Very nice - Mingering Mike created the cover art for the upcoming, debut album for Kings Go Forth, the Milwaukee-based soul band who've gotten an incredible response for their 7"s and are finally dropping a full-length on April 20th.
Play this, preferably at a loud enough volume without shattering eardrums.
Soak in it.
Get mind blown.
Sorry for the terseness of the post but in this moment, I don't have much to add except to say that (even though this is from last year), I've had my first sublime musical experience of 2010.
Currently, this is only on vinyl and if that doesn't encourage you to go right out and get a turntable, I'm not sure what will.
*Correction: you can get it on CD too, as part of Dave Hamilton's Detroit Dancers series. (But still, get a turntable anyway).
As my dwindling finances can attest to, snapping up records with cover songs is bad habitsickness passion that I can't/won't shake. I'm sure there will be a Deep Covers 3 in the offering at some point in the near future but in the meanwhile, here's a few highlights from the last few months.
These both come from instrumental exploitation LPs, jacking contemporary hits of the time and giving them makeovers that, in most cases, are laughably weak. Occasionally though, you cross a few tracks that at least can hold your attention (though I would never suggest that either of these two are superior to their inspirations).
The Power Pack seems to have been a session band overseen by Nick Ingram, one of the better known UK library composers and this very much sounds in the vein of KPM or similar library labels. The UK Polydor version of this album goes for far more money than really makes sense to me but personally, I prefer the Canadian Polydor issue for having the superior cover art. In any case, their cover of James Brown's "I Got You" has some slick, Hammond flavor to it and most of all, a strong drummer holding it down (albeit a bit "squarely").
Generation Gap were American (presumably) and tackled R&B hits of the early '70s, including a few blaxploitation tracks as the title suggests, but I thought their take on Sly and the Family Stone's "Family Affair" was decent as far as instrumental flips go. Nice opening break and the sax is surprisingly uncheesy.
On the reggae tip, I pulled one off one of the Byron Lee albums I only recently got around to copping - the quite excellent Rock-Steady '67 which I learned about from my man Michael Barnes. "Soul Ska" (as Michael noted) is the jam on here but it's always fun to come across yet another cover of "Get Out of My Life, Woman," especially one given a ska rhythm makeover.
Fast-forwarding about 15 years, we arrive at Derrick Harriot doing a surprisingly groovy cover of The Dazz Band's classic "Let It Whip." For real - I don't think I really ever want to hear the actual original again but this reggae remake is totally working for me.
I know La Lupe has quite the posse behind her and I can't say I've listened to a ton of stuff from her outside of a handful of songs but everytime her shrill, cackling voice rings through on an English-language song, I think, "for the so-called Queen of Latin Soul, she mostly sounds like a novelty act." And let me be serious for a sec here - part of why La Lupe can lay claim to the title is because there's so little competition. The Latin soul scene had very very few women singers involved (unfortunately) so I suppose someone like La Lupe had a better shot at the title than, say, Noraida or the enigmatic duo behind Dianne and Carole and the Latin Whatchamacallits.
In any case, her singing on "Bring It On Home To Me" veers close to cringe-inducement (especially on her higher notes) but the fact that the song still manages to work is a testament to how good the source material is. Not that I'd want to hear it but I bet the Chipmunks could do a version of this and it'd still sound pretty good; the original arrangement and songwriting is so good, it can easily forgive less than stellar attempts at working with it.
I couldn't close with this though and I decided instead to bust out a cover of the same song that I absolutely, unqualifiably adore - Los Exciters' cover, all the way from Panama. Sure, no one in the group is touching Sam Cooke (and that pretty much applies to everyone in the world not Sam Cooke) but I thought their take on this song was done beautifully, especially the vocal harmonies. I have a few heavyweight pieces from this group but this 7" b-side is easily the favorite thing of theirs I have.
I finally got around to catching up on my blog reading and noticed that Super Sonido recently wrote up Mon Rivera's "Lluvia Con Nieve." This salsa classic was introduced to me by Murphy's Law and I consider it one of my Top 3 go-to, never-fail salsa cuts to get an audience moving (Willie Colon holds down the other two with his "La Murga De Panama" and "Che Che Cole"). "Lluvia Con Nieve" fits right between those two - more aggressive and forceful than "Che Che Cole" though, for my money, nothing can ace the horn opening to "La Murga" but that "Lluvia" comes pretty damn close. Trust a trombonist to know how to use some brass to get feet to slide.
Super Sonido included Rivera's original plus a cover by Lucho Macedo on Virrey which I had never heard before (good stuff Frank!) and that made me think of this:
Can't say I know much about this Peruvian organist except that he's, um, Peruvian and an organist. I picked this Mag LP up a while back, mostly on the strength of this medley/cover of "Lluvia Con Nieve" that segues nicely into "El Molestoso," a pachanga (Eddie Palmieri's?). The use of organ is what sells this cover for me, just adding enough of a touch of difference to stick in the ear.
Meanwhile, over at Philaflava's TROY blog, he's got the latest post in his "Who Flipped It Better" series up, focusing on samplings of Five Stairsteps' "Danger, She's a Stranger." It reminded me that I hadn't done an installment of my own, similar series in well over a year and as it was, in going back over some key Willie Mitchell productions, I forgot how many folks had flipped Al Green's "I Wish You Were Here."
I find it rather remarkable that this song has been such a popular sample over the years if only because it's just not what I associate with Green's core canon. Doesn't mean it isn't a great song and in particular, such a classic Willie Mitchell sound. On that note, it's rather amazing that no one in the Wu seemed to mess with this until last year given that it sounds pitch-perfect for the Wu's well-known affections for the Hi catalog.
However, it was Nas who seemed to have been the first to flip this (Poke and Tone of the Trackmasters to be more exact), back with "Shootouts" from It Was Written. Call me crazy but listening back to this, some 14 years later, doesn't one get the sense that Poke and Tone were listening to some of Rza's beats and thinking, "yo, we need to get on this steez?" In any case, I admire how they didn't opt for a straight loop but chop it up instead (Jesse "Fiyah!" West style!) Madlib's flip on the same sample for The Lootpack's "Wanna Test" doesn't cut things up as much, opting instead to filter parts of the main, opening loop to add some dissonance. Fast-forward to 2007 and it's an interesting contrast with how Kanye uses more of the original sample in its "pure" sonic form to open, but then chops it up a bit (w/ Green's vocals sped-up and attached) for the main parts of the song. Honestly, I think I gotta give it up to the Trackmasters for the best flip of this sample - it just has the most edge and appealing sound of the bunch.
This soul band out of New Jersey (no Jersey Shore jokes, please) contacted me over winter break and I really dug this one song off their new EP. Reminds me of that Noisettes song I posted last year in general sound but sans the rock elements. The arrangement here is done with smart subtly - the song doesn't try to force an overly aggressive crescendo; it's content with maintaining a slow burn that sparks towards the end without ever departing too far from the core, Southern Soul aesthetics that make this such an appealing tune. (Excellent use of back-up singers too - this isn't nearly as acknowledged as it should be.)
Because I was in the middle of moving/unpacking/new house hell, I really missed out on being able to say something meaningful about the passing of Memphis legend Willie Mitchell or slow jam king Teddy Pendergrass.
Cumbia, done in moog. Awesome idea, marvelously executed here by the outfit, appropriately named, Cumbias En Moog. I'm betting there's a lot more of this out there, probably collecting dust somewhere between Colombia and Mexico City. Holler at me with that! This came out of a batch of cumbia 7"s I picked up the other month; money well-spent! Really solid stuff all around (the A-side of this 7", for example, has a surprisingly good, bossa-flavored cumbia). I'll share another one:
Killer intro; sounds like a marching band bass drum being pounded there, intercut with chattering percussion and then what sounds like an Indian flute creeps in (I'm assuming it's some Peruvian woodwindaccording to commenter Alejandro, it's a Colombian instrument called a "gaita".). The whole package is an incredibly mesmerizing rhythm. Lyrically, I can only assume the song is a riff on Lucille Ball given that the vocalist (Beltran?) sings "Lucy! Luck!" Ricky Ricardo style.
One of my favorite songs to DJ with over the last year or so has been the Lefties Soul Connection's cover of "Have Love Will Travel." The song was originally recorded by Richard Berry in 1959 but like several of Berry's influential compositions ("Louie Louie" being the most obvious), it would actually be later artists who'd record the more definitive version. In the case of "Have Love Will Travel," the version the Lefties are riffing on isn't Berry's original but the 1965 cover by the garage rockers, The Sonics. With the fuzzed out guitar and screaming intro, their version rocks in a way that Berry's never really did and it's easy to see why it's been such a compelling cover to cover since then. Check out Thee Headcoat(ees) cover for the femme makeover.
Droop Capone aka Dr. Oop is one of my favorite West Coast rappers from the indie hip-hop heyday; he had such a distinctive flow and a knack for choosing good beats to rhyme over. In 2010, he hasn't slipped on that front, teaming with Japan's Chikaramanga for this upcoming single on Tres Records. Call it nostalgist in me but I like any song that a shout out to the Good Life on the chorus. Cop this.
This is a classic of NOLA music though I didn't get around to grabbing the OG 7" until recently. If you want to understand the roots of funk polyrhythm, you'd do well to just pay attention to what's going on this song in terms of what Smokey Johnson (second line ya'll!) is doing with the drums and how it plays off against the rest of the layers of the song. Longhair's piano work here is sparkling and I went with the lesser played Pt. 2 of the 7" because I like it makes the Royal Dukes of Rhythm horn section more prominent plus you get actual vocals (from Earl King) instead of only whistling. (Home of the Groove has an excellent primer on this single). In other news...people may also be interested in:
When Doc Delay came through to spin the other month, he dropped this in the middle of a funk mix and trainspotter as I am, I craned my neck over to ask: "wtf is this?" It sounded like the unruly love child of a Midwestern funkateer backed by an East Harlem band and as I dug around for more info on its background, turned out I was more or less on point.
While the 7" came out of Detroit (rumor is, the vocalist was a janitor at Tuba Records), the backing track originated in New York which probably explains why the dip into the shing-a-ling has a distinctive Nuyorican sabor on it. Boogaloo fiend as I am, I love where Latin boogaloo comes back to the Midwest (where the booglaoo was born). It's very post-modern before anyone was talking about post-modernity(ok, I'm hella nerding out right now) but all you need to know is that "Yo Yo" rocks. Sure, it's a derivative track in terms of being a "new dance" that also borrows from any number of hit songs from the same era such as the "Cool Jerk" and "Here Comes the Judge." (Again, pastiche! Collage!) Plus, all that and a breakbeat intro? Oh hells yes. (Personally, I'd love to see how the "Yo Yo" is done; sounds like fun.)
This is jarring gear shift but I'd be remiss in not taking the time to mourn the passing of Teddy Pendergrass, gone far before this time (which is about 99% of the great ones, no?).
Just played this out last night and cotdamn was this Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes (feat. Teddy) such an incredible jam, made all the more enticing in this reggae-fied remake.
But here's the crazy thing...the actual album sounds nothing like you'd expect it to. Had the album had two loner, folk rock types, you could better understand how the Emerson brothers put together such a heady mix of psych and soul on here but you'd be forgiven if you assumed it was some schlocky power pop instead.
"Good Time" opens the album and already you realize: "oh wait, this is going to be some crazy sh--, isn't it?" The mix of fuzzed out guitars with a unmistakably bright melody is already worth noting but then the vocals come in and everything hits some next level you would never have guessed possible.
I don't mean to overstate it; his is not an amazing voice. Donnie (I think it's Donnie?) has a tendency to swallow his lines rather than pushing them out but still, there's something simple and innocent about the performance and you can imagine the young Emersons, with their big hair, jamming this one out in the basement, visions of arena tours dancing in their heads.
Those into funky psych will no doubt gravitate to the dark, smoky "Give Me the Chance." In listening to this, I'm reminded of any number of '70s rock bands who had a similar vocal style but a little before the 1:30 mark, the song falls deep off into a crevice of crazy synthesizer effects (I imagine Edan going nuts over this kind of stuff).
But seriously: it is all about "Baby." This is easily one of the best things I've heard in a long time (I'd easily put it ahead of anything on that Sly, Slick and Wicked LP and that's a great album). I'm not even entirely sure what he's singing besides "Baby" but it doesn't matter; just the way he croons, "oooh ooooh baby/yes, oh, baby" melts me like hot butter on (what?) the popcorn. Someone on Soulstrut described this song, "as if Shuggie Otis and Roy Orbison had a baby together" and that exactly nails it. I want to get lost inside this shaggy beanbag of a song, slipping into its cushy folds and dream wild like Donnie and Joe.
This is my first official post-move post (finally!). Me and the fam just relocated from the Westside of L.A. to the San Gabriel Valley. I grew up out here in the 1980s but I haven't lived her in nearly 20 years. Coming back has been weirdly comfortable (or is that comfortably weird?) now that I'm an adult with my own family.
It only seems proper then that the very first album that I've found since moving out here was actually recorded in the SGV, almost 7 miles due south of where I am, at 800 Garfield, in Montebello.
It's easy to be confused when you talk about the Sly, Slick and Wicked. This local L.A. outfit is often confused with the Young Generation who had a decent sized hit in the same '60s/'70s era as SSW called "Sly, Slick and Wicked" and then there's the Ohio group also called the Sly, Slick and Wicked who recorded with James Brown (and ended up, I believe, in a bit of a copyright tussle with the L.A. group over their shared name). The original SSW (as they describe themselves) got their start out of the fertile East L.A. rock scene of the '60s (think Thee Midniters, El Chicano, etc.)
The single was a local release (on the Bad Boys imprint) and evidently sold well enough that it's not a pricey single to come by (though it's not overly common either). However, as I learned from Cool Chris a few years back, the group's live album, Get Down is a far more obscure release but no less well-regarded. I've been looking for a copy of this since then but wasn't ready to pull the trigger to buy it at market-rate.
As it turns out, a local seller for mostly A/V equipment got in a stock of records that they were selling in lots and while I missed their eBay auction, I saw that the LP was included in one of the lots and no one had bid on it. On a whim, I tried calling their warehouse and to make a long story short, I drove out 10 miles to Glendale and after a few anxious minutes just assuming that someone had beat me to it, left with a stack of 10 LPs, most of them dollar bin material, but including one very well-kept copy of Get Down Live, all for $20.
These days, it's not often that I have great come-ups since I don't do enough digging in physical stores so I felt extremely fortunate to have come by this local LP having just moved back to the locale. It all seemed quite serendipitous.
But enough of "O-Dub's dusty fingers tales"... Get Down Live has everything you'd want out of a great live album - it's not only about the music, it's also about the small nuances that come through on a live recording, such as when someone accidentally bumps into a mic during one of the quieter parts of a song or listening to the band and audience interaction. The actual fidelity of the recording is quite impressive; it does have "big room" acoustics but it's not remotely lo-fi.
I decided to open "big" by starting with "You Got to Funkafize," a classically '70s funk jam which comes halfway through the A-side. That slides into the live version of "Confessin' A Feeling", offered here to provide some contrast with the original. I've been so enamored with "Love's Gonna Pack Up" that I never gave this song it's proper due but now that I'm listening to it in both versions, I can appreciate why it's such a lowrider classic for folks in So Cal. Lastly, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to include the group's cover of another Southern Californian classic - "The World is a Ghetto" by Long Beach's WAR. I like how stripped down SSW's take is on the song, distilling it down to a strong vocal performance ever-so-lightly dressed in the familiar melodic strains of the original. SSW manage to make the song sound even more melancholy than War's version.
So there it is, the first post for 2010, coming to you live from the brand-spanking new Soul Sides Central. Here's a belated shout out to the new year and hopefully more good music (and posts!) to come.
Besides being able to share music, the other great joy of working on Soul-Sides.com is the process of discovery for myself. I have this big crate of "songs I mean to post about" but inevitably, these get pushed out of the way based on "stuff I just discovered" and it's almost always the case that my year-end review of my favorite songs are comprised by songs that I found-along-the-way; 2009 was no different.
The path to how I heard this song actually begins with a different song written/produced by Jerry Ragavoy - "Stay With Me, Baby" by Lorraine Ellison which I first heard after watching The Boat That Rocked/Pirate Radio. I think Matthew Africa then recommended the Ragavoy anthology, on which I discovered the Irma Thoamas song and promptly fell in love.
Carlos Niño & Miguel Atwood-Ferguson: Find a Way From Suite for Ma Dukes (Mochilla, 2009)
The more I've sat with this, the more I admire the subtle ways in which Niño and Atwood-Ferguson capture the melancholy beauty of Jay Dee's production. As I originally wrote, I was concerned this could come off as kind of corny but instead, what they compose here isn't remotely cloying but moving and magical.
Gotta show love to Funky Sole's Clifton; I think he's the one who played the Redding single at an early spring party and instantly turned it into a staple for me. Otis and his band just murder this cover in the best ways possible.
And I have both Hua and Mao to thank for turning me onto the Emotions song. It's hard to outdo the Charmels' original and I think the Emotions do an incredible job here of understanding what worked about their version and then found ways to put their own signature on it. The fact that this was never released in the 1970s is astounding.
At least at this moment, if I had to pick my favorite song I heard in 2009, it'd be this one. Surprisingly, I never posted about it originally, opting instead for the livelier "Jimmy Mack," but over the course of the year, "The Bells" keep (you knew this was coming, right?) ringing in my head over and over. Sublime.
Johnny and the Expressions: Now That You're Mine From 7" (Josie, 1966)
Mayer Hawthorne: I Wish It Would Rain From A Strange Arrangement (Stonesthrow, 2009)
There's quite a few other similar singles that I considered plugging in here, including the Mandells' awesome "Now That I Know" (and I still need to write up the Falcons' "Standing On Guard") but this song is such a perfect mix of deep and sweet soul, it deserves to be heard again. And again. And again.
And since we're on the slow jam tip, I have to give a nod to Mayer Hawthorne's excellent "I Wish It Would Rain" - easily my favorite song by him behind "Just Ain't Gonna Work Out". I wouldn't think too many songs would want to risk confusion with the Temptations song (since Mayer's isn't a cover) but he puts down a strong claim to that name with this superlative effort.
Ohio Players: Ecstasy From Ecstasy (Westbound, 1973)
Technically, I heard this song before but I didn't pay enough attention to it until this year. Once I did, it now makes me wanna go, "uh huh huh."
Spinnerty feat. EP and Czar Absolute: Feels Like Rain From 7" (Trazmick, 2008)
I don't have much to add to what I said before except to re-emphasize. This is really really really good. Oh wait, I did say that before. You catch my drift though.
Bitty McLean: Walk Away From Love From On Bond Street (Peckings, 2005)
Johnny Holiday: Nobody Loves Me But My Mama From 7" (Bold, 196?)
I was about to sing the praises of these again (and they definitely are two of my favorite of the year) but I'd rather talk about each artist's other songs from the same releases (see the forthcoming part 2).
I admit, I did kind of tire of this after keeping it in heavy rotation but here's what I know: I'll go a year without hearing this and then hear it again...and it will still sound incredible.
I can't find much more to say than I already have; Michael Jackson's untimely death is one of the defining musical moments of the decade, in my opinion, in terms of how much it compelled me to reexamine his catalog and learn to appreciate his work in a whole new light. It seems apropos to offer up this deconstructed version of one song I only really discovered this year - "We Got a Good Thing Goin'" - that appeared on the suspiciously well-timed Stripped Mixes album. I didn't think all the stripped down versions worked but it was perfect on this one, especially in honing things down to all the best parts of the original's melancholy mood and charm. It's not meant to be an elegy but I can't but help but hear it as one.
A few weeks ago, I put forward a challenge to folks to try their hand at remixing Bobby Reed's "Time Is Right For Love" and so far, we've had three folks step up.
These are all "works in progress" so be nice with your comments/feedback but so far, I like where it's all heading.
I was on WNYC's Soundcheck again last Friday, talking about hip hop in the '00s. Part of what I was asked to do, ahead of time, was submit my 3 top hip hop albums of 2009 and I'm not going to lie: I couldn't come up with three actual albums. In fact, none of the three I submitted were, technically, albums.
To be sure, I can't remotely claim to have heard much of what was released this year and the stuff I did hear just didn't move me to really admire them as albums. Sure, I liked some of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2 but overall, I found the album overly long and kind of anemic for it. I admired Jay's Blueprint 3 but more for its calculated choices than anything inherently pleasurable about the CD as a listening experience. I jumped in and listened to about 50 Gucci Mane songs in a row (his Cold War mixtape series + the new album) just to see what the deal was and while I get his appeal, I'd rather re-listen to individual songs rather than trying to sit through any of the mix-CDs/albums as a whole. I'm not going to put this on hip-hop (well, not entirely). I could do a lot more to "stay current" but now that my writing has become more personally-driven (what I like) vs. professionally-driven (what I should be writing about), I just don't find much about today's hip-hop that speaks to me. People in my demographic aren't really who today's young rappers are aiming at. Either way, I've learned to catch my pleasures when I can, usually in single-servings, and I've learned to moderate my expectations as I recognize that the older I get, the distance between contemporary hip-hop and my tastes grow.
But for all that, I still leave myself open to crave those moments when a song will absolutely knock me on my f---ing ass, demand my attention and compel me to keep coming back to it. If you had told me that would be Jay Electronica, with a radio rip that skips, I would have laughed you out of the room but that's before I actually heard the song and once I did, all I could think was, "wait, this is that same dude who made this?" I was never checking for him before this song but after it? I'm thinking "Third Coming".
So yeah, this made my Top 3 even though it wasn't an album because frankly, I found the experience of listening to this more profound than most of the albums I actually did hear this year. And who knows - maybe his album (if it ever comes out) won't live up to this moment but I actually want to hear what he has to bring and that sense of anticipation is like water to the desert of my expectations.
So what's so good here?
Begin with the fact that it's the first unqualifiably incredible Just Blaze production I've heard in at least two years. There's the loop itself of course (more on this in a moment) but listen past just the actual sample. The added string arrangements don't just play off the main melody but they're also used to build tension as a second set of strings tick upward in a crescendo effect - all in key - so that by the peak moment, everything is aflame...only to start all over again for another 10 bar cycle (the 10 bar loop is also unusual since it plays against where you'd normally expect the progression to go). Pure intensity.
And yeah, Just was brilliant in playing with this Billy Stewart song:
Billy Stewart: Cross My Heart From 7" (Chess, 1967). Also on The Best Of...
I confess that I had never heard this before but damn, what a great Stewart song, no? It opens like "Sitting In the Park" (I mean, exactly alike) but then when you get to hook - "lord, why don't you, send her to me?" is some magic, especially when followed by, "this fat boy is gonna love her!" Not a lyric you hear every day.
And speaking of lyrics - maybe it's just the acrobatics of it, but I can easily say that Jay's "call me Jay Electronica, f--- that, call me..." verse is probably the most jaw-dropping thing I've heard all year (except maybe for that Tiger Woods' voice mail message) and what leads up to there is pretty damn good too (loved the verse that immediately precedes it - it's not often you can hear Run DMC, Marcus Garvey and Nikola Tesla name-checked within three seconds of one another and it all makes sense.
Now where's the damn album?
As for my other favorite hip-hop moments of 2009, here's a sampling of Top 10 in reverse chronological order):
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles: Get Ready From Pocket Full of Miracles (Motown, 1970)
Smokey Robinson and the MIracles: Get Ready (O-Dub Edit)
Controller 7: Get Ready for the Young Folks From 7" & 12" (Token Recluse, 2007)
Of the classic '60s Motown catalog, few songs are as guaranteed dancefloor gold as The Temptations' "Get Ready" - the horn/bassline openeing already pushes you into motion before the drum roll even comes in and once the whole thing kicks into gear, you'd have to be catatonic to resist its charms. For over the last year, I've been very fond of playing out Little Eva Harris' incredible medley/cover of the song (last written about in Nov '08). I was spinning with DJ Soul Marcosa earlier this fall when he dropped the Smokey and the Miracles version on me and I couldn't believe 1) how frickin' good it was and 2) that I had never heard it before despite it being from the Miracles (notably, Pocket Full of Miracles doesn't seem readily available on CD (if it ever was).
If Harris blended together "Get Ready' with Stevie Wonder's "Uptight," the Miracles instead choose to throw in some licks of "Sunshine Of Your Love," which goes together brilliantly here. There's also the matter of a short but sweet little breakbeat that comes in after two bars and this whole thing clearly embraces the funk aesthetics resonant at the time. Personally, I wanted to create a version of the song that was just a bit more DJ friendly and noticing that the song's breakbeat was panned in the left channel, and using some super amateur editing skills (thank you Sound Studio!), I isolated and extended that break into four bars, following by two more with the "Sunshine" riff moved underneath before cutting back into the song. I played it for a friend who thought he could imagine the strains of Can's "Vitamin C" coming in here but the more I listened to it, what I kept imagining was Kool and the Gang's "Hustlers Convention" theme popping in (intrepid re-remixers, take note).
