Funky16Corners Radio v.71 – Getting the Corners

Funky16Corners Radio v.71 – Getting the Corners
The Highlighters Band of Indianapolis, Indiana!

Playlist

Highlighters Band – The Funky 16 Corners Pt1 (Jazzman)
Richard Marks – Funky Four Corners (Roulette)
Tommy Wills – (Funky) 4 Corners (Airtown)
Lee Dorsey – Four Corners Pt1 (Amy)
Willie & the Mighty Magnificents – Funky (8) Corners Pt1 (All Platinum)
Jerry-O – Funky Four Corners (White Whale)
Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs – The Four Corners (Veep)
TSU Toronadoes – Getting the Corners (Atlantic)
Willie & the Mighty Magnificents – Funky (8) Corners Pt2 (All Platinum)
Lee Dorsey – Four Corners Pt2 (Amy)
Highlighters Band – The Funky 16 Corners Pt2 (Jazzman)

To hear this mix, head on over to the Funky16Corners Radio Podcast Archive

Greetings all.

Here’s hoping that everyone is finally enjoying their summer.
It’s been a busy week hereabouts, less to with the blog than the real world moves. Nothing serious, just stuff.
That said, by the end of the week things – blogside – got quite busy as I foolishly sat down and decided to put together (and write up) two podcasts, one for Funky16Corners and one for Iron Leg (If you dig fuzzed out 60s pop, make sure you check it out). As a result I find myself here (on Saturday) marching through a marathon writing session, all the while digi-ma-tizing new vinyl arrivals and keeping an ear peeled for the napping three year old in the other room.
The new edition of the Funky16Corners Radio Podcast that I bring you today – the seventy first – started to come together a month or so ago when my man Tony C hepped me to the quality of a record that I had heard of, but never actually heard, that being ‘The Four Corners’ by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs. Now, as is evidenced by the title of this very blog, I have an interest in the “corners” sub-genre of funky 45s, so much so that I’ve endeavored to pick them up wherever I find them.
Oddly enough, of all the funk/soul dances namechecked in the records of the day, the execution of ‘The Four Corners’ (and all exponential variations herein) wasn’t all that mysterious, being a fairly simple hip-thrust to the points of the compass, multiplied when deemed necessary by the man on the record. In addition to the records included in this mix (and some I’m sure I have yet to hear) that use a ‘corners’ dance in the title, there are scores of others that drop the name of (usually) ‘The Four Corners’ in the standard listing of the popular dances of the day, a list that almost always included the Boogaloo, Philly Dog, Camel Walk, Boston (or other regional) Monkey on and on ad infinitum.
Having christened this blog after one of the truly great funk 45s, ‘The Funky 16 Corners’ by the Highlighters Band, in which the original dance is squared (though not a square dance), I bring you today a collection of variations on the theme (as the longhairs once said), every last one a seriously funky record.
Things get started (of course) with the Highlighters Band and the original (though not an original 45…I wish*) and ‘The Funky 16 Corners’. This is nothing if not a virtuoso performance by the band, led by vocalist James Bell, who having decided to double down (and then again) on the corners, absolutely tear up the joint. One can only imagine the looks on the dancers in the room when they went into that sixteen hit breakdown near the end of part one, many of them sprawled on the floor with lower back injuries. The mix is set up so that with all the two part records (there are three of them), you get the first part, and then the second part drops at the other end of the mix in descending (ascending??) order (i.e., the Highlighters Band Pt1 is first, and Pt2 is last), so stay tuned for the rest of the record.
Next up is Atlanta area funkster Richard Marks with the ‘Funky Four Corners’ on Roulette (originally on the ATL label Tuska). ‘Funky Four Corners’ was the second of his four 45s for Tuska (and as far as I can tell the only one to be picked up nationally) , and while I haven’t heard the other three, I can’t imagine they all kick ass as soundly as this one.
