The Impressions: I’m So Proud
Taken from the album The Never Ending Impressions on Paramount (1964)

Curtis Mayfield: Underground
Taken from the album Roots on Curtom (1971)

Curtis Mayfield: Billy Jack
Taken from the album There’re No Place Like America Today on Curtom (1975)

Forget Nas. N-A-S are the letters that spell Curtis… well, they don’t really, but–shit. That doesn’t make sense. Dammit. Umm…

Way before the QB, the C.M. was dropping street science as the every day agenda. Over the signature seventies wah and hand drum grooves, and punctuated often by dulcet string arrangements, Curtis Mayfield’s inimitable falsetto was the unrelenting, insistent voice of Black-Power-Era urban America. The voice of the Impressions. The sound of Superfly. The bespectacled archangel of the ghetto. Mayfield impressed his music and his message as deeply as any soul artist I can think of. Marvin and Stevie included.

The thing is, aside from Superfly, most folks haven’t heard his best stuff. With a career that spanned more than twenty years, and well over a dozen albums to his name, his most provocative and evocative work has largely remained undiscovered. Curtis. Roots. There’s No Place Like America Today. Back to the World. From his earliest work with the Impressions through–dare I say–his last recordings in the Eighties, the man went head-to-head with The Man, politicians, the dire situations in the streets, while somehow maintaining the aura of neither of a rouble-rouser nor a cynic, but the sage uncle. A friend. A lover (listening to a few of his ballads could make Machiavelli’s heart flutter). An infinitely wise man, never pedantic, always reassuring that better things were to come. He struck the perfect balance of conscience, moralist, reporter and optimist.

O-Dub over at Soul-Sides threw up a very worthy post a few weeks back. And I’m sure other Curtis blogs have made their way around. Truth is, the Mayfield catalogue is so rich, it deserves full exploration, from beginning to end. These tracks are the just something to get your mouth watering. If you have the time and a few extra bucks to drop, the feast is yet to come. You won’t be disappointed.

A quick look at the tracks: “I’m So Proud” is a good example of Mayfield’s (and Jerry Butler’s) strong balladeering skills from his time with the Impressions. The Never Ending Impressions is a fantastic album that scores up there with People Get Ready as one of my early favorites.

“Underground” is taken from what is perhaps Curtis’ best album (excluding Superfly?). As a whole, it’s funk/soul whirlwind that jumps all over place with its content, rhythmic complexities and overall urgency. From the stomper “Get Down” to the melancholic “Now She’s Gone”, Roots is a masterpiece for real.

There’s No Place Like America Today is one of those albums that seemingly comes out of nowhere and goes so deep you can’t shake it. It helps too, that I discovered this album after I had erroneously concluded that I had heard all of C.M.’s great work. “Blue Monday People” is on here as well in addition to some suprisingly moving Jesus songs. But “Billy Jack”…. just, Billy Jack. While it bears similarities, I prefer this track to a song like “Freddie’s Dead”, though it is certainly more simple compositionally and lyrically. Perhaps because of that, it knocked my socks off when I first heard it. And when those horns drop a little ways in–just look out. WARNING: IF YOU ARE MAKING OUT WITH A GIRL WHEN THIS SONG IS PLAYING, DIRTY THINGS MAY HAPPEN. BEWARE THE HORNS.

Check it out, the everbusy Future Boogie crew from Bristol have put up a new mix that I made for them and have kindly included a little feature interview on the true nature of “Gumbo Funk”. Thanks for the shine guys!

Some tunes you’ll hear on the mix: Last Poets, Ralfi Pagan, Patchworks, Gilberto Gil, Gaspar Lawal.

There’s about three hundred pounds worth of other good music on the site, including multiple mixes from Gypsy Bogdan (of Turntablelab) who I’ll be spinning with this Thursday – DEEP CRATES!

I’ll put up some of the fruits of my Puerto Rico digging session this weekend, stay tuned…

Willie Bobo: Spanish Grease
Taken from the album Spanish Grease on Verve (1965)

Willie Bobo: Broasted or Fried
Taken from the album Do What You Want To Do… on Sussex (197?)

Willie Bobo: How Can I Say Goodbye?
Taken from the album Do What You Want To Do… on Sussex (197?)

There are moments when we can transcend all the infractions perpetrated against us by our neighbors. When, maybe for a week or a day or an hour, we can forget the Sunday morning ranchera hoe-downs, the persistent, cackling drunken laughter at 4 am, the occasional menacing glare. All it takes is that one connection that had hitherto gone unrealized. Yesterday, I found that link in Willie Bobo.

