LAY IT ON ME

This is how it happens. I'm randomly visiting blog bookmarks buried in some old posts just to see if any still exist. I ran into one, Don’t Stay Up Too Late, started poking around and ran into a Candi Stanton song that reminded me of Jean Knight's "Mr. Big Stuff", so I went looking for that. I ran into a different Knight song, "Carry On", every bit as funky as "Mr. Big Stuff". It smokes. It was posted with four other songs by funky ladies. So I'm off on that. You know as well as I do, once you've heard a few of those, you can't stop.

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Listen:
Candi Stanton -  Do It in the Name of Love mp3 at Don't Stay Up Too Late
Jean Knight - Carry On mp3 at Boogaloo Time
Lyn Collins -  Give It Up Or Turn It Loose mp3 at Boogaloo Time
Three more funky workouts at Boogaloo Time

WELL, THEY ARE THINGS

Every had a favorite band go in a different direction on a new release and find yourself thinking "Ahh, man, what are they doing here?" You can bet the Pretty Things elicited that more than a few times. Not that their later stuff is bad, not by a long shot, but you can imagine the hair pulling regardless. I would have been ruthless.

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Listen:
The Pretty Things - Don't Bring Me Down mp3 at ATumblr
The Pretty Things - Buzz the Jerk mp3 at Beware of the Blog
The Pretty Things - Come See Me mp3 at Beware of the Blog
The Pretty Things - She Says Good Morning mp3 at The Rising Storm
The Pretty Things - Grass mp3 at The Rising Storm
The Pretty Things - Cries from the Midnight Circus mp3 at Rock Town Hall
The Pretty Things - The Good Mr. Square/She Was Tall, She Was High mp3 at The Rising Storm

FRIGID, MAN, FRIGID

Here's a nice photo of a young Ray Campi, and a couple songs from around the same time, 1957. Most people my age know him primarily from his revived career in the late seventies and early eighties, around the time he was on Rollin' Rock Records. He'd occasionally play in punk venues with the Rockabilly Rebels. Man, that was a gas. Punk rock, rockabilly and reggae were the big three among my crowd, and Campi was the biggest rockabilly guy, due in no small part to the fact that he was one of very few rockabilly OGs that you could still go see.

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Listen:
Ray Campi - Caterpillar mp3 at Rocky 52 1957
Ray Campi - Play It Cool mp3 at Rocky 52 1957
Ray Campi - Rockin' at the Ritz mp3 at Haurie.free.fr/softs 1977
Visit:
Fuck, What a Label - Post about Rollin' Rock Records 

NON-STOP STOMP

Here's a good one, a Johnny Otis radio show from November 1970, playing Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Ray Charles, Bo Carter, Ike and Tina Turner, the Penguins and the Dubs, along with commercials and chit chat with guests Shuggie Otis, Frank Zappa, and Ray Agee. It's a good piece of period pie.

Otis was a band leader, MC of revue shows, talent scout, songwriter, singer, musician, radio DJ, TV show host, label owner and one of the most prominent West Coast rhythm and blues cheerleaders, in addition to it's permutations, rock 'n' roll, vocal groups, blues, and later funky soul. He discovered Big Mama Thornton, Hank Ballard, Jackie Wilson, Etta H and Little Willie John. An absolute L.A. icon.

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A warm up:
The Johnny Otis Show - Country Girl mp3 at Groove Addict With Mighty Mouth Evans and Shuggie Otis
Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention - Trouble Every Day mp3 at Gorveg (?) 1966
Frank Zappa and Shuggie Otis - Improvisation (acoustic, live in-studio) at Internet Archive
The Radio show:

The Johnny Otis Show, November 2, 1970, KPPC F.M 106.7 at Internet Archive

NOTE: Once there scroll down to "Download Options" on the right side of your screen click on that, then select "VBR MP3"

THE TOBACCO ROAD GUY

John D. Loudermilk died last Wednesday. Some of you may know his catalog, but I do not. I know one song of his, "Tobacco Road", but I couldn't recall what his original sounded like. He's kind of in that Mose Allison club for me, where I was familiar with covers of the song well before hearing the original, which ended up sounding tame in comparison. With Allison, it was "Parchman Farm" (John Mayall's version, Cactus's, and Johnny Winters), and "Young Man Blues" (The Who). With Loudermilk's "Tobacco Road" it was the Edgar Winter's White Trash version, and the Nashville Teens'.