I have a couple of 45s by Ohio saxophonist Tommy Wills in the crates, but his ‘(Funky) 4 Corners’ is a recent discovery. According to the Buckeye Beat web site, Dayton (and later Richmond, IN) based Airtown was Wills label. He recorded four 45s for the label, releasing ‘(Funky) 4 Corners’ in March of 1968. While the fidelity may not be high (is there such a thing as “half-a-mono”?) energy and funk are in high gear. The flip side of this one is a nice version of Aretha’s ‘(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You’ve Been Gone’.
The next record has appeared in this space before, but honestly, could I do a mix like this and leave out Lee Dorsey’s unfuckwithable ‘Four Corners’? Written and produced by Allen Toussaint, and rumored to feature none other than James Black on the drums (how about those breaks?) ‘Four Corners’ is one of the great New Orleans funk 45s. I mean, in addition to all those drums, you get to hear Lee testify with the “SHAKE-A MAKE-A BREAK-A HULA” and the “FOUR CORNERS BABY!”. It bears mentioning that ‘Four Corners’ is one of a couple of 45s in this mix that owe a serious debt to Archie Bell and the Drells’ ‘Tighten Up’. Whether this has to do with that particular record being especially suited to doing the “four corners”, I cannot say for sure.
Next up is New Jersey’s own Willie and the Mighty Magnificents, taking things to the next level with the ‘Funky (8) Corners’. Led by Willie Feaster, the Mighty Magnificents laid down some very tasty 45s (and a couple of LPs) for All Platinum between 1968 and 1972. ‘The Funky (8) Corners’ opens up (and continues) with some heavy drums, sampling once again from the ‘Tighten Up’ template, with a very tasty horn chart and all manner of dance floor/craze jive from Feaster and company.
If you fall by here on the reg you already know that I ride for the work of Mr. Jerry Murray (known to his friends as Jerry-O) in a big way. His entire career was built almost entirely on dance craze records, and ‘Funky Four Corners’ is the funkiest and most storming of them all. His White Whale era (most of which were originally issued on Murray’s Boo-Ga-Loo imprint) is by far his heaviest stuff (including a funk version of Paul Williams old school R&B chestnut ‘The Hucklebuck’) and should be grabbed whenever located in the field.
Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs made their first, biggest (and almost only) assault on the charts in 1960 with ‘Stay’. Of course if you’re only going to hit once, it helps if you do it with a certifiable rock’n’roll classic. They kept recording through the 60s for a variety of labels (including the New Orleans imprints Deesu and Sea-Horn), recording ‘Four Corners’ for Veep in 1969. The funk of ‘Four Corners’ is light years beyond ‘Stay’, with a whole lot of grit and the complete absence of falsetto vocals.
The ‘Tighten Up’ connection gets a whole lot closer, with a number by the band that provided the (uncredited) backing on the original Archie Bell hit, the TSU Toronadoes. ‘Getting the Corners’ is a not so distant cousin of the original “source document” with a somewhat funkier beat. They namecheck the ‘four corners’ throughout with some nice drum breakdowns and a horn line that borrows from ‘The Horse’
The final three tracks in the mix are the second parts of the Willie and the Mighty Magnificents, Lee Dorsey and Highlighters Band 45s, all significantly lighter on the vocals than their respective a-sides, all worth grooving to.
I hope you dig this edition of Funky16Corners Radio, and I’ll be back on Friday with something to close out the week.

Peace

Larry

*Though my Jazzman reissue is autographed by two members of the band, so that’s cool too…

PS – Make sure to fall by Iron Leg for new fuzz pop mix

PSS Make sure to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

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F16C Meets IL #4 – Lorraine Ellison – Stay With Me

Miss Lorraine Ellison

Listen -Lorraine Ellison – Stay With Me – MP3

Go to Iron Leg to hear the version by Terry Reid

Greetings all.

