The Soul Children - Genesis & Friction (1972 & 1974)

July 3, 2013, 8:17 pm

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The Soul Children
Friction (1971) / Genesis (1974)
Reissue 1999 Stax SCD-88038-2

are J. Blackfoot, Norman West, Anita Louis, Shelbra Bennett

GENESIS, 1972 Stax (STS 3003)

01 - I Want To Be Loved     (Sam D. Bell)     8:24    
02 - Don't Take My Sunshine     (Bobby Newsome)     3:59    
03 - Hearsay     (John Colbert, Norman West)     3:38    
04 - All That Shines Ain't Gold     (John Gary Williams, Tommy Tate)     3:55    
05 - It Hurts Me To My Heart     (Bettye Crutcher)     3:00    
06 - I'm Loving You More Everyday     (James Mitchell)     4:52    
07 - Just The One (I've Been Looking For)     (A. Isbell, E. Floyd, S. Cropper)     3:20    
08 - Never Get Enough Of Your Love     (Eddie Floyd)     4:22    
09 - All Day Preachin'     (Bettye Crutcher, Bobby Manuel)    3:55    
10 - Get Up About Yourself     (Carl Hampton, Homer Banks, Raymond Jackson)    4:12  

Produced by Jim Stewart and Al Jackson, Jr.


 Track 1:
James Alexander - bass
Michael Toles - guitar
Allen Jones - organ
Howard Grimes -drums


Tracks 2 through 9:

Piano and organ - John Keister, Marvell Thomas
Guitars - Raymond Jackson, Bobby Manuel
Donald "Duck" Dunn - bass
Al Jackson, Jr. - drums

Track 10: 
Carl Hampton - piano
Raymond Jackson, Michael Toles - guitars
James Alexander - bass
Al Jackson, Jr. - drums

Produced by Carl Hampton, Homer Banks, and Raymond Jackson
------------------------------------------------------------
String arrangements - Dale Warren
Engineered by William Brown, Bobby Manuel, Eddie Marion, Daryl Williams, Dave Purple



===============================================



FRICTION, 1974 Stax (STS 5507)


11 - I'll Be The Other Woman (Banks-Hampton)    3:36    
12 - What's Happening Baby (Banks-Hampton)    6:42    
13 - Can't Let You Go (Banks-Hampton)    4:47    
14 - It's Out Of My Hands (Banks-Hampton-Jackson)    3:24    
15 - Just One Moment (Banks-Hampton)    4:58    
16 - We're Gettin' Too Close (Banks-Hampton)    3:52    
17 - Love Makes It Right (Banks-Hampton)    5:52

Lester Snell - Piano
Carl Hampton - electric piano
Charles Pitts, Michael Toles - guitars
James Alexander - bass
Willie Hall - drums

Tracks 11 & 15: Bobby Manuel, guitar / Donald "Duck" Dunn - bass / Al Jackson, Jr. - drums / The Memphis Horns / Memphis Symphony Orchestra

Produced by Homer Banks and Carl Hampton (Al Jackson, Jr. also co-produced "I'll Be The Other Woman")

Arrangements by John Allen, Carl Hampton, Homer Banks.  Engineered by Pete Bishop

___________________________________________________________
1999 remastering at Fantasy by Kirk Felton and it SOUNDS REALLY GOOD
___________________________________________________________

With over a dozen soul and R&B hits to their credit, it is a shame The Soul Children aren't more better remembered for their contributions.  These last two records for the original Stax label are quality, top-notch soul ,but at this point the Stax label wasn't too far away from bankruptcy and a lot of records were criminally under-promoted.  I think "Genesis" is particularly stellar and it's my favorite of the two, perhaps because it has more of a gospel deep-groove swing to it, and a lot of people feel that "Friction" was their peak.

1972's "Genesis" has a great set of songs contributed from the likes of Eddie Floyd, Chicago's Bobby Newsome, and Bettye Crutcher.  The backing musicians included members of the reconstituted M.G.'s and The Bar-kays and also feature Howard Grimes (of Hi Records) on the drums for what may be my favorite song here - the very first.  It should probably surprise nobody that a vocal group put together by Dave Porter and Isaac Hayes (who played on their early records) would be adept at the type of long slow-burner that opens up the album, "I Want To Be Loved."  They dig into this tune with an impassioned flare that sets it apart from Hayes' epic cool delivery, however.  After a suspenseful minute's worth of subdued build-up, the rhythm section drops out as Anita and Shelbra launch into some intense gospel harmonies and eventually a brief sermon crowning love over the material things in life, and then Blackfoot comes tearing in with his gritty response and ups the ante.  The group on "Genesis" reminds me a little of the early records by label-mates The Emotions, but with the added bonus of a male-female dynamic.   The bigger of the hits on this record was "Hearsy", penned by Blackfoot and West, and it has a very M.G.-ish vibe to it, which is fine, but it also may be the least interesting song on the record.  "It Hurts Me To My Soul" is a favorite of mine here, and in fact I played it on one of my podcasts.

"Friction" was apparently a concept album based around the idea of cheating  and being cheated on.  The record is admirable in the way it traces a narrative from start to finish without any kind of heavy-handed high drama.  But in some ways I kind of think the idea could have benefited from trying it as a 'soul opera.' They could have brought in special guests with assigned roles, Johnnie Taylor as "Jody," Isaac Hayes as whoever he wanted to be (except Truck Turner)... As it stands, the record is almost too downbeat for me (all the songs are slow to mid tempo except for "We're Getting To Close"), but then again it has been a long time since I have had any nasty breakups involving cheating partners, so maybe that's what it takes to bring out the best in this album.  The bookends of the album are undeniable classics, "I'll Be The Other Woman," and "Love Makes It Right" are powerful and honest explorations of themes that get glossed over with cliches in even some of the best music.  In fact, let me extend that statement to all the tracks here - "Friction" really is a sophisticated treatment of an eternal and complex subject, and deserves a lot of credit as a unique artist achievement in the Stax canon.  It's just that I don't dig listening to it as much as "Genesis."  Maybe it is the fact that all the songs were written by the production team of Hampton/Banks leaves the songs with less melodic and dynamic variety than the previous record with its overflow of writing talent.  Or maybe it's that I prefer the MGs and Bar-kay's (reconstituted though they may have been) to the instrumentalists on "Friction."  With a group as good as The Soul Children, this is kind of like trying to decide which of your luxury cars you are going to drive today - in the end, it's a quibbling born of privilege.

In putting together this post I discovered that Shelbra Bennett passed away at the end of May of this year.  She was the first of the four members to go her own way (I think) career-wise but not the first to pass away:  J.Blackfoot died in 2011. 

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100% Pure Poison - Coming Right At You (1974)

July 13, 2013, 6:54 pm

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100% Pure Poison
Coming Right At You
Released 1974 EMI-UK

A1 You Keep Coming Back (3:24)
A2 No More City, No More Country (6:54)
A3 Boarding Pass (3:46)
A4 Holes In My Shoes (3:42)
A5 My Little Someone (4:28)
B1 Windy C. (5:35)
B2 (But You Say) You Want To Make It With Me (4:31)
B3 Don't Let Your Pride, Overpower Your Love (4:37)
B4 (And When I Said) I Love You (5:15)
B5 Puppet On A Chain (3:53)


Bass: Lawrence Reynolds
Composed By: Danny Leake , Lawrence Reynolds , Marvin Daniels
Guitar: Danny Leake , James Williams
Keyboards: James Williams
Organ: Steve Maxwell
Percussion: John Jackson, Pie Harrison
Producer: Danny Leake , Rick Hartung
Saxophone: Jackie Beard
Trombone: Slide Beard
Trumpet: Marvin Daniels
Vocals: Jackie Beard , Marvin Daniels , Pie Harrison , Slide Beard


Produced by Danny Leake and Rick Hartung

RIPPING INFO (Euripedes)

Original UK LP 1st pressing, EMI International, INS 3001, Matrix Numbers: A: INS 3001 A-2 1 R / B: INS 3001 B-2 1 M RJL

Equipment:
Vpi HW-17F Record Cleaning Machine
Technics SL 1210 Mk II
Rega RB 300 tonearm (Origin Live! mod)
Denon DL 304 M/C Cartridge
NAD 3101 (M/C phono section)
Outboard M-Audio Profire 610 Multichannel A/D
Adobe Audition 3.0

The song "Windy C"


     This legendary album has long been out of my financial reach on vinyl and I have had to content myself with the a 2002 CD reissue. Kudos to Soul Brother for releasing it and making it accessible to a broader public beyond greedy collectors with deep pockets, but the sound quality was pretty much crap. I must say that the record gained a new lease on life when I found a really nice needledrop from a skilled vinyl ripper. I don’t typically like sharing other peoples’ vinyl rips here but the quality of both the music and the audio, coupled with the fact that I will most likely never own an original copy, compelled me to break my loosely-held rule. So, all credit goes to Euripedes for the transfer.

