The Bee Gees: Holiday
Taken from the LP Bee Gee’s 1st on Atco (1968)

Count Five: She’s Fine
Taken from the LP Psychotic Reaction on Double Shot (1968)

The Zombies: Leave Me Be
Taken from the 7″ on Decca (1964)

Arthur Brown: I Put A Spell On You
Taken from the LP Crazy World Of Arthur Brown on Atlantic (1968)

BONUS!

The Id: Short Circuit and Butterfly Kiss
Taken from the LP The Inner Sound Of The Id on World In Sound (1967)

I was shocked when I realized recently–somewhere in between my not writing entries for this blog and wishing that I was writing entries for this blog–that for several weeks now, I have possessed exactly zero desire to listen to music. Sure, I would muster the goods for my weekly DJ throwdown, and occasionally I’d put something on, albeit noncommitally, while I made my breakfast or cleaned my house… but the sad, simple truth is that I just wasn’t feeling it.

Continue reading…

Soul II Soul: Back To Life (acapella mix)
From 12″ (Virgin, 1989)

Bonnie and Shelia: You Keep Me Hanging On
From 7″ (King, 1971). Also on New Orleans Funk Vol. 2.

Patti Drew: Stop and Listen
From Tell Him (Capitol, 1967). Also on Workin’ On a Groovy Thing.

Bobby Matos: Nadie Baila Como Yo
From My Latin Soul (Phillips, 1968)

Smokey Robinson and the Miracles: If You Can Want
From Special Occasion (Motown, 1968)

Menahan Street Band: Home Again
From Make the Road By Walking (Dunham/Daptone, forthcoming 10/14/08)

Final Solution: I Don’t Care
From Brotherman soundtrack (Numero Group, 2008)

Freeway: Let the Beat Build freestyle
From ? (?, 2008)

Q-Tip: Gettin’ Up
From The Renaissance (Motown, forthcoming 2008)

Black Ivory:       You and I
From Don’t Turn Around (Today, 1972)

It’s the end of another summer, alas.

Looking back over the summer songs season, I wanted to do the last post on the songs that ended up forming my personal soundtrack the last few months. To be honest, I thought this list would be a lot longer than it ended up being but I wanted to keep it to songs that I kept returning to over and over rather than something I found merely “good.”

Soul II Soul’s acapella mix of “Back to Life” came at me three different ways: Murphy’s Law dropped it at Boogaloo[la] and reminded me how cotdamn fresh it was, Greg Tate’s Summer Songs post made me revisit the Soul II Soul catalog and I finally saw Belly which makes incredible use of the song to open the movie. Personally, I grew impatient to actually get to where the beat drops so I edited my version down to about a 30 second teaser before the “Impeach the President” drums kick in. As ML showed me, it’s always a fun cut to play out.

The Bonnie and Sheila, I have to admit, I learned about first through a quirky youtube video[1] and I wondered how the hell I didn’t know about this earlier. Great little slice of New Orleans funk produced by the great Wardell Quezergue and released on King (the Cincinnati label most associated with James Brown). Words are insufficient to explain to you how much I love this song.

The Patti Drew I owe to Chairman Mao. When I interviewed him for Asia Pacific Arts, he mentioned “Stop and Listen” as an example of a great soul tune that doesn’t cost and arm and a leg yet sounds like a million bucks (not his exact words but you catch the meaning). I couldn’t agree more. Don’t sleep on the equally excellent ballad, “Tell Him” on the same album.

I had totally forgotten about the Bobby Matos and Combo Conquistadores song, “Nadie Baila Como Yo” (nobody dances like me) off the incredible My Latin Soul album until I heard the Boogaloo Assassins play it at their shows. This may very well elevate itself to my top 10 Latin soul songs given how it changes up chord progressions and tepos not once but twice – it’s like getting three songs in one; one of the marks of a superior son montuno. I can’t believe I slept on this track all these years.

I found the Smokey Robinson and Miracles song during my search through Motown’s catalog to find tracks to play out that wasn’t part of their Big Chill/Greatest Hits collection and I never failed to be amazed at the generosity of greatness that Motown provided over the years. For those who think Smokey is all droopy ballads, “If You Can Want” is a loud, proud wake-up call of funky power. How has no one ever done a 12″ edit of this?

I already wrote about the Menahan Street Band and Brotherman songs already but they’re so nice, I had to list ’em twice.

Freeway’s freestyle over “Let the Beat Build” goes well with my official, beginning of the summer post where I nodded at Lil Wayne’s original. Free, who had one of the best albums of last year that few seemed to notice, murders over Kanye’s beat here. After, uh, a million subpar “A Milli” freestyles, I was happy to hear someone pick a different track to rip.

The last song is one I should have started the summer with. Late pass. Q-Tip’s had a rough, um, decade so far in terms of being able to get this music to the masses but I’m hoping “Gettin’ Up” does it right for him in preparation for his Renaissance album. This is, by far, the best thing I’ve hea
rd from ‘Tip since this and without getting all misty-eyed for my halcyon teens and 20s, listening to Tribe, this song just f—ing sounds good in the way the best Tribe songs just sounded f—ing good. (No doubt, it helps that the sample source is also f—ng good: “You and I” by Black Ivory. Read more here.).

By the way, if I had to pick my absolute favorite song of the summer…surprisingly, it’d end up being Solange Knowles’ “I Decided.” Don’t ask me why but this has stuck with me the entire time through without ever ceasing to be pleasurable.

