Out you go.. er.. no you don't

I feel like I'm disappearing under a mountain of vinyl again. My latest filing binge resulted in some of my soul boxes running out of space. The problem there is that if I introduce another box I don't know where to put it. So as a temporary measure – just putting off the inevitable - I thought I would prune the collection just a little bit to make enough space to allow me to at least complete the latest filing task.

The stack you see in the picture was all I managed to prune. But wait a minute, I should give these just one more play to make sure they can go. Hmmm, I think I will keep that one; and that one; I don't remember that one being so catchy.

God, this is hopeless, I'm a vinyl junkie – guilty as charged.

Here are just a couple of the records that I have somehow got to reintroduce into the boxes.

Al Green - Guilty 1972*

*Released in '72 by Bell cashing in Al's success in the charts during his Hi period, this was actually recorded in the Sixties before Al had become a household name.

The Mirettes – Aint My Stuff Good Enough!  1970

Well Jessie, Robbie, and Venetta (previously The Ikettes) yes it is, so back into the box you go.

One thing on my mind

So there I was in a record shop the other week agonising over the merits of a Phyllis Hyman LP. I didn’t buy it in the end because I thought there was a bit of a condition issue with one or two of the tracks. It is very much installed on my want list now though. I am a big fan of Phyllis Hyman but this particular album had not been on my radar before. As I was skipping through the tracks the one that really stood out was One Thing On My Mind. When I got home I looked it up on the Googlemachine and found that it was a cover of an Evie Sands song (and co-written by her). That led me to Evie’s 1974 album Estate Of Mind on which her original version appears. Listening to some of the tracks on that album convinced me I ought to get the album and so it was a copy in excellent condition winged its way over to me from Germany a few weeks ago (German international postage is so reasonable).

Estate Of Mind is a great album, sort of Carole King-ish in a way I think, and very good production. But you know how it is with certain tracks when you hear them you just have to play them again (and again) immediately, you’re hooked and there is nothing you can do about it. Well, that's how is it with One Thing On My Mind. I have played the whole album a couple of times, but it is difficult to get past this one track, I am well into double figures already with it. (And now I am doing the same on YouTube with Phyllis Hyman’s version too).   

   

Evie Sands – One Thing On My Mind  1974

Press repeat.

This got a release as a 45. It sunk without trace I think. How could that be?  

Otis wedding

Johnny Otis was a giant in the world of R&B throughout the Fifties and beyond. His Wiki entry fairly rips through his incredibly full life and leaves you sort of breathless.

I’ve picked up a few of his records recently. For instance this year I have found, at separate spots, two copies of a 1957 UK release on 78. What were the odds of that, I thought? Well it turns out that the release in question – Ma, He’s Making Eyes At Me - was a big hit, Otis’ first in the UK.  So maybe not so unusual. By the Seventies he wasn’t as prominent on the scene, with less touring and recorded output – of course he was in his fifties by then. However, every Seventies single I have come across with his name in the credits – all of them on small labels which I am guessing were his own – have been well worth the admission price.

As a band leader Johnny Otis often made a point of featuring and crediting collaborating artists on his records.

Ma He’s Making Eyes at Me, and it’s B side, was credited to The Johnny Otis Show, fully qualified as Johnny Otis and his Orchestra with Marie Adams and The Three Tons Of Joy. The B side – Romance in The Dark – is something of a marriage of big band, R&B and doo wop and is certainly a joy. The Three Tons Of Joy also get the credit on the B side although it is in actual fact the Moonbeams doing the backing I believe.  I have not perfected recording a 78 yet, and even if I had in this instance there would be the basic problem that I have mislaid the disc, so it’s Youtube to the rescue for this one.                     

