Jimmy Smith – I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little More Babe

The Intense Jimmy Smith

Listen/Download -Jimmy Smith – I’m Gonna Love You a Just Little More Babe

Greetings all.
I don’t know about you guys, but I feel like taking a nap. The fall season has two specific effects on me, depending on the presence (or lack thereof) of the sun. If it’s sunny I want to get outside, fill my lungs with the crisp autumn air and love me some nature. If the sun is obscured by clouds, I feel like putting on my jammies and crawling into bed like a hibernating bear and staying there until it gets warm again. It doesn’t help that I’m especially sensitive to tree pollen and have been in an allergic haze, sneezing like a mofo and wishing my head didn’t feel like a solid block of cement.
I suppose this too shall pass.
On to groovier things….
Back in July, when I packed up my records and motored down to DC for a few nights of deejay type action, I had the good fortune to be invited to take part in the fifth anniversary of the Jazz Corner night at St Ex. There were a grip of DJs there, but at the center of the action were the mighty DJ Birdman and DC Digga. At the very beginning of DC Digga’s set he dropped the needle on a sweet break, which opened up into a very groovy Barry White cover. Naturally I had to know what it was and was shocked when my man held up a copy of Jimmy Smith’s ‘Black Smith’ LP.
I’d known about that particular record for a while but had never managed to score a copy of my own. In the weeks that followed I set out in search of one. When I finally tracked one down I gave the song I heard that night ‘I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little More Babe’ several spins, digging not only the aforementioned break, but the entire arrangement.
This is some of that tasty late-night stuff. The master of the Hammond takes the lush, boudoir groove of White’s OG and adds a little bit of a funky edge to it so that one might dance to it (vertically or horizontally) if they were so inclined.
There are those – of this I’m certain – who would stroll by with upturned noses at the first great master of the Hammond organ ‘debasing’ himself in such a way, but I would respectfully ask those people to pull their heads from their asses and open their ears. By 1974 (when this LP came out) the era of hardcore greasy Hammond workouts had long since ceased to be. It was hard enough in the 60s for jazzers to make a living, and even moreso in the 70s. While some of his peers had moved on to diluted pop-jazz, Smith was still digging deep into the groove. The days of hard bop soloing may have been behind him, but he was still making quality music.
The record was produced by Michael Viner (of the Incredible Bongo Band) with a studio backing band (I’d love to know who that drummer is). The album also includes interesting versions of Timmy Thomas’ ‘Why Can’t We Live Together’ and a funky take on ‘Hang ‘Em High’. ‘I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little More Babe’ was sampled by a Tribe Called Quest, the Beastie Boys and Kool G Rap.
I hope you dig the tune and I’ll be back on Friday.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for something groovy from Enoch Light

PSS Check out Paperback Rider too.

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Gloria Lynne – If You Don’t Get It Yourself

Miss Gloria Lynne

Listen/Download -Gloria Lynne – If You Don’t Get It Yourself

Greetings all.
I hope everyone had a most excellent weekend, and that you all had a chance to pull down the two anniversary editions of the Funky16Corners Radio podcast. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to wish Funky16Corners well.
The fam and I just got back from a great little trip up north, where the Mrs and I got to split for a getaway of our own. In addition to lots of great food from the Asian subcontinent we both got in our respective digging, she for yarn and me for records. I managed to bag some very nice stuff for both the blogs, so watch this space for the results.
The tune I bring you today literally fell in my lap when it arrived as part of a large (200+) lot of 45s. I picked up the stack’o’wax so that I might get my mitts on a certain psych 45, and ended up getting a bunch of excellent stuff in the bargain with it.
The ‘bonus’ records included a grip of soul 45s as well as a couple of funkier things, one of which is today’s selection.
Gloria Lynne is one of those great journeywoman (journeyman just doesn’t seem right) singers who worked it out for decades in jazz, R&B and soulful sounds. Her discography reaches back into the early 50s, and included long stints with the Everest and Fontana labels.
The tune I bring you today was her sole 45 for the storied Canyon label (home to Chuck Carbo’s ‘Can I Be Your Squeeze’ among others) in 1970.
‘If You Don’t Get It Yourself’ is one of those records that is clearly soulful, fairly funky, but not so much as to qualify as out and out funk (working of course using the patented ‘I know it when I hear it’ scale). However, in addition to a fine vocal by Miss Lynne, the driving wheel in this particular number is a very funky guitar line that sounds as if it were produced by a graduate of the Leo Nocentelli College of Funky Knowledge. If the drums were just a tinier bit more syncopated one could be forgiven for assuming that the tune had been recorded in the Crescent City.
As it is, it’s something of a burner, and a 45 that I plan on bringing with me the next time the Asbury Park 45 Sessions crew converges on the Asbury Lanes (which is actually happening in mid-January).
I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back later in the week with something cool.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for something groovy from Enoch Light

