Farewell to 2012...Part 1

2012 was a strange year.  Tough times, and such is life, but also some remarkable peaks of creativity, happiness, love, togetherness.  I am leaving 2012 behind feeling more optimistic than I've been in quite some time, excited about what the future holds for Dolly and I, our family, our friends, my comrades-in-song in the band No Hero, all the joy and beauty that surrounds us every day, even as the world roils wildly.  I hope everyone out there is enjoying peace, love and happiness as we welcome 2013 into our hearts and minds, and meanwhile, here's my "Best Of 2012" list, part 1 of 2...the soundtrack for a complicated yet wonderful twelve months...

Maybe my favorite album this year.  Hard to say for sure.  Turned my head around in a big way...Bobby's voice is older and more weathered than it once was, but the rasping, life-lived-full vocals imbue a weight in the songs that a lesser singer could never fathom.  The Richard Russell/Damon Albarn production is spare but funky, hushed but reverent, dark but seeking.  This is a modern groove classic, people will be catching up to this one for a while yet to come.

Much hyped, and so what do I really need to say about this one?  It lived up.  This could only very loosely be categorized as "hip-hop," as it was in record stores, for what it really is is something much more unique and unable to be categorized; there are strains of everything from Prince to Kanye to Morricone to the Delfonics to Aphex Twin on this album, and more.  Frank is doing things differently, can't wait to see what he comes up with next.

The comparisons to J Dilla's "Donuts" are not exaggeration, they are completely accurate.  This is an astonishing 34 tracks of experimental hip-hop, jazz, funk, rock, you name it.  Hard to imagine how somebody would have the discipline to put this together; it's an exercise in patience even for the listener, however, the rewards upon repeated spins are infinite.

More solid, slightly avant-garde R&B from one of my favorite ATL singer-songwriters.  Anthony David's voice is its own creature entirely; his croon has the kind of scratchy-but-brilliant tone in it reserved for the greats a la Otis Redding or David Ruffin, though his spin on R&B is thoroughly modern, with progressive political lyrics and a diverse range of influences.

Speaking of left-field R&B...another great record in that same vein from Detroit visionary Dwele.  I remember when I first heard Dwele I was taken aback and even confused by the sound...it was like J Dilla had met up with Maxwell and D'Angelo outside the studio and they just decided to go make a record together.  Except, in reality, it was one guy, plus he was playing trumpet and flugelhorn as well as singing atop these blurry-eyed smooth soul beats.  This new album focuses less on the jazzier side of what he does and instead plays more like a tribute to the bounce of '80's R&B.

Waited a long time for this one.  Ten years, to be exact, and it sounds nothing like his first record, 2002's "The Headphone Masterpiece."  Well, almost nothing.  ChesnuTT's warm, soulful vocals are still in place, but the music is bigger, played by a full band and sounding a bit like early '70's albums by Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, with a few modern touches to give the songs a current grit and/or edge.

June/July 2012: Cadet, Ter-Mar Studios and the joy of music.

The summer is beginning to shape up nicely, as I sit here writing this on a gorgeous and archetypal June afternoon in the Pacific NW.  I decided it was finally time for me to address my obsession with all things related to the Chess/Cadet label, and it seemed to me that there was no more appropriate time in which to do so than now, as I stand on the verge of a return to Chicago, a city I have not seen since I was 13 years old but which has always weighed on my mind as a place of wonder, excitement, power, creativity.  When I saw it as a child just entering adolescence, it seemed so vast, so dense with possibility and danger.  This ignited fires in my young mind that I never knew existed before, this idea of a CITY in which anything and everything had potential, not the small-town city feel of my hometown in Omaha but a big, endless, urban wilderness that stretched out before me like some multi-faceted hydra constructed of steel, pavement and people.  I saw what I could in the short time my family was there—the Art Institute, the restaurants, the El trains, the skyline—but we of course had not even scratched the surface.

Years later and well into my ‘20’s, a similar felling of ignited fires took hold of me as I slowly and inexorably was drawn into the sound of the Cadet label circa ’65-’75, a sweeping, majestic, inimitable sound that absorbed music of the past while creating music of the future.  Jazz, funk, soul, blues, folk, rock, psychedelia…it was all there, sometimes on the same song even.  With arrangers Charles Stepney and Richard Evans working behind the scenes to establish this unique new sound, and with the warmth of Chicago’s Ter-Mar Studios serving as the primary setting for much of what transpired, the framework was created in which a whole new renaissance movement in the world of music would come to the fore.

Now, however, this period in the Chicago scene has become a mere footnote when it should be a novel unto itself (at least!), and so I am one of many who are working to revise what history has either overlooked and/or outright ignored.  This time out, loyal readers—CADET is what’s happening!!

