EXTRA CURRICULAR BADASS

I don't know about you, but I see a benefit in not having all of your records and CDs stored in alphabetical order, or even by genre. I'd say that about 75% of my collection is easily located by some sort of organizing method. But that other 25% is mixed all the fuck up. The benefit of being too lazy to re-file records is that when you grab from the middle of the stack, you might grab something you haven't heard in a while or forgot you even had. Such was the case last night when my chance pick was the Kashmere Stage Band.

The Kashmere Stage Band was a high school band. Ho-hum you say? Okay then, don't listen. Those that do will be treated to an exceptionally tight and well recorded funk powerhouse. Before they were subjects of multiple compilations and a documentary (roughly twelve years ago) their privately pressed records were changing hands at top dollar. Check these random selections and hear what the fuss was about. Listen to the breaks, the bass, the slinky wah wah, the percolating horns. The arrangements suiting the band. Being in a band like that might have made some seniors think about flunking just to keep playing. Hell, I'd be tempted.

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Listen:
Kashmere Stage Band - Super Bad mp3 at Internet Archive
Kashmere Stage Band - Scorpio mp3 at Internet Archive
Kashmere Stage Band - Take Five mp3 at Internet Archive
Kashmere Stage Band - Shaft mp3 at Internet Archive
Kashmere Stage Band - Do You Dig It Man? mp3 at Internet Archive
Watch:
Thundersoul (trailer) - Kashmere Stage Band documentary at YouTube

HE WHO PUTS ANTS IN PANTS

I was shooting the shit with a younger DJ friend of mine yesterday. His music of choice is electronic, EDM of the "dooosh, dooosh, dooosh" variety. He also does weddings as a better paying side gig. This past weekend he DJ'ed a wedding so I thought I'd ask what a wedding go-to crowd pleaser is these days. You know, the one you throw on when the dance floor has started thinning out and you need to get them out there again. His answer was Bruno Mars. I thought about it and the one I would keep in reserve until that re-stoking was needed, this is back when I DJ'ed an occasional wedding, would have been James Brown. This lead to all sorts of thoughts later, long after our conversation ended. One is that his go-to was of current vintage in relation to when the weddings were taking place. While James Brown's or Aretha Franklin's (another go-to for me) stuff would have been about twenty five years old when I played them at events. Then I thought about the people at the weddings. I DJd only at friends' weddings, and my friends are all pretty musically educated. James Brown would have been a no-brainer.

Here's a couple lesser know James Brown cuts from 1968. (These were never dance floor tested by me.) The second song, "Funky Soul 1", is an instrumental. My guess is that the JB is on the organ. He had instrumental LPs in the past where he was the organist so I'm sticking with that (also, it's the featured instrument so...). I gotta say, the man had decent chops.

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Listen:
James Brown - There Was A Time mp3 at Groove Addict
James Brown - Funky Soul 1 mp3 at Groove Addict

IT'S GO POWER AT SLACKFEST TIME

Being someone without kids or immediate family under the same roof, the holiday season is something much more than gift giving, more than eggnog and Christmas caroling. It's more than a religious holiday and time off from work. It is the wonderful season of Slackfest. Hark, it's much easier to repost the Herald Angels. Soul Brother #1 falls under that category.

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Listen:
James Brown - Funky Christmas mp3 at SB Dave
James Brown - Go Power At Christmas Time mp3 at The Sound of Indie
James Brown - Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto mp3 at New Times
James Brown - Let's Unite the World at Christmas mp3 at Probe Is Turning-On the People
James Brown - Let's Make Christmas Mean Something This Year mp3 at Big Hair and Plastic Grass

PER USUAL, LATE TO THE PARTY

Just another random link. I had no idea who Bernard Purdie was but the name seemed familiar, so I clicked. Holy shit, right out of the gate, "Hap'nin'", a drumming tour de force. This guy is funky as hell. He had to be a drummer's drummer. I had to have heard this guy. As it turns out he is, and I had. The Aretha and King Curtis cuts below were the first two that popped up, but the dude's played with everybody.