PSS Check out Paperback Rider too.

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

Fifth Anniversary Celebration Pt2 + F16 Radio v.75

Playlist

Overton Berry Trio – And I Love Her (Jaro)
Gary McFarland – Here There and Everywhere (Skye)
Vince Guaraldi – Eleanor Rigby (WB)
Bola Sete – Golden Slumbers (Paramount)
Ray Charles – Yesterday (TRC)
Shirley Scott – Because (Atlantic)
Brian Auger & the Trinity – A Day In the Life (Atco)
The Pair Extraordinaire – And I Love Her (Liberty)
Lonnie Smith – Eleanor Rigby (Blue Note)
David ‘Fathead’ Newman – Yesterday (Atlantic)
Stan Getz – Because (MGM)
Frank Wess – The Fool On the Hill (Enterprise)

Listen/ Download 67MB 192kb Mixed MP3

Listen/ Download 68MB ZIP FILE

Greetings all.
As promised, I have returned with the second mix of Beatles covers, aka Funky16Corners Radio v.75 – Golden Slumbers. I menitoned on Monday that this is a much mellower affair than F16C Radio v.74, more suited to dark nights or quiet afternoons than for anything resembling a party.

There are some old faves in the mix, as well as some more recent discoveries.

You can listen to the older Beatles covers mixes via the links below, and to catch Radio v.74 you need only scroll further down the page.

Thanks to everyone who sent along their good wishes on the fifth anniversary of the blog.

I hope you dig the mixes and I’ll be back next week with more of the stuff you love.

Peace

Larry

Hit the previous mixes  here:

Listen/download Funky16Corners Radio v.28 – Rubber Souled Pt1

Listen/download Funky16Corners Radio v.29 – Rubber Souled Pt2

Listen/download Funky16Corners Radio v.30 – Rubber Souled Pt3

Listen/download Funky16Corners Radio v.54 – Come Together

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for some mid-60s German pop.

PSS Check out Paperback Rider too.

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

Funky16Corners Fifth Anniversary Celebration!!

Playlist

Lee Moses – Day Tripper (Musicor)
Booker T & the MGs – Lady Madonna (Stax)
Natural Gas – Eleanor Rigby (Firebird)
Memphis Soul Band – Get Back (Minit)
JJ Barnes – Day Tripper (Ric-Tic)
JEJ Ensemble – Sgt Pepper Medley (JEJ)
Jay Jackson and the Heads of Our Time – With a Little Help From My Friends (Mr G)
Pat Williams – Hey Jude (Verve)
Dobby Dobson – Carry That Weight (Jaguar)
Ramsey Lewis – Sexy Sadie (Cadet)
Supremes – Come Together (Motown)
Verona High School Jazz Ensemble – Let It Be (private press)
Mongo Santamaria – Day Tripper (Columbia)
Ramsey Lewis – Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except for Me and My Monkey (Cadet)
Doc Severinson – Abbey Road Medley (Command)
Gap Mangione – The End (Mercury)

Listen/ Download 73MB 192kb Mixed MP3

Listen/ Download 74MB ZIP FILE

 