The Ramsey Lewis Trio: "Another Voyage"

This was my first foray into the expansive world of Cadet, purchased years ago for $2 while I was a student at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA.  This album gave me a sense, even then, that there was a certain quality present in the recording sessions themselves that was extremely individualistic, and defiantly so.  Ramsey Lewis, of course, was already one of the Cadet label’s big stars by the time he made this masterful album, having charted such monster hits as “The In-Crowd” and “Wade In The Water,” songs that insured him employment and creative control with said label for as long as he wanted.  What makes this LP so crucial, however, is the presence of some very key players in the studio.  Charles Stepney manned the boards and did the arrangements, while Ramsey’s rhythm section of the period (Maurice White on drums and Cleveland Eaton on bass) drove the music in the direction of hard-hitting funk and R&B, with most of the jazzier elements confined to Lewis’ piano fills and solos.  The two-part “If You’ve Got It, Flaunt It” that bookends the record is a statement of purpose, a cooking funk-jazz number that sets the live-in-the-studio-party tone perfectly.  Other highlights are the pre-hip-hop-groove meditation on Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour” and the grooved-out, laid-back take on the Eddie Harris classic “Bold And Black.”  There are even moments that take clear, defined steps directly into R&B’s further evolution, such as Maurice White’s use of the kalimba on “Uhuru.”  The title of this LP—“Another Voyage”—seems deliberate and intentional on the part of Lewis, Stepney, White, etc…they were announcing the arrival of a new sound and a new generation, made even more potent by the presence of Lewis.  The man was a veteran of the scene, yes, but one willing to take chances and push his art in directions that many of his peers were afraid of, or simply didn’t understand.

Rotary Connection: "Songs"

Rotary Connection was Stepney’s answer, and challenge, to psychedelia.  As the late ‘60’s wore on and the music of many bands seemed to float even further out into the ether, Stepney used Rotary Connection as a vehicle for his feelings on the movement and the time period itself.  The sound contained within their albums ranged from placid, folky musings to acid-rock freakouts to hardcore R&B to early funk-fusion, all the while addressing the musical and cultural mutations that were occurring throughout the world in the swirling turbulence that was the second half of the 1960’s.  On “Songs,” Stepney speaks directly to certain musicians and bands by taking their songs and turning them inside out.  Employing the staggering, height-scaling, dove-tailing vocals of Minnie Riperton and the rich, worn, soulful voice of Sidney Barnes, Stepney takes such ‘60’s staples as “Respect,” “Sunshine Of Your Love,” “The Weight” and “Salt Of The Earth,” and molds them into creations all his own, often making the more famous composers and/or performers of the original tunes look rather tame by comparison.  Riperton is simply astonishing; anyone who is a fan but only knows her from her ‘70’s material MUST investigate her work with Rotary Connection, as she rocks harder and takes more risks than she ever would again.  She pushes her vocals to the brink many times over, displaying an edge and ferocity uncharacteristic in her later work.  The other star of this recording is the band, uncredited on the LP but likely made up of the usual Cadet studio suspects—Phil Upchurch, Pete Cosey, Cleveland Eaton, Maurice White, Morris Jennings.  The guitars are particularly crunchy, with Phil Upchurch in full-on heavy metal mode, taking on Hendrix, Page, Clapton, Townshend, etc., and winning.  Throughout this record there is a distinctly evident vibe, as there was on so many of the other Cadet projects from this time, allowing the listener to lose themselves and be overwhelmed (in a good way) by the stark beauty, sprung from deep inside the genius mind of Charles Stepney.

Minnie Riperton: "Come To My Garden"

A Cadet release in everything but name, put out by the GRT label, Cadet’s parent company.  The natural outgrowth of Stepney’s work with Rotary Connection was to collaborate on a Minnie solo album, although I was never sure why they only did this one together, as it was brilliant and certainly left the door open for future possibilities.  Another important piece of the puzzle was the involvement of Riperton’s husband Richard Rudolph, a long-time songwriting partner of Stepney’s for Rotary Connection and Riperton’s co-writer for the remainder of her career.  Rounding out the equation was the ’69-’70 version of the Ramsey Lewis Trio, the same one that recorded “Another Voyage” as discussed above.  Together these potentially disparate factors created vivid, breath-taking music, with my favorite moments found in the epic, symphonic-funk grandiosity of opener “Les Fleur,” the folk-jazz melancholy of “Rainy Day In Centerville,” and the Rudolph-penned title track.  Stepney and the Lewis trio crafted a musical backdrop for Minnie’s dazzling vocals that is now defined as “baroque soul” or “chamber soul,” but at that time had no terminology associated with it, as it was so completely and refreshingly new, the end result of which was (and still is) a wondrous, beautiful record.

Terry Callier: "Occasional Rain"

The flipside to the Stepney/Riperton collaborations was Stepney’s work with Terry Callier.  This meeting of the minds occurred right around the same time Minnie sought greener pastures on the Stevie Wonder-produced “Perfect Angel” LP, and greener pastures she did indeed find with the smash “Loving You.” Nothing that Callier did even approached that level of commercial success, but I’m not necessarily sure that’s what he was going for either.  Callier had a different history than Riperton in that he had been a songwriter on the Chicago scene for quite some time before his Cadet solo career, shopping material to the Dells, Jerry Butler, Rotary Connection, etc.  What Charles Stepney did with Callier was flesh out his sparse, folk-soul songwriting style and add textures and layers that didn’t inherently exist in the original creations.  Songs like “Ordinary Joe” and the segue-connectors “Go ‘Head On” practically leap out of the speakers with a joyful yet meditative bounce, the former in particular being a Callier anthem, all blues-shuffle-rhythm and eerie Stepney keyboards.  Then there are the distinctly Chicago-sounding, almost haunted ruminations that Stepney was so effective at, like “Do You Finally Need A Friend” and “Trance On Sedgewick Street.”  The album closes with the dramatic, tension-releasing “Lean On Me” (not the Bill Withers cut), followed by one final “Go ‘Head On” segment, leaving the listener with a sense of conceptual closure.  These Callier/Stepney records can be somewhat of an acquired taste for the uncertain, but anyone seriously interested in immersing themselves in the Cadet sound and era will need to check them out.

