Bohannon: Save Your Souls
From Stop and Go (Dakar 1973)
Someone big upped this song on their blog (sorry, forgot who at this point) but weren’t able to provide the actual music so I figured I’d just fill in the gap. Stop and Go is one of those elusive albums by an artist whose other albums are relatively easy to find…just not this one (see Al Hirt’s Soul in the Horn for another prime example). The further rub is that, of course, it’s Bohannon’s best album: mega-soulful, nice touches of jazz and funk mixed in, and on a few tracks, like this and the equally sublime “Song For My Mother,” the gospel-influenced vocal nuances are beauuuutiful. Took me yeeeeears to find a copy of this LP but I’ve never regretted the time or effort. Someone just needs to reissue it and save everyone else the trouble, ym?
Roberto Roena Y Su Apollo Sound: Que Se Sepa
From 5 (Fania, 1973)
I was first turned onto this song when I heard it on Freak Off, one of several excellent Latin compilations put together by UK’s Harmless imprint. I then tracked it down via the magic of eBay, but just like Bohannon’s Stop and Go, finding a Roena LP isn’t that difficult – finding this one, however, is. One can only speculate that it’s because of this song, “Que Se Sepa,” hands-down, one of the illest, post-boogaloo Latin jawns I know. It kicks off with that wicked breakbeat after the intro and just whips you right onto the dancefloor and even when they give the trap set a rest, in comes in the timbales and congas and
chatter