Charles Kynard: Soul Reggae
From Reelin’ With the Feelin’ (Prestige, 1969)
Wonderland Space Shuttle: 2001
From Theme From Star Wars (Wonderland, 197?)
It’s back to closet cleaning time ’round here with all these dustball MP3 files lying around. First up is a lone track that was supposed to be part of Carol Kaye post but frankly, I’m still looking for a few better tracks to go with it but it’s been months now and I wanted to finally get “Soul Reggae” out there before more time went by. Kaye, by the way, is one of the greatest studio bassists since the 1960s (though she harbors this rather bizarre insistence that she played on certain Motown songs that James Jamerson clearly was responsible for) and her sound is so signature that once you listen to a few songs, you can start picking up on her style from that point on. On this song, she’s playing with one of my favorite organists (though perhaps this isn’t saying much since, in truth, I’ve never been a huge B3 fan. Yeah, blasphemous but whatever), Charles Kynard. I will definitely have to do a Kynard post in the future (if I remember). Anyways, Kynard. Awesome player and arranger, did a bunch of great albums on Prestige in the late ’60s then moved over to Mainstream in the early ’70s. I took this song off his Reelin’ With the Feelin’ album since you can really get a sense of Kaye’s bass pluckings that add such a nice, warm and funky dynamic.
As for “2001,” this oft-covered movie theme appears on a strange pop instrumental album by the Wonderland Space Shuttle, part of a larger trend of ’60s and ’70s albums that were all covers of TV and movie themes. Seems weird now but this was kind of hot shit back in the day. Anyways, I don’t know much about the group though I can only assume they have something in common with the Jeff Wayne Space Shuttle of “Apes Shuffle” fame (not that it’s all that famous). I’m not really a huge fan of the 2001 theme (though Deodato’s is pretty essential) but this one holds up fairly well, especially in the beginning with those Afro-influenced drums and the keys.
chatter