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45 pic sleeves end soon….what’s next Justin?
Max, Josh, Justin, readers, what have you been listening to lately? I mean, what’s like the last 2-3 good ones? Ella listened to Bob Marley Catch a Fire and she was digging it. I think she likes that steady hypnotic upbeat. My brother in law Tony suggested turning Ella on to some good old school 80s rock. What else is crucial listening for her right now?
Oh, and happy Halloween everybody.
born October 26th, 2007
7lb 8oz
20 1/2 inches
already loves music
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I have never been a fan of American Idol, but the producers of that abomination have come up with the TV show ”The Next Great American Band”. One of the 12 finalists in this show is my favorite local Detroit band, The Muggs. Here is an earlier post Cousin Geoff wrote about buying some cd’s from them. I suggest everybody who reads this blog to vote for the Muggs as much as they can. If you go to FOX.com you can check out previously ran episodes. Here is the link to their bio on fox along with a video.
Cousin Justin
My wife doesn’t like this record because she thinks it’s too weird, so I’m taking that as a good sign that this family gospel album recorded in Ypsilanti, MI at 508 Maus Street on the Pathway label is quite a find.
Rather than review it, I’ll just have you listen to the songs I selected and read what’s on the back cover:
I, Crit Smith, was born September 8, 1933, in Whitley County, Kentucky, near Williansburg, and there I met and married Beulah Brown, the daughter of Reverend Andy and Sarah Brown, in 1950.
I worked in a mill until 1952, then came to Detroit, Michigan, and worked in a factory until 1955. I then went into carpenter work, which I do at the present time. We are very proud of our family, all of which are saved and working for Jesus. We have three daughters: Loretta, sixteen; Barbara, fifteen; Linda, thirteen; and two sons: Eugene, eight; and Mark, two months. Mark is too young to do any singing yet, but we are trusting in the Lord that he will take part when he is older.
We want to thank everyone that has taken a part and helped us in any way in making this album, especially our pastor, Reverend Luther Gibson, of the Church of God, in Woodhaven, Michigan. We have had so many requests for records, that we felt God was inspiring us to make this album.
We enjoyed working with “THE CROSSMEN”: Roy, Evert, and Blaine; and praise God for them and their ministry.
THE SMITH FAMILY
listen, I Want To Be Robed And Ready:
listen, How Are You Raising Your Children:
I’m going to go out on a limb here and cause some controversy. I am saying that Marvin Gaye’s 1973 song Let’s Get It On is one of the greatest songs, across all genres, to EVER come out of Detroit.
Why? It takes the single greatest subject that’s ever been used in recorded music, and emotionally communicates that better than anything that’s ever been done. Marvin tugs at the very basics of human longing - and he doesn’t beat around the bush. He isn’t explicit though - he talks about love being sweet and wonderful - and he begs, pleads, and the band wails behind him. That bass line sways so familiarly - the arrangement is flawless - the wah-wah guitar adds extra tension before the climax - and Marvin’s voice is displayed to it’s fullest potential at the height of his career. It’s a masterpiece.
The actual history behind Marvin Gaye and that song is kind of strange. He fell in love with a 16 year old girl named Janice Hunter who walked into the studio (he was 33 at the time) when he was recording Let’s Get It On. They soon got together and holed up in a mountain top cabin in California and soon after Janice was pregnant. According to various sources, Marvin encouraged young Janice to have affairs, and she did, with singers Frankie Beverly, Rick James, and Teddy Pendergrass.
Although Marvin Gaye had his problems, he got it right with this song. A classic among classics, it may just be THE best song Detroit has ever produced.
listen to a clip:
Here in Michigan, winter’s coming soon, which means it’s time to dig through the jazz stacks again. For some reason, I listen to more jazz in the cold weather, when I have to stay inside more.
In any case, we have a great jazz selection now in our store due to a bunch of collections purchased over the past 6 months. Mention JAZZ PROMO to Justin by November 1st(email justmeyers AT hotmail DOT com) and receive free shipping off your next jazz LP purchase (no limit on records). Winter’s coming - better hurry before I snatch ‘em up.
This has nothing to do with music but that’s OK. It’s close to deer hunting season and this is partly a deer hunting story so it’s OK.