Greetings all.
I write this sitting at the dining room table, looking out the window as my sworn enemies – fall leaves – drop to the ground. I am currently under attack by some kind of sinus problem, which makes the thought of taking the leaf blower and the rake out of my shed all the more painful.
However, there is something to celebrate, an occasion so momentous, so earth shatteringly earth shattering as to wipe away any and all afflictions by virtue of its world shaking stupendousness.
That’s right, the Funky16Corners blog is five years old.
It was the first week of November 2004 when I first stepped blindly into the blog-o-mosphere, spilling the contents of my fevered brain onto the interwebs via my computer keyboard. Back in the day, I had no earthly idea that I would still be at it five long years later. If you are son inclined, and you take a bracing dip in the Funky16Corners pre-WordPress archive, you’ll also see that in the beginning, I didn’t really have a clear idea of what I was going to do with the blog.
The general concept is there, i.e. to ruminate on and inform about music, but as you’ll see the musical direction didn’t really take shape until the second month of the blog’s existence. There were traces of the Funky16Corners you know and love, but there was also a bunch of stuff that presaged the whole Iron Leg experience as well. You can go back to that first month and watch me as the divergent musical avenues of my mind do battle for supremacy.
That is now – as they say – a moot point. As I mentioned, a few years later I started Iron Leg to write about 60s pop/psych/garage etc, whittling down my free time even further. But by that time, “free time” itself was an outmoded concept as the whole blogging thing evolved from a pleasant diversion into something else entirely (still pleasant…).
If you’ve been a regular reader of either blog you’ll already know that my move into blogging wasn’t really new, in that I’d been writing about music, first in fanzines, then in newspapers, and ultimately on the interwebs for something like 25 years. What the internet allowed me to do was take a familiar format and give it new, multimedia dimensions.
When I started doing zines back in 84/85, it was all cut and paste with the rubber cement, plundering old books and magazines for artwork (or drawing it myself) and heading down to the old copy shop for duplication. From there, it was on to maybe 10 record stores – locally and in NYC – for hand-to-hand distribution and the dreaded consignment. Believe it or not, even then, via travelers picking up copies and the zine getting written up in other zines, international contact (in a decidedly more limited form) was made.
When the internet came along I took the opportunity (along with the most rudimentary HTML “skills”) and started zine-ing on the web. Out of that effort was born the Funky16Corners web zine, which grew over the course of four years to include a lot of long form articles/discographies and tons of shorter, capsule reviews.
The time came midway through 2004 that planning and executing the long-form web zine was starting to feel like a chore. My first son had arrived and my ability to expend the time and energy that it took to put a new issue together was dwindling rapidly.
I began to take a look at the blogging format, and it’s brevity and quick turnover appealed to me. I made the decision to change direction, concentrating more on single records. Within a couple of months things settled into something like the current format, where they stayed for another two years until the inception of the Funky16Corners Radio podcast in May of 2006. It was at that point that I started to put mixes on the web (god knows I’d been making them since I was first able to operate a cassette recorder), an enterprise that grew in diversity and sophistication to the point where the Funky16Corners Radio Podcast and Guest Mix archives now hold close to one hundred different mixes (as well as almost 30 more over at Iron Leg).
When I look back on those early days of paper-blogging, and see how many people now check in to the blog from all over the world, it genuinely blows my mind. We truly live in McLuhan’s global village, and at least in this circumstance I see it as a good thing. Soul and funk fans from all points of the compass gathering to share information and (more importantly) their love for the music.
There are those among you for whom a lot of the music posted here is new, and of course many dyed in the wool soulies for whom much of it is old (yet wonderful) news. If the Funky16Corners blog has a “mission”, it is bringing those two ends of the spectrum closer together, united by a love and respect for the music and the people that made it.
To mark the fifth anniversary of the blog, this week will see two more entries to that list with the fifth and sixth mixes of soul/funk/jazz covers of Beatles songs.
The Beatles were my first musical love. The first record I ever bought with my own money was a copy of the VeeJay LP ‘Introducing the Beatles’, and their music still stays with me as an important part of my life. When I put the first Beatles covers mixes together back in 2007, I hadn’t planned any sequals. However, as time went on I started making it a habit to record and put aside any Beatles covers that I found, and eventually all of the ensuing mixes came together.

