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By Cousin Justin
I started the day yesterday by putting on one of my favorite shirts, an original Wu-Wear T-shirt that I got in High School. You see I am a huge Wu-Tang mark since 36 chambers dropped. Good albums have been few and far between over the last few years. That was until Ghostface dropped Fishscale. I dug that album more than any Wu joint in a long time. Normally a rap skit is a good oppurtunity to skip to the next track, but the Bad Mouth Kid Skit on Fish Scale starts by Ghost saying “that’s soul right there, don’t touch that radio” in the background a dope ass song is playing that the foul mouthed kid insists on changing, much to the chagrin of ghost. As soon as I heard the song in the background I used my little Google fingers to try and find out what the fuck it was. I was unsuccessful and this has been one of those musical obsessions for the last 2 years. So when I started the day I had no idea my wardrobe decision would have any affect on the cosmos. Max was comming over later in the evening to hang out and to take a trip to the Record Collector in Ferndale. I went through the Soul section and picked out a few Soul, Funk, and Disco albums. One that stood out was the Brother To Brother album. I took it to the listening station and dropped it on the second track, something I never do, and there it was, the song I have looked for for 2 years. Needless to say I was pumped. To keep the karma going, Max and I ended the night with a screening of the underrated Ghost Dog.
Brother To Brother-Vibrations
By Max Conroy
On Saturday, May 17th Jandek played a free concert at the University of Michigan’s Lydia Mendelssohn Theater. The show was sponsored by WCBN-FM (88.3 on your FM dial), the student-run station of the University, booked by Brendt Rioux, and featured James Cornish on trumpet, Christian Matjias on harpsichord, and Biba Bell on vocals and improv dance. Apparently this was the first Jandek performance to feature live improv dancing. Jandek played hollow body bass and sang. This is what’s known.
This is what’s unknown: the identity of Jandek, the aim of his endeavors, and virtually everything about the production and meaning behind his music. Jandek has put out fifty-three albums in thirty years. The records range from atonal bluesy folk to thirty minute vocal-only tracks and some feature other musicians most likely (even though he does overdub tracks). The lyrical content of his songs are most definitely poetic in nature, possibly autobiographical, and definitely surreal, causing people to speculate as to whether or not this is a sort of diary of a person suffering from mental illness or records to be enjoyed as such, art for art’s sake.
There are only a handful of people who have ever spoken to or communicated with Jandek; and in these instances, the person is known only as a “representative of Corwood Industries.” Corwood Industries is Jandek’s record label and in his only recorded interview, by John Trubee for Spin in 1985, featured on YouTube and as an extra on the Jandek on Corwood DVD, he discloses that he is the “sole proprietor” of Corwood, which has maintained the same PO Box in Houston since 1978. All of his records and DVDs are purchased directly from Corwood/Jandek, cheaply, and none are sold to record stores or libraries. Jandek also mentions in that interview that at the time he was working as a machinist and living in Houston, Texas. The name on the copyright information for Jandek’s records in the Library of Congress is Sterling Richard Smith, born in Rhode Island in 1945 (he mentions Rhode Island in several songs). He originally recorded one record under the name The Units and sent his record to radio stations and record stores, and was forced to change the name when a guy whom he sent the record to in San Francisco threatened to sue him as that was the name of his band. As a result he wanted to find a name that no one could possibly have, so he ended up speaking to a fellow named Dekker in January and came up with Jandek.
The more that I research Jandek, the more his history or what he’s illuminated for us seems to be the creation of a highly intelligent, very sane person, very similar to the way a novelist comes up with material culled from his past, subconscious, and ability to tell a convincing story. Before his days as Jandek, he allegedly wrote seven novels, which he burned after being rejected by publishers. He tells Trubee that, “I put out a product, and that’s it. I don’t want to get too involved.” This smells like bullshit to me, but very good bullshit.
For Sale Soon
James Tatum (James Tatum Trio Plus), Contemporary Mass on private press jttp records. VG++/VG++ (close to NM), super clean.
In addition to playing the jazz piano, James Tatum holds a masters in music education from the University of Michigan, and is a composer, lecturer, and lifelong educator and promoter of jazz music. In 1987, Tatum formed the James Tatum Foundation For The Arts, which provides funding and support to Detroit area youth who are involved in music and art. James is a true ambassador of jazz music and education who deserves as much recognition for those contributions as he does for his incredible talents as an innovative jazz pianist.