The band 100% Pure Poison, formed by US serviceman while stationed in Germany, only recorded this one record. I knew nothing about their back story until reading the liner notes on the reissue, and in fact I had always thought they were a Chicago band based on the track “Windy C.” The great playing and funky grooves on the album would have been enough to get the crate diggers reaching for their charge cards, and the quality songwriting helps put it a cut above the rest. The record opens with the very dance-worthy bit of Northern Soul, “You Keep Coming Back,” an immediately catchy tune that ought to be on all the AM radio dusties stations but isn’t. About half the songs here are sweet soul ballads, which personally makes things drag a bit in places for me, because as might be expected I prefer the funkier stuff on here. And that material does not disappoint. “No More City, No More Country,” is like.. Post-modern funk or something, where all categories of the black american experience, rural and urban, are declared passé and “everything is space, man.” Complete with a jazzy scat break at the end of every verse. Listen to the way the organ is mixed waaaaaaay in the background in a cushion of reverb. It’s the loosest and most jam-oriented of the tracks here and sort of a mind blower after the tightness of the opening track. “Holes In My Shoe” brings more funky northern goodness, but “Windy C” makes the obvious center-piece of the album. Both because it really is splat in the middle of the album but also because it shows off the group firing on all its creative cylinders - soul tunefulness, marinaded in heavy funk, and brushed with jazz before serving. “Don’t Let Pride Overpower Your Love” may be a mouthful of a title, but it might be my favorite ballad on the record, structured with crescendos that leave the tune positively soaring. The secret weapon of the whole album, though, may be “Puppet On A Chain” which hits all my pleasure centers relentlessly. The arrangement is both lush and lean - horns and strings and guitars and electric piano and Persian carpets of reverb in just the right places. Great lyrics and vocal performances. Four minutes of perfect. The kind of a track that has to go at the end of an LP because there just isn’t any way to follow it up. Thank you and goodnight!

You can do an A/B of the two versions for yourself, but makes sure to give Euripedes’work a listen.

Os Partideiros - Sambas do Partido Alto (1970)

July 22, 2013, 9:43 am

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OS PARTIDEIROS
Sambas do Partido Alto
1970 Beverley  BLP 80382
Originally released on Copacabana Records
Mono recording

"Partido alto e o samba de roda, improvisado e levado em tempo médio.
Com o reqeubrar das cabrochas vai até o sol raiar.
É acompanhado de pandeiro, agogô, reco-reco, prato de louça etc
Neste LP atuam os maiores partidieros das escolas de samba tais como:


Da Mangueira:  Xangô e Preto Rico
Do Salgueiro - Geraldo Babão e Roberto Ribeiro
Do Império Serrano - Silas de Oliveira, Edgard e Jorginho
Da Portela - Cabana e Casquinha"

PORTELA

1. A Paz do Coreção  (vocal - Cabana)
2. Barracão Número Seis  (vocal - Cabana)
3. Iaiá Sambou  (vocal - Casquinha)

IMPÉRIO SERRANO

4. Na Água do Rio  (vocal - Silas)
5. Que Samba É Esse  (vocal - Jorginho)
6. Canela Fina  (vocal - Edgard)

SALGUEIRO

7. Lola Crioula  (vocal - Geraldo Babão)
8. Te Dou Pancada  (vocal - Os Partideiros)
9. Velhos Tempos  (vocal - Roberto Ribeiro)

MANGUEIRA

10. Eu Vi Quem Foi  (vocal - Preto Rico)
11. Recordação De Um Batuqueiro  (vocal - Xangô da Mangueira)
12. Partido da Remandiola  (vocal - Xangô da Mangueira)


Coordinated by Moacyr Silva
Production assistant: Waldomiro João de Oliveira
Recording technician:  Norival Reis
Recorded at Continental Rio studio

Vinyl; Pro-Ject RM-5SE turntable (with Sumiko Blue Point 2 cartridge, Speedbox power supply); Creek Audio OBH-15; M-Audio Audiophile 192 Soundcard ; Adobe Audition at 32-bit float 192khz; Click Repair; individual clicks and pops taken out with Adobe Audition 3.0 - dithered and resampled using iZotope RX Advanced. Tags done with Foobar 2000 and Tag and Rename.

(note: there is a typo in the fileset wherein "Que Samba É Esse" was typed as "Que Sabe É Esse".. vergonha.  I will fix this later today, otherwise fix it yourself if it bugs you lots.)
-------------------------------------

"Todo batuqueiro gosta de um bom partido alto
Seja ele lá no morro ou na cidade, no asfalto."
 - Cascinha, Iaiá sambou

"Quem não é de samba / é melhor se despedir..."
 - Roberto Ribeiro, Velhos tempos

A solid and ceaselessly propulsive album of partido-alto from singers and composers of four of Rio's prestigious samba schools:  Portela, Império Serrano, Salgueiro, and Mangueira.  Of particular note is that the album features several singers here who would have successful recording careers during the 70s but had yet to record LPs under their own name - Xangô da Mangueira, Jorginho do Império, and especially Roberto Ribeiro would all grow in stature as the decade went on.  Also some excellent contributions from Cascinha, Geraldo Babão, and Silas de Oliveira.  A fun trivia fact about Silas - he had been in the Brazilian army and was on the passenger ship Itagiba traveling from Rio en route to Olinda (where he was stationed) when it was torpedoed by a German submarine, an incident which directly led to Brazil's entry into WWII.  Lot's of people died; obviously Silas de Oliveira survived, and I for one am glad.

With each of the samba schools only offering up three choice compositions, you can imagine that they don't disappoint.  The mighty Portela starts things off with "A Paz de Coração," sung by Cabana in what could serve as a didactic lesson on how to conduct a perfect partido alto.  Casquinha's "Iaiá Sambou" is a classic, with it's story of broken high-heel shoes and dancing, as well as a shout-out to Clementina de Jesus, who "in spite of her age, still seems like a young woman."  The lyrics also give a snapshot narrative of partido alto coming down from the hills, o morro (today simply referred to as favelas, after Rio's historic Morro da Favela), to the center of the city, reflecting samba's historical trajectory from "marginal" to ubiquity and acceptance by the elite.  It has two beautiful verses in sequence, the first one quoted above saying that every musician (drummer, specifically) loves a good partido alto and it doesn't matter where it is (seja no morro ou asfalto);  He follows this by singing that partido alto in the morro is a thing totally natural, but to have one in the city is almost radical.  To my ears this communicates something that, while perhaps seeming superficially a contradiction, is an intentionally two-headed, ambiguous message. That for the musicians, it didn't matter where they played, as long as the music was good; but for the city's elite who lived downtown, samba was still a novelty with overtones of excitement and even danger, and not something natural.  The idea confirms something Donga once famously said, but also adds a different shading to it.  Donga had said (and I'm paraphrasing, because I am essentially lazy) that the notion that samba was something solely created or originating in the hills was a myth: wherever there was a party with a group of people playing samba music, they were there, no matter if it was on the morro or in the business district.  Not to belabor the point, but these expressions were kind of challenging the way samba was sometimes portrayed as inhabiting a world apart, 'a black thing' of the slums, that was slowly allowed to proliferate through the city perhaps by the benevolence of a newly-enlightened elite. 

For some reason I can't quite put my finger on, I am particularly fond of the tunes from Império Serrano.  They start out with Águas Do Rio which features Silas on vocal, who is better known as a composer of famous samba-enredos, in particular in partnership with Mano Décio da Viola - who was, incidentally, the father of Jorginho who takes over the vocals on the next tune.  "Que Samba É Esse" is wonderful and in fact beats the version recorded by Xangô da Mangueira on his album "O Rei de Partido Alto" a few years later.  Note the name-checking that goes on, including João da Baiana and Martinho da Vila.  I love the way he drags out certain words in phrases, inserts pauses and emphasizes the accented syllable of certain words to give the effect of falling slightly behind the beat. Listening to him sing is like watching a Slinky undulate down a flight of stairs:

 Tendo viola afinada
Um surdo na mar...cação
Aía mulata levanta poeira do chão
Fica bom, fica bom!

Serrano Império continues to kick up dust and agitate the dance floor, levantando poeira into their final tune "Canela Fina," cooking up a slower-paced partido alto written and sung by Edgard Cardoso Barbosa, about whom I know nothing.

The sweet-voiced Geraldo Babão starts out Salgueiro's selections with "Lola Crioula."  Like Silas de Oliveira, Babão also composed some famous samba-enredos like "Chico Rei" and "A História do Carnaval Carioca" in the 1960s.  Like many partido altos the lyrics are a variation on a single verse, this time once again echoing the theme of "from the morro to the city," this time for carnival:  Lola crioula na passarela (Vem ver, vem ver) ; Sacudindo com tudo que é dela (Vem ver, vem ver!) / Todo ano ela desfila / Representando a favela / A moçada compra ingresso / Pra ver o gingado dela “tem dendê, tem dendê as cadeiras na nega tem dendê”.

The song "Te Dou Pancada" is a catchy bit of reprehensible misogyny that is better left uncommented upon, if truth be told.  I find it kind of ironic that it is the one track here that does not credit any individual for the vocal (leaving it only as "Os Partideiros") almost as if nobody wanted their name on it.   Salgueiro redeem themselves, however, with the lovely Velhos Tempos, written by Aurinho da Ilha and interpreted by Roberto Ribeiro who manages to swagger with saudade while remembering the old days of Praça Onze, a location that was kind of ground zero for carioca samba.