Hit them here:

Listen/download Funky16Corners Radio v.28 – Rubber Souled Pt1

Listen/download Funky16Corners Radio v.29 – Rubber Souled Pt2

Listen/download Funky16Corners Radio v.30 – Rubber Souled Pt3

Listen/download Funky16Corners Radio v.54 – Come Together

The first mix this week will be more upbeat, the second (posted on Wednesday) a much mellower exercise for those late night, meditative listening sessions.
I won’t go into much detail on either mix, aside from noting that both of them have contributions from lots of old favorites as well as some unusual stuff.
I would like to thank everyone who has been a part of the ongoing Funky16Corners blog-sperience, including all the regular readers, my fellow bloggers and DJs (big ups to DJ Prestige and the Asbury Park 45 Sessions Crew and DJ Birdman in DC!) and especially those of you that have participated in the yearly fund drive that helps to keep this thing going (especially the Podcast Archive, by far the most heavily trafficked part of the site).
With any luck we’ll all be here for another five years (or longer), unless there’s another paradigm shift in the technology that takes us in another direction entirely.
I hope you dig the mixes and I’ll be back next week with more of the stuff you love.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for some mid-60s German pop.

PSS Check out Paperback Rider too.

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

F16C Halloween – Johnny Sayles – My Love’s a Monster

Mr. Johnny Sayles

Listen/Download -Johnny Sayles – My Love’s a Monster

Listen/Download – Clea Bradford – My Love’s a Monster (a whole ‘nother song…)

Greetings all.
The Funky16Corners Halloween thing continues today with a heavy slice of Chicago soul from the man Johnny Sayles.
This record (my copy of which sailed over from the UK courtesy of my man Tony C) is one that has been mentioned here previously, but never posted (on account of I didn’t have a copy).
The previous mention was in relation to a past Funky16Corners Halloween post of the late Clea Bradford’s song of the same title. When I first wrote about that record I knew that the Sayles ‘My Love’s a Monster’ existed, but could not figure out whether or not it was in fact the same song (which it is not).
Sometime between then and when Tony sent me the record I heard it on YouTube and started drooling immediately.
Johnny Sayles, born in Texas but transplanted to the Windy City started recording in the late 50s (one of his first records was with Ike Turner) and waxed his first record under his own name a few years later. Between 1963 and 1972 he recorded a grip of hot records for a variety of Chitown labels including Mar-V-Lus, Chitown, St Lawrence, Chess, Fakar and Brunswick.
‘My Love’s a Monster’, released in 1965 on Chitown is a storming Monk Higgins production with a gritty vocal by Sayles. It bears all the marks of prime, mid-60s Chicago soul and the choed handclaps alone are worth the price of admission.
If the hardcore soulful goodness wasn’t enough for you, you also get the spooky “BUM BUM BUM BUM BUMMMMMM!!!!” riff several times in the song moving it to the top of the list for any All Hallows Eve soul throwdown.
I’ve also reposted the Clea Bradford number to remind you how groovy that one is too.

I’ll be back on Monday for the beginning of the Funky16Corners Fifth Anniversary Celebration.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for some more Halloween in a pop/rock stylee…

PSS Check out Paperback Rider too.

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

The Return of Funky16Corners Halloween Spooktacular!!

Greetings all!
This rebroadcast of the 2007 Funky16Corners Halloween Spooktacular mix is a mid-week Halloween placeholder of sorts, to keep you all in the spirit until I return on Friday with a very solid slice of Halloween soul.
I hope you dig it and I’ll be back on Friday.
Peace
Larry

Originally posted 10/29/2007

We Now Return to Blacula Meets Black Dracula!

Funky16Corners Radio Halloween Spooktacular!?!

