THIS IS NOT A RICK-ROLL posted by O.W.

But be warned that you may not want to click away after peeping this.

TRAVELOGUE posted by O.W.

Sorry to have been away for a while - my thanks to the Captain's Crates crew for holding it down.

I've been on award tour, starting last week at Duke University where I gave a pair of talks in conjunction with their Transcultural Humanities project. It was a great opportunity to talk about my work but the real enjoyment was spending some time, rapping with Mark Anthony Neal who brought me out there. He put me up on this stunning Max Roach/JC White Singers song but I'm still trying to track it down so that'll have to wait.

CONTINUE READING...

I did catch an equally compelling exhibit at the Nasher, an impressive, first-ever retrospective of Barkely Hendricks' paintings. Hendricks has flown under the radar for decades but hopefully, this show - which will travel to the Studio Museum in Harlem and then the Santa Monica Museum of Art - will rectify that situation. His works from the '60s, in particular, are such beautiful snapshots of the time, both in terms of the cultural signifiers and the personalities that he captures in them. Here's a personal favorite, "Tuff Tony":

Folks might be more familiar with this more recent painting of Fela:

If you're in Durham...or New York in the fall (or Santa Monica next spring, or Philly after that), I highly recommend you see his work. Soul inspired, for real. Shout out to Trevor Schoonmaker for having the foresight and resources to put this retrospective together. Here's a video preview he helped put together for the Nasher:

After Duke, I came home for all of 12 hours then had to fly out again for the EMP Pop Conference in Seattle. I. Love. This. Conference. Which is probably something only an academic would ever say, but f--- it. I have no shame in my appreciation for the conf (as noted in the past). I'm not going to do a complete run-down but I'll say this much: the conf does much to both inspire me intellectually as well as turn me onto new music/ideas/people. Here's a quick scattering, perhaps a follow-up post later.

1) Jeffrey Govan: This bassist in the LA ska scene is also now a grad student at USC's American Ethnic Studies program. He gave on paper on the Latin influence on ska back in the 1960s (and influence that has been remarkably cataloged here. Apart from introducing me to the Skatalites' "Latin Goes Ska" (a flip on Perez Prado), I was most thankful for Govan putting all of us onto this:

Tommy McCook and the Skatalites: Sauvitt
From 7" (Dodd, 1964). Also available on Tribute to Tommy.

It's a cover of a Mongo Santamaria song ("Sauvito") and the subtle intertwining of ska and Latin rhythms here are simply delicious. I love how the song opens with that piano, how the horns come in and layer themselves, and my favorite moment comes right before the two bridges with the four note horn hits - wish they had made that into an entire chorus. Great song - a new favorite.

2) Lauren Onkey: This professor at Ball State Univ. is doing fascinating research on the undersung Black rock and doo-wop bands who were part of the Mersey Beat scene in Liverpool circa the 1950s/60s. Onkey was drawn to this research given how, in most of the literature she had seen on Liverpool's music scene and the Beatles, rarely were any of the city's numerous Black bands ever acknowledged even though groups like the Fab 4 played with them and, according to some rumors, learned their R&B-styled chops from them. Onkey also makes the very provocative argument that Liverpool's historical Black population (dating back centuries to the city's prominence as the slaving port in Great Britian) is one reason why the blues fetishism that hit other British bands like the Rolling Stones or Cream bypassed Liverpool groups - they had grown up with Black people and thus, weren't as likely to romanticize/nostalgize them through the blues.

In any case, during her talk, she played this clip by the Liverpool doo-wop group, The Chants, who worked with the Beatles early on before they really became "The Beatles." Here they are, covering the jazz standard, "I Could Write a Book."


3) Gayle Wald: I last mentioned Gayle a year ago, in connection to her book on Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Gayle's now working on researching the life and times of the late Ellis Haizlip, a remarkable artistic force in New York, who, among other things, hosted the PBS show, Soul!. It's hard to quite capture how remarkable a show this was - in the late '60s through early '70s, it was an incredible meeting point of different Black artists, musicians, politicians, etc. in ways that have never really been duplicated since (no, not even by Arsenio).

The problem is that this show will likely never, ever be released to the public on DVD or any other format - the release contracts signed at the time make such a occurrence logistically impossible for all practical purposes. It's a damn shame - the clips that Gayle brought included a mind-melting interview between Haizlip and Farrakhan talking about gay sex, Ashford and Simpson performing on one of the last Soul! shows and - coincidentally enough - Max Roach w/ the JC White Singers.

Luckily (however illegally), clips have snuck out, including this 1973 performance by the Spinners on the show.