Lastly, if I'm going to write about blends involving "Get Ready," I have to show some love to Controller 7 who, two years ago, put out this slick mash-up of the original "Get Ready" accapella over Peter, Bjorn and John's "Young Folks." It is eerie how well the arrangements line up with one another (coincidence or not?). (BTW: If any digi-DJs out there want a higher quality version of my "Get Ready" edit, drop me an email)
Option 1: Direct link/download Option 2: Soulcast Feed (click here, then click on "Subscribe With iTunes" or just copy and paste this link into iTunes --> Advanced --> Subscribe to Podcast)
Benny Johnson: Visions of Paradise I Just Got To Know Give It Up From Visions of Paradise (Today, 1973)
Apologies for the slow down, between end-of-the-semester grading and the fact that I'm packing up to move at month's end, stuff is just a little busy right now. And heck, this post is about two years over due!
I first came upon the 7" of Benny Johnson's "Visions of Paradise" a few years back. I instantly was taken with that great horn intro on the song and when Johnson's vocals come swooping in, he comes with this powerful, "clean" tone (reminds me a lot of Jerry Butler) that wasn't like the lot of the more post-Otis soul singing I was used to. When I started digging deeper, I learned about the LP the song is named for. Like Matthew Africa, who just wrote about it the other month, I never quite understood why this LP sells for $100+ but lucked into a less expensive copy. Having sat with it, I can say that the LP is far from a one-tracker and while I'm still not sure what makes it as $ as it can be, it's certainly worth having if you can get it on the cheap.
I don't know a ton about Johnson - this is the only album I know him being connected to but looking over the credits, I realized partly why this album sounds as good as it does is thanks to Julius Brockington and his United Chair - the album's main producer. Brockington's an interesting guy; I've been up on his records for a minute (this 7" being a favorite) and I'm sure there's a longer post to be dedicated to him somewhere.
Back to Johnson though - I wanted to include "I Just Got To Know," a deceptively simple mid-tempo cut that, to me at least, grew with each passing listen. Again, Johnson really sells me on his vocals here even though I'm not inclined to love his timbre but he knows how to work it well. For contrast, I also wanted to include one of the album's slow jams (featuring some nicely used female back-up vocals) with "Give It Up." Love the deep + sweet notes layered in here.
Revelation Funk: Elastic Lover From 7" (Gold Plate, 197?)
The Mighty Lovers: Ain't Gonna Run No More From 7" (Soul Hawk, 196?)
As I learned from the omniscient Dante Carfanga, Revelation Funk was an Ohio outfit that, among other things, was where James Ingram got his start back in the early 1970s. "Elastic Lover," the b-side of "Bear Funk" is supposed to be their "common" 7" though let me tell you, after looking for it for over a year, it certainly doesn't show up as one might expect a common single to. This is all besides the point.
I first heard "Elastic Lover" on a now-infamous Jared Boxx mix-CD from a few years back and partially because it's early in the mix, partially because it is so striking, it went high onto my want list. Once I actually got it and listened to it, it hasn't lost its magic except that I have to say: the hook/chorus is amazing on this song but wow, the songwriting is otherwise terrible. I mean, c'mon:
"tell me why you want to be so plastic/when you know your love for me has to be made out of elastic"
I don't know if that's as bad as rhyming "crouton" with "futon" but it's somewhere in the ballpark. But, that all said, once you hit that chorus, with that multi-part harmony and the way everyone is stretching out the title...they could be singing off a cereal box and I'd forgive 'em.
I had a similar reaction listening - really listening - to the Mighty Lovers' "Ain't Gonna Run No More," which comes Soul Hawk, the same Detroit label that gave us the New Holidays (note: my daughter has gotten into singing the hook for this song too but alas, no sound file for you...yet). I first heard the ML song when Mayer Hawthorne spun a guest set at my weekly last January and it is a totally catchy song - awesome arrangement/production by Popcorn Wylie - and it has a great, great hook (hence why my 4.5 year old can rock it).
But when I actually sat with it, I realized: "wow, this song is all about how he's getting bullied around but now he's got a girlfriend and he's trying to stand up for himself..." Maybe it's just me, but as far as narratives go, it's rice paper thin. It's just hard to get all that excited for someone trying to shore up their manhood just because they're trying not to get punked in front of their girlfriend (unless your name is McFly). But the hook, the hook...the hook. "Ah ah, no no, I ain't gonna run no more." Try it. You'll like it.
Harvey Averne Barrio Band: Let's Get It Together For Christmas The Black On White Affair: Auld Lang Syne (snippets) From In the Christmas Groove (Strut, 2009)
It's post-Thanksgiving which means that in the last few days, every time I step into a retail store, I hear %#U*()! Christmas music. Don't get me wrong; I like "Christmas Time Is Here" as much as the next Peanuts fan but if I have to wait through another rendition of "Jingle Bells," I might have to go all bull in a china shop.
Thankfully, the good folks at Strut Records have come with an excellent Xmas-themed funk comp called In The Christmas Groove which - for cover art alone - would deserve props. The tracklisting is aces, including a few rare classics like Milly and Silly's "Gettin' Down for Xmas" and J.D. McDonald's "Boogaloo Santa Claus." I picked out two songs I hadn't heard before, including one I probably should have - Harvey Averne's "Let's Get It Together For Christmas," a random, 45 only track on Fania that is vintage Averne in its funky production style. Makes me wonder if Fania ever cut a dedicated holiday album; which would have seemed like a good idea.
The other song is a really incredible version of "Auld Lang Syne" brought down from the Pacific Northwest by the Black On White Affair. I only included part of the song but it's mostly an instrumental that builds and builds, hitting a highpoint as it shifts into vocals but you really have to soak in the entire song to appreciate its majesty.
Tek and Steele: We Came Up (Crystal Stair) (feat. Talib Kweli) From Reloaded (Duck Down, 2005)
Tek and Steele: We Came Up (Bobby Reed Section)
My man Hua hepped me to this Smif N Wessun cut from 2005 that missed my radar and the first thing I noted was, "oh schnap, they're looping up Bobby Reed's "Time Is Right For Love," aka "one of the few records I'd current break the $300 mark to cop".
I can't believe I didn't already write about Reed for the site (I got brief mention before but never a dedicated thread.) Best. Thing. Ever. Seriously. This song is one of the best two minutes you'll ever enjoy. It's so good I'm not even going to try to explain why it's so good, lest I tarnish its greatness with my descriptive inadequacies.
Now - I'm not saying, at all, that this song needs a remix. But listening to "We Came Up" made me think, "ok, this is cool but honestly - I think someone could do a better job with it." I isolated the end of the song, where it's really just Reed's OG with a beat behind it so you can get a sense of how they play with it. (And yes, yes, I know, Saint Etienne already messed with this but I'm not really feeling their take either. And if you want to truly hear an abomination, check this.)
So heck, I know a few Soul Sides readers mess with production so I thought I'd put out a high-quality copy of the Reed to see what folks might come up with if anyone is so inclined. If anyone actually messes around with this, please send me a copy to peep.
Wait, did I already mention that the Reed original is one of the best things ever? And that I cannot believe I haven't written about it until now even though it's quite possibly my favorite record of the last two years?
Johnny Holiday: Nobody Loves Me But My Mama From 7" (Bold, 196?)
The Combinations: Bump Ball From 7" (RCA Victor, 196?)
Fruko: Langaruto From 7" (Fuentes, 197?)
Orquesta Zodiac: Tremendo Problema From 7" (Costeño, 1972)
Jimmy and Eddie: Stop and Think It Over From 7" (One Way, 196?)
Mandells: Now I Know From 7" (Hour Glass, 196?)
Family Affair: I Had a Friend From 7" (Authentic, 197?)
Bonus: Frankie Nieves: True Love (English + Spanish Version) From 12" (Disco Int'l, 1979)
A few 7" single songs to share with ya'll...
First up, I've been hunting down a copy of this Johnny Holiday single for years now. It could very well be one of the roughest things I've ever heard - sounds like a funk garage band with a flutist sitting in and Holiday just raging on the mic like he's mad at the world. Holiday has cut other singles, including for Bold, but none of them sound like this; I don't know if the studio was having recording problems that day (the flipside is also a monster but the mix is completely f---ed up, burying his vocals over a crushing, blues-influenced funk number) but whatever happened - god bless. I love grimy cuts like this. Thanks to Records L.A. who sold me their last stock copy.
The Combinations 7" is something I bought on a lark; I was already buying another 45 from the same seller and decided to take a chance on this despite minimal awareness of the group. As I dug deeper, I was surprised to learn that the group originally began as a garage band from Easton PA; mostly white save for a lone Black member. They described their sound as "a blend of white rock under black soul." What's funny is that they somehow managed to record "Bump Ball," a funky R&B boogaloo, in conjunction with the release of Milton-Bradley's Bump Ball. I'm not clear if the 7" I have was the one actually included with the game (as some sites have reported). There was also a Bump Ball album (but it's not clear if the Combinations recorded all the songs on here or just the title track, which was credited to "The Bumpers"). Interesting history but all that aside - I like the track. It, uh, bumps.
Moving into some Latin, this Fruko cut is a 7" only song as far as I know (w/ "Bang Bang" on the flip but not Joe Cuba's well-known boogaloo hit). "Langaruto" shows off the strong piano work of (I think?) Hernán Gutiérrez who really is the secret weapon for all the best Fruko y sus Tesos tracks. This song, in particular, has that massive salsa dura sound that manages to be distinctly Colombian in a way I still haven't been able to put my finger on - it opens like a guajira before switching things up to a quicker son montuno about half a minute in (again, I think. Corrections welcome!). So fierce.
Puerto Rico's Orquesta Zodiac drops the other Latin cut in this set, another strong '70s slice of salsa. I really like the use of organ on here; it's subtle but it adds that spritz of sonic lime to flavor up the rest of the track. I'm also feeling the vocal interplay between the lead and background singers - great call and response.
The Jimmy and Eddie is a strong funky soul cut I nabbed at Big City Records in NYC earlier this year; the mix sounds just a tad off here but in favor of the rhythm section and especially the bassist and drummer. Their team-up really brings this whole tune together - it pushes along nicely and the drums are mic-ed just right to lend that extra oomph.
Give the rhythm section some love on this Mandells' single too. The group perfectly blend some Chicago-style sweet soul vocals with that deep, deep bass, the chicha-chicha of the hi-hat patterns...with a string arrangement to book? Are you kidding me? Best thing - this 7" is usually found for $10 or less - an incredible value given how good the music is.
Last on the 7" tip is one of the straight up strangest 45s I've come across of late. I could have sworn I originally heard this on Matthew Africa's blog but I can't seem to find it there again. Nonetheless, it really pays to listen to this beyond just thinking, "ooooh, nice groove." I mean, it's a great groove - so soulful with what I think of as subtle disco edge. And then the sweet, falsetto vocals drop in and you're thinking, "man, this is so butter." But then you start listening and you realize, "uh, ok, this is not setting things up well, with the singer talking about, 'I had a friend who had everything'" since you always know how those stories end. I won't spoil it for you but just wait until you pass the two minute mark. I feel like there should be a sound effect inserted here, just to hammer the point home. An otherwise beautiful tune.
Bonus cut is the special bilingual disco 12" edit of Frankie Nieves' finest work for Speed, "True Love" (which, as you can figure out in one bar, interpolates "Soulful Strut.") I am super curious to know who ran Disco International; they seemed to specialize in (I'm assuming) unlicensed disco edits of many a great Latin jam, including Al Gonzalez' "El Rumbon" and this one. In the case of "True Love," Disco Int'l took the English A and Spanish B-side of Nieves' Speed 7" (which, by the way, came out 10 years prior) and then edited them together into a single, 6+ minute track (the B-side is a 6+ minute long Spanish-only edit). To be frank(ie), the edit does get a bit repetitive after a while but then again, it is one effective groove (Young Holt Unlimited knew what the f--- they were doing back in the day).
As you can imagine, there's no shortage of plans to plumb the depths of the J5 and MJ catalogs. I mentioned the Stripped Mixes a while back and I just got this new unreleased masters CD in the mail today.
Let me get the negative stuff out of the way first - in a few cases, I think the fact they went unreleased was probably justified insofar as the songs are kind of lackluster ("Love Comes In Different Flavors," I'm looking at you!). However, for a J5/MJ music nerds, there's some really fascinating stuff on here, including a medley that throws together "I Want You Back/ABC/The Love You Save" which is pretty much the hat trick of early J5 hits.
There's also a cool alternate version of "Never Can Say Goodbye" which has some notable changes in the arrangement, especially a whole different passage after the second chorus, but the real stunning contrast is the alternate version of "ABC." The music may sound alike but from the first stanza of verses, you can hear MJ take an entirely different approach to the vocal arrangement and check out the differences after the first chorus with the "la la las."
The other huge song that people have been talking about is "Buttercup," a Stevie Wonder-written/produced song that 1) totally sounds like a Stevie Wonder song (note: this is a great thing) and 2) gives you a window into a compellingly different sound for J5 compared to what Motown typically sent their way. I'd almost say the album is worth it just for "Buttercup" (it's pretty damn good) but thankfully, there's other strong material on here to sweeten the pot (check out "Listen, I'll Tell You How", an early J5 song from 1969).
I didn't mean for them all to get timed this way; I actually had the first two done months ago and was waiting for the "right moment" (translation: waiting to get off my lazy a**) but now with the Aretha mix around, it seemed ridiculous to put it off any longer. The Aretha Mix has its own post so I'm going to devote this one to talking about They Call Me Mr. Lonely and Love Me...or Love Me:
After finishing up Soul Sides Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, I began to think what a Vol. 3 might look like. The first two volumes often aimed for breadth but for a theoretical Vol. 3, I wanted to narrow in a bit and think more about mood and feel rather than style diversity.
As it turns out, Vol. 3 wasn't going to happen officially but that didn't stop me from contemplating a mix along the same veins and that's what lay behind both They Call Me Mr. Lonely and Love Me/Leave Me. Both are devoted (mostly) to heartbreak/slow jams, with Mr. Lonely featuring all male vocalists while Love Me/Leave Me is for all my XX Posse.
Here are the tracklists for both:
KEEP READING... They Call Me Mr. Lonely 1. Labi Siffre: Saved 2. The Starlights: Going Out of My Head 3. Maurice Davis: Mr. Lonely 4. Frank Turner: All For the Kids (sampler) 5. The Impressions: The Girl I Find 6. Joe Acosta: I Need Her 7. Steve Parks: Still Thinking of You 8. Bits N Pieces: Sparkling In the Sand 9. Los Sunglows: I Want To Make It With You 10. Reuben Bell and the Casanovas: It's Not That Easy 11. Soul Majestics: I Done Told You Baby 12. Johnny and the Expressions: Now That You're Mine 13. Stevie Wonder: Hey Love 14. Mayer Hawthorne: I Wish That It Would Rain 15. Michael Jackson: We've Got a Good Thing 16. Michael Jackson: We're Almost There (DJ Spinna Remix)
Love Me, Love Me, Love Me or Leave Me, Leave Me, Leave Me 1. Asha Puthli: Let Me In Your Life 2. Laura Nyro feat. Labelle: The Bells 3. Gloria Scott: Love Me, Love Me, Love Me or Leave Me, Leave Me, Leave Me 4. Lorez Alexandria: I'm Wishin' 5. Jennifer Lara: Our Love 6. Aretha Franklin: One Step Ahead 7. Dee Dee Warwick: It's Not Fair 8. Quinn Harris feat. Lady Bianca: Stop Telling Me Lies 9. Dusty Springfield: Piece of My Heart 10. The Soul Children: The Sweeter He Is 11. Ciel Miner: Stardust (sampler) 12. Nick and Valerie: I'll Find You 13. Sharon Forrester: Don't Let Me Be Lonely 14. Candi Staton: You Don't Love Me 15. Lezli Valentine: I Found Love On a 2-Way Street 16. Honey and the Bees: You Better Go Now 17. Lynn Williams: Don't Be Surprised 18. Lorraine Ellison: Stay With Me 19. The Emotions: As Long As I've Got You
Mr. Lonely + Love Me are being sold as a pair. Each album is in a slimline case with original artwork. I made 50, individually numbered sets. (I'm unlikely to do a second run on these unless
The Aretha Mix is available for free as an "add-on". I may eventually sell them separately but currently, priority goes to people ordering the Lonely/Love pair.
Cost: Mr. Lonely/Love Me pair = $25 Aretha Mix = free (add-on only)
Shipping (US): free Shipping (Overseas): $5 flat.
To order: Email me at soulsides AT gmail.com and please include your mailing address and preferred paypal email account. SOLD OUT!
Ten Wheel Drive with Genya Raven: How Long Before I'm Gone Stay With Me From Brief Replies (Polydor, 1970)
The Highlighters: You're Time Is Gonna Come From 7" (Chess, 1970)
I save a slew of songs with the intention of "eventually posting them up" and what inevitably happens is that they just end up "hanging around" and go nowhere fast. Right now, I have at least 1.5 years worth of stuff and decided to get off the proverbial pot by finally posting some up.
The Ten Wheel Drive's "How Long" came to my attention after hearing this Black Moon cut (arguably the last good one they ever put out), "Way of the Walk." This combines at least two pet loves: 1) funky rock bands fronted by 2) female singers (in this case, Genya Raven who has a huge voice - very post-Joplin. I don't think her version of Lorraine Ellison's "Stay With Me blows the OG out of the water but it was an interesting take.
Th Highlighters were an Indiana group probably best known for their uber-rare "Funky 16 Corners" funk 45. "You're Time Is Gonna Come" (not to be confused with the Led Zep song of similar title) is a taste of the group's penchant for crafting a great little, doo-wop influenced power ballad that showcases lead singer James Bell's pipes. I also really dig the organ here - unexpected but quite welcome.
Jan Jankeje: Elsa Marie From Sokol (Jazzpoint, 1974)
Roger Saunders: Darkness From The Roger Saunders Rush Album (Warner Bros, 1972)
I previously posted (anonymously) another song from Jan Jankeje's funky fusion LP, Sokol back in the "Breaks and Basslines" post. I'm not remotely as big on fusion stuff as I was about 10 years back but I still have a soft spot for this album by the Slovakian Jankeje which is one solid footing in funk-influenced rhythms but also healthy touches of avant garde jazz as this composition, in particular, seems to capture. File under "I can't believe I never posted this": Preston Love's Omaha BBQ was one of the earliest funky blues albums I ever became acquainted with and I still find it to be one of the most consistent efforts in the genre. "Kool Ade" especially is killer - as gritty a groove you can imagine. The drummer gets some special attention here on the two bridges where band members rap with each other over a chattering like series of breaks and fills.
Speaking of breaks, you'd be hard pressed to find too many songs with a better 8 bar opening break than this. The actual song itself is a decent, mid-tempo country-rock ballad which isn't quite what you'd expect with an intro like that but it's definitely a step up from "Put Your Hand in the Hand."
Prisoners of Watts (POW): Language of Funk From 12" (No Busters Allowed, 1990)
Da Lench Mob: Ain't Got No Class (T-Bone Remix) Ain't Got No Class (Beatnuts Remix) From 12" (Street Knowledge, 1992)
King Tee: The Great (Distorted Alcoholism Mix) From 12" ("Bust Dat Ass") (Capitol, 1992)
I picked up this 12" by L.A.'s P.O.W. (Prisoners of Watts) on a whim and while it's not exactly the unsung NWA or anything, I do digthe early '90s L.A. hip-hop production steez on here. Bonus points for having Battle Cat (back when he was mostly known as a DJ) on the cut.
Less obscure (but still staying in the Southland), we have two mixes from Da Lench Mob's "Ain't Got No Class" 12". Again, I don't really ride that hard for the song itself (there are better Lench Mob cuts out there) but I do like the contrast in production style you can here between the Beatnuts and T-Ray. Especially because T-Ray was doing stuff for Cypress Hill and his style and Muggs' seemed so compatible, I always associate it with a Left Coast thing even though neither Muggs nor T-Ray were originally from California. T-Bone's remix (which I, embarrassingly, confused for a T-Ray remix for, uh, years now) is some classic West Coast, post-Sir Jinx/Muggs ruggedness while The Beatnuts mix is classically 'Nuts with the filtered bassline and use of horns.
One more from the West (actually, now that I think about it, these three songs were probably from a long-forgotten "early 90s West Coast hip-hop post") - a remix of King Tee's "The Great" found on the "Bust Dat Ass" 12". King Tee = unsung and then some. I always like going back and listening again to his catalog (especially anything connected to The Triflin' Album - such a good voice and such a damn shame his Aftermath album never got official release.
Los Pakines: Hojas Verdes Oh! Cherie From S/T (Sono Radio, 197?)
I don't know much about Peruvian chicha but this fusion of Colombian cumbia with American surf rock makes for style that's hard to forget once you hear it. I got turned onto this Los Pakines album when I was looking for stuff by Los Diablos Rojo, another group in a similar vein. The Pakines, in particular, seemed to love that reverb and just drench every song on this album with it. "Hojas Verdes" is a slinky cumbia piece with some funk undertones while "Oh! Cherie" sounds like a cover of a '60s tune I should recognize (but don't).
By sheer coincidence, besides that Willie West 7", I also picked up two different "answer" singles at Records L.A. last week. As the name suggests, they are meant to follow-up on other (almost always, far more famous) songs and in that sense, they're both covers AND originals. In the case of the Vicki Anderson (I've had a crappy VG- copy for years and finally decided to upgrade), "Answer to Mother Popcorn," she's hollering back at James Brown and his big hit, "Mother Popcorn" (Brown got a lot of mileage out of the "Popcorn" dance in his music of that era), flipping Brown's leering gaze into a funky feminist anthem.
With Bobo Mr. Soul...I initially thought this was Willie Bobo under a different name but nope, that'd be Beau Williams from Houston. Here, he's answering (appropriately enough) Honey Cone's big hit "Want Ads," though unlike the relatively fresh track Vicki was grooving on, Williams tends to stay fairly close to the original arrangement.
Lastly, there's no "answer" in the title but clearly, Joyce Jones is talking back to Tyrone Davis' great "Can I Change My Mind?" I really love the musical flip here - it's reminiscent of Davis' OG but changes things up enough to put a different spin on it and make this all its own. Same goes for Jeanne and the Darlings' slept-on answer song to Sam and Dave's classic "Soul Man" - they built their arrangement off some "Soul Man" riffs but don't follow it so closely to be identical.
Willie West: Fairchild (2nd version) From What It Is! (Rhino, 2006)
Willie West: Fairchild (promo version) I Sleep With the Blues From 7" single (Josie, 1970)
I first became familiar with "Fairchild" off the What It Is! box-set that I helped work on; I had never heard it before but within the first bar or two, the influence of NOLA's Allen Toussaint was obvious. Strip singer West off of here and this could have been a Lee Dorsey track or something Cyril Neville put out (and indeed, it seems likely some of the Meters played on here). The version of "Fairchild" on here is pretty stripped down - a sparse bass and drum combo and not much else besides West's vocals.
I came upon a 7" promo version of the song at the brand spankin' new Records L.A. store in West Adams and in listening to it, I realize there were subtle differences (or perhaps not so subtle) between it and the version that was on What It Is!. Clearly, the two were done from two different mixes since the promo version has horns that don't exist on the other version at all, plus more prominent guitars. I did some research and I'm hardly the first to have noticed this difference. Others seem to prefer the 2nd version better but personally, I like the density of the promo version given the added elements. True, it does mask more of West's vocals as a result but I didn't have a real issue with that. I've included both for you to compare and contrast. (You can really hear the difference on the post-chorus bridge, w/ and w/o horns).
I also don't want people to, uh, sleep on the B-side, "I Sleep With the Blues" which I thought was an interesting slow jam that's even more sparse but mesmerizing for all its minimalism. You keep expecting some snares to fall in, but really, all there is are those kicks.
Big Boi w/ Gucci Mane: Shine Blockas From Sir Lucious Leftfoot: Son of Chico Dusty (Def Jam, forthcoming 2009/2010)
Jay Electronica: Exhibit C (radio rip) From untitled(?) (Decon, forthcoming ?)
Lupe Fiasco: Fire From Lasers (Atlantic, forthcoming 2009)
Clipse feat. Pharrell, Cam'ron: Popular Demand (Popeye's) From Till the Casket Driops (Re-Up, forthcoming 2009)
I have a playlist I keep on my iPhone of all the songs that are at the top of my listening priorities but most of the time, I'll add just one or two songs to that list every week or two (if I'm lucky). In the last two weeks though, it's been like a deluge with quite a few things rolling through, including a few tracks that qualify as "today's best things ever" which mostly means I put them on single-song-repeat and just gorge on them.