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Listen:
Bernard Purdie - Hap'nin' mp3 at Sunrise
Aretha Franklin - Rock Steady mp3 at Drummer World
King Curtis - Memphis Soul Stew mp3 at Drummer World
Visit:
Bernard Purdie session discography (partial) at Wikipedia
Bernard Purdie solo discography at Wikipedia

THE HOLIDAY DUMP CONTINUES!

Here's a handful that have been sitting around since 2012, posted at Black Squirrel Amusements. They're all from the same post, there's thirty songs in all. A few others are worth checking out, and more than a few are worthless. The Chipmunks, really? Yeah, it's a real mixed bag. These are just vaguely connected, but if you file them under what-not, it gives you a license to lump just about anything together. Plus, they're good. The unexpected treat was Mr.President, who I've never heard before, so that was cool to run into. Afro-funk from France. I'll be damned. I wanted to hate it, but it's so damn catchy.

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Listen:

Nathaniel Mayer and his Fabulous Twilights - Mr. Santa Claus (Bring Me My Baby) mp3 at Black Squirrel Amusements 1962
Detroit Junior - Christmas Day mp3 at Black Squirrel Amusements 1960
James Brown - Signs of Christmas mp3 at Black Squirrel Amusements 1966
Mr. President - It's Christmas Time mp3 at Black Squirrel Amusements 2011

IT'S GO TIME SOMEWHERE

That photo of James Brown cracks me up, it's so damn corny. Not only does he have the Santa hat, but now he's pushed his funky skull through a wreath. What a nut! But you know the GFOS. You can dance to his farts. Seriously, his on base percentage is way the fuck up there. Not all them of them home runs. These funky jams are entirely worthy but are only relevant lyrically for a few weeks a year, at least for me. I just can't listen to Christmas songs in the off season, not even James Brown's. So yee haw. I'll just listen the shit out of 'em for the next week and a half.

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Listen:
James Brown - Funky Christmas mp3 at SB Dave
James Brown - Go Time At Christmas Time mp3 at The Sound of Indie
James Brown - Signs of Christmas mp3 at Black Squirrel Amusements

SO THAT'S WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE

I haven't really run out of bands, but I find myself going back to songs that were overplayed when they were hits to the extent that I've never actually bothered to really listen to them. Today there's a fire burning about forty miles south east of me. Ashes are falling all the way out here on the coast (I'm in San Diego). I was trying to think of a song to post, so when I noticed the ashes and was told about the fire, I thought, what about a fire related song? The first one that came to mind was Hendrix's "Fire", followed immediately by the Ohio Players' "Fire" which I hadn't heard in years. So that's the one I went to, to really listen to it. In doing so, I ran across "Love Rollercoaster" a badass jam in and of itself. 

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Listen:
Ohio Players - Fire (streaming) at YouTube
Ohio Players - Love Rollercoaster mp3 at Tumblr
Video:
Ohio Players - Fire at YouTube From The Beat Club, this smokes. Dig the intro, clipped from the theme from The Munsters.

IS THIS THE LINE? OH. YOU'RE THE BAND?

I ran across a misfiled Shaolin Afronauts CD the other day, and after listening to it in the car I thought I'd look for something of theirs to post. It was a long shot, I didn't expect to find much, and I expected right. Squat. But I saw a few by some outfit called Shaolin Temple Defenders. Fucking ridiculous name. Of course I took the bait. It ended up being some pretty good shit. Good solid funky soul. Here's all I've gleamed about the band: They're white, one woman and the rest men. They might have been inspired by Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings and least that's what it seems to say in their bio. Then again, the bio reads like a poor translation so I may have misinterpreted what they were saying. Regardless, the few that I ran into were solid; completely derivative, but solidly so. They kinda remind me of The Commitments.

