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By Larry, December 10, 2017 12:17 pm

El Chicano

Listen/Download – El Chicano – Coming Home Baby MP3

Greetings all.

I hope the new week finds you all well.

I have been digging-econo of late, and so when I dipped into a Discogs store and found a grip of interesting looking one-dollar 45s, I thought I’d grab me some and see how it played out (if you will). Most of the things I picked up hardly amounted to ‘taking a chance’, seeing that they were either very cheap, or by reliably great artists (or both).

One of those purchases sits before you today, East LA giants El Chicano’s smoking version of Bob Dorough and Ben Tucker’s oft-recorded ‘Coming Home Baby’.

The group’s version of Gerald Wilson’s ‘Viva Tirado’ was a substantial hit in 1970, and though they continued to record/release music for the next decade, they never really had another big hit.

This is not to say that they weren’t making good music, as today’s selection will attest.

‘Coming Home Baby’ hit the charts a dozen different times between Mel Torme’s brilliant version in 1962 and 1971.

El Chicano’s version, a blazing, overmodulated Hammond feature only charted very briefly in a few California markets, but it is among the finest versions I have heard.

Cramming almost five and a half minutes onto one side of a 45, the El Chicano version has a hot, live sound with just enough Latin percussion in the mix to remind you who your listening to.

In addition to the general hotness of this 45, it should serve as a reminder that El Chicano’s stuff is uniformly excellent and as our friends in the UK are wont to say, ‘cheap as chips’, so go out and get you some.

See you next week.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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By Larry, December 3, 2017 11:32 am

Johnny Watson

Listen/Download – Johnny Watson – Coke MP3

Greetings all.

One of the great pleasures of record digging/collecting is the unexpected find, as in ‘I had no idea this very familiar artist did anything like this’ which describes this week’s selection to a tee.

A few years ago I picked up a Johnny Watson solo 45 off of a friend’s list, on which the man who was so famous a guitarist that it became part of his name (i.e. Johnny Guitar Watson) was featuring not on the six-string razor but rather surprisingly on the old 88s!

I dug the 45 a lot, and started to look around for information on the circumstances leading to its recording, and I was very surprised indeed to discover that Watson had recorded an entire album of instrumentals for Okeh in 1967.

This was during the heart of his association with Larry Williams, who just happened to have co-produced the album in question (entitled ‘Bad’) with Watson himself.

The record sees Watson featuring on both piano and guitar on a wide range of contemporary covers of tunes by folks like Eddie Floyd, Ray Charles, Sam and Dave and the Four Tops among others, mixed in with a couple of groovy originals, of which today’s selection is one.

‘Coke’ (hmmmmm…) is hard charging number featuring Watson’s guitar, piano and a tastefully applied horn section.

It has plenty of soulful, au-go-go flavor, and would work nicely on the dance floor.

I don’t think the album has ever been reissued. There was only the one 45 released from the LP.

I hope you dig the sounds, and I’ll see you all next week.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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By Larry, November 26, 2017 11:39 am

Cliff Nobles

Listen/Download – Cliff Nobles – Love Is Alright MP3

Greetings all.

The track I bring you this week is one of those 45s that is probably in 99% of every soul collection, yet I wonder how many people have flipped it over to play this side.

The flipside, ‘The Horse’ by Cliff Nobles and Co was one of the biggest hits of 1968, hugely influential, spawning dozens of ‘horse’ and horse-related records and making its way into the repertoire of every hip marching band in the land.

That said, today’s selection, the vocal version of the tune – retitled as ‘Love Is Alright’ is a bit of funky genius, and in a lot of ways is my preferred side of the record.

I always thought it was deely ironic that a vocalist like Cliff Nobles had his biggest hit on a record where his voice does not appear, and a look at the charts would suggest that almost nobody (except the New Orleans station WYLD) thought to flip the record over and play the ‘Love Is Alright’.
This is a damn shame because Nobles’ vocal is right tight and outtasight.

His discography (before and after ‘The Horse’) is fairly brief, and his only other chart success was a minor regional hit with ‘The More I Do For You Baby’ few months before ‘The Horse’ broke.

It’s a groovy number, and I hope you dig it.

I hope you dig the sounds, and I’ll see you all next week.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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By Larry, November 19, 2017 11:48 am

Machito

Listen/Download – Machito and His Orchestra – Baby I Love You MP3

Greetings all.

You already know that I’d fill a bathtub in Latin soul and roll around in it if I could (TMI??), so imagine my delight when I happened upon the 45 you see before you today.

I knew of the might Machito (aka Francisco Raúl Gutiérrez Grillo) who was recording rhumba as far back as the early 1950s.