Mangueira's songs are all excellent but that kind of goes without saying.  The first is from Preto Rico, one-time Diretor de Harmonia and composer of the sambas like "Velha baiana" and "Mangueira em tempos de folclore."  This is followed by two songs from Xangô da Mangueira who followed Preto Rico as Diretor in Mangueira.  I sang Xangô's praises on another post but I will reiterate what a badass he was here.  "Recordação de um Batuqueiro" is one of his famous sambas, played here a little faster than it would be on his first LP.  "Partido de Remandiola" doesn't appear on any of Xangô's albums that I have and this might be it's only appearance on record.  Both tracks are excellent although Xangô's vocal is a bit muffled, either a technical issue with the recording or maybe he just wasn't as comfortable in a studio yet as he would be in a few years.

Speaking of studios and lapsing into technobabble for a moment, my copy of this is a Beverly reissue of the Copacabana release.  Almost certainly it was a 1970s reissue, and I believe Beverly was owned by Copacabana and was sort of their budget-line reissue imprint.  You might notice some tape wow-and-flutter on the first few tracks, which is a bit disheartening - to think that only a few years down the road, the master tapes were already borked.  Or, perhaps, the tapes were damaged before even the first pressing, I don't know 'cus I haven't heard an original.  Also, although this is a mono recording, this Beverly is not a true mono pressing: when I attempted a 'fold down' for this digitalization, it resulted in some ugly phase cancellation and the lost of just about all the upper-frequency transients.  So, better to leave it in 'false stereo'.

The New Birth - Blind Baby (1975) 24bit / 192khz

August 1, 2013, 6:03 pm

≫ Next: Joey Pastrana & His Orchestra - Let's Ball (1967) [Cotique CS-1006] 24/192khz

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THE NEW BIRTH
Blind Baby
1975 Buddha Records (BDS 5636)


    Blind Baby     4:30    
    Dream Merchant     4:20    
    Forever     4:45    
    Granddaddy     3:55    
    I Remember Well 5:21    
    Blind Man     4:45    
    Why Did I     4:30    
    Epilogue     2:37


Produced for Basement Productions, Inc.
Recorded at Sunwest Recording Studios, Hollywood.
Mixed at Wally Heider Studios, California.

  
    Austin Lander - Baritone Saxophone, Percussion, Backing Vocals
    Robin Russell - Drums, Percussion   
    Charlie Hearndon - Guitar
    Leroy Taylor - Guitar
    Carl McDaniel - Guitar, Backing Vocals 
    James Baker - Keyboards, Trombone, Piano, Tuba, Clavinet, Timbales, Percussion
    Alan Frey - Percussion, Congas, Vocals 
    Tony Churchill - Tenor Saxophone, Vibraphone, Backing Vocals
    Robert Jackson - Trumpet, Percussion, Backing Vocals
    Londie Wiggins - Vocals, Percussion
    Leslie Wilson - Vocals, Percussion, Mandolin

Engineer – F. Byron Clark
Photography By – Ed Caraeff
Producer – James Baker, Melvin Wilson
Art Direction – Milton Sincoff
llustration – William S. Harvey

Ripping specs:
Vinyl; Pro-Ject RM-5SE turntable (with Sumiko Blue Point 2 cartridge, Speedbox power supply); Creek Audio OBH-15; M-Audio Audiophile 192 Soundcard ; Adobe Audition at 32-bit float 192khz; Click Repair; individual clicks and pops taken out with Adobe Audition 3.0 - dithered and resampled using iZotope RX Advanced (for 16-bit). Tags done with Foobar 2000 and Tag and Rename.

Artwork at 600 dpi (for hi-res), downsampled to 300 dpi for Redbook



This is The New Birth's first album after leaving RCA, made for Buddha Records, and it's probably my favorite record by the group. The tunes are strung together like a concept album; it's not really a concept record but it does have a Mellotron on it. "Blind Baby" is graced with great original songwriting that had come a long way since their first early 70s efforts, all played and sung with chops and passion and captured brilliantly by the wizards at Wally Heider Studio.  The tunes span from gritty funk, to sweaty soul jazz, to sweet soul balladry.  "Dream Merchant" was the hit off the record but there isn't a bad song on it.  The firecracking "Grandaddy" was featured on Flabbergasted Freeform Radio No.3.   The New Birth had a sickly huge twelve-person lineup at this point, expanded with members of The Nite-Liters, and they never sounded better.  One secret weapon among many was lovely vocalist and Louisville native Londie Wiggins, who occasionally hits high notes in whistle-register Minnie Ripperton territory.  She carries the lead on "Forever" and "Why Did I."  Her intonation isn't always spot on but, you know, they didn't have Autotune in 1975 to make everyone sound as equally "perfect" and bland as everyone else.   The New Birth made quite a few records and I'm sure other people have their own particular favorites, but for me this one is the cream of the crop.



From top left to bottom right: Londie Wiggins, Carl McDaniel, Alan Frey, James Baker, Robin Russell, Leroy Taylor, Robert Jackson, Tony Churchill (who is a Pisces), Leslie Wilson, Melvin Wilson, Austin Lander, Charlie Hearndon

Joey Pastrana & His Orchestra - Let's Ball (1967) [Cotique CS-1006] 24/192khz

August 9, 2013, 5:14 pm

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Joey Pastrana And His Orchestra
Let's Ball
1967 Cotique (CS-1006)

     Let's Ball     4:22   
    Bien Dulce     3:25   
    La Grimas Negras     2:57   
    Mani Picante     3:00   
    Jammin' With Joey     3:35   
    My Shingaling     3:35   
    Rubon Melon     5:35   
    Flamenco Ole'     3:57   
    En Nada Estas     5:00   

    Ismael Miranda - vocals
    Johnny Riviera - bass
    Chicky Perez - bongos    
    Becky Rivera, Junior Morales, Sonia Rivera - chorus
    Willie Pastrana - congas
    Joey Pastrana - band leader, drums
    Paquito Pastor - piano
    Jack Hitchcock, Wilfred Vasquez - trombones
    Dave Gonzalez - trumpet
   

    Photography – Charles Stewart
    Album jacket design  – John Murello
    Engineer – Gary Kellgren
    Produced by George Goldner 

Vinyl; Pro-Ject RM-5SE turntable (with Sumiko Blue Point 2 cartridge, Speedbox power supply); Creek Audio OBH-15; M-Audio Audiophile 192 Soundcard ; Adobe Audition at 32-bit float 192khz; Click Repair with mono fold-down; individual clicks and pops taken out with Adobe Audition 3.0 - dithered and resampled using iZotope RX Advanced. Tags done with Foobar 2000 and Tag and Rename.

*As you can plainly see, Joey's name is spelled PASTRANO all over this release.  This was an error by the Cotique label who rushed it's release.  It's particularly odd because they got his brother's name right.



 Poster courtesy of herencialatina.com

Joey was a prolific musician whose hits got more radio airplay outside of his home turf of the Big Apple, in large part because of unfriendly relations with the Fania clique who had scary control over disc jockeys at the time.  As a teen he studied the drum kit under Gene Krupa, gave it up because it was too much of a pain in the ass to carry his gear home on the subway at 3 a.m., and switched to percussion, soon becoming an accomplished timbalero while playing with Bobby Valentin's group.   

This is a very nice album debut for Joey Pastrana as a bandleader, highlighting one of his traits that contributed to his survival beyond the boogaloo craze - he always diversified his repertoire with different rhythms.  In fact fact I'm glad he breaks things up, because I often can't handle entire records of boogaloo all at once.  Although Joey and his brother Willie (on congas) were young dudes when they made this record, they swing their mambos, salsas,and descargas like old pros here.    The title track "Let's Ball", "Bien Dulce,"  and "My Shingaling" are really the only boogaloos here, and the spectacular track "Rumbon Melon" became something of a salsa standard.   Another special treat is Joey's arrangement of Lágrimas Negras (inexplicably written as La Grimas Negras on the jacket and label), a classic tune from Trío Matamoros first recorded in the 30s.  The instrumental "Flamenco Olé" allows brother Willie to take some liberties on the congas, and the trombones have echoes of "A Night In Tunisia."    The lead vocals on the LP are from none other than a young Ismael Miranda, who made only this one album with Joey in between gigs with the Harlow brothers (first Andy, then Larry).  Joey was also ahead of his time having women backup singers in the coro, one of whom was his sister-in-law, Sonia Rivera.


