The Notations: It Only Hurts For a Little While
From S/T (Gemigo, 1975)

Bonus: The Flamingos: Why Can’t Susie Go to School With Lucy
From Today (Ronze, 197?)

I’m working backwards here since this was my original, introductory post to the Pick Six series. Note: I’m fond of starting new series that promptly go nowhere so just be warned. The idea behind the series was based around the relative little time I have these days to get more posts up and throwing up six at a time seemed like one way to clear the slate faster. However, it also gave me an opportunity to think of my own music library more thematically, hence each Pick Six post will have some kind of thread that ties all them together. Last time, it was Louie Ramirez and for this post, I was going through a stack of soul records and realized that, of late, I’ve been acquiring a grip of LPs by R&B groups built around harmonized singing, ala the Chi-Lites or Stylistics.

Most of these groups were influenced by multi-member gospel singing and not surprisingly, many in these groups could trace their musical histories back to gospel singing prior to their R&B excursions. Especially in a city like Chicago, it’s not hard to guess that a group like the Notations probably took their inspiration from both gospel as well as The Impressions, whose three-part harmonies were incredibly influential. The Notations were first signed with Twinight but by the 1970s, had shifted over to Curtom (via the Gemigo subsidiary), Curtis Mayfield’s label. “It Only Hurts” is one of those sweet soul classics, especially because of that memorable string melody that opens the song. i like the dramatic flourishes throughout the song and the interplay in the quartet’s voices (Clifford Curry, LaSalle Matthews, Bobby Thomas, Jimmy Stoud) work well against one another.

The Temprees were a trio out of Memphis, TN, first signed to We Produce, a Stax subsidiary (same label Ernie HInes’s “Our Generation” came out on). The three, composed of Jasper Phillips, Harold Scott and Deljuan Calvin, were young – high schoolers – when they first met and there’s a charming swagger to them naming their first album Love Men when they probably weren’t that many years out of their peachfuzz yet. “Explain It To Her Mama” kicks off with a pounding little breakbeat and then shifts into a rich, mid-tempo ballad that showcases Phillip’s falsetto.

The Persuaders’ “Trying Girls Out” may be familiar to some of you as the source for the “Girls, Girls, Girls” remix off Jay-Z’s The Blueprint and it makes you appreciate how keen an ear Kayne had back in 2001. The original has a sly humor to it – this is no sentimental love song for certain – but even if it is a players’ anthem, the Persuaders sure do make it sound sweet. This is from their self-titled album, the follow-up to their hit Thin Line Between Love and Hate, featuring Douglas Scott, brothers Willie and James Holland and Charles Stoghill.

Like the Persuaders, the Modulations were another four-member group, formed in Philadelphia and you can hear that classic “Philly sound” draped onto this nostalgia-suffused track. I’m guessing it’s Larry Duncan on falsetto here but surprisingly, it’s pretty damn hard to figure out who else was in the group (besides Glenn Lewis). For real: the album credits the musicians by name but not the singers…whoops.

The Moments are arguably the most famous ’70s vocal group out of New Jersey though they probably went through enough personnel changes to staff two or three groups. By the time they recorded “Love on a 2-Way Street” their membership could either have been the best known combo, with William Brown, Al Goodman and John Morgan, but it could also have been Mark Greene, Richie Horsley and Morgan). Regardless, the Moments were impressively consistent no matter what the line up and this was one of their classics from the last ’60s.

The Montclairs were a short-lived, four man group out of East St. Louis who never really broke it big despite having some serious vocal talent. Signed to Paula for their one and only album, the group was comprised of Phil Perry, Kevin Sanlin, David Frye, and Clifford Williams. “Dreaming Out of Season” was their biggest hit and it’s so good, it’s a shame the couldn’t find the footing to put out even more than they did.

The bonus cut comes from The Flamingos – you remember, of “I Only Have Eyes For You” fame – but this comes from an early ’70s album (hence the “Today” part of the title) where the doo-wop group is trying to stay current with, y’know, the kids. The song is obviously funk-influenced (and not sweet soul) but I thought it’d make a fun bonus cut to hear a classic soul harmony group trying on a different genre. Personally, I think the song does ok though for a social consciousness tune (the title is a clear reference to integration), it’s overly vague despite sounding pretty obvious.