4) Last but not least, one of the other people on my panel (besides Gayle) was EMP organizer and fellow L.A. partner-in-culinary-crime Eric Weisbard who did a paper on Elton John's "Benny and the Jets" - a song that most everyone (I presume) has heard but may not remember being a big hit on not just the pop charts, but also the R&B charts. Don't believe it? Just ask Mary. Or the Diabolical:

Biz Markie: Sounds of Silence (by the Beastie Boys) (Capitol, 1999)

For real though, listening to that version isn't half as fun as watching it:

JUST FOR THE HELL OF IT posted by O.W.

WE ARE THE WORLD REDUX posted by O.W.

All I can say is...wow.

CLASSIC MATERIAL posted by O.W.

Erykah Badu: Honey

(thanks to HHH)

LEARN YOUR HISTOIRE posted by O.W.

Proof that there is some greater cosmic wisdom in the universe...there are videos to the songs off of Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson.





Thanks to DJ Sheep.

BTW, I'm still on holiday break but I'll be back around soon enough and expecting the true heads to roll through the Redwood Bar, ya heard?

STILL BUSY posted by O.W.

Trying to free up some time but for now, enjoy this from the late Hector Lavoe:

QUICK TAKES posted by O.W.

1) Look for this new book coming out in the next few weeks. (Psss...I'm a contributor, plus my boy Dave T. wrote the intro).


2) This video is so good, I actually almost makes me feel bad I quasi-panned the album. Had I seen this before listening to American Gangster, I would have assumed the CD was godly (instead of being merely "good").

Jay-Z: Roc Boys

3) D-Nice's True Hip-Hop Stories = essential for oldnew school cats like me. I mean no disrespect by this following comment, but I appreciate D-Nice better in his "post-rapper" career than I did when he was rapping. That said, this song is still one of the illest '90s tracks ever.

Another Soul Sides Space Filler posted by O.W.

James Brown in Paris, 1971

(Sorry, too busy to post right now but I'm working on some big things I'll share soon).

If This Ain't Fresh, Don't Know What Is posted by O.W.

Sorry, still buried in a ton of work. Another snack to keep ya'll tided over:

Gettin' Busy Like That posted by O.W.

Ugh - I'm swamped in work again so it might be a few days until a new post. Until then, enjoy this:


(And yeah, I did already post it on my other blog. No, the other other one).

Amy Winehouse: Live at the Roxy posted by O.W.

Apologies for being gone for a minute - I was back up in the Bay last weekend for a quick trip for this. I've been meaning to post something about Amy Winehouse earlier - and I will be doing something more substantial by early April - but for now, let me just share that I caught her at The Roxy in Hollywood (yes kids, O.W. actually does venture outside the house once in a while) and am pleased to report that I was well-nigh entertained by Ms. Winehouse.

(And no, it's not because she was drunk off her ass, singing "Beat It").

There's been a lot written about Winehouse over the last few months - please see my dear friend and colleague, Ann Powers' recent profile in the LAT - and it's not hard to understand why: she's a Jewish, British gal gifted with a voice that's part of the Billie Holiday/Erykah Badu/Lauryn Hill/Madeline Peryoux school of bourboned warmth and rasp, who was a jazz torch singer last album and has, for Back To Black, reinvented herself into a Stax/Motown era song slinger.

There's much that could be said about artists like Winehouse or Joss Stone - modern day Teena Marie-types whose blue-eyed soul performances raise provocative questions around race and performance but I'm going to put those aside for now...except to say that I was marveling a bit at how her and her band were set-up. Though two of her backing band (the Dap-Kings - more on them in a moment) are African American, the most prominent Black folk on stage were her back-up singers - two very nattily dressed Black men in fitted dark suits - who were on Winehouse's left and spent more time swaying to the music than actually singing. And then there's Winehouse herself - she of the faux-beehive coif, tatted arms, arched eyebrows and ever-so-exotic racial indeterminacy. It's an intriguing spectacle to be sure.

But yeah - for those who listened to Back To Black and thought initially, "wow, this kind of sounds like a Sharon Jones album" it's because Winehouse's touring band and studio band for at least half the album (all the tracks produced by Mark Ronson) are none other than the Dap-Kings.

It's a good look for Winehouse - or should I say, a good sound. What makes her album so much fun to listen to and what made her show so enjoyable was the fact that her tunes just sound great and that's largely thanks to the work that producers Ronson and Salaam Remi (yeah, that Salaam Remi) plus the Dap-Kings put into giving Winehouse's charming soul brogue a bed of sound to play off of.