Dorothy Ashby: "The Rubaiyat Of Dorothy Ashby"

Wowie zowie.  Here it is.  Maybe the single rarest LP in my collection, though I’m not one hundred percent sure on that.  Certainly one of them.  Here we transition from the arrangements of Charles Stepney to those of bassist/arranger Richard Evans, a figure from Chicago who has received an equal amount of cult-like devotion in the era of “crate-digging as archaeology.”  Evans definitely has a different feel than Stepney—while still dramatic, his sensibility was also more exotic, a kind of world-music perspective considerably futuristic in its approach.  In working with Dorothy Ashby—the world’s foremost, and likely one of its only, jazz harpists—he found a kindred spirit, and met her challenge on creating a set of sounds to match Ashby’s near-spoken-word readings of the 11^th century Persian philosopher and intellectual Omar Khayyam.  Ashby doubles on harp and its distant relative the koto (from Japan), creating a hypnotic, mystical energy that swirls around the dense yet funky arrangements from Evans and the session band.  Her singing/speaking, while not revolutionary or technically versatile, fits the otherworldly vibe perfectly.  My favorite cuts are the opening “Myself When Young,” the dreamy, very ’60’s-sounding “Drink,” and the edgier, more forward-thinking acid-funk workout “The Moving Finger.”  I can see why this album is so rare now, along with Ashby’s other records…even in the unpredictable music business of the late ‘60’s/early ‘70’s, it is hard to imagine a specific market that would appreciate something so lovely and bizarre.

The Dells: "Love Is Blue"

My favorite vocal group after the Temptations.  There are many others—Delfonics, Stylistics, Dramatics, Futures, etc.—in the running for that position, but none that cut through to my soul quite like the Dells.  The group made a LOT of records, so it’s hard to pick just one, but when backed into a corner, “Love Is Blue” is the standout for me.  It encompasses everything from their radical re-interpretations of songs like “Dock Of The Bay” and “Whiter Shade Of Pale” to more classicist doo-wop numbers like a re-recording of their big hit “Oh What A Night” and the pleading “The Glory Of Love,” all, and once again, via Charles Stepney arrangements.  Anyone noticing the redundancy of the Stepney connection in this post is simply catching onto that same concept that I was blown away by when I first delved into this stuff a few years ago, that is, how enormously influential and omnipresent of an individual he really was.  The production by Bobby Miller on this LP is also notable, as he gets a live, visceral sound from the boards.  The Dells take all of this as an opportunity to showcase the very best of their sparkling harmonies and individual leads, making for their most exciting, and perhaps most lasting, LP.  One for the ages.

Jack McDuff: "The Heatin' System"

Brother Jack McDuff!!  He’s made it into a post before, with his ground-breaking “Moon Rapping” LP on Blue Note.  McDuff, in fact, recorded for so many different labels that his discography is fairly convoluted, yet his work for Cadet remains some of his best.  Originally from Champaign, IL, McDuff started out as a bassist but moved on to become one of the earlier jazz organists; in the wake of Jimmy Smith, yes, but years ahead of the late ‘60’s boom lurking on the horizon.  “Heatin’ System” strips away much of the arrangement and orchestration that McDuff had been saddled with on his recordings from this period (’72), and instead places the organ virtuoso in the instrumental company of Chicago and NYC royalty like Phil Upchurch, Sam Jones, Don Myrick (formerly of The Pharaohs, later of EWF), and Derf Walker, among others.  This LP is essentially one long, extended studio jam session, which, when played by musicians like this, means it’s gonna be a helluva ride.  Highlights are the title cut, which moves from swing to soul-jazz to horn-driven funk in the length of its 12+ minutes, as well as the propulsive “Pressure Gauge” and the almost avant-garde, fusion-esque “Radiation.”  In addition to the great organ playing of Brother Jack, there is the jazzy, pocket bass of Phil Upchurch throughout the album, too, for the fanatics out there.  Umm…yeah…I’m one of those Upchurch obsessives, you picked up on that yet?  More on that very, very soon.

Phil Upchurch: "Upchurch"

Told you.  This isn’t Upchurch’s debut, as some believe—he had done “You Can’t Sit Down” and “Feeling Blue” before this—but definitely the signifier of his arrival as a guitarist to be reckoned with.  More Stepney arrangements to build the musical scaffolding, and in fact, the liner notes talk about Stepney’s writing and arranging of opener “Black Gold” (later transformed into Rotary Connection’s timeless “I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun), in which he backs Upchurch with a 36-piece (!!!) band.  Phil also takes on then-contemporary material like “America” and, most daringly, “Crosstown Traffic” and “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return).”  This version of “Voodoo Chile,” in particular, rivals the Hendrix original for sheer force, intensity and distorted guitar grunginess, at the same time making the rhythm section funkier, adding an uptown soul backdrop that complicates AND complements the guitar.  As for Phil Upchurch, he continued to do all kinds of solo and session projects after he made this record, but he never played with such a tense, terse, monstrous tone ever again.