My roommate back in college was this British guy named Neil. We met when we were both on the cross country and track team at Eastern Michigan University. I quit after one year but Neil stayed because he was on scholorship.
So we were roommates and good friends and I invited him to go deer hunting with me, since he had never even seen a real gun before, let alone gone hunting, being from England and everything. We went up to Northern Michigan to the family farmhouse and hunting land, and Neil was with me out in the blind when I bagged a pretty good sized deer.
We took the deer back to the farmhouse and sat down in the kitchen with my dad and Uncle Steve. We were drinking some beers and talking about the hunt and then Neil pulls out his crumpled pack of cigarettes, or “20 pack of Marlboro Lights”, as he always asked for ‘em at the gas station, and lights one up. My dad looked at Neil a little funny and said in sort of shock, “Neil, you smoke?” “Sure do mate,” Neil responded with a grin. “Goes well the beer, doe’n't it?” Well, we kept on drinking beers into the night, maybe a little bit of scotch, and Neil kept smoking away those cigarettes, like he always did when he got to drinking, which he did about 3 or 4 nights out of the week, and we had a great old time.
So, a few weeks later, Neil goes out and wins the Mid American Conference indoor championship in the mile run, and not only that, but he sets the all time MAC championship record in the indoor mile. My dad laughed - he couldn’t believe it.
Neil sure was the greatest.
posted by js:
By the power vested in me to declare things unilaterally: We’re havin’ a music listenin’ club.
Kinda like one of those book clubs, where everyone reads the same thing.
And we’re doin’ concept albums.
Here’s why: I was raised in an odd family, regarding music listening, so I never got around to most of the seminal concept albums that are considered part of the canon (yeah, yeah, but for this, pretend there is a canon), so I either haven’t heard or haven’t given much thought to plenty of concept albums; concept albums are mostly a holdover from the ’70s (well, late ’60s through present, maybe); I’m looking forward to writing about a similar thing for a while; concept albums are easy to find on vinyl for cheap, despite frequently being awesome. Maybe because they don’t necessarily lend themselves to singles.
Anyway, I’m gonna listen to one concept album for a week until I get, I dunno, twenty or thirty of ‘em done. And I’m going to start with The Plan by The Osmond Family (because I came across it cheap!).
I’ll have something written on it by next week, and I encourage you guys to find it too. After the cut is the list that I’m working with now. Feel free to add or nix anything.
Singin’ praises this Sunday morning.
This 45, I’ll Beg/Let Me Take You Out Tonight was recorded on the SRC label in Ferndale, just outside of Detroit. We don’t actually have this copy, and the audio below is taken from a bootleg Detroit doo-wop comp that I have. This has sold for over $500 before, and other 45s by The Five Emeralds are highly sought after.
I believe this was recorded around 1954, during the time where soul hadn’t quite emerged in Detroit - and instead there was a mix of doo-wop, blues, and rock n roll. I am trying to find out more about this group and label, and I’ll revise this post once I do.
Speaking of doo-wop, reader Rockin’ Richard has a doo-wop show every Tuesday night from 6-8 US Eastern time - go check it out.
listen to Let Me Take You Out Tonight:
If I were DJing and playing a modern soul set, I’d bring down the house when I dropped Back To Ypsilanti (IF of course this set was actually IN Ypsilanti). There couldn’t be a let down after this, or I’d clear the floor. So what to play next? What could possibly follow this song?:
I COULD turn it over and play the flip side, Tarnished Love Affair, if I wanted some slow dancing going on. But I would probably close the set with that. I would want to keep it high energy - but still somehow maintain the same vibe.
So I think I know what I would play. It’s a song that’s been a Cousins Vinyl favorite for some time now - discovered by Justin while digging through the backstock a few years ago. A track by Richard “Dimples” Fields, off his LP “Mr. Look So Good”, called A Woman At Home And A Freak On The Side. Recorded in 1982, it’s in the same genre as Tyrone Davis - some real feel-good dancin’ soul. He tributes the album to Jackie Wilson, and also does a fantastic version of Sincerely. But I think Freak on The Side is truly his own.