The end of another week approaches and although there’s s summery touch of humidity hanging in the air the sun is still as elusive as ever. I suppose I’m going to have to find a way to deal with this, but it’s still a drag.
Today sees another installment of the recurring features known as the Intersection of Funky16Corners and Iron Leg. The last time we did this, back in March of this year it was devoted to two versions (one soul, one rock) of the classic Ed Cobb tune ‘Every Little Bit Hurts’ (by Brenda Holloway and the Spencer Davis Group). This time out sees a similar juxtaposition with two different versions of a song from the catalog of one of the great geniuses of 60s soul, Mr. Jerry Ragavoy.
If the name is not familiar, get down into the crates and start checking the fine print on your record labels, since Ragavoy was the composer, arranger and producer of some of the finest soul records ever made, among them Erma Franklin’s ‘Piece of My Heart’, Howard Tate’s ‘Get It While You Can’ (a personal fave), Garnett Mimms’ ‘Cry Baby’, Irma Thomas’s ‘Time Is On My Side’ and today’s selection ‘Stay With Me (Baby)’ (the “baby” in parentheses since the song is billed with and without it).
The best known version of this song, by the mighty Lorraine Ellison is rightly regarded as a high point in the history of classic soul ballads. As the story goes, Ragavoy brought Ellison into the studio in early 1966 to take advantage of some orchestra time left over from a cancelled Frank Sinatra session.
Ellison’s recording, like so many of Ragavoy’s creations is a sublime mixture of gospel inflected soul with touches of R&B grit. The “build” of the song is much like that of ‘Cry Baby’, with a slow, drawn out verse building into a dynamic, nearly overpowering chorus. The lyrics are a heartbreaking plea to repair a shattered love and Ellison’s delivery, especially during the chorus where she soars into the stratosphere (vocally and emotionally) is brilliant.
It wasn’t that long ago when I was digging down south during a DJ trip and I uncovered a copy of Terry Reid’s 1969 self titled LP. Reid was a UK rock wunderkind of sorts (making his first record at 15) , highly regarded in his homeland, known amongst the heads stateside, but never really breaking through in a big way. He is best known as having reportedly turned down the chance to front both Led Zeppelin (the original) and Deep Purple (replacing Rod Evans). He recorded a number of LPs in the late 60s under the aegis of popmeister Mickie Most, the finest of which was the aforementioned ‘Terry Reid’.
Reid was possessed of a raw tenor reminiscent of – yet more subtle than – Steve Marriot. Reid often worked in a stripped down, power-trio (with embellishments) format. While in the hands of others this was applied with the delicacy of a sledgehammer, Reid exercised a fair amount of taste and restraint, actually arranging his songs where other would have buried them in a stone wall of power chords.
Reid’s style was never better than in his own version of ‘Stay With Me Baby’ (which you can hear over at Iron Leg) which is in its own way, every bit the epic that Ellison’s better known recording.
Opening with a spare drum and bass combo, followed by a crashing wave of Hammond organ, Reid opens the verse with his voice playing against the sparest of accompaniment, hi-hat and drum stick rapping against snare rim, bass and a barely audible, almost funereal organ in the background. He sings in a delicate, near-falsetto, only introducing the rasp into his voice as he escalates the volume going into the chorus. There are those who might see what I’m about to say as sacrilegious, but I’d be willing to say that Reid’s version of ‘Stay With Me Baby’ is every bit the emotional, dare I say soulful tour de force of Lorraine Ellison’s, and in some ways, thanks to the rough backing (stripped of the orchestral embellishment) exceeds it in some ways.
As much as I love Ellison (her ‘Call Me Any Time You Need Some Loving’ and ‘Try Just a Little Bit Harder’ are big faves of mine), I find myself returning to Reid’s version much more often. That said, both versions are worth hearing, and I hope you dig them.
If I can get my act together I may roll back in here on Monday with a new edition of the Funky16Corners Radio Podcast. Until then, have a most excellent weekend, and I’ll see you all then.

Peace

Larry

NOTE: Don’t forget to fall by Viva Internet Radio Tonight at 9PMEST for the latest edition of the Funky16Corners Radio Show. You can always check out the show (and many pastshows) in the archive.

PS Don’t forget to head over to Iron Leg to hear the version by Terry Reid.

PSS Check out Paperback Rider too.

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook

Woody Carr – Peace Dance

Woody Carr and a later band…

“Listen – Woody Carr – Peace Dance – MP3″

Greetings all.