Top of that list is Bitty McLean's cover of The Choice Four's "Walk Away From Love," a song most connected to David Ruffin's mid-70s recording of it. Let's first acknowledge that composer Charles Kipps penned an absolute gem here; it is such an incredibly well-written song about a someone who realizes that his relationship is fated to fail so he decides to "walk away from love/before love can break my heart." But here's what McLean does; first, he sets his song over the riddim from Alton Ellis' "Get Ready (Rocksteady)" (which is one of my favorite songs out of JA so this already looking good). Now...McLean sounds like he's 16 (he was really in his early 30s) with a very youthful tenor but Kipps' words to the work to make McLean sound more worldly and this all comes together at the chorus where McLean hits that falsetto during "breaks my heart..." Listen to the song and try NOT to sing along (even if you cause small animals sonic pain when hitting that top note) when he does this. It is magcial to me - despite being a song about heartbreak, when he gets there, I feel positively euphoric. Best thing ever. (By the way, the entire On Bond Street album is basically McLean singing over old rocksteady riddims).
The Montclairs song has also been in heavy rotation; it's a monster Northern Soul classic from the late '60s that's the best thing in this vein I've heard since first discovering Bobby Reed's "The Time Is Right For Love". I previously wrote about the Montclairs last summer but while the sweet soul on Dreaming Out of Season is lovely, "Hey You!" is on some whole other level. This has everything - great vocal performances, an irresistible uptempo track, and a general joyfulness that rings true with every snappy backbeat. Best thing ever.
Captain Planet's "Fumando" was, once upon a time, a track called "Boogaloo" which was (and still is) a favorite play-out track (and, as it were, appeared in an episode of Entourage). "Fumando" subtly upgrades the original "Boogaloo" track with some added melodic touches but at its core, it's still the same, bangin' track of guitars, horns, flutes, claps and that crisp breakbeat he's got popping off in the back. DJs - get familiar with this.
Ok, rap haters, feel free to leave now; the last four songs are all from upcoming hip-hop projects.
"Shine Blockas" comes from the long awaited Big Boi solo album that was first announced in 2007 but probably won't drop until late this year if not early 2010. Hua was the first to put me up on this, first by sending this to me on some, "this is pretty good." Then he followed up the next day with a succession of IMs: "I can't stop listening to this" and "have you listened to it yet?" and "Dude, what's your f---ng problem, this is fire, get with it already!" (ok, I'm making up the last one but I would have deserved it).
I don't know what it is but Southern flows over soul loops is a good combination - see here and here if you don't hear what I'm saying. This time around, it's not Willie Hutch (though that would have been a safe bet) but Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes with "I Miss You" (last heard(?) on Jay-Z's "This Can't Be Life" (ah, back when him and Beanie weren't beefing). I'm not clear on who produced this (google, you failed me!) but kudos on a nice flip of the Melvin that doesn't fuss around with it too much except for the drum programming. I can see why Hua put this on repeat - between the ultra-smoothness of the track and Big Boi's hopscotch flow this has "instant classic" slathered all over it. (I'm still forming an opinion of Mane's verse but I was impatient to hear Boi back so I guess that's not a ringing endorsement).
For Part 2 of "Southern dudes rapping over soul tracks," please to see NOLA's Jay Electronica (he of the "terrible name yet intriguing artist" sabor) rapping over a Just Blaze track that is just...uh, blaze. I've been wondering what the hell the Megatron Don's been up to and clearly, it's figuring out how to make a smooth ass Billy Stewart track sound like the world's end.
And here's the thing: that beat is like the least great thing about this song, which is to say, Blaze's track is aces but holy sh--, I had no idea Jay Electronica could bring it like this. Even though this is a radio rip, with drops making it hard to listen through, by the time the song hits the last verse, I can see why Tony Touch rewound it to play back again. I can't even transcribe it but *whew* cotdamn.
(By the way, this song encouraged me to go back and listen again to some of Jay E's other works, including Nas' "Queens Get the Money." I originally thought it was a track that screamed for a drum track but I now recognize the simple brilliance of keeping this to just the piano. Hypnotic power. This user-created video understands this by extending that piano passage into a long instrumental before Nasir comes in on it.
Lupe isn't Southern and Jimi Hendrix isn't soul but whatever - "Fire" is a great pairing between the Chicago rapper and a Jimi classic that burns baby burns here. I'll be amazed if they manage to actually clear this sample for use (see what happened to Fat Joe's "Hey Joe") but I hope they do. This sh-- is a Leatherface mallet to the head; feeling the distorted mic approach Lupe takes here. Seriously, between this and the last two songs, 4th Q 2009 sounds a lot like 2006 (and I mean that in the best way possible).
...and just to complete that cipher, we have a new track from the Clipse and Neptunes, with Cam'ron cameoing. Straight up - this isn't incredible or anything, just merely good but I'm willing to settle for that given how some of the Clipse's other recent material was jaw-droppingly weak plus the Neptunes and Cam have stayed MIA for a minute. Cam's turn here isn't much to write home about (surprisingly) but the one shining spot is that beat. "Sparkling" comes to mind even though it also sounds like something the Neptunes might have hooked up years ago. Good enough is good enough.
(Oh, by the way, I have three CDs - two soul mixes, one Aretha special - all about to come up for the offering. It's been a long time but I hope I've made up for the hiatus).
Cookin' On 3 Burners: This Girl Dog Wash Cars (snippet) From Soul Messin' (Freestyle, 2009)
It's funny but I started prepping for this post a couple of days before I read Jody Rosen's "DORF" theory of NPR's Black music content (DORF = dead, old, retro or foreign) and I'm just slightly more self-conscious at the fact that I've actively put the "R" in DORF and here I am again, focusing on the R.
And you know what? So be it; this is how I roll. There's plenty of other people focusing on YACL (young, alive, contemporary, local), can I live, dorfin' it out (or, in this case, RFin' it?)
The Noisettes are foreign (UK) but neither old nor dead. They're not necessarily even that retro overall. Of course, on "Never Forget You," it's unavoidable that lead singer Shingai Shoniwa would be compared to Amy Winehouse; they have similar voices and the vibe on "Never Forget You" is clearly slathered in the same kind of '60s, girl group flavor that some of Winehouse's songs are known for. That said, I'd say this is as good as anything I've heard Winehouse (or really, anyone's) put out and it's not a pure Brill Building retread, especially with the power rock elements that enter in on the chorus.
And yeah, that hook? Where they go, "my sweet joy/always remember me"? w/ the back-up singers? Pure Ronnettes, pure butter. Love that. Really like the lyrics too - it's both rebellious and sentimental, dipped in bittersweet sprinkles. (Thanks to DJ Phatrick who put me up on the song and its video).
Cookin' on 3 Burners have been around for a few years but I've been slow in familiarizing myself with the Australian soul scene but there's clearly a burgeoning scene there too with groups like CO3B and the Bamboos in the mix. "This Girl" is another great, catchy ballad, featuring the singing talents of TKTKT, and flows with the kind of vibe that reminds me of the best of Nicole Willis or Sharon Jones. Too bad I didn't hear this earlier in the spring; it easily would have made my list of summer '09 jams but better late than never. ("This Girl" is also CO3B's latest 7" for you vinyl dudes).
"This Girl" got me interested in the group but I was happy with how it introduced me to the rest of their repertoire. "Dog Wash," in particular is on some vintage Meters' tip - that slow groovin' second line funk built on whinnying organ stabs and vamps, some smoky rhythm guitar and snappy drums. However, the song that really made me smile was an unexpected cover of Gary Numan's "Cars"...one of the more defining pop songs of the early 1980s New Wave that I think deserves to be covered more. Listening to CO3B's version makes me wonder if they were at all influenced by the noted steel drum version by the Katzenjammers. "Cars" is also available as on 12".
The Spirit House Movers: Beautiful Black Women From Black & Beautiful, Soul & Madness (forthcoming on Sonboy, 1968/2009)
Sonboy Recordings resurrects this 1968 recording out of New Jersey featuring a young LeRoi Jones (now better known as poet Amiri Baraka) during the heart of the Black Power Movement. At some point in my life (early 1990s, when I was at Berkeley), something like this probably would have blown me away but at this point, having listened up on my Last Poets and Watts Prophets, it's hard to say if this is on the same level. It does have more of a DIY vibe to it, partially because it sounds like it was recorded in someone's house (which it was) and the musical fidelity is less than what you'd ideally want.
That said, I was really drawn to the first song on this album, "Beautiful Black Women," because it finds Jones/Baraka reciting his ode to Black women over their interpolation of "Ooh Baby Baby" by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. If you're going to score the Revolution, I'm not mad at some Motown classics providing the inspiration.
One of my favorite new singles to spin out has been the appropriately named "Brand New Dance" by New Orleans' Po-Boy-Citos. I wrote about the group a year ago and they've been steadily building their name and catalog and this new 7" is a real gem (hint: they need to make it easier to buy other than their show!)
"Brand New Dance" combines two big hits from the South - mostly obviously "Tighten Up by Texas' Archie Bell and then they slide in a little "Check Your Bucket" for the hometown NOLA hero, Eddie Bo (there's also a touch of Wardell Quezergue/Jean Knight with that intro which sounds adapted from "Mr. Big Stuff"). The mash-up is a fun slice of instrumental soul that has yet to fail me in the club. (The B-side, "Trinidad" is a slick, funky guajira for the Latin heads).(The group also has their first CD avail, while this new single will likely end up on their next album.
"Brand New Dance" instantly reminded me of Orchestra Harlow's "Horsin' Up," recorded during Harlow's reluctant boogaloo days. I also posted this up around a year ago but no one seemed to have a reaction to it but I'm still feeling how it throws together Cliff Nobles' "Horse" and "Tighten Up" for a classically '60s meeting of two big, complementary hits.
Both songs just remind us how insanely massive "Tighten Up" was in its moments. Easily one of the most covered songs of its kind and one where it's hard to find a bad cover. In fact, I'd challenge anyone to send in a bad cover of this song, just to see if it actually exists. Just as some bonus flavor, I included Mophone's remix of "Tighten Up" (I previously put up the B-side of this single) which manages to both slim the song down to its most vital components, especially the drums, and then juice 'em up heavy. Rat-a-tat-tat.
I am really honored to have been part of this project, writing the liner notes to an album that many of us feared would never come to light.
Here's an excerpt from my liners:
"Originally entitled Crashin' From Passion, Is It Love Or Desire? was recorded and completed in Bogalusa, Louisiana during the summer of 1976 before promptly vanishing into a hole for the next 33 years. Even for an artist as enigmatic as Betty Davis, Is It Love Or Desire? has been the ultimate mystery - no singles, no promos, not even so much as a bootleg. It’s as if the album never existed; a cruel fate to bestow on what was universally considered as Betty’s crowning achievement by those who worked on it.
Fate is fickle though. For years, people knew of the album’s existence; a one-of-a-kind acetate test pressing even quietly circulated in private hands. Yet all this time, the original master tapes sat forgotten - not lost - in vaults in New York and Louisiana. After the success of the Betty Davis and They Say I’m Different reissues in 2007, momentum gathered to finally give Is It Love or Desire? a proper release that’s been three decades in the making."
This scratches the proverbial surface and my liners (all 3000 words of 'em) goes much deeper into the recording and background of this album. Suffice to say though, everyone I spoke to, especially the Funkhouse musicians who played on IILOD basically said it was the best damn thing Betty ever did and I'm not about to argue that point. It's not as "sample-friendly" as her earlier albums but in terms of her artistic execution, IILOD was a clear step ahead. The fact that it would become this ill-fated album only hurt all the more but that's balanced by the excitement in the album coming back after all these years.
I picked two of my favorite songs off the album to share here and here are my respective notes on each of them:
"Arguably the most striking song in this vein is the unforgettably titled “Whorey Angel,” which seemed to sum up Betty’s recorded persona as well as any two words could - playfully dirty, yet sweet at the core. Beyond the title, the song is also notable because Betty shares her vocals with Fred Mills. Betty explained, “I would hear him kiddin’ around....he would sing, but he wouldn’t be like, ‘I’m a singer.” I thought Fred has a great sound in his voice, like a really earthy blues singer.”
Mills had to overcome his own reservations to sing on the song: “I was kind of conflicted because my mama’s a minister and I knew she wasn’t gonna dig it...but you know, that’s what mothers do, especially if they’re ministers,” he joked. Mills didn’t necessarily seem himself a full-fledged singer; he felt his purpose was, “more about the noise or about the emotional things she put in. I basically wouldn’t have to say too many words. If you listen to the song, I’m just saying one or two words, but it’s the way she wanted [me] to say it.”
"The intimacy of Is It Love Or Desire? went beyond the sound of a song or physicality of its themes; Betty never shied away from talking about her own life and on “Stars Starve, You Know,” she puts everything out on the table. It’s an answer song - a way for Betty to shout back at her critics and speak on the challenges of, well, being Betty Davis: “They said if I wanted to make some money, I’d have to clean up my act. So I called Miles Davis, he said, “It’’s ‘cause you’re a fine Black bitch, that’s all to that.” I said, “they won’t take what I’m giving, so it’s hard for me and the band to make a living.”
She had never made as autobiographical a song about her actual musical career and “Stars Starve, You Know” was as humorous as it was serious; you get the sense that Betty was having a ball penning small asides such as, “we need some money...oh hey hey Island!” or singing, “ain’t no business like show business/that’s why we stay broke!” Betty said “Stars Starve” was a reaction to her critics but not in an antagonistic way: “everybody has a job to do. They get paid for writing about you, that’s how they make their living. I just lay it down and however it’s perceived, I just have to go along with it.”
IILOD is also being released along with the reissue of Betty's third album, Nasty Gal which originally came out on Island. The exceptional John Ballon, who wrote that kick ass Wax Poetics piece on Betty, wrote the liners for this one and I highly recommend you check that album (and Ballon's notes) too. John's interviewed on the Light in the Attic site. My interview will appear tomorrow.
As a bonus, there's a very cool Betty Davis poster commissioned, limited to 100 prints. They're running a contest for one right now or you can cop it for a Jackson.
I have a few extra copies of the CD to give away but I have a trio of CD-mixes I'm about to put out so I'll include them, at random, in that batch once I announce 'em. In the meantime, if you're impatient, get IILOD from the site, direct.
Sly and the Family Stone: Sing a Simple Song From Stand (Epic, 1969)
Ike and Tina Turner: Bold Soul Sister From The Hunter (Blue Thumb, 1970). Also on Bold Soul Sister.
Deadeye: Silly Song From Gathering at the Depot (Beta, 1970)
Please: Sing a Simple Song From S/T (Telefunken, 1975)
Of all the pioneering funk tunes Sly and the Family Stone turned out, you'd be hard-pressed to find one more raucous, more alive with energy than "Sing a Simple Song." For one, the way the song opens is monstrous; it practically climaxes from jump yet rather than declining in intensity, the band keeps hammering away. While folks tend to contrast the thicker sound of Sly with the terse efficiency of the JBs, this is the closest I can think of a meeting point between the two, especially with the styles of changes the song goes through - it's hard not to hear the infamous bridge at 2:11 as comparable to any number of James Brown compositions, mostly notably Marva Whitney's "It's My Thing" or Lyn Collins' "Think."
Small aside - but on the second Digital Underground album, in the liner notes, the group jokes about the number of songs that used the "Humpty Break" which, in turn, comes from that same bridge. No doubt, many songs in the late '80s/early '90s used this same break but I was curious if DU were, indeed, the first to realize you could pan out the drums on this and just flip that? Any sample/production historians out there confirm this one way or another?
Given that this song was on the B-side of "Everyday People," it would become one of the best-known Sly songs of all time and as such, has been well, well, well covered. In choosing what songs to include in this post, I wanted to shy away from covers that were good but fairly loyal - sorry Kerrie Biddell! - and instead went with a few off the beaten path.
That has to include a song that is rather obviously a cover-yet-not-a-cover: "Bold Soul Sister" by Ike and Tina Turner who basically take the main riff from Sly but then turn it into a whole 'nother piece of funky ferocity. I'm rather curious if they ever got into a legal issue with Sly and the Family Stone around that.
Then there's Deadeye, a local Minneapolis group, with "Silly Song,"...I'm not sure if they were riffing off the fact that "Sing a Simple Song" mostly seems to consist of people going "ya ya ya" though it's hard to read "Silly Song" as anything but a bit of a diss. Despite that, it's actually a pretty good cover, and a loyal one at that despite a new, jaunty intro and some interesting contrasts in vocal harmony. What's particularly notable about their version is that on the bridge, they replace the organ from the original with the vocalizing of the band instead - do do do do do. (Thanks to Young Einstein for introducing me to this LP).
That idea gets taken to the nth degree with one of my favorite versions of this song, by the Filipino band Please (recording for Germany's Telefunken label). At 2:18, various members of the band get to "sing" a melding of the bridge's drum break but with the chorus melody. Each of four singers gets two bars to sing (some better than others) and then the entire group comes back for another few turns but what's cool is that after they're done, the familiar bridge comes back, this time played by the horn section. Righteous! (Apparently, this version was comped for one of the UBB series though I first heard it at J-Rocc's crib when I did a story on him a few years back.)
Binky Griptite: The Stroll Pt 2 (Snippet) From The Stroll 7” (Daptone, 2009)
Dap King member/leader Binky Griptite has come to the forefront with his Stroll. Where I'm typically drawn to horn stabs and vocals over instrumental affairs, the flip-side “The Stroll Part 2” reworked instrumental peaked my interest more. The “dirty ho” lyrics just didn't quite sit right with me over the funky stylings presented. As mentioned above, the instrumental version is an altered version of the backing track. The horns are gone and the bongos are buried a little more in the mix. The lead vocals are replaced with a nice guitar lead, almost in a lite Freddie King styling which complements the thick bass riff quite well.
Just released last week on Daptone's Ever-Soul imprint, Darrell Banks' 1969 cuts (which were both lifted from his “Here To Stay” LP) are some pleading soulfulness, one in which he's pondering how to go on after being left and the other in which he learned his lesson and reserved a spot for his lovely lady. On “Don't Know What To Do” Darrell goes from gruff David Ruffin vocal stylings in the opening moments to smoother sounding Marvin Gaye when he eases up on the gas pedal. The Detroit influence was there because, well, he was from the Motor City. However, instead of a Motown/Tamla release, Darrell released these pieces on Stax/Volt, although it is believed that both Memphis and Detroit players laid down the music. The background woo-woos really add flair to an already nice accompaniment. Meanwhile the chunky bass keeps things afloat in his plea to win back his lost love. Hey, for whatever it's worth Darrell, I was won over with this 45.
As I've gotten older, I've appreciated the complex brilliance of complicated arrangements and layers of melodies and rhythms. But hey, sometimes you just like getting back to the basics: a good bassline and a breakbeat. It's certainly one of the solid foundations of hip-hop beats in the vaunted Golden Era and I still can't help but gravitate towards them.
Think of Clyde Stubblefield and Bootsy Collins double-teaming the breakdown on James Brown's "Give It Up or Turn It Loose" or Afro-Latin groove on Dennis Coffey's "Scorpio." And let's not even talk about the redonkulous combo of George Porter Jr. and Zigaboo Modeliste. (I should also specify; the main criteria is not just the presence of a good bassline with a serviceable drum track behind. Ideally, you want a break that can do both well).
The following is an informal, slapping together of a few of my favorite bassline n' break moments from a number of songs, some of which you'll probably recognize, some you may not (and yeah, there's no tracklisting because I'm on that tip today, ha!)
Nostalgia 77 feat. Alice Russell: 7 Nation Army The Hot 8 Brass Band: Sexual Healing (Re-Edit) Both from Tru Thoughts Covers (Tru Thoughts, 2009)
My first encounter with Tru Thoughts probably came via the Nostalgia 77, back in 2004 when I first wrote about their amazing cover of The White Stripes' 7 Nation Army. What I marveled about 5 years back was how it, "switches out the cold, cold vocals of Jack White and replaces it with Alice Russell's searing soulistics. I'm not saying this is get a bunch of emo kids into the mosh pit but I'm feeling how this just rips things up a bit but keep the mood very tense and controlled." I still think this kicks major ass (even though I'm less likely to use such purple prose as "searing soulistics") - especially how it takes the main bassline from the original and then juices it up bigger than a BALCO ball player (I'm still not above hyperbole though, obviously). It's a monster.
I resurrect this song because Tru Thoughts just put it as the lead track off their new Tru Thoughts Covers compilation which seems overdue given the label's impressive track record for striking reconstructions of many kinds of songs, old and new. For example, you have the Quantic Soul Orchestra covering both 4Hero, Kylie Auldist covering Jeff Buckley, and in an example of pop eating itself, Bonobo covering Quantic.
However, besides the Nostalgia 77 song, the single best thing on here is really one of the single best things ever: the Hot 8 Brass Band remaking Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing." If you haven't heard this before...well, I'd be a bit astounded because it's gotten a lot of play over the years...but if you haven't, then at least you get your mind blown now. Heck, I've heard it dozens of times and this still blows me away. Brass bands + Marvin Gaye classics = a good combination.
The Impossibles: Easy to Be Hard b/w California From Hot Pepper (Phillips, 1975)
The Impossibles: Satin Soul From Stage Show (SSP, 197?)
It's been over two years since I last posted about the Impossibles but that's partially because it's taken over two years for me to finally add another album of theirs to the collection. The Impossibles are pretty much the only Thai funk band that anyone outside of Thailand is familiar with and that's in large part due to the fact that they toured Europe and the U.S. and released an album on Phillips, recorded in Sweden.
However, more than just being a curiosity of 1970s cross-cultural/musical fusion, the Impossibles also cut some damn good sides. The Hot Pepper album can regularly fetch in the ballpark of $200 and up and I have to say, I think it's totally worth it in terms of the overall caliber of the album and its inclusions.
The standout is their cover of Kool and the Gang's "Give It Up"; it'd be the obvious one to post...which is precisely why I'm not posting it (you can find it on Chairman Mao and DJ Muro's excellent Run For Cover II mix-CD). I'd rather put up two other songs that I find even more intriguing. The first really blew my mind when I started listening; a cover of "Easy to Be Hard," a song from the Hair but one I associate more with Three Dog Night's version. It's clear The Impossibles do too; their cover is riffing off TDN's but they really funk it up in ways the rock band didn't - check the reverb on the guitar and the way the horns creep in. When the vocals come in, it just takes you there - so soulful, so melancholy. The ramp up to Tony Bennett-land halfway through is a bit jarring but overall, I find the song exceptionally well-executed in terms of how it builds tension and release and the interplay between the dreaminess of the vocals and the music.
As for "California" it's a more conventional funk song, opening with a basic breakbeat stomp and then sliding into a groove that wouldn't be out of place from an Average White Band album. Personally, I'm feeling how this is an ode to California and San Diego, in particular. I can't figure out if this is a cover or not - it's not exactly easy to google "California". My guess is that this is one of the few original songs on the album and based off the group's experience touring the U.S. California, represent...'sent.
I also pulled another song off the group's recorded-in-Thailand Stage Show LP. This is a cover of the Barry White production, "Satin Soul" (originally a Love Unlimited Orchestra tune). Once again, a strong breakbeat opener that then slides into some screechy guitar and a heavily vamped up organ that deliver the song's signature riff. Because this was apparently recorded live, the audio quality could stand to be better but overall, I think this bumps quite nicely.
Gloria Ann Taylor: World That's Not Real From 7" single (Selector Sound, 197?)
Gloria Taylor: Deep Inside You From 7" single (Columbia, 1973)
Speaking of songs that totally throw me, "World That's Not Real" is one of the more unsettling songs I've ever sat with, ever since I heard it off Matthew Africa's blog. I don't even mean lyrically, though, as you can probably guess, it's not a happy tune. Just listen to how this song unfolds - it's creepy and ominous from jump and only goes further into darker places when Taylor's piercing vocals coming in. But just wait until the song reaches :53 or so - there's that crazy chord that sounds like Death's ringtone that comes in out of nowhere and the composition shifts, inexplicably, into a slightly happier feel which is then abetted by the reverbed, over-dubbed vocals around 1:30 but then Taylor goes back into the "world that's not real" chorus and for the remainder of the song, it just teeters in this uncomfortable space, balanced above the abyss. At no point does the song ever give over to anything resembling "comfort" and as it fades, it just leaves you out there, in the twilight.
The same ambiguity also surrounds "Deep Inside You," which bears more than a loose resemblance. There's a Selector Sound 7" that has both songs on the same disc (mine has "Music") though "Deep Inside You" also appeared on a Columbia promo 7" and this holy grail private press disco EP. It's a more driving song - with a more aggressive rhythm section and Taylor's vocals are more forceful. But that distinctive reverb is still slathered everywhere here and overall, Taylor's plaintive vocals are a close cousin to what she does on "World That's Not Real."
