Truly one of the odder and more obscure 45's from the rich, overwhelming legacy of Northern Soul, The Crow's "Your Autumn of Tomorrow" is a doozy; it's a daring, even somewhat disorienting blend of jazz, soul, funk, rock, and psychedelia. In 2 and a half minutes, it's packed with more ideas than some songs double its length, and, listening to it now, it certainly sounds like a product of the genre-blurring directions of black music in the late 60's. It's raw and gritty, yet has an unmistakable dancefloor heart pumping.
Preston Love--the famous alto saxophonist and bandleader from Omaha--once owned a record label with Otis Renwho, alongside his brother Leon, had owned the earliest black independent labels on America's West Coast: Exclusive and Excelsior Records. They later formed Class Records, scoring rock'n'roll hits in the late 50s. Leon's son Googie recorded for Class in the 60s, scoring with tracks like "Chic A Boo" and "Smokey Joe's La La."
In the mid 60s they set up another label, Soul Bag, which saw the release of the classic 45, Count Yates and the Rhythm Crusader's "At The Soul In." Produced by Googie Ren this is now an incredibly hard 45 to track down. Featuring some incredibly funky keyboards and a playful, rowdy atmosphere (not an unusual occurrence considering bands, especially soul and funk acts, actually used to record in the same room together), it's one of my favorite 45's of all time. It just has a great sound all its own.
With his grinding guitars, distorted sound and fervid call-and-response of those and many other recordings made for the King and Federal labels, Hank Ballard helped define the sound of rock and roll. He also ushered forth one of its greatest dance crazes, having written and first recorded “The Twist.” By the early 1960s, he’d charted 22 singles on the R&B charts, including “Work With Me, Annie,” which was the biggest R&B hit of 1954. It sold more than a million copies and spawned more than 20 answer records (including Etta James’ “Roll with Me Henry").
By the late '60's, Ballard was working as a solo act, often with James Brown's revue, and 1968's "How You Gonna Get Respect (If You Haven't Cut Your Process Yet?)" was a minor R&B hit, and is one of the funkiest tunes from his catalog.
La Kabala were a psychedelic funk/rock outfit from Mexico, who seemed to have only released one self-titled album. The LP is mega-rare and has gone for as high as $700 on Ebay.
"El Camiente Solitatario" opens with a single-note staccato piano and drum pattern before the rest of the band kicks in with flute, organ, guitar, bass, and great vocal harmonies. It's a great blend of psychedelia and funk, with a cool arrangement and a distinctive sound.
Dom Salvador is a renowned Brazilian jazz musician with extensive international experience as accompanist of MPB acts like Elis Regina, Quarteto em Cy, Jorge Ben, Edu Lobo, Rosinha de Valença, Sílvia Telles, and Elza Soares. His Rio 65 Trio had maybe the best Brazilian drummer of all time, Edison Machado, and bassist Sérgio Barroso. They performed around and recorded Rio 65 Trio in the same year.
It's one of the greatest, and naturally, rarest, samba LP's of the 60's (a decent copy will run around $250); a masterpiece of dynamic, adept playing that captured the essence of Brazilian samba and jazz.
Here's a good reason why working a day job pays off - Clarence Foster; a Philadelphia born IRS employee with a whole lot of funk in his trunk. Thankfully instead of continuing the theme and having song titles along the same lines, Mr Foster conjured up tributes to some of his favorite things: Frying chicken, hot pants, and basketball.
Just like it's hard to find an old school hip-hop rhyme without references to Superman, it's hard to find funk records that don't reference either Fried Chicken or Hot Pants, two of funk's finest staples. So why not combine them into one? Check the MEGA drum break that begins at :35. Grab it from Freestyle Records!
The Village Callers were one of the best bands in East Los Angeles in the late 60s. They were also arguably the first band with members with roots in the "Eastside Sound" of the early to mid-60s to utilize Latin percussion. Their repertoire was a mix of r&b, Latin, and Latin jazz. They recorded an album in 1968 for Eddie Davis' Rampart Records called "The Village Callers Live." The album included an instrumental with a Latin jazz feel named after their manager called "Hector," which did very well at the time and has become one of the Eastside Sound's classic recordings. It's been reissued on several compilations, used in movies, and sampled by artists such as Cypress Hill and the Beastie Boys. "The Village Callers Live" has also been reissued on the Vampisoul record label, which is based in Spain and internationally distributed, and on Barrio Gold Records, based in Japan. The Village Callers also have the distinction of having recorded a Latin rock version of "Evil Ways" before Santana.