Like so many of his contemporaries, faced with the rising popularity of boogaloo, Machito went into the studio in 1968 with arranger/composer Bert DeCoteaux and laid down an entire album of (mostly) Memphis soul covers (and one groovy DeCoteaux original).

The obviously-titled ‘Machito Goes Memphis’ is not only smoking hot from start to finish, but also (at the writing) still relatively inexpensive.

Machito and his orchestra cover Booker T and the MGs. Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Eddie Floyd, Sam Cooke, and on this track, Aretha Franklin.

The band hits a nice groove, with the drums, bass and percussion laying down the bottom. It is – like the rest of the album – a headnodder, just Latin enough for the boogaloo fans and soulful enough for everyone else (though a considerable crossover is to be expected).

As far as I can tell, Machito never took this direction again.

I hope you dig the track and I’ll see you all next week.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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By Larry, November 12, 2017 1:02 pm

Billy Lee Riley

Listen/Download – Billy Lee Riley – Don’t Fight It MP3

Listen/Download – Billy Lee Riley – Mississippi Delta MP3

Greetings all.

If you already know the name of Billy Lee Riley, you very well might be surprised to see him here at Funky16Corners.

Along with his band the Little Green Men he waxed some smoking rockabilly sides for Sun Records in the mid-50s, including ‘Red Hot’ (later covered by Robert Gordon) and ‘Flying Saucers Rock and Roll’.

However, as the years went on, Mr Riley found his way to the R&B side of the street (though there is a case to be made that having worked in rockabilly he was already half the way there).

In 1962 he was the man behind the Megatons’ ‘Shimmy Shimmy Walk’, and as the decade moved on he recorded a wide variety of material, including a fair amount of soul covers.

Today’s selections hail from a 1967 45 for the Mojo label (Riley bounced around to Mercury, GNP Crescendo, Atlantic, HIP and then back to Sun by the end of the 60s) where he did a number of 45s and a couple of albums, including 1968’s hard to find ‘Southern Soul’.

Riley’s covers of Wilson Pickett and Bobbie Gentry are pure Memphis, with a tight, hard-hitting band and great vocals. There’s plenty of hot guitar (naturally) and some nice piano and backing vocals as well.

‘Mississippi Delta’ is especially groovy. Originally the flipside to Bobbie Gentry’s epic ‘Ode To Billie Joe’, it was – in its original version – smoking hot. Riley turns up the soulful heat just a little bit more and the horn chart and drums are excellent.

Riley’s 45s from this period aren’t too hard to find, but the albums might force you to pry open your wallet a little bit further.

I hope you dig the tracks and I’ll see you next week.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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By Larry, November 5, 2017 10:58 am

Vicky Gomez with Shivaree host Gene Weed

Listen/Download – Vicky Gomez – Boys Are a Dime a Dozen MP3

Greetings all.

Today’s selection is one of those records that you’re going to be thanking me for years from now (just as I always thank the anonymous groover that turned me on to it way back when).

Unfortunatey there’s almost nothing out there about Vicky Gomez.

She appears to have been a Chicana from southern California who only ever made one 45 (the one you see before you today) in 1965.

‘Boys are a Dime a Dozen’ is a booming piece of Wall of Sound, dance floor soul that is every bit as amazing as it is obscure.

There are minute tendrils of information attached to it. The producers, Malkin-Hoffman worked in LA studios with the Wrecking Crew. One of the composers Raul Abeyta appears to have worked with Gary Usher through the 60s (including composing songs with Usher for the Super Stocks, Wayne Newton, the Neptunes, Bobby Sherman, as well as writing a couple of tracks on Usher’s ‘Astrology Album’). The other writer, Alonzo Willis penned a bunch of SoCal R&B, inclusing the Roach and Gator Tails & Monkey Ribs for Gene and Wendell, and tracks for the Crystals and Dick Dale. The best known person with a hand in the creation of the 45 is its arranger, the mighty Gene Page.

That said, it amazes me that ‘Boys Are a Dime a Dozen’ wasn’t a hit anywhere. The fact that Gomez appeared on the LA dance party show Shivaree in 1965 suggested to me that the song may have charted regionally, but I can’t even find a trace of that happening.

The record features crashing drums, multiple layers of percussion, horns and a throbbing bass guitar, all of which combine into the kind of sound that suggests Phil Spector as a touchstone.

If anyone out there knows anything else about Gomez, or the production, please let me know.

Until next week

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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By Larry, October 29, 2017 10:46 am

Big Maybelle

Listen/Download – Big Maybelle – 96 Tears MP3

Greetings all.