Shades Of Brown: "S.O.B."

Had this on the want-list for five years, and it finally came ‘round.  One of the holy grails of vocal group soul, for sure.  The music is in a Chicago groove, but there is also a heavy Motown influence, which wasn’t necessarily common on other Cadet releases from this time.  Charles Stepney and Richard Evans were both involved with this LP, so it’s hard to say who was going for the Motown vibe, much less why, although it was the early ‘70’s and thus a potential commercial goldmine.  The Motown-sounding style can be found on cuts like “Lie #2” and “Ho-Hum World,” though there are other musical paths explored as well, such as the James-Brown-on-speed intro “Lite Y’all Up,” the brassy blues of “Man’s Worst Enemy,” the surprisingly rural break-beat longing of “The Soil I Tilled For You,” and the political funk track “Garbage Man.”  The Shades Of Brown, as a group, come through wonderfully, definitely taking a page out of the Dells’ playbook but also reveling in the electricity of their own youth and enthusiasm.  It’s the rare group soul album that is both funky and tasteful all at once.

Salinas: "Atlantis"

This album by Daniel Salinas is a somewhat out-of-place curiosity in the context of all the other music discussed in this post.  I believe this was originally recorded and released in Brazil, then picked up by Cadet in the States for some unknown reason.  Judging from its rarity, it couldn’t have been a smash hit.  Salinas was clearly trying to cash in on the money being made by another Brazilian arranger/keyboardist, Eumir Deodato, who in the early ‘70’s was riding the wave of his massively popular first two LP’s for the CTI label, “Prelude” and “Deodato 2.”  Salinas even tries to beat the man at his own game by recording an alternate version of Deodato’s biggest hit, his cover of “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” recast by Salinas as “Straussmania.”  It is absolutely the album’s hardest-hitting cut, with a neck-breaking rhodes/bass-line intro and lots of quick, in-the-pocket b-boy-style breaks.  Other points of interest are the more traditional Brazilian groove of “Baiao,” the strange take on “Bridge Over Troubled Water” that starts out decidedly MOR but then moves into more pronounced funk territory, and the closing cover of Donovan’s “Atlantis” which gives the LP its namesake.  One of the things that makes this such a fantastic record is the fat, thick, bass-centric production, turning what could have been an overblown fluff piece lost in its own orchestrations into a no-holds-barred chunk of funk that, in its best moments, tops other more famous projects of this nature.

Eddie Fisher: "Eddie Fisher & The Next One Hundred Years"

Not recorded in Chicago…instead stirred up and conjured in Archway Studios in St. Louis, with production help from “main man” Oliver Sain.  The groove is raw, lowdown, ominous…it’s what Grant Green might sound like as filtered through wah wah pedals, distortion, and backed up by The Counts, circa their Westbound tenure.  Guitarist Eddie Fisher had done an earlier album for Cadet called “The Third Cup,” a tribute to bandleader Leo Gooden that, while demonstrating some of his capacity for fringe experimentalism, suggested little of this gritty, small-band masterpiece.  Key tracks are the fuzzed-out “Either Or,” the Meters-meets-swing-fusion of “Another Episode,” and the long, drifting, movement-oriented “Beautiful Things,” which features an unnamed violin player taking Fisher and his group into a distant, hazy psychedelia that slowly morphs into a stomping funk throw-down.  The set closes with “East St. Louis Blues,” blues maybe but more accurately described as swampy funk.  This is the kind of session where you can practically smell the smoke in the studio, hear the conversation in between takes, imagine yourself there and as one of the players.  An intimate, late-night record that immerses the listener completely in its energy.

Muddy Waters: "After The Rain"

Gotta wrap it up with some blues, although we’re talking some very Cadet-style blues here.  This is the sequel to Muddy’s lauded and or derided (depending on who you’re talking to) “Electric Mud,” and the sound here is even more confrontational, more abstract, more metallic.  There are some more traditional blues numbers to be found amidst the madness—“Rollin’ And Tumblin’,” “Hurtin’ Soul,” “Screamin’ And Cryin’,”—but there are some sub-Stooges garage freakouts too, like “Bottom Of The Sea” and especially “Ramblin’ Mind,” which sounds like it was recorded inside of a tin can, the whole band scraping against the jagged, cheap metal within, frantically demanding to break free.  Yet another Chicago dream team forms the nucleus of the group, with Phil Upchurch and Pete Cosey on guitars, Otis Spann on piano, Louis Satterfield on bass, Morris Jennings on drums, and—who do you think I’m gonna say—Charles Stepney on organ.  This is primal, gut-level, gut-wrenching stuff that is only beginning to find its audience in our 21^st century chaos.  The blues…prescient as ever.

May 27, 2012: "Let's Straighten It Out."