Today’s selection is something of a Funky16Corners/Iron Leg collabo-thingy, in that part of today’s IL post is an earlier, stylistically different 45 by Woody Carr (as well as another 45 tangentially related to that one). You should head on over there and check it out when you get a sec.
That out of the way, the tune I bring you today – in this space – is a very groovy, very moody and somewhat funky side from 1968, entitled ‘Peace Dance’.
Woody Carr is a longtime Pacific Northwest singer, who recorded with his band the Entertainers and as a solo in the mid-to-late 60s for the Jerden and Picadilly labels. Though the 45 with the Entertainers is pretty conventional 1966 rock/pop, ‘Peace Dance’ (from 1968) is something else entirely.
First off, how some enterprising soul hasn’t gotten their hands on this 45, and chopped and looped it into something with the hip to the hop to the wikki wikki, I do not know. All I know is that the drum and bass breakdown in this tune is shweeet (not to mention the ill horn stabs) , and then Woody comes in with the soulful vocals, and THEN, about halfway through the song he takes a minute to drop a little topical 1968-osity into the mix – with the Abraham Lincoln “sample” and all of a sudden the whole deal gets a little far out.
And I dig it.
The cool thing, is that this is record that the crate diggeur-ati would refer to as “slept on”, which means not a whole lot of people know about it, and as a happy result it should be gettable at a reasonable price (which of course you ought to do post haste, so that it might be whipped on the crowd at your next potato chip and ripple party).

Stay well and I’ll be back on Monday.

Peace

Larry

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PSS Don’t forget to head over to Iron Leg for some more Woody Carr as well as a very, VERY tasty bit of garage folk

PSSS Check out Paperback Rider as well.

Funky16Corners Radio v.60 – Finger Lickin’ Good b/w 4th Anniversary Mix!

Funky16Corners Radio v.60 – Finger Lickin’ Good!

Playlist

Louis Chachere – The Hen Pt1 (Paula)
James Brown – The Hen Pt1 (King)
The Meters – Chicken Strut (Josie)
Willie Henderson & the Soul Explosions – The Funky Chicken Pt1 (Brunswick)
Clarence Wheeler & the Enforcers – Broasted or Fried (Atlantic)
Jerry O – The Funky Chicken Yoke (Jerry O)
Unemployed – Funky Rooster (Cotillion)
Okie Duke – Chicken Lickin (Ovation)
Rufus Thomas – Do the Funky Chicken (Stax)
Mel Brown – Chicken Fat (Impulse)
Lou Garno Trio – Chicken In the Basket (Giovannis)
Chants – Chicken and Gravy (Checker)
Art Jerry Miller – Finger Licken Good (Enterprise)
Bobby Rush – Chicken Heads (Galaxy)
E Rodney Jones & Larry & the Hippies Band – Chicken On Down (Double Soul)
NY Jets – Funky Chicken (Tamboo)
Radars – Finger Licken Chicken (Yew)*

*Bonus Platter

Andre Brasseur – The Duck (Palette)
Butch Cornell Trio – Goose Pimples (RuJac)
Nie Liters – Serenade To a Jive Turkey (RCA

To hear this mix, head on over to the Funky16Corners Radio Podcast Archive

Greetings all.

