Showing posts with label Soul-Funk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Soul-Funk. Show all posts

Thursday, 25 August 2011

JAMES BROWN - SUPER BAD (KING 1971) Jap mastering cardboard sleeve




Super Bad (the song) originally released as a three-part single & it went to number one on the soul singles chart and number 13 on the Hot 100. The song's lyrics include the refrain "I've got soul and I'm super bad." The positive use of the word "bad" is an example of linguistic reappropriation, which Brown had done before in "Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud".
The song includes a tenor saxophone solo by Robert McCollough, during which Brown yells "Blow me some Trane, brother!"
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James Brown re-recorded "Super Bad" for this 1971 album of the same name.
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"SUPER BAD"
Watch me! Watch me! I got it! Watch me!
I got it! Yeeaah!
I got somethin' that makes me wanna shouta!
I got somethin' that tells me what its all about
Huh! I got soul an I'm super bad
I got soul, huh, and I'm super bad, huh!
Now I got a move that tells me what to do
Sometimes I tease
Now I gotta move that tells me what to do
Sometimes I feel so nice I wanna try
Myself with you, huh! uh!
I got soul and I'm super bad, huh!
I'm a lover, I love to do my thing ha
An a, an I don't need no one else
Sometimes I feel so nice, good Lord!
I jump back, I wanna kiss myself!
I've got soul, huh, and I'm super bad, HEY!
I said I'm super bad

Come on, up and down an
Round an round, up and down, all around
Right on people, huh, let it all hang out
If you don't brothers and sisters, then you won't know
Ha! what it's all about, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme
Gimme, gimme, gimme, YEEAAH! AACCKK!
Uh, come on

I got the somethin' that makes me wanna shout
I got that thing, tell me what it's all about
I got soul, ha, and I'm super bad, heh!
Got the move that tells me what to do
Sometimes I feel so nice, I said
I wanna tie myself to a fuse, huh, I
I, I, I got soul, heh, and I'm super bad

Hit me! up and down and all around
Right on people, heh, let it all hang out
If you don't brothers and sisters, then you won't know
A what it's all about, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimmie
AAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEE!
Uh! come on! come on rap it, come on brother
Do the rap it, how about me some trains brother
Hey! gimme!, huh! gimme! uh! gimme, gimme
Some super bad, a super bad brother, ha! heh!
Super bad uh! come on dance it, come on
Super bad, jab, good Lord! super bad
Mercy, huh! let me hear ya, super bad.......
Here

JAMES BROWN - IT'S A NEW DAY LET A MAN COME IN (KING 1970) Jap mastering cardboard sleeve




Further genius from James Brown at the start of the 70s – a record that's starting to show some of the more open-ended grooves he'd explore with the JBs on their own albums – longer, stretched-out tracks that are way more than simple funk and soul! There's a sense of freewheeling energy here that's totally great – dynamic, powerful calls from James at the top of most tunes – and incredibly sharp work on horns and rhythm from the band – cutting grooves and turning lines like no other combo in the business, all with a great mix of deep soul and hard funk! The album features the 7 minute killer version of "Let a Man Come In & Do The Popcorn", plus "World (parts 1 & 2)", "It's A New Day (parts 1 & 2)", "Give It Up or Turn It Loose", "If I Ruled The World", "The Man In The Glass (part 1)", and "I'm Not Demanding (part 1)". A treasure trove of funk and soul! [Dusty Groove America]
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Monday, 18 July 2011

CLARENCE WHEELER & THE ENFORCERS - THE LOVE I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR (ATLANTIC 1971) Jap mastering cardboard sleeve




The second fantastic album from Chicago saxophonist Clarence Wheeler and his hard-hitting Enforcers combo – a group who were one of the brightest lights in soul jazz at the start of the 70s, really helping to keep the genre fresh and exciting! The groove here is in the tenor/organ mode first popularized in the 60s – but the overall sound is a lot more expansive, and filled with unusual time changes, complicated rhythms, and inventive solo work that go way beyond more familiar albums of this nature on Prestige or Blue Note! Sonny Burke is the organist in the group, and he's got a touch on the keys that's a lot like Jack McDuff at his best – filled with great sounds and unusual notes that always keep things interesting. Added to that is trumpet from Sonny Covington, guitar from Eric Gale, and tenor from Wheeler – all vamping and grooving in an amazing way! There's a bit of the Charles Earland sound from the same period going on here – and like Earland, the group have a great way of keeping things slightly funky, even when mellow! Titles include a great version of "Broasted or Fried", Charles Earland's "Mighty Burner", Jack McDuff's "The Heebie Jeebie Dance", plus "We've Only Just Begun" and "The Love I've Been Looking For".[Dusty Groove America]
Here