Lyn Christopher: Take Me With You From S/T (Paramount, 1973)
Tyrone and Carr: Take Me With You From 7" single (Jam, 1973). Also on Kings of Diggin'.
Here's a bit of a musical mystery...
Unless you're a hardcore KISS fan - or are just into LPs with foxy ladies on the cover - "Take Me With You" is probably the only Lyn Christopher song you've ever heard. And even then, had it not been for the Smut Peddlers, you probably wouldn't even say that much. Nonetheless, Christopher's self-titled debut - and the 7" version of "Take Me With You" - have been heavy collectibles by at least two different crowds. The first are KISS fans; Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley played on her album before they would blow up as KISS (technically, I think the band existed but their debut album wouldn't come out until 1974).
After Smut Peddlers looped this up lovely in 1998, it then got "outed" on Dusty Fingers Vol. 3 and that all helped blow things up for sample hounds who began to chase after the LP and 7" versions. It's easy to see why: it is so downright sultry and funky, possessed of a seductive sensuality that rings through when Christopher croons, "every morning/every evening." Yes, please, take us with you.
But here's the thing...I heard what I thought was a cover of this song by Tyrone and Carr on the Kings of Diggin' compilation by Kon, Amir and Muro (this being one of the songs on K&A's half). It's a very similar version, especially with that telltale bassline that's such a distinctive part of both. Tyrone and Carr's approach is more modern soul-y (if you had told me this was recorded in the early '80s, I would have totally believed that). Very smooth stuff and nice use of both acoustic guitar and electric keys. The interplay between male and female vocals is also an interesting approach, as is the shift in the back half of the song with the addition of horns and more percussion.
It took a minute but I was lucky enough to come two copies of their single - one of Jam from 1973, the other being the second issue on DJM from '75. And this is where things get interesting...
Which is the cover? I think most have assumed it was Christopher first but only because hers is, by virtue of its noteriety, the definitive version. But all that means is that she has the best known version, not necessarily the first.
Both releases are credited to 1973 though this site puts Tyrone and Carr's single as a March 1973 release, making it less likely that they're covering Christopher unless her album came out Jan 1 or something. However, on Christopher's own site, it says the album was recorded in 1972, which would put it ahead of the Tyrone and Carr 7".
However, "Take Me With You" was written by Kaplan Kaye, a producer and songwriter who worked for... Jam. It seems more likely to me that Kaye gave his song to an artist on the label he works for and that song goes on to get covered elsewhere than for him to give the song to Christopher and then return to find a Jam artist to record it.
Moreover, musically, I feel like it Christopher's version sounds like a cover insofar as it adds something that isn't there on Tyrone and Carr's - the very beginning of the song with that haunting back-and-forth between the (what the hell is it? A guitar? A horn?) and bassline. That sounds like something a smart arranger throws on to distinguish their cover from the original. In contrast, the Tyrone and Carr don't have anything like that - the bassline is there but that's it. It's possible they could have stripped off Christopher's intro but it's so distinctive, you'd think if theirs was the cover, they'd try to riff off it somehow.
There's nothing "at stake" here except simply establishing a correct timeline of who-covered-who. Personally, I love insider baseball stuff like this and besides, it gives me the opportunity to post up what I think are two excellent tunes, regardless of which came first.
The winner of the latest contest at Soul-Sides is Asad from the Windy City. Congratulations on winning the new Breakestra single! Don't forget that the album, From Dusk Till Dawn, is out on September 29th. For the rest of you wanting to hear the new song, it is out NOW on vinyl and digital formats. Many thanks to Strut Records for sponsoring the contest and especially to you, our readers, for your continued support!
Contest Questions/Answers:
Q1. Breakestra is led by this “Music Man,” Miles ________. Fill in the missing word. A1. Tackett Q2. Name the title of their debut album. (Hint: It's NOT one of the mixtape releases.) A2. Hit The Floor Q3. “Music Man” Miles also released a non-Breakestra mixtape in 2004 under the name DJ Miles that was “Live From Hollywood.” Name the mixtape title. A3. Funky Sole, Vol. 1
If you're in Los Angeles this week and have a free Wednesday open, come through to the Verdugo Bar and listen to my hour-long Aretha tribute set.[1] It's been a real pleasure revisiting Aretha to pick out songs for the set - I'll have some obvious crowd-pleasers in there but I also wanted to highlight some lesser known songs by her, including a few choice selections from her recent Rare and Unreleased compilation plus a couple of selections from her Columbia years output.
The latter, as my longtime readers should know, is one of my favorite "underrated catalogs" to turn to time and time again.[2] I'm not claiming Aretha's early years trumps her Atlantic reign - nothing can. But there is so much great singing to be enjoyed in those years that it seems myopic to ignore them simply because Jerry Wexler wasn't producing her then. Here's two songs that did NOT make the tribute mix, just to give you an idea that her catalog is so strong I can afford to leave great stuff like this out.
Aretha Franklin: Runnin' Out of Fools b/w Cry Like a Baby From The Queen In Waiting (Columbia, 2002)
For my sample-hounds, I feel like someone's used "Cry Like a Baby" but can't remember who. Any help?
[1] By the way, DJ Phatrick of Devil's Pie is returning the favor the next night by coming out and spinning with me at Boogaloo! Catch us both nights and I promise you a copy of the Aretha mix once we get copies made. Just remember one song from my Aretha set and any song I play at the Shortstop this week as "proof."
[2] Can I just add that I cannot believe I wrote that review seven years ago. Damn, I feel old.
The Posse: You Better Come Out and Play b/w That's What Makes Us Happy From 7" (EJC, 197?)
Lil' slice of Michigan funk here; the A-side sounds like something Norman Whitfield might have whipped up for the Temptations in their psychedelic era but then accidentally ended up in the hands of the Jackson 5 (albeit, the Posse's falsetto lead here is no MJ). The lyrics make it sound innocent but the vibe is so dark that when the singer croons, "you better come out and play," it sounds like a threat made by an arsonist holding a Moltov. I'm just saying. Flipside is a more conventional, mid-tempo sweet soul tune about cotton candy and ferris wheels; talk about an incongruous A/B side combo. (Thanks to Cool Chris for this one).
Little Denice: Check Me Out b/w You Can Teach Me New Things From 7" (Ruthies, 196?)
This 7" by Little Denice is a two-fer two ways: not only is it a remarkably solid A/B-side, it's also simultaneously one of my favorite kid funk and Bay Area singles. I don't know much about the artist or the players here at all; her backing band is pretty bad ass and Little Denice herself is a frickin' monster on this single. "Check Me Out" is so salacious that it feels a bit dirty listening to it as she brags about "no other woman could take a man from me." Damn girl, slow down! "You Can Teach Me New Things" is pretty much the same song, content-wise, with another horn-heavy funk track powering Denice's precocity.
Breakestra is back with new music! The album, From Dusk Till Dawn, is out on September 29th. Here at Soul-Sides we have ONE copy of their latest 12” to give away as a sneak preview. It retails next week digitally and on wax.
Answer the 3 questions below for your chance to win. Good luck!!
Contest Rules:
1. Contest ends at midnight on Wednesday, September 16, 2009. Entries that arrive after that time are ineligible. 2. Only US addresses are eligible. Sorry international readers! 3. Should there be more than one contestant with all correct answers, one name will be chosen in a drawing of those who answered correctly. 4. Your first response is your official and final response.
Questions:
1. Breakestra is led by this “Music Man,” Miles ________. Fill in the missing word. 2. Name the title of their debut album. (Hint: It's NOT one of the mixtape releases.) 3. “Music Man” Miles also released a non-Breakestra mixtape in 2004 under the name DJ Miles that was “Live From Hollywood.” Name the mixtape title.
E-mail your responses to soulsideseric AT gmail.com and put Breakestra in the subject line.
With the release week heard 'round the world, we here at Soul-Sides are celebrating the Beatles by picking some of our favorite Beatles tunes as covered by soul artists. While I know not everyone likes covers (especially of The Beatles), I, as well as Oliver, am always interested in hearing the interpretations artists have within their musical fraternity. Writing songs that have universal appeal is part of the reason why they were so successful. Hear some of the heavy hitters of soul on their takes of some of the best music and lyrics ever written below.
1970 saw Stevie still delivering the hits. Two years prior to his greatest string of work album-wise, he covered “We Can Work It Out,” a #1 hit for The Fab Four in 1965. Stevie adds a funky lilt to the song with an opening Fender Rhodes riff and a harmonica solo in the middle converting what had been a tune about saving a relationship with a lover into a social commentary for working it out with your fellow brothers and sisters. He does away with the 3 / 4 bars in the bridge to keep the pace going. This song is proof of the genius in his abilities showcasing how he could not only compose an original song but also add a fresh take on a group that weren't too bad at songwriting and arrangements themselves.
While Father McKenzie was writing the words to a sermon no one would hear, Aretha was prepping the church choir and band to unleash this rousing take on a previously mournful elegy. Check the piano intro that leads into the frenetic pace that is unleashed. Aretha meanwhile does what she does best – sing her ass off. She goes into ad libs that add depth to a churchy affair but keeps it just at arm's length from overdoing it.
Smokey Robinson And The Miracles: And I Love Her From What Love Has...Joined Together, (Motown, 1970)
I saved my favorite for last. The first time I heard this, I stopped what I was doing and just zoned out. I had to keep rewinding it to hear its sheer elegance. The earliest song of the bunch presented, “And I Love Her” - already a beautiful love song in its own right, finds Smokey and The Miracles upping the ante of the intimacy found in the original's acoustic guitar and percussion with a small dose of brass and faint a crying violin. The clincher here is the background harmonizing, especially after that first “And I Love Her,” to Smokey's delicate, but confident lead vocals. The backup singing remains steadfast throughout and is the glue that holds it all together. Wow. Oliver's picks: First of all, definite co-sign on the awesomeness that is Stevie's cover of "We Can Work It Out." It's definitely up there as one of the greatest soul covers of a Beatles' song I can think of. Another should be obvious to anyone who's read this site for a while:
Al Green: I Want To Hold Your Hand From 7" (Hi, 1969)
This was one of the featured songs I put on Soul Sides Vol. 2 and is an easy "go to" song for any party. It's also a fairly obscure song by any measure; it originally only came out on 7" and that's because, surprisingly (or perhaps not so), it was a total flop and Hi pretty much backpedaled off it (it did show up on the 1989 compilation Love Ritual, finally). I feel like I've spoken about this song a lot (it came up in interviews frequently) so I won't reinvent the wheel except to say: this is what the old folks call "fly." Believe that.
Lee Moses: Day Tripper From Time and Place (Maple, 1970)
To this day, I'm surprised more soul artists haven't covered "Day Tripper." That intro guitar line is easily one of the most recognizable in Beatles' history and it is so damn funky. Luckily, this same point must have occurred to Lee Moses, possibly having been influenced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience who do a pretty righteous version themselves. I find Moses, however, to really distill the song down to a rough but not cluttered version of the song that highlights how very raucous that riff really can be.
The Overton Berry Trio: Hey Jude From At Seattle's Doubletree Inn (Jaro, 1970). Also on Wheedle's Groove
"Hey Jude" is one of those Beatles' songs that are so iconic that you almost wish people would leave it well alone since even the original can grate on you once you've heard it for the umpteenth time. Yet I had the choice between two great versions of this song (the other being Clarence Wheeler and the Enforcers'). My reasons for going with Seattle's Overton Berry Trio and their live version, recorded at the Doubletree, mostly rest with how it opens with that massive bassline. Deep deep deep and once the drums click in, it becomes this monster groove that isn't even obvious as "Hey Jude" until you hear the Ramsey Lewis-esque piano come in.
Bonus: Toi Et Moi: Across the Universe From In USA (EMI Japan, 197?)
I couldn't pass this up; probably not the best sung version of "Across the Universe" ever recorded (but hey, in all fairness, these two weren't exactly from Liverpool) but I love how fun and lively this Japanese duo's take on the song is. That plus, that funky backing track sounds positively British library album, no? It's all quite fab in its own right.
Mayer Hawthorne: Your Easy Lovin' Ain't Pleasin' Nothin' From A Strange Arrangement (Stones Throw, 2009)
When he came onto the scene nary a year ago with his falsetto classic “Just Ain't Gonna Work Out,” I thought, “Yeah, this is really nice – but can he deliver more than just a catchy single?” (Let's not forget the B-side “When I Said Goodbye” wasn't too shabby either.) Here we are in September with his highly anticipated album on the horizon (both ?uestlove and Justin Timberlake have sent out Twitter blasts about him) and the first single is no fluke, folks.
What's impressive is the fact that not only has he written all the songs (aside from “Maybe So, Maybe No”), but he plays nearly all the instruments as well. The ballads are a thick, syrupy elixir to cure any love malady, or at the very least provide you company in wallowing in your heartbreak. “I Wish It Would Rain” (not a Temptations remake) comes in starkly with its striking bass clef chords but has, once again, a tender falsetto lead with doo-wop backdrops.
However, he does more than just ballads. The previously-mentioned “Just Ain't Gonna Work Out” is upbeat, completely opposite of its breakup message. He abandons the falsetto for “Your Easy Lovin' Ain't Pleasin' Nothin'.” As I mentioned a few weeks ago, coming out of the break after the first hook I expect it to morph into “You Can't Hurry Love.” The sax solo is brief, yet so well-timed and not overstated, it's pure genius. When people say they don't make music like they used to, Hawthorne proves 'em wrong.
What's more is that he sings with such sincerity and charm that he's believable. He might not win a singing contest in acapella, but more importantly he knows how to use that sincerity and charm to his advantage by being able to structure such a catchy hook and a compelling story to go with it. In “The Ills,” a social commentary piece that doesn't get overtly political, he tackles a bit on New Orleans with a Curtis Mayfield-inspired backing track. The hook sings, “You know the ills of the world/they can get you down,” before a slight pause and then finishing with, “But then you get back up.” It's so simple, yet so catchy.
The album ends with a song, "Green Eyed Love," that sounds like no other on the album. With its west coast funk and staccato keys that would've even made a nice Dre beat, Hawthorne sings an ode to the green stuff. It even has a stoner guitar solo that smokes. It could be the cruising song to end the summer of 2009 and is supposed to be the next single. Can the Stones Throw team capitalize on the G-funk beat and get a Snoopified cameo for the video? It would fit perfectly.
Some early reviews have said some of the music itself sounds like a '60s Motown ripoff. People will say what they will say, but it's the best album I've heard this year – bar none. Oliver's view: I'm not going to offer a contrarian view here but I didn't like the album as much as I hoped I would.
Part of the trick to albums in this retro/classic soul vein is that you have to be derivative to a certain extent; the whole point of the style is to tap into a particular aesthetic that's marked by certain musical signatures you can recognize. As Eric writes above about one song, you "expect it to morph into" a song you already know or expect.
The problem is that you're taking a risk here - if you're too derivative, then it just seems like you're doing an impression. A well-produced impression perhaps, but an impression nonetheless. As a genre, Northern Soul was influenced by Motown but that doesn't mean every great Northern Soul song sounds like it was recorded at Studio "A".
So with Mayer's album, his uptempo songs, for the most part, felt too derivative. "Your Easy Lovin' Ain't Pleasin' Nothin'" is, in my opinion, far too close to the Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love." "Make Her Mine" opens by interpolating "People Get Ready" but then goes into a fairly competent take on a Smokey Robinson and the Miracles song. "The Ills" was just too damn close to an Impressions song. "One Track Mind" = total Motown flavor.
And like I said, it can be a very thin line between close and too close. Nicole Willis and Raphael Sadeeq also played with similar styles on their respective albums and in some cases, I felt like it tipped over too far, in other cases, I was totally happy to hear them riff (but not replicate) on these classics. With Mayer, for his faster songs, I just couldn't get it. Yet - and I admit, I don't have a clear rationale here - I'm a big, big fan of his ballads even though one could argue they're not that much different, stylistically, from the faster tracks. And sure, that's probably true - "Green Eyed Love," for example has The Moments' stamp all over it. "Shiny and New" could be a Teddy Pendergress or Tyrone Davis slow jam. But these just work for me - call it some X factor (or H factor if you prefer).
When it comes to ballds, I think Mayer's stuff is as enjoyable as anything I've heard from anyone, including Lee Fields (who lays down a mean slow groover). "I Wish It Would Rain" is easily a top 10 of the year in my book. Once Mayer gets above 100bpms though, I think other artists like Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings or Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators have been more successful in developing a sound all their own. Given that this is Mayer's first album - and an accidental opportunity in many ways - I think he has the potential to really blossom as his career matures. It can't be emphasized enough - this album is almost all Mayer, building each song one block at a time, playing the instruments and then editing it all together. That's pretty extraordinary - and it makes you respect not only the level of talent that went into this album but how challenging it must have been. (On this note, I also wanted to acknowledge that Miles Tackett of Breakestra crafts that "group's" songs the same way.)
PS: This has nothing to do with the music but I am very curious how the sales on this will do compared to the last Sharon Jones/DK album.
We know you love a great soul set. So if you live in the areas around Chicago, Pontiac (MI), Columbus (OH), Washington, D.C., New York City, or Brooklyn, Numero is bringing its Eccentric Soul Revue tour to you. Even if you DON'T live near one of those places, schedule a getaway (even if it's by yourself). From the looks of this trailer, the show looks absolutely fantastic.
Here's the press release:
Motown had one, so did Stax. Three soul-deep acts and one smoking hot band to back them up. The triple-header of R&B: the soul revue. Once a mainstay of theaters, gymnasiums and VFW halls everywhere, the soul revue ultimately vanished in the late seventies as recorded sound pushed live performance out of the limelight and onto car stereos and refrigerator-sized boom boxes. The performers returned to their day jobs and the world was the poorer for it.
That is, until April 4th, 2009, when your Numero Group mounted the first Eccentric Soul Revue, packing Chicago's Park West Theater with soul-hungry acolytes, satisfying them and then some with the real thing: a 17-piece band backing The Notations, Renaldo Domino, The Final Solution, Nate Evans, and Syl Johnson, putting on a show that combined 70s slick with revival-meeting fervor.
It was a magical evening, as the past lived and breathed and got on down, right here in the present. Those in attendance went home that night knowing they'd seen something that just wasnt done anymore. And wanting more. If you live in Columbus, Ohio, New York, Brooklyn, or Washington D.C., the wait and the want is over. The Numero Group is taking this show on the road.
Eccentric Soul Revue hits the East Coast in November with the totally explosive Syl Johnson, the silky smooth Notations, and the man with the voice like Domino sugar, Renaldo Domino, plus special guests, a slide show, and an autograph line.
There is absolutely nothing else like The Eccentric Soul Revue. A ticket is a time machine. Be there.
Saturday Nov 7th Lincoln Hall Chicago, IL With special guests TL Barrett, Sharon Clark & Linda Ballentine
Sunday Nov 8th Crofoot Ballroom Pontiac, MI With special guests Velma Perkins & Bobby Cook
Monday November 9th The Lincoln Theater Columbus, Ohio With special guests the Four Mints and Marion Black
Tuesday November 10th The 9:30 Club Washington DC
Thursday November 12th Grand Ballroom New York, New York With special guest Missy Dee
Friday November 13th Music Hall of Williamsburg Brooklyn, New York With special guest Missy Dee
I've spent the last few days, trying to figure out what it is about the Brazilian music I find myself gravitating towards. I am not, remotely, a hardcore Brazila-phile, though not for lack of interest...as I've probably said in the past, Brazilian music is just so insanely massive that to really "get into it" you have be willing to turn over a good part of your life, dedicated to its majesty and complexity. Tempting as that siren's call may be, I have to concede that to my betters.
To be sure, Brazilian music in all its myriad forms has proven beguiling the world over and I wish I had some genius insight into explaining why but despite using my (remaining) brain cells to articulate what the secret is, I'm still at a loss. In the most general, the Brazilian styles I tend to find most compelling - bossa nova, samba, Tropicalia - all offer this intriguing, intricate balance between subtle but often puissant rhythms and some of the most sophisticated melodies you can imagine. Add to that the incredible "feel" of the music which always inspires metaphors of comfort, layering and "wrapping" from me. Seriously, I really wish I had a less prosaic way to try to nail whatever that vibe is but it's ever elusive. Unlike Afro-Cuban music, the Brazilian I like doesn't make me want to dance. Unlike American soul, Brazilian doesn't necessarily invoke deep emotion. Mostly, it makes me feel good. I'm not quite sure why that is but I'll take it.
What follows is - at best - a smattering of different songs I've been listening to lately, mostly because they're all recent purchases. They've been a reminder to me that I really should be listening to (and thus enjoying) more Brazilian tunes. Hope you will be similarly inspired...
Ivan Lins: Madalena b/w Hei, Vocé From Agora (Forma, 1970)
This Lins - his debut - is a truly remarkable album, easily one of the most soul-influenced Brazilian albums I've heard yet (not surprisingly Arthur Verocai produced it). One song I didn't include, "Baby Blue" is a straight up soul ballad, very Bill Withers-esque in fact, and Lins switches between Portuguese and English during the tune; really lovely (maybe I'll include it in some future ballads post). Now...if that's the song I left off, you can imagine how good the inclusions are. I start with Lins big early hit, "Madalena," a song probably most connected with Elis Regina.
What I find interesting about the difference between Lins' version and Regina's (and I'm not clear whose was actually recorded first but I'm going to guess Regina's) is how each interpolates that opening piano riff. It's funny but when I first heard Lins' song, I thought, "ah, this must be where DJ Monk-One" got the melody for "Bossa Biz" from but then realized: no, the notes are different. It wasn't until I heard Regina's that I found the correct source but I was relieved to know that the similarities I thought I heard weren't just a figment of my imagination. That little piano riff alone - regardless if Lins' or Regina's - is just about one of the tastiest single bars I can imagine. Then you throw on that rhythm section Lins is backed by and it's just too perfect.
"Hei, Vocé," is equally, if not more compelling: it has so many great elements going for it: that opening horn line which sounds very "Crystal Blue Persuasion" to me, the funk-inspired drumming and then those background singers behind Lins, "doo-doo-ing" to their hearts content. All this and drum breaks + horn stabs midway through? Are you kidding me?
I can't find much on Diniz despite the fact that this album has been, in the past, reissued on CD. It certainly seems to have come out during a time when Brazilian musicians were responding to the explosion in funk music coming out of the States; this Diniz album would compare favorably to, say, Tim Maia's work (in fact, the two sound very similar with their gruff, growling vocals). "Chutando Pedra" puts that voice front and center over a mid-tempo, jangling beat that reminds me of some British mod rock of the era; make sure to listen deeper to catch the excellent piano work being done here.
The absolute monster on the album though is "Ninfa Mulata" which google-translates into "mulatto nymph" (please correct me if I'm wrong here!) and that fuzzed out guitar/bass(?) at the beginning is possibly one of the hardest sounding things I've heard since I first heard this. The song does shift in tone after that opening and goes a big more pop-y but I'm happy to just loop up the first 12 seconds and hang out there for a while.
Tamba Trio: Mas Que Nada b/w Mania de Maria From Avanco (Phillips, 1963)
Taking a far softer approach is the light and lively sounds of the Tamba Trio, one of the most prolific and important bossa nova groups of the 1960s. This is from their second album and much of it drifts breezily on slick bossa rhythms and melodies. Their version of "Mas Que Nada" is quite good which basically leads me to conclude that this Jorge Ben song is simply impossible to f--- up. I'm sure there are bad versions out there; I just have never heard one. It really bespeaks Ben's genius in constructing a song with much beautiful dynamics going for it - the melodic hook that's so familiar, that soaring vocal bit that - here - is done in harmony. Gorgeous.
I'm going to end this dip into Brazil with the quietest of the songs I've included - a little bossa ballad "Mania de Maria." I love how this song opens - that solo piano, set adrift in melancholy before taking a spritely but serene turn into a jaunty dance number. Throw it on after dinner and enjoy where it takes you.
Archie Whitewater: Track 3 From Unreleased Archie Whitewater album (Cadet Concept, 197?)
Unknown: It's Hard To Tell(?) From unknown (label unknown, 197?)
Unknown: My Love Ain't No Play Thing(?) From unlabeled acetate (label unknown, 196/7?)