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Listen:

Shaolin Temple Defenders - Growing Up Master mp3 at Shaolin Temple Defenders
Shaolin Temple Defenders - International Soul mp3 at Shaolin Temple Defenders
Shaolin Temple Defenders - Funky Chick mp3 at Shaolin Temple Defenders
Shaolin Temple Defenders - Temple of Soul mp3 at Bama Love Soul
Visit:
Shaolin Temple Defenders Official site

NEVER TOO SOON TO PLAN A PARTY

I don't think that a title has ever grabbed me quite as quickly. I mean, I perked up, noticeably, the instant I read three words. The funny thing is, I'd heard the song before but forgot about it completely. I think it was from an old issue of Waxpoetics, it had to be at least five or ten years ago. Something about how it's been sampled a zillion times, and it has. Listen to it. You may have heard some of the elements, the drums in particular. Just a short list of people who've sampled it includes Eric B & Rakim, N.W.A., Tupac, Wu-Tang Clan, Ice Cube, L.L.Cool J, De La Soul, Nas, and Biggee. And that's just in hip hop. There were plenty of others that dipped. Prince, George Benson, Amy Winehouse, and Stevie Wonder, to name a few. Reason enough to listen to it.

Another reason to listen to it is that, although written in the Nixon era, there aren't any references to Nixon by name. Here we have a song that truly is relevant a second time. Oh, and it's good song, regardless of lyrics, it nice and funky. But you'll want to sing along. You'd better.

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Listen:
The Honey Drippers - Impeach the President (streaming) at YouTube
Visit:
Impeach the President (song entry) at Wikipedia
Impeach the President at Who Sampled Clips of songs that sampled it.

TAKE IT HIGHER FRED

If a song makes you forget about everything for nine minutes, that's really more than you can ask for. I don't know what I was looking for when I saw Fred Wesley's name mentioned, but it sent me lookin' for some J.B.'s stuff. One long version (but not the longest) of "Doin' It to Death" later, I don't even know what kinda mood I was in when I walked in the door. I've no idea the science behind it and it doesn't quite matter anyway. It worked.

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Listen:
James Brown and the J.B.'s - Doing It To Death mp3 at Frederator
Fred Wesley and the J.B.'s - It's the J.B.'s Monorail mp3 at ATumblr (?)

WILLIE TEE. I DIDN'T KNOW EITHER.

Man, I love it when this happens. Going through old bookmarks, I ended up on a post from 2009 on Soul Garage. Willie Tee. Never heard of him. After checking "Sweet Thing", it became apparent that despite my lack of familiarity and the budget look of the 45, this was a guy who should have been a household name. "Sweet Thing" sounds an awful lot like the Norman Whitfield produced psychedelic soul-era Temptations, but with one singer instead of five. Actually, he sounds like Marvin Gaye being produced by Whitfield. Whatever, it's great, and remarkable in that it was on what appears to be a self financed label, Gatur Records. Tee, as it turns out, was in two New Orleads bands, the Wild Magnolias and the Gaturs. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume that, if he was the singer in the Gaturs, and the record was on Gatur Records, it was probably the Gaturs backing him.

Off to YouTube, to check out these Gaturs. Click. Oh holy hell, I'm gonna OD on gaturs. The first song I hear is "Gatur Bait". Here I go, careening into a black hole of Gatur all up in your face. And this is how you lose an evening. And lengthen the list.

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Listen:
Willie Tee - Sweet Thing mp3 at Soul Garage
The Gaturs - Gatur Bait (streaming) at YouTube
Willie Tee - Man That I Am mp3 at Soul Garage Go there to get it.

I'LL TAKE GO POWER AT ANY TIME

So you won't have to go digging for them, here's three from the GFOS, Worth at least a few listenings per year, You've only got a few weeks to enjoy them, in season anyway. So yeah, I'll post them again.

