I first heard Candi Staton on the radio in 1972 and it was love at first listen. 37 years later (count them!) I have finally seen her live, and in my home town! You will have to excuse me, I am still a little overcome.
There is a special day just a few short weeks away which has become something of a ritual here at Feel It so I will save further Candi-ness until then. If you must have some Candi now – and you can never have too much - then you can read previous Feel It posts dated March 13th or, even better, buy her brand new CD “Who’s Hurting Now”. (I notice that it has got a UK/Europe release in advance of a US release).
Also on the bill at Candi’s Bristol gig last night were two new names I am sure we will all be hearing a lot more of in the not to distant future – London’s Bridgette Amofah, and Bristol’s very own Phantom Limb (I must say I’m not sure about the name, when I saw the billing my immediate thought was why has Candi Staton got a prog rock band as support? But as you can hear below they are in fact definitely not prog rock).
A coincidence last Saturday. In the car traveling down to an Open Day at Southampton University (our son is intending to go to Uni later this year) Twitter was being discussed on the radio, which led us to – er – twitter about this latest form of Internet socializing. Back home later that evening I was idly checking Feel It’s Sitemeter stats (like you do) and found a massive spike in the hit rate. On further investigation I found it had been caused by some guy(Robert Ashley) in California mentioning my Delfonics post on his Twitter page. I have never seen a hit on Feel It from Twitter before, but it would appear to demonstrate the power of the Twittering Classes.
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Souled On is in the middle of the Love Lockdown series. At least one post a day, often more, from selected contributors offering a few songs and words on a Valentine theme. I will keep saying it – Souled On is one of my favourite sites. Scholar’s own posts are always a joy and, although the Love Lockdown series are guest posts, the amount of work that must be required to collate and publish them, and to keep finding on point quotes in “A word from your Moms”, - and that’s every day - shouldn’t be underestimated. Scholar is a star, and he was kind enough to ask for a contribution from Feel It.
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Right>> you will find I have recently added a link to Soul Portrait. This appears to be an excellent blog, I can’t actually vouch for the written content because unfortunately for me it’s in Spanish (which is just one of every other language in existence apart from English that I cannot speak!), however there are excellent pictures and music links too. It is also somewhat unusual because it is hosted on Flickr. I have never seen a blog on Flickr before, but a music blog is what it essentially is. The custodian Alex has also recently asked me for a Feel It style contribution in the form of a ten track list for his monthly charts feature. I’m generally not good on the 10 this, or 10 that, type questions usually finding it impossible to pin myself down to a definitive list of 10 whatevers. In this case I made it easy for myself by choosing the 10 singles that have being getting the most plays on my turntable recently, generally because they have been my most recent purchases. You can find the list here, together with a link to a couple of downloads.
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Over at The Songs That People Sing recently Simon posted a track by the Vee Gees and wondered if anybody knew anything more about them. DavyH ("The Ghost") suggested that I might be able to help. I was flattered. My knowledge of, and obsession with, soul music grows by the day but essentially I am hanging on the coat-tails of others far more knowledgeable in the genre than me (think Sir Shambling, Red Kelly, Mr. Finewine, Colin Dilnott - and they are just a few). I had never heard of the Vee Gees but after a bit of Googling I found a forum discussion that hinted they may have hailed from North Carolina. That led me to Jason Perlmutter’s (there you are, somebody else with a fine set of coat-tails) excellent Carolina Soul site where the Vee Gees singles are indeed listed. A quick email enquiry ensued and Jason kindly replied to give a bit of a back story and the fact that the Vee Gees were almost definitely a 70s incarnation of the Versatile Gents who were active in the late 60s. Back to Google with the Versatile Gents as a search term and would you believe it I found a c1967 picture of the Greensboro, NC Versatile Gents. Haven’t turned anything up on the Vee Gees / Versatile Gents post 1974 though, anybody have any ideas?
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I tell you, I’m everywhere on the Internet right now (ha ha!).
What should I post, “Here, There, and Everywhere”? Don’t know of a soul take on this song. Instead here’s another one from my “chart” on Soul Portrait.
The label of The Delfonics first release brings to mind (obviously!) Man’s endeavours to reach the moon, and this sparked a thought with me recently that their peak activity must have roughly coincided with the Apollo missions. I finally got around to researching this some more yesterday and found that on this day (6th February) 38 years ago Shepard, Mitchell and Mauro were cavorting around the Moon having made Man’s third moon landing in Antares as part of the Apollo 14 mission.