The neighbors in question are a tremendously unruly bunch (5, 6, 7 of them? Who knows?). All men, Mexican and few centro-Americanos. They work as mechanics at the quick lube joint around the corner and are all equally fanatical for a good Norteno ballad. (Read Tuba, Accordian, Crooner, Weird Laughter, Et Al). It strikes me that they must be nearly deaf (or if not, soon to be) for the decible level at which they listen to their tunes must register near the roar of a departing rocket ship. They usually start drinking around eight thirty on Sunday morning; the musica begins promptly at eight.

Ranchera is just one of those things that, try as I might, I absolutely CANNOT condone. I want to be able to appreciate it. But I just can’t. And I had all but given up hope. The weekly party became known between my roommate and me as The Sunday Morning Skull-Fuck. But last Sunday, something changed. I heard a distinctly conga-tinged rhythm. The playful horns. Then, at long last, “Guajira…” I could have cried for joy.

I could do eight posts on Willie Bobo–and maybe I will; DON’T TEST ME SUCKAS!–but I’ve limited this particular update to the track that my neighbors blessed me with the other day, as well as a pair of very different, VERY funky Bobo joints off an early Seventies album recorded on Bill Withers Sussex label. The Bo-Gents record is apparently a bit of a rarity, but if you ever see it around, don’t blink, buy it. It’s the closest thing to a straight funk album that I’ve ever heard from the prolific conga-player.

The vocal track, “How Can I say Goodbye”, may take a minute to grow on you. But have faith, it will. The voice, which will perhaps initially strike you as borderline loungey, drips and oozes it saccharine sweetness all over the beat, until the whole mess becomes like a savory tub of sugar-free pudding. You know you’re not supposed to like it, but you do.

As for “Spanish Grease”, it’s classic. Richard Dorfmeister threw down a naughty little latin-house version on a past volume of Verve Remixed. Definitely worth a look.

I should bake my neighbors a cake.

Little Brother : The Way You Do It (Captain Planet Remix)
this here’s a Captain’s Crate exclusive

Little Brother : The Becoming
taken from the album “The Minstrel Show” on Atlantic (2005)

Long before I started scrutinizing the periphery of pop culture in search of forgotten gems and original source material, prior to my developing a powerful appreciation for all things funky and foreign (or even knowing that those things existed), I was a hip hop head. I was aware of other kinds of music and was generally open about the vastness of my ignorance, but hip hop music provided the fuel that burned in breakbeats and drove me to my current state of musical obsession. Within hip hop’s layers of samples I began my digging outward and backwards in time. And honestly, not being a musical prodigy by any means, it was the do-it-from-scratch formula to hip hop music that made me imagine I could have any type of future in music making at all.

Which brings me to Little Brother. The self-proclaimed younger sibling to all of those great names (Tribe, De La, JB’s, Pete Rock…just scratching the surface) that played in my walkman and served as the fodder for my formative mixtapes. I don’t want to say much for fear that I’ll dive way out into the deep end of an olympic-sized pool of cheez whiz (which I may already have done), but it’s a very rare thing these days when I am truly excited about a hip hop album and will continue listening to it in its entirety- and will continue to be blown away by it! The Minstrel Show accomplished this feat. The Listening did too. Haters say that they’re not doing anything new, but doesn’t rock solid soulful consistency stand for something in an over-flooded market-driven galaxy of wack fools? And yes, I thank god for The Roots, Outkast, Missy, Common, Kanye (slightly wincing about that last one), but 50 still outsells them, and drops a book, and makes a film that is “based on fact” just enough to actually really mess with millions of kid’s heads (I’m an ex-public school teacher, not a republican). If hip hop is alive and healthy, then why does 90% of hip hop radio sound so fake? And if you actually believe the shiz they’re saying, you’re definitely getting duped. [Have to admit here that I still listen to and enjoy the radio, I still dance to 50, and I’m generally entertained by the videos that I see on BET]. I don’t want to be a hater myself, my point is more to bring attention to the underdog [no 50, not you]. I just want to see a little more balance, that’s all.

Flick a fat middle finger in the face of the countless record execs and industry cronies [excluding the good people at Atlantic who hopefully won’t drop LB after this album] who put less faith in the listening public than I do in my four-year-old brother, and help this album go platinum. ‘Cause right now, it ain’t. As for the remix, I made this beat for another song which hasn’t been recorded yet (Chinaka, where you at?), and with minor tinkering it fit quite nicely over an accapella from The Listening. Not trying to outdo 9th or nothing, just putting a crispy clean (and nostalgic like WHAT?!) spin on it. Hope you enjoy it. And try not to get weirded out if you hear a similar beat with different vocals on it down the road…

Also, I’m heading down to Puerto Rico next weekend for the Candela Music Festival. I’m real excited to be spinning alongside cats like Quantic, Bobbito, Rich Medina, Garth Trinidad, Nickodemus… but don’t expect a post from me for a minute.

