Chuck Womack and the Sweet Souls: Ham Hocks and Beans Pt. 1 (edit)
From 7″ (Re-Joint, 1971/2005)
Jerome and His Band: Ghetto (edit)
From 7″ (Re-Joint, early 70s/2005)
My friends Cool Chris and Vinnie Esparza who run Re-Joint/Dis-Joint just put out these two slices of 7″ funkiness that I wanted to share. The Re-Joint releases don’t come in droves but when one appears, you can be sure it’s going to be some good stuff. In this case, both of these 45s were originally discovered by another friend, Justin Torres, who’s working on a Bay Area soul history and series of compilations to follow.
The Chuck Womack is fantastic, a solid piece of funky soul if ever there were one. Those drums are simply lovely (for those, like me, who care about such things). The lyrics are not exactly deep but what more do you need than someone shouting out soul food for 3 minutes? My point exactly.
As for Jerome and His Band…this is a Tagalog-language version of Donny Hathaway’s “The Ghetto” which isn’t the best cover of the song I’ve ever heard but dudes…it’s in Tagalog (that’s a Filipino language for those not in the know). I love stuff like this on concept alone (though the Latin-fied funky execution doesn’t hurt either).
I’m only doing edit snippets on these two since they’re new in stores now and I’m nudging folks to buy ’em.
chatter