Fun fact:  I actually did pay only 49 cents for this record (plus tax!), still sealed in the original shrinkwrap.  I don't remember exactly where I found it except that it was someplace very unhip, like a K-Mart or a Sears or one of those department-stores places that used to sell vinyl.  It was in the 1990s, when such stores still had some stock, and you would sometimes randomly wander through one and see a bunch of LPs on clearance  Like this one, which they obviously had no idea what the hell it was. You're not likely to find this for fifty cents now.  So grab this here, burn it to a CD-R and give it to everyone you know, and without an ounce of misgiving:  Joey never made a cent off his Cotique recordings, and (as per this 2005 interview) was exploring ways to sue them.




hey

HEY BT PEOPLE

Magnet Link, 320

Magnet Link FLAC 16bit

Paulinho da Viola - Meu Tempo É Hoje (2003)

August 20, 2013, 6:42 pm

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 PAULINHO DA VIOLA
Meu Tempo É Hoje
2003 Biscoito Fino



    1     Meu Mundo É Hoje (Wilson Batista)        1:24
    2     Pot-Pourri: Injúria/Recado/O Sol Nascerá/Jurar Com Lagrimas
(Cartola / Milton Casquinha / Elton Medeiros / Paulinho da Viola )
feat. Elton Medeiros  4:07
    3     14 Anos (Paulinho da Viola)    1:32
    4     Rosinha, Essa Menina (Paulinho da Viola) feat. César Faria     1:42
    5     Ruas Que Sonhei (Paulinho da Viola)      1:59
    6     Sinal Fechado (Paulinho da Viola)    2:43
    7     Chora, Cavaquinho (Waldemar de Abreu) feat. César Faria     2:02
    8     Carinhoso (João de Barro / Pixinguinha) feat. Marisa Monte   
    9     Pra Fugir da Saudade (Elton Medeiros / Paulinho da Viola) feat.  Iris, Julieta, and Eliane Faria  2:24
    10     Filosofia (Noel Rosa)    2:39
    11     Pot-Purri: De Paulo da Portela a Paulinho da Viola/Foi Um Rio Que ...
(Monarco / Francisco Santana / Paulinho da Viola) feat. Velha Guarda da Portela     4:21
    12     Conflito (Marcos Diniz, Barbeirinho de Jacarezinho) feat. Zeca Pagodinho3:29
    13 Retiro (Paulinho da Viola)     1:09
    14     Coisas Do Mundo, Minha Nêga (Paulinho da Viola)   3:17
    15     Um Sarau Para Raphael (Paulinho da Viola) feat. Nó em Pingo d'Água     4:38
    16     Argumento (Paulinho da Viola)    0:37


I haven't done a blog post in over a week so in a way this is a "filler" post.  Of course nothing Paulinho has done deserves to be called 'filler' even if it isn't a major entry in his huge body of work.  This is a soundtrack record; I highly recommend the film, which is not so much a biopic as a musical portrait of one of Brazil's national treasures.  On this record, as in the film, Paulinho performs alongside old friends and new as well as a few solo pieces.  A  purist to the core, he works through some classic samba and a little bit of choro with guests like Zeca Pagodinho, Cristina Buarque, and Elton Medeiros (with whom he started his career).  The only thing keeping this record from being perfect is the presence of Marisa Monte - a robot built by scientists working for the music industry - who sings an utterly forgettable version of "Carinhoso."  I am also of the opinion that a moratorium should be declared on that song as well as Garota da Ipanema, with all due respect to Pixinguinha, Jobim and Moraes.  But this is also why God invented the "skip" button.  Feel free to use it.

There is a relaxed, unrehearsed quality to a lot of the songs here that is very charming.  A couple songs feature family members:  "Rosinha, Essa Menina" and "Chora Cavaquinho" feature his father, César Faria, one of the founders of the Época de Ouro band along with Jacob do Bandolim, and who would pass away a mere four years after this recording, while "Pra Fugir da Saudade" features his daughters.  A high point of the record is Zeca Pagodinho's appearance, which injects a needed bit of energy into this otherwise nostalgic retrospective.  Not that nostalgia or saudades are bad: the medley with Elton Medeiros (who rocks out on the matchbook) is a bit sloppy but putting "O Sol Nascerá" (co-written with Cartola) next to "Jurar Com Lágrimas" works really well, and the medley with the Velha Guarda da Portela is also nice.  A few of these tracks sound like they came straight from the folio microphones used on the film and so have an almost field-recording quality (you can hear birds chirping outside the windows during "Retiro").  The questionable acoustics of the "room sound" oddly draw your attention to the intimacy of Paulinho's renditions on those songs, but I'm still glad for the richer studio textures of Noel Rosa's "Filosofia" and his own "Sinal Fechado."

If it wasn't for his head full of gray hair, you wouldn't know Paulinho  had aged a day since his first recordings in the mid 1960s.  Granted, this record is now 10 years old (the minimum for being featured on this blog...) but he still sounds this good today.  For fans who already love and respect the walking reservoir of samba who is Paulinho da Viola, this is a nice record to add to your collection, as is the film.  For newcomers, this little splash should inspire a deeper dive.  

Sparrow - Sparrow Vs. The Rest (1976)

August 27, 2013, 7:46 pm

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Sparrow
Sparrow vs. The Rest
1976 Dynamic (DYLP 3001)

A1         How You Jammin' So     4:50    
A2         Music & Rhythm     4:00    
A3         Saltfish     3:05    
A4         Witch Doctor     4:15    
A5         My Woman     3:10    
B1         Fatman     4:10    
B2         The Statue     4:45    
B3         Pan Jam Fete     4:25    
B4         We Kinda Music     4:05    


Produced by Slinger Francisco
Arranged By – U. Belfast & Slinger Francisco
Backing Band –  The Troubadours
Photography – Aston Chin, Howard Moo Young
Recording engiener - N. Case
Remixed by B.Lee
Mastered by G. Goodhall
Album design - Moo Young / Butler Associates Ltd.

Recorded at Dynamic Sounds Studios, 15 Bell Road, Kingston 11
to C. Wear and J. Francique, special thanks from The Dragonaires

Manufactures by Creole Records, London

Vinyl; Pro-Ject RM-5SE turntable (with Sumiko Blue Point 2 cartridge, Speedbox power supply); Creek Audio OBH-15; M-Audio Audiophile 192 Soundcard ; Adobe Audition at 32-bit float 192khz; Click Repair; individual clicks and pops taken out with Adobe Audition 3.0 - dithered and resampled using iZotope RX Advanced (for 16-bit). Tags done with Foobar 2000 and Tag and Rename.

==============================================

Well it is too late for Notting Hill Carnival but not too late to still enjoy some calypso!

Sparrow aka Mighty Sparrow aka Slinger Francisco (with a real name like Slinger Francsico, why do you even need a stage name??) has been one of the kings of calypso music for half a century.  Although he is known for political songs too (see Capitalism Gone Mad for a great example) he is probably most famous for ribald, raunchy double entendre songs like Big Bamboo (which I'm not entirely sure if he wrote, but he definitely made famous).  This album has no political songs but a few choice cuts from the latter category, like Salt Fish and Fat Man.  Some songs just celebrate the power of good music (Music And Rhythm) and one celebrates the Afro-Caribbean folk religion of Obeah, albeit it tongue and cheek, the wickedly glorious "Witchdoctor."   This record is also probably one of his last 1970s records of straight calypso music as he transitioned into also singing the popular Soca style, at which he is also fantastic.   His band The Dragonairres are in top form and the horn arrangements are especially great.

This album has been at the front of the stacks for a long time before I finally got around to this blog post - here's hoping that I manage to post a couple more Sparrow albums sooner rather than later.  In fact this particular LP was a gift from the lovely Bertha Xique-Xique, to whom I owe much inspiration.  Have you noticed that this is also one of the most bad-ass album covers ever?

Flabbergasted Freeform Radio Hour No.5

September 2, 2013, 9:44 am

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It's hear! The fifth installment of Flabbergasted Freeform Radio Hour.  

Listen on Soundcloud or download the FLAC or 320 file for your audio player of choice and take it on the road.

Track list will be posted in a week or so because I like surprises and so should you.

Donations toward a Soundcloud Pro subscription are accepted! Right now I got a month-to-month thing going with them because I sadly can't even afford to put up for the whole year.  Free accounts mean I have to keep deleting these podcasts when there is something new to host.

320 kbs file

FLAC file

Podcast archives are over here

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Nara Leão, Edu Lobo, Tamba Trio - 5 Na Bossa (1965)

September 9, 2013, 11:03 am

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5 NA BOSSA
Edu Lobo / Nara Leão / Tamba Trio
1965 Philips 632.769 L
2013 Remaster

1 - Carcará  (José Cândido, João do Vale)   
2 - Reza  (Ruy Guerra, Edu Lobo)   
3 - O trem atrasou  (Paquito, Vilarinho, Estanislau Silva)   
4 - Zambi  (Edu Lobo, Vinicius de Moraes)   
5 - Consolação  (Baden Powell, Vinicius de Moraes)   
6 - Aleluia  (Ruy Guerra, Edu Lobo)   
7 - Cicatriz  (Zé Keti, Hermínio Bello de Carvalho)   
8 - Estatuinha  (Gianfrancesco Guarnieri, Edu Lobo)   
9 - Minha história  (Raymundo Evangelista, João do Vale)   
10 - O morro não tem vez (Tom Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes)   

Recorded live at the Paramount Theater, São Paulo

Remastered by Luigi Hoffer and Carlos Savalla at Digital Mastering Solutions

--------------------------------


Well there isn't a tremendous amount to say about this brief live record.  Solid performances from everyone involved, although the recording itself is less than prestine and seems to have been made worse by questionable remastering that now makes the album feature clipped samples and very obvious noise reduction artifacts... Why do I keep buying CDs just to hear myself complain when I know they'll screw them up?  Well this otherwise pretty rare so there's one reason.

