Charles Spurling: Popcorn Charlie
From 7″ (King, 1969)
The Rock: (Charlie, Brother) We Got To Love One Another
From 7″ (Scorpio, 196?)
Pure coincidence but I digitized both of these 7″s this week. The Spurling 7″ is, for me, a recent discovery; I only came across it when I was researching a little on Spurling for that Marva Whitney post. Spurling didn’t just write for James Brown, the Godfather also produced this single for him. Vintage late ’60s JBs sound right here.
The single by The Rock I’ve had practically dating back to when I first began to buy 7″s in the ’90s. For one, the very design of the label just screams “dope” (pity that Scorpio didn’t release a ton else…in fact, I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen anything else on the imprint). I got my copy via Justin Torres who originally came across a massive stash in New Orleans but the curious thing is that they all had the same flaws. You’ll notice that at the two minute mark, there’s annoying “tic” during the “this whole world” and then there’s an even louder tic at the very end. I always thought it was just my copy but I later realized that many of them had the same problems in the same places which suggests something went wrong during the pressing phase; pity! Still, a really nice slice of funky soul, especially with that bell-ringing intro (which always makes me think “The Rock” was a reference to Alcatraz).
chatter