Friday, September 25, 2009

Thanks again September



The sun has been shining, and my favourite month – September – has been weaving its magic again.

Prompted by some late summer sunshine a few days into September Davy H featured The McCrarys “Love On A Summer Night”. Here we are a few days from the end of September and the sun is still shining.

In my mind The McCrarys track and “Warm Weather” by Pieces Of A Dream are always together, like Siamese twins. I guess I must have put them side by side on a mixtape sometime back in the day.

Sigh.

Enjoy summer’s last dance.

Pieces Of A Dream – Warm Weather 1981

Thursday, September 17, 2009

you see doctor it's like this...


... I keep going to these car boot sales and – er – I keep buying these vinyl records only this time I bought these three singles and I knew I already had one of them and I knew I already had another one on an album and I thought I didn’t have the other one but when I got home I found that I did already have it.

Doctor: “So, what made you buy these records?”

Ah well they are great tracks and I couldn’t stand the thought of them being thrown away they needed a home and then with the one I didn’t think I had it had lots of scratches on it but they looked sort of superficial and I thought wouldn’t it be good if I got it home and it played ok and it did and I found that of the ones I already had they were on US labels and these ones I had just bought were on UK labels so that made me feel better about it

Doctor “Hmmm. Anything else?”

Well there was the Delfonics album which had a number of tracks on it that I already have on a CD but this album was a UK Bell release and I thought it must be fairly rare and it was only 20p and then there was this 1970 Roy Harper album I got all excited about I gave it a good look over and thought it looked like a first issue and I thought I could sell this for a profit but when I got it home I spotted the big bar code in the top right corner on the back of the sleeve that I hadn’t noticed before! doh! but I played it and it was really good and I wouldn’t want to sell it anyway.

Doctor: “Well, you rationalised all that really well, you’re obviously completely obsessed! How much did this lot cost you anyway?”

Altogether £1.65p

Doctor: “Oh stop wasting my time!”

Oh so it’s ok then? and I didn’t buy any albums just for the girls on the cover this time even though I saw a couple of Top Of The Pops albums I hadn’t seen before so that’s good too.

Doctor: “Oh, which ones have you got? Can I come round and see them sometime?”

This weeks monkeys:
Betty Wright – Where Is the Love (UK RCA 45)
Le Pamplemousse – Get Your Boom Boom Around The Room Room (UK Barclay 45)
Roxy Music – Street Life (UK Island 45)
The Delfonics – Alive & Kicking (UK Bell LP)
Roy Harper – Flat Baroque And Berserk (UK Harvest LP)

Acquiring this Betty Wright 45 again turned out to be a real blessing because it meant this time around I played the B side and found it to be a hidden gem that is not on any of Betty’s albums as far as I can tell, Betty is in fine voice as always and just listen to that bass crawling all over this track! The A side has always been a favourite, so a great double header that anybody could pick up for next to nothing.

Betty Wright – Where Is The Love 1974

Betty Wright – My Baby Aint My Baby Anymore 1975


Betty Wright on Amazon

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Magic in the air

I’m “bumping” this (as on-line forum-speak has it).

I have Ben The Balladeer to thank for bringing it to my attention.



Wow!

I can only wish I had been there. There is something deeply moving about watching this footage. It is as if, for the massed crowd, and for the surrounding hills, and for all the life that those hills contain, time is standing still and everybody and everything are held, awestruck, aware only that they are witnessing something very, very special.

For those in the crowd Candi’s performance probably simultaneously made their day and ruined their weekend. Ruined their weekend because everything that they may have seen before would have been eclipsed and anything that followed must have felt anticlimatic.

From the SOUL!

Friday, September 04, 2009

BLO by BLO


The female soul singer is a wonderful thing in my book. For example my love of Candi Staton is well documented hereabouts. I was very late to the Barbara Lynn party but she is now becoming a new obsession. Barbara and Candi were born little more than a year apart in the early Forties and are both still very actively touring and wowing new fans. I have written about Ms Ozen before (over three years ago now), and a number of things have prompted this latest post.

First there was Audrey’s charming cover of Barbara’s 1962 hit “You’ll Lose A Good Thing” that I posted last time.

Then there is the fact that recently I have finally secured a copy of one of her late Sixties Atlantic singles – the fantastic double header “This Is The Thanks I Get/Ring Telephone Ring” - for a VERY reasonable price (OK, so it does have a slight pressing flaw at the beginning).

Finally there is the fact that Barbara Lynn has just appeared at the Brooklyn Soul Festival. It’s funny, when I wrote about her back in 2006, I noted that she was billed as a Blues artist. Barbara can play a mean guitar and much of her recent output has a Blues bias, but equally I suggested that it was indicative of the fact that Soul as a genre had all but disappeared. Now here we are in 2009 and Barbara has just appeared at a “Soul Festival”, and it seems with new artists on the scene such as Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed and Mayer Hawthorne Soul is very much back on the musical map. I’ll drink to that.

From a 2000 CD on Antone’s “Hot Night Tonight” here is Barbara’s gender switch take on a Syl Johnson number:

Barbara Lynn – I Let A Good Man Go 2000

(buy “Hot Night Tonight”)

Here is that single I bought recently:


Barbara Lynn – This Is The Thanks I Get 1967

And here is Barbara from a few years ago performing the wonderful “You’re Losing Me” – the song that started my love affair with Barbara Lynn.



(Is the room in the video the same one that appears on the front cover of her “Hot Night Tonight” CD?)