Tamba Trio sounds fantastic, as usual, and the two cuts they have to themselves here are nice and long showcases.  Nara is a bit uneven, unfortunately.  Her imperfect intonation was always part of her charm, but in this live setting - inside a large auditorium-style theater and no stage monitors (being 1965) - her pitch is more off than usual.  In fact "Cicatriz," a song that goes outside her vocal range to begin with, is a downright painful listen.  She sounds excellent singing with Edu Lobo on Aleluia, though.  Sr. Lobo just celebrated his 70th birthday, so it's a particularly good time to enjoy this rare live recording of him in his youth.  The liner notes thank Aloysio de Oliveira (the man behind Elenco) for loaning him out for this recording.  He sings one of my favorite compositions of his too, "Reza." 

Betty Wright - I Love The Way You Love (1972) (24 bit - 192 khz)

September 12, 2013, 5:53 pm

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 Betty Wright
I LOVE THE WAY YOU LOVE
1972 Alston Records (SD 33-388)

 I Love The Way You Love 3:20
I'll Love You Forever Heart And Soul 3:40
I Found That Guy 3:35
All Your Kissin' Sho' Don't Make True Lovin' 2:35
If You Love Me Like You Say You Love Me 3:10
Clean Up Woman 2:40
I'm Gettin' Tired Baby 2:40
Pure Love 2:20
Ain't No Sunshine 3:20
Don't Let It End This Way 2:50
Let's Not Rush Down The Road Of Love 2:54



  Backing Vocals – The Reid Singers
   Bass – David Brown, Edmund Collins, Ron Bogdon, Snoopy Dean
   Design – Drago
    Drums – Ivan 'Nick' Marshall, Jimmie Lee Harrell, John 'Duck' Sandlin, Robert Fergeson, Robert Johnson    Guitar – James Knight , Jess 'Beaver' Carr, Snoopy Dean, Willie 'Little Beaver' Hale
   Horns – Memphis Horns
   Piano, Organ – Arnold 'Hoss' Albury, Benny Latimore, Bobby Birdwatcher
   Piano, Organ - Clarence Reid


Rhythm arrangements by Little Beaver and Clarence Reid
Strings and horns arranged by Mike Lewis
Produced and engineered by Willie Clarke
Additional production by Clarence Reid
Liner Notes – Willie "Moon Man" Bacote
Photography By – Bruce Mac Callum
Back cover design by Drago

 ----------------------
Vinyl; Pro-Ject RM-5SE turntable (with Sumiko Blue Point 2 cartridge, Speedbox power supply); Creek Audio OBH-15; M-Audio Audiophile 192 Soundcard ; Adobe Audition at 32-bit float 192khz; Click Repair; individual clicks and pops taken out with Adobe Audition 3.0 - dithered and resampled using iZotope RX Advanced (for 16-bit). Tags done with Foobar 2000 and Tag and Rename.
----------------------



* My copy of this LP is not pristine..  But it probably still sounds better than any recent CD versions, and it has that nice warm vinyl thing.  The overall sound of this record, mix-wise, is kinda weird anyway (see below).

This is a start-to-finish gland slam of an album for Betty Wright.  Although she was only 18 or 19 years old when this album was released, it was *not* her first record - that would be "My First Time Around" released when she was only 14.  I don't know what accounts for the long break, I think she was finishing high school or something.   Anyway she definitely doesn't sound like a teenager, but a woman wise in the ups and downs of life and love.  It kind of blew my mind when I found this out.  I mean I knew she had started out young, but I didn't realize she was literally just a kid.

So, the music.  This is mostly straight-up funky southern soul, with a lot of Miami-area musicians.  Alston Records would become TK Records in a few years.  The record jacket has no session information on it, probably because they would have had to pay the type-setter more than they had in their budget.  You can tell from listening to it that it sounds like it was recorded at a bunch of different sessions, and a glance at the credits with the insane number of bassists and drummers confirms that.  There are some weird cameo appearances here - one of the drummers is Johnny Sandlin, later of Capricorn Records in Georgia, and one of the keyboardists is Benny Latimore later, um,  of the band Latimore.   This LP seems to have been patched together from material recorded between 1970 and 1972.  "Pure Love," ,"Clean Up Woman," "I Love The Way You Love," and "I Found That Guy" (a remake of The Jackson 5's "I Found That Girl" ) were all released between 1970 and the release of this LP in 72.    And for a patchwork quilt, the material all hangs together really well.  The arrangements by guitarist Little Beaver and Clarence Reid are fantastic. The fidelity is weird in places, even when the actual mixes are all consistently good.    Little Beaver (real name Willie Hale) and Reid wrote most of the material between the two of them.  Producer Willie Clark gets writing credits on everything that isn't a cover song here, which makes me kind of suspicious that maybe he just added some cowbell and insisted on a credit.  Just kidding, there is no cowbell on this album! 

If you are collecting cover versions of Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine" like I am (there are dozens!), this is one is a good addition to your collection.  Holy crap listen to that bass guitar line!  How did they get that tone?  They kind of sweeten up the "I know, I know, I know..." part, and it works.  Variety is the spice of life.  "If You Love Me Like You Say You Love Me" is the one big stylistic shift as Betty takes on Northern Soul and serves it up righteously.  But really this whole record is a reminder of why I am in the end a Southern Soul lover at heart.  Also, although "Let's Not Rush Down The Road Of Love" is an original composition, you might recognize what the band is playing during the intro part where Betty speaks over it - it's a note-for-note stolen arrangement from Isaac Haye's "Walk On By."  It's no "Ike's Rap" but its pretty neat.

You know, since this post started out with me talking about how damn young Betty was here, I can't resist saying something contemporary, against my better judgement.  Lately there has been a lot of flap in the news about a certain Disney pop star who can't keep her tongue in her mouth.  I dunno, I think she had been a mouseketeer or something,  I'm not interested in the slut-shaming nonsense that seems to have been provoked from mostly white, mostly American people.  I am not interested in whether she is setting an example for young girls.  But I am interested in pointing out this - I do not find Miley Cyrus the least bit sexy.  What do I find sexy and inspiring?  Talent.  That's why Ms. Cyrus and the dozens more just like her will never hold a candle to Betty White's flame. 




 Willie "Little Beaver" Hale


Clarence Reid

 

Nara Leão - Liberdade, Liberdade (1966)

September 18, 2013, 6:36 pm

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Nara Leão, Paulo Autran, Tereza Rachel, Oduvaldo Vianna Filho
LIBERDADE, LIBERDADE
by Flavio Rangel and Millôr Ferndandes

Musical direction by Oscar Castro Neves
with Roberto Nascimento on guitar, Ico Castro Neves on string bass, Carlos Guimarães on flute, and Francisco Araújo on drums.  Vocal chorus comprised of Ângela Menezes, Maísa Sant'Anna, Sônio Márcia Perrone, and Roberto Quartin Pinto.

Released 1966 on Forma.  Recorded by R. Cardoso, produced by Gebara/Quartin.
2013 reissue remastered by Luigi Hoffer and Carlos Savalla
 ------------------------------

Hino da Proclamação da República

Marcha da Quarta-Feira de Cinzas

Aruanda

Acertei no milhar

Eu não tenho onde morar

Com que roupa

Estatutos da gafieira

Té o sol raiar

Nobody knos the troubles I've seen

If you miss me at the back of the bus

Summertime

Leilão

Zumbi

Jota dos três imrãos

Cara al sol

Rumba la rumba

Marinera

Exatação a Tiradentes

Marcha da Quarta-Feira de Cinzas

Hino da Proclamação da República

----------------------------
So, I recently got my hands on the new Nara Leão boxset.  I have been working my way through it slowly, savoring it, and it is a lot of stuff.  I've decided to share some of the less common offerings  first.  Last week we had the record 5 Na Bossa with Edu Lobo and Tamba Trio.   These week brings something probably more obscure.  Some records are obscure for a good reason.  This is one of them.  It would be hard to find a more tedious piece of heavy-handed mid-60s "engaged" material than this.  All that is missing is a rousing rendition of "L'Internationale" or at least "Kumbaya."

The Brazilian theater and MPB have long had a symbiotic relationship.  Some day I might try to research and write a book about it.  For now, suffice it to say that in general theater people rub me the wrong way.  Maybe it was the mockery I received in that script-writing class I once took as a teenager, leaving me predisposed to dislike theatre people for the rest of my life.  This isn't to say that I can't appreciate a well done performance or the merits of a particular dramaturg or actor.  I just don't want to end up at the cast party afterwards.  

This stage play features Paulo Autran, who I am sure was a very nice fellow.  I have nothing against him.  A veteran of Shakespeare and Brecht, he at least tries to bring the pathos of both to this production that is very much a product of its times.  A couple of years after starring in this play, Autran would feature in Glauber Rocha's amazing film Terra Em Transe.  Scripted and directed by Flávio Rangel and Millôr Fernandes, "Liberdade, Liberdade" is historically important for being one of the first examples of 'protest theatre' in Brazil when it debuted in 1965, a year after the military coup but with the worst yet to come.  In fact by the time this record came out in '66 it was prohibited to perform it on stage.  A great deal of the play is a patchwork of excerpts from such global freethinkers as Socrates, Martin Luther King, and Jesus. Subtlety is not its strong suit.  I am not going to attempt a critical appraisal on whether the play succeeds or fails at its aims, how so or in what measures, because ultimately the whole thing is just very dull.  Even the attempts at humor fail to actually lighten things up and seem kind of pedantic.  The songs included amidst the lefty soap boxing are rarely played or sung for more than a single verse and chorus.  So unlike Nara Leão's similar hybrid of theatre and 'música engajada', the "Show Opinão", this one just doesn't hold up well to multiple listens.  It doesn't help things that for the CD edition, no attempt to index tracks was made, meaning we have one continuous audio track of 48 minutes.  So forget just trying to find the musical snippets.  This is all a bigger shame because there are some killer compositions strewn about from the likes of Noel Rosa, Baden Powell, Vinicius, Caymmi, Billy Blanco, Carlos Lyra and others.   The music seems to have been performed off-mic too and comes out rather muffled.  (One odd technical note, the album jacket - at least the one featured on the reissue - lists this as a mono recording but it is actually in stereo, albeit mostly just occasional hard panning.)      