Comparing The Delfonics chart activity with some of the Apollo mission statistics there are indeed a number of similarities, if no exact coincidences. Also, the Apollo missions were usually manned by three astronauts, and of course The Delfonics were a trio.
In the same year – 1966 – as the Apollo space program began The Delfonics launched their first single on the tiny, Calla distributed, Moon Shot label. “He Don’t Really Love You” wasn’t a hit first time around, but following their first hits on Philly Groove – “La-La Means I Love You” and “I’m Sorry” - the retro rockets were fired and it got a reissue, just managing to establish orbit in the US Top 100 in May of ’68. In the December that followed The Delfonics were ascending the US charts with another one of their classic singles “Ready Or Not Here I Come”. At the same time, around the world, people were captivated by images of Borman, Lovell, and Anders orbiting the Moon as part of the Apollo 8 mission. I was 10 years old and glued to the TV when those images were shown and I remember it making a big impression on me. At that time, though, I was completely unaware of The Delfonics despite them also hitting the UK charts with “Ready Or Not”.
Moving forward to 1969 and the historic first moon landing during the Apollo 11 mission was sandwiched between The Delfonics 7th (“Funny Feeling”) and 8th (“You Got Yours And I’ll Get Mine”) US hits. Whilst we were all watching news footage of that third moon landing that I mentioned earlier the powers that be at Philly Groove were probably making the decision on the next Delfonics single. “Hey! Love” was the choice and it would enter the US charts in June of 1971 and peak at #52. I love “Hey! Love”, it has a wonderful dream like air, and you could imagine the lyrics could easily echo the feelings of any of the astronauts as, in their lazy orbit, they gazed out of their space module at the Moon.
There were, not including the catastrophic failed launch of the fourth Apollo mission (now strangely known as Apollo 1), 17 Apollo missions stretching between 1966 and 1972. The Delfonics recording career also started in 1966 and in 1973 “I Don’t Want To Make You Wait” would rack up their 16th US chart entry. It is fair to say The Apollo missions and The Delfonics shared a place in time.
I don’t recall really being aware of The Delfonics at all until some years after their chart activity, and the Apollo missions, had ended. It is possible I had originally dismissed them - at the time I hadn’t developed my sweet soul tooth and just a small exposure to The Stylistics was more than enough for me. In fact it was the soundtrack to Tarantino’s classic film “Jackie Brown” that finally slapped me around the ears and made me sit up and take notice of The Delfonics. Since then I have become a firm fan.
Not so long ago I was lucky enough to pick up a small lot of Delfonics singles for next to nothing that included their Moon Shot release, their second release “You’ve Been Untrue” (the only one on Cameo Parkway as far as I know, and not a hit), and a Bell test press of “I’m Sorry”. For me this little collection, in its way, is every bit as good as a piece of Moon rock.
For a fascinating story on how The Delfonics got themselves on wax in the first place with this Moon Shot single have a read of "A House On Fire" (page 52-53) (I must get a copy of this book).I'm guessing Stan Watson's credit on "He Don't Really Love You" was in lieu of a finders fee.
Get some Delfonics in your life with this. A great CD with superb sound quality.
Last week on University Challenge on a music question all the team had to do was identify the singer on a music clip. The clip was from “My Sweet Lord” by George Harrison. None of them knew.
On Sunday I caught a bit of Dave Pearce’s show on BBC 6 Music – “30 years of dance anthems”. That therefore excludes the first three years of the 12” single and means this classic from Ashford & Simpson wouldn’t qualify for inclusion on Dave’s program.
Oh dear, it’s enough to make you feel old (what do you mean – I am?).
So here was a recording made by an American artist - Michael Franks - sometime in the 70s, pressed and sold in South Africa it would appear, now finding itself lying in a dog-eared box in a second hand shop in the UK – after sleeping for how long in somebody’s record collection?
And here was an itinerant vinyl junkie (me) on his first forage of the year, doing what he likes best – picking through boxes of cast off records. An album catches his attention, he looks at the tracklisting, and the title of side 1 track 1 immediately stirs a long dormant memory.
Whatever twists and turns of fate brought us together the album’s title “Sleeping Gypsy” seemed somehow perfectly apt in the circumstances. The hunter and the game, different but the same, and happy in our new found company.