We recently found this record by him, Contemporary Jazz Mass. The intro was comped by Jazzman, off their “Spiritual Jazz: Esoteric, Modal, and Deep Jazz From The Underground 1968-1977″. At first, I didn’t think I was going to like this record, but I was in the right mood this evening and I really got it. You have to concentrate, you have to be alone, and you have to really listen, and then it takes off. It’s perfectly and painstakingly arranged, but it’s still free and features plently of improvisation. It’s extremely sacred and serious, yet it’s still funky and spaced-out.
The back of cover explains the album well:
“…Having converted to Catholicism some ten years ago, Tatum was deeply moved by the reverence, and the impressive beauty of the music. As he became more involved with the church, it’s parishoners, and it’s music he recognized a chance to further explore the ‘Mass’ through a jazz interpretation. Mr. Tatum believes the ‘jazz form’ of music could add another dimension, by using instrumentation and vocals to relate emotional feelings. In composing the Mass, he attempted to convey the amicable, harmonious feelings exhibited by his parishoners: poetry of family living and brotherly love set to music. James Tatum was commissioned by St. Cecilia Roman Catholic Church of Detroit, Michigan to compose the mass. The premiere performance was presented May, 1973 marking the first time in the United States that a Jazz Mass was celebrated by a Cathoic Priest from the Archdiocese of Detroit…”
I’m not sure how many of these were pressed, but it’s a pretty rare and sought after LP that we’ve never seen before. It’s another one of those records that I hate to give up, but at least I got to enjoy it once before we have to sell it. Check out a few samples from the album, and look for it go up for sale soon.
Intro:
Alleluia:
Offertory:
Kiss of Peace:
by Max Conroy
If you refer to my post about the jazz flute, you know that I’m just getting into soul/funk-jazz/fusion. I’m crazy about the stuff. It’s also allowed my formerly tepid interest in hip-hip to expand slightly. It’s like punk rock for me; not the music of course but how I view it. Some of my favorite music, proto-punk, is the music that led directly to the development of punk rock, but I really don’t like straight punk all that much. I love the Dead Boys and the Sex Pistols, but both bands were badass rock and roll acts before they were punk. I love all of this music that’s been sampled a ton or could be sampled if it hasn’t but can take or leave the hip-hop that’s made it famous, so far at least. As my obsession has grown for the (I’ll call it fusion, to incorporate soul/funk-jazz) fusion over the past few weeks, I’ve purchased a shit ton of great records and thank God some of it can be found cheaply.
I’d heard of the Ramsey Lewis Trio, but that was probably from hearing them mentioned by NPR DJs a split second, before I slammed the radio off in disgust before my appreciation of fusion. I totally thought that they were venerated by jazzbos and that they were classic bop, but how wrong I was. Justin hooked me up with a rough copy of the In Crowd, which is apparently an early soul-jazz classic. After digging the album, I also noticed that reissues of it are advertized in Waxpoetics, and have noticed the record at numerous shops and online. I thought that the record would be pricey, but since it obviously sold well for a jazz record and was on Chess’ Argo imprint, it’s insanely cheap. Like you would pay three times what an OG copy would cost to get the reissue. Dig the ‘In’ Crowd…
I also recently picked up Ramsey Lewis’ Sun Goddess for cheap. The cover alone is worth the money, but the music could have been sold in a paper bag and it’d still be sweet. It’s ten years after the In Crowd and the funk had dropped in the meantime, and it’s obvious on this record, that Lewis was hip to it. Check out Sun Goddess, Livin’ For the City (the S. Wonder jam) and Jungle Strut…
On the Blue side of things; some Blue Note records from the periphery of their dark days can be got fairly cheaply too. Some of these records sold very well, which makes them easy to find and cheap, but not bad at all. For instance, Donald Byrd’s Black Byrd (the best selling record in the entire Blue Note catalogue) and Byrd’s Best are about $10 records; the cover of Black Byrd, depicting a black wedding or hoedown of some sort, ca. 1890 is worth it, and the music’s funky as can be, slightly dated, but that’s a large part of the appeal for me. I recently acquired Grant Green’s Alive! album, which is a live gig recorded in a small club with Idris Muhammad tearing the place up on drums, for $10. I’m not as much of a purist as the Cousins and will pick up a reissue or a comp here and