Today’s selection is a 45 that I chased after for years, only finally scoring a decent copy last year.

Big Maybelle was a star of the early years of R&B, having been recording since 1947 and having a string of hits in the early to mid 1950s.

By the time she recorded Question Mark and the Mysterians ’96 Tears’ in 1966, she was in her 40s and her career was all but over.

Her version of ’96 Tears’ takes the original and gives it a big, soulful punch, with a great repeated horn line and a confident, powerful vocal.

The cut is available on 45, but was also on her 1966 LP (with one of the weirdest cover drawings of all time) for Rojac, ‘Got a Brand New Bag’, which I’d love to find as it includes covers of tunes by the Troggs, Donovan, the Beatles, Los Bravos and Dr. West’s Medicine Show And Junk Band’s ‘The Eggplant That Ate Chicago’ (written by a young Norman ‘Spirit In the Sky’ Greenbaum).

That said, this is a dance floor burner, and I hope you dig it.

I’ll see you all next week.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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By Larry, October 22, 2017 12:09 pm

Barry St John

Listen/Download – Barry St John – Cry Like a Baby MP3

Greetings all.

Today’s selection is yet another piece of evidence for why you should surround yourself with people with excellent taste and keep your ears wide open.

I first encountered Barry St John and her smoking version of ‘Cry Like a Baby’ when it rolled by in my Facebook news feed, the video having been posted in one of the groups I subscribe to.

The clip, from the Beat Club TV show had St John working the funky side of the street on the old Box Tops tune.

I set right out to find myself a copy of the 45 and in doing so discovered that St John had a couple of earlier 45s that were popular with the Northern Soul crowd.

St John, who was born in Scotland and had sung with R&B groups in the UK and Europe recorded ‘Cry Like a Baby’ in 1968, with production credited to Mike Pasternak aka hugely successful Pirate Radio DJ Emperor Rosko (who produced St John’s 1968 LP ‘According To St John’).

The arrangement featured St John’s powerful voice, backed with some punchy bass and drums and a horn section (dig that baritone sax) way up in the mix.

What I’ve heard of her album (which is nigh but impossible to lay hands on here in the US) is excellent.

St John went on to work as a studio backing singer, working on a ton of UK albums in the 70s including Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’.

I hope you dig the track and I’ll see you all next week.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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By Larry, October 15, 2017 12:10 pm

Lea Roberts

Listen/Download – Lea Roberts – When Something Is Wrong With My Baby MP3

Greetings all.

The record I bring to you this fine day is something I picked up in one of my periodic label sweeps, i.e. a dsearch aimed specifically at Minit Records soul 45s.

I spotted the 45 by Lea Roberts (a singer that was otherwise unknown to me) and noticed that it included a cover of Sam & Dave’s ‘When Something Is Wrong With My Baby’ (written by Hayes and Porter), so naturally I had to grab it.

Good thing I did, too, since Roberts reading of the southern soul ballad classic is a powerful one, with solid production by George Butler and a very interesting arrangement by Horace Ott.

There isn’t a a lot of info out there about Roberts. He real name was Leatha Roberta Hicks and she was from Ohio.

She recorded a couple of 45s for Minit and UA before recording a pair of albums in the early to mid 70s for United Artists.

Roberts had a powerful, gospel-infused voice, and her reading of ‘When Something Is Wrong With My Baby’ is excellent. The arrangement, which features understated guitar and piano, and unusually prominent drums really catches the ear.

I will definitely be on the lookout for her albums.

I hope you dig the track, and I’ll see you next week.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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By Larry, October 8, 2017 11:28 am

Eddie ‘Little Buster’ Forehand

Listen/Download – Little Buster – I’m So Lonely MP3

Greetings all.

The record I bring you today is without any dispute one of my all time favorites, holding a secure spot in my Top 10.

I have to start by sending out a big thanks to Red Kelly of the B-Side (and many other blogs) who turned me on to the sounds of Little Buster many years ago.

Eddie ‘Little Buster’ Forehand (note the name, because his records feature about four or five different iterations of his name/nickname) was born in North Carolina in 1942 but relocated to Long Island (where he spent the rest of his life) in the late 50s.

He was blind, and recorded a string of absolutely brilliant singles for Jubilee, Josie and Minit between 1964 and 1969.

Today’s selection, ‘I’m So Lonely’ was his second 45, recorded in 1965.

To say that it is a special/unique record is to understate its power.