Playlist

1. Lou Rawls – Season of the Witch (Capitol)
2. Souls Unlimited – The Raving Vampire Pt1 (Wig Wam)
3. Bill Doggett – The Worm (Columbia)
4. Clea Bradford – My Love’s a Monster (Cadet)
5. Fred Wesley & the JB’s – Doin’ It To Death (People)
6. King Coleman – The BooBoo Song Pt1 (King)
7. Roger & the Gypsies – Pass the Hatchet Pt1 (Seven B)
8. Fame Gang – Spooky (Atlantic)

Listen/ Download 30MB Mixed MP3

Download 28MB Zip File

BOO!!!!
Heh, heh, heh…
I mean…Greetings all.
Halloween is upon us, so I thought it only fitting that we here at Funky16Corners should brew something up for the holiday. In the spirit of Dr. Frankenstein, my monster is also made from recycled parts, as every track in this mix (except for the drops) has appeared here in the past, a couple of them are even single tracks from Halloweens past.
Though there is an underlying spirit of Halloween consolidation, presenting these great songs for people who may have gotten on the Funky16Corners bus a few stops down the line from the rest of you, I have to admit to a certain preoccupation with what some would call “real world moves“. In all honesty, family obligations have taken a step up in the past week and there are some important things that need to be addressed which prevented me from stealing a few hours to exhume, and digi-ma-tize some “new” old stuff for your delectation.
Rest assured that it will not always be thus, and give the mix (not the individual tracks, which I provide as a courtesy, as always) a listen as I’ve tracked down some interesting, seasonal drops that take some of these tunes – barely related to Halloween – and recasts them in a spooky light (you may have to use your imagination a little, but then again that’s what Halloween’s all about). There are appearances by Halloween luminaries such s Count Floyd, Criswell, Gomez & Morticia Addams, The Simpsons, the Kids In the Hall, Monty Python, and of course Casper the Friendly Ghost.
You get Lou Rawls souling up Donovan, funky bloodsuckers from the Carolinas, a rare meeting between Frank Herbert and Bill Doggett, the mighty Clea Bradford with a romantic Frankenstein’s monster of a kind, funky murder from Fred and the JB’s, a shocking turn by King Coleman, the Axe Murderers national anthem, and in closing, a slightly funky reworking of the Classics IV.
So, I hope you dig it and that you have an excellent Halloween.
I’m going to go trick or treating with my wife and sons, and we’re all going to watch ‘It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown’ three or four times.
Peace
Larry

PS I got a rock…

F16C Halloween – Mike Sharpe – Spooky

“I got a scan of the wrong side of the album…and a rock…

Listen/Download -Mike Sharpe – Spooky

Greetings all.
Despite the surplus of real world activity in my life these days, I am approaching the Halloween season prepared (unlike previous years) on both blog fronts.
Though I’ve never been what you might describe as gung-ho about this particular holiday, I have always seen it as an opportunity for fun, monster movie fan that I am (and by that I am referring to monster films of the old school, not the current wave of mutilation porn that passes for horror cinema), and since the inception of the blog, part of that fun is tracking down and whipping some Halloween grooves on you good people.
This year both of the new selections you’ll be hearing this week made their way into my crates thanks to my man in the YOU-KAY Mister Tony C.
Not too long ago Tony said that he had picked up the Mike Sharpe 45 ‘Break Through’ and that I might be interested in the flipside, a version of the Classics IV tune ‘Spooky’. I had heard of ‘Break Through’ before via the mod soul crowd (and a couple of Northern Soul set lists), and set out in search of my own copy. I wasn’t able to grab a copy of the (more expensive) 45, but I did find a clean copy of the LP, so I grabbed it.
Though I’ve been DJ-ing as part of an all-5 night for years, I like to grab soul/funk LPs where I can find them because I love discovering cool, LP-only tracks (and the Sharpe album had a few of those).
I started to do a little research and much to my surprise I discovered that Mike Sharpe (real last name Shapiro) was an Atlanta-area sax player/songwriter who had actually composed and recorded the original (instrumental) version of ‘Spooky’. It was picked up by the Classics IV’s manager Buddy Buie and guitarist Jimmy Cobb who laid some lyrics on the tune, it was recorded by the band and became their first big hit (spawning countless cover versions on almost as many genres). Sharpe played the sax solo on the hit version of ‘Spooky’ as well as a number of other Classics IV hits.
Sharpe’s OG ‘Spooky’ features a backing of an unusual sounding organ, vocal chorus and of course his saxophone in the lead. It compares favorably with the better known version and was itself a regional hit.
Sharpe went on to record a few more albums for Imperial. I’ll make sure to post ‘Break Through’ some time in the future.
I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll be back on Wednesday with something a little heavier.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for some more Halloween in a pop/rock stylee…

PSS Check out Paperback Rider too.

