April 2nd, 2011.

I had very little else to say on the blog during February and March, the loss of Barry Hampton influenced and affected everything else in life.  Barry and I loved records and often discussed them at length, and so to dig back into my own stacks brought sadness and melancholy memories, tears to my eyes, that inescapable VOID that cannot and will never be filled.  However, it was necessary to remind myself that, while these memories would stay with me always, I also needed to move beyond them to move forward, to “walk on” as Barry himself would say.  And so I have, slowly but surely, though every time I hear “She’s Always In My Hair” by Prince I still weep, as I do when I hear “The Song Is Familiar” by Funkadelic.  Somehow the music continues, the cycles and circles broken and unbroken simultaneously.  Here are some more funky grooves for Barry and the rest of the known and unknown universe…love from the four corners…

Olatunji: "Soul Makossa"

To me, this LP deserves a place in history right next to the Incredible Bongo Band records in terms of having an unlimited wealth of breaks and beats; Olatunji is more famous for his earlier Afro-Percussion efforts of the ‘60’s, while this album has achieved little more than cult status, at best.  One listen, though, will convert even the most jaded beat-seeker, and really, the beats and breakdowns here just scratch the surface of how monumental this music truly is.  Joe Henderson is the saxophonist, playing in a mode unlike anything else  in his musical legacy, and famed producer and Miles Davis alum Reggie Lucas is on guitar, with the recording year (1973) being early enough in his career for him to still be billed as “Reginald.”  Meanwhile, Olatunji and his army of percussionists stomp through the grooves like a herd of rampaging rhinos, trampling everything in their path as Lucas and Henderson provide psychedelic musings on the top end of things.  Songs like “Takuta” and “Dominira” live outside of time and space, and when the initially muted drums of the former shift into full tonality, the band takes the expressway to the skull directly, rattling the psyche and leaving reverberations in every nook and cranny of the brain.  Even the cover of Manu Dibango’s legendary “Soul Makossa” demonstrates a flavor not present in the original; though this album was surely an attempt to cash in on that song’s hit potential circa the early ‘70’s, it breaks outside of those boundaries to carve out its own path, and what a path it is.

Kitty And The Haywoods: "Love Shock"

An obscure one, with the Ohio Players maneuvering behind the scenes…sort of.  The album was released on the OP’s then-current label, Mercury, and the back cover does feature the group’s logo and musician credits quite prominently.  Here, the Players provide some exquisite backing and production for Kitty et al, and much like the famous Faze-O LP from the same year (1977), the music has the distinction of being arguably better than what the Players themselves were releasing at the time.  Perhaps it is the sultry voices of the Haywoods that push things over the top, adding to the already dream-like musings that were the unmistakable trademark of the Players in their prime.  Diamond’s drumming pulses and skitters around the beat, Sugarfoot’s guitar adds its singular flair to the mix, and Billy Beck’s ethereal keyboards orbit the voices of Kitty & The Haywoods gracefully, underscoring the deeply mellow, almost-trancelike energy that runs throughout the length of the record.  For diehard Ohio Players fans, the best moment comes in the brief instrumental intro/outro, which features the group getting down and gritty in a manner not seen from them since their “Funky Worm” days on the Westbound label.  Yet regardless of one’s deference for a particular era in the Players’ oeuvre, this was clearly a creative if not commercial triumph for the collective, and when Kitty and the crew bust into cuts like the title song and “Grandma’s Cookin’,” you know this shit ain’t playin’ around.

Reuben Wilson: "The Sweet Life"

The increasing rarity of some of Reuben’s more sought-after LP’s (“Set Us Free,” “Got To Get Your Own”) has left other, easier-to-find gems in his numerous catalogue lingering on the shelves, and “The Sweet Life” absolutely falls into that latter category.  Whether or not it is rare, however, is somewhat beside the point—this is an exceptional album of smoking Hammond B-3 grooves.  Reuben Wilson was another casualty of the overexposure of organ players in the ‘60’s and early ‘70’s, and most of his work was not celebrated until the sampling obsessives of the hip-hop era “rediscovered” it.  Yet his blistering touch on the organ speaks for itself, and needs no added beats to accentuate its innate funkiness.  Every cut here is a treasure, from the minimalist, dark reading of Marvin Gaye’s “Inner City Blues” to the propulsive title cut, which sounds like Reuben and his band doing their best impression of the J.B.’s.  You may find this LP somewhere for $15, then walk across the street and find it for $3.  Pay what you gotta, ‘cause you will very shortly find yourself jamming to this shit non-stop.

