{"id":767,"date":"2010-08-01T15:37:01","date_gmt":"2010-08-01T20:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.lunarpages.net\/?p=767"},"modified":"2012-08-03T16:09:24","modified_gmt":"2012-08-03T21:09:24","slug":"ralfi-pagan-make-it-with-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=767","title":{"rendered":"Ralfi Pagan – Make It With You"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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

Listen\/Download – Ralfi Pagan – Make It With You<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Greetings all. <\/strong>
\nI hope everyone had themselves a sweet summer weekend.
\nThings were low key hereabouts, with my youngest son celebrating his fourth birthday, for which he got (and I assembled this morning) and old-school tricycle.
\nRight now, the sky is beginning to lighten after a torrential downpour, and Scooby Doo is on in the background, while my cup of iced coffee sweats next to the laptop\u2026in other words, Sunday.<\/strong>
\nThe tune I bring you today is another one of those records that I knew of for many, many years before I actually heard it, or owned a copy.
\nI am a big fan of Latin soul, especially mid-60s boogaloo, but every once in a while I get wind of something a little later in the game, maybe a little mellower, and it hits all the right pleasure centers in the brain (and then some), and Ralfi Pagan\u2019s<\/strong> 1971 cover of \u2018Make It With You\u2019 is one of those records.
\nPagan was a Bronx-born vocalist who recorded for Fania between 1969 and his untimely death in 1978*.
\nHe specialized in ballads, delivered in a voice that sounded like a cross between Little Anthony<\/strong> and Smokey Robinson.<\/strong>
\nHis version of Bread\u2019s <\/strong>\u2018Make It With You\u2019, which was a Top 40 R&B hit in 1971 made Pagan a star with the Chicano audience, where the record remains something of a lowrider classic.
\nThough only three and a half minutes in length, \u2018Make It With You\u2019 manages to work as a minor epic. First and foremost is the arrangement (by Johnny Pacheco<\/strong>), which starts off sounding like an outtake from a Neil Young<\/strong> session, melts (with an odd key change) into a perfect bit of sweet soul.
\nNow, at the risk of sounding like a rube, I\u2019ve always had a soft spot (how appropriate) for Bread\u2019s early singles. David Gates<\/strong> had a real knack for crafting solid melodies. Unfortunately, he also had a real talent for matching them up with era-appropriate lyrics, thick with post-hippie, California sentimentality, always delivered with a completely straight face, which is probably why they were so successful.
\nDespite what any brigade of hipster douchebags might think, nobody was appreciating Bread, or the Carpenters<\/strong> ironically back when they first came out.
\nPeople loved those records because they took the earnest, heart-on-sleeve-ery of a Hallmark card and wrapped it up in just enough long hair and denim to make it palatable for “the kids”.
\nRalfi Pagan took \u2018Make It With You\u2019 – which was Bread\u2019s first hit (their only #1) in a long string of chart records that lasted until 1977 – and recast it, ever so slightly, arresting the tempo and delivering the lyrics in a soulful falsetto, that takes the \u2018first wedding dance\u2019 feel of the original and moves it into a back seat make out session.
\nThe interesting thing is that the only real indicators that this is a \u2018Latin\u2019 record (aside from the Fania label** and its popularity with Latino audiences) is the very end of the record when Pagan starts singing in Spanish (echoed by the backing vocalists).
\nIt\u2019s a great record, and definitely worth a couple of close listens.
\nI hope you dig it, and I\u2019ll be back on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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

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


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

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

PS This week’s edition of the Funky16Corners Radio Show is now available for download. Just click on the Radio Show tab in the header.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

*Pagan was killed while on tour in South America<\/strong><\/p>\n

**This record was also issued on Wand
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n


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

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

PS Head over to Iron Leg for some Chicago garage punk.<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Ralfi Pagan Listen\/Download – Ralfi Pagan – Make It With You   Greetings all. I hope everyone had themselves a sweet summer weekend. Things were low key hereabouts, with my youngest son celebrating his fourth birthday, for which he got (and I assembled this morning) and old-school tricycle. Right now, the sky is beginning to […]<\/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":[58,14,70,64,12,18],"tags":[166,164],"class_list":["post-767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cover-songs","category-funky16corners","category-latin-soul","category-rb","category-soul","category-soul-45","tag-funky16corners","tag-soul"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-cn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767","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=767"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":940,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions\/940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}