Louie Ramirez: The New Breed
From In the Heart of Spanish Harlem (Mercury, 1967)

Bonus: Beatfanatic: Cookin’
From Adventures in the World of No-Fi Beats (Raw Fusion, 2006)

My most recent Side Dishes was on Latin arranger/composer/musician Louie Ramirez and the recommended Louie’s Grooves anthology. I’ve been wanting to write something on Ramirez for a while and though the Side Dishes post allowed me to riff on some of his work, as the comp’s liner notes acknowledge, it just brushes the surface of how deep his catalog can run. I’d suggest folks read that post first and then come back here.

My pick six for Ramirez focuses mostly on albums not already covered by Louie’s Grooves, beginning with arguably the easiest of his solo albums to acquire: In the Heart of Spanish Harlem. This was recorded for Mercury; I find that interesting since Mercury didn’t have a ton of Latin recordings (that I know of) on the label but I suspect it may have had something to do with producer Richard Marin who was doing some A&R work for labels like Mercury and Verve at the time. Marin’s brother Bobby – another Latin soul giant and fellow composer – is on this album as well; he was a frequent collaborator with Ramirez and it’s not at all unusual to see them on the same projects together. In fact, for this album, Bobby appears on the cover photo alongside Richard and Louie

I was always struck at how Ramirez was able to work on so many different labels at the same time; not long after that Mercury album, he must have been working with Fania on the Ali Baba LP (several of the songs from that rare title are on Louie’s Grooves and then he was also working for Morty Craft’s Speed imprint. I wrote about The Latin Blues Band for the Happy Soul Suite piece and I enjoy revisiting it – any Latin album that has Bernard Purdie as your studio drummer is bound to be rather interesting though instead of the funkier fare I could have nodded to, I went with “Oye Mi Guaguanco,” a solid piece of classic Cuban style by Ramirez, feat. (I think) Luis Aviles on vocals.

Like the Latin Blues Band, the Dianne and Carole album was also on Speed. Speed packed, in my opinion, the biggest bang for the buck – their catalog wasn’t more than a dozen titles or so but what was there was almost all exceptional. This Dianne and Carole album is especially notably since it had one of the few examples of female singers heading a Latin soul album (La Lupe excepted of course). There’s very little known about the two singers – their surnames aren’t even credited on the album! In any case, “The Fuzz” leads side 2, where 4/5 of the songs are arranged by Ramirez and I suspect that most of the same players from the Latin Blues Band played on here as well.

Not long thereafter, Ramirez was also helping compose, play on (and possible arrange?) for the great Puerto Rican bandleader Kako and his Live It Up album on Musicor. Personally, I’ve never figured out what separates a shingaling from a boogaloo and “Shingaling Shingaling” certainly displays many of the stylistic characteristics of both. I’m feeling this – and the whole LP is exceptional.

Ramirez was multi-talented as a musician – known to rock both the timbales and vibes – and I wanted to include an example of the latter by including one of his salsa era performances, playing vibes on Cheo Feliciano’s classic “Esto Es El Guaguanco.” He’s a big reason the opening is so memorable and Ramirez comes back to solo towards the second half of the song.

Last in the pick six is this cool lil cover of “Cisco Kid” that Ramirez arranged for the La Crema album, a one-off project that involved him, Bobby Marin and some other familiar folks but in the Latin funk era of the 1970s.

Bonus: As for “Cookin'”, that might have been the first time I “heard” any Louie Ramirez song since it liberally borrows from “The New Breed.” Slammin’ Latin club cut – trust me on this one.

Ananda Shankar: Streets of Calcutta + Dancing Drums
From Ananda Shankar and His Music (EMI India, 1975)

Manteca: Afro-Funky + Gozando Tropical
From Ritmo + Sabor (GRC/Sound Triangle, 197?)