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

James Booker – Gonzo

Genius at Work: James Booker

Listen/Download -James Booker – Gonzo

Greetings all.
I for one couldn’t be happier that this week is finally coming to a close. To borrow a well worn phrase from the Bard, life is currently beating me like a rented mule, leaving me tired, frazzled and ready to shut my brain off for a day or two. This has been one of those weeks that has been chock-a-block with stuff to do, places to be and spending far too little time in bed, sleeping or otherwise occupied.
Fortunately I have a block of restorative time penciled in for the weekend, during which I look forward to doing little more than making sure my sons are safe and fed, and feeding the non-creative section of what’s left of my brain with movies and such (and maybe a touch of light reading if I can muster up enough concentration.
The tune I bring you today is an old fave, which could land in either of two crates in the Funky16Corners vault, those being New Orleans and Hammond grooves.
The artist in question is the mighty James Booker.
Revered during his day as a keyboard master (on piano and organ both) and a dude with a talent for living on the edge (over which he eventually plummeted), James Booker wove his way in and out of the fabric of New Orleans music from his early days in the 1950s through his untimely death in 1983 (he was only 44).
Booker was not only gay at a time when that would have made his life difficult on a number of levels, but was also – sadly -  an alcoholic and a junkie.
He recorded his first 45 in 1954 and eventually hit the charts with today’s selection, ‘Gonzo’ in 1960 which was a Top 5 R&B hit, floating just outside of the Pop Top 40. Booker recorded a number of excellent 45s for Don Robey’s Duke and Peacock labels (one under the name of BB King’s drummer Earl Forrest), all of which Robey took writing credit for (under the pseudonym ‘D. Malone’).
Booker also did a stint playing organ in the band of fellow New Orleans-ian Lloyd Price, an example of which can be heard in Funky16Corners Radio v.23.5 Old School Hammond.
It’s not hard to imagine legions of people dropping their nickels into jukeboxes all over the country to cut a rug to ‘Gonzo’, which features Booker on the organ as well as a sweet flute solo (maybe James Rivers??). It has an infectious melody and the production is wonderful.
I hope you dig it.
You can hit the old Funky16Corners web zine for a little more info on Booker (follow the link and then scroll down).

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for podcast looking at the career of sunshine pop legend Curt Boettcher

PSS Check out Paperback Rider too.