And with that…I bid all you adieu until next May but hope you keep the memory of summer in your mind alive until then.[2]

[1] Don’t laugh – he dances better than you.

[2] Unless you live in the Southern Hemisphere.

O’Donel Levy : I Believe In Miracles
taken from the album Windows on Groove Merchant (1976)

King Harvest : Take It Easy
taken from the album Dancing In The Moonlight on Perception (1973)

Som Tres : Take It Easy My Brother Charles
taken from their self-titled album on Odeon (1969)

Nilsson : Coconut
taken from the album Nilsson Schmilsson on RCA (1971)

Van Morrison : It’s All Right
taken from the album Bang Masters on Epic (1991)
originally recorded for the Bang label in 1967

Today I pulled together a seemingly random bag of tunes that share a certain slinky slowness- the noggin bopping tempo- which fits perfectly to an early Autumn blue sky day with nothing to do but laundry.

I have a few other LPs by O’Donel and I can always count on him for some solid jazz-funk fusion goodness, but when this slow bounce scat-fest came on I too was reminded about the realness of miracles. Keep in mind- O’Donel is on guitar while vocalist Aleta Green is vocalizing the EXACT same line! There’s plenty of other good funky moments on the record, but this track is what I’m needing today.

King Harvest is a group I knew nothing about until now. I picked up the record because I usually like the soul music I find on the Perception label. Definitely not The Fatback Band, this funky-country-soul song still won me over instantly.

This Som Tres record was an easy pick to follow up with, and I’m surprised we haven’t posted it here in the Crate before. Such a classic! And when your name happens to be Charlie, the song feels that much more like it was written specifically for you. I’ve heard a handful of other Brazilian versions of this song- written by Jorge Ben I believe- but this Som Tres take on it has got to be the most true embodiment of the song’s message. Check the rest of the record at Loronix.

Do we ever need an excuse to drop a lil Nilsson into our set? Whether or not this song has been played 2 bazillion times does not seem to affect my love for it. And with the new track by Tyga getting spins in the club and on MTV, I wanted to return to the version that made me realize Bobby McFerrin wasn’t the first vocalist to get crazy nice with the vocal instrumentation and tropical-coco-butter harmonizing. I can also relate to the way the man feels on the cover of this one- sometimes putting on an entire outfit is just too much work, that’s why we have bathrobes.

Last but certainly not least, a song of pure, unbridled catharsis from an album that I can’t seem to take off repeat. There’s a whole story behind the recordings found on this CD (which were never collectively released at once until 1991!), but there’s also the tale of a much younger me, listening to this record by default every other weekend when I stayed at my Dad’s house and came up with another thousand ways to use a stick as a toy. Is Van the most soulful white man ever? Until I’m shown a better example (Bobby Caldwell comes close) he will hold the title.

Lou Perez and His NY Sound: Caribbean Woman
From S/T (Parnaso, 1972)

Lou Perez y su Orquesta Barrio: Antillana
From Barrio (Parnaso, 1972)

I always find it interesting when artists cover their own songs. It’s hardly an unusual practice but you sometimes wonder how much of it is dissatisfaction with the original version and how much of it is trying to capitalize on an already successful song by flipping a variation on it.

The Lou Perez, to me, is especially notable since, from far as I can tell, these two songs are probably, at most, a year or so apart. “Caribbean Woman” has been a favorite at Boogaloo[la] – dancers seem to dig its combo of Latin rock/funk rhythms with that whiff of island flavor. It’s always reminded me something that Santana’s cousin might have whipped together – not deep but sweetly satisfying.

When I picked up Perez’s Barrio LP, I was surprised to hear him, in essence, remake the song in a charanga style. That means here a faster tempo, a strong acoustic piano montuno and most charanga-ish, the string accompaniment. That plus he flips the lyrics into español.

I’ve never had a chance to play out both songs to a Latin-friendly crowd but I’d be mightily curious to see which of the two goes over better.

Unfortunately, Perez passed away just a few years ago at the age of 78. He wasn’t a household name to casual Latin fans even though his career was rich and long-lasting, having risen with the charanga fad of early 1960s not to mention a prolific songwriter to boot.

DeBarge: Love Me In a Special Way
From In a Special Way (Gordy, 1983)

AZ: Love Me In a Special Way
From S.O.S.A. (N/A, 2000)

Face it, early ’80s R&B was far better then you think you remember it.

AZ knew what’s up. (So does MAN).

Menahan Street Band: Home Again!

From Make the Road By Walking (Dunham/Daptone, forthcoming 10/14/08)

This has to be one of my favorite songs I’ve heard all summer, a beautiful mid-tempo ballad off the new Menahan Street Band. The MSB is the brain child of Tom “TNT” Brenneck, the guitarist for the Dap-Kings and a rising songwriter/producer from within the Daptone’s deep camp. I wrote about MSB last fall after their single, “Make the Road By Walking” was sampled for Jay-Z’s “Roc Boys” and I’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of their full-length album.

The MSB sound is less like what the Dap-Kings themselves turn out and more on what I’d call “soul meets cool jazz” tip, not unlike what Leon Michels has done with the El Michels Affair over at Truth and Soul (and not surprisingly, many T&S players are featured in the MSB. I’ll have more to say about the album as a whole once it drops but did want to at least tease people with “Home Again!”, which I’m finding sublime, especially with that opening guitar melody and the horn arrangements. Enjoy this and make sure to pick up the album when it drops October 14th.

(Also, Daptone is about to put out another single from the album, feat. the vocals of Charles Bradley).