File under whimsy?

What’s that hiding in that mutilated sleeve? 

As promised here is another 45 I was very happy, and surprised, to find at a local boot fair recently. A lady was selling a few boxes of singles at 3 for a £1. I bought £3 worth, including this one. The boxes contained a very unusual and eclectic mix, certainly not something you normally find at boot sales. It transpired her husband works for a local second hand record shop, one in fact I rarely visit now as, in my experience, I have rarely found anything worth buying and they seem to be equally rarely willing to buy anything off me! (I am not alone here either, and I wonder where they get their records from!).

Anyway, by offloading at a boot sale I think they missed a trick with this one. None other than Mr Allen Toussaint had a lot to do with this record. The credits tell you he arranged it, they also tell you he wrote it – Toussaint often used his mother’s name, Naomi Neville, in writing credits around this time – and he is undoubtedly playing piano on it. The ALON label was a vehicle for much Allen Toussaint output in the early to mid Sixties. Hold a mirror up to the label name and of course NOLA appears. (Try and scan it though and the results are not good – as Ana-B has already pointed out).

The record sounds somehow familiar to me. It’s possible I suppose that I have heard it before here. Back in 2006 I was relatively new to the blogging game and Home Of The Groove was an early destination for me. Reading the post (again?) and its comments I learned that this track, or at least its basic form, was originally used as the backing track for Benny Spellman’s “The Word Game”.

It is a very difficult to categorise this record by The Stokes. To me it sounds like it would not be out of place as background music to a TV series of the time, something a bit tongue in cheek or a bit skewed - The Avengers for example. Hey! maybe, that’s where I heard it before? Anyway, I like it a lot and I think I will file it under “whimsy”. The sleeve it came in sort of lives up to the whimsical tag too!

The Stokes – Young Man, Old Man 1965

Catching up

This year the boot fair season has, generally, been a disaster. The weather of course has been the main problem. Many washed out weekends; and if it wasn’t raining the fields in which most of these events happen remained too saturated, which led to more cancellations. On top of that my experience has been that even when I did manage a trudge around a damp field there were hardly any records to be found. On more than one occasion this year my swag bag remained completely empty, something I have not been used to before.

This all changed a few weeks ago though, and the record room (the dining room actually, which is now subject to very little dining being as it’s full of records and pets!) is now seemingly awash with boot fair, and charity shop, finds. Just like buses, the vinyl seems to have all come along at once since September started.

Not much of this vinyl has been in the genres I stick to here – i.e. soul, funk, reggae, and jazz - but there has been some.

Where to start?

Two weeks running I have picked up bargains (50p or less) at boot sales from sellers I knew, or discovered, were established record dealers/traders. This ”Curley Moore” 45, for example, I bought from a guy I know to be a dealer who also has his own website selling soul and funk stuff at reasonable (but not cheap) prices, and I’m sure this 45 could have featured and sold for much more than 50p on his website. Occasionally I see him at a local boot fair knocking stuff out at no more than a pound. He has apparently got about 10,000 records in a lock up somewhere so I suppose now and then he has to have a purge, and I guess it’s inevitable that a few pearls will get mixed in to the more general run of the mill bits he is trying to clear.   

He, of course, may not think this 45 is a pearl, and his friend who seems to always accompany him at the fairs certainly didn’t know it, although I think he suspected it shouldn’t have been nestling in a chirpy chirpy cheap bin. Damn, the titles are clues enough!

Even if it transpired that the grooves of this 45 contained rubbish it is certainly worth 50p for the label. Look more closely at the label though and it becomes clear this 45 has a NOLA pedigree – a certain Mr Eddie Bo(cage) is all over the credits and has most certainly has more to do with this 45 than Curley Moore hence my use of the quotation marks above . Dropping the needle confirms that what’s in the grooves is far from rubbish, but also not funk in the classic sense. Two sides that are, I think,  actually more akin to freakbeat than funk, but they really hit the spot. On the A side it’s Eddie Bo playing the organ and in so doing adding the funky icing to the freaky cake.

Curley Moore & The Kool Ones –Shelley’s Rubber Band 1970

Another 45 with another NOLA legend hiding in the credits next time. 