Here's a trio of musical mysteries - unreleased and even completely unknown recordings:
I had heard rumors of a lost Archie Whitewater album but didn't realize the tapes actually existed. Clearly, someone booted 'em and put them out into the world, for which we're all better off (even if the mixing on these tracks are muddled as hell). Whitewater put together one of the most eclectic (and sought after) albums on the Cadet Concept label, which, true to the imprint's "Concept" part, seemed like a challenging but rewarding collision of jazz, funk, soul, and rock. I'm betting it sounds amazing on weed but I wouldn't really know. I'm not advocating for it either (but do comment about it if you try!) It seems that Whitewater recorded a second album for Cadet Concept but, for whatever reason, it was deaded before release. Nearly 40 years later, someone obviously decided to quit waiting and just put out a rough mix. I can't say it's better than his self-titled album - the submerged fidelity makes it a hard comparison - but I can say that it has enough stylistic similarities to warrant favorable comparison to the original.
Continuing our "unknown/unreleased" trip is a cut from Muscle Shoals, AL that our friend Andy Zax came upon and offered to share with us. Thanks Andy! An interesting cut to be sure; sounds a bit late '70s to me, only because of certain aesthetic features but it's hard to know since, when Andy found it in the vault archives, he had no info on it besides the Muscle Shoals connection. This isn't a bad tune, especially with those lingering piano stabs but I also could have done without the rock guitar. If this sounds like anyone you can think of, let us know in the comments.
Lastly, I had to borrow a cut from my friend Justin Torres' excellent The Break Up Letters mix (you better scoop that if you haven't already). Justin's pretty good at finding these unreleased-type tracks; he's the guy responsible for finding the untitled recording by "Joe" that became DJ Shadow's "This Time". This unknown female funk song, from an untitled acetate, is a scorcher; sounds late '60s to me (but could be easily early '70s) and while it's a bit rough from it being an acetate, you can imagine how awesome this would have been as an actual release.
OW has covered this release previously, but recently it has been (sort of) reissued on CD. Indeed, Boy Meets Girl was not a compilation but a concept album to join forces of some of the male and female artists on the label.
One of the highlights is the cover of Sam and Dave's “I Thank You.” Sam Moore's intro lines (you may have heard them in the '90s at the beginning of Naughty By Nature's “Clap Yo Hands”) were clipped in the remake, and the song starts off with William Bell and the heavily underrated Mavis Staples soulshouting over conga and tambourine and a few horn stabs for nearly a minute before the groove really kicks in. Midway through, it kicks back to this acoustic breakdown. This seesawing effect with the fuller accompaniment adds a churchy element to the already gospel influenced lyrics.
Also featured is a beautiful remake of the Everly Brothers “All I Have To Do Is Dream.” Considering Carla Thomas had her own hit with “Gee Whiz,” perhaps it was on purpose that she's half the duet, with William Bell being the other half, in a song that features that same phrase a couple times. It's sung with such yearning, which is appropriate given the song is about a lover daydreaming of his yet-to-be attained mate. This take on “Dream” would be much better if it was pared down to a three minute edit without the majestic buildup at the end, which diminishes its melancholy tone.
It's not all a William Bell affair. Former Soul Stirrers leadman Johnnie Taylor chips in with Carla Thomas for duets of “Just Keep On Loving Me” and “My Life” and Eddie Floyd chimes in as well on the uplifting “Never Let You Go” and more.
Additionally, the reissue isn't a full-on replication of the original release. Missing are songs such as “Love's Sweet Sensation,” “I Need You Woman,” and “That's The Way Love Is” (and more). In replacement, you get two Delaney and Bonnie songs as well as two versions of “Private Number.” The 1980's Dusty Springfield version of “Private Number” sounds dated (and not in a good way) and is far out of place on an album featuring mostly late '60s production. Fortunately, it doesn't sink the ship. The rest of the material is quite capable of keeping the album afloat.
Jewel Bass: I Tried It & I Liked It b/w Richard Stoute: What Bag I'm In (snippets) From 7" single (Sticky Records, 2009)
HE3 Project: Rapture of the Deep b/w Funk Punk (snippets) From 7" single (Family Groove, 2009)
For those of you rockin' turntables, we have a special 7" giveaway - two new reissues. One is for a great slice of Southern funky soul by Jewel Bass, described as, "a backing singer...acknowledged as 'Mississippi's most recorded voice.'" Well, on this one, she gets to step out in front...on a Malaco single that is apparently among that legendary label's rarest. You can hear the obvious influence of "Mr. Big Stuff" (like that Jean Knight classic, Wardell Quezergue was behind the production) but it's not a fake cover; it's an incredibly snappy bit of New Orleans funk that holds its own. Great, great wtuff. (Flipside has a bit of island funk for you from Richard Stoute).
From Family Groove Records, right here in L.A., it's the first single off the HE3 Project, an anthology that highlights a tiny, private studio in the Bay Area, most of whose records were never released - but thankfully, whose tapes were preserved. This is a really remarkable find; I've gotten to hear several of the songs from that archive and it's an extraordinary mesh of jazz, psych, funk, soul, and whatever else was swirling around San Francisco's heady musical mix in the 1970s. "Funk Punk" sounds like a lost Eugene McDaniels' song off the Headless Heroes album; it has that same, eclectic vibe and vocal touch. The song neither sounds like conventional funk nor punk, but nonetheless, it's an absolute gem of a tune. "Rapture of the Deep" is actually the more purely funky of the two; a jazz instrumental that sounds like something Lonnie Hewitt might have recorded with the San Francisco TKOs. This single is limited to only 100 copies; buy 'em now before they're gone!)
For one lucky Soul Sides reader, you'll win both. Just ID the two snippets recorded here (clues to what they are can be found above) and email your guess to soulsides AT gmail.com, subject "7-inch giveaway." Good luck!
Update: I'll give people until the end of tonight (8/31) to submit their answers and after that, I'll pick a winner at random from all correct answers.
Part of why I solicit people for their summer songs posts is because I have a hard time reinventing the wheel for my own sense of what summer means via music. This year, the one song I knew I wanted to write about was "We're Almost There" by Michael Jackson and in many ways, that song brought me back full circle to my very first summer songs post.
I had a chance to revisit that theme for a post written for NPR's Summer Songs Series:
As much as I like classic summer anthems — bright, splashy, exuberant — they rarely capture what I think of as the essence of the season. Summer wants to be immortal and endless, and that beautiful delusion has birthed countless pop songs. But for me, summer is always a tangle of conflicted emotions: hope and disappointment, desire and frustration. It's the season of promises that, at their core, are impossible to realize.
Summer is more about what we want it to be than what it actually is — what I once described as "drops of reality dissolved into a vat of fantasy." Idealism may make a potent brew, but we know the season inevitably ends. That's why my favorite summer songs are almost always tinged with fragility and marked by melancholy. This is music that admits the painful truth about summer: Even the best times won't last, as long days fade with autumn's encroaching dusk.
And here were the four songs I picked to illuminate those ideas:
Like millions, I've spent the summer of 2009 revisiting the Michael Jackson catalog. The song that continues to haunt me is "We're Almost There," from 1975's overlooked Forever, Michael. I keep getting stuck on the idea of being "almost there." The song aches with the yearning to complete, as Jackson sings, "just one more step," but it's that "almost" that lingers. "Almost" teases and tantalizes, but it's as much a threat as it is a promise. Almost means maybe we won't make it. Almost means maybe "one more step" is, as Aretha Franklin once sang, "a step too far away." That's summer in a nutshell: an ambition within reach, but also one step from being lost.
Has there ever been a smoother, more sublime summer jam than this? William Devaughn's ability to paint with such vivid lyrical imagery -- "Diamond in the back / Sunroof top / Diggin' in the seam with a gangster lean" -- is perfectly matched by the slick insouciance of the song's bass lines and conga slaps. This is no high-noon groove, though; it's a low-rider sunset, a time for quiet contemplation during the slow cruise home. Be thankful for what you got, Devaughn keeps instructing. Take nothing for granted. But even in the fading light, Devaughn's ultimate message is one of hope: "You may not have / a car at all / but remember / brothers and sisters / you can still stand tall."
If Devaughn opens solemnly but closes on an up note, Ice Cube goes the other way on this 1993 hit. He ostensibly celebrates a halcyon day of basketball games, lucky dice and a late-night motel romp. But it's the turnaround at the end of each verse that tells the true story: "nobody I knew got killed in South Central L.A." & "I didn't even to have to use my AK." Those sobering afterthoughts carry an unease echoed in the somber mood of the music itself. The sample source is The Isley Brothers' "Foosteps in the Dark," which has all the feel of a classic seduction jam: the slow tempo, the syrupy strings. But there's a sadness that flows through; those "footsteps," after all, are of a sneaking lover. "It Was a Good Day" wisely taps into that implicit discomfort. (For a contrast, listen to the far sunnier remix, which uses a different sample.)
I should add: "It Was A Good Day" was inescapable in 1993, and even now, 16 years later, it still resonates with the summer.
If I had to score summer's end, this early Heath Brothers song from 1975 would be an easy choice. It positively drips in melancholy, especially through Stanley Cowell's use of an African mbira (thumb piano) to play the memorable "Smilin' Billy" motif. I imagine the song patiently playing out as September days drift quietly towards the fall equinox. There's one last, rousing gasp of life that unexpectedly sparks at the end, but with one dramatic thump, it’s all over. Summer's gone
Last week, we posted about the Horse Meat Disco compilation recently released on Strut. They sent me a 30-minute promo mix to share with all of you. Download away!!! Only the Empire Projecting Penny track is on the actual album.
Tracklist Hot Chocolate - Disco Queen Queen - Dancer World Premier - Share The Night Empire Projecting Penny - Freakman Cerrone - Hooked On You Charanga 76 - Music Trance Fonda Rae - Heobha Melba Moore - Standing Right Here
Additionally, another 30-minute promo mix encompassing tracks from the Black Rio 2 Samba Soul comp that they sent me is now available to download. My apologies as I meant to post this a few weeks ago.
Tracklist Sonia Santos – Poema Ritmico Do Malandro Emilio Santiago – Bananeira Pete Dunaway – Supermarket Os Diagonais – Nao Vou Chorar Avan Samba – Ibere Zeca Do Trombone E Roberta Sax – Coluna Do Meio Balanca Pova – Novo Dia Renata Lu – Faz Tanta Tempo Bebeto – Princesa Negra De Angola Cry Babies – It’s My Thing Guimaraes E O Grupo Som Sagrado – Our Sound
No guarantees as to when these links may die, so grab them while they're available!
In between his big hits – 1958’s “Do You Wanna Dance” and 1964’s “C’mon And Swim” – Bobby Freeman recorded for a scant year for the legendary King Records. During this “lost” period, only one 45 was released during his stint, which, at the time, met with lukewarm results. Only after his Top 5 chart success with the Autumn label’s aforementioned “C’mon And Swim” did many of the recordings found on the new Ace release see a public release through 45s (as well as an accompanying compilation LP entitled “The Lovable Style Of Bobby Freeman”) as King was trying to capitalize on the success that they weren’t able to cash in on initially.
Most of the songs find their way on to the CD format for the first time, except for the cover of the Spaniels’ “Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight.” More exciting than that is the fact there are 5 previously unissued songs, a couple of which Freeman penned himself. The material ranges from northern soul ballads to some real stompers.
Freeman found himself ready for Star Time when he recorded a very respectable cover of The Hardest Working Man In Show Business’ “Good Good Lovin,” which has some reminiscent, although not note-for-note, horn melodies of James Brown’s “Think.” Additionally, he covered Brown’s “Please Please Please,” using a more belting singing style than the more guttural approach of Brown’s version.
Freeman’s vocal abilities were beyond proficient, especially for a young singer who had just entered his 20s, as highlighted by his take on “Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight.” The doo wop background helps to keep the song true to its origins of a sweet, end-of-the-night farewell, appropriately placed at the end of the disc.
His work at King carried on the tradition of early rock and roll while starting to show signs of his growing talent, artistry, and songwriting that would go on to influence Sam Cooke and others while keeping the crowd dancing with his performances on touring revues. In all, this compilation is an excellent snapshot of a growing artist that is as interesting for showing that growth as it is for exposing how labels hold back material (for reasons still unknown even today in this case).
Nice, nice, nice: Daptone has resurrected an old single from the days of Desco - the most influential retro-funk label of the 1990s. Right towards the end of the label, before its founders parted ways to form Soul Fire and Daptone Records, respectively, Desco cut a pair of songs featuring Naomi Shelton and Cliff Driver, including "Wind Your Clock," an absolute mid-tempo stomper. However, they were only able to press up a few white label copies before the label folded and the song purely existed as an uber-rare collector's item. 10 years later and Daptone are finally putting it out (backed with "Talkin' About a Good Thing").
This song is superb, easily one of the best things I've heard from any of the three labels mentioned. Hopefully, for non-vinylites (and really, what's your excuse for not having a basic turntable?), they'll have this out in a digital format soon enough. In the meantime, if you rock records, you need this. Seriously.
Stones Throw just released a new video for Mayer's “Maybe So, Maybe No” cover. Nice little summer party toward the end of the video. A couple of shout-outs to the King of Pop are mixed in the video, too.
Also, on Stones Throw's Jukebox you can hear “Your Easy Lovin (Ain't Pleasin Nothin)” from his upcoming album. He definitely shows his Detroit roots with this nice little Motown Sound backbeat. With the mini-break coming out of that first hook, I always think The Supremes are going to jump in with “No love, love... don't come easy.” Of course they don't, but that's okay. That infectious hook and the way he stretches out “blue” right before the chorus as well as that sax solo are more than enough to put a nod in my head and a smile on my face.
Best believe this album is one to buy come September 8/9. Hold off on just one Beatles reissue for this album. You won't be disappointed.
The Dynamites feat. Charles Walker: If I Had Known From the forthcoming Burn It Down (Thirty Tigers, 2009)
Nashville's Dynamites, with vocalist Charles Walker, are about to tour in anticipation of their upcoming album, Burn It Down.
August 28th, Fort Wayne Botanical, Fort Wayne, IN August 29th, Sweet Corn Festival, Urbana, IL August 30th, Stokie’s Backlot Bash, Stokie, IL September 11th, Mercy Lounge, Nashville, TN September 12th, The Masquerade, Atlanta, GA September 17th, Middle East Upstairs, Cambridge, MA September 18th, Pianos, New York, NY September 19th, The Note, Westchester, PA September 20th, Southpaw, Brooklyn, NY September 22nd, Beachland Tavern, Cleveland, OH September 23rd, Schuba’s Tavern, Chicago, IL September 24th, Radio Radio, Indianapolis, IN September 25th, Southgate House, Newport, KY September 26th, TBA, Cleveland, OH October 2nd, Tipitina’s Uptown, New Orleans, LA
Looking forward to any West Coast dates they may add; I'm curious to see these guys throw it down live.
The winners for the John Legend tickets are listed below. Thank you again to the Creative Artists Agency for sponsoring the contest.
August 15 – Philadelphia, PA (The Mann Center) – Debbie Belgrove – WINNER! September 1 – Los Angeles, CA (Greek Theatre) – Jason Gilmore – WINNER!
I had the chance to see John in my hometown and he put on a very energetic show. He's much more comfortable away from the piano now than he was earlier in his career. The show featured a return to a lot of material from “Get Lifted,” and of course he performed many songs from his current album “Evolver.” My favorite was a stripped down version of “Everybody Knows.” John sat on a stool while an acoustic guitar strummed the melody for most of the song before the rest of the band kicked in for a spirited finale.
India Arie was more than worthy as the opener. After some opening technical difficulties with the microphone, she breezed through hits such as “Video,” played the flute on several songs, and performed a stunning version of “Ghetto,” from her latest album “Testimony Vol. 1, Love & Politics.” She even covered Sade's “Pearls” before her set was finished. Some around me were saying they didn't know if John Legend could top her performance!
Questions:
1. John Legend founded this charity to fight extreme poverty that was, in part, named after a song from his sophomore CD Once Again. 2. John really upped the tempo for this lead radio single from Evolver featuring a southern ATLien rapper. Name the song. 3. Name the soul legend who John collaborated with for last year's Grammy-winning “Stay With Me (By The Sea).”
Social Climbers: Chris and Debbie From (Hoboken, 1981)
In principle, I really like the whole idea of No Wave; I just don't happen to be that knowledgeable about the movement besides a cursory awareness of 99 Records, Liquid Liquid and ESG (given their influence on hip-hop). When Cool Chris started playing the Social Climbers LP at the Groove Merchant (as you may have noticed, most of my recent posts have all been inspired by my recent trip to the Bay), I was really drawn into the blend of sounds here. Most obviously - at first - it's that funky drum programming which wouldn't have been out of place on Arthur Baker-produced New Order project. Then comes in those hypnotic, druggy guitars and ska-influenced bassline. It's like the great loves of my '80s - New Wave + hip-hop, swirled together.
According to Waxidermy, even though Social Climbers were signed to the NJ-based Hoboken Records, the group is actually from Indiana. (Waxidermy also has another song by them for your listening pleasure).
Speaking of Liquid, Liquid...
Liquid Liquid: Lock Groove (In) From Successive Reflexes EP (99, 1981). Also on Liquid Liquid
I picked this up ages ago (also from the Groove Merchant) and have been meaning to write about it and now seemed as good a time as any. Liquid Liquid is arguably the best-known of the artists who released on 99 and their post-punk-meets-hip-hop sound has been one of the most influential of all the No Wave artists. In contrast to "Chris and Debbie" which had a more distinct swing to it, "Lock Groove (In)" feels more mechanical (though still funky) and cold, though, compared to, say, Kraftwerk, this is positively cozy.
I had made passing reference to the Jackson 5 song during all the MJ coverage - it's from a medley of "Walk On By/Love You Save" recorded for the group's live Goin' Back to Indiana album. It's hard to imagine someone really improving one of the most epic, monster funk jams in soul music history but the Jackson 5 really understand the power of that vamp, especially at the breakdowns that come back every 30 seconds.
It's the incredible ferocity of this moment that Public Enemy so beautifully wields to their full advantage on "By the Time I Get to Arizona." What they do at 2:47 in their song is nothing short but a complete distillation of the badassessence of everything that came before it - The Jackson 5, Isaac Hayes, heck, we'll show Burt Bacharach and Hal Davis love here too. They then take this 200 proof spirit, douse the song in it and then light it all on fire.
To put it in a less convoluted-metaphoric way: the moment where the vamp slams in on "Arizona" is, to me, the "Greatest Moment of a Public Enemy Song That Doesn't Come At the Beginning."
Seriously, think about this a second: P.E. has probably the all-time best song openers in hip-hop history. To wit:
1) How Flavor Flav's "yeaaaah, boy!" slides into Chuck D's "bass!" at the beginning of "Bring the Noise." 2) Chuck and Flavor Flav combining to yell, "Nineteen Eighty Nine!" on "Fight the Power." 3) The horn punches sliding into the descending sax - plus Chuck's "Yes!" - on "Rebel Without a Pause." 4) The line, "I got a letter from the government, the other day..." on "Black Steel In the Hour of Chaos."
...you get the idea.
In this case, the key moment isn't at the song's beginning but rather, when "Walk On By" drops in unexpectedly, as Chuck intones, "by the time I get to Arizona!"
The impact is simply devastating. The group flips the first chorus of the Jackson 5 song, which includes the screams of the audience. On the Jackson 5, those screams reflect the fans' excitement; on "Arizona," they sound more like cries of terror, as if P.E. has swept into AZ with an ungodly fury. This is Krishna's arrow, Fudo's sword, Thor's hammer. It takes a nation of a million Minutemen to hold them back.
Lastly, I'd be remiss in not at least giving due credit to the excellence that is Mandrill's "Two Sisters of Mystery" since it provides the main loop that runs through "Arizona." On any other song, this would be the highlight - those angry, buzzing guitars, the slurring bassline - but as good as it is, when the J5 come through, there's no contest.
(A note by a commentor reminded me that I should link to the video for "Arizona" which takes things to a whole 'nother level. I forgot they even made a video for the song and watching it now, you can see that even visually, the group knew how to time the use of the "Walk On By" vamp perfectly with the explosion of violence you see depicted on screen. Mississippi goddamn, this was one incredible video.)
Spinnerty feat. EP and Czar Absolute: Feels Like Rain From 7" (Trazmick, 2008)
At some point last year, someone suggested to me: "check out this guy Spinnerty," including a link to "Sweet Soul." I instantly dug the vibe, it reminded me some of Adriana Evans' songs from the early 1990s or a track that would have gotten some love at Nickies BBQ in the Haight. I should have already known this was out of the Bay but for whatever reason, I thought it was from Seattle. I also couldn't quite figure out who Elliot Peck was but I'm assuming it's the female singer on here...the fact that she's name "Elliot" is both strange and cool.
It wasn't until I was actually on Haight, at the Groove Merchant, listening to Spinnerty's latest earlier 45, "Feels Like Rain" that I discovered: duh, Spinnerty, 1) isn't a group. It's a guy and 2) he's currently living in the Bay (though he's originally from the Midwest).
As much as I liked "Sweet Soul," I really, really, really loved "Feels Like Rain." I credit those sweeping vocals looped up in the background but this is so easy to throw onto single-song repeat and just keep playing it over and over. Peck is back, this time credited as "EP" and joining her is rapper Czar Absolute who drops two small verses. The song works better with vocals but there's nothing wrong with flip the instrumental on as a lovely bit of background.
Update: I got a nice email from Dan "Spinnerty" Finnerty who corrected my timeline: "Feels Like Rain" actually came out before "Sweet Soul." He also filled in some backstory:
"The sample for "Feels Like Rain" I actually found at Rooky's [another record store in the Lower Haight]. It's a funny record because you can hear one of the guys coughing halfway through and some other foibles like that. I was over at Elliott's house doing some recording of another emcee for a different track and was playing some beats and heard Elliott humming along in the other room a la the oooooo'ing that made the final version. DING. Lightbulb went off."
Joe Bataan: Sadie I Do Love You From The Years of Soul (Century, 1992)
Being the avid Joe Bataan fan I am, when he mentioned that he had recorded an album for a Japanese label in the early '90s, it perked my curiosity since this was during the era that Bataan wasn't recording at all. Best I can tell, Years of Soul is the only album he sat down for between the early '80s and early '00s and given that it came out on a Japanese imprint, it's probably his most obscure album.
I'd love to say it's this great, unsung masterpiece but truth be told, it's forgettable, especially given a Euro-disco sound that I don't find particularly successful here. That said, two songs still worth checking - "Sadie" is a remake of "Gypsy Woman," one of Bataan's earliest hits and I could pass up sharing his cover of Billy Stewart's classic lowrider jam, "I Do Love You," which, to me, was the strongest track on the album given Bataan's penchant for the slow groover.
The Metros: Sweetest One Since I Found My Baby From Sweetest One (RCA, 1967)
Dustygroove.com's been re-releasing a slew of CDs for the last couple of years and it's covered a wide range of styles, from latin funk, to soul jazz, to Brazilian. As far as I can tell, their reissue of The Metros' Sweetest One is their first foray into Northern soul. The genre is really much more based around singles and Sweetest One is part of a select group of Northern soul LPs that have become collector favorites. I was lucky enough to score a copy I found stored in the bathroom of The Groove Merchant, of all places.
Given that I'm hardly a NS expert (though a budding fan), I figured to lend some background, I'd bite from Black Sheep Magazine: "The Metros were a Detroit quintet comprising singers Fred Mitchell, Percy Williams, Robert Suttles, James Buckman and Gordon Dunn. That sweetly soulful doo-wop style track is the opening cut on this little-known 10-track album, which significantly also includes the propulsive Northern Soul anthem ‘Since I Found My Baby,’ a song penned by moonlighting Motown Funk Brother, percussionist Jack Ashford. Other Motor Town luminaries appearing on this session include pianist/arranger, Joe Hunter, guitarists Eddie Willis and Dave Hamilton, and sax player, Mike Terry, whose contributions elevate the album in terms of quality and consistency.
It’s true to say that ‘Sweetest One’ is a cut above most soul albums from the same timeframe - there are no weak cuts or obvious filler and the whole package has a sense of artistic cohesion that was often absent from Motown albums from the same period. Given this, it’s strange, therefore, that The Metros failed become really successful – the liner note writer suggests that the reason for this was that the group’s music was too black for white consumers and too white for black record buyers. Maybe – but it may have more to do with how RCA (not a label renowned for its soul acts) marketed The Metros. What is unequivocal, however, is that this is a mighty fine album that no self-respecting soul aficionado should ignore or live without."
I'll certainly agree on the quality front - this is a surprisingly consistent effort, with quite a few solid tunes in the mix though, perhaps not surprisingly, the two favorites of mine are still the obvious ones. "Sweetest One" makes great use of the group's multi-layered harmonies; it has a classic Motown flavor drizzled all over it, complete with that infused sense of joy that's so much a part of their legacy. "Since I Found My Baby" is one of the best uptempo soul tracks I've heard in a while; it's anchored by a great bassline and the background vocals are aces here.