Getting “Sleeping Gypsy” home and on the turntable the sound of the first few bars of “The Lady Wants To Know” piqued the memory some more, although not enough to pinpoint when or where I had first heard it. As it played through it was probably the first time I had heard it in, I’m guessing, 30 years. But it was really odd, I seemed to recognise every nook and cranny, anticipate every nuance of the melody. I felt a rekindled intimacy as if it was a song that held fond memories, or one that had been on constant repeat in the soundtrack of my life (perhaps as a track on an old, cherished and much played mixtape). But to the best of my knowledge that was never the case. I feel like my memory is holding something back.
I have another Michael Franks album, “The Art Of Tea”, bought many years ago in a cut-out bin. It’s pleasant enough but I sometimes wonder why I was attracted to it. I had thought maybe because I liked the title. But now I think I have discovered a better reason. I was attracted to it because I had heard “The Lady Wants To Know”.
As well as “Sleeping Gypsy” in that dog-eared box I found a couple more albums worth bringing home. One of them was Rufus’ first album and the other “New Improved Funk” by George Freeman, which looked like it had possibilities, besides which it was on the Groove Merchant label which I liked the look of (FleaMarketFunk featured the single last year, which I think I must have missed at the time. You can read more about George and his brother Von there). There were also other Rufus albums and a couple of other things I already had which left me with the impression that whoever had owned these records had been on the same wavelength as me musically. And the dog-eared box was also not tightly packed, leading me to wonder what other gems it might have held that I missed out on. (Ha ha! There speaks someone hopelessly hooked on the pursuit of vinyl).
All in all an excellent start to my crate digging year.
Motown anniversary programs are all over the airwaves at the moment. And why not? The music the label produced, particularly in the 60s and 70s, proved a soundtrack to many of our lives. And what a soundtrack!
Martin Freeman, actor and Motown fan, paid his own homage to Motown on BBC2 last week (you can catch it here on BBC iPlayer – albeit only the 30 minute version). Martin is not a natural presenter, and if he is a true afficionado he was keeping his anorak credentials well hidden. So the program came across mostly as a gentle amble through some of Motown’s better known places and faces – an ordinary fan’s view you could say. In fact he seemed generally to be a bit in awe of his surroundings, like someone who couldn’t believe their luck in being asked by the BBC to go to Detroit (and LA) to meet some of his heroes and heroines.
I love Motown music but now for me it is like travelling on the motorway, and I prefer the B roads, the scenic byways, whether driving or hunting out music to listen to.
Right at the beginning of Martin Freeman’s Motown trip he visits Detroit’s legendary People’s Records. Although he may not have realised it, when Mr Freeman walked into that shop he briefly turned off the Motown motorway, and I immediately got very interested (whilst salivating over all that vinyl!). Whilst in the shop, owner Brad Hales introduces him to a guy that bears a resemblance to George Clinton. He is introduced as Hermon Weems. ‘I know that name’, I thought, ‘he wrote that Dee Edwards song I have been obsessing over’. (If you are a regular around here then you will know I was smitten by this record a few months ago). Hermon proceeded to fill Mr Freeman in on his pedigree and then Brad Hales put a copy of a record on the decks as an example of something Hermon wrote. ‘Who is this?’ asks Martin – ‘Dee Edwards’ was the reply – ‘right, OK’, is all Martin can say in response, sounding distinctly as if he had never heard of her (I admit neither had I until a few years ago). That record was the self same one I was, and still am, obsessing over: “Why Can’t There Be Love”. (At the time I was watching this program I was actually bidding for a copy on eBay! I said back in August that I would quite easily pay more than I had ever done before for a single record to secure a copy and I was going for it, and winning with 10 minutes to go too. But the last 10 minutes is a lifetime in the land of ebay bidding, and alas it ended up at over a $100 which was too much for me – six months ago when the pound was still a proper currency things might have been different).
Maybe it was Hermon’s appearance, maybe it was editing, but I thought Martin Freeman seemed a bit underwhelmed by Hermon Weems. Following the program I did a bit of research on him and amongst other things found this. Hermon Weems maybe a scenic byway on Motown’s map but to my mind he is deserving of a documentary all to himself. Co-writer of numerous hits for the likes of The Detroit Emeralds, Fantastic Four and Al Kent; drummer on many of the Ric-Tic recordings; the man who introduced George Clinton to LSD (and the mad beardy look?); album covers artist (Temptations’ "Psychedelic Shack"), and logo designer (Funkadelic, and bang up to date - Mayer Hawthorne & The County). See what I mean. If the BBC don’t make a documentary about him the producer of Martin Freeman Motown program deserves the sack!