there, and found a Grant Green record that was part of the Blue Note Breakbeats series for under $10. Sometimes on these records, as with every record, there are bum tracks, but it seems more common for jazz records to me, so a comp with six of the most notable tracks by someone can be a good thing. But I don’t necessarily think that’s true for Grant Green; I’m willing to bet that anything he did in ‘70 and ‘71 with Idris Muhammad on drums is good throughout. Ronnie Laws‘ Pressure Sensitive must have also sold a shitload because it’s everywhere and it’s cheap. One of my dad’s buddies gave me his record collection when I was about fifteen. There were about fifty or so records, all early 70s stoner rock…and Pressure Sensitive. It’s like the fusion Frampton Comes Alive, but way cooler. Here are Grant Green’s Sookie Sookie (the Don Covay song) and Ronnie Laws’ Nothing to Lose…
by Max Conroy
I first heard about the Third Power on this site a long time ago when the Cousins did a write up about their bass player Jem Targal in response to finding a signed copy of his rare solo album Luckey Guy. I downloaded Believe, the only album released by the Third Power and didn’t feel too bad about it because of the album’s obscurity; I believe that it isn’t too hard to track down on CD though. The download that I got was ripped from a record and the guy recorded the second side first, which I didn’t realize till finding the vinyl a few weeks ago. It doesn’t get much better than this if you’re looking for an aggressive, Grande-era Detroit power trio. I’ve scoped this record every now and then for the past few years on EBay and it seems like every copy that I’ve seen was in Europe, which is odd since it only sold about 16,000 copies, mostly in the Detroit area.
Like the record itself, information regarding the band is pretty rare. For the most part everything out there is very basic and states that the band formed in Detroit in the late 60s, were very loud, had a cult following, released one record, it flopped, they went their separate ways, the guitarist Drew Abbott went to play lead for Seger’s Silver Bullet Band, and Jem recorded Luckey Guy in the late 70s. I did find an early biography of Jem Targal, their lead singer and bassist, on someone’s personal website. The biography reads a bit strange, almost like it’s Targal speaking in the third person (pardon the pun). According to the site, Targal was born in Ann Arbor, his father studied and taught at the University of Michigan, and when he was young his father accepted a position at the American University of Istanbul and moved his entire family there: ”There were seven families, all related, living in the house together. Targal’s grandfather, a retired general, was there. So, too, was Targal’s uncles. One had been the head of NATO forces for seveal years; the other uncle was a professional wrestler.” Sounds like a trip, man. His family moved back to the Detroit area in 1951 and eventually many years later he met Abbott at Oakland Community College in a speed reading class. Abbott taught Targal the bass and they formed several groups, met their drummer Jim Craig, a solid powerful drummer, and came up with the name the Third Power in the van on the way to their first show together at a club called the Fifth Dimension (a popular venue that had featured Hendrix and the Yardbirds). Power trio…trio…third…third…power…like to the third power, man…get it? The band moved into a farmhouse on Haggarty road, between 12 and 13 mile roads. They were known for having massive parties at their place where rock icons like Rod Stewart and Badfinger would hang out. The band kept playing around and became very popular in the Detroit area, playing shows with local acts like the Rationals, Seger, and the MC 5. They signed with Vanguard, who also featured another Detroit act of the era the Frost, in 1969. The album was produced by poet and blues scholar Sam Charters and came out in 1970.
I almost shit my pants when I saw it in the stack at Encore. They pile up their new arrivals on the floor against the bins, in front of the register. I was in there a few days prior to finding it and noticed that they had a massive pile of new arrivals and quickly paid for whatever I had gone in there to find, so as not to be tempted by whatever was in the new stacks. A few days later I was walking in the neighborhood and decided to go back to see what was left in that pile, and there it was, perfect, in the shrink, bronze Vanguard label. I bought that and Grant Green’s Alive! for $30 and the dude working there said bye to me using my name off of my credit card. Respect, mon. Irie! I got it for $20; the price guide says $30 mint, but Popsike lists anywhere from $50 to $250 previously on EBay.
