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By O-Dub 
Jimmie Raye: Look At Me, Girl
From 7″ (Tuff, 1964)
This 7″ came from Nydia Ines Davila (who works at Daptone Records) and though she warned me that the sound quality was a bit “muffled” I thought this sounds great. Of course, I am a total sucker for a good soul track built around an opening piano. I fell for this single just from the first four bars with the piano, guitar and drums already crafting something wonderful before you even hear Raye crooning “look at me, girl…cryiiiiiiiiiiiing” with some glorious [...]
Continue reading JIMMIE RAYE: TEARS DON’T STOP
By O-Dub 
Funky16Corners reports that Howard Tate has passed away.
In honor of the late Mr. Tate, here’s one of my favorite A/B-sides from him:
Howard Tate: Stop b/w Shoot ‘Em All Down
From 7″ (Verve, 1967)
I’m too brain-dead tonight to properly articulate what makes this single so damn good but even though I typically hate saying, “the music speaks for itself,” in this case, I think the sides do the job better than I can right now.
By O-Dub 
This morning, Will Holland, aka Quantic, dropped by the studio and I couldn’t be more pleased since I’ve been a massive fan of his work for years and though we’ve corresponded via interweb and have some mutual friends, this is the first time I’ve met him in person.
Quantic has had a remarkably prolific and diverse career over the last decade, all now captured in the new 32-song double-CD anthology, Best of Quantic. With that in mind, I asked Will about his history as a producer, beginning in his early years, recording sample-based [...]
Continue reading THE SIDEBAR 18: QUANTIC
By O-Dub 
One of the upsides to the Rap Purge – abetted by some timely listings – is that I’ve been knocking down some long-time white whale records. If you recall from our previous convo around this, a White Whale™ is a record that has tormented you with its elusiveness.
It’s not enough for a record to merely be high on your want list. A record can only cross into White Whale-ness once it’s eluded you enough times to make you want to curse the day you learned about it (but you can’t let [...]
Continue reading HUNTING DOWN WHITE WHALES
By O-Dub 
Ten years ago, when I first began to get to know folks in my generation of record collectors, we were all mostly in our 20s. One of the nicest, classiest dudes in the game was Aaron Anderson, a DJ/collector out in Detroit. For many years, Aaron had been dealing with a rare form of brain cancer that for a long, blessed while, had gone into remission. However, earlier this year, it returned in an inoperable form and I am extremely saddened to report that Aaron passed away last night.
I didn’t know [...]
Continue reading RIP TO AARON ANDERSON
By O-Dub 
Frankie and the Spindles: Count to Ten
From 7″ (Roc-ker, 1968)
I feel like it’s been ages since I’ve written about something other than hip-hop (or someone dying).
Reader Zach Robbins put me up on this Frankie and Spindles 7″ back in April and it’s been one of the few soul 7″s that have stayed in heavy rotation since spring. There’s much to love here in terms of the lowrider vibe, the catchy chorus and all that but here’s something that keeps nagging at me:
So the song is about how [...]
Continue reading FRANKIE AND THE SPINDLES: 10 COUNT
By O-Dub 
Wardell Quezergue died today, at the age of 81. Amongst the giants of NOLA’s R&B/funk community, Wardell wasn’t necessarily as influential as Allen Toussaint nor as prolific as Eddie Bo but he was as quintessential a shaper of NOLA’s R&B sound as anyone, and easily one of the most successful, based on a handful of mega-hits he had his hand in.1
Some of my favorite songs out of NOLA have the Wardell touch upon them, so much so that it was ridiculously easy to just pull them immediately out of my mental rolodex [...]
Continue reading REMEMBERING WARDELL QUEZERGUE
By O-Dub 
The last four weeks have been…awesome. Every day, I wake up and I get to write and write and write, usually pausing to get my noodle soup on. I’m trying to hammer my way through revising enough of this project to get it off to my publisher (the beginning of the end…but nowhere near “the end”). It’s great for my academic career, not so great for doing other stuff (hence why I’m writing this post at 11:36pm).
I love the Summer Songs series but this year, I just had to take a [...]
Continue reading MY SUMMER SOUNDTRACK (SO FAR)
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