/strong> on Instagram<\/strong><\/a>, Twitter<\/strong><\/a> and Facebook<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

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

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

____________________________________________________________________________<\/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

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

Miss Betty Harris Listen\/Download – Betty Harris – Mean Man MP3 Greetings all. New Orleans 45 week continues with one of the finest records by one of my all time favorite singers, Miss Betty Harris. If you\u2019ve been following Funky16Corners for a long time you have seen Betty Harris pop up in this space, first […]<\/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":[14,92,12,18],"tags":[166,41],"class_list":["post-7100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funky16corners","category-new-orleans-soul","category-soul","category-soul-45","tag-funky16corners","tag-new-orleans"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-1Qw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7100","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=7100"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7131,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7100\/revisions\/7131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}