Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm: Funky Mule + Getting Nasty
From A Black Man’s Soul (Pompeii, 1969)
It’s a shame that Ike Turner had to be such a crazy, abusive s.o.b. since it’s hard to listen to his music without thinking, “oh yeah, this was the dude who used to beat Tina. Crazy s.o.b.” That said, A Black Man’s Soul is still a great album, regardless of the personality behind it, and thanks to all the interest that’s been directed at it over the years, it’s been available on reissue for a while.
I’m sure some other audioblog has posted up these songs or probably the entire entire at some point but if you’ve never heard the music off here before, it’s very, very good acoustic funk being played by a small outfit. “Funky Mule” is a cover of Marvin Holmes’ hit dance (Bay Area, represent) and dare I say, I think it comes off a bit tighter than Holmes’ version. For me however, the real gem is “Getting Nasty” – I love how they manage to make a piano-powered song like this swing with such a slick, funky feel. It’s easy to see why both Large Professor and Jurassic 5 were so into the song.
chatter