The Edgar Winter "Tobacco Road" is live, and I think I remember it taking the full side of an LP. It was long. With some scat type vocals, and some long ass high pitched screams. It's almost too much of a vocal showcase, like "if you didn't notice I can sing, check out all this weird stuff". But as a showcase it does the job. The video version below is earlier, about 1969, when he was a part of his brother's band. Being that it is a mere nine minutes long, it might be more tolerable.

Definitely check the video of Loudermilk doing the song solo. The pace lets the pauses speak. Very effective.

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Listen:
John D. Loudermmilk - Tobacco Road (streaming) at YouTube
Nashville Teens - Tobacco Road mp3 at U Music Pub (?)
Southern Culture on the Skids - Tobacco Road mp3 at Billy Chic
Edgar Winter's White Trash - Tobacco Road (Pt 1) (streaming) at YouTube
Edgar Winter's White Trash - Tobacco Road (Pt 2) (streaming) at YouTube
Video:
John D. Loudermmilk - Tobacco Road (BBC 1984) at YouTube
Eric Burdon and War - Tobacco Road (1970) at YouTube
Visit:
John D Loudermilk fan page Extensive lists of songs and covers. Tobacco Road is about two thirds down page one of the listings

RAY CHARLES BETWEEN GOGGLE SEARCHES

I heard Ray Charles this morning, "Unchain My Heart". That kinda set the mood for the day, so I'm still off on that. Rather than going off about this, that or the other thing, I'll just a leave a few things here. If it's not enough, Google your ass right on out of here.

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Listen:
Ray Charles - Greenbacks mp3 at Rubber City Review
Ray Charles with Milt Jackson and Kenny Burrell - Soul Meeting mp3 at Time Goes By
Ray Charles - Ten cuts at Time Goes By Excellent post.
Video:
Ray Charles - Hit the Road Jack at YouTube

THE LINDA LU GUY

Ray Sharpe's "Linda Lu" is one of those second or third tier obscuros that's been covered by a million bands, but the original is only really known by people from the era (1959), people from Texas (he's from Fort Worth), and old rock 'n' roll fiends and collectors. Sharpe was no Chuck Berry, but he sure wanted to be. To that end, "Linda Lu" has some mileage on it. Bobby Fuller covered it, as did Johnny Otis, Roy Head and a bunch of others, including the Stones (who recorded an unreleased version in 1979). The B-side of the record "Monkey's Uncle" is more like a total rip off of Chuck Berry, and despite being produced by Lee Hazelwood and featuring Wrecking Crew mainstay Al Casey on guitar, still manages to come off as the Velvet Underground doing Chuck Berry, particularly the first twenty seconds. You might not hear it, I hear things weird.

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Listen:
Ray Sharpe - Linda Lu mp3 at Mp3 Rockabilly
Ray Sharpe - Monkey's Uncle mp3 at Mp3 Rockabilly
Rolling Stones - Linda Lu (streaming) at YouTube
Doug Sahm - Linda Lu (streaming) at YouTube

TWO JIMMY DEE FANS CAN'T BE WRONG

I just started reading a John Fogerty autobiography, mostly out of duty. My younger total Creedence fiend self would not forgive me if I didn't. In the beginning of the book Fogerty mentions quite a few records that were favorites of his in his younger days. One he mentions is "Henrietta" by Jimmy Dee and the Offbeats. He describes it as "a frantic rockabilly record", I'm listening. He then goes onto say "The Offbeats - that's just so wacky in the right way. Very punk name 'We suck! Ugh, stab me!'"

I checked out the song and it was good, deserved of Fogerty's sub-genre "dashboard banger". It was frantic alright, but what was the "We suck! Ugh, stab me!" bit? What is that all about? Is that what Fogerty sees punk as? That's Archie Bunker.

Interest piqued, I started digging around. The Rockabilly Hall of Fame says that it was the first record that Bob Dylan ever bought, and he covered it early in his career. Oh, what's this? The Trashmen covered it?  Sold.

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Listen:
Jimmy Dee and the Offbeats -Henrietta mp3 at Mp3 Rockabilly
Jimmy Dee and the Offbeats - You're Late Miss Kate mp3 at Rocky 52
Jimmy Dee and the Offbeats - Here I Come mp3 at Rocky 52
The Trashmen - Henrietta (streaming) at YouTube

THE 27 CLUB? THOSE OLD FARTS?

Years ago a friend of mine worked for as a rep for a record company that specialized in reissues. When she'd come down from L.A. to call on San Diego record stores, we'd hang out and occasionally she'd turm me on to a promo or two. I don't remember any of the records that I picked up, with one exception. A Richie Valens LP. For some reason, I gravitated to it, specifically "Hurry Up", a tame rocker that anyone who's had to wait for someone taking an inordinate amount of time "getting ready" to go out will relate too. I don't know why I liked that particular song so much, maybe because Valens was only seventeen when he recorded it but mature enough to recognize the aggravation that that type of scenario produces.