Coming down off the headiness of the 30th birthday madness has been somewhat of a process this last week, with the minutes, hours and days ticking by more slowly than usual…a friend of mine jokingly said, “well shit Dylan, that’s what it’s like after you turn 30.” I personally blame it less on my passage into a new set of digits and more on the fact that it’s just been a gloomy, moody, draggin’-ass week…ain’t like I never had one of those before I was 30. But, here I am at the end of it, feeling damn good and ready to finish out the school year strongly, then taking on a summer full of music, travel, and generally positive vibrations. As usual, I have some fantastic, rare records to help usher in this coming season…the diggin’s been good lately, what can I say. And so it goes…

The Soul Searchers: "Salt Of The Earth"

Gotta start it all off with a tribute to the late, great Chuck Brown, the oft-proclaimed “father of go-go” but so much more.  I found a copy of this record a couple years back, kinda steep in price, but I was willing to pay ‘cause I’d been looking for it for a while at that time.  Come to find out, that copy had a nasty warp…not bad enough to skip the vinyl, but enough to affect the play quality significantly.  So, fast-forward to this past Wednesday, while out digging with a friend in SE Portland, I find another copy for dirt cheap, and in way better shape.  Took it home and remembered once again what an incredible album it truly was…DJ’s love these early Soul Searchers sides for the breaks, but beyond that there is a wonderful, unified artistic statement to “Salt Of The Earth” that puts it in a category of its own.  The foundations of go-go are here, in more of a raw funk format…see “Ashley’s Roachclip,” “Funk For The Folks” and “If It Ain’t Funky” for numerous breaks and samples, complete with the Afro-percussion tinge that so expertly defined go-go as a specific sound.  However, let’s go past the breaks for a moment.  Opener “I Rolled It You Hold It” (they made this record for the heads, that’s for damn sure) is pure jazz-funk-fusion, right up there with Kool & The Gang and/or the Blackbyrds for sheer jazz-funkiness, with the band flashing their dominant chops.  “Blow Your Whistle” is hardcore funk that will make even the most jaded beat-seeker’s ears perk up, it simply stomps a path right through to the one while still keeping the party going.  “Ain’t It Heavy” is East Coast harmony soul mixed up with psych-rock mixed up with early synth meditation, exploring a bold and fearless new territory in its genre mashing.  The result of all this is the creation of a record so staggeringly different and potent as to forever eliminate the labeling of Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers as a tag-line footnote in music history, rather elevating them to penultimate revolutionaries of a certain sound and time.  Like Chuck says, “one, two, sock it to your biscuit.”

Hysear Don Walker: "Complete Expressions"

A 30^th birthday present from my mom.  Strictly for the rhodes heads.  Hysear Don Walker is a somewhat mysterious figure…he worked as a sideman with Young-Holt Unlimited for a time, and the Chicago/post-Ramsey Lewis style of grooved-out, live-in-the-studio sounding keyboard jams is in full effect throughout this LP.  This record is painfully short, but manages to be effective in its evocation of ethereal rhodes tone and mood.  It has a subdued, very personal quality to it, with only “Fat Flower, Skinny Stilk” and “Hydel” really upping the tempo.  The other tracks, particularly “Inner Face,” “Jade Silhouettes” and the Beatles cover “Dear Prudence” exude a sort of pensive energy that rewards more upon repeated listens.  This is the kind of album for a glistening early morning, coffee in hand and thoughts in flux, the day coming subtly to life just as the songs from this LP gently persuade and awaken.  Singular.

Boobie Knight & The Soulciety: "Soul Ain't No New Thing"

Super-rare and super-dank.  Yet another album that in some way involves soul mastermind Harvey Fuqua III, who I’ve talked about extensively in previous posts.  His full contribution to this LP is a bit muddled…he’s listed in the songwriting credits, and in the liner notes is described as having had the idea to form the Soulciety as a band, but it is unclear as to whether or not he served in the capacity of svengali-auteur for the Soulciety in the same way he did for his other brainchildren the New Birth, the Nite-Liters, etc.  Name headliner and band drummer Boobie Knight certainly appears to be adding his own manic zaniness to the music, which has some commonality with other Fuqua artists but in the end is stranger, heavier and more psychedelic.  The all-time cut here is the B-Boy breaking classic “Ego Tripping,” an insanely fast funk workout that showcases the band in all its glory.  Other notable tracks are the title song—a rumination on the concept of “soul” being nothing new to those who invented it—as well as “Lettin’ Happiness In,” “The Changing Game” and “Power To The People,” all of which continue in the same mode as “Ego Tripping,” blending furiously churning funk with political, acid-chant proto-rap and a severe, distorted grunginess.  Doesn’t seem like these guys ever really had a hit, which makes sense…this is straight-up underground, it is to James Brown what Busdriver is to Jay-Z in modern hip-hop.