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Listen:
James Brown - Funky Christmas mp3 at SB Dave
James Brown - Go Power At Christmas Time mp3 at The Sound of Indie
James Brown - Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto mp3 at The Mob Third Coast

CARLEEN JEAN BUTLER, THAT'S WHO.

Time for some relatively obscure funky butt movers. All three of these bands were unknown to me until I came across some post on some long forgotten blog drooling over some new (at the time) reissue. That was a while ago. By now they're like old pals. I was kind of missing them, maybe you too if you've heard them before. It's better if you've never heard them, you can figure out where to go from here.

Carleen and the Groovers feature Carleen Jean Butler (that's her at the top of the post) on drums, and she smokes. Really. Dyke and the Blazers are a solid presence in the second tier of funk and soul recognition. In other words, out of the three they're the better known. The Kashmere Stage Band is one unbelievably tight high school stage band. Check the drummer, whoever he is, on those two cuts. Jeez. High school.

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Listen:
Carleen & the Groovers - Can We Rap mp3 at Now Again
Carleen & the Groovers - The Thing mp3 at Now Again
Carleen & the Groovers - Right On mp3 at Now Again
Carleen & the Groovers - Hot Pants mp3 at Now Again
Dyke and the Blazers - Shotgun Slim mp3 at Alejandro Borreo (?)
Dyke and the Blazers - We Got More Soul mp3 at Alejandro Borreo (?)
The Kashmere Stage Band - Thunder Soul mp3 at Now Again
The Kashmere Stage Band - Point Zero/Zero Point Reprise (live) mp3 at Now Again

GO OVER THERE

Okay, first the mix. Funky 16 Corners Summer of Soul Pt 9 - Fuzzed Out, a two hour mix of all sorts of bombastic funk, soul and r&b, with a Led Zeppelin song smack dab in the middle of it. Who the fuck knows why, but it makes a handy piss break a half hour in. The rest of the mix is solid. It's a single mp3, not separate individual mp3s, but you can stream it without downloading it,

When I was looking for an image for the post I came across the one above, posted with a link to another Funky 16 Corners post a few years ago. I was slobbering all over it back then, and it still sounds tight so what the hell.

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Listen:
The Chevelles - The Gallop mp3 at Funky 16 Corners Go there to get it.
The mix:
Funky 16 Corners Summer of Soul Pt 9 - Fuzzed Out at Funky 16 Corners 17 song mix

THE FUNKY CLICK SOUL SISTER SURPRISE

All it took was seeing Marva Whitney's name mentioned. There's a link, hopefully it's a James Brown era Marva Whitney cut. Bam! Diversion initiated. Marva Whitney and the JBs? Listen to that first one, you'll see. There ain't no going back, not tonight.

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Listen:

Marva Whitney - Unwind Yourself mp3 at Internet Archive

Marva Whitney - I Am What I Am (Pts 1 & 2) mp3 at Cubik Music

Marva Whitney - What Do I Have To Do to Prove My Love mp3 at GazFunk

Marva Whitney - Ball of Fire mp3 at Soul Sides

BECAUSE PAM GRIER IS PRETTIER

Somewhere in that salad bowl of Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Norman Whitfield, wah-wah pedals, strings, breaks, songs about pushers and pimps, movies about settling scores, Pam Grier, Richard Roundtree, and all of that, there is Willie Hutch. Even if this type of music isn't your bag, listen to them just to hear all the shit that's going on in them. These songs are packed.

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Listen:
Willie Hutch - Theme From Foxy Brown (streaming) at YouTube
Willie Hutch - I'm Gonna Hold On mp3 at ATumblr (?)
Willie Hutch - Give Me Some of That Good Old Love mp3 at ATumblr
Willie Hutch - Tell Me Why Has Our Love Turned Cold? mp3 at Crate Kings
Visit:
Willie Hutch at Wikipedia

BLACK HOLE OF THE WEEK

Every once in a while I'll get in one of those moods when it all sounds good, all good music. Regardless of what type of music it is. It might be rockabilly one minute and afro-funk the next. It doesn't matter, it all sounds good. That type of mood lends itself to meandering. Usually it's a diversion of less than a half dozen songs, then back to what I was doing. No harm, no foul. But when that meandering lands me on a page as extensive as the Red Allen Index, I'm gone. I may not come up for air for a long while.

