Marvin Holmes
“Listen – Marvin Holmes & the Uptights – Ride Your Mule Pt2 – MP3″
Greetings all.
Today’s selection is a great slice of Bay Area (San-fran-siskee Bay, that is…) funk from the mighty Marvin Holmes and his equally (supportively) mighty Uptights.
Marvin Holmes was one of the major movers and shakers of Bay area soul and funk through the 60s and 70s, recording with the Uptights, Justice, and under his own name. He recorded 45s for a number of different labels including Revue, Brown Door, Uni, Kon-Kord, and Boola Boola, as well as 1969 LP for Uni.
‘Ride Your Mule pts 1&2’, which was released on Revue in 1969 has a somewhat convoluted (and interesting) history. It’s the same song that the band recorded as ‘Funky Mule’ for Boola Boola, and was apparently retitled (cosmetically only, since the record retains references to the ‘funky mule’) due to someone considering “funky” an objectionable term (though due to the huge number of records released with “funky” in their title, I’d bet this part of the story was apocryphal). It appeared as a single on Revue as well as a track on the ‘Ooh Ooh the Dragon’ LP on UNI.
‘Ride Your Mule’ – part of a minor sub-Horse craze – is a tasty bit of JB-influenced funk with a powerful horn section and some tight drums (which is why I posted Pt 2).
The song was later covered (as ‘Funky Mule’) by both Buddy Miles and Ike Turner.
I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll see you all on Wednesday.
Peace
Larry
PS The pics and files here may be unavailable for a while tomorrow (Monday) as my interwebs provider is relocating their servers.
Funky16Corners 
October 13, 2008 at 9:03 pm
i wanna listen to it. hehe
October 19, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Hin Thanks for sharing this song.
Until now i only knew “Funky Mule” version by Ike & Tina Turner
Chrsitian (from Belgium)
October 19, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Hi Thanks for sharing this song.
Until now i only knew “Funky Mule” version by Ike & Tina Turner
Chrsitian (from Belgium)
December 1, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Hey Marvin! Are you still alive??? It’s been a looooong time – you were living in Van Nuys and working for the Jamaican brothers…And then I hired you to do a couple of gigs with me and I was then dating Freda Payne so I had to leave and travel with her…Remember? Man, I hope you’re still kickin’…Someone please let me know…right away???
June 9, 2009 at 1:44 am
sounds so cool i wanna try it
December 6, 2009 at 1:11 pm
I met u in ’68. We were giggin’ in Oaktown @ the club on upper Grove…the “Sportsman #2”? or the “Showcase #2”?
Anyway, u came into the dressing room looking for our group’s leader…a guitarist whom u really respected and whom @ that time had only two (2) “contemporaries — yourself and Eddie Foster.
He garnered titles such as, the “Destroyer”, the “Devil, “Rosemary’s Baby”, in reality though, eventually becoming known (and appreciated) as…”Godfather of Westcoast Blues”.
The next time I saw u was @ the “Dock O’ The Bay”, in Berkeley, in ’79? (Man, I never knew u played Jazz!!) Then, in ’90, I saw your “autographed” poster stapled on the office door @ “Supreme Interiors”, in Oaktown, and I asked Joe Sahaguin if he knew u. He said good things about u. (He now has “Lou Gehrig’s” disease.)
Get back to me, OK?
Thanx.
-Apache Corral-