Asbury Park 45 Sessions #2 b/w Wilson Pickett

Brother Wilson Pickett

“Listen – Everybody Needs Somebody To Love MP3″

Greetings and salutations all around.
It’s late Saturday night here on the East Coast and I am sooooo tired brothers and sisters. However, I have before me a rare moment of quiet, and it behooves me to take advantage of this fact and get my blog on. This is pressing for two reasons.
Numero Uno: Last night was the second installment of the Asbury Park 45 Sessions and I’m here to tell you that it just keeps getting better, so much so that I wanted..no NEEDED to sit down and rap to you about it, as well as slipping in a little AP45 related digital musicality.
Numero Two-O: I have family commitments tomorrow that will keep me from taking the time to get this together, so I’d better do it now.
So, anyway….
Asbury Park 45 Sessions Mk 2 went down last night and to borrow a phrase from the mouth of the great sage Don Cornelius, you can bet your last money that it was a stone gas, honey (photographic highlights and set lists – as they become available – below).
Once again, our host DJ Prestige whipped together a very hot line up, featuring Asbury 45 resident selectors DJ Prime, Connie T. Empress, Jack the Ripper and yours truly, Senor Funky16Corners, as well as some superior special guest spinners, those being the mighty M.Fasis, WFMU’s Cool Hands Luke and Brooklyn’s own Sport Casual.
The unique thing about the Asbury Park 45 Sessions – and if you haven’t yet made the scene, you will have the opportunity to do so May 11th –is that Prestige, in his wisdom has assembled a show in which the entire breadth of the soul spectrum is represented. You have raunchy R&B and early soul, Northern, Southern and othern, heavy funk, sweet soul, all manner of wild breaks and beats, delivered to the ears of the assembled multitudes in a variety of styles, from old school fade and drop, scratching, UK-style spoken accents from the selectors and wild flights of new school turntablism. While a mix like this is potentially chaotic, Prestige has brought together a group of DJs that bring with them – aside from some very heavy (literally and figuratively) crates – a serious dedication to and love of soul music.
The proof – as always – is in the spinning, and to be there, soaking up the AP45 thang, it is immediately evident that the folks spreading the groovy gravy on the decks are enjoying the whole bag as much as the smiling faces and shaking asses out on the floor.
What you need to know is that there is something special going down at the Asbury Lanes, and if you are spending these Friday nights doing anything but the bowling alley, tater tot, cold beer double bump, then your time is being dreadfully wasted and I beseech thee to get into a car, bus, train, plane or flying saucer and get on down to the next installment of the Asbury Park 45 Sessions.
I just doesn’t get any heavier.
To bring things into slightly sharper focus (I’m so tired, mentally and physically right now that I can’t be entirely sure if what level of lucidity I bring with me this evening), I bring you the tune with which I closed my set last night.
No matter how heavy the funk gets, I like to season the stew with some serious soul sides, and always like to close the set that way.
Today’s selection is one of my all-time favorite 45s, by one of the truly great singers of the genre – who’s influence was discussed here recently – the almighty Wilson Pickett.
As the Wicked himself infers in the opening of the tune, ‘Everybody Needs Somebody to Love’ was first waxed by Brother Solomon Burke (and co-written by Burke with Bert Berns and Jerry Wexler). Now, I don’t want to bring down devoted fans of Mr. Burke – a group in which I most decidedly include myself – but Wilson Pickett takes the song into another realm of soul power entirely.
If you know me – and if you check out the words herein, you certainly do – you know that music is as close to a religious experience as I am willing to subscribe – and Wilson Pickett’s reading of this song is without any doubt an example of religious ecstasy writ large in the grooves of a seven-inch single.
I mean, first of all, you just can’t listen to ‘Everybody Needs Somebody to Love’ without taking a little head trip into the amen corner. In an age where every musical sinkhole parades out a berobed “gospel choir” when they want to take the audience to church (pretty lame churches those), the right Reverend Pickett uses his holy growl to get a hold of your hearts and minds and whoop a little of that old time religion on you like a bolt of soulful lightning that enters your body through your ears and shoots out through your feet leaving you flopping on the floor (dance floor preferably) smoking like a neglected grilled cheese sandwich, eye a-rolling, saliva a-drooling, surrounded by a smoky cloud of glossolalia (that’s speaking in tongues, son), and all you want to do is get right back up – lightning rod that you are – and get struck again and again until you jes’ can’t takes it no MO!
That’s what soul music – administered in the recommended dosage – ought to do, be it sweet, deep, funky or all of the above, and why 45 hoarding fools like myself keep at it. I go to church with a diamond needle and a slab of plastic and when I put them together I go straight to heaven, and if you’re ready and willing you get to come along for the ride too my friends.
No April Fools this.
Dig it.
Peace
Larry

NOTE: All pix taken by moi, with the obvious exception of the one of me, which was taken by my very own brother, Chris.