                  

My most recent Otis purchase is a 45 on Hawk Sound, released in 1972 according to 45cat. Hawk Sound was Johnny Otis’ own studio and label. Again it is the B side that shines and it is a bluesy deep soul gem with, this time round,  Big Daddy Rucker sharing the spotlight with The Johnny Otis Show. Big Daddy Rucker – aka Ervin Groves, aka Big Boy Groves – and Johnny Otis would seem to have been kindred spirits, both were on the scene in the Fifties, both led bands then, and both had offspring who also became successful on the music scene – Shuggie Otis, and Lani Groves who spent some years as a member of Stevie’s Wonderlove.

Big Daddy Rucker featured with The Johnny Otis Show – He Made You Mine  1972

Stuff

I’m still here. Life has been full of stuff recently which has, coincidentally, included tidying up two houses and gardens in readiness for estate agents’ pictures.  

One of those houses is my late mother’s, and that has been difficult. Every ornament, piece of china, book etc is a memory; they can’t all be kept so sorting and sifting has to take place- keep, sell, charity shop, tip. A life reduced to a military disposal operation. It’s hard. In this process it has become apparent my daughter has a liking for brown furniture and has evidently been secretly coveting some of my parents’ furniture. A bureau has already been installed in her bedroom, and given half the chance more items would go into storage for the time she may be able to afford her own place!

The other house is a friend’s mum’s villa in Turkey. After nine years Wendy has decided to move back to the UK, so our holiday this year involved more tidying and sorting. For me that meant tidying up in the garden mostly – in 32C+ heat. Don’t get me wrong, it was enjoyable, and most of the time we were doing holiday things – i.e. not very much. Mrs Darce and her friend have been visiting Wendy for quite a few years now, and the husbands have been allowed the last couple of years too! The villa is in a little village called Uzumlu, it is a charming place, and we will all miss it.    

What about some music then? In the last few weeks I have still managed to find some time for a bit of charity shop trawling, car booting, and on-line buying. The vinyl has been mounting up, but with no time to listen to any of my recent purchases. There is quite a stack to get through. Tonight I have made a start, nd here is one of the first 45s to finally get some turntable time.

Tamiko Jones I knew only from a couple of late Seventies disco outings. I didn’t know she had been recording since the early Sixties and has had an interesting and “connected” life. On this 45 from 1967 she teams up with Herbie Mann and delivers some groovy goodness in a Latin vein.  Both tracks were taken from a 1967 album A Mann And A Woman and were two of three tracks on that album arranged by Joe Zawinul, who would soon after first join Miles Davis’ band and later form Weather Report and be instrumental in the birth of jazz fusion.     

Tamiko Jones with Herbie Mann – A Good Thing (Is Hard To Come By)  1967

Tamiko Jones with Herbie Mann – Day Tripper  1967

Let's Play Checkers

What separates these two Checker 45s?

As far as recording studios are concerned it’s about 565 miles for that is the driving distance from Chicago, IL to Florence, AL.  

Considering the 1000 series Checker 45 releases it’s 6, and about 4 months was all there was between them when they were released in 1968.

Recently when they dropped through my letterbox nothing at all separated them because they were nestling snugly together in the same package.

You will all know by now I love the Chicago sound, and I also love the sounds that were coming out of Rick Hall’s Fame studio in the late Sixties. So how could I choose between them? I can’t, so you get both. Furthermore, I find it difficult to choose between the two sides of each of these records so, again, you get both.