by Cousin Geoff
Reissues are generally not my thing, I’d rather search for the original. It kind of feels like cheating, and it’s nowhere near the thrill of playing the real deal. That being said, there is no original album for Fugi’s Mary, Don’t Take Me On No Bad Trip. Tough City reissued this unreleased acid-funk record in 1996 from Detroiter Ellington Jordan, AKA Fugi, originally meant to be put out by Chess’s Cadet label in 1968, but deemed too trippy for them. When I came across this, not only was I put off by the fact that it was a reissue, but the cover was terrible. It looked like a late 1990s Cash Money rap album. But the writing on the cover was more than enough to convice me:
“From The Vaults of CHESS RECORDS…The legendary unreleased album by the blackballed acid-funkateer.” OK - sold.
When I put it on, I was absolutely floored. This is exactly the type of music I seek out. And this was, dare I say, better than the Detroit funk I had been listening to - early 70s Funkadelic and Temptations, even Dennis Coffee. The genre of funk that is uniquely Detroit - psychadelic, rootsy, Hendrix-like, but funk at it’s core. The first Funkadelic record can’t be touched, but this, if it had come out as planned, might be better. The thing is, I don’t understand why Cadet didn’t release this in 1968. Fugi was not some ordinary stoned funk musician trying to peddle an album to a top label. He was an extremely talented song writer who was good friends with Temptation Eddie Kendrix. In 1968, in addition to messing around with his own stuff while being backed by the band Black Merda, he wrote songs for Chess. Fugi rubbed shoulders on a daily with Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Donny Hathaway, Jimmy Hendrix and Etta James. In fact, Fugi wrote the song “I’d Rather Go Blind” (his own version is on this album) for Etta James who turned it into a worldwide hit number one hit, selling 8 million copies.
Fugi did release a few 45s, but it is still puzzling why this album was never put out. I’m fully convinced that he could have become a star, with more albums following this one, plus tours and the whole shot. As for the excuse that I’ve heard that it was too trippy, Detroit psych-soul-funk was what was hot a few years later, around 1969-1970, with the pair of Westbound Funkadelic albums, and The Temptations Psychedelic Shack album, among others. And even if that was the case (which it’s not - it’s perfectly put together and more soul-based funk than psych-rock funk), what about the Cadet Concept label? This was created and put together by Marshall Chess, son of Chess records co-founder Leonard Chess, for the sole purpose of “concept” albums. Rotary Connection is maybe the closest and best known example, and they were way more out-there and, in my opinion, not nearly as good as Fugi. This would have been the perfect album to put on this label, and they flat out blew it.
It’s a crying shame that I had never even heard of Fugi until I stumbled upon this album, although I’m sure the crowd of more seasoned deep funk and soul seekers have known about him even before this was released in ’96. You can pick this up for like 8 bucks at Tuff City, in fact here is their ebay link for this album. Tuff City has lots more reissues, they’re based out of New York and are definitely worth checking out.
As for the record, it’s just amazingly good. I would say it’s worth it to invest the $8 to see for yourself. I’m just sort of pissed that I won’t be able to search for the original, but as long as I have the music, that’s the most important thing!
listen to “Mary, Don’t Take Me On No Bad Trip”:
listen to “I’d Rather Be a Blind Man”
by Cousin Geoff
I’ve had this record for a while now and it’s easily one of my favorite dub albums. If you’re just learning about dub, you could start with King Tubby or Lee Perry, or just prepare for a totally different listening experience - the deconstruction of reggae music.
Jamaican born Jah Bunny was the drummer for Dennis Bovell, perhaps the UK’s most influencial reggae artist of the 70s and 80s as a band leader for his group Matumbi, as well as a producer and solo artist. Although Mutumbi was at it’s core a roots band, Dennis Bovell was also very involved in the dub art form, and no doubt his influence rubbed off on Jah Bunny.
This 1980 private label LP is an adventurous but laid back dub effort, and one I’d highly recommend as a hidden gem for reggae/dub collectors. It flows pleasantly and coherently through guitar and bass manipulations to compliment Jah Bunny’s rhythmic creations, with no worries and no hurry. If you want to listen to modern dub that you can just put on, walk away, and fully relax, then look for this one or something similar. It’s as good a Sunday afternoon listen as it is a late Saturday night one.