After looking for the song online for the last few years I just found it, along with a couple dozen other songs by Valens, pretty much his entire recorded output. He only put out a couple albums before he died in 1959, in the same plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper. Before being written into Don McLean's "American Pie" as "the day the music died", Eddie Cochran recorded a solemn cover of Joey Dee's song about the incident, "Three Stars". Where Dee's original is rather hokey, Cochran's take is personal, you can hear him getting choked up while singing it, possibly the reason it wasn't released until 1966 (half a dozen years after Cochran died in a car crash). He actually changed the original lyrics to make it even more personal "Ritchie, you were just starting to realize your dreams, Everyone calls me a kid, but you were only seventeen." Get out the hankies.

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Listen:
Ritchie Valens - Hurry Up mp3 at Internet Archive
Ritchie Valens - Fast Freight mp3 at Internet Archive
Ritchie Valens - Boney Maroney mp3 at Internet Archive
Ritchie Valens - 24 more cuts at Internet Archive
NOTE: Once there scroll down to "Download Options" on the right side of your screen click on that, then select "VBR MP3"
Eddie Cochran - Three Stars (streaming) at YouTube

YEE HAW, CRAZY JAM!

A cut from the soundtrack above, titled "Freakout # 1"? Look at that cover. Of course I'm going there. If that doesn't appeal to you, you don't have what it takes to join the Fucked Up Weird Shit Club. No matter, just move onto the next blog, I'm sure they have the Bee Gees over there.

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Listen:
Shades of Joy -Freakout #1 at Dinosaur Gardens Stick around for the whole thing.
Music from El Topo - All seven songs (with liner notes) at Dinosaur Gardens

THE MESSAGE SONG

Back in 1984 I was in Bielefeld Germany visiting a girl I'd met in the states. Our plan was to hitchhike to Berlin the night after I arrived, but first she had to attend a few college classes, so since I had nothing else to do I went along to check out her school. While she was in class, I killed time by browsing tables set up by different organizations and one was displaying booklets and badges from the African National Congress, whom I'd never heard of. I started talking to the people running the table and it was the first time I'd ever heard the term apartheid, and the first time I'd heard the name Nelson Mandela (still imprisoned at the time). Needless to say, I probably came off as the classic ignorant American. But the people at the table were patient, filling me in on all the shit that I'd never even heard about in the states.

By the time I got to London a few weeks later, after I'd read the ANC material that I'd picked up, the Special AKA's "Free Nelson Mandela" was climbing up the British charts (eventually making it to #9). When I spotted the 45, it was a no brainer, all the while thinking "Where the hell have I been?" Back at home a month or so later, the song started getting airplay on a local radio station. Dang me if it didn't do the job. The whole point of any protest song is to bring about awareness, and possibly change. To that end, many of the kids in the U.S. were now learning about apartheid for the first time through a song. It was hard to find anybody, in my particular circle, that didn't know about apartheid or Nelson Mandela. Multiply that by every country that had the record in shops and you've got a whole lot of kids going, "Hey, what's this? This is just plain wrong!" That is about the best that you could hope for a protest song.

In 1990, apartheid was abolished, and Mandela was released from prison. He went on to be elected president of South Africa, inaugurated on May 10, 1994, almost ten years to the day after I'd first heard his name. All of that was a trip to follow, a big change in ten years, and a great, great, protest song. Here's a few versions.

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Listen:
The Special AKA - Free Nelson Mandela mp3 at ATumblr (?) 1984
The Special AKA - Free Nelson Mandela (Instrumental) mp3 at AM Then FM 1984
Yikes!:
The Special AKA - Free Nelson Mandela (The Whole World Is Watching Dance Mix) (streaming) at YouTube 1988 WTF?
Video:
The Special AKA - Free Nelson Mandela (Official) at YouTube
The Special AKA - Free Nelson Mandela (Early version, first performance) at YouTube
The Special AKA - Racist Friend at YouTube On topic and also good.
Visit:
The Special Aka: In the Studio review at The Guardian "weird, vivid nightmares on Jerry Dammers’ utterly compelling final album" Retrospective review of LP that contained the song.

DOWN WITH COMBS

Serge Gainsbourg did this one, from a soundtrack to some foreign flick called "La Horse", supposedly really rare at one time. It's like some sort of twisted cousin of a Morricone soundtrack. It almost sounds like a few songs edited together, it's got so many things popping in an out. The drum break in the middle is pretty baddass. This is what he sounds like with his mouth shut.

