Soul Brothers Six, Soul Preachin'!

Soul Brothers Six - Don't Neglect Your Baby

Willie John Ellison and his group, the Soul Brothers Six, have graced this blog and the podcast previously, so I'll simply present today's selection, one of the group's first singles. "Don't Neglect Your Baby," a 1966 Lyndell 45, finds Ellison spending over half of the song's length preaching about how men need to get out of the street and take care of their homework over a slow, churchy groove and the groups' moaning background vocals. After explaining how such behavior results in good women going bad, he exhorts, "You'd better wake up before it's too late! Don't be like me! See, I overslept, so I ain't got nobody." After the message is thusly delivered, Ellison launches into song to carry the record home.

Jazz-a-ma-tazz!

The Ramsey Lewis Trio - Hello, Cello!

Please indulge your ever-lovin' Stepfather of Soul today to lay a little jazz on you here at "Get on Down ," because I've been looking for this tune for the longest time and am delighted to finally have it!

Ramsey Lewis, Eldee Young, and Redd Holt are no strangers to soul fans thanks to their awesome '60s and '70s soul jazz recordings as the Ramsey Lewis Trio, the Young-Holt Trio, Young-Holt Unlimited, etc., etc. But before there was "The In Crowd," "Wade in the Water, "Wack Wack," "Soulful Strut" and other fine sides, the Messrs. Lewis, Young and Holt were laying down very nice straight-ahead jazz on the Argo (later Cadet) label.


Today's selection was a 1961 Argo single that was also part of the LP More Music from the Soil, from which I heard the tune. (Thanks to the Adair County Public Library, from whom I learned a lot about jazz, thanks to their possession of records like this and the series of jazz anthologies from New World Records that Gunther Schuller worked on.) "Hello, Cello!" is a swinging little thing on which Eldee Young trades his bass for a cello and steps to the front to pluck out a cheerful melody and to work it out over some breaks.