This edition of Funky16Corners Radio – the 60th?!?!? – marks an even more unlikely event, that being of the completion of the fourth year in the existence of this very blog, and thanks to a wonderful bit of synchronicity, the beginning of a new era in the United States.
Back in November of 2004, when I started the Funky16Corners Blog, I had no inkling that I’d still be at it four years down the pike.
If statistics are any indication, the average life of most blogs is between two and three months, which makes Funky16Corners something Methuselah-esque. If there’s any key at all to its longevity, it would be that I enjoy doing it. As anyone that reads the posts here can tell you, I’m a busy guy, with the job, and the little kids and all the rest of the accoutrements of life in the suburbs (though those that know me would be hard pressed to describe me as typical in that regard).
That said, I started blogging as a way to redistribute the amount of work I was doing on the Funky16Corners web zine, which preceded the foundation of the blog by another four years. My oldest son had just been born, and I wanted to keep writing about music, so I figured that if I broke the work down into bite-sized pieces, that I could continue to do so without running myself ragged.
Needless to say, that hasn’t always been the case.
However, it didn’t take much time before I realized how addictive this enterprise would be. The blog provided an outlet for my writing, then a few years on to my compulsive mixology, and thanks to a largely cordial and appreciative audience I often learn as much as lay out.
That aspect of the blog has been among the most rewarding. In addition to shout outs from folks who just dig hearing the music, I really dig hearing from other collectors who help flesh out the sometimes sketchy bits of information that I’m able to gather. Along those lines – and especially rewarding – are the notes from artists and their friends and families saying how much it means to see that someone still appreciates the music.
Thanks to the blog, I’ve met some very cool people, first and foremost my man DJ Prestige, founder of the Asbury Park 45 Sessions, the all-45 DJ night that I’ve been a contributor to for almost two years.
I’ve been writing about music on the fringes for more than two decades. I started my first zine, Incognito, back in 1985, when it was all manually cut and pasted, and then taken to the copy shop and Xeroxed. A few years later I purchased my first computer (an Apple Performa 200) and entered the world of desktop publishing. My second zine, Evil Eye was a somewhat more sophisticated affair, with scans and tons of crazy fonts, but as before, it all ended up at the copy shop, as did my jazz zine, Gone which I started in 1997.
During the late 80s I spent some time doing freelance writing for the paper where I still work today, doing occasional feature pieces, as well as a column in one of our weekly products that lasted for a little over a year. Though the experience was rewarding, I soon discovered that I wasn’t going to be able to write the way I wanted in a regular paper, so back I went into the underground.
It wasn’t until the late 90s, after a friend at work gave me a rudimental working knowledge of Front Page, that I first set foot onto the interwebs, with the web zine version of Gone (traces of which still remain in the ether). It wasn’t too long after that, that work started on the Funky16Corners web zine.
The web zine (which is still maintained as the Web Zine Archive) went on for 13 issues, and if you take the time to stop by you’ll find lots of interesting feature articles, discographies and interviews.
When I started the blog, it was not – as it would soon be – devoted to the sounds of soul and funk. In fact, the earliest posts on Funky16Corners closely resemble a format that would be resurrected in 2007 in my other blog, Iron Leg.
Though my first intent in blogging was to keep writing, the unintended by product, and probably the most interesting aspect of the whole deal is how it has taken my record collection and turned it from a room full of inanimate objects into a living, breathing thing. The collection has continued to expand unabated for many years, and more often than not, as new material has made its way into my life, it has also appeared in this space, and conversely, as things have been blogged about, my interests, and the variety of the music I dig for has expanded (and continues to grow), so the influence travels in both directions. The process of relating stories about the music I love, has expanded my collection, and the process of expanding my collection (and the knowledge associated with it) has enriched the blog.
A happy little circle to be sure.
The mix I bring you today, in celebration of the anniversary, and of the people that stop by here on the reg, was in fact suggested a while back (more than a year of memory serves, and sometimes it doesn’t) by a reader. When I decided to finally get this mix together, I went back into the vast heap of e-mail, but was unable to locate the original suggestion. Aside from the fact that it was a regular reader/commenter, I can’t remember who made the suggestion of an “all-chicken” mix, and for that I am remiss and I apologize (but still say Thanks!).
So, the “all chicken’ mix (or mostly chicken with a bonus side of poultry) is here. You might have seen some of these tunes here before (in fact you definitely have), but never before gathered together in the henhouse, or better, cooking in the frying pan and hitting the table alongside some greens, mac and sweet potato pie. Fried chicken may be the soul-iest soul food of all (apologies to the vege-ma-tarians), and I thought about making this mix ‘Soul Food Pt3’ but then I figured that with the hyphens and the subtitles and what not the name would never fit, so ‘Finger Lickin’ Good!’ it is.
That said, I want to thank those of you that have been coming here for a while, and say welcome to those that just started falling by. With any luck, we’ll still be here next year. As far as I know you can’t get laid of from the blog-o-mos-phere (not yet anyway).
I’ll be taking the rest of the week off to hit the road with the F16C fam. We’re going for some west and wewaxation.
I’ll see you all on Monday.

Peace
Larry

PS Make sure to stop by Iron Leg …

PSS Check out Paperback Rider as well