Gotta Catch Up on the "Get Down"!

Hamilton Bohannon - South African Man

Over the weekend the Electro-Phonic Brian Phillips pointed out in a phone conversation that my posting frequency has dropped quite a bit lately. I apologize, dear readers, for the dearth of music from your ever-lovin' Stepfather, but several pressures, both professional and personal, have left me somewhat lacking in finding the inspiration to do much writing. I'm going to try to do better, though, because the music certainly lifts my spirits, and it would be criminal not to share it!

Speaking of spirit lifting, today's selection, although not as obscure as many tunes featured here on the blog, is one of those proto-disco things that is so long on the groove that you can get caught up in a trance listening to it. Hamilton Bohannon's Dakar and Mercury recordings of the '70s were definitely aimed at the club dancefloor, which probably prevented him from having more success on the charts. From 1973's Stop and Go through to his full-on disco works, his focus was strictly on the groove, which was bass-heavy and often intricately-layered. The 1974 groover "South African Man" is a great example of Bohannon's style. The tune's two-bar riff quickly burrows into the listener's brain, and over the course of the tune's six minutes the listener is hypnotized by the groove and the spare, cool vocals by Bohannon and a femme chorus.