The Village Callers were born out of a band in East L.A. called Marcy & the Imperials. Marcy Alvarado was a bluesy singer, guitarist, and band leader. (Marcy went on to get a masters degree from U.C.L.A, but passed away in the late 70s.) Gradually, Marcy & the Imperials evolved into the Village Callers, and the new members brought different influences into the mix. Ernie Hernandez (guitar) loved the music and style of guitarist Wes Montgomery. Johnny Gonzalez was into the blues organ style of Jimmy Smith. The music of Latin artists such as Mongo Santamaria and Willie Bobo were also added to the brew. With the new lineup in place they could play Latin, Latin jazz, rhythm & blues, and oldies but goodies. They became very popular in East Los Angeles, playing all the top venues such as the Big Union Hall, Roger Young Auditorium, and Montebello Ballroom. They also enjoyed a long run at the Plush Bunny nightclub in Pico Rivera, despite the fact they were underage. The Village Callers were an extremely dedicated band. They rehearsed five days a week, five hours a day. Already out of high school at this point, they also had a no drinking or smoking rule.
The manager of the Village Callers, Hector Rivera, knowing that the band was ready to record, invited producer and record company owner Eddie Davis to come and hear the band at the Plush Bunny. Eddie loved the band and wanted to do a "live" album recorded right there at the Plush Bunny where they were creating such excitement. The band's lineup on the record was Joe Espinosa (bass), Charles Masten (congas & sax), Johnny Gonzalez (organ & piano), Manuel Fernandez (drums & timbales), Ernie Hernandez (guitar), "Fuzzy" Martinez (sax), and Angie Bell (lead vocals). The Village Callers recorded most of their album, The Village Callers Live, in one night. It was recorded very simply with a few overhead microphones and a live mix. The band did go into a studio and record a few songs, including the classic break 45 "Hector." To add fatness to the record, the bass parts were tripled. The song wound up being so long that it was divided into "Hector Part 1" and "Hector Part 2" for the single. "Hector"-- with its hip Latin groove and Fuzzy's comedic spoken word contribution--caught on in East L.A. and began to get airplay on the big time am radio stations in Los Angeles.
Aside from the classic "Hector," the album also featured a heavy version of Willie Bobo's "Evil Ways," which was enjoying a lot of airplay, particularly in San Francisco. Word later got to them that Santana's producer heard their version on the radio and got Santana to record it. And that was that. (For further reading check out Mark Guerrero's website)
"Love Gonna Pack Up (And Walk Out On Us)" was the second single by the Persuaders, following their huge hit, "Thin Line Between Love and Hate." However, what Sly, Slick and Wicked do with it is take out the electric guitar and replace it with keyboards instead and in softening up the edge of the song, it really brings out the sublime, sweet soul qualities of the song that improve on the sound that The Persuaders' introduced. It's not a radically different song on the surface but listen to them side by side and it actually sounds like the Sly, Slick and Wicked's version would be the original and The Persuaders' is the cover. (The lower-fi quality of SSW's version doesn't hurt).
(Just to be clear too: There were two groups in 1970s named Sly, Slick and Wicked. One was from Cleveland and recorded for Paramount and People. The other (above) were from Los Angeles. Just to make things even more confusing, there was the soul group called The Lost Generation who had a decent hit in the same era with a song called "Sly, Slick and Wicked"). (Courtesy Soul Sides)
The track also bears more than a striking resemblance to the opening cut on a recent release I adore, Lee Fields' My World. The Fields/Expressions tune, "Do You Love Me," is basically a rewrite of the Persuaders cut. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
When Isaac Hayes passed away, the fine folks at Truth & Soul in Brooklyn compiled a fantastic EP of covers, performed reverently by the crack musicians in El Michels Affair.
Their version of "Walk On By" is slow, seductive, and deeply funky, and is a fitting tribute to one of the most enduring songwriters of the 20th Century.
Hortense Ellis (18 April 1941, Trenchtown, Kingston, Jamaica - 19 October 2000) was a reggae musician, and the younger sister of fellow artist, Alton Ellis.
Her father worked on the railways while her mother ran a fruit stall. Hortense was just 18 years old when she appeared on the Vere Johns Opportunity Hour, then Jamaica's foremost outlet for young undiscovered talent. Her version of Frankie Lymon's "I'm Not Saying No At All" so impressed both audience and panel that she was invited back the following week. Hortense went on to enter many more competitions and showcases and she reached six semi-finals and four finals. In 1964 she was awarded a silver cup as Jamaica's Best Female Vocalist and went on to repeat this feat five years later.