Featuring Little Buster’s voice and guitar, and precious little else (very spare bass and drum backing), ‘I’m So Lonely’ is a masterpiece of atmosphere and emotion. Though it is ostensibly a ‘soul’ record, it reaches back into the earliest days of recorded blues, borrowing Pop Staples wide open tremelo, is it less as an ‘effect’ and more as an essential character in the story of the song, acting as an aural backdrop.

Like many of the Delta bluesmen, Buster establishes a loose relation to the tempo, dancing in and out of the beat (as it is), yet never losing connection.

The recording – produced by Jubilee house producers Mickey Eichner and Steve Blaine – is unusually spare yet dripping in atmosphere, which comes exclusively from Little Busters voice and guitar.

His first two 45s (which seem to have come from the same session) have the same sound, and even later on, when he was working with other producers, and fuller arrangements, that rawness/bareness was still there in the background.

In a just world, Little Buster would be considered in the first rank of southern soul singers (even though he largely recorded in the North). His work is remarkably consistent, deep and emotionally powerful.

There are a number of records in his catalog (especially his upbeat, Horace Ott-arranged cover of ‘Cry Me a River’ from 1969) that are lost classics.

Little Buster went on to record in the modern era with his band the Soul Brothers, but aside from a mid-90s UK collection on Sequel, his amazing Jubilee/Josie and Minit sides are currently unavailable, which is a crime.

I hope you dig the sounds.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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By Larry, October 1, 2017 9:15 am

Roy Head

Listen/Download – Roy Head – Driving Wheel MP3

Greetings all.

The tune I bring you today is from what is by far the funkiest album by one of the great white R&B/soul singers of the classic era.

Roy Head, formerly of the Traits was a bona fide Texas legend. Posessed of a great, raspy voice and excellent taste in material, Head had his first hit in 1965 with ‘Treat Her Right’ (which became a standard) for Back Beat and even though he didn’t cozy up to the charts much more after that, continued recording quality stuff into the 1980s.

The tune I bring you today hails from the excellent 1970 LP ‘Same People’, which contains a number of amazing tracks (including covers of the Sir Douglas Quintet’s ‘She’s About a Mover’ and Dyke and the Blazers’ ‘Let a Woman Be a Woman’).

The original version of ‘Driving Wheel’ was recorded in 1936 by Roosevelt Sykes (aka The Honeydripper) and went on to become a blues standard, with Little Junior Parker taking it into the R&B Top 5 in 1961 and Head himself recording it for Back Beat in 1966.

Here Head lays into the tune in a funky way, with blazing horns and a chugging Hammond organ laying the foundation underneath.

If you can get your hands on a copy of the album (which I sought after and increasingly scarce) do so with a quickness. You will not be disappointed.

I will surely post other tracks from it in this space in the future.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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By Larry, September 24, 2017 11:02 am

The Ikettes (at least the set that went on to become the Mirettes)

Listen/Download – The Ikettes – Camel Walk MP3

Greetings all.

Today we return to that very deep, often very dark, and generally inscrutable corner of the universe occupied by Ike Turner and his various and sundry works.

Thanks in large part to the ugly side of his life/personality, Ike has been denied his rightful position among the true greats of R&B and soul from the 50s through the 70s.

Working as a songwriter, bandleader and guitarist. Turner laid down a mountain of amazing music under his own name, in partnership with the mighty Tina, and as you’ll see today, the Ikettes.

The ‘mystery’ of the Ikettes has bugged me for as long as I’ve been listening to/collecting soul music. The names of the singers that passed through their ranks over the years is legendary (and sometimes, possibly apocryphal), yet I have never seen anyone nail down which singers were in the Ikettes at what time, and what recordings they appeared on.

As a result, though their work is generally excellent, backing Ike and Tina, or as in today’s selection, stepping out on their own, it is very difficult to assign credit where credit is due.

Today’s selection, ‘The Camel Walk’ was released in 1964, and is credited to Ike Turner, who is almost certainly the producer of the record as well.

‘The Camel Walk’ was – as anyone that has witnessed live footage of James Brown can testify – a dance, with the earliest reference to it on record going back to the late 50s. By the time the soul era was in full swing there were a number of ‘Camel Walk’ records, by artists like LaBrenda Ben and the Beljeans, Benny Gordon and the Soul Brothers and on the boogaloo side of things, the Latinaires.

The Ikettes iteration is a fast moving dance floor burner with some funky drums (way up in the mix) piano and guitar.

The lyrics aren’t much to speak of, but this is a dance craze 45 and you don’t dip into this end of the crates looking for verbal profundity.

It is a groover, and it seems to be escalating in price of late, so go grab yourself one before you can’t, if you know what I mean.

Also, make sure to follow Funky16Corners on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Keep the faith

Larry

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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!

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