Jah Bunny currently plays drums and percussion, and sings backup vocals for the UK ska/punk band Freetown, a band I would definitely go see if they played in Ypsilanti!
Listen to the lead off track off the Dubs International album, although unless you can turn this way up or put on headphones for the bass, you might not fully appreciate it:
by Max Conroy
I was at the Cousins’ warehouse this weekend, hanging out, looking through piles of records that were in too poor shape to sell, talking about music. We found tons of cool stuff and unfortunately it won’t be available to you guys out there because they’d like to provide you with the best records available. Perhaps email them or reply to a post if anyone out there is willing to have a less than perfect copy of a hard to find record. One of the records that Geoff pulled out was by Jimmy McCracklin. I’d heard the name but knew nothing about him. Later that day Justin threw on his Twist with Jimmy McCracklin album. It was definitely good, but we were hanging out, talking, not paying too much attention to anything. It definitely didn’t sound like Chubby Checker.
The next day, I went to Encore to get some paper sleeves for the records they graciously let me have and casually looked at the first stack I saw, and there was Jimmy McCracklin’s My Answer record. I really didn’t want to spend the money; $10 isn’t going to break the bank, but you know how it is, the end of the month and all. So I walked around holding the record not convinced that I’d buy it, but not ready for anyone else to walk off with it. I dropped the needle on the record, looking around the shop, earphones on, with the feeling that I’m on the inside looking out, through a fish bowl. Hiss, pop. All of a sudden $10 was put into perspective, it wasn’t a problem. Jimmy McCracklin was worth whatever I would have spent the money on, including food or tobacco.
McCracklin was born in 1921…and still performes! He cut his first record in 1945, ya know, back at the birth of the atomic age. That would make him 45 years-old back in 1966 when My Answer came out. I’m not sure if the record is supposed to be a greatest hits record or if Liberty records slapped a bunch of previously released songs around the title track, but I know some of the songs are on other records and the title track was released as a single the same year the record came out. Anyway, I digress. The music can’t be beat and is surprisingly broad in its variety. When I read that it was a comp, I thought that it must have been over several years, but he was only on Liberty in ‘65 and ‘66. The music is strange in that it’s soul, it’s blues, it’s funk, it’s so much all of these things that it’s almost difficult to pin down right away. The first song, the title cut, is a Southern soul ballad about leaving a woman with a letter, ending it with, “I’m sorry for you”. Meaning, I’m sorry for what you fucked up and that you’ll die alone, not I feel bad. The second song Beulah is the one that really caught my attention. James Brown and Dyke were hammering out the finishing touches of their grooves on the anvil of funk when this was made and it’s pretty much as funky as what they were doing at the time. McCracklin’s drummer doesn’t seem like he gets the picture but he’s trying his best in a jazzy sort of way. The next song, Every Day, Every Night, is a straight Jimmy Reed-style blues number. Magic Sam later did a cover of it and it’s obvious that McCracklin was an influence. All of these styles on this record are done so well that it’s mind blowing.
Every Day, Every Night:
by Max Conroy:
The Go’s latest album Howl On the Haunted Beat You Ride is a fantastic record that doesn’t seem to get much credit, and I live in the land where it was made. Shamefully, until I moved to back to Michigan this past August I’d never heard of them and the way that I heard of them was from a magazine published in the UK, Mojo. Mojo gave the record a four star review and the write up was good; garage, overlooked band, Detroit, etc. There was also a picture of the record’s cover accompanying the review that pretty much guaranteed that I’d look for it. It’s perfectly psychedelic: two huge hipster faces with lifeless hipster expressions, flanking the jacket; the entire band arranged vertically in the center of it, all wearing black or stripes; their far out logo in the upper left; a brown and orange, early mid 60s to early 70s, color motif; all of this on a hazy blanket of stars. I know being interested in a record because of its packaging might be a bit careless, but this record is so cool looking and feeling that I’d be happy to own it even if the music sucked, which it most certainly doesn’t. It’s on Cass records (Cass is a street/area in Detroit for all you non-local readers), which I’ve never heard of, but they totally knocked the ball out of the park on this one. It’s a gatefold with super heavy boards, it feels like it’s a record made in the 50s, and has great graphics pasted inside along with the lyrics.