Waiting over...

As last month wore on, a combination of nothing to do at work and more disappointing weather left me feeling distinctly listless. If you are (or should that be were!) a regular around here you will have experienced a consequence of my ennui – the longest period of inactivity for Feel It since I started this little indulgence over six years ago.

But then September began and brought with it, as is so often the case, better, calmer weather. Quiet days, mellow light - my favourite month was acting true to form. The boredom is still present at work but it seems that September serenity has driven away the listlessness and left me with at least a blissful ennui.               

Waiting over…

So it was a week or so ago I was ready to contemplate another post here. Then I realised that something else that had been bugging me – and that I had initially put down to my general restlessness – was a real problem. My records didn’t sound quite right – some tinniness/distortion in the higher frequencies… that appeared to get worse on the inner tracks of an album. Was that possible? A quick bit of Googling confirmed that the clues were there, and entirely consistent with the stylus on my record playing machine being worn out. Let’s hope no lasting damage has been done to those records played in recent weeks. A new one is now installed and the difference is clear.

So now I have been able to play again an album I acquired a few months ago and share it with you.

I have realised recently that Denise La Salle is one of my favourite soulstresses, and when I’m feeling a bit low her voice acts as a sort of comfort blanket. Denise has had a long recording career. It is difficult to keep the quality high all the time when one is so prolific and Denise’s catalog has some highs and lows I think, but one of her early albums “On The Loose” is definitely in the top quality bracket. Strong tracks abound, including “Your Man And Your Best Friend” a track I featured here as a 45 B side a couple or so years ago. The only really false step is a cover of “Harper Valley PTA”, which should have been left in the can. Two tracks for you to enjoy:  “What Am I Doing Wrong” has Denise sounding wistful and mellow, and “Breaking Up Somebody’s Home” is one I always knew from Ann Peebles’ version, and didn’t know until I bought this album that Denise had written it.    

Denise La Salle – What Am I Doing Wrong 1973

Denise La Salle – Breaking Up Somebody’s Home 1973

Buy “On The Loose” on a twofer with her debut “Trapped By A Thing Called Love”.

PS: On the inner sleeve of this album is written:

Maximus ‘77

Angela

1^st Prize.

I would love to know the story behind that, but guess I never will.

PPS: Waiting over…

The car boot season has been generally disastrous this year… until a couple of weeks ago. More of that anon. 

Top flight; still burning bright

*UPDATED*

Here are my two latest acquisitions to drop through the letterbox.

As I opened the mailer there they were, tucked up tight together between two pieces of card: two pieces of vinyl, one containing the sound of Chicago, the other of Detroit - utterly distinctive, both totally irresistible, the perfect marriage.

There was a picture of The Five Stairsteps 45 World of Fantasy here. But I have received a takedown request so the perfect marriage was short-lived I'm afraid. 

The Five Stairsteps –World Of Fantasy 1966

You might have noticed I’ve been overboard on The Five Stairsteps in recent months. The title of this one might be said to aptly describe the state of GB, team and country, this last couple of Olympic weeks.   

Flaming Embers – HeyMama (What'cha Got Good For Daddy) 1967

Flaming Embers were actually a white group keen to emulate the black soul sound of the day, and the sound of Detroit is certainly perfectly formed here. Note the names Clinton and Terry among others in the credits: sure fire marks of quality. (Thanks to Mr Finewine for leading me to this one).   

Moody and magnificent

A bit of virtual digging (just for a change!) led this 45 to drop through the letterbox recently and it has stayed close to the deck ever since. It continues to amaze me just how many old and obscure records are on YouTube nowadays, and this one is there. A comment on it describes this track as “great moody mid tempo”. A good description and I will go one step further and say moody and magnificent.    

Just about all I know about Patty & The Emblems can be found here on the now sadly defunct Supersoulsisters blog. The group debuted in 1964 with what turned out to be their one and only hit “Mixed Up Shook Up Girl”. “You Took Advantage Of A Good Thing” was on the B side of the follow up “Music Makes Me Want To Dance”. The A side was aimed fair and square at the dancefloor catching the Motown tide and was co-written by Leon Huff. This follow up single, as a double header,  was in my opinion much stronger than their hit debut but did nothing chartwise; possibly because at the time of its release the British Invasion was gathering pace and the R&B charts had been temporarily dropped. After a few releases on Herald Patti & The Emblems resurfaced a couple of years later in the Sixties with a handful of 45 releases on Kapp, but again chart success eluded them.

