{"id":7611,"date":"2019-04-14T09:13:50","date_gmt":"2019-04-14T14:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=7611"},"modified":"2019-04-14T09:13:58","modified_gmt":"2019-04-14T14:13:58","slug":"little-richie-varola-whos-afraid-of-virginia-woolf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=7611","title":{"rendered":"Little Richie Varola – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Little Richie Varola <\/strong><\/p>\n

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Listen\/Download – Little Richie Varola – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf MP3<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s feature is one of my all time favorite, obscure Hammond organ burners.<\/p>\n

Little Richie Varola<\/strong> did almost all of his recorded work \u2013 save the album you see above \u2013 as the organist for Louis Prima.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Born in central Pennsylvania (what was in the water in PA that produced so many Hammond players?), Varola joined up with Prima in the 1960s after a starting up playing in the lounges of Atlantic City and Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

He was a keyboard prodigy, capable of lightning-fast speed and showmanship.<\/p>\n

He recorded his sole LP as a solo artist in 1968 for the Verve label, backed by Sam Butera and the Witnesses.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The album was a combination of popular organ features like \u2018Walk On the Wild Side\u2019 and today\u2019s selection \u2018Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf\u2019, standards and contemporary pop like Tom Jones\u2019s<\/strong> \u2018It\u2019s Not Unusual\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf\u2019 was first recorded by Jimmy Smith<\/strong> in 1964 and quickly became something of a Hammond standard, being recorded by James Brown, Graham Bond, the Dynamics, The Pieces of Eight<\/strong> and even the Buckinghams.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Varola\u2019s version of \u2018Who\u2019s Afraid\u2026\u2019 starts out with a quote from the James Bond<\/strong> theme, storming into a 100MPH version of the song with unbelievable keyboard work by Varola.<\/p>\n

His speed and precision on the Hammond is remarkable and it\u2019s not hard to see why Butera recruited him for Prima\u2019s band.<\/p>\n

Varola played on a couple of Louis Prima albums before leaving the group in 1972.<\/p>\n

He was apparently working toward a jazz-rock fusion sound when he was killed in a car accident in 1974 at the age of 30.<\/p>\n

I can only imagine what he might have been capable of musically had he lived.<\/p>\n

As far as I can tell his album has never been reissued, so if you dig the sound you\u2019ll have to find yourself an original copy.<\/p>\n

I hope you dig the sounds and I\u2019ll see you all next week.<\/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>  <\/strong><\/p>\n

________________________________________________<\/p>\n

If you dig what we do here or over at Funky16Corners, please consider clicking on the Patreon link and throwing something into the yearly operating budget! Do it and we’ll send you some groovy Funky16Corners Radio Network (and related) stickers!<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Little Richie Varola Listen\/Download – Little Richie Varola – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf MP3 Greetings all. Today\u2019s feature is one of my all time favorite, obscure Hammond organ burners. Little Richie Varola did almost all of his recorded work \u2013 save the album you see above \u2013 as the organist for Louis Prima. Born […]<\/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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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":[14,68,66,19,30,13],"tags":[253,168],"class_list":["post-7611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funky16corners","category-hammond-grooves","category-instrumental","category-jazz","category-lp-tracks","category-soul-jazz","tag-hammond","tag-jazz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-1YL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7611","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=7611"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7613,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7611\/revisions\/7613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}