Gene Chandler – River Of Tears  1968

Gene Chandler – It’s Time To Settle Down  1968

Bobby Moore & The Rhythem* Aces – I Wanna Be Your Man  1968 

Bobby Moore & The Rhythem* Aces  - I Won’t Cry  1968 *sic  

One Way ticket for the feet

I found myself putting together a disco mix CD for a swap over at VG+ recently. I thought it would be made up almost entirely with 12“ singles when I started but in the end a few 7” and album tracks ended up in the mix too. It was a good exercise because it led me to rediscover a few records I had probably not played for over 30 years, since my DJing days. A case in point was the album One Way featuring Al Hudson (incidentally they released two albums by that name, this is the second of them) . A track from this album was nowhere near my initial tentative stabs at a running order for the mix CD. But the process caused me to pull this album out of the collection and put in on the deck, I thought for a quick needle skip through the tracks out of curiosity. I ended up playing it all the way through, both sides. Many – most? – Disco and Soul/Funk albums from the 70s and 80s don’t really make it as an album, often one trackers , often with an awkward mix of dancefloor business and slow – dare I say dull and syrupy – numbers. This One Way album holds up well though. The funky tracks are all strong and irresistible to the feet and the slower numbers have plenty of merit too, there is some invention and texture – more than “soul by numbers”.  Al Hudson has a good voice too. Thinking about it I was evidently a fan of Al. The band were originally known as Al Hudson & The Soul Partners and I have a few of their 12“ singles – among them You Can Do It which was at the poppier end of their output and was a big hit in the UK, and Spread Love which was a killer and still finds favour. Alicia Myers was also in the group at the time of this album. This is where Detroit was in the late 70s and early 80s.   

I decided to make my Disco mix CD move through my years on the scene and I was looking for something to represent the more understated and sophisticated sounds that could grace the dancefloors as the full force of Disco waned and the 70s became the 80s. And that is how Let’s Go Out Tonite ended up on my mix CD.      

One Way featuring Al Hudson – Let’s GoOut Tonite  1980

Let's Go Ou Tonite? Hmph, I'm writing this all alone at chez Darcy: Mrs Darce has gone to the theatre, my daughter and boyfriend(!) are out at a friend's, and my son and some friends have "trucked" over to Lille for a long weekend! It's just me and the cat and the rabbits.   

(Chris: you have heard this already I know so here is another track from the album J)

One Way featuring Al Hudson – Pop It  1980

PS: I’m now catching up on YouTube with some of One Way’s output that I missed first time around. Good stuff.

That number again, and some lanes

It’s time to kick start this blog again. You will understand it has been rather difficult for me (and my family) over the last weeks. I would like to thank all of you who sent your condolences and kind thoughts.

Mum’s funeral took place last week and the day went well, as well as such occasions can. We had a celebrant conduct the service. He was very good. He had not been acquainted with mum but from just a one hour conversation with us, and one draft to which I suggested some minor tweaks, he built up a picture and his resulting words were accurate, appropriate, and delivered with sincerity. In the service he recounted my mum’s relationship with the number 13 – she was born on the 13^th September and spent her early years living at a house numbered 13 (unusual in those days, as it was often left out of street numbering? – it is in our road for example). As my mum’s condition deteriorated last month I was fully expecting her final hours to be on the 13th, that wasn’t to be though, at least not quite, mum passed away 13 hours into the 14th. At the funeral service there were, yes you guessed it, 13 people. Fate certainly did take a hand there I think, there were two other people – recent acquaintances of mum – who we were expecting to attend. We had not met them before but my mum’s next door neighbour told us she saw them at the crematorium in the car park on the morning of mum’s service. Our only conclusion was that they attended the wrong funeral! How do you do that?

We chose Penny Lane as the exit music at the service. Mum always liked the Beatles, she felt a certain affinity to them I think, growing up, as she did, on the Wirral not too far from Liverpool. She bought many of their early singles and they got lots of plays by mum – and a young me too – on the Elizabethan Pop 10 (a sort of Dansette style record player) in the house. I am now left with that house; a house that was my parents’ home for more than fifty years, and my childhood home too. Now it is very much a house on memory lane. 

Anyway, returning to the subject matter of this blog – i.e. music. The songs featured here don’t in any way stir strong memories of mum or my childhood, however, thoughts of the number 13 and trips down lanes brought to mind Blue Magic’s mid 70s album Thirteen Blue Magic Lane. I don’t have this album but I do have a few Blue Magic singles, and the B-sides of two of them were featured on that album.        

Blue Magic - What's Come Over Me  1975

Blue Magic – Stop And Get A Hold Of Yourself  1975