If you are dying to hear Nara Leão sing in English or can't wait for Brazilian interpretations of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen," then this album tem sua cara, you need look no further.  Actually the (partial) rendition of Gershwin's "Summertime" is pretty cool.

If you are researching that tumultuous period between the military coup of March 31, 1964 and the implementation of the AI-5 (Institutional Act Number 5) in '67, this record will probably be of great interest to you.  If you are tuning in to hear the inimitable Nara Leão, it will likely be a footnote.

Reposts - Sept 26, 2013

September 26, 2013, 9:34 am

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From top left to bottom right:

 Antonio Adolfo e Brazuca (1970)
João Nogueira (1972)
Paulo Moura - Fibra (1971)
Ray Barretto - Indestructable (1973)
Bobby Hutcherson - Now! (1969) 
Alaíde Costa - Canta Suavamente (1960)

Some reups for all of you while I am busy with other things.  Please report any erroneous links you come across, cheers.

Creative Source - Creative Source (1973) 24-bit

October 21, 2013, 5:06 pm

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CREATIVE SOURCE
1973 Sussex Records (SRA 8027)


1         You Can't Hide Love (Skip Scarborough)     3:19    
2         Let Me In Your Life (Bill Withers) 3:03    
3         Lovesville    (Joe Thomas, Mike Stokes)     3:58    
4         You're Too Good To Be True    (Joe Thomas, Mike Stokes)    3:29    
5         Wild Flower    (David Richardson, Douglas Edwards)    4:38    
6         Magic Carpet Ride    (John Kay, Rushton Moreve)    3:10    
7         Who Is He And What Is He To You    (Bill Withers, Stan McKenney)    11:40    
8         Oh Love    (Joe Thomas, Mike Stokes)    3:25    


CREATIVE SOURCE IS

    Barbara Berryman
    Barbara Lewis
    Don Wyatt
    Steve Flanagan
    Celeste Rose

Recorded at GM Studios, East Detroit, MI.
Overdubs at Record Plant, Los Angeles, CA.

    Arranged By – Paul Riser
    Rhythm arrangments , Mike Stokes, Skip Scarborough  
    Vocal arrangements – Earl Thomas, Mike Stokes, Skip Scarborough
    Engineers – Milan Bogdan, Phil Schier
    Executive Producer – Bill Levenson  
    Mixed By – Don Blake, Mike Stokes  
    Producer – Mike Stokes
    Mastered By – Bob "Loud and Clear" Dennis

Vinyl -> Pro-Ject RM-5SE turntable (with Sumiko Blue Point 2 cartridge, Speedbox power supply); Creek Audio OBH-15; M-Audio Audiophile 192 Soundcard ; Adobe Audition at 32-bit float 192khz; Click Repair light settings; individual clicks and pops taken out with Adobe Audition 3.0 - resampled (and dithered for 16-bit) using iZotope RX Advanced. Tags done with Foobar 2000 and Tag&Rename.

When I first heard this record I was knocked flat by the opening track, "You Can't Hide Love."  I enjoyed the rest of the album with a few reservations but felt nothing quite regained that peak, and I had mixed feelings about the Bill Withers tracks.  My first impressions weren't too off base, but I've come to appreciate just about everything on here.

The thing about this group, at least on this record, is that Creative Source was very much a "producer's project" and that becomes even more apparent as you pay attention.  This includes the fact that the individual members don't even get their damned names mentioned anywhere on the album.  (** This post originally stated that the Barbara Lewis on this was the same as the Barbara Lewis of  "Hello Stranger" and "Baby I'm Yours" fame, but as it turns out - see the comments thread - I was almost certainly mistaken. Don Wyatt  and with The Fortunes and The Colts.**)  The group was conceived and managed by former 5th Dimensions vocalist Ron Townsend, and it seems there was some idea about making Creative Source into a more adventurous version of that group for the new decade.   What we get is a nice, solid mix of Northern Soul, funk, and pop-soul flavorings.  Their second album, Migration, is probably a more solid record, but the stand out moments on this one stand out a little more.

My initial reaction to the Bill Wither covers was based on two things that made me uneasy.  First, this album was put out by his label, Sussex, and it is well known that Withers barely made a dime from those classic and very lucrative records.  As anyone who saw the Rodriguez doc will attest, it is also well known that label head Clarence Avant is a notorious crook, so the "convenience" of having several of his cash cow's (Wither) compositions featured prominently here makes me wonder if Bill was even told about it before it happened, let alone got paid - and one of the Creative Source versions actually charted as a hit.  Second, one of the defining characteristics of the early Bill Withers was the bare-bones, no-bullshit simplicity and directness of the execution and arrangements.  His writing was emotionally complex but expressed in a very direct way.  So hearing his songs arranged with sugary-sweet, lush strings (Let Me In Your Life) or an Isaac Hayes-treatment with trickles of funky harp, Clavinet, and oodles of wah-guitar (Who Is He And What Is He To You), at first made me uncomfortable.  What have they done to Mr. Withers?  Well I quickly got over that.  Probably at about  2 minutes into the 11 minutes of "Who Is He..."  It's just too cool to resist any longer.   If there is one good thing to be said for this approach, it is that they make no pretense at performing like Withers himself.  The songs are rearranged and recontextualized, and regardless of how you feel about the results, they end up proving again just what a massive songwriter he really was when their essence still shines through, even under the heavy-handed treatments. "Let Me In Your Life" is still probably a crime against the original vibe created by Bill Withers, but  on its own terms it works, and you have to give them credit for not going the easy route and just covering "Ain't No Sunshine" like literally everyone else was doing in 1973.

Ditto for the odd but ambitious choice of covering Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride," which is pretty cheesy and doesn't really work.  However it still sports a nice trippy opening and a hard, funky breakdown in the middle.   "You're Too Good To Be True" sound so much like Jerry Butler that if you dropped it into the middle of a mixtape I would actually be convinced it was in fact The Iceman.  This is also what might be the most relevant criticism of Creative Source - they sort of lacked their own personality, at least on their two Sussex albums (I haven't heard their Polydor records, oddly enough).  The were an L.A. group who sometimes wanted to sound like Philly soul, sometimes like a Norman Whitfield project for Motown (Sussex was, after all, based in Detroit).   The two Barbaras and Celeste Rose are horribly under-utilized on this record too.  I would gladly have foregone the schmaltzy "Wildflower," one of many songs with a male lead, for something featuring Ms. Lewis in its place.  Bugs the hell out of me that we don't get any album credits (unless my copy is missing an insert, in which case I guess I will look pretty stupid for saying this).  I have no idea what session musicians played on this either although it's fairly certain that Skip Scarborough (who worked with the Mizell Brothers, among others) graces it with his keyboard skills.

Like a ton of other groups on Sussex, Creative Source barely got any promotion or made any money (for themselves) so they were probably relieved when the label went belly-up, and they departed for greener, more financially-viable pastures.   One of these days I will give those Polydor albums a try.

Reposts - Oct 30, 2013

October 30, 2013, 11:05 am

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Leny Andrade - Estamos Aí (1965)
Baden Powell with Jimmy Pratt (1953)
Silvio Caldas - Madrugada (1935-1938)
Taiguara - Fotografias (1973)
Poly e Seu Conjunto - Saia Vermelha (1963)
Os Cobras - O Lp (1964)

As I rush to make some deadlines IRL, I have been neglecting this blog a bit, but as a kind of comprise I've been going back and trying to fix some of the dead links, including a few that have had a lot of unattended requests.  I promise to bring some new content here very soon, including another Flabbergasted Freeform podcast.