The Go formed in Detroit in 1998. Jack White was an early member of the band and is featured on their debut Whatcha Doin’, playing lead guitar and singing back up. I had read somewhere that they kicked Jack White out of the band, which would be one to tell the grandchildren: Yeah, I was in a band back in the day…and we kicked Jack White out of the group…We could have been rich! I’m pretty sure that he just left the band because he didn’t want to be a sideman. I have no idea if there is any bad blood as a result of the split, but the Go wasn’t on the White compiled fantastic comp. Sympathetic Sounds of Detroit. There is footage the Go out there playing live during the JW era on an obscure movie called the Detroit Rock Movie, which also has footage of JW jamming Stop Breakin’ Down in his tiny Detroit apartment. If any of you out there have a copy of this movie, I’d be happy to receive one; please respond to this post. Anyway, Whatcha Doin’ was released on Sub Pop and is a great debut record on the noisy side of the garage. They made a follow up for Sub Pop called Free Electricity that was never released because it was allegedly too heavy, which has to be bull shit…too heavy for Sub Pop? I found a copy of it on Soulseek and it’s definitely worth finding. I think there were other reasons Sub Pop shelved it though; one song starts with the lyric, “Big cock angel”. They were ultimately dropped from Sub Pop and put out a more focused rehashing of 60s garage and 70s glam on Lizard King, called The Go. The group then waited four years to put out another record, the brilliant Howl on the Haunted On the Haunted Beat You Ride, which AMG has listed as coming out in April of 2007, but I’m pretty sure it was more like late summer and they still haven’t reviewed it.
Howl On the Haunted Beat You Ride represents the Go fully coming into their own. The music is derivative of 60s psych and 70s glam to be sure, but they certainly make it theirs. The production on this record is simply amazing and it was produced by Bobby Harlow, their front man, in Detroit. The album utilizes clean tones, trippy imagery, and classic CSN-like harmonies with great effect (and I really dislike CSN). The bizarro-poetic title comes from the song Yer Stoned Italian Cowboy, a romp about an irresitible character that “shoots directly from the Id”. Fucking brilliant! In my opinion, there’s only one bum track on this record and that’s the lead off song called You Go Bangin’ On, which was released as a single, so I might be missing something. But don’t listen to the first thirty seconds of this record and file it away. I bought this record seven months ago and the Go haven’t played around here since to my knowledge, until this past Saturday where they played at Gold: a fund raiser for the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.
by Cousin Geoff:
FINALLY! Monday is Opening Day for the Tigers. How sweet are we going to be this year? Will this be the most potent offense ever assembled? Here are some Tigers songs from their championship years to fire you up even more!
I just found this one. It’s from ‘84, set to the tune of Thriller, by Tom Paul.
listen to Tiger Thriller:
Another from ‘84, it’s Gino Danelli with the song Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now/Tigers. Stay tuned for another great track by Gino coming up soon about Thomas Hearns.
listen to Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now/Tigers:
Here’s another one I just found, from ‘84, The Sun Messengers - Tiger Dynasty:
Also from ‘84 is the song Bless You Boys, I don’t have it but you can listen here.
Now we go back to ‘68 and the song Go Get ‘em Tigers by Artie Fields, off the Year of The Tiger album.
listen to Go Get ‘em Tigers:
From the Detroit sound label comes the York Mills Trio’s Sockit To ‘Em Tigers
And just for fun, check out 31 game winner and jazz organ hipster Denny McLain, doing the song For Me off his Denny McLain at the Organ LP. Not bad - what can you play Verlander?
How excited am I? Let me say that if the Tigers win the World Series this year, I’ll bring back my Todd Jones stache that I had last summer for an hour after I shaved my beard. I’ll rock it for a week.
More Island Music To Get Me Through The Michigan Winter!
I know, it’s another post about reggae/calypso music. But my broke-ass can’t afford to go on vacation anywhere warm, so I’m stuck in my basement in Ypsilanti. Digging through my reggae records is the next best thing!