NOTE: Instead of the traditional player that Soul-Sides normally uses, I embedded audio of the full album to peruse. You should just be able to click on Music in the lower left and then click on the song of your choice.
After a D'Angelo-like hiatus, Maxwell released his fourth studio album on July 7th. While he was away having new life experiences to write about, the soul music landscape has undergone quite a few changes. When Now, his last album, was released in 2001, neo soul was still making a small run at R&B marketshare and Jamie Foxx was just starting his run at more serious movie roles and not yet focused on topping charts. Today, the mainstream R&B front, on the whole, is more watered-down than ever (“Birthday Sex” - really, this is what it has come to???) and Jamie Foxx is making auto-tune hits.
This go-round, Maxwell's coif is not blown out but he's still blowing up the radio. The first single “Pretty Wings,” a ballad about letting go of a failing relationship, quickly shot to #1 on the urban charts. While the album does feature a couple of funky tunes, namely in the choppy horn groover “Cold,” it's primarily a slow jam affair. Maxwell, with his ability to go from natural singing voice right into a smooth falsetto, is a master of vocal sensuality; some critics have even said he's the premiere R&B vocalist of his generation.
Sensuality doesn't always have to mean explicitly sexual-filled rants of play-by-(fore)play; there's something to be said for leaving something to the imagination and allowing the sway of the music, vocal intonations, and bending of notes to open the door to the boudoir so YOU take care of bedroom business – not the singer getting you through every position before the first chorus. Marvin proved that to us years ago with his sexually-laden Let's Get It On album. Along those lines, Maxwell knows that less can truly be more. In the school where he comes from, set the mood and the rest will take care of itself.
The Miracles laid an indelible mark on popular music in the 1960s. They were Motown’s first group but had the distinct advantage of an ace up their sleeves. Few could write a tune and make a clever play on words (“What’s So Good About Goodbye”) and phrases (“Shop Around”) like Smokey Robinson. The latter is so deceptively masterful with its witty marriage of consumer colloquialisms and relationships that it’s easy to trick yourself into thinking that you, too, could write such a seemingly simple song (which is why that song has become a staple of American popular music playlists). It’s neither black nor white, which is exactly where Motown aimed (and succeeded many times over).
It’s interesting how songs that charted in yesteryear can get lost in time. “A Love She Can Count On” charted as high as #21 on the R&B charts back in 1963 but has been excluded from numerous Miracles compilations. The background vocals, especially in the live version, help make what would otherwise be a mediocre song into a great song. This particular live version was recorded during the Motortown Revue in Chicago in the early ‘60s. As they strip the layers out of the song and allow Smokey to ad lib about how to woo a woman, it shows the power of performing for a crowd and engaging them conversationally.
The set comprises their albums through May of 1963. In addition to the classics heard to this day on oldies radio, you also get a reminder of the direction that the Miracles were heading (before reversing course) in 1961/1962 covering some pop standards and American songbook titles such as “On The Street Where You Live” and “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” They even had a pending album release called Miracles Sing Modern that was ultimately shelved for unknown reasons. Perhaps they realized that they had too many great songwriters in their stable to sing other people’s songs. They had their own classics to create.
Hip-O puts it all together in a slick digipak that has a double-gatefold. Much like the recent Michael Jackson set, the CDs slip into the cardboard with no extra protection. One nice touch, though, is the glossy cardstock insert that features a replica of the fronts and backs of the albums to help retain the vintage feel. Album art is an artform that is unfortunately lost in this disposable digital age. Fortunately, the music lives on despite a changing business model. Good songwriting always prevails, and that’s no miracle.
Over the last month there has certainly been no shortage of Michael Jackson coverage by the media, Soul-Sides included. With the megastar status he held, it's hard to believe that at one time he was just a child singing songs with a fervor and understanding well beyond his pre-teen and pubescent years. So for a brief few moments, let's forget the hoopla and concentrate on one of the elements that elevated him to another level – the music.
Hello World: The Motown Solo Collection gathers material from his Motown solo albums from 1972-1975 which have been out of print on CD for a number of years. Additionally, vaulted material that appeared on mid-80s LP compilations such as Looking Back To Yesterday and Farewell My Summer Love (both of which contained overdubs on many of the tracks) are included. Farewell My Summer Love has its accompanying original mixes also included. You can hear how the horns were substituted by an electric guitar in “Don't Let It Get You Down” in the '80s version. Many of the overdubs also substitute in those popular synths and drums from the mid-80s.
It's quite fun to be able to listen to this material in a sitting to hear how his voice changes from spunky little kid to budding young man. While Motown certainly leaned a share of material toward the aw-shucks-kid vein (“With A Child's Heart”), it also let him cover much more serious material such as Withers' “Ain't No Sunshine,” the Miracles' “You've Really Got A Hold On Me,” and Wilson's “Lonely Teardrops.” Elsewhere, he also sang a spirited cover (at age 11, mind you) of Starr's “Twenty-Five Miles” that was subsequently cut from Got To Be There. It's no wonder he helped to usher in a sub-genre of kid soul.
Hip-O Select has done an excellent job with the remasters and really outdid themselves with the packaging. It's a small hardcover book – not quite two CDs wide – with glossy color pages featuring pictures from the album photo shoots along with other tour and press photos. One picture that struck me in particular was a picture of Michael in what appears to be a room with art supplies and a desk. In the background is a drawing of Charlie Chaplin.
This 3-CD release was planned well before Michael's untimely death, and it's rather ironic that this picture made the cut given that his brother Jermaine sang "Smile," penned by Chaplin, as a tribute during the celebration of life a couple of weeks ago. The only complaint about the release is that there is no protection for the CDs as they just tuck into the back cardboard of the packaging. Aside from that small gripe, the whole package is fantastic and well worth the price. Given its 7,000 limited edition run, it may not last long.
Lee Fields: Bewildered b/w Tell Her I Love Her From 7" (Bedford, 1969)
Just picked this up at the Groove Merchant over the weekend - supposedly Fields very first single, released back in '69. I'm really feeling "Bewildered" especially - so Southern soul!
Quantic and His Combo Barbaro: Mambo Los Quantic I Just Fell In Love Again From Tradition in Transition (Tru Thought, 2009)
It's good to be Will "Quantic" Holland. His soul/funk remixes and productions are some of the best out there but then he went to developed a love affair with Colombian music and that's opened into a whole new, beautiful arena of music to craft.
This new album finds Holland teaming up with some of the same players who graced the Quantic Soul Orchestra's excellent 2007 album, Tropidélico, including the ever-excellent pianist Alfredo Linares, legendary Brazilian composer and guitarist Arthur Verocai, drumming bad ass Malcolm Catto and the singing talents of Panama's Kabir.
The album is an intriguing blend of multiple styles; it's not as "Latin" as you might initially expect. Instead, the group finds a way to bring in any number of different elements - a little cumbia here, some Afro-beat there, a dose of shing-a-ling, a whole lotta soul - to each song. "Mambo Los Quantic" is perhaps the closet thing to a set "genre" as you can find here but even then, it's not like you'd confuse it for something that would have rotated through the Palladium back in the day. "I Just Feel In Love Again" showcases the contribution Kabir brings to the Combo and I love the kind of happy energy emanating as the song shifts through sharp solos from the assembled talent.
Bonus beat: Nostalgia 77 feat. Alice Russell: Seven Nation Army From the forthcoming Tru Thoughts Covers.
Quantic's long-time label partners at Tru Thoughts are readying a compilation of cover songs and I am, quite predictably, looking forward to what they're bringing. One of the first songs they're circulating is this awesome cover of the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" that first came out in 2004. It's incredible how monstrous they've made the signature bassline and when Alice Russell comes tearing in on the vocals, it's enough to make you cry. Hopefully, I can bring you at least one more selection off this comp once it drops later this summer.
(Editor's note: It must feel good to be running The Numero Group. One of the advantages to creating one of the best reissue labels of our generation is that when something unexpected turns up - say the tapes of the unreleased second 24CB LP - you're in the position to really do something good with it. When last I wrote about the group's debut album, Ghetto: Misfortune's Wealth, I noted that it was one of those "big digger titles" that was so incredibly good as to transcend its status as as "big digger title." Not surprisingly, any other material by the group would be of major interest and thanks to TNG, we now have access to these long-lost tapes. --O.W.)
24 Carat Black was headed by Dale Warren whose music, with its challenging, often operatic backdrops, was panned by critics when it was initially released. With its dark lyrical, musical, and topical overtones, it was too close to home to have any real commercial success. To further complicate matters, Stax was going broke. A couple of years after “Ghetto: Misfortune’s Wealth” was issued, Stax turned belly up.
Numero has dug up lost treasure with material that was being worked on for the follow-up album. Much of it was damaged beyond repair, lost to the sands of times. However, what has survived gives us a glimpse of the direction that Warren was headed. The societal doldrums were mostly gone as Warren had decided to revisit some material he had previously written as well as rearrange other work. However, darkness still looms over the album with titles such as “I Begin To Weep,” “I Don't Love You,” and “The Best Of Good Love Gone.”
While the most known feature might be the title cut's reworking of the Mad Lads classic, the album is filled with imaginative reinventions. The opening song has a slick and slinky bass groove that really rides while Princess Hearn's vocal interpretation of material that was well beyond her teenage years is both breathy and emotion-filled. Elsewhere, the album's most light-hearted affair is“I'll Never Let You Go,” which is jaunty at first (reminiscent of the first album's “Brown Baggin”) before an explosive bridge that then transforms into an almost masturbatory interlude and finally revisiting its bouncy beginnings.
Numero's blog, periodically updated by the powers that be at the label, has linked clips of some of the original material against Warren's reworkings that give you an idea of his new vision. Interestingly, they also posted another song from the project that was too damaged to make the final cut. You can also hear other snippets here.
Warren took away any further insight of the record's proceedings with his death in the mid-'90s. We may never know what the final product may have sounded like in full form, but we get a glimpse into the producer's mind of where the project was going. Incomplete never felt so satisfying.
It's a bit odd that in 2009, someone would mash-up Jay-Z's 2001 album, Blueprint with a series of J-Dilla beats. Furthermore, let's just answer the question:
If Dilla had produced The Blueprint, Jay-Z would have taken an L. That's no diss on Jay Dee but c'mon now - it's not like Kanye West and Just Blaze were exactly slacking on what's arguably one of the best produced albums this decade. What's next? "What if J Dilla Produced It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back?" (Note: maybe Def Jam should release the acapellas to that album).
All this said, I have to admit that I am loving this remix of "Never Change." I'm not saying it's better than the OG, I'm just saying it's good - so laid-back yet slightly sinister.
And it really brings to mind how Burt Bacharach compositions (in this case, "The Look of Love") make for potentially great sample fodder given that 1) they're familiar enough to catch our attention and 2) they're generally classics in basic, simple but rich songwriting and arrangements. When I was listening to this, I immediately thought of another mash-up from a couple years back:
Show and A.G.: You Know Now (Buckwild Remix) From Goodfellas (Payday, 1995)
And just to really blow your mind, here's the Jackson 5 throwing down their take on Isaac Hayes' version of "Walk On By." The LP version of this appeared on their live Goin' Back to Indiana album.
For all those video jocks out there or if you just love to watch a good concert in the comfort of your own home, PublicTelevision.org is now selling Raphael Saadiq's “Live From The Artists Den” concert on DVD before it's available anywhere else. Proceeds from this pre-release will benefit New York Public Media. Starting July 21, you can purchase it at your local retailer as well. It's never too early to start shopping for Christmas!
If you enjoyed “The Way I See It” by Raphael Saadiq, you can be sure you'll love this excellent companion piece. You can watch a clip below.
The DVD track list is:
1. 100 Yard Dash 2. Love That Girl 3. Keep Marching 4. Thinking Of You 5. Living For The Weekend 6. Dance Tonight 7. La La 8. Sure Hope You Mean It 9. Charlie Ray 10. Be Here 11. Still Ray 12. Just One Kiss 13. Oh Girl 14. Let’s Take A Walk 15. Big Easy 16. Staying In Love 17. Love That Girl Reprise 18. Skyy, Can You Feel Me
Thanks to Eric to an excellent review of Fields' new CD, My World. I have a couple of pieces on Fields being readied for NPR but they don't appear until later this month. In the meantime, I had a few "leftovers" that I thought folks here would enjoy.
Here's the thing you must understand about Fields - he is far, far, far more prolific than you can imagine. Even someone like Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings - who have an impressive catalog - pale in comparison to the volume of music that Fields has put out. People who think of Fields as a primarily retro-soul guy don't even realize that this constitutes the minority of his output. Peep the discog. Fields is a monster in the Southern soul/blues scene and while retro-soul fans probably would blanch at the sonic style of that music, there's no denying that Fields has as many fans - if not more - in that regional, thriving scene as he does amongst listeners who like him for his throwback style.
Moreover, even within the retro-soul circles, Fields has been a straight up monster when it comes to output. Peep the track record - he is, by far, the most recorded singer in that community, having worked with: Desco, Soul Fire, Truth and Soul AND Daptone, which doesn't even include all his other contemporary projects.
I assembled a small sampling of Fields work, from his first album through some more current material, though heavy on songs that many probably haven't heard since most of them were only on vinyl 7" or compilations.
Lee Fields: Flim Flam From Let's Talk It Over (Angle 3, 1979)
This instrumental cooker is off of Fields' debut album back in 1979 but the date is a bit misleading since he had been recording throughout the '70s; he just didn't release a full-length until '79. I don't know for certain but "Flim Flam" certainly sounds like something recorded earlier in the decade though given how hard "Little J.B." rode that '60s raw funk vibe, I wouldn't be surprised if this was his attempt at recapturing some of that magic, even in the heart of the disco era.
Lee Fields: Steam Train From Let's Get a Groove On (Desco, 1999)
Along with Sharon Jones, Fields was the perfect vocalist for Desco back in its heyday. He just had "that sound" that went with their house musicians, most of whom would end up in the Dap-kings. "Steamtrain" came out on 7" as well as the big "comeback" retro-soul album, Let's Get a Groove On. I really dig how the rhythm section here recreates the feel of a rolling train.
Speaking of the Dap-Kings, Fields ended up recording with them too (as well as the Sugarmen 3) for a few singles with the then-nascent Daptone label. This colalbo churned out yet another uptempo funk burner.
Lee Fields: Honey Dove (OG Version) From Problems (Soul Fire, 2002)
"Honey Dove," without a doubt, is my favorite Lee Fields song but while most people have heard his version with The Expressions, the original version of the song came out on his 2002 album, Problems recorded for Soul Fire (the other label, besides Daptone, that came out of Desco's dissolution). Personally, I think the Expressions improved on this song considerably but I wanted people to hear the OG to get a sense of the song's evolution.
Martin Solveig: I'm A Good Man From Sur La Terre (Defected, 2005)
I didn't even realize this until very recently, but Fields drew the attention of French DJ/producer Martin Solveig around the same time he was recording with Soul Fire and that's turned into a very fruitful partnership as the two men have recorded (I believe) four songs together thus far, which doesn't include a ton of remixes, especially for their first song together, "I'm a Good Man." The song strikes a fine balance between obviously club/electronic-oriented but Fields helps ground it with his vocals.
(Editor's note: That whole "I'm done with MJ posts"? Ok, so that was premature. Sorry but the hits just keep on coming! This is from James Cavicchia, my favorite "music writer who is not professionally a music writer but better than many music writers who are" and a message board post he is allowing me to reprint. --O.W.)
"When I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever been fully convinced by Michael Jackson, really. Not convinced by the squeaky-clean pre-teen singing about women troubles in every other song, not convinced by the timid good-timer of Off The Wall (though I always think of Michael dancing, I never ever think of him dancing with anyone—do you?), not convinced by the cuddly werewolf/virginal baby-daddy/china-fine gang-war mediator of Thriller, and on and on. He was never convincingly girl-weary as a young boy, and never convincingly romantic, aggressive, or sexual as an adult. He always seemed to be just outside of the real action. And while this made me feel very affectionate toward him—he was so clearly a kid, one of us, who had somehow fooled the right people and infiltrated the adult world—none of his music ever seemed to have any real place in any reality that I was familiar with. I managed to grow up loving his music without it actually meaning anything to me; it felt huge and important, but weightless. Like cartoons.
I know that sounds pretty negative, but what it actually ends up meaning is that Michael Jackson’s music works on me with a purity matched by few. Because for all the levels on which it may be suspect—lyrics, persona, whatever—there is one level on which it always always convinces: the sound. Three certainties in life: You will definitely die, you will always pay taxes, and you will never ever say “Man, that Michael Jackson song doesn’t sound as good as I remember.” It will only ever sound better, I promise you. Whatever suspension of disbelief the songs may require, and however little connection they may have to anything outside their own miniature fantasias, their reign within the borders of their runtime is absolute. They are unalloyed pop-music-production genius galvanized by Michael’s voice, which is not always the most integral piece, but is always, finally, the most necessary one. At the same time their immense commercial success keeps them present and current within culture, their essential unreality and inhuman inner perfection allow them to operate outside of time. They often seem less like actual songs and more like ideas that we’re all having at the same time. To hear them is to think, “Well, yeah—of course.”
And “I Want You Back” is the best Michael Jackson song. It’s not quite my favorite (“The Love You Save” narrowly edges it), but it’s the best, and is one of what I usually consider to be the two archetypal Perfect Pop Songs. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot (I know, right?): The Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” and The Who’s “I Can’t Explain” divide the world between them—there is no third.
It starts with that piano curlicue that doubles back on itself before it’s even gone and tagging the guitar at the turn, the two together sounding like they could flip the entire sun like a fucking flapjack. Then the strings come in and then the bongos and then and then and then, and it’s not harmonious, exactly—there’s crisp separation between each instrument, and everything’s in its own space, but the sheer mass of all the pieces gives it this beautiful kind of overfull clatter. There’s a quick sense that not only could there not possibly be anything better, there couldn’t possibly be anything else. Mike glides down in full whine, and from here on out the song stubbornly defies momentum—it stays stopping and starting, the drums jump in place (only on the choruses, though—no drums at all on the verses), and it’s the most glorious parade in the world, too generous, and stopping at every house. It should annoy, but the thing is that after every single stop, it somehow manages—incredibly—to sound even better when it starts back up. You don’t think it will, but it does, every single time. By the end, hearts and ears bulge at the seams from the undiminished return.
And although the song never puts across the sense of loss that you’d assume from the title, it’s okay, because it’s not really trying to. The amiable bass and the daylight guitar and that plinky piano that get sprinkled in seem to understand Michael in a way that Michael doesn’t understand the song (and probably couldn't, at his age): Despite the literal desperation of the lyrics, and even though he works overtime to sell us on it, it’s clear from Michael’s perfect, explosive vocal that he does not believe even for an instant that it won’t all work out, and the genius of the music is that it recognizes that this—the faith and the gold of youth—is the point of the song, not some girl, some…other. The point is the I, not the want. Just listen to the little vocal break before the last chorus: Mike’s trying to preach it on what would ostensibly be the climax of this love-lost song, but behind him is this springy guitar line cake-walking with some easter-bunny bassline. Like I said: There's an understanding. Understanding that when Michael sings “Won’t you please let me / back in your heart?”, it isn’t actually a question.
Was it ever, really?"
-James Cavicchia
Bonus beat: Jackson 5: I Want You Back (Z-Trip Remix) From Motown Remixed Vol 1 (Motown, 2005
This is (probably) going to be the last post I'm going to do on M-J-5 for the time being, bringing to a close a rather crazy 5 day period where it was all MJ, all the time.
1) I just recorded this in the morning: The Soul Sides Kitchen-Cast w/ Ann Powers. Besides being a good friend, Ann also happens to be chief pop critic at the L.A. Times and I invited her over to talk about MJ's musical and cultural legacy in my kitchen (for the record, my green room provides Orangina and mixed nuts).
Here's the podcast in streaming form or you can download it here.
2) Wil and I recorded our Boogaloo[la] set from last Thursday which includes a 2 hour opening set that includes a good deal of lesser known J5 and MJ covers/remixes/songs. Then there was our 2 hour MJ5 set which slammed down all the "best ofs" into a party-smashing mix. You can download both:
Tribute set (Just remember this was recorded live!)
P.S.: I've been trying to figure out why I've been so compelled to stay on story over the last five days and it's certainly not out of the tabloid fascination that will only grow (and get uglier) in the weeks to come. It's the music, always the music, that keeps drawing me back in and it finally dawned on me this morning that while MJ certainly wasn't the first pop artist I heard in my lifetime, he was so utterly everywhere at my entry into the pop world that everything I love about music, about its emotional power and reach - MJ was a foremost influence. In other words, his music was one of the most important ways through which I learned to love music. And so, in paying tribute to that musical legacy, I'm really just trying to find a way to express an appreciation for a gift that, 30 years after I first shook my tush to "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough," has continued to enrich my life on a daily basis. For that gift, I will remain forever thankful for MJ's music, regardless of what I may think of the man behind them.
Lee Fields: Honey Dove From My World (Truth & Soul, 2009)
If at first you don't succeed... well, you know the rest. Lee Fields lives the mantra. During the 70s he released several 7”s and a full length but never made it big. Thanks to crate diggers, he never left the conscience of the soul faithful. Truth & Soul, true to their name, signed him and released his latest album earlier this month.
“Honey Dove” is quite representative of the album. With a lazy-summer-day guitar strum, it floats along like a gentle breeze. Fields fills the track with pleas to a lover who has gone and is begging her to come back. Toward the end of the track, horns gently blare echoing his yearning for his lover's return.
Production is helmed by Jeff Silverman, who, before T & S made a name with the too-short-lived Soul Fire, and Leon Michels (of El Michels Affair fame) along with their coterie, and Fields takes to the mic and serves up a batch of goodness. “My World” is a smoothed-out and sublime work. The album even exhibits a couple of instrumental numbers, a rare feature of a vocal LP these days. Fields also mellows out the Supremes/HDH classic “My World Is Empty Without You.” Vocally, the album is a honey-tinged exhibit, a lesson in doing what you can do well. You don't need bells and whistles when you know how to make music sweet like this.
Last Thursday, Wil and I put together a night o' Michael, capped with a two hour set of straight M-J-5 songs that pretty much had the dance floor filled from start to finish.
Anyone who has every DJed any party, anywhere knows that when everything else fails, you can always put on some MJ and it's like Insta-Party. As a fellow DJ wrote, "MJ has always been the most "guaranteed go-to" artist for DJs in the history of DJs." True that.
The thing is...it's so easy to get the party started with MJ, it's like an unfair advantage over the audience. It's so easy that I've usually avoided playing anything too obvious by MJ simply because...it's too easy.
And I was thinking: who else comes close to having that kind of power? The only artist even in the conversation is Prince but even then, we're talking about Purple Rain-era Prince mostly whereas with MJ, you can drop everything from "I Want You Back" (1970) to "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" (1979) to "Billie Jean" (1982) to "Smooth Criminal" (1987) and it's on like Donkey Kong.
But this post actually isn't about those songs. You don't really need me waxing poetic about "Billie Jean" or "I Want You Back." I'm here to dig beneath the #1 hits and offer up a playlist of some of my favorite M-J-5 related songs/covers/remixes that bring out the full spectrum of the artist and group's styles.
I learned about "Big Boy" gigging with some excellent soul selectors up in San Francisco and it's been a favorite "end of the night" ballad to throw on. What's remarkable here is that Jackson is...what? 9? 10? And yet listen to him try to sell his "age ain't nothin' but a #" smooth mack game. This song was evidently re-recoreded (or released with a separate mix) but I prefer the original 7" version. It's less cluttered which allows the vocal's poignancy to shine forth.
An odd choice I know, least of which is the disturbing relationship to Song of the South and Disney's minstrel embrace. But forgive me for just finding this cover to be strange and kind of compelling. I mean, it's the Jackson 5 covering "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah". 'Nuff said.
"ABC" is a cold classic, no doubt, but personally, I find myself bumpin' its numerical kin more often. I suppose Motown thought it'd be too shameless to drop this as a single too but for a formulaic song, it's irrepressibly catchy, no?
Jackson 5: Darling Dear From Third Album (Motown, 1971)
Pet peeve: no one in the Jackson camp or Motown brain trust could come up with a better title than Third Album? That aside, "Darling Dear" is one of those hidden gems from the MJ5 catalog that I only discovered recently (more on that later) and *whistle* what a beauty of a song.
Nancy Holloway: Un Amour Aussi Grand From 7" (Barclay, 1971)
Ah yes, the lovely Nancy Holloway, singing the big hit off of the Maybe Tomorrow album in français. Frankly, this song would probably work in Klingon but if you had to pick a non-English language for this, French is not a bad way to go.
