{"id":824,"date":"2010-08-29T15:22:10","date_gmt":"2010-08-29T20:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.lunarpages.net\/?p=824"},"modified":"2012-08-03T15:58:56","modified_gmt":"2012-08-03T20:58:56","slug":"ray-barretto-a-deeper-shade-of-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=824","title":{"rendered":"Ray Barretto &#8211; A Deeper Shade of Soul"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong> <\/strong><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/pictures\/raybarretto_dsos_pic.jpg\" alt=\"Example\" width=\"600\" height=\"497\" \/><\/strong><br \/>\n<strong><br \/>\nRay Barretto <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/pictures\/raybarretto_dsos_lp.jpg\" alt=\"Example\" width=\"600\" height=\"596\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: line-through;\"><strong><em>Listen\/Download &#8211; Ray Barretto &#8211; A Deeper Shade of Soul <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Greetings all. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I hope everything\u2019s groovy at your specific GPS location, and anywhere else you choose to roam.<\/p>\n<p>Summer is winding down, slowly, and while the weather is still warm (some might say hot) the days of summery freedom are also coming to an end, with the wife and kids headed back to school, and the rhythm of life changing once again.<\/p>\n<p>To present a brief \u2018state of the Corners\u2019 address, things are mainly cool hereabouts. <strong>The Funky16Corners Radio Show<\/strong> has developed into something more satisfying (at least for me, hopefully for you all too) over the summer, and I\u2019m having a lot of fun doing it.<\/p>\n<p>The DJing opportunities around here have, for a variety of reasons (<em>some that I am not privy to<\/em>), all but vanished, but I will be heading down to DC again toward the end of September to spin with my man <strong>DJ Birdman<\/strong> (more details to follow soon), so hopefully I\u2019ll be able to touch base with some of the Capitol City heads who have always been so cool.<\/p>\n<p>Other than that, things should continue on a steady course, with new mixes (regular old Funky16Corners and Soul Club) coming, as well as a steady stream of funk, soul, jazz and rare groove to soothe your troubled mind (and mine too, <em>if I\u2019m lucky<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>The tune I bring you today is something I came to in a roundabout way.<\/p>\n<p>The first time I had any inkling of <strong>Ray Barretto\u2019s<\/strong> \u2018A Deeper Shade of Soul\u2019 was back in 1989, when I heard it sampled by the Dutch group <strong>Urban Dance Squad<\/strong> in their song of the same name. Of course even though I knew it was probably a sample, I had no idea who it was, and pretty much left it at that.<\/p>\n<p>Flash forward a few years and my buddy <strong>Haim<\/strong> lends me the CD reissue of\u00a0 Barretto\u2019s 1968 \u2018Acid\u2019 album, and I\u2019m listening to it (wishing I had an OG) and all of a sudden \u2018A Deeper Shade of Soul\u2019 comes pouring into my ears and I\u2019m all WTF?!? and the lightbulb goes on over my head, and then (of course) blows up.<\/p>\n<p>Now these many years later, and I\u2019m all hip to Ray Barretto and all of that good mid-to-late 60s Latin soul and funk, and while I had a couple of his 45s and LPs, an OG of \u2018Acid\u2019 (possibly THE essential Latin soul LP) had still eluded me.<\/p>\n<p>Well, another one of those Asbury Lanes garage sales rolled around, and it was a particularly rewarding one, and I\u2019ve just about run my way through all my ready cash, and then some dude I\u2019ve never seen before sets up a table full of LPs, and before I know it me and about a half dozen other heads are pulling all kinds of OG Latin LPs out of his crates. As I mentioned, I was just about tapped out, and when I discovered that these LPs (while affordable) were not cheap I had to put back a couple of very nice things, including an OG <strong>Lat-Teens <\/strong>LP, but I walked away with a nice, clean copy of \u2018Acid\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>While I still dig the Urban Dance Squad tune (it has a kind of stoney groove that I like) there\u2019s just no comparison with Barretto\u2019s original.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018A Deeper Shade of Soul\u2019 is an absolutely perfect slice of soulful boogaloo, with prominent piano, percussion (natch\u2026) and a horn chart that digs into \u2018Knock On Wood\u2019 for inspiration. The arrangements were handled by none other than <strong>Harvey Averne<\/strong>, so you know it\u2019s good.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Acid\u2019 was Barretto\u2019s first LP for Fania, following his earlier chart success (on labels like Tico and UA) with tunes like 1963\u2019s \u2018El Watusi\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>If you haven\u2019t heard \u2018Acid\u2019 (which also includes \u2018Soul Drummers\u2019, \u2018Mercy Mercy Baby\u2019, and \u2018Teacher of Love\u2019 among others) you should grab yourself a reissue (or an OG if you can find it) since it\u2019s a great album from start to finish.<\/p>\n<p>I hope you dig the tune, and I\u2019ll be back in the middle of the week.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Peace<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Larry<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/helium.lunarpages.com\/~funky4\/pictures\/new_funky16_logo.jpg\" alt=\"Example\" width=\"179\" height=\"181\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Check out the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cafepress.com\/Funky16Corners\" target=\"_blank\">Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ironleg.wordpress.com\" target=\"_blank\">PS Head over to Iron Leg for a cool Nilsson cover.<\/a><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ray Barretto Listen\/Download &#8211; Ray Barretto &#8211; A Deeper Shade of Soul &nbsp; Greetings all. I hope everything\u2019s groovy at your specific GPS location, and anywhere else you choose to roam. Summer is winding down, slowly, and while the weather is still warm (some might say hot) the days of summery freedom are also coming [&hellip;]<\/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":[46,20,11,14,55,70,30,69,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-digging","category-dj-gigs","category-funk","category-funky16corners","category-funky16cornersviva-internet-radio","category-latin-soul","category-lp-tracks","category-original-versions","category-soul"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-di","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824","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=824"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3040,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions\/3040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}