Ike White: "Changin' Times"

So, I post a lot of rare records here, but this is some private press, beyond-rare funkiness.  Any fan of the Bay Area funk sound of acts like Sly Stone, Tower Of Power, early Pointer Sisters, Graham Central Station, the Headhunters, Betty Davis, etc. will want to investigate this.  This was recorded while Ike was an inmate at Tehachapi State Prison, believe it or not, and how anyone managed to get such a clean, full sound in that setting is beyond me.  I mean, was there a fully stocked, pro-grade recording studio in this prison or what?  Production was done by War’s Jerry Goldstein and former Sly & The Family Stone drummer Greg Errico, and that’s about all the liner notes give the listener, other than a quoted endorsement of Ike White by Stevie Wonder (…?).  There are no musician credits, which leads me to wonder what Ike was playing, ‘cause these songs are amazing…I know he’s on vocals, and I’m guessing he might be on guitar as well.  Some of the songs have such a unified coherence that they almost suggest Ike may have been a self-contained writer/performer-of-all-instruments in the mode of Shuggie Otis or Junie, but alas, such theories are mere conjecture, and aside from trying to track down Ike himself, I don’t exactly know how one might find answers to these questions.  This is all a sidebar, however, to the exceptional grooves found here, from the spaced-out synth/guitar jams “Antoinette” and “I Remember George” to the breakbeat favorite “Love And Affection,” which features Ike rappin’ about his sexual frustration stemming from his prison stay, with plenty of criminal-justice-system puns for good measure.  I’ve never heard anything like this record…it has its influences, sure, but it is truly in its own head-space…behind bars but freer than the clear blue sky itself.

May 17, 2012.

I’m approaching my 30th birthday this week, with some trepidation perhaps, but a certain verve and enthusiasm as well…I mean, why not? Each day, hour, minute, second is what you make it, regardless of what point on the chronological spectrum it occurs. I am lucky enough to be surrounded by an unbelievably supportive, affirming, positive network of family and friends, and then of course there is my anchor in this often-confusing and tangled sea, my wife Dolly. Having this kind of love and beauty in my life is my own personal definition of success, as the mind-numbing bureaucracy of the so-called “professional” world has an unfortunate tendency to obscure the truly important things. I love and am loved…30th birthday or otherwise, there is no substitute for that. In keeping with this personal theme, I feel as though I have no choice but to name this particular entry “The Soul Iconoclast Series,” as each of the artists and LP’s I’m discussing this time out have their own unique and idiosyncratic way of approaching the “soul” genre, a label with a scope so wide and vague as to signify nothing at all except, perhaps, a general sort of sensibility. It becomes clear in the work of artists like those mentioned below that labels and tags have little to no importance in the feeling one gets from the music, and the musicians mentioned in this go-round have feel for DAYS…as well as three individualized aesthetics that manage to connect the dots from one soul-sound landmark to the next. So, that being said, “swing down sweet chariot stop and let me ride…”

Swamp Dogg: "Total Destruction To Your Mind"

Can’t stop listening to this…Swamp Dogg and his entire vibe, especially on this debut LP, are a sort of underground musical addiction that any deep soul head worth their salt can appreciate.  Swamp Dogg (Jerry Williams, Jr.) has made appearances in this blog before, in the Doris Duke and Freddie North posts, both of which he produced.  “Total Destruction…,” however, is Dogg’s own artistic vision as intended for himself, and what a wonderful, twisted, truly bizarre vision indeed.  The music—recorded with a staggering lineup of Muscle Shoals’ famed Swampers session crew—is like a less-mass-appeal-oriented version of the great Stax and Atlantic soul sides of the time, complete with subtle horn arrangements, early ‘70’s electric piano, and an “it-feels-like-you’re-in-the-studio-with-these-dudes” production aesthetic.  The curveball, though, is Williams’ demented lyric-writing, which strays completely from its contemporary mainstream, instead offering a fascinating, and even sometimes disturbing, look into the psyche of the Swamp Dogg character, with Dogg’s voice sounding like Otis Redding gone totally off the rails, a lilt and a howl in the same breath.  While “Synthetic World” may muse about the present and all its ills, “The World Beyond” is a reflection from a post-nuclear survivor.  This sort of contradiction is on display throughout the album, as tender Southern love ballads nestle up to grimy, surreal funk and soul workouts with strikingly odd concerns and problems at their center.  Getting into this record isn’t so much “total destruction to your mind,” as the title warns, but rather is like discovering a little slice of essential listening that you’ve been missing your whole life.  Swamp Dogg is definitely a hit among those in the know, but deserves wider exposure for his very strange, very wonderful contributions to soul, funk, rock, etc.  Down-home and out-there all at once.

Lamont Dozier: "Love And Beauty (The New Lamont Dozier Album)"

There are many varying reports as to the sources of this material, as some of it is clearly and audibly Lamont Dozier, while other songs sound like full-on Holland-Dozier-Holland collaborations, with zero defined Dozier solo presence at all.  The tracks are a bit of a mishmash, ranging from hugely-arranged Invictus soul productions to relatively sparse, funky instrumental numbers.  While this doesn’t do a lot for the continuity of the album as a whole, it can almost be seen as a snapshot of a very exact point in Detroit’s early ‘70’s soul scene.  That aspect, combined with the fact that practically anything H-D-H touched at this time was golden, makes for a rewarding, historically curious listening experience.  My picks for key tracks are the record’s only hit, “Why Can’t We Be Lovers”—a classic, lush ‘70’s soul ballad if ever there was one—and the closing set of instrumentals, “Enough Of Your Love” and “Slipping Away,” which sound like Funkadelic breaking bread with the MG’s & The Funk Brothers at Smokey Robinson’s house.  Despite featuring such a scattershot song selection, this album represents a necessary and significant entry in the soul diaspora.