Funky16Corners

Set list:

Highlighters – The Funky 16 Corners Pt2 (excerpt) (Stones Throw)
Eddie Bo – Hook & Sling Pt1 (Scram)
James Brown – Hot Pants Pt1 (People)
Hank Ballard – Butter Your Popcorn (King)
Interpretations – Blow Your Mind (Jubilee)
Joe Haywood – (Play Me) A Cornbread Song (Kent)
NF Porter – Keep On Keeping On (Lizard)
Laura Lee – Crumbs Off the Table (Hot Wax)
Just Brothers – Sliced Tomatoes (Music Merchant)
Jomo – UHURU (African Twist) (Checker)
Mel Brown – Swamp Fever (Impulse)
Curly Moore – We Remember (Sansu)
Lou Courtney – Hot Butter & All Part 1 (Hurdy Gurdy)
Wilson Pickett – Everybody Needs Somebody to Love (Atlantic)

DJ Prestige on the Wheels of Steel

DJ Prestige Set List
Les McCann – The Morning Song Atlantic
2. Little Beaver – Funkadelic Sound Cat
3. Bud Harper – Mr. Soul Peacock
4. Funky Music Machine – Love Me A Little While Longer Black Top Records
5. The Chubukos – House of the Rising Funk Mainstream
6. BW Souls – Marvin’s Groove Round
7. Grover Washington Jr. – Mister Magic KUDU
8. Carla Whitney – War Jazzman
9. The Turtles – Buzzsaw (Worked Doubles) White Whale
10. Ted Taylor – It’s a Funky Situation RONN
11. Joe Cocker – Woman to Woman A&M
12. Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds – Funk-in-Wagnall ABC
13. Lowrell Simon – Love Massage (Instrumental) Zoo York
14. Dawn and Sunset – Move in the Room Luv n’Haight
15. Alvin Cash and the Crawlers Twine Time Mar-V-lus
16. Locomotiv GT – Rock Yourself ABC
17. Brother to Brother – In the Bottle Turbo
18. Billy Sha-Rae – Do It Spectrum
19. Brother Jack McDuff – Oblighetto Blue Note
20. Donald Byrd – Blackbyrd Blue Note
21. Undisputed Truth – California Soul Gordy
22. GiGi – Daddy Love (Part 1) Sweet
23. Joe Cuba Sextet – Bang Bang Tico
24. Jimmy Castor Bunch – Hey Leroy, Your Mama’s Calling You – Smash
25. Bum Rocks – Thank Youse BumRocks

Connie T. Empress grooving behind the decks

Connie T. Empress Set List
New Girl–The Accents (M-Pac!)
Move Mr. Man–The Contours (Gordy)
60 Minutes of Your Love–Homer Banks (Minit)
Done Done The Slop–Ervin Rucker (Astra)
Getting Uptown To Get Down–United Eight (UK release Le Coupe/US label Atlantic)
Goin’ To A Happening–Tommy Neal (Vault)
Ace of Spade–OV Wright (Backbeat)
Cause Your Mine–Vibrations (UK Sound of Soul)
Nitty Gritty–Ricardo Ray (Alegre)
I Can’t Believe What You Say (For Seeing What You Do)– Ike and Tina Turner (Kent)
I Got To Be Myself–Rance Allen Group (The Gospel Truth)
She’s Looking Good–Rodger Collins (Galaxy)
Man From Utopia–Donald Woods (Flip)
Shout Bamalama–Otis Redding (King)

DJ Prime

DJ Prime Set List
junior parker – love ain’t nothin’ but a business goin’ on (groove merchant)
lunar funk – slip the drummer one (bell)
ann peebles – can’t stand the rain (hi)
harlem river drive – idle hands (roulette)
donald austin – nanzee (westbound)
poets of rhythm – smilin’ (quannum)
hot – just cause I’m guilty (big tree)
clarence reid – nobody but you babe (alston)
hank ballard – finger poppin’ time (polydor)
eddie kendricks – keep on truckin (pt. 2) (tamla)
willie henderson – dance master (playboy)
fern kinney – groove me (malaco)
johnny hammond – shifting gears (milestone)
dynamic corvettes – funky music is the thing (abet)
everyday people – i like what i like (paramount)
fatback band – goin’ to see my baby (perception)
little sister – you’re the one (stone flower)
james taylor & the original flying machine (euphoria)
bily stewart – summertime (chess)
dennis coffey – ride sally ride (sussex)
peoples choice – i likes to do it (phil l.a. soul)
joe quarterman & free soul – so much trouble in my mind (gsf)
ebony web – the way you do the things you do (hi)
dyke & the blazers – shotgun slim (original sound)
eddy g giles – soul feeling (murco)
new birth – got to get a knutt (rca)
clarence reid – funky party (alston)
herman kelly & life – dance to the drummers beat (electric cat)
harvey scales & the seven sounds – get down (magic touch)
don covay – money (mercury)

Special Guest Cool Hands Luke

Jack the Ripper..or IS IT?!?

Sport Casual

M.Fasis

M.Fasis Playist
standin in the grits line(intro)- don covay (janus)
wildflower- the new birth ( rca)
do it like mama- simtec & willie (shama)
went to chinatown- bruce clark & the q’s (hull)
i cant stop dancin’- archie bell & the drells (atlantic)
funky so & so – sugarman 3 (daptone)
we’re a winner- the impressions (abc)
amen brother- the winstons (metromedia)
funky nassau- the beginning of the end (alston)
crazy legs – donald austin ( eastbound)
theme from s.w.a.t.- rhythm heritage (abc)
finders keepers instr.- chairman of the board (invictus)
nobody but you babe- clarence reid (alston)
the easiest way to fall – freda payne (invictus)
i wont do anything – the moments (stang)
sang & dance – bar kays (volt)
im the guy- brighter side of darkness (20th century)
the drunk- james brown (bethlehem)
children – barrabas/ el chicano ( arcano)
the twelfth of never -chi-lites (brunswick)
something for nothing- mfsb (philadelphia intl.)
the way we were (intro)- gladys knight- (buddah)
those days are gone -roy c (alga)
turn that thing down- cheech & chong (ode/a&m)

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