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

Faye Ross – Faith Hope and Trust b/w You Ain’t Right

Listen/Download -Faye Ross – Faith Hope and Trust

Listen/Download -Faye Ross – You Ain’t Right

Greetings all.
I hope the middle of the week finds you all well.
I almost wasn’t going to do a post today, as I am up to my ass in the proverbial alligators, but I managed to get the little Corners off to dreamland in a timely manner, so I sit here, typing, digi-ma-tizing some vinyl and being otherwise productive.
The tunes I bring you today are both sides of a mid-60s (I’m guessing) Los Angeles area 45 by a singer named Faye Ross. Aside from the fact that Ms. Ross recorded at least one other 45 for the Trevor label, I have been able to discover nothing about her.
The a-side ‘Faith Hope and Trust’ is a great Northern Soul-ish banger, the flip a nicely produced, bluesy torch song.
Naturally, as is always the case, when I can’t turn up anything on a performer, I start digging into the other info on the label to see what I can find.
As the label itself goes, Round Records was probably based in the vicinity of Los Angeles, California. I’ve found a couple of direct and indirect connections to the LA-based Kris label, but aside from the three Round 45s I own, by Jimmie Preacher Ellis, BW Souls and Faye Ross, little else.
‘Faith Hope and Trust’ was written by Kent Harris. Harris was born in Oklahoma and moved west in the 50s. Under the name Boogaloo and His Gallant Crew he recorded the 45 ‘Clothesline’ b/w ‘Cops and Robbers’ in 1956. Both sides of that record would be redone (and apparently unfairly appropriated) as big R&B hits, first as ‘Cops and Robbers’ by Bo Diddley, and in 1960 the Coasters retitled ‘Clothesline’ as ‘Shopping for Clothes’ (originally credited to Leiber and Stoller, but later shows up with Harris’ name in the credits).
Harris went on to marry and work extensively with LA soul diva Ty Karim, writing and producing many of her records through the 60s.
As I said, I haven’t been able to find any info on Faye Ross. She had a great voice, and the sound of ‘You Ain’t Right’ suggests to me that she was as comfortable singing the blues as she was with straight-ahead soul.
It’s a cool record, and if any of you have anything to add, please drop me a line.

Peace

Larry

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg for podcast looking at the career of sunshine pop legend Curt Boettcher

PSS Check out Paperback Rider too.

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

Bobby Freeman – Do You Wanna Dance, 1970

Mr. Bobby Freeman

Listen/Download -Bobby Freeman – Do You Wanna Dance, 1970

Greetings all.
How’s by you?
By me it’s raining for the third day in a row, and I’m sitting here writing an entry for a funk and soul blog while listening to Von Suppe’s ‘Light Cavalry’. Lest you think I’m making a move into the classical realm, this exalted fare is in response to my five-year-old who was galloping around the house singing the ‘William Tell Overture’, asking if it was a real song. Fortunately I just happened to have a disc of Von Suppe and Rossini overtures on hand.
But wait!
Next time you’re out digging, and discover such a record, grab it and take it home.
“Why?” you ask, shaking your head in disgust.
Because my friends, the overtures of Rossini and Von Suppe are perhaps the greatest classical source for cartoon music, having been plundered by Carl Stalling and others and planted into decades worth of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig cartoons like a time-release culture bomb.
How many among you were wandering aimlessly in a record store or coffee house when a familiar sound grabbed your ears, only to make you think of carrots and cartoon violence? You can thank those two great 19th century composers (and Raymond Scott, among others) for making your Saturday mornings a little more meaningful.
But enough eggheadery….
The tune I bring you today is another Asbury Park 45 Sessions discovery that leapt into my skull fresh out of the crates of Mr. Pat. James Longo. Truth be told, I had been forewarned that he might attempt to blow my mind with something funky by an artist not generally associated with drum breaks and what not, but I could not have been prepared for what was about to happen.
Mr. Longo took to the tables, whipped that familiar yellow and black Double Shot label out and dropped the needle on a sweet, sweet break, followed by a truly funky update of a song from the 1950s.
The artist in question was Bobby Freeman, and the song was ‘Do You Wanna Dance, 1970’.
Now, as any record collector worth his/her salt will tell you, the world of funk and soul is riddled with such updates, in which an artist tries to play on his previous success by reworking old material and slapping the current date on the end of the title so the fans would be able to distinguish the old from the new. This scheme, more often than not, resulted in sub-par work, marking the very moment a performer sailed off the end of the world into obscurity.
This is only partially true in this instance.
Bobby Freeman first hit the charts in 1958 with the original version of ‘Do You Wanna Dance’, returned in 1960 with ‘I Do the Shimmy Shimmy’ and then had his biggest hit in 1964 with the Sly Stone produced stormer ‘C’Mon and Swim’. He moved from Autumn to Loma in 1966, eventually landing at Double Shot (home to Brenton Wood and the Count Five among others) in 1969.
‘Do You Wanna Dance, 1970’ opens with en extended break, moves on into the soul clapping and then busts out into a hi-test reworking of his first hit.
It’s definitely one of those “how did I not know about this” records, which of course is a moot point because I know about it now, and once you pull down the ones and zeros, so will you.
I hope you dig it.

Peace

Larry

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