During the sixties, Hortense toured Jamaica with Byron Lee and The Dragonaires and had begun recording with some of the island's top producers like Ken Lack ("I Shall Sing", "Hell And Sorrow" and "Brown Girl In The Ring"), Coxsone Dodd ("Twelve Minutes To Go"), "Ill Come Softly") and Duke Reid. Alton Ellis was also recording with Dodd at this time and the family connection was cleverly exploited by Dodd who produced "female" adaptions of some of Alton's hits (for Hortense to record) including "Why Do Birds" and "I'm Just A Guy". Dodd also paired Alton and Hortense in a run of classic duets such as "I'm In Love" and "Easy Squeeze".
The siblings toured Canada in 1970 but the following year, Hortense was back in Jamaica where she married Mikey "Junior" Saunders with whom she had five children in quick succession. Although her live performances suffered as a result, Hortense remained busy in the studio. Recording under the name Mahalia Saunders for producer Lee "Scratch" Perry, she cut several sides including "Right On The Tip Of My Tongue" and "Piece Of My Heart". Hortenese's biggest success came in the late seventies with a song cut for Gussie Clarke. "Unexpected Places" was a big hit in Jamaica and also in Britain where it appeared on the Hawkeye label.
For producer Bunny "Striker" Lee, Hortense became Queen Tiney for her "Down Town Ting" - an "answer" record to Althea and Donna's big hit "Uptown Top Ranking" which had itself been based on the rhythm of Alton's big hit "I'm Still In Love With You".
Around this time, Hortense recut many of her Coxsone/Studio One sides with Soul Syndicate, The Agrovators and the up and coming team of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare. The rise of the Lovers Rock genre in the late seventies and early eighties led to Hortense cutting cover version of several popular soul classics including "Down The Aisle" (Patti Labelle) and "Young Hearts Run Free" (Candi Staton). Following her divorce from Mikey Saunders, Hortense spent much of the eighties living in New York and Miami. On returning to Jamaica in 1989, she began suffering health problems, but managed to carry on with occasional local live performances. She recovered sufficiently to make a private visit to New York in the summer of 1999 and then to Miami the following year where ill health finally caught up with her.
Hortense Ellis died in her sleep in a Kingston hospital on October 18, 2000 from a stomach infection. Below is her classic version of a soul-funk diva classic, "Woman of the Ghetto." (Biographical information courtesy of Wikipedia.)
Johnny Talbot was born in Texas and raised in the Bay area of California, to be more specifically, Oakland. While attending high school, he was involved in Doo-Wop bands, and like many musicians of the time, naturally graduated towards Soul, R & B, and in his case, Funk, as the times and tastes of music changed around him. He played guitar, and the bands he played in hit up the West Coast club and Bay area bar circuit. Eventually, Talbot went on to become the front man for De-Thangs, (the name given because no one could think of a thing to call the outfit ), and lay down some very funky stuff, earning him the nickname: “The Father of Oakland Funk”.
His turbo fueled mix of funky Texas style guitar and Rhythm Blues has inspired many Bay area artists including Tower of Power, and his bands backed up greats like Etta James and Marvin Gaye, plus other touring bands that came through town. Sort of like The Politicians from two weeks ago. This side was the first record put out on James Moore’s Jasman label, an Oakland based label that would go on to put out sides by Talbot and Sugar Pie DeSanto among others. He has gotten a bit of a resurgence in popularity since the 90’s, this time with a much younger crowd, from reissues by Ubiquity Records, courtesy of their Bay Area Funk compilations. (Via Flea Market Funk)
Born Umpeylia Marsema Balinton, Sugar Die DeSanto was given her stage name as well as her recording debut by rhythm and blues ubermensch Johnny Otis. He dubbed her "Little Miss Sugar Pie" in 1955, and not because she had a sweet tooth or liked to bake. "While we were in the studio he named me Sugar Pie," DeSanto recalled in an interview, "Because I was so little. I wore a size three shoe and I weighed about 85 pounds. I was very tiny." She's a half-pint in size, true, but in talent or voice assuredly not. Although typecast as a blues singer, she also takes care of business on the soul end of things and is a convincing jazz vocal stylist as well. That would be enough to gain most singers a reasonable slice of glory, but DeSanto also happens to be a hilarious comedienne, a show-stopping dancer, and a superb and highly original songwriter whose compositions have been cut by Fontella Bass, Billy Stewart, Little Milton, Bobby McClure, Minnie Riperton, Jesse James, the Dells, and the Whispers.