The thing about funk’s entry in pop music in the late 1960s and forward was how artists would find ways to work in its rhythmic signature when you least expected it. (See this for a great example). Hearing the Ananda Shankar for the first time just blew my mind, probably because I assume Ananda’s sound would be more like his uncle Ravi’s but clearly, Ananda was on some experimental, world fusion tip by blending his training in classical Indian music with some Moog and a killer trap set drummer. Both of these cuts above are well-comped at this point but they still don’t fail to impress. Sitar funk for real.

Manteca is the nickname for master bongosero Lazaro Pla, a Cuban legend who used to play with Ernesto Lecuona and the Cuban Boys. His Ritmo + Sabor is one of the holy grail Latin funk LPs given its ridiculously funky percussion. It’s an interesting album for Manteca since he didn’t record out of Cuba much as a solo artist yet this album has been pressed up three times: GRC (Miami), Sound Triangle (Colombia) and Desca(?). And despite that, you’ll still end up forking over a few Franklins, unless you’re my man Adam M. who managed to cop one for $3 from Amoeba in Berkeley (that story still kills me). “Afro-Funky” is the outstanding cut here: the interplay between the basslines (which some opine might have been Cachao) and the percussion section is ridiculously funky not to mention pure rhythm – notice, there’s no melodic composition in the song at all. “Gozando Tropical” is more in a conventional Cuban dance style with its piano montuno riff but even here, the hard timbales (alas, uncredited) still put percussion first…sometimes I feel like the song is mis-engineered and should have cooled down the timbales a bit but then I shrug and figure if the drummer wants to get some, who am I to deny? This has been out of print on CD for a while but luckily, they’re about to bring it back later this month.

Lewise Bethune: Chitown Boogaloo
A.C. Reed: Boogaloo Tramp
From Chitown Boogaloo (Goldmine Soul Supply, 2006)

For all the time I’ve spent researching Latin boogaloo, I realized I wasn’t focusing enough on the original boogaloo craze – the one born out of Tom and Jerrio’s “Boo-Ga-Loo” in 1965, spreading quickly throughout the R&B world and lasting for the next few years. From what I can tell, the R&B boogaloo trend didn’t have the same kind of focused intensity as Latin boogaloo but it does seem to have shared some parallels, especially in being focused around the Chicago/Detroit corridor. My research is all preliminary but I am glad to have come across the Chitown Boogaloo comp which offers a tantalizing glimpse into a collection of tracks from that Midwest boogaloo craze. Suffice to say, more research is needed but you gotta start somewhere.

The Lewise Bethune was very interesting, not the least of which was because it’s basically Don Gardner’s “My Baby Likes to Boogaloo” with new vocals thrown on top (but clearly nodding to Gardner’s original). It doesn’t outdo Gardner’s but this is a pretty fun cut regardless and I think it’s interesting how Bethune’s version actually lifts the “ooh” “aah” from Tom and Jerrio’s original “Boo-Ga-Loo” single that sparked this whole movement. The A.C. Reed is another 7″ I’ve owned for years but only recently came back to in the midst of my boogaloo curiosities: this one actually mashes up two different fads – the boogaloo and “Tramp,” the bluesy/funky classic by Lowell Fulsom. I like how terse and focused the rhythm section is here – the song sheds a lot of heat but keeps things close in and tight.

If anyone out there has more knowledge of the R&B boogaloo movement, holler. I need to get to reading this, no doubt.

The Impressions: Fool For You + I’m Loving Nothing
From This Is My Country (Curtom, 1968)

I know I just wrote about this album in my summer songs post but seriously, this LP is easily the best thing I’ve heard in months. I just cannot get enough of it and am marveling at its overall consistency and sheer sublimeness at times. I feel sheepish that it took me this long to get around to listening the Impressions’ solo albums but if they’re anywhere near this good, I’ll be copping the catalog soon.

I’ve been trying to figure out, in my own head, just what makes the sound of this album so incredible to me and so far, the best I can come up with is: everything. The vocals, the melodies, the rhythm section, the sense of drama, the sense of delicate lightness, the lilt in Mayfield’s voice, the hooks that haunt you; take your pick. I haven’t been this enamored by a soul album since…I don’t know…discovering Eddie Kendrick’s People…Hold On (and that’s one of my all-time favorites).