Ol’ Dimples tells us all about his situation, but he isn’t sweating it at all. He’s got one girl at home to cook for him and wash his drawers, and another on the side to get his freak on with. And the thing is, he wants to keep ‘em both! He says you can do it if you know how. Personally, I prefer just my one woman at home, but hey, if Mr. Look So Good wants to do it like that, I’m not judging him. Go here to read about Dimples Fields.
What do you think? Could this follow Back To Ypsilanti?
posted by Max Conroy:
For my birthday this year, I’m getting a subscription to Mojo from my girlfriend. She’s in grad. school so she promised a modest gift. A subscription to Mojo isn’t that modest at $9.50 per issue; this one may have been more expensive due to the CD pertaining to the Stones-theme of this month’s issue. I’m about to illustrate why this magazine is the coolest gift ever to a person who will practically sniff the print to find out about a cool band they haven’t ever heard of. I’m also about to illustrate obsessive-compulsive behavior.
I clutched the magazine in my greedy hands on the morning celebrating my twenty-eighth year on this earth and began flipping pages, doing some recon…Piper at the Gates of Dawn reissue, expensive…Keith Richards interview, sweet…Def Leppard, blah…Stevie Nicks, puke. I stopped on a photo of a fleshy, bearded man with his face painted. He looked like he could be King Diamond’s psychedelic uncle. My girlfriend asked who the freak was. After reading a bit, I learned that it was Roy Wood, founding member of The Move and ELO. Never heard of him. I liked ELO as a casual guilty pleasure and had heard of The Move mostly through reference to other groups like Hendrix and Pink Floyd, seeing them basically on old concert posters sharing the bill with these titans. I read the single page interview with some interest, gathering that The Move’s albums are acclaimed, he was only in ELO briefly, formed a group named Wizzard after leaving the latter band, and is bitter about ELO continuing without him and The Move touring now under that name, also without him. The impetus of the interview is the reissue of the first two Move albums and a solo album of his from ‘73 (recorded in ‘69). I soon forgot about what I’d read and tried my hardest to erase it for good that night with plenty of free booze supplied by some gracious friends.
The next day I found myself in the best local record shop, perhaps the best in the state, wandering aimlessly. I’d found a record-size Goat’s Head Soup poster picturing a severed goat’s head floating in a bubbling cauldron for $3, which I knew my girlfriend would never ever allow my to hang anywhere. The record store in my home town had this same picture hanging up near it’s cash register for years and it used to perplex me when I was much younger…I couldn’t understand the concept of Goat’s Head Soup. I kept browsing to find something else to buy with the morbid picture so as not to seem weird and noticed that the record that they were playing was good. I found a record to buy, but I wasn’t entirely sure about it. The record they were playing kept getting better and better. I wanted that record, but pride kept me from asking who it was. Then it hit me, this could be The Move, obviously English, right era. I walked by the counter and overheard one of the geeks explaining to a young co-worker that Roy Wood was the founding member and that they were really great, one of the other geeks was singing to the record while sorting new merchandise. I made a bee line to the M’s and found a Move record, a cheap English compilation that would have to do. Can you walk up to the counter and demand to buy what they’re playing? I took the record home and was surprised by how good it sounded, but not surprised that I had to put the picture of the goat’s head in with the album and filed away, seldom to be seen. I also attempted to find their first two albums online, which proved to be a pain in the ass: there were only a few people out there that had them and they had several hundred people in line waiting do download.
Back at the record store a few days later, looking for something totally unrelated to Roy Wood, an ingenious thought occurred to me, maybe they restocked the record after spinning it. Sure as shit. Shazam! $9. Ok.
Stay tuned for a review of this gem…for now, listen to Move:
We got Auction 45s, we got more soul…
We got Store 45s, we got more soul…
Don’t forget about Motown 45s, doin’ their thing…
We got Ray Charles, James Brown, Johnny Taylor, Aretha Franklin…
Doin’ their thing now…
We got everybody, doin’ their thing…
We even have a song, by Dyke and The Blazers, We Got More Soul:
Justin just launched a new batch of Soul 45s. These came primarily from one collection - and there’s some real good ones.
Speaking of soul, the Detroit News reported this morning that Motown is kicking off it’s 50th anniversary celebration - even if it is two years early. They also have a fantastic black and white photo gallery of some early Motown artists and behind the scenes stuff that is really worth checking out.