Jamelão - A Voz do Samba, Volume 1 (2002)

November 7, 2013, 5:52 pm

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Jamelão
A Voz do Samba, Volume 1
2002 Warner Music (092745932-2)
Recordings from 1974-76
Originally issued as a 3-CD boxset in 1997

1 Apoteose ao samba     (Mano Décio, Silas de Oliveira)   
2 Casa grande e senzala     (Zagaia, Comprido, Leléo)   
3 Macunaíma     (Norival Reis, David Corrêa)   
4 Quatro séculos de paixão     (Arroz, Graúna)   
5 Cântico à natureza     (A. Lourenço, Jamelão, Nelson Sargento)   
6 Dona Bêja - Feiticeira do Araxá     (Aurinho da Ilha)   
7 O grande presidente      (Padeirinho)   
8 Rio Antigo      (Cícero dos Santos, Pelado da Mangueira, Hélio Turco)   
9 Zaquia Jorge, a estrela do subúrbio, vedete de Madureira     (Avarese)   
10 Rio Grande do Sul na festa do preto fôrro      (Nilo Mendes, Dario Marciano)   
11 No reino da mãe de ouro      (Talito, Rubens da Mangueira)   
12 Terra de Caruaru      (Sidney da Conceição, Corvina)   
13 Festa do Círio de Nazaré      (Nilo Mendes, Aderbal Moreira, Dario Marciano)   
14 Mangueira em tempo de folclore     (Jajá, Manoel, Preto Rico)     


I am not ideologically committed to the idea of a chronology retrospective approach to box sets or collections, but it does have its merits.  I just don't get the sense of starting out with tracks taken exclusively from the years 1974-76, squarely in the middle of Jamelão's prolific career.  That is what this collection, originally released as three discs together and then reissued separately,  has chosen for reasons that elude me.  Is it because the 70s "samba revival" production value is more accessible to our contemporary ears than the classic, larger band/orchestra style in which he made his first hits?   It could be, but if so then it's a pretty weak argument.

Because what is beguiling about this is not really the chronology but the emphasis:   although Jamelão is renowned as the ultimate interpreter of the sambas written by his friend Lupicínio Rodriguez, this first disc is entirely comprised of samba enredo (none of which are associated with Lupicínio).

Now a while back I had a comment from a blog reader about how they couldn't handle an entire album of partido alto all at once.  While I personally could listen to partido alto all day long, I know how they feel - because I feel that way about samba enredo.  For those unfamiliar, samba enredo  is the style of didactic story-song that is popular during carnival and during the huge open rehearsals leading up to it.  Part of that popularity is of course the talent of the composers, who get a little extra motivation in the big prizes, awards, and accolades involve, but it is also in the spectacle of huge production that will happen once and once only - something that does not necessarily transfer its excitement to a petroleum-based disc.  When Rio's samba schools decide on an annual theme, itfalls to the carnavalescos, the artists and designers of costumes and floats, to decide how to interpret it and present something new and original, reflecting the theme from a different angle than all the other samba schools, and to collaborate with the choreographers and musicians and sambistas to make it all cohere.  Truly a marvel of creative coordination, wouldn't you say?  Samba writers give it their all, because if the affiliated samba school gets top rankings at the concursos or showcase competitions, it means a lot both for the school and for whichever singer and composer helped them win a new title.  While you might find humor and critique tucked away in the selections, what predominates are celebratory anthems of one or another variety of nationalism.   On this collection we have a few songs praising famous literary works (Casa Grande e Senzala, Macunaíma), politicians (O Grande Presidente), geographic areas, cities or states (Rio Antigo, Terra de Caruarú, Rio Grande do Sul Na Festa do Preto Fôrro), and religious or mystical themes (Festa do Círio de Nazaré), or famous prostitutes (Dona Bêja).  Interestingly, to get back on the subject of chronology, a few of these sambas actually debuted decades before the recordings on this collection were made.  O Grande Presidente, a praise song for the populist and popular, authoritarian "man of the people" Getulio Vargas, was featured in 1956's carnival, a year and a half after his legendary and dramatic suicide.

It is worth pointing out that while Jamelão's name is forever linked with the green and pink colors of his beloved Mangueira,  a few of the other prominent samba schools are represented here either through affiliated sambista composers or through the song having featured in a particular school's carnaval presentation.  (Not all samba composers, nor all singers for that matter, don't always work exclusively with one samba school.)   The opening track, which happens to be my favorite on the whole disc, Apoteose ao samba, is written by Silas de Oliveira and Mano Décio of the Império Serrano samba school, both of whom feature on the lovely Encontro Com a Velha Guarda album too.  Portela and Estácio de Sá also get some entries here.

So perhaps the logic of this release was to start the collection by highlighting Jamelão as a grand figure of carnaval across several generations.  Which, of course, he was. The next two volumes focus on his role as interpreter of Lupicínio Rodrigues' sambas, and as a crooner of romantic samba, respectively.  Well at least they left us something to look forward to.

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African Music Machine - Black Water Gold 1972-74 (2000)

November 14, 2013, 11:49 am

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African Music Machine
Black Water Gold
2000 Soul Power – LPS 3317
Collection of singles released 1972-3


A1 Black Water Gold (Pearl) 2:59
A2 Mr. Brown 2:48
A3 A Girl In France 2:25
A4 The Dapp 2:40
B1 Never Name A Baby (Before It's Born) 3:10
B2 Tropical 2:20
B3 Making Nassau Fruit Drink 2:26
B4 Camel Time 2:50


   Bass, Vocals – Louis Villery
   Drums – Louis Acorn
   Guitar – Jumbo
   Percussion – Osman
   Piano, Organ – Obitu
   Producer – Louis Villery
   Saxophone [Tenor] – Tyrone Dotson
   Saxophone [Tenor], Flute – Ete-Ete
   Trumpet – Amal
   Written By – Bell
   Written-By – Louis Villery

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Vinyl -> Pro-Ject RM-5SE turntable (with Sumiko Blue Point 2 cartridge, Speedbox power supply); Creek Audio OBH-15; M-Audio Audiophile 2496Soundcard ; Adobe Audition at 32-bit float 96khz; Click Repair light settings; individual clicks and pops taken out with Adobe Audition 3.0 - resampled (and dithered for 16-bit) using iZotope RX Advanced. Tags done with Foobar 2000 and Tag&Rename.


 This group released  4 singles between 1972 and 1974 on the Paula subsidiary label Soul Power Records, and they were collected on this LP posthumously.  New Orleans funk-soul band formed by bassist Louis Villery that sounds sometimes like James Brown meets Muscle Shoals meets early Chicago (the band)/Blood Sweat & Tears.  The opening cut is fantastic, and the arrangements on most of the cuts are inventive enough to keep things interesting.  Most of it is instrumental, and the vocals on a couple of tunes are kind of superfluous.  A couple tunes (A Girl In France & Tropical) have a kind of Meters-like feel mostly due to the rhythm guitar.  I could sort of imagine these guys playing a double bill in NOLA with The Meters.. in the opening slot, of course.   The tune Camel Time has a Santana-esque vibe, or maybe it's a Malo vibe... crossed with some random outtake from the first Funkadelic record.

Well that is enough genetic-musical-splicing for one blog post.  In the end the music here is nothing to flip out over but it ain't bad either.  In fact the first time you play it, it's pretty damn enjoyable, but in my opinion it doesn't quite hold my interest in the long-term after repeated listens.  I am sure if I were one of those freaks who only plays 45's, I would love it more.




These are all mono mixes, but since the vinyl pressing is not truly cut in mono, I opted not to use the mono fold-down option in Clickrepair, it seemed like it do result in some weird phasing issues.  This stuff is pretty low-fi and it's really more of an EP - 8 songs in about 20 minutes.  Personally, the 16-44.1 version of this is good enough for me.  Maybe it's the limitations of my speakers, or my ears, or the fact that I drink enough coffee to sometimes give me tinnitus, but I just don't there is enough sonic information here to make  huge difference.  Still, this was ripped in 24 bit - 96 khz, and I have the files, so why not share, cuz the internetz must have thems!

Reposts 26 November 2013

November 26, 2013, 10:23 am

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Jerry Butler - The Iceman Cometh / Ice On Ice (1969)
Cartola (1976)
Paulinho da Viola (1978)
Luiz Paixão - Pimenta Com Pitú (2006)
Jazz Crusaders - Old Socks, New Shoes (1970)
João Gilberto - The Legendary João Gilberto (1990)

Flabbergasted Freeform #6

December 6, 2013, 3:06 pm

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320 kbs


FLAC

The wait is over!

Recorded and mixed in Adobe Audition with a Neumann U87 microphone, Pro-ject RM 5.1 turntable,  API and SSL plugins for compression and some EQ on one track that badly needed it.  iZotope RX Advanced for dithering and resampling to 16-44.1 khz.