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Listen:
Serge Gainsbourg with Jean Claude Vannier - Theme from La Horse mp3 at Now Again Records

MEET DRIMBLE WEDGE

Here's a few Dudley Moore and Peter Cook things. I know, hear me out. The first is the title song of the original version of the film Bedazzled, which starred Moore and Cook. Cook does this one stone faced, fronting the fictitious Drimble Wedge & The Vegetations. As a downer, it's a hoot. Bad hippie pop psych with the lyrics that sound like something the Monks would write. There's also a great cover of the song by Bongwater and a video of Dudley Moore performing an instrumental version with his jazz trio (him on piano, a bassist and drummer). It's great, the thing swings in a cocktail hour sort of way.

There's a another song by Moore and Cook "The L.S. Bumble Bee", a parody of the Beatles' and Beach Boys' veiled drug references. Apparently it was convincing enough that some bootleggers released it as a rare Beatles outtake.

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Listen:
Peter Cook - Bedazzled mp3 at Dinosaur Gardens
Bongwater - Bedazzled mp3 at Dinosaur Gardens
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore- The LS Bumble Bee at 365 Days Project
Dudley Moore - Strip Club mp3 at Dinosaur Gardens
Video:
Peter Cook - Bedazzled at YouTube
Dudley Moore Trio - Bedazzled at YouTube

TO ODDBALL, ADD ODDBALL

I just love it when an oddball group does an obscure oddball cover. It's like oddball squared. To some, the 5678s may not seem like an oddball band, but, c'mon, a Japanese all-women trio that plays surfish garagy rockawhatever in dresses, heels and beehive up-dos that would make Ronnie Spector proud? That might be your cup of tea, as it is mine, but you'd have to agree that it is rather odd in that you don't see a lot of Japanese women in dresses, heels and beehive updos that would make Ronnie Spector proud doing it. The Rock-A-Teens, the band that originally recorded "Woo Hoo", get the credit for the tune and its brilliant lyrics.

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Listen:
The 5678s - Bomb the Twist EP (via Mediafire) at Poison in the Machine Five song EP, including "Woo Hoo" in a zip
The Rock-A-Teens - Woo Hoo mp3 at Mp3 Rockabilly
Video:
The 5678s - Woo Hoo at YouTube Live at the Reading Festival, 2006

A FINGER IN EVERY KINGSTON PIE

Ohh, man, Prince Buster died yesterday. If you know his music, you might pause for a second like you do with the passing of any musical figure, respect, reflection, and on to the next story. But Prince Buster was so much more than just a musician. The guy did everything. He started out as a bouncer for Coxsone Dodd's sound system, a position that expanded with him identifying the songs of other sound system operators (that sounds fun) and selecting records for Dodd, eventually leaving to start his own soundsystem. That was just the beginning. Before the decade was out he would make his own music, and act as producer, label owner, record store owner, and talent scout. Dude did it all.

If all of that wasn't enough, he's sometimes credited with the whole ska guitar chord on the afterbeat thing, that chunka chunka, a prime ingredient of nearly all ska and reggae throughout the sixties, seventies, and beyond. In the middle there he pioneered the slow down into rocksteady. Keep in mind, this is all in the space of about ten years. Maaan, I'm gonna need a longer pause.

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Listen:
Prince Buster All Stars - Desafinado mp3 at Jaliskoska
Prince Buster - One Step Beyond mp3 at Plain or Pan
Prince Buster - Madness mp3 at Plain or Pan
Prince Buster - The Scorcher mp3 at Plain or Pan
Prince Buster - Al Capone mp3 at Plain or Pan
Prince Buster - Enjoy Yourself mp3 at Audio Drums
Prince Buster - Respect mp3 at Groove Addict
Prince Buster - Judge Dread mp3 at Cubik Musik
Prince Buster - Soul of Africa mp3 at Groove Addict
Visit:
Prince Buster at Wikipedia

OTIS DOES SLIM, SAM, B.B. AND THE TEMPS

Once you get past Otis Redding's hits and check out his covers of other peoples hits, you really start to appreciate how much his sound is his own. Thanks in no small part to Booker T and the MGs, and the horns, the Mar-Keys.  But really, that gravely ol' voice of his. Sometimes you just need it.