I’ll share a couple of interesting ones. First off is Soul Sam doing The Doors’ Light My Fire off my Swing Easy Studio One rocksteady comp. I don’t know anything about Soul Sam, he isn’t even in my Rough Guide To Reggae reference book, which has all kinds of obscure, semi-important Jamaican artists. Soul Sam was probably like many of the Jamaican musicians, including the young Bob Marley and The Wailing Wailers, who tuned their radios to the far off sounds of Florida stations playing American Rhythm and Blues and Rock and Roll music. The traditional Jamaican calypso sound was already there, and ska began as their interpretation to these American sounds, with the unique emphasis on the upbeat. Ska evoloved into rocksteady around 1966 or 1967 (see my post on Phyllis Dillon for a good example of this genre), which preceded reggae.
Soul Sam was apparently into The Doors, and he does like a Jamaican rocksteady garage version of Light My Fire and it ends up sounding pretty cool. Of all the great songs on this compilation, this was one of the stand out tracks, and definitely the most intriguing.
Listen to Soul Sam’s Light My Fire:
The next song I’ve got for you is sort of a follow up to the last post I did when I paid tribute to Caribbean bands and talked about the The Igniters doing No Woman No Cry. As I was digging around in my reggae section at home I came across my Gemini Brass Band album titled The Time Is Right, and I remembered how much I liked it. I hadn’t listened to it for a long time, but I put it on and my 4 month old daughter started making noise and smiling and bouncing around so I figured it was worth putting on the site.
The Gemini Brass Band is total high energy. They pack a full lineup: guitar, conga, bass, organ, 3 trumpets, 2 trombones, drums, timbale, and a vocalist. They are from Trinidad and Tobago. Andy Seebaran assures us on the back cover that “there are many good bands in the Caribbean, but with it’s unique renditions and tempos, GEMINI BRASS can outplay them all.” He also adds “We are all one people”. The band was formed in 1965, and this is their first album. I love it: it’s crazy and fast and funky. One of my favorite tracks off the album is their version of Jackie Wilson’s Higher and Higher. Go organ go!
Listen:
A Great Version of No Woman No Cry With No Guitar
I really get a kick out of Caribbean steel bands. Cuz Justin does too, and has a little collection of them. They usually show up at Salvation Armys or garage sales when digging or buried in the back of a collection that has nothing else similar. The majority of the albums found around Michigan can be probably explained by when a couple is on a cruise or tropical vacation, and the steel band comes out and plays, and someone, after 7 or 8 margaritas feels inspired to buy the album. And a lot of them are signed, as my copy of The Igniters Steel Band, “Jump Up” LP is, by all six members execpt for the lead tenor Stanley Warner. One of them writes, “To Karen and Dan, Thank You. Please Come Back Soon.”
These albums are always hit or miss. They seem to be all over the place. The reason is that they’re mostly trying to sell records to a white American tourist crowd. So you get a lot of weird covers, steel band style, for example for whatever reason Neil Diamond songs are done a lot. On this record, they play some pop ballads and even some Beethoven. Their lineup: single lead tenor, double lead tenor (leader), bass, drums, cello, and rhythm pan.
Justin and I have looked at the cover of many of these albums and the photos of these musicians in wondered in awe how good the album would be if they could just play whatever they wanted, played the real music they play for themselves. Half the time these records are a bit of a dissapointment. There are a few diamonds in the rough though, if you search long enough, and sometimes, in this case, the entire album makes up for itself with one good song.
In this case, it’s The Igniters doing a version of Bob Marley’s No Woman No Cry, one of the more unique versions I have heard. The LP was recorded in 1976, during the peak years of the Island label for the Wailers, around the time that the Live! album came out. This song has been covered by a number of like-minded artists. Off the top of my head, a couple of my favorite versions are Bunny Wailer off his Tribute album (which I definitely recommend picking up), and Wyclef off the Fugees Score album.