Bottomline: if you can’t feel these, especially “I’m Loving Nothing,” well, there’s just no hope for you. ;)

Solange Knowles: I Decided
From Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams (Geffen, upcoming 2008)

Bonus: Tammi Terrell: What a Good Man He Is
From Irresistible (Motown, 1969)

Question: exactly how many “next Amy Winehouses” can there really be? So far, in the last year we’ve heard about: Leona Lewis (more like the new Mariah), Duffy (voice so thin, you could shave with it), Adele (Tracy Chapman meets Madeline Peryoux), Gabrielle Cilmi (didn’t both Nicole Willis and Amy both do this same video already?), even Lykke Li (doesn’t belong in the same conversation), et. al.

It has been a curious phenom that in the wake of last year’s epic Sharon Jones + Winehouse one-two punch, everyone is rushing to jock the bandwagon, and especially with Amy, there’s a desire to find another personality who could loom as large (good luck! You’ll need more than a bee-hive to fill Amy’s coif). From my point of view though, the upside to all this is that 2008 is shaping up to be a summer chockfull of retro-soul-esque production. I mean, sure, a lot of it is derivatives of derivatives – is there such a thing as neo-retro-soul? Hmmm…) but frankly, I’d rather listen to a bad clone of a clone of Motown/Stax than some of the new music that’s the alternative.

Case in point, three more recent artists on the retro tip, all of whom I’ve found perfectly enjoyable even if two of them seem to be riding the bandwagon. I’ve installed a “Wine-O-Meter” to measure similarity (not quality).

Solange, aka that other Knowles sister, decided to go to the source and hire Mark Ronson to produce her new single, “I Decided.” I admit – I was initially really skeptical about the song but it’s grown for me. Here’s my main beef: that little, jaunty, handclap track is very Motown-ish but it’s an intro: after a bar or two, the real beat drops in and in this case, that’s all there is. It’s like the song is all build-up but never delivers a gorgeous melodic hammer that you’d expect. That said, once you accept that, it’s a catchy tune. Snap along!

Wine-O-Meter: 7

Estelle’s Shine is one of my more favorite albums of 2008 and a strong, second showing for this British artist. I actually don’t think she’s very much like Winehouse; her vibe is more like a throwback to the late ’90s if anything else. There’s that R&B-meets-classic-hip-hop flair on songs like “Wait a Minute” (shades of “Kick In the Door”) and “So Much Out the Way” (Beatminerz steez) plus the ragga flavor on “Magnificent.” I just really like how that whole song flows, especially with the heavy ska/dub influence and Estelle’s silken vocals. Sweet stuff but hey, she should have gotten Special Ed on here instead of Kardinal. That would have been offishall.

Wine-O-Meter: 3

As for Little Jackie…ok, now THIS is definitely on some post-Winehouse tip, not just musically (Adam Pallin does a pretty good flip on Ronson’s style) but also in terms of the attitude and spark in the songwriting. Here’s the confusing thing: Little Jackie is not the singer; it’s the group name. The vocalist is Imani Coppola, who some of you might remember from “Legend of a Cowgirl” from about ten years back. Vocally, she’s also more contemporary than throwback but as noted, the kind of wit and cutting-ness in the songwriting will likely remind folks of Winehouse…even though, if you think about, her career goes back at least half a decade earlier. True as that may be, it’s really hard to listen to something like “28 Butts” (which I’m pretty sure uses this song) on part of the rhythm section) or “One Love” and not make the comparison. The latter is straight up ’60s girl pop (and I’m feeling it!). Their album drops later this summer: I highly recommend it.

Wine-O-Meter: 9

This all said though, you still gotta ask: why go retro when you can still listen to the originals? The bonus track is by the late Tammi Terrell, from (tragically) her only solo album, Irresistible. This song is so soulful, so funky, so ridiculously good for something that’s nearly 40 years old. It’s artists like Terrell who set the bar – now let’s see who can pass it.

P.S. Peep when Terrell drops: “let this girl tear the world up” – loving it!