Allen Toussaint: "Toussaint (From A Whisper To A Scream)"

This rounds out my classic Toussaint trilogy, and is definitely the rarest of his early ‘70’s solo LP’s (the others being “Life, Love & Faith” and “Southern Nights”).  As always, Toussaint displays a dizzying array of styles and sounds, while still being firmly rooted in the New Orleans R&B traditions at the essential core of his musicality.  This is a bit of a rawer, less-slickly-produced effort than everything that came afterwards, which is wonderful in that it retains the same kind of down-home feel as the Toussaint-produced early Meters sides, although on this project he employs a different set of New Orleans session pros, among them Dr. John, Earl Turbinton and John Boudreaux.  Toussaint and the crew run the musical gamut here, from the radio-ready “Sweet Touch Of Love” to a more subdued reading of the oft-covered “Everything I Do Gonh Be Funky.”  “From A Whisper To A Scream” is the album’s best cut, a moody ballad that features a strong and affecting vocal performance by Toussaint himself.  The instrumentals on side two are some of the more interesting items in Toussaint’s rich and varied catalogue, with “Pickles” standing out as an exceedingly unique merging of blues and classical piano forms.  Toussaint is at his effortless peak here, crafting ingenious melodic hooks and lyrics over some decidedly cooking grooves from the house band.  If you’re any kind of NOLA music fan, this belongs in your collection.

January 2012.

Despite what seems like an alarming degree of confusion and despair in the intro to my last post, things are okay.  Despite the fact that 2011 has been a year of intense, painful loss and transition, things are okay.  Despite the fact that the country seems to be in a state of dynamic chaos and flux right now, things are okay.  Of course, things are not really okay at all in the cosmic sense, but in the day-to-day grind, and in the essential need to find happiness and contentedness in the moment, things are okay.  Which is all any of us can hope for, really. 

Honestly, considering the over-arching economy and political atmosphere that we face, I’d say Dolly and I are doing damn fine in light of current circumstances.  I did recently get a job, which has done wonders not only for my rejuvenated self-esteem and confidence, but will also continue to lighten the stress of bills, student loans, and other anonymous expenses weighing heavy on my mind for the last few months.  I’m still playing catch-up with my finances, so LP’s have not been top on my list in terms of necessary priorities, but luckily I have a stockpile of vinyl purchased this last summer that sits patiently in sleeves, waiting for me to eventually put it on the turntable and, if I deem it worthy, display its sterling qualities for all of cyberspace to see.  I got heat in the crates for days, so don’t you worry, fearless reader.  The archaeology of untold wonders shall continue…

The Vibrations: "Taking A New Step"

This record is still blowing my mind.  It goes for serious money in the vinyl collectors’ market, but the matter of its rarity is dwarfed by its musical excellence.  What I know about the Vibrations is this—they started out as LA-based vocal group the Jayhawks, then changing their name to the Marathons and finally the Vibrations, charting their first big hit with “My Girl Sloopy,” which was re-titled and re-recorded by the McCoys as the massive ‘60’s pop tune “Hang On Sloopy.”  Member Ricky Owens joined the Temptations for a brief stint before quickly returning to the Vibrations, which is a key piece of biographical information in direct regards to this album.  The Temptations/Norman Whitfield sound makes a HUGE impact on this LP, which stands out as the most unique and singular entry in the Vibrations’ catalogue.  While vocal-group stylings are certainly present, the emphasis is firmly on ‘70’s funk, with spaced-out analog production and Whitfield-esque political musings making up the bulk of the material.  Highlights are “Ain’t No Greens In Harlem” and “The Man,” which go further than some of the more polished Whitfield discs of the time in pursuing psychedelic acid-funk.  “Kazoo” is part novelty tune and part Afro-roots, with the melody led by the instrument of the song’s title and the Vibrations themselves engaging in call-and-response.  Songs like “Wind-Up Toy” and “Man Overboard” feature exquisite harmonies and arrangements, and then there is a cover of “Midnight Rider,” which adds an extra amount of mood and menace to the Greg Allman original.  The album’s final statement is the anti-Vietnam “Bolder, Green and Jones,” a sound collage of different movements ranging from a capella to rock to early samples of warfare captured on audio.  I can’t say there are many records like this in the collection; that is, I can think of very little else like it, for even as it incorporates doo-wop, rock, funk, soul and folk, it is none of those things.  Innovative.