What makes The Igniters take on it unique is that there is no guitar (the rhythm pan takes it’s place)! Bob Marley’s two most well known recordings of this song are off The Natty Dread album, and then the one everyone knows, which was first found on the Live! album and then later on the Legend greatest hits album. Both songs feature a distinct guitar solo near the end - I can basically replay the whole thing note for note in my head. One of my favorite songs by one of the greatest song writers of all time. I remember No Woman No Cry just blowing me away when I first heard it around my freshman year in high school, it was the song that introduced me to Bob Marley, and I listened to it over and and over. But the Igniters do it right, even without the guitar, or even a drawn out solo with any instrument - it’s soulful, it’s meaningful to them, it’s the one spiritual song they do on the album. If I had to guess, if they could have done an album exactly they way they wanted to, there would have been more songs like this.
listen to No Woman No Cry:
Justin has just posted a smallish but nice collection of what I dub the Happy Hippie LP Batch. Condition looks to be excellent on them. Mention “Happy Hippie” to Justin and get a discount on shipping.
Some things never change. The alarm clock rings each morning, and it’s time to get ready to go punch in again. For a lot of Michigan folks, this means working on the automotive assembly line. Detroit isn’t called the Motor City for nothing. But now that the rest of the world has caught up, we’re losing jobs left and right. Ford just announced they were putting 8,000 more people out of work. It should only add to Michigan’s unemployment rate, the highest in the country. The times are a changin’. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing. According to the Detroit band Stix and Stoned, and Plymouth, Michigan’s David Walz, working on the line gives them a bad case of the blues.
The band Stix and Stoned was formed by a group of buddies who worked together at the Ford Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan. They had those rou-ou-ouge plant blues, and they had ‘em bad.
listen to Rouge Plant Blues:
I recently discovered this record by Plymouth’s David Walz, called Country Old Country New.
And to my delight, the lead off track on the B side was Assembly Line Blues. Stix and Stoned were not alone as a local bar band who was factory rat by day, rock and roll dreamer by night. I’m sure that playing music was much, much better, and this only contributed to the blues they all felt while bolting in those door panels or assembling those steering wheels.
David Walz doesn’t look like he has the blues, but that’s because he was posing for the cover of his new album instead of sweatin’ on that line. Give his take a listen and see who makes the most convincing argument.
listen to Assembly Line Blues:
Who needs the blues? As many of the immortals have said, They ain’t nothin’ but a low down achin’ chill, and if you ain’t never had ‘em, I hope you never will. And if you listen to Stix and Stoned or David Walz, that’s all those auto jobs are good for anyway.
by Max Conroy:
I have a copy of Dave Marsh’s The Heart of Rock and Soul, which lists his top 1001 singles, in my bathroom. It’s great. It was written in 1989 and includes a lot of doo wop, soul and early rock greats like Nathaniel Mayer and Nolan Strong that don’t get a whole lot of mention outside of fanatical circles. I’ve always been a fan of the first Cramps EP, particularly the song The Way I Walk and never knew who did it originally. Low and behold, there it is on page 530, Jack Scott. Flush.
The other day I was divining through the book much like Romans would do with Virgil’s Aenead and came to Something in the Air by Thunderclap Newman. You know the song. Tom Petty covered it on his greatest hits album, it was in Almost Famous and a shit-ton of other movies and TV shows (check Wikipedia for a more comprehensive list). I’ve heard the name Thunderclap Newman before and have heard the song probably once a year that I’ve noticed since I got Petty’s Greatest Hits album in junior high but never put the two together. The story of the band it turns out is an interesting paragraph.
The band was formed allegedly by Pete Townshend to help out former crony/roadie John “Speedy” Keen, who had written the leadoff track on the Who Sell Out, to record some of his songs. Townshend recruited a postal worker/jazz pianist Andy “Thunderclap” Newman and a fifteen year-old Scottish guitarist Jimmy McCulloch. The single Something in the Air went to number one in England and to twenty-five in the US. The subsequently recorded album Hollywood Dream, which was produced by Townshend and contained the brilliant single, received absolutely no support (the band played live five times) and peaked at 163 on Billboard. The band members really didn’t have that much in common and ceased recording together, leaving a top notch album for posterity. Speedy Keen went on to record a few solo albums and to produce Johnny Thunders’ Heartbreakers LAMF and had a heart attack in his mid fifties and died, Thunderclap recorded one in ‘71 and McCulloch went on to play with numerous bands, including Wings, and eventually died of a heroin overdose at twenty-six.
The album is one that I’d probably glance over if I saw it in a stack and didn’t know anything about it. It is truly great and I highly recommend picking it up. You probably won’t have any luck at Encore though.
Here’s the hit
Here’s another jam for some flavor, Look Around