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Listen:
Otis Redding - Scratch My Back mp3 at Groove Addict
Otis Redding - Chain Gang mp3 at Groove Addict
Otis Redding - Rock Me Baby mp3 at Groove Addict
Otis Redding - My Girl mp3 at Groove Addict

DAPTONE ROCK

I don't follow the rock magazines, and I often have a hard time buying into the recommendations of strangers regardless. There's just too much hype, spread way too fast by people without a decent comprehension of what music has been done before and making comparisons to other bands that aren't all that accurate. But when I get a heads up from my dear friend Jacqui Ramirez, someone I used to do a fanzine with, someone I've known long enough that it was her that turned me on to Richard Hell way back in the day, when I get a heads up from her, you better believe I'm listening. And when she suggests that I listen without watching a video first, I do. A recommendation the old fashioned way, word of mouth. So it is that I am apparently late to this party, but I guarantee you, the last beer in the fridge still isn't safe.

Mystery Lights are the first rock 'n' roll band to be released on Daptone's new imprint label Wick. They recorded in Daptone's studio, so you know it went through a quality filter without being subjected to an intentionally lo-fi-posing-as-garage type mix. This could get good.

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Listen:
The Mystery Lights - Melt mp3 at Still In Rock If the link doesn't work, go there and scroll down to the bottom of the post
The Mystery Lights - More songs at their Bandcamp Page 

THE KILLER ON SUN

I would hope that most of you are familiar with Jerry Lee Lewis's early stuff on Sun Records. This isn't for the converted, This is for the beginners that came along too late, through no fault of their own, and haven't gotten that far back yet in their backtracking. If that describes you, listen up. Get some Jerry Lee Lewis Sun-era stuff. If you want to know early rock 'n' roll, you have to pass through a dozen or of the greats. Elvis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and so on. Jerry Lee's one of them. Finding 18 Sun-era cuts of his on one night is an instant crash course.

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Listen:
Jerry Lee Lewis - Big Blon' Baby mp3 at Internet Archive
Jerry Lee Lewis - Wild One mp3 at Internet Archive
Jerry Lee Lewis - Lewis Boogie mp3 at Internet Archive
Jerry Lee Lewis - 15 more cuts from Sun-era at Internet Archive
NOTE: Once there scroll down to "Download Options" on the right side of your screen click on that, then select "VBR MP3"

TAKE TOMORROW OFF

Tomorrow is Labor Day, a holiday in the U.S. Per the government, it's "a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers." Labor Day is also the unofficial end of the summer, in that vacationers have headed home to pack the kids off to school. A lot of people have one last blow out before shit gets serious again. To that end here's some oddball surf.

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Listen:
The Chantays - Wayward Nile mp3 at Internet Archive
The Fentones - The Mexican mp3 at Internet Archive
The Shadows - Kon Tiki mp3  at Internet Archive
The Surfaris - Point Panic mp3 at Internet Archive
The Gamblers - Moon Dawg mp3 at Internet Archive
The Frantics - Werewolf mp3 at Internet Archive
The Beach Boys - Stoked mp3 at Internet Archive

BACK TO SCHOOL SPECIAL

To hell with that School of Rock nonsense. When it becomes that self aware, it takes out the very thing that makes it rock. That is, figuring it out yourself. Stumbling. Sure, take lessons and practice, practice, practice, but for crying out loud, let the kids figure out how to make a band. Don't just fucking hand it to them. Yes, good for your kid, I'm very happy for you, but that class he is in, and others like it, will be the ruination of rock 'n' roll. Or not.

Kashmere Stage Band were a high school band directed by music teacher Conrad "Prof" Johnson. They kicked ass. Super funky. There was no School of Rock franchise back then. Just a teacher who gave a shit.

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Listen:
Kashmere Stage Band - Super Bad mp3 at MOG
Kashmere Stage Band - Thank You mp3 at Life Signs Project
Kashmere Stage Band - Take Five mp3 at NowAgain
Kashmere Stage Band - Do You Dig It Man? mp3 at NowAgain
Kashmere Stage Band - Zero Point (Parts 1 & 2) mp3 at NowAgain
Visit:
Kashmere Stage Band at Wikipedia

KEEPING IT SIMPLE STUPID

Here's a cool photo of Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter. And a couple songs. And a link to thirty something more songs. And, if you're a complete ignoramus, a link to the Wikipedia thing. The first of these songs "In New Orleans" was later renamed "The House of the Rising Sun" and was a hit for the Animals. The second song "The Gallis Pole" was lifted by Led Zepp.

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Listen:
Lead Belly - In New Orleans mp3 at Internet Archive
Lead Belly - The Gallis Pole mp3 at Internet Archive
Lead Belly - The Collection at Internet Archive 38 Songs
Lead Belly at Wikipedia
High resolution version of above photo