Friday, 6 May 2011

ISLEY BROTHERS - GIVIN' IT BACK (T-NECK 1971) Jap mastering cardboard sleeve




Givin' It Back is as much a time capsule as an album. Not that it can't be enjoyed on its own absolute musical terms by someone just off a boat who wasn't even around in 1971, but to really appreciate how daring it was and how delightful it is, that side of its history should be known. Those who are old enough should recall the time whence it came, an era in which hatred and disunity over the Vietnam War, civil rights, school desegregation, the environment, and a multitude of other issues were threatening what seemed, potentially, like the beginning of a new civil war, this one not between states but between factions and ethnic and racial groups in 1,000 individual neighborhoods. The opening cut of Givin' It Back, "Ohio/Machine Gun," is a slap-in-your-face reminder of just how angry the times and the people were. The track evokes instant memories of the campus bloodshed of 1970, not just at Kent State but also the often-forgotten killings a few days later at Jackson State University in Mississippi, where the victims of a fusillade of sheriff's deputies' bullets were black students. More than that, the track itself is also a reminder of the divisions that existed on the left; to listen to pundits on the right, the anti-war and civil rights movements, along with the counterculture, were all part of one vast, organized, calculated left-wing conspiracy. The truth is that there was nearly as big a split, culturally and politically, between young blacks and young whites on the left and on college campuses as there was anywhere else in the population. Blacks reacting to years of oppression had little use for mostly middle-class white college students, however sympathetic many of them purported to be to their situation, while well-meaning white students and activists couldn't begin to know what privation of the kind experienced by blacks and Hispanics in most American towns and cities was. In music, too, there was a lot of division; blacks usually didn't resonate to the top artists in the white world and, in particular, were oblivious to (and even resentful of) the adoration accorded Jimi Hendrix by the white community. So, when the Isley Brothers -- whose appeal among black audiences was unimpeachable -- opened Givin' It Back with a conflation of Neil Young's "Ohio" and Jimi Hendrix's "Machine Gun," they were speaking to anger and bloodshed in the streets, but they were also performing an act of outreach that was about as radical as any they could have committed on record in 1971. That they incorporated a prayer into their reformulation of the two songs, amid Ernie Isley's and Chester Woodard's guitar pyrotechnics, turned it into one of the most powerful and personal musical statements of its era, and it's worth the price of the album just for the one cut. Givin' It Back is filled with virtues of that kind, however; it was the first Isley Brothers album to rely entirely on outside material, but the group's reworkings of songs by James Taylor ("Fire and Rain") and Stephen Stills ("Love the One You're With") show no lack of originality. They're unafraid to take the song apart and rebuild it from the ground up, smoothing Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay" into a sensual soul ballad, turning the James Taylor number into a sweaty, earnest shouter, and transforming War's "Spill the Wine" into an extended workout for voices, electric guitars (several layers deep), flute, and percussion. The album was also an early showcase for Bill Withers, whose funky blues "Cold Bologna" is covered by the group with the composer -- who was about to emerge as a major star in his own right -- on guitar. And the closer, "Love the One You're With," is sent soaring to heights that the Stephen Stills original could only gaze up at. Givin' It Back is often held at arm's length by soul listeners, who don't regard it as central to what the Isley Brothers or their music are about; on the contrary, the group is so successful at remaking all of the songs here their own in style and approach and sending careful messages (alas, largely lost with the passage of time) in their selection as well as their content, that it really represents a lot of what the Isley Brothers and soul music were about in 1971, and it's still great listening. Reissued by Sony with new notes, and worth every cent of its list price.[allmusic]
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Monday, 8 March 2010

ANN PEEBLES - STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART (HI 1972) Jap mastering cardboard sleeve




One of the greatest soul records of the 70’s by a woman.
A diminutive singer with a powerful voice and an even stronger attitude, Ann Peebles was one of the artists who defined Willie Mitchell’s legendary Memphis soul label Hi Records, along with Al Green and, later, O.V. Wright. Easily the best female singer in the Hi stable, Peebles ranked among the finest deep Southern soul singers of the decade.
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"A lean, tough set that was not only a triumph for Peebles, but illustrated how the Hi label had surpassed its crosstown Stax rival for quality Memphis soul in the early '70s. The guitars are spare, funky, and bluesy, the horn section punchy, and the material far earthier and down-home than the increasingly formulaic grooves at Stax. There were three modest R&B hits on the album ("Slipped, Tripped and Fell in Love," "I Feel Like Breaking Up Somebody's Home," "Somebody's on Your Case"), much of which was penned by Peebles or her husband Don Bryant. Peebles' vocals were convincingly biting, and she never, unlike many other singers of the era, tried too hard for her own good. The main flaw of the record is its length (26 minutes), which was short even by early-'70s standards." [All Music]
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Sunday, 24 January 2010

TED TAYLOR - TAYLOR MADE (RONN 1971) Jap mastering cardboard sleeve + 4 bonus




A SHORT BIO...
Soul-blues singer Ted Taylor unleashed his stratospheric, falsetto-driven voice on a wide variety of material during the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, his gospel heritage never far from the surface. Taylor first entered the studio as a member of the Cadets and Jacks, a Los Angeles R&B vocal group with two names that recorded for Modern. By the late '50s, Taylor was signed to Ebb, and a myriad of other imprints soon followed (notably Duke, where he waxed his first version of the sugary ballad "Be Ever Wonderful"), Okeh (his sides for the Columbia subsidiary were done in Chicago and Nashville), and Ronn, where he spent nearly a decade. A car wreck claimed his life in 1987.
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"A REALLY GREAT ALBUM! DON'T MISS IT!"
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