Jackson 5: I Wanna Be Where You Are From In Japan! (Motown Japan, 1973)
Jackson's first solo album, released when he was all of 13, made a clear statement that he was as competent and capable rolling on his own as he was surrounded by his brothers. "I Wanna Be Where You Are" is one of the three big singles off this album (though I think far less people remember "Rockin' Robin" as compared to the title song) and has one of the most memorable opening lines in any pop song I can think of: "can it be I stayed away so long?" (Note: I love how it pops up on this song).
Hua first put me up on this live version of the song, recorded during the Jacksons tour for Japan in 1973. I actually like 1) how they take out the guitars, which I always found a bit overpowering in the mix and 2) the audience handclaps in the background. (Zulema also does a great version of this song, which I included for an NPR.com piece that should run early next week.
Michael Jackson: We've Got a Good Thing Going From Ben (Motown, 1972)
Let's first say - best album featuring a rat on its cover, ever. Second, of all the songs I've been revisiting, this is the one that has me in straight rewind mode. Love the production - The Corporation execute beautifully on the rhythms and textures of this ballad and the songwriting is memorable without being overly simplistic. This song doesn't just "work" - it (and god help me, I really couldn't find a better phrase to use here even if it sounds like total boilerplate)...sings.
DJ Bobo James: Good Thing Goin' Michael Jackson: We're Almost There (DJ Spinna Remix) Both from Soul Source: Jackson 5 Remixes, Vol. 2 (Universal, 2001)
I should give credit - the main reason I know anything about either "We've Got a Good Thing" or "Darling Dear" is because I first heard the two songs combined in an awesome remix by DJ Bobo James. The first part of the song is playing off of "We've Got a Good Thing," especially the piano melody and then, midway through, he shifts to work off the strings of "Darling Dear." Put together, it's just a beaut of a song and it fueled my desire to hear the originals.
On the same album, DJ Spinna drops another incredible remix, this one for "We're Almost There," from Jackson's slept-on Forever, Michael LP (his last for Motown). Wil ended our MJ tribute with this song and it was perfect. Dare I say but I think Spinna actually improves on the original here by stripping things down and building around the intense mix of hope and melancholy sublimated into Michael's vocals.
Not all demo versions are necessarily worth a listen but in this case, the demo reveals so much about the musical process that resulted in one of the best songs off of Off the Wall. I really like how it sounds here, all stripped down and unglossy.
For my NPR.com piece, I included the fantastic Derrick Laro and Trinity version of this song.
SWV: Right Here (Human Nature Duet, Demolition Mix) From Remixes EP (RCA, 1994)
Ok - we've arrived at Thriller (and I skipped over quite a few M-J-5 albums prior to this, I'll try to revisit those in a later post). Remember when SWV was kind of running sh-- back around '93/'94? Their remix EP finally cobbled together some of their stronger material, including that Wu-Tang remix of "Anything" that caught serious play for a hot minute. But you really couldn't front on the smoothness that was the "Human Nature Duet" mix which blended together "Right Here" and "Human Nature." To this day, I've wondered if they actually cleared the MJ and if so, what it cost them to do so.
In no way does this trump the awesomeness of the album version but it's interesting just to hear this super-quiet storm approach to the song in its infancy stages.
Floetry: Butterflies (demo) From Floetic (Geffen, 2002)
I didn't realize until now that "Butterflies," my favorite MJ song post-Thriller (and featured on his 2001 Invincible album) was actually, originally, a Floetry song, recorded by them in 1997 which MJ then basically re-recorded his vocals over. The tracks are almost identical except that the original Floetry version has that doubling of the snare every two bars or so which sounds somewhere between "cool" and "clunky." Otherwise, if you put this and MJ's up, side to side, you can hear how close they are. And I have to say...I think Jackson has the better vocal performance here (but hey, it's Michael).
For a change, I did a basic mix of everything above. You can stream below or DL here.
As I started to compose my thoughts for this piece, my jotted notes alone were close to a page-and-a-half, and I’m sure that even in those, I’m forgetting a couple of points I want to touch upon. Some people you just expect to live forever as they are almost larger than life. It’s perhaps, to me, my “where were you when you heard about Elvis’ death?” moment. With Farrah Fawcett - whose same-day death was only a matter of when given her ongoing struggle with cancer - or with legends such as James Brown or Isaac Hayes, whose careers were equally as defining and defying, but whose time out of their heyday was long gone, the announcements were not totally unexpected. Michael’s death, seemingly, came out of nowhere. There was Michael the person, and then there was Michael as a mythos, as bigger than life, as a FORCE, only one of which has expired.
A showstopper in any definition of the word, he transcended generations and racial barriers. From oldies fans who were there from the start of his career in Gary to today’s young teens, whose attention span and too-cool-for-even-last-week’s-number-one-hit musical tastes rarely wander from the MTV playlists, he rocked them all. Even as I talked to a co-worker today, she told me about her 6-year-old son who goes to bed each night playing the Jackson 5’s greatest hits CD. That’s what you call IMPACT.
He was from an ilk who could sing and perform a song with his own style and master it to a T. Perhaps most remembered for his performances, videos, and dance moves, he was a truly underappreciated singer. He sang songs with conviction (“Scream”), attitude (“Dirty Diana”), desire (“Heal The World”), a sense of longing (“Someone In The Dark”), and heartbreak (“She’s Out Of My Life”). His aforementioned style, shown in his vocal trademark hee-hees and grunts, was truly his own.
“Someone In The Dark,” an oft-forgotten song from the E.T. audiobook/soundtrack, is from his most fruitful period (the Thriller days) and may perhaps be his best vocal performance on wax as it is sung with such passion and longing of someone needing a best friend. Even today as I listened to it on my drive to work, it brought on goosebumps, the surefire sign of a remarkable performance. It was the ‘80s version to his ‘70s “Ben” in that it was based on a film whose characters, in an alien and a rat, respectively, were misunderstood creatures, not unlike Michael himself.
Even in the poignant, if a bit saccharine, “Gone Too Soon” (from Dangerous), you couldn’t help but marvel at his ability to take you to another place. The song was dedicated to fellow Hoosier Ryan White, whose battle with AIDS and being socially shunned from his small Midwestern community brought a hailstorm of national coverage, and was a subject with which Michael was all too familiar - a boy who never got to fully enjoy growing up. It’s no surprise that at song’s end you can literally hear his voice crack.
Then there are the dance hits too plentiful to name. My DJ friend Apollo calls the breakdown in “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” one of the baddest breakdowns in pop music history. My personal favorite dance hit “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” has an undeniable energy and its African-influenced Makossa chant is the enchanter to even a non-dancer.
There was the famous moonwalk that Michael debuted at the Motown 25 Live televised celebration. Even watching it to this day KNOWING what’s about to happen, I am just as spellbound. “What? No he didn’t just do that! But how?” * Rewind * Jaws dropped worldwide and everyone was trying to learn that step the next day. I, too, tried for hours on end to learn to moonwalk, not as a child, but as a mid-20s young adult.
When was the last time you were at a party/club/wedding where you DIDN’T see someone emulate a Michael move? Several years ago at a wedding reception, family friend Chad Decker and another attendee did the entire dance sequence of the “Beat It” video, streetfight scene and all. I’m sure they hadn’t done it in years but it was so ingrained in their memories that they nailed it. The entire party seemed to stop for those 4 minutes. Afterward, people high-fived and were basking in the influence of Michael’s glow.
When talking about him, you can’t forget how he changed what a music video could be, from short form to long form. You could make an entire movie like Moonwalker. It was only earlier this week that I was talking about Captain EO. Until seeing Up 3-D, Captain EO was the last 3-D film I had seen.
I’m not even sure that the word “awesome” can encompass his talents. He was that big. But in attaining such great heights, you only have further to fall. Alluding to a follow-up comment to O.W.’s article yesterday by av2ts, it’s a country (and world) where people love to watch your meteoric rise but revel in watching the trainwreck and fall back to Earth and beyond. Too many people are eager and willing to uncover your dirt only to bury you in it, even if that means burying you alive.
His level of fame was a two-sided coin where people didn’t fully want to let go of the great memories but couldn’t quite resist to bring him down a notch or three, especially of a figure who doesn’t quite fit into their idea of normalcy. If someone has such glaring eccentricities, then surely the rumor mills can’t all be untrue. At least, that’s how we’d like to rationalize it to ourselves.
That being said, this may only be the case during his lifetime. In death, I believe the future will be kind to his legacy. For while his image was tarnished for the last 10-15 years of his life, people also love a resurrection and redemption of great icons. For all the joy he gave the world by making you feel ALIVE, these feelings can be too emotionally overbearing to dismiss. The eccentric behavior, the neverending surgeries, and the circus that was his life may end up being an asterisk on a career, and more importantly a life, that is too expansive to be summed up in a few words or thoughts.
His lonely death is symbolic in that there was perhaps no musical artist still alive who was more revered but who lived in such an ensconced world. His world was like a travelling zoo except there was no cage to protect him from the onlookers and gawkers who wanted a piece of him. While he was ultimately responsible for himself and his actions, I, for one, could never accost him as he had so much burden to bear that it made me feel a bit sorry for him. For no one gained – or lost – quite as much as he did in his lifetime.
Don't mean to compete with all the MJ5 content out there today (esp. since I'll be contributing to it) but my NPR Song List on soul siblings just ran yesterday.
Update: On second thought, I think I was premature in suggesting that MJ's music couldn't outpace MJ's scandals. I've spent the afternoon and evening - like most people - revisiting his music and legacy and all the personal craziness more or less seems like someone else entirely. In other words, there was MJ on record and there was MJ the man but my emotional response to his music hasn't let the two blend together.
That is the transcendent power of music, something that MJ, with few peers to match, excelled at throughout the best years decades of his career. Later this week, I'll try to do up something more proper in terms of a selection of some of my personal favorites from his catalog.
By the way, I have to say, it is strange and sad to be in a world where Isaac Hayes, James Brown and Michael Jackson are no longer with us (amongst so many other legends).
RIP to them all. If the news is indeed true that Michael Jackson has died today, a mere 50 years old, it's hard to greet the news with anything but a mixture of sadness and ambivalence.
After all, how many other artists have seemingly done more damage to their own legacy than MJ? He went from one of the greatest talents that pop music has ever known to a surreal freak show to an accused pedophile. This is someone who's contributions to music should have transcended most of his personal foibles (pedophilia excepted) but instead, his tabloid exploits managed to become an inseparable part of his image and thus, memory.
Marvin Gaye was apparently a real disturbed man and Miles Davis admitted to slapping his wives but those details are often treated as distinct from their musical lives. In MJ's cause, his "career" has become a conflation of everything; music takes up only part of it.
That's hardly unique to MJ - Elvis comes to mind immediately too - but Elvis' musical majesty, in my opinion, never ran as long or as consistent as MJ in his prime, a period of time that at least begins as early as the first Jackson 5 singles (and that's pre-Motown, mind you), lasting to undeniable triumphs of Off the Wall and Thriller, and including a few key, post-Thriller songs.
I don't enjoy those songs any less but there's always a stain below the surface, a reminder that simultaneously invokes a memory of "damn, he was good" immediately followed with, "damn, what a shame." I don't think there's much he could have done, had he lived longer, to escape that taint (let alone redeem it). I suppose it's out of sheer affection for his music that I wish it could have been different even though some might argue he didn't deserve such a salvation of his reputation. History will tell. For now, I'm content to simply listen.
In lieu of a more organized/formal post, here's a rush job on tunes to listen to.
("Big Boy," an early, early J5 single on Steeltown)
("2 4 6 8." The numeric sequel to "ABC" recorded for the Jackson 5's second Motown LP.)
("Never Can Say Goodbye." Stone. Cold. Classic.)
("I Wanna Be Where You." Off of Jackson's solo debut, produced by Hal Davis and Willie Hutch.)
("I Can't Help It." Quiet storm at its best.)
("Butterflies." From his 2001 Invincible and one of the last great songs I heard from Jackson. Shout out to Floetry for the OG).
Here are the winners for the cities/dates for which the contest was run. Thank you to all who participated and to Creative Artists Agency for sponsoring the contest!
June 30 – St. Louis, MO (Fox Theatre) - Cheryl Jackson – WINNER! July 5 – Atlanta, GA (Chastain Park Amphitheatre) – Martina Efeyini – WINNER! July 21 – Chicago, IL (Ravinia Festival) – Julian Rosenberg – WINNER!
Questions:
1. What song from Evolver did John sing at the 2008 Democratic National Convention? 2. True or False: John Legend graduated from an Ivy League school. 3. What is John Legend's real name?
Answers:
1. If You're Out There 2. True. John graduated from Upenn 3. John Stephens
A few weeks ago I posted about Numero 25 being a book and 2LP set. Well, plans have changed as there has been a reshuffling of catalog numbers, and the results are even better than you can imagine.
The book and 2LP release has now been given a new catalog number as Numero 33. You can view a promo of it here with Ricky Allen's “No Better Time Than Now” as a musical backdrop. The coffee table book features a photo collection as shot by Michael Abramson of Chicago nightlife in the mid-70s. The exciting thing is that with a pre-order you can get a download of the music now (yes, NOW!) and your book will ship in September (the street date is in November). Also, the first 250 pre-orders from Numero's site get a signed and hand-numbered print from the photographer as well as a bonus 45 (only 1000 pressed).
So where does that leave Numero 25? Oh, all they did was rescue 6 tracks that were crumbling from the reels of the sophomore 24 Carat Black album that has never seen the light of day. Stay tuned as we'll be doing coverage closer to its release date (July 28).
Slum Village: Fall In Love (Remix) From Dillanthology 2 (Rapster, 2009)
Lushlife: The Kindness From Cassette City (Rapster, 2009)
The ReBel Yell: Everything She Wants From Unreleased (Rapster, 2009)
UPDATE: The Dillanthology 2 and Lushlife albums have been pushed back to July 7.
Who honestly doesn't like some Dilla in their life? Rapster's second volume in collecting his work in the cleverly-named Dillanthology series focuses on the remixes of the dearly-departed James Yancey. Did you miss that CD single/12” that had the “Woo Ha” remix? Did you, like me, not know that a Dilla remix of Lucy Pearl's “Without You” ever existed? If so, then this compilation is for you.
You get a sense of the musicality that Dilla possessed as he reimagined tracks from jazz, hip hop, electronic and soul from artists from nearly all coasts and overseas on this release. Even more impressive you get different sounds such as a little boom-bap on De La to more mellow jazz-chord filled beats Mood's “Secrets Of The Sand.” This release hits stores Tuesday, July 7th.
Also that Tuesday, you can pick up Lushlife's “Cassette City.” Lyrically, it's standard hip hop fare but the production is what really shines on this album. “In Soft Focus” has some nice DJ cut work while the horn-heavy “Another Word For Paradise” has a summer feel to it (while also bringing back long-lost Camp Lo). My personal favorite on the album is the laidback “The Kindness” with its nice chopped vocal sample with its screwed-vocals hook. Overall, it has a late-90s indie hip hop feel to it as you can hear on his Myspace page.
The last of the bunch sounds like it might be bad on paper but excels in execution. Wham has become the butt of many jokes, but you know somewhere deep inside you dig a few of their songs. The ReBel Yell, who is being produced by none other than James Poyser, comes through with this synthy dancefloor stepper remake of the snarky “Everything She Wants.” This is only a teaser of The ReBel Yell's upcoming album “Love & War,” and as of now, this song isn't set to be on the album, which releases this August.
Ruben Mendoza of California Ian Taylor from the Windy City Jason Villani from Connecticut Bill Belanger from Massachusetts Brad Shapiro from The Big Apple
Again, thank you to Strut for the giveaways, and to you, our readers, for your continued support of Soul-Sides! Answers are below.
Questions:
1. The Batmacumba is a club where DJ Cliffy spins Brazilian music in what city? 2. Name the world-famous landmark seen here. 3. What is Brazil's official language?
Answers:
1. London, UK 2. O Cristo Redentor (aka Christ The Redeemer) 3. Portuguese
I had never heard of Reuben Bell until ten years ago, when DJs Shadow and Cut Chemist made "Superjock" one of the more memorable tunes off their Brainfreeze mix as a song about, well, DJing. Which disc jockey doesn't aspire to be describe as such: "he's number one/he's the turntable king/he's number one/when he's doing his thing/he really gets down with it"?
By the time "Superjock" had come out though, Bell was already in mid-career, having kicked things off as more of a deep soul crooner beginning in the mid/late 1960s. I only recently got a copy of his very first single, "It's Not That Easy" feat. Bell and the Casanovas (thanks Mao!) and this is so quintessentially "deep soul" (emphasis on "deep").
This is like heartbreak distilled into a record and what's especially powerful is how Bell was barely into his 20s when he recorded this; you can hear the youthfulness of his woes here...it's not a older man's more seasoned pain but carries a young man's earnestness - all the more devastating. Props to the Casanovas here - they do a phenomenal job of setting the tone with those bottomless basslines and the haunting, unsettling guitar.
I've been working on a 4 hour Southern soul set for a private party and it's been an enjoyable challenge sifting through what seems like an endless stream of tunes from across the great Southern soul cities - especially Memphis, Muscle Shoals, Jackson, Miami, etc. New Orleans figures prominently but what I'm continually struck by is how distinct that NOLA sound is. Obviously, the South is hardly monolithic but while some influences are shared between, say, Fame and Stax Studios, much of what you heard coming out of New Orleans was so distinct, there's no confusing it for anywhere but there. Here's two NOLA-flavored cuts that exemplify what I'm talking about.
Don Covay and the Jefferson Lemon Blues Band: Standing In the Grits Line From Different Strokes for Different Folks (Janus, 1970). Also on Super Bad.
Professor Longhair: Big Chief (Pt. 1) From 7" (Watch, 1964). Also on New Orleans Funk.
Covay isn't from Louisiana (South Carolina, as it were) but thanks to a journeyman career that saw him bouncing around on Atlantic, Columbia, Janus, Mercury, even Philly Int'l, Covay recorded throughout the south, especially his time with Atlantic that tended to jump from Southern studio to another thanks to Jerry Wexler's fickle tastes (and calculated business decisions). This album, recorded during Covay's brief stint on Janus, was recorded at the famed Malaco Studios in Jackson, MS and there's no question that for "Standing On the Grits Line," (a Covay composition), he's borrowing heavily from New Orleans' second line traditions - if the voice was just a bit gruffer, you could easily confused this for a Dr. John cut. This cut's long been a personal favorite of mine - I'm genuinely surprised I never posted this (last time I gave Covay some shine was for "If There's a Will, There's a Way", a cut from the same album)>.
"Big Chief" is a stone cold New Orleans classic and considered by many a clear sign of the city's proto-funk innovations. Obviously, the Professor's jangling piano stands out prominently here but try to pay some attention to what Smokey Johnson is doing here on the drums. His polyrhythm is incredible - there's all kinds of seemingly off-beats here (except of course, sounding "off" is how you sound "on"). No wonder then that Smokey would become of the most important session drummers in New Orleans in the 1960s, alongside James Black.
June 23rd sees the release of the second volume in the Black Rio series. The first in the series is now out of print. Compiled by DJ Cliffy, an expert in the field of Brazilian music, the set explores an explosive period in Brazilian soul and funk.
The album features a wide range of style with two of my favorites I've posted above. The first by Guiamaraes E O Grupo Som Sagrado starts off with a wicked rhythm guitar and some nice percussion.
The second by Os Diagonais has a very funky and heavily American-influenced feel (called Soul Brasileiro) that grabs the funky bass lines of the James Brown sound, and, in the middle section, a gruff voiced singer jumps in and reminds you of Kool & The Gang's “Jungle Boogie.” This song knocks about as hard as any of its American brethren.
I may not know what they're singing about in all the songs (my Portuguese never was what it should have been), but I can dig the groove. It's not all foreign tongues. There was a group of singers known simply as The Brazilian Singers such as Otavio Augusto Fernandes Cardoso (aka Peter Dunaway), Jose Eduardo Franca Pontes (aka Joe Bridges), and Mauricio Alberto (aka Morris Albert) that were well known in Brazil for singing in English, even if it meant being castigated by local critics. But as it was, times were changing and this was one of the best ways for them to get heard on radio.
With summer upon us, it's definitely a good pick up when you're out record shopping later this month. Courtesy of Strut, Soul-Sides is giving away FIVE copies that you can win before you can even buy it! Answer the three questions below for your chance to win. Many thanks to Strut for the giveaways, and to you, our readers, for your continued support of Soul-Sides!
Even if you don't think you know all the answers, give it a shot. You can't win if you don't enter!
Contest Rules:
1. Contest ends at midnight on Friday, June 19, 2009. Entries that arrive after that time are ineligible. 2. Only US addresses are eligible. Sorry international readers! 3. Should there be more than five contestants with all correct answers, five names will be chosen in a drawing of those who answered correctly. Should fewer than five people answer correctly, then winners with all correct answers will automatically win with the remaining winners to be chosen by a random drawing. 4. Your first response is your official and final response. 5. You are only eligible to win one of the five CDs.
Questions:
1. The Batmacumba is a club where DJ Cliffy spins Brazilian music in what city? 2. Name the world-famous landmark seen here. 3. What is Brazil's official language?
E-mail your responses to soulsideseric AT gmail.com and put Black Rio in the subject line.
This summer John Legend is embarking on a tour of the US to promote his latest album, Evolver, and we have a pair of tickets for several shows for you to win! If you can't stand the thought of missing his show in your town, you can purchase tickets through his official site. But if the budget's tight and you live in one of the cities below, you and a guest can go for free! All you have to do is answer the trivia questions below to enter.
Here are the cities/dates we are giving away a pair of tickets to each show for:
June 30 – St. Louis, MO (Fox Theatre) July 5 – Atlanta, GA (Chastain Park Amphitheatre) July 21 – Chicago, IL (Ravinia Festival)
Contest Rules:
1. Contest ends at midnight on Friday, June 19, 2009. Entries that arrive after that time are ineligible. 2. Eligible contestants MUST be able to attend the show for which they win. Tickets will be left at will call of the venue and can only be picked up with the winner's ID (driver's license, etc.). 3. Should there be more than one contestant (per show/city) with all correct answers, one name will be chosen in a drawing of those who answered correctly. Should no one answer correctly, a name will be chosen at random from all the entries (per show/city). 4. The first response is the official and final response. One entry per contestant. 5. You are only eligible to win one set of tickets for the entire contest.
Questions:
1. What song from Evolver did John sing at the 2008 Democratic National Convention? 2. True or False: John Legend graduated from an Ivy League school. 3. What is John Legend's real name?
E-mail your responses to soulsideseric AT gmail.com and put John Legend – (City Name you're entering for) in the subject line.
As always, even if you don't think you know all the answers, give it a shot. You can't win if you don't enter!
The Budos Band, your favorite Staten Island soul stalwarts return to satiate you with a selection of scintillating songs. Available on June 23 on digital, vinyl, and CD (CD from Daptone's site ONLY), this EP covers ground between their debut and sophomore albums. Two tracks you may have heard previously - “Mas O Menos,” which was on The Budos Band II, and “The Proposition,” which was on a Budos Band 45 from 2006.
The material here continues forth from their first album and gives you a sense of how they ended up with their second album – namely chunky bass riffs and solid horns. Some members of the band also perform with the Dap Kings, El Michels Affair, and the Menahan Street Band such as Tommy 'TNT' Brenneck and David Guy to name a few.
Featured on the EP are six killer tracks and a short half-minute bonus track thrown in for good measure to give you a lucky seven. Tempo-wise, the album remains fairly constant. “Hidden Hand,” the opener, bubbles up with thick bass. “Smoke Gets In” sounds as if it's sneaking around an unfamiliar tomb. “Ephra,” named after the goddess who bestowed powers upon the knights of old Budonia, perhaps seized control of the band and gave them the power to create a playful rhythmic backbone that is overlaid by majestic horns. You almost feel like a harem should appear from around the corner and perform a ritualistic dance.
For completists, this is a no-brainer purchase. For those who haven't yet gotten into the Budos Band I must ask, “What are you waiting for?” The Budos Band's sound reminds you of something you'd hear in an African or Middle Eastern bazaar where it would stand face-to-face with a snake charmer. If you don't watch out, you, too, could get bitten with their potent venom.
As I mentioned a few weeks back, I had the immense pleasure to meet Asha Puthli and hopefully will be working with her on a future project. That encounter encouraged me to revisit her substantial catalog and that's been such a fun, revelatory experience.