Moacir Santos: "Maestro"

Moacir Santos is a legend in his native Brazil, yet that kind of success eluded him when he pulled up roots and moved to the United States.  “Maestro” is the first of three albums he recorded for the Blue Note label, and while the other two have their moments, this LP is monumental in every way.  Santos is unlike many of his Brazilian contemporaries of the ‘70’s in that he doesn’t box himself into the funk-jazz styling of the day so immediately.  Instead, he prefers a more atmospheric approach, one that more clearly emphasizes the beautiful, lyrical songwriting at the heart of his compositions.  At times he vocalizes in an almost chant-like manner, sounding weighty and effervescent at different turns.  There is an underlying groove here, although it is of a more subtle persuasion than the rocking, backbeat-heavy work of someone like, say, Deodato.  That groove is most prevalent in the album opener, “Nana,” and it returns toward the end on the incredible “The Mirror’s Mirror.”  The latter is one of the darkest fusion tracks in existence, sounding like a cross between early Weather Report and Tropicalia-era Caetano Veloso, with layered Brazilian percussion filling in the spaces.  Though this underrated LP, along with Santos’ subsequent Blue Note efforts, has achieved a sort of unjust obscurity due to its lack of commercial sales, the presence of genius found within its dusty wax is readily apparent.  This album has an ethereal quality to it that cannot be done justice through words; the listener must give themselves over and commit to its sonic journey to attain the full range of experience offered, a process which I cannot recommend enough.

The 8th Day: "I Gotta Get Home"

This album goes for big bucks online nowadays, and is not nearly as famous as its predecessor, the 8^th Day’s self-titled debut.  Its lack of notoriety is partially due to the fact that it lacked a million-seller like “She’s Not Just Another Woman,” a Detroit soul classic and the most famous cut from the group’s first album.  Yet there is something else happening with the “I Gotta Get Home” LP as well…its sound is so ominous and acid-fueled that it is unlikely it was ever intended to be a commercial success, or if it was it was a severe miscalculation on the part of someone in the promotional department at the Invictus label.  Another element that always caused problems for the 8^th Day is that they were, in many ways, a faceless studio concoction of the Holland-Dozier-Holland empire heading up Invictus records, and so there was no star power to gravitate towards, for the fans or for the company itself.  The 8^th Day included, at different times, Detroit notables such as singer Melvin Davis and guitarist Ron Bykowski from Funkadelic (who George Clinton called his “Polish white brother” in a memoir, and a “token white devil” on the inner sleeve of the “Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On” LP).  However, even regional names like the aforementioned remained tied to the “rotating door” theme underlining sessions and album releases for Invictus. 

But I digress…the above information is merely to provide context, and does little to describe the music here, which is unbelievably funky, smelly-funky, raunchy-greasy-gritty funky.  It shares some similarities with what Funkadelic was doing around the same time (1973), though it boasts more polished production, courtesy of arrangers/producers/songwriters Holland-Dozier Holland and McKinley Jackson.  Modern DJ’s have picked up on it due to the inclusion of break-filled cuts like “Rocks In My Head,” yet there is much more than breaks here, from the clavinet-driven “Anythang” to the downright sinister, tripped-out “Cheeba,” ‘70’s head music of a perfected vintage.  There are miles and miles of Detroit guitar theatrics in place, fuzzed-out and bleeding all over the mix, a recording technique sadly lost in today’s overly-clean digital sameness.  Though the 8^th Day may have been a one-hit wonder in their own surroundings, they deserved much better than that, and their full-length album works need to be more efficiently reconsidered by today’s beat-fiends, connoisseurs and critics.  Wonderful stuff, and essential to any fan of the Motor City sound in the 1970’s.