Pablo Lubadika Porthos - En Action: Ma Coco (1981)

December 16, 2013, 8:45 am

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Pablo Lubadika Porthos
En Action - Ma Coco
Released 1981
Afro Hit Records Discafrique – DARL-019 (France)

1. Ma Coco
2. Mbongo Mokonzi
3. Madeleina
4. Bo Mbanda

Pabulco Lubadika Porthos - composer, arranger, vocal, guitar, bass
Lea Lianzi - lead vocal
Jo John Mboutany - backing vocal
Master Mwana - congas, guitar
Domingo "Salsero" - drums, percussion
Manga Jerry - Trumpet
Priso - sax
Roger Kom - sax

Photo by DRAME BAZOUMANA

Produced by Sonny Dick
M'Bahia Jean-Charles - manager
Richard Dick (!) - "executive producer"

Recorded at Studio Laguna, Paris.  An "International Salsa Musique" production

PABLO, Lubadika Porthos

(b 1950s, Zaire) African singer-composer, bassist, guitarist. Played in the 1970s with bands including Kin Bantous, Lovy du Zaire, Groupe Celibithou, Orchestre Kara; to Paris to play with Sam Mangwana and the African All-Stars on classic 'Georgette Eckins', joined session musicians on Salsa Musique label, playing on albums by Pamelo Mounk'a, Master Mwana Congo, Assi Kapela, and pursued a solo career with albums of fast, sweet soukous: Concentration, Idie, Revient En Force, En Action. Tracks 'Bo Mbanda' and 'Madeleina' on Island label's African compilation '81 brought wider fame; played with Les Quatre Etoiles in London '84, released first UK album Pablo Pablo Pablo '85 on Globestyle. He was much sought after for sessions. There was a compilation Okominiokolo '93 on Stern's. 

from from  http://www.donaldclarkemusicbox.com/encyclopedia/detail.php?s=2738

Vinyl; Pro-Ject RM-5SE turntable (with Sumiko Blue Point 2 cartridge, Speedbox power supply); Creek Audio OBH-15; M-Audio Audiophile 192 Soundcard ; Adobe Audition at 32-bit float 192khz; Click Repair light settings; individual clicks and pops taken out with Adobe Audition 3.0 - resampled (and dithered for 16-bit) using iZotope RX Advanced. Tags done with Foobar 2000 and Tag&


Some random crate digging lead me to this gem of early 80s soukous music and a few others like it.  The guitars intertwine like go-go dancers playing Twister at a ballet.   This is not to be missed, but since I don`t speak the languages I can't offer any insight into the lyrical content or context.  The vocals, sung in harmony throughout, are lovely and melodic, even if the melodies begin to seem a little overly familiar by the end of the second side.  The big hit on this record was "Madeleina" which offers a little of the best of everything.  It also showcases one of the unique traits of soukous - about which I know very little so indulge me for a moment:  it is a pop style, but one that has limitless patience to show you what it has to say.  It is uptempo but unhurried.  For those whose ears were first subjected to the strains of 80s "World Music" it may even seem oddly familiar, because in a way Soukous and Highlife conquered the world in that decade, reaching a global audience, and often being diluted and neutered by European and American pop stars incorporating them into their records.  Every now and then an actual African managed to garner fame enough to work up some ticket and record sales with non-African audiences.   It is not my area of expertise but I'll go out on a limb and say that the popularity of African musics in Europe and the U.S. would not be possible without the vibrant immigrant populations and neighborhoods, whether in Paris, Notting Hill, or New York.  This particular album was recorded in Paris and released on the Afro Hit Records Discafrique label, with the "executive producer" / label guy / liner note author / redundantly-named man Richard Dick.

The drummer Domingo "Salsero" gets extra points for sheer stamina and the ability to fend off painful leg cramps from a pounding kick drum beat that never varies.  Drop the pitch on that drum a little and you would keep today's club kids happy and giggling in Ecstasy for hours.  An interesting stylistic point is that the snare drums is barely used at all, being deployed only for fills.  The main beat is carried out strictly on kick and hi-hat, except for Madeleina which has a few sections where Domingo just rocks the fuck out on the snare.  In fact the centrality of the hi-hat to mark time leads to a technical problem with the vinyl.  As most vinyl enthusiasts have noticed, some records (in combination with some tone-arms and stylii) are prone to "inner groove distortion" where tracking the groove becomes a bit of a problem as the needle moves closer to the inner label, the end of an album side.  When IGD is present, the distortion is almost always in the forms of high frequency sibilance.  In this case, it sounds as if the hi-hat is in danger of coming loose from the drum kit, flying out of your speakers, and decapitating you on your sofa.  So don't turn the volume too loud or that just might happen.  My cartridge can be prone to sibilance in the first place (as one obnoxious blog visitor pointed out), but usually it is only an issue with certain records and even certain pressings of certain records.   Some months after transferring this album, I realized that an extra tenth of a gram of weight on the tone-arm could sometimes help this problem, helping the stylus to sit better in the groove and hence track more cleanly, but by then I had already refiled the LP, done preliminary processing (Click Repair and track division) and sort of resolved myself to working with this as it is.  If I can remember to try playing this album with a little more weight someday, maybe I will start all over again on this one, but don't hold your breath.  I am also not convinced the difference will be anything but minimal, as a lot depends on the quality of the recording and especially the pressing plants that made the records.  Sad but true, while many major-label albums are certainly known to give audio enthusiasts a headache with Inner Groove Distortion (there are lists out there!), the problem seems even more common with smaller labels who had lease resources, quality control, and/or access to first-rate mastering and pressing facilities. 

Draft of an abstract, The Story of the Object, the Circulation of the Commodity, and the Inscription of Names: Globalization and African Music from Paris to New York.  Submitted by Flabbergast  to the Journal of Musical Semiology and Historical Materialism, Ikea Publishing House: Amsterdam.




This Pablo Lubadika Porthos album once belonged to Rex.  After he brought it home, Rex noticed that the New York City shop where he purchased it was astute enough to put a little sticker on the back cover advertizing its name and location.  Good business practice for an independent retailer specializing in the importation of African music.  Realizing that he also had a responsibility to future generations, Rex resolved to inscribe his own mark for the aid of future music historians.  He did this with a big thick magic marker on the front, back, and center labels of the album.  Like any fine artist, he set his work aside for a day or two to contemplate it, putting it on an easel in the corner of the room where could gaze upon it while smoking cigarettes and eating jelly donuts.  The muse whispered in his ear that the work was not yet finished.  Going to the art supply shop, he bought himself a fine felt-tipped pen and came back to his loft, where he set to work inscribing his name in his characteristic, singular hand, in miniscule letters nestled inside the lettering of the album title, and inside the back cover photo of Lupadika.  In one final flourish, he signed and dated the inner label: 5/30/81.  

At last the artist could rest.

More than 30 years later, an artificial intelligence on the internet named Flabbergast took it upon himself to "restore" this artwork in Photoshop and remove all traces of Rex's handiwork before further circulating the commodity in the accumulation of bandwidth. With the important exception of the inner label marking, which is permanent and irreversible.  In this act of inscription, Rex highlights how the erasures of colonial histories are resistant to the globalizing universalism of Late Capitalism.




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John Fahey - Christmas With John Fahey Volume 2 (1975)

December 21, 2013, 1:31 pm

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John Fahey
Christmas With John Fahey, Volume II
Released 1975

 1. Oh Holy Night
 2. Christmas Medley: Oh Tannenbaum, Angels We Have Heard On High, Jingle Bells
 3.  Russian Christmas Overture
4. White Christmas
5. Carol Of The Bells
6. Christmas Fantasy (Parts One & Two)

Tracks 1,2,3 and 5 are in duet with Richard Ruskin.
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Recorded at United/Western Recording, Los Angeles
Mastered at Fidelatone by Bruce Leek
Artwork by Stephanie Pyren

CD pressing 1986, Takoma Records
thanks to Rab Hines for the rip

Well this medicine may be too late to cure the auditory disease known as Christmas Music Earworms, considering that many of you have been subjected to the stuff for well on two months now.  But better late than never.

This is a holiday record by that most unlikely Santa Claus, guitarist John Fahey.  He had released an earlier (and far superior) Christmas album called The New Possiblity, hence this one being dubbed a "Volume 2."  It is not your average Xmas record and probably won't fit on a playlist with Johnny Mathis.  Just stare at the album cover for a while and you will swear that somebody spiked your eggnog with something a bit stronger than rum.

While the New Possibility was a revelation for me, this record is a little bit of something that Fahey rarely was: predictable.  And I say a LITTLE BIT because it's not an entirely fair criticism.   Maybe he just had so much fun making the first one that he was compelled to make a second, or maybe there was commercial incentive involved.  The album is consistently pleasant, but there just aren't many surprises until you get to the second side.  "Oh Holy Night" is pretty but kind of tame, and the Christmas medley is actually kind of bad.  Things get much, much better with the Russian Christmas Overture.  White Christmas has the kind of halting slippages that make you think they might be mistakes but then we all know Fahey was a genius and MEANT it to sound that way, right?   This is the only track on the first side that is not a guitar duet with Richard Ruskin (who also had three records put out on Fahey's Takoma label).  Maybe that is at the core of my misgivings - Ruskin is an excellent guitarist, but so much of what charms me about Fahey are his idiosyncrasies coupled with his mastery of the instrument, and  when playing with other musicians those idiosyncrasies are by necessity kept in check.  "Carol of the Bell" is quite gorgeous, however.

The second side of the original album is one long, meandering acoustic guitar experiment called "Christmas Fantasy" - the kind of Fahey you had begun to desperately miss after five fairly straight arrangements.   Playing all on his lonesome, he can manipulate time and space and bring me to that same cocoon-like, familiar place as his most cryptic and dense material, and make me feel welcome with Yuletide cheer.  It sounds mostly improvised although knowing Fahey it is probably more planned-out than it sounds.  As fun as it is, it almost feels like over-compensating for the straight readings of the material on the first side.  A bit self-indulgent, maybe, although I don't mind it when Fahey indulged himself.

From the very first notes of "Joy To The World" on The New Possibility, you knew you just signed on to a singular experience.  Possibly bordering on the transcendent.  Traditional Christmas material approached with Fahey's vast musical knowledge but none of the reverence usually accorded to it.  I don't use the word "irreverence" because it's not as if there was anything iconoclastic about the record - it was just refracted through Fahey's interpretive lens, which was always kind of bent. The "Volume II" album, on the other hand, comes across mostly as just straight-up Christmas music that happens to be played by John Fahey and a friend (except for the bonkers second half).