Luis Gasca: "The Little Giant"

Purchased back in my hometown of Omaha over the holiday break, this is a lovely little album, recorded right in that period where quote-unquote “Latin music” was making a transition between its earlier regional forms to a more universal groove that incorporated a number of disparate musical elements.  There’s a bit of breezy bossa nova here, thundering Afro-Cuban- and NuYorican-influenced percussion hurricanes there, and even a touch of avant-garde jazz, due mostly to the presence of Joe Henderson on sax.  There are interpretations of Mongo Santamaria’s “Afro-Blue” and the traditional “Motherless Child,” the former of which plays it relatively safe and occupies the same space as its original counterpart, while the latter is a radical re-arrangement of the standard tune, sounding less like the gospel field holler it started out as and instead coming off like the melodic and percussive result of spending a Friday night in Havana, the next night in San Juan, then flying back to New York and going straight to Spanish Harlem on Sunday morning.  There are other gems here also, like Moacir Santos’ trance-like “Cosia No. 2” and Hubert Laws’ Afro-Latin groover “Just A Little Bit.”  Gasca himself is in great form, playing flugelhorn alongside a host of renowned NYC session musicians like Chuck Rainey, Richard Davis, Steve Berrios and Marty Sheller, among many others.  This LP serves as a bridge between two worlds—the older, more provincial tendencies of pre-1960’s music met with the heady, freer possibilities of the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s, where albums like this laid the groundwork for a newer, bolder era.

Cash McCall: "Omega Man"

By the time this album was released, McCall had spent years toiling away in the Chicago blues and soul scenes, appearing here and there on various projects done during the Windy City’s golden age of soul.  The music here was recorded on the hallowed ground that was Ter-Mar studios, where some of the most influential blues, soul, jazz and funk of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s was laid down, as well as being home to master arranger-composers like Charles Stepney and Richard Evans.  While this LP has a distinct tendency towards hard, electric Chicago blues, it incorporates that form into other, more unpredictable avenues.  There is an apocalyptic vibe at play, with numbers like the title track, “Junkie For Your Love” and “Hard Attack” displaying a hard-won urban nihilism that is as aggressive as it is potent.  One of the few moments of hope—albeit doubtful hope—comes in McCall’s cover of the Timmy Thomas classic “Why Can’t We Live Together.”  I don’t personally think it bests the original, but I like it better than Sade’s later, too-smooth version from the ‘80’s.  What makes this album work is the thumping, reverb-heavy production and McCall’s commanding boom of a voice, which is part Muddy Waters, part Jerry Butler and all Chicago.  These components add up to create an eerie sort of layering that rewards more with every subsequent listen.  This one is raw blues on the surface, yet something much more complex and sinister underneath.

Freddie North: "Cuss The Wind"

A deep soul treasure for the ages, and another LP where the ever-ubiquitous Jerry Williams Jr., AKA Swamp Dogg, can be found among the liner credits.  I have another record by North entitled “Friend,” but it does not manage to scale the hyperbolic heights achieved on this masterpiece.  Released on the small, Nashville-based Nashboro label, Freddie North engages in some serious and even slightly disturbing introspection with these songs.  Foremost among them is the DIY-sounding funk of “Love To Hate,” which discusses how various emotions can turn quickly into their opposite.  Also worth checking out is the cover of David Ruffin’s Motown staple “My Whole World Has Ended,” as North subverts the original by slowing it’s ‘60’s pop-soul feel to a crawl, slow-burning and deliberating on the depressed lyrics until finally building to an enormous crescendo, complete with a funk-gospel-rock breakdown, handclaps and background singers all joining in a cacophony of rhythmic sadness and confusion.  Then there is Freddie’s rendition of the Southern soul standard “Rainy Night In Georgia,” perhaps the definitive version in that, once again, North foregoes some of the tune’s inherent melodrama and instead focuses on a pacing, carefully-executed portrait of tension and release, letting the dynamics of the band and his warm, near-crooning voice do the work.  For anyone who identifies themselves as a fan of Southern soul, this is an essential item to add to the want list, though it is exceedingly hard to find and to my knowledge has not been re-released in the digital age.

Bo Diddley: "The Black Gladiator"

Another album recorded at Ter-Mar, around the time when the studio seemed to be producing records at an infinite rate (’69-’70).  This is grimy, psychedelic, Chicago blues-soul, an attempt to make Bo over in the same fashion as had been tried with Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf a couple of years earlier.  Though I love the Muddy and Wolf Cadet-Concept LP’s, I think the stylized transition suits Bo better, as he always landed more on the “rock” side of the equation.  He doesn’t have to reach so far, and the arrangements feel more strident, less forced, although still with loads of overdriven, fuzzy guitar and organ (yes please).  This album jams from the opening bars of the heavy “Elephant Man” to the closing strains of “I Don’t Like You,” with all the stops in between being necessary points of interest.  Bo writes uncompromising lyrics, evident in titles such as “Power House” and “Shut Up, Woman,” in which he essentially lays his own truths down without fear of what the listener and/or audience may think.  Other tracks, like “Black Soul” and “Funky Fly,” catch a glimpse of the unquantifiable advances in R&B that would come in the next few years, sounding more like Sly Stone and even early Funkadelic than the 1-4-5 motions of South Side blues.  On all these tunes, Bo Diddley sings and plays with a rawness that is as bold as it is honest, with his guitar leads sounding especially stinging and vicious.  What the album does as a whole is link two eras together—that of the blues-drenched, chaos-filled, ominous late ‘60’s, and the almost-as-bleak, anything-goes aesthetic of the early ‘70’s, where fresh territory was being explored on a daily basis, particularly in the blossoming innovation of the R&B genre, which was exploding and fragmenting into new forms/hybrids like funk, funk-fusion and funk-rock.  On “The Black Gladiator,” Diddley leaves all the rough edges intact, so as to still expose the roots even as he begins to scale the high branches.