Without checking the writing credits of all my records I can only think of one I have with Weems in lights. He’s quite possibly playing drums (tom toms) on this too. Unmistakably Detroit.
There is actually only one place to go from here - another Detroit byway - go on, press repeat and get drenched in the sound of Detroit circa 1970, it’s pouring out of every groove of Dee Edwards “Why Can’t There Be Love”.
I’m emerging from two weeks of general inactivity with the realisation that it’s back to work tomorrow. I always feel the Christmas/New Year break seems to be a bit of a twilight zone, and this one has certainly been no exception. I have done virtually nothing of note for two weeks, and certainly nothing on the blog front. I have eaten too many chocolate biscuits. And as a family we have sat down together (which has got to be a good thing) and watched more TV and DVDs than we have for a while. That’s about it really.
With our children both out all night at friends’ houses, and no parties in the calendar, for the first time in years the better half and I we spent New Year’s Eve in front of the telly. A straw poll of some of our friends indicated that this seemed to be de rigueur this year.
With the days of Al Stewart thankfully long gone New Year’s Eve telly in the UK now means Jools Holland’s Hootenanny. This year’s line up could be said to have had a distinct soul flavour. For instance Duffy and Adele were both on the bill. In 2008 they were both lauded (or is that hyped) as great new talents with a strong soul influence. I have to say I’m not impressed. Adele’s rendition of Chasing Pavements left me thinking that she must have been taking singing lessons from Vic Reeves Shooting Stars club singer persona (Uvavu!). Meanwhile Duffy seemed to get squeakier with each song she sang and by her final number I think she was actually in danger of disappearing up her own squeaker!
As for top billed Martha Reeves (with the Vandellas, who are excused from my following comments) “squeak” does not adequately describe the sound she was making that was passing for singing. Judging by the comings and goings of our cats I think they were probably following more of it than I was. I know Martha's knocking on a bit now and maybe she should consider hanging up the microphone.
It wasn’t all bad, I have developed a soft spot for the Ting Tings, and on the soul front proceedings were rescued by Ruby Turner. Jools has surrounded himself with an impressive big band and Ruby has joined the ranks as a lead singer. Now Ruby can sing - as Jools Holland has said: Ruby can sing soul, gospel, blues, boogie woogie.
I’ve always thought that Ruby has existed under the radar and has been under appreciated as a singer. Like many British (actually she was born in Jamaica but moved with her parents to Handsworth, Birmingham when she was 9) grown soul singers it seemed she missed out on the success, stardom if you will, that she deserved. Or so I thought, but that is not really true. Now I’ve read up on her I realise that she had a string of charting UK singles hits during the 80s and a US R&B number 1 no less in 1990 (“It’s Gonna Be Alright”). Her chart exposure coincided with a period in my life where I wasn’t following the music scene too closely so Ruby’s success didn’t exactly slip under my radar, rather my musical radar was completely switched off. Still, chart success and stardom alone shouldn’t be used as a measure of talent. You only have to listen to her sing to realise she’s got it, and she’s proving to be a soul survivor of our times.
I remember seeing her a few years ago in a soul revue of sorts called (I think) “Blues Brother, Soul Sister” that was produced in my home city, Bristol. I also hadn’t realised she had released so many albums (16 in all if you count her latest collaboration with Jools Holland), and one of those, released in 2001, was called “Live In Bristol”. Well I never!
Thank you Ruby for lighting up our New Year’s Eve. We raised a glass to you.
I admit to having only one of Ruby Turner’s records (but “The Informer” will soon be joining it). Her fifth album was “The Other Side”, released in 1991. I picked it up a few years ago in Atlanta of all places. Many of the tracks have a Soul II Soul feel to the production. The thrust of the album (contemporary – at the time - R&B) maybe doesn’t allow Ruby to demonstrate the true power and range of her voice but I will leave you with a track anyway.
Mostly vinyl, mostly a private pleasure - until now.
Music posted here I have bought and gained much pleasure from listening to down the years (or months, or days!). So in the spirit of an 'all back to mine' it's time to share it.
DISCLAIMER: If you hear something you like I urge you to seek it out and purchase it in your format of choice. Mp3s found here are posted for a limited time and are for illustrative and previewing purposes only. If you are the creator or copyright holder of any material posted and object to it's appearance on this blog then please email me at darcyfeelit (at) gmail.com and it will be removed forthwith.