Otis discovered her performing at the Ellis Theater, the venue which she feels was sort of a birthing ground for her musical style. Otis dropped by one of the venue's regular talent shows only to observe DeSanto walking off with first prize. He promptly offered her a contract to come to Los Angeles to cut her first record ever. From the late '50s onward she performed regularly at rhythm & blues havens such as the Apollo in New York, the Regal in Chicago, and the Howard in Washington, D.C. At the Apollo she made quite an impression on the so-called "Godfather of Soul," James Brown, leading to her becoming his opening act for two years.
In 1964, DeSanto was the only female performer on a touring American Folk Blues Festival bill with a lineup that would make a blues fan soak the concert program with drool, including Willie Dixon, Sleepy John Estes, Clifton James, Sunnyland Slim, Hubert Sumlin, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Sonny Boy Williamson II, also known as Rice Miller. She has written some 100 songs and prefers to perform her own material. DeSanto's on-stage workout has always totally bypassed her record releases in terms of creativity and intensity, and her advancing age isn't stopping her from continuing to expand her talent base: she recently branched out into country & western.
Jan Bradley (born Addie Bradley, July 6, 1943, Byhalia, Mississippi) is an American soul singer.
Bradley grew up in Robbins, Illinois. She was noticed by manager Don Talty (who also managed Phil Upchurch) at a high school talent show. After graduating, she auditioned for Curtis Mayfield, and soon recorded the Mayfield-penned "We Girls", which became a hit regionally in the Midwest. Several singles followed, and another Mayfield song, "Mama Didn't Lie" (b/w "Lovers Like Me"), was released nationally in the U.S. by Chess Records in 1963 and hit #8 R&B and #14 on the Billboard Hot 100.[2]
Following the single's success, Mayfield and Chess got into a legal battle over the publishing rights to Mayfield's songs, and as a result Bradley was no longer able to work with him. She started writing her own songs and released several further singles on Chess. "I'm Over You" hit #24 R&B in 1965; other Chess releases included "Just a Summer Memory" b/w "He'll Wait on Me", "It's Just Your Way", and "These Tears" b/w "Baby What Can I Do". Bradley continued working with Talty after her arrangement with Chess ended, releasing singles for Adanti, Doylen, Spectra Sound, and Night Owl.
Bradley stopped singing professionally in the early 1970s; she raised a family and became a social worker. She resides in the south suburbs of Chicago and has two children. She is also the grandmother of three and continues to sing in her church choir. Her records remained popular among devotees of Northern soul. (Courtesy Wikipedia)
Below, an MP3 of "Mama Didn't Lie," a quintessential slice of A-Plus Chicago soul in the early 60's.
You will need FLASH installed to see the audio player.
Back from the vaults and recently exhumed from its slept-on status is another robust and hearty broth of Radiophonic Oddities and Dusty Nuggets, guaranteed to both quench your musical thirst and satiate your carnal hunger for only the finest vinyl that your discerning ears have come to demand. It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it.
Once again, buckle the f*ck up, and get ready to feel somethin stirrin.
TRACKLIST: 1. Intro 2. Time Capsule/Weldon Irvine 3. Crustaceatron/John Medeski and Billy Martin 4. Truth & Soul 5. Slim Jenkin's Place/Booker T. & The MG's 6. Struggling My Way/Calypso King 7. Creation/El Michels Affair 8. Freddie's Dead/Young Holt Unlimited 9. Sitting Duck/The Three Sounds 10. Skimming the Skum/Lefties Soul Connection 11. Soul Heart Transplant/Ebony Rhythm Band 12. Bold Soul Sister/Ike & Tina Turner 13. Killing/The Apples 14. La Valle/Bronx River Parkway 15. Stretch Your Rubber Band/The Meters 16. Hot Pants Road/James Brown 17. Fat Mama/Herbie Hancock 18. Feel Good Inc./Cookin' On 3 Burners 19. I'm Thankful/Spanky Wilson & Quantic Soul Orchestra 20. It's Your Thing/Cold Grits 21. Rock Steady/The Marvells 22. Cheney Lane/Nostalgia 77