I'm not saying this to take away from Winehouse as a songwriter - sure, "Rehab" is pretty catchy in a Lily Allen/Nellie McKay sort of way - but let's be honest...we're swimming in any number of neo/retro-soul artists at the moment and what gives Winehouse the current edge - besides her tabloid exploits - is that she's got a great sound working for you.

I'll have a special post in a few weeks that addresses this, namely by situating Winehouse's new album against the new "tradition" of retro soul albums that have cropped up in the last half dozen years or so.

What I want to say right now is that it does bear the question: would Winehouse seem as intriguing if not for her British + Whiteness? Coincidentally, I recently interviewed none other than Sharon Jones, who rightfully deserves recognition as the pioneering retro-soul singer for our era, and though she had nothing negative to say about the woman who's currently touring with the band she normally rocks with, Jones did note that she finds it disappointing that she's never enjoyed the same level of media attention as a lot of these new soul singers coming out of the UK (most of whom, notably, are young, handsome/pretty and White).

The fact that Jones is a Black woman in her 50s does make a difference here - in being seen as more authentic, she's also less a novelty (though her age does put her into a different generation entirely) and thus less likely to have a platoon of publications trying to profile her with the same fervor that Winehouse as enjoyed.

Is there some kind of double standard going on here? Yeah - absolutely. Ironically, Jones was too young in the 1960s and '70s to have been able to become part of the tradition of funk/soul divas like Marva Whitney or Lyn Collins but now she's too old to roll in the same crowd as the Joss Stones and Corinne Bailey Raes.

As you can sense, my thoughts are rather jumbled here and I'm not trying to come at Winehouse sideways - I actually thoroughly enjoyed her show (which is saying a lot considering how much I hate having to drive into West Hollywood for any reason) and I plan to write more about her in the near future. But it's impossible for me to listen to her and the Dap-Kings perform and wonder, "well - would Sharon Jones and this same band have sold out the same venue?" and if the answer is "no," that should be cause for pause.

In the meanwhile, check out her latest video, this the title song off the new CD:

Back to the Day Glo posted by O.W.

God bless YouTube. I'm an insane De La Soul fan - they are the #1 reason I got into hip-hop - but even I didn't know about the existence of this 3 Ft. High and Rising video press-kit until now.

Nostalgia overload!

Al Green: Still Keepin' It Together posted by O.W.

Al Green: Definitive Greatest Hits (CD/DVD) (2007)

When I got this in the mail, I have to admit...my first thought was..."wait, haven't there been about four dozen "definitive" Al Green anthologies? And to be sure, the tracklisting on here is meant to collect songs you already know rather than pick up on more obscure bits from his catalog:

1. Let's Stay Together
2. Tired Of Being Alone
3. Take Me To The River
4. I'm Still In Love With You
5. Look What You Done For Me
6. Here I Am (Come And Take Me)
7. Love And Happiness
8. Keep Me Cryin'
9. Call Me (Come Back Home)
10. Livin' For You
11. Let's Get Married
12. Sha-La-La (Make Me Happy)
13. L-O-V-E (Love)
14. You Ought To Be With Me
15. Oh Me, Oh My (Dreams In My Arms)
16. Full Of Fire
17. Back Up Train- Al Green & The Soul Mates
18. I Can't Get Next To You
19. Belle
20. I Can't Stop
21. Perfect To Me

I'll be really real - I wouldn't have programmed it this way (no "Simply Beautiful"? No "Light My Fire"?) but if you really need a starting point and you want to cover a wide range of Green eras without having to ball for this, then sure, it'll work.

The real bonus is the second disc that comes with this set: the DVD full of Green performance videos. I hadn't seen most of these before and though the acoustic performance of "Simply Beautiful" is very, very, very nice, I have to give the nod to the 1972 performance of "Let's Stay Together" while it was at the height of its popularity. For real - a young Al Green was probably living like the mack with his looks and voice.



Good stuff. He even looks good in a suit that would have been a fashion disaster on anyone else (with a turtleneck no less!)

Classic Material posted by O.W.

Kanye West feat. Rakim, Nas and KRS-One: Classic (DJ Premier Remix)

It's stuff like this to make an 80s 70s baby feel old. It's cool they (Nike) footed the bill for a video on top of the song.

Thanks to D. Johnson for the heads-up.

Never on schedule, but always on time... posted by O.W.

One of my favorite songs of the last few months gets a video:

FUN WITH EDITING posted by O.W.

Apologies for not having any recent updates - it's been a very busy week. In the meantime, enjoy this wholly awesome video originally spotted at Soulstrut.