It starts with a song by her I had never heard before but Asha was kind enough to burn a copy for me - her singing with the Peter Ivers Group back in the early 1970s, covering Marvin Gaye's big Motown classic, "Ain't That Peculiar." This wasn't her first recording but it was (I believe) her first US release, recorded for a full album that was meant to be Ivers' follow-up to his well-regarded 1969 LP, Knight of the Blue Communion (I'll have to post up about that LP at some point too). For reasons I'm not clear about, the album feat. Asha, entitled Take It Out On Me was never released by Epic but the single did make its way out. It's definitely not something that will remind people instantly of Gaye's iconic version - Ivers adds a strong funk element to the rhythm section and it's actually quite a sparse song in many ways (despite the surprise harmonica) and Asha's voice - light but distinct - works nicely here, especially as she plays with the arrangement most of know through Marvin. I like this one a lot - it reminds me of Smith's "Baby, It's You" in terms of how a rock band interprets an R&B tune.
Asha's second full-length solo album was She Loves to Hear the Music, released in 1974, with production principally from disco master Teo Macero and Paul Phillips (I'm assuming he of later Hi Tension fame?). I'm not 100% clear who produces "You've Been Loud Too Long," but I've loved this song for years - it's a spunky bit of Southern fried funk that seems to mesh Wardell Quezergue with Van McCoy (who works on this album so for all I know, he produced it!). I played this out at Boogaloo[la] the other week and one of the guys working security asked if it was Minnie Riperton; I hadn't thought of that before but there's definitely an affinity shared between singers like Puthli, Riperton and Linda Lewis.
The one album that was new to me was The Devil Is Loose and I'm not even certain why it took me so long to listen to it but it is good. Very very good. Rush-out-and-get-this-now good. For starters, I think it showcases the possibilities of what disco could bring to pop music that defies all the haters and naysayers - the gloss and glean in the production (all by Dieter Zimmerman) isn't window dressing but an integral part to sonic texture of the album. It's subtly lush, with Zimmerman and Puthli smartly keeping things a bit cool and controlled rather than give into sweeping excess. Moreover, the diversity of styles here are impressive, ranging from the quiet ballad "Let Me In Your Life" (the last song on the sampler) to the slinky funk of "Flying Fish" to the sheer pop charm of "Hello Everyone." The album's best known song (also released on 12") however is "Space Talk," another funky excursion, and arguably, a big influence of the evolution of European disco. If it sounds familiar to some, it may be because the song's been popular sample fodder, including for Biggie.
Donnie: Big Black Buck + Rocketship From The Colored Section (Giant Step/Motown, 2002)
Donnie: Interview From 1st Impression (MP3.com, 1999)
Can an album that was released during this decade already be considered a lost treasure? That's the question to consider with Donnie's debut album, The Colored Section, from 2002.
My first introduction to the man's work came from perusing Dusty Groove's website and seeing the cover art for his 2001 pre-album EP. Some people think I'm crazy for being able to look at an album cover and being able to tell if I'll like its contents. This time my “gift” didn't fail me. There was something about the watermarked image of Donnie with his unkempt afro that told me to cough up the $7. A few days later the UPS man dropped off a package that included this EP and several other goodies.
After an initial listen, my appetite had been whet. I went on a quest to find more Donnie music wherever I could. At that time, MP3.com was a new venture and Donnie had an EP you could buy (both digitally and on CD) called “1st Impression,” which is no longer available, that predated the previously mentioned EP by a couple years. Included on the mp3.com EP was an interview (linked above) as well as alternate/demo versions of “Heaven Sent” and “You've Got A Friend,” both of which ended up on The Colored Section. When his debut full-length was released by Giant Step in the fall of 2002, I was on cloud nine. What a gift... to me and to the soul lovers this world over.
To say the album is topical is an understatement. He covers consumerism (“Big Black Buck”), national pride (“Our New National Anthem”), black pride (“Cloud 9”), and loving both others (“Rocketship”) and oneself (“Beautiful Me”) and that's not even half of the album. Take this lyric section from “Big Black Buck,” for example.
"Mama's little baby is nothing but a consumer Never making a profit Rendering empty pockets Mama's little baby is trendy on the rumor Buying, never investing While they're busy in market testing On your town look around it's the first of the month US economy will get its usual jump We're creatures of habit, modern slaves Guaranteed to spend it all in just one place Mama's little baby is a dancer and a crooner Making dough for the man Whipping that big black buck again"
Heavy stuff? I'd say so. The song continues by making other references to modern day society and slaves on the auction block, driving its point home further with a clarinet-heavy Dixieland backdrop.
Where most soul artists introduce themselves to the world with a basic love-themed album (not that there's anything wrong with that), Donnie came out with an album that was as socially conscious as any album in the last 30 years. That's quite telling of an artist's confidence in himself and in his message.
Take Donnie's ode to his afro, a refreshing turn in black pride that doesn't resort to stale or literal metaphors, as another example of artistry with a message.
"Happy to be nappy, I'm black and I'm proud That I have been chosen to wear the conscious cloud And I'm fine under cloud 9"
Consciousness, while heavily prevalent, isn't the only message on the album. “Rocketship” is a lover's plea. Included here is an alternate take of the song than what appears on the album. I've always wondered why this version didn't appear on the album as it packs a bigger punch. You've got an inspired vocal, but it has a funky track to back it (check the soul breakdown 3 minutes in).
The album is very Stevie Wonder-esque in approach. Sure, you have lyrics where you don't pick up every nuance on the first bite, but there's also a varied assortment of musical styles by Steve “The Scotsman” Harvey. There's the aforementioned Dixieland on “Big Black Buck,” the gospel fervor of “Wildlife,” the jaunty, Bobbi Humphrey-inspired flute-tinged “Do You Know,” and the reflective, almost lament-filled closer “Welcome To The Colored Section.” Donnie and Harvey bring an album to the table that is neither a singular appetizer, main course, or dessert – it's the full-course meal.
While I won't go so far as to say that the album is a classic – although it's close - (as I reserve such a title for albums that reshape how we think about music and even society – think Marvin's What's Goin' On) as its influence hasn't been as widespread as it deserves to be, I will say that it is an essential document in the soul canon that has every right to stand proud with some of the best the genre has to offer. The album may not make you want to get up and dance (although that's not to say it doesn't have tempo), but it's more likely to make you want to join a local volunteer group or help with voter registration. The Colored Section may not be well-known to mainstream society, but it is perhaps the most important soul album of the last 10-15 years, surpassing albums by modern day legends such as D'Angelo, Jill Scott, John Legend, and Alicia Keys.
No disrespect to Dave Mason and Traffic but to me, "Feelin' Alright" has become one of those rock-era standards where the covers > the original (see also: "Spinning Wheel"). I suppose that's a testament to Mason's songwriting that it drew so many fans amongst fellow artists and I've enjoyed how broad its base of popularity has been.
I'm only skimming the surface of the total number of possible versions of this song but pulled out a quartet of personal favorites.
6680 Lexington: Feelin' All Right From S/T (MGM, 1971)
I always assumed, from the sound of the band, that 6680 Lexington were originally from Louisiana or Arkansas but as it turns out, they were Southern...Southern Californian that is (though I've also seen the band referred to as a Bay Area group). Wherever they're from, they bring a distinctly blues-rock approach to their cover. I dig the opening piano especially (courtesy Dave Garland) and I believe Canned Heat's Chris Morgan is on guitar here.
Rustix: Feelin' Alright From Bedlam (Rare Earth, 1969)
One of the things that's always struck me about covers of the song is that groups bring in a real funk-flavaored element that I don't really hear in the original. That's very obvious with the aggressive brass and drum beginning to Rustix's version. The group apparently was one of the first white bands signed to Motown's Rare Earth subsidiary. (Ok, what's a bit weird to me is that the label was named after the group Rare Earth yet the Rustix were signed to the label first...not sure how that chronology quite works out but ok...) As you can hear, the group is going for a big sound - blaring banks of horns and it sounds like they're recording in a cavern (in a good way). I like the LP cover for this too - it's die-cut on the top.
West Coast Revival: Feelin' Alright From S/T (LA International, 1977)
Thus far, this is my favorite version (as evidenced by the fact that I put it out on Soul Sides Vol. 2 - it's so funky and slinky. Not surprisingly, the album was produced by Jerry Goldstein of WAR fame but I don't actually know much about the group itself - they only ever put out this LP and maybe one or two 45s.
Kenny Smith Trio: Feelin' Alright From For Bassists Only! (Music Minus One Bass) (Music Minus One, 1970)
We end with a lively, instrumental version of the song by the Kenny Smith Trio, featured on a "Music Minus One Bass" instructional album. The A-side (what you hear here) has the bass part included; the flipside is the same identical song with - you guessed it - the bass "minused" so you, the aspiring plucker, can practice over it.
Joyo Velarde: Take You Home From Joyo Velarde EP (Quannum, 2009)
Joyo Velarde. You may have heard the name but not quite sure where. Chances are it was from the Latyrx cut "Balcony Beach," a Cali classic. Joyo has also has performed and written tracks with with her husband, Lyrics Born (who pops up in the video), on his numerous album releases. Now she steps out on her own with her self-titled EP, available this Tuesday, May 26, from all digital distributors.
The vocal arrangements hearken to some '80s steppers. The hook on “Take You Home” reminds me a lot of Exposé's “Come Go With Me” vocally. The EP's opener, “Build This World,” has a slinky, brooding bass line. Closing out the EP is the reggae-tinged Bobby Digital-produced “I Need You Boy.” Kinda makes me feel like I'm back at a festival at the Holiday Inn in Montego Bay on my honeymoon.
Her voice is crisp and full (what else would you expect from someone who trained in opera in Rome) and reaches low, although not quite to Anita Baker or Toni Braxton levels. The EP is a nice opener into Joyo's world, and I can only imagine that this will sell well in sunny areas as it has a nice laidback summer sound. It's perfect beach music or to listen to in a droptop convertible while driving down Highway 1. Later this year, her full length “Love And Understanding” will be released by Quannum. Until then, this should tide you over quite nicely.
It took me much longer to track down a copy of this LP that I thought it would but I'm so glad to finally be able to pair it with its sibling, This Is My Country. Both albums share much in common musically and conceptually and track for track, they arguably constitute two of the most consistent albums in the Mayfield-era of the Impressions.
Despite its more esoteric title, there's a rich earthiness to Young Mod's appeal. The album has a smart balance of ballads ("Soulful Love"), mid-tempo power tracks ("Young Mod's Forgotten Story") and a couple of proto-funk slammers ("Mighty Mighty"). The two songs that stay on my mind (pun intended) include "The Girl I Find," the album's best known slow jam, a beautiful ballad distinguished by Mayfield's signature voice playing off the stirring string accompaniment in the back. I love the swell of horns that enter in around 1:20 and transform the tune's intimacy into something more epic. (What's up with the bird coos though?)
"Seven Years" would be a great groover just on the basis on its infectious swing but what seals the deal here for me are the background vocals "woo wooing" behind Curtis as the song opens; it adds this fantastic layer of harmony that showcases the marvelous intricacy of the Impressions' vocal interplay.
Ernie Story: Chain Gang/Disco City From Meditation Blue (Legend, 1977)
This strange, private press album out of Minnesota came via the Groove Merchant earlier in the year. It was one of those cases where I had credit to burn so I took a chance on an eclectic LP and once I really sat with it, I'm glad I did.
From the title and look of the album, you'd think Ernie Story was some kind of Christian/New Age folk singer but on the LP, it boasts that Story was a songwriter for mostly R&B groups such as The Impressions and Chi-Lites and this seems true - he wrote "Simple Message" for the Impressions' Preacher Man album though I can't seem to find which Chi-Lites song he did.
For his own album however, Story's styles are varied, to say the least, a contrast best captured on these two songs which close out Side A. "Chain Gang" reminds me of Rodriguez's soulful, folksy rock in one moment, but then it drops into a funkier, fuzzed out sound just a few beats later and then there's that unexpected transition into "Disco City" as Story puts together what you might call a "garage disco" joint.
It must be said - Story might have skills as a songwriter but he's not really a very good singer but given that this is a private press album, I suppose that fact is more endearing than annoying (that said, if you don't like his singing on "Disco City," you'll much prefer the B-side's "The E Groove" which is a fantastic little disco instrumental.
I'm curious what Story is doing these days - he doesn't seem to have had an extensive musical career after '77...
Daptone's latest release by Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens, out Tuesday, May 26, is a little bit Sam Cooke, a lot '60s soul, and all in servitude to the Lord. “What Have You Done, My Brother” is such a fine record. Lyrically, it's all gospel but numerous tracks sound straight out of the '60s soul bin. While that may sound foolish knowing it's a Daptone record, credit Cliff Driver and the various Dap-Kings members that play on this record for really giving it a nice soundbed. Also, credit the Gospel Queens - Edna Johnson, Bobbie Jean Gant, and Cynthia Langston - as they really enliven the call-and-response with Shelton.
Driver, the musical director of the group, is a pianist who has backed numerous soul legends such as the R and B of R&B... Ruth Brown, Solomon Burke, and even had a stint in Latin music working with the Johnny Ortega Band. If you recognize the lead vocalist, it's because she appeared on the Desco 45 “41st St. Breakdown” by Naomi Davis and the Knights of Forty First Street and on The Sugarman Three's “Promised Land.”
The album was culled mainly from sessions in the summer of 2007 with some even predating that. The title track is the most secular of the material and has a distinct Daptone sound, which may be the reason why it was chosen as the lead single. Elsewhere “I'll Take The Long Road” and “I Need You To Hold My Hand” really dig deep into the gospel roots and are the two showcases on the album. The former leads with the same guitar lick as Cooke's “That's Where It's At” and is a slow gospel burner. Shelton sings with passion about walking side-by-side on her journey to redemption.
While she's not the firecracker that Sharon Jones is, Naomi exudes a confidence that more than makes up for the lack of sass. After all, who says you have to have attitude to make a good album? With the opening chords on “What Is This,” which resemble the opening of Cooke classic “A Change Is Gonna Come” (which is also the album closer), you get a sense that you'll be on a long but righteous road of glory. If you have a set of headphones for your walk, be sure to bring this album with you.
Over the last couple of years, I've noticed that Stax Records has been finding new ways to package their back catalog. For example, there's the Soulsville Sings Hitsville comp as well as the Stax Does the Beatles album.
The most recent offering takes a page from Blue Note's older, successful Break Beats series by combing through the Stax catalog and pulling out 14 songs that have found second life as hip-hop sample sources. (The funny thing is, I always thought this was the original Stax sample compilation.)
To be candid, this particular comp feels like it's arriving about 10 years late, especially since sampling Stax really hit its zenith in the '90s, but you can't fault the selections.
1. 24-CARAT BLACK – “Ghetto: Misfortune’s Wealth” 2. THE EMOTIONS – “Blind Alley” 3. BOOKER T. & THE MGs – “Melting Pot” 4. THE BAR-KAYS – “Humpin’” 5. THE DRAMATICS – “Get Up and Get Down” 6. ISAAC HAYES – “Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic” 7. ISAAC HAYES – “Hung Up On My Baby” 8. DAVID PORTER – “I’m Afraid the Masquerade Is Over” 9. WENDY RENE – “After the Laughter (Comes Tears)” 10. CHARMELS – “As Long As I’ve Got You” 11. THE SWEET INSPIRATIONS – “Why Marry” 12. RUFUS THOMAS – “Do the Funky Penguin (Part 1)” 13. LITTLE MILTON – “Packed Up and Took My Mind” 14. WILLIAM BELL - “I Forgot To Be Your Lover”
What I like here is how these choices reflect the vast diversity of Stax/Volt in terms of the styles and artists they embraced in their heyday. It's certainly filled with some personal favorites, including "Blind Alley" and "As Long As I've Got You" and, of course, "I Forgot to Be Your Lover. I picked out the Little Milton song because it's was one of the few tracks on here that I hadn't heard before, but it had such a classic Memphis feel to it (could have totally been a Syl Johnson song!). Seems only right that Ghostface would have used it - the Wu + Stax = winning combo every time.
As a bonus, I pulled out one song that could certainly qualify for a Vol. 2 - Ernie Hines' "Our Generation" which originally came out on We Produce, a Stax subsidiary that was also home to the Temprees.
Ernie Hines: Our Generation From Electrified (We Produce, 1973)
I was interviewing Mayer Hawthorne today for an upcoming piece that will run around whenever his album drops (sounds like August or Sept. at the latest) and he was remarking how surprised he was that "young kids" (meaning teenagers) have been into his songs and I suggested that it was the "slow jam factor." For all the stereotypes of teens liking angry, rebellious music, there's also the contingent that likes the bump n' grind groovers they can get their red light dance on to or the kind of sweet, lowrider ballads you hear them dedicating to one another on Art Laboe's Sunday Special.
(Note: slow jam fans - which is to say...everyone - will dig Mayer's upcoming LP. Some killer stuff on there, as good if not better than what's already in circulation).
Anyways, as anyone who's ever been to Boogaloo[la] knows (and thanks to everyone who turned out last night), we always try to end the evening on the slow jam tip and I decided to pull out three cuts that have been patiently waiting in queue to get some late night spin:
Steve Parks: Still Thinking of You From 7" (Reynolds, 197?)
Patti and the Lovelites: Love So Strong From 7" (Love Lite, 1973)
Young Billy Cole: Sitting In the Park From 7" (Audio Connection, 1976)
I've posted about Steve Parks before but that was from slightly later in his career than this 7" above. It's a classic amongst Bay Area record heads, part of the small but excellent catalog on Reynolds Records (which is still waiting for a proper anthologizing at some point) and is an unforgettable piece of heartbreakingly melancholy song craft.
"Love So Strong" sounds like something Alicia Keys has spent time studying, doesn't it? (Note: this is a compliment). This Chicago-based group is one of those who skated with limited success for a number of years, ending up on nearly half a dozen labels, including Uni and Cotillion though this single was on what I assume was their own imprint, Love Lite. I am so feeling the whole style of this track, just how laid back and damn soulful it is, especially with the background singing "whoo-hoooing".
Lastly, what's a slow jam without a nod to Billy Stewart's "Sitting In the Park," this cover done rocksteady-style by Young Billy Cole. I don't know full story here but Cole's real name is Winston Francis and he changed it to Billy Cole to record a 1975 song, "Extra Careful" and apparently, the name stuck enough for Cole to continue recording under that name. The version of "Sitting In the Park" here follows closely to the original and you can hear how natural a conversion it is to take Stewart's original and give it a reggae makeover.
Mothers don't get their due when it comes to passing along the gift of music. So many times I've read articles where an interviewer asks an artist or producer about their influences only to get a response like, “Pops played in a local funk band,” or “My dad gave me a bunch of his LPs that we used to listen to at the house when I was growing up.” This isn't THAT story. I'm no artist or producer, although I can play a little bit of piano and a carry a beat on drums. What I am is a guy who LOVES music of all kinds, and it all started with my mother.
I couldn't tell you a lot about my dad's musical tastes other than he liked Neil Diamond according to my mom. He died when I was only a few months old. My stepdad wasn't much into music either. But my mom? She loves her some music, especially something that makes her want to dance or just flat out makes her feel good.
As a kid, I didn't care for “her” music much. There were a few songs that were okay, but given the chance I would have much rather listened to 96 WSTO, the local pop station. My older brother and I went nuts when Janet Jackson's “Nasty” or Prince's “Kiss” came on. We liked our MJ, too. When I was in my teens and we'd visit the big city, I couldn't wait to turn on the hip hop station, and did my mom ever hate it! She was a good sport, though, as she put up with as much as she could before saying she couldn't take it anymore. It was just “cool” to hear the latest jams – and to like something my mom didn't, in part to have my own identity. My mom's old fuddy-duddy music? Not so cool, or at least I didn't think so at the time.
My mom never has been much of an albums kind of lady. The songs she likes aren't all that obscure. Most of the cassettes/CDs/LPs she has are greatest hits or compilations. It was only a couple months ago she wanted to upgrade to CD versions of the 70s Preservation Society's “Disco Fever” 2-CD comp she had on cassette, which she can no longer play in her car since it only has a CD player. The only problem was that the comp was out of print. So after a few minutes of scouring eBay, I scored a good price and she was happy as could be. I mean seriously elated. You should have seen the smile on her face. Priceless.
In our house, it was always a party when we heard some Brothers Johnson “Stomp” (a song that was not uncommon to rewind and do it all again) or do some rock-soul growling with Mitch Ryder's version of the Purify's “Shake A Tail Feather.” We used to promenade through the living room to “Double Dutch Bus” and do “The Hustle” right along with Van McCoy. We played air guitar to Ray Parker, Jr.'s, “The Other Woman.” We even got a little righteous with it to Gil Scott-Heron's “Johannesburg” - pretty hip stuff for a white family in Small Town, USA.
One of my favorite pictures of our family is a picture that was taken from the balcony above the living room of my mom, with her lovely early '80s coif, and brother each with an air-mic (it may even have been a salt and pepper shaker set) singing – no, make that SANGin' – while the stereo was bumping. And did it ever bump in that house. My friend used to tell me how she could hear the music at her house... 2 houses up the road!
Today, it's hard to turn my mom on to new-to-her old school music. When I hear something today that I think she'd like, it's a hard sell. “I just like the ones I used to play and know,” she tells me. It can be a hard concept to wrap my head around since, to me, the songs may have the same vibe. A good friend of mine, Apollo, who is a club and mobile DJ, told me several years ago it all has to do with nostalgia. For her, it may not have anything to do with the sound of the actual music; it may only be where that music takes her – back to the Victory, a local dance club she went to as a young adult that had a lighted dancefloor that I can only imagine was similar to Saturday Night Fever, or back to an unforgettable New Year's Dance, or a song that got her in the mood. The music was just the soundtrack to her life. With each listen, she can time travel back.
That musical tradition carried forth when my brother, who has run his own mobile DJ business for nearly 20 years, and I threw a surprise 60th birthday party for her a few years ago. With a few drinks and a few friends in attendance at the local Elks Lodge, we had a blast. Those friends didn't just include those couples with whom my mom always hung out. Also in attendance were friends such as Roy Orbison, Aretha Franklin, Bob Seger, and Vicki Sue Robinson, who made their way via CDs and speakers. Had we ever met those folks? Absolutely not, but we certainly spent a lot of time with them at our house, and they meant a lot to us, even if it was in a more indirect, but no less important, relationship than with our actual family friends.
As I got older, I started to appreciate how much work goes into music and started to piece together of how the “science” of music (how it is constructed), how it makes me feel, and how those interrelate. Nostalgia is a funny creature. Much of the music I love now I wasn't alive to hear when it was made, but it takes me back to a fun time growing up in a household where music, dancing, and expression were almost as important as eating dinner together. But this story isn't about me. It's about a mother – my mother – who wasn't trying to teach us anything about music; she was just trying to have a good time, and in the process she passed along something that I'll certainly always cherish. Just like my mom.
Andy Loore (aka Janko Nilovic): Opium Du Diable + Mixed Drums From Ambiance Rhythmes Vol. 5 (Neuilly, 1970)
Andy Loore is one of the nearly dozen pseudonyms used by French composer Janko Nilovic, arguably that country's finest purveyor of funky library-style recordings in the 1960s and '70s. These two songs come off of one of his more obscure recordings - a 1970 10" (yeah, weird, right?) for the library imprint Neuilly and the entire side B is basically a series of sick drum, bass and organ workouts. As befits a song that translates into "Opium of the Devil," "Opium Du Diable" has a slow, druggy feel to it in the beginning and then gradually switches up into more of a psychedelic, mod-soul tune once the organ winds its way in. (Drugs were apparently big on Nilovic's mind since this same EP also has a song called "Enfer Et Marijuana" on it).
For pure minimalist funk though, it's hard to find too many songs better than "Mixed Drums," a tune most have either heard through the Beatnuts' using it for "It's the Nuts" or else on one of the Dusty Fingers volumes that comped it. As one of my friends like to put it, "this tune is hip-hop before there was a hip-hop." I feel that.
Betty Padgett: Sugar Daddy (Pt. 1) + Rocking Chair From Betty Padgett (Luv N' Haight, 2009)
Sounds like my man DJ Sureshot was partially responsible for bringing this LP back into light, almost 25 years after its original release. Betty Padgett is part of the South Florida soul scene - a rich site indeed - and that's where she met Milton Wright back in the early '70s. That encounter eventually produced (literally and figuratively) this album in 1975 and it's easy to hear why there'd be interest in re-releasing this so many years later.
The album has intriguing mix of several styles - disco most obviously, but also reggae and modern soul - and Padgett's bright voice helps contrast with the earthiness of the rhythm section. "Sugar Daddy" was also released on 12" and it's a fun listen, not the least of which is due to the lyrics which finds Padgett singing to her benefactor about trips to Italy and diamond rings. Get that gold, girl!
As for "Rocking Chair," it's one of at least two cover songs dedicated to Padgett's contemporaries in the Miami soul scene - in this case, Gwen McCrae (the other is a cover of Betty Wright's "Tonight's the Night"). Personally, I love any cover of "Rocking Chair," especially one with a heavy ska influence on the bass. Jam on it!