Read the intro on the home page to get the story about it. It's all soul and soul related genres, all the stuff Allen has posted on multiple sites over the past ten years, with audio. Deeper cuts, shit you probably haven't heard. The two below were my the first random selections. After that, it was all over. When you check his index pages, the links to the other pages of his index are at the bottom. Get lost.

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Listen:
The Ramrods - Soul Express - Part 1 mp3 at Soul Detective
The Tikis - I Was Doin' Alright mp3 at The B Side
Visit:
The Red Kelly Index

BLOW UP THE PERFECTO

Man, have I been out of the loop. Apparently all this soul music got released and nobody informed me. Soul Donuts posted a year end list a while back and I was cognizant of.maybe a half dozen of them. Here's four. There's a lot more over there with little blurbs about each one. An excellent post.

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Listen:
Shirley Davis and the Silverbacks - Black Rose mp3 at Soul Donuts
Lack of Afro feat. Elliot Cole - I Got the Rhythm mp3 at Soul Donuts
The Soul Snatchers - How Ya Do It mp3 at Soul Donuts
Nick Waterhouse -The Old Place mp3 at Soul Donuts
22 more at Soul Dounts

REALLY. GIVE THE DRUMMER SOME.

Clyde Stubblefield passed away today. His name may not be immediately recognizable to a lot of people, but chances are most people have heard his playing. He's best known as James Brown's drummer from the period that produced Brown's funkiest sides. No small feat there, considering Brown's pioneering funk, his predilection for extraordinarily tight backing bands, and the fact that the rhythm section is essential to making that spit shined funk happen. Stubblefield was the man.

But you've heard him on other stuff as well. Check James Brown's "Funky Drummer". Stubblefield was that funky drummer. Listen. Heard any of those beats before? Check the end of it, just after 8:50, the breaks on the fade out. You know those. The drums on "Funky Drummer" are widely thought to be the most sampled in history, but really, though the drums on the song are badass and sample worthy, the fact that it's been sampled a zillion times just means there's a whole lot of copycats. And one funky drummer.

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Listen:
James Brown - Funky Drummer mp3 at Isoamerica (?)
James Brown - Sex Machine mp3 at Drummer World
James Brown - Cold Sweat mp3 at Drummer World With John Jabo Syarks also on drums.
Visit:
Clyde Stubblefield page at Drummer World Several videos and short bio
Clyde Stubblefield, the ‘Funky Drummer’ for James Brown, Dies at 73 at New York Times
Songs that sampled Funky Drummer at Who Sampled

HELL YEAH

If you dig soul funk and don't already have What It Is! Funky Soul And Rare Grooves (1967-1977), you really need to check it out. It's a boxed set (four CDs I think), with some familiar names, some that you second tier types know, and a whole lotta of obscure on-offs. I've been messing with it for the past couple days. Here's a few samples and a link to whole thing. You can listen to in streaming or, you know.

I do need to insist that you listen to the alternate mix of Aretha Franklin's "Rock Steady". Listen to all the shit that's going on, it's just insane, And her voice, total goosebumps. The drums, the background singers, the horns. It is high art. 

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Listen:
Don Covay - Sookie Sookie mp3 at Internet Archive
Lulu - Feelin' Alright mp3 at Internet Archive
Aretha Franklin - Rock Steady (alt mix) mp3 at Internet Archive
The whole thing:
What It Is! Funky Soul And Rare Grooves (1967-1977) at Internet Archive NOTE: In the right column, under "Download options" click on "VBR MP3 Files"