Pat Russell had a rich, strong voice and puts in an excellent performance here (and with some good phrasing on this track I would have thought she could have made a good jazz singer). The Emblems give an almost doo wop backing (demonstrating their influences and background?, after all this was 1964), and then there are the horns accentuating the tempo of the song as well as giving us some wonderfully dramatic fills.

A moody, magnificent masterpiece. I love it.           

   

Patty & The Emblems – You Took Advantage Of A Good Thing  1964  

I Get Lifted

I am a fan of Huey Morgan’s Sunday show on BBC 6 Music. He plays an eclectic mix with more than a smattering of oldies in the soul, funk and hip hop vein. 6 Music are learning, finally, that it doesn’t have to be rock slanted music all the time. A few weeks ago Huey evidently could not make the gig at short notice so 6 Music stalwart Tom Robinson stepped in to do the talking. I stress the talking bit, because he was sticking to an already laid down play list prepared by Huey. It was quite amusing at times listening to Tom, who I respect, seemingly coming over all quizzical at some of the tracks he was required to introduce. One example was a track from George McCrae – “I Get Lifted”, and Tom appeared to sound surprised that George had recorded something other than the ubiquitous “Rock Your Baby”.

If you are of a certain age then “Rock Your Baby” will certainly be familiar and probably loved too, even if you are not generally of the soul persuasion. Memories and all that. I loved “Rock Your Baby” and quite liked some of George’s follow up singles even though I recognised they bore more than a passing resemblance to his big hit. “I Get Lifted” was a single that was released after the big hit and is one I couldn’t recall but, boy, did it sound good pumping out of the radio on that Sunday afternoon.

I resolved to go out and snag a copy. It is not a rare record by any means but to date I had not managed to find one on t’internet that ticked the boxes on both price and condition. Today, almost as an afterthought, I paid a quick visit to a couple of chazzas and what do I find in one of them? For 50p, a mint copy of George’s album “Rock Your Baby” – and I do mean mint, it was as if I had just stepped back in time nearly 40 years and walked into a record shop.  Side one of this album is predictable inasmuch as it contains all the hits, but side two is a great surprise, as well as “I Get Lifted” there are two more killer tracks, and I think they all sound really fresh to this day.

On the back cover of this album George is sporting a rather fetching denim suit, including cut off shorts. It may take a few more years for denim shorts to be cool again, but there can be no denying that the Jay Boy label in the middle of an LP will forever be uber cool.  

I will leave you to find one of the, to my mind, killer tracks on this album -  “I Need Somebody Like You” - and give you these:       

George McCrae – I Get Lifted 1974

George McCrae – Look At You 1974       

Capricorn needs the sunshine...

... and Scorpio.

I couldn’t resist buying a David Ruffin 45 in a charity shop today – from 1977 a track entitled “I Can’t Stop The Rain” – I thought it would be the perfect post considering the (lack of) summer we are experiencing in the UK this year. Spookily as I walked out of the shop the sun came out. When I got home and gave the record a spin it frankly wasn’t up to the standard necessary for posting here anyway (although the B side – “My Whole World Ended” from the previous decade -  was worth the price of entry and so the 45 was a neat summary of how soul music and Motown in eight short years had lost its magic).

So instead I give you Leo’s Sunshipp rare groove gem “Give Me The Sunshine”. Actually, it is almost five years to the day since I featured another track from their only album “We Need Each Other”. Reading that post again I notice I commented that “the British summer has been a damp squib so far”, and so here we are again. I went on then to describe a sunny weekend and it’s that I am hoping for now (actually with some optimism looking at the forecast) as Mrs Darce and I are off to Sidmouth for the weekend.

Sunny here as I type! Have to stop typing now as fingers are crossed.

Leo's Sunshipp - Give Me the Sunshine (another new link)