Lady Sovereign: Random and Chi Ching and 9 to 5
Taken from one bootleg download (2005) and two 12″ singles on Island (2005), respectively

I remember driving to work one morning last January. I was groggy and hungry and less than thrilled to be sacrificing another precious day of my life to the cause of a t-shirt slinging quasi-kiddie-pornographer. Just before I pulled into the company parking lot a song came on the radio: it was like a stripped down, beat-up dancehall joint. It straight thumped. It also sounded like it had been recorded in a dumpster with discarded kitchenware for instruments. Then there was the driving, urging tone; the unmistakably British voice, plowing through, stomping on, singing, rapping, squealing over the roll of the track. When the filtered, tinny chorus finally hit, I was sold: “Sunshowers…” I sat in my car and listened and when the track ended I turned the radio off and went to work. But I couldn’t get the song out of my head.

Within a few months of that day, M.I.A. blew the f up. She has since appeared on at least a dozen major magazine covers, sold out shows across the country, cut a track with Missy Elliot, and has recently signed on to open for Gwen Stefani in what will be probably be one of the biggest U.S. stadium tours this fall.

Last night after the show in Hollywood, my friend Ben, who had only discovered M.I.A a couple months back, looked visably shaken. “Where did she come from?” He just couldn’t wrap his mind around it. The show last night was that good. People filed dumbstruck out of the theatre, shaking their heads. I’ll keep it simple. If you don’t know, now you know: BUY HER ALBUM. SEE HER LIVE. It’s like watching an ’87 Chuck D on speed, in a hundred pound female frame, rapping all Brit-stylee over booty bass beats. WORD!!!

I’m not posting M.I.A. tracks. For one, you’ve probably heard ’em already (if you haven’t, The O.C. (I refuse to link The O.C. on moral grounds) is featuring her in few days–yeah, she’s that big). And if not, you better just by the whole damn lot of them. ‘Cause I’m not gonna start ripping apart the album.

What I will give you is a taste of some very interesting competition. Lady Sovereign is 19 (!#@$!!), also British, white, and perhaps the rawest female rap vocalist I’ve heard since Jean Grae. But unlike Grae, who brings her brilliant lyrics over a rather predictable framework of straightforward hip hop beats, the S.O.V. brings her fire over whateva. Dub-stepper jams, garage bombs, straight grime. And she kills ish every time. Plus, she’s got that uncanny gift for stunningly fresh hooks. Hear this: this girl is going to be big. Maybe not M.I.A big, but big nonetheless.

She busted out like what! as one of a handful of artists featured on the Run the Road compilation that dropped seven or eight months ago. She’s sharp as a tack, lyrically versatile and can drop a battle rap like I ain’t heard in a minute. Rumor has it she’s hitting the States this winter. Could be the next British Invasion… stay posted.

Timmy Thomas : Why Can’t We Live Together and Rainbow Power
taken from the album “Why Can’t We Live Together” on Glades (1972)

Darker Than Blue: Soul From Jamdown happens to be one of my all-time favorite compilations (look to the last post if you’re confused). It has all the right elements- superb soul songs, done in cover version (which always adds a point of interest for me), and all the selections (big up to Mark Ainley & Steve Barrow) had barely seen the light of day prior to re-release. Don’t hesitate if you see that album, splurge, and buy an extra copy to give to the person you choose to marry. My post is related as follows, Tinga Stewart’s extended disco version of “Why Can’t We Live Together” appears on the comp that I’ve just been exalting. I’m not giving it to you because the OG really stands in a league of it’s own. Sade did a cover version too on her “Diamond Life” album, but you don’t need me to give you that one either.

The album is simply Timmy and his organ. No frills, no backup, no production know-how. With the possible exception that he knew how to freak the organ drum machine like no one I’ve heard since. There’s also that moment in “Rainbow Power” when he takes his hands off the keys to clap, that gets me good. RAWness. The LP plays like a jawdroppingly powerful demo reel from a guy who’s about to blow up. But Timmy never really did blow up. His story leaves much to the imagination for those of us on the outside. I’m left wondering if there exists in his basement some stack of un-released recordings that Timmy made during lonely, dreamy hours that passed with as much potency as the moments which produced this bit of genius. I’m thinking there must be. A profoundly simple and piercing sound like his doesn’t slip away in the night. If Syl painfully presents the problem, Timmy proclaims the solution: “Rainbow Power”. Nuff said.

Gotta give respects to Pandamonium Jones for introducing me to Timmy via “Funky Me” 45 – I feel like you were mixing it with some crazy 60’s pop record at the time?