It's The Real Thing!

James Brown - Peewee's Groove In D



James Brown's fifteen-year tenure with King Records, in which time JB went from being the scorched-earth balladeer of "Please Please Please" to the development of funk, nearly came to an early end in 1964, when JB breached his contract with the Cincinnati label to sign to Mercury's Smash imprint after one of his regular conflicts with prexy Sid Nathan. When Nathan asserted his contract rights to force Smash to withdraw "Out of Sight," Mercury must've countered with something pretty sweet, or threatened King Records in some way, because a deal was brokered to allow Brown to record for both labels, with the caveat being that Brown could only record instrumentals (his productions on Bobby Byrd, Anna King and other James Brown Revue acts excepted) for Smash. JB rolled out several LPs for Smash over the next three years or so, including 1967's James Brown Plays The Real Thing, from which today's compilation comes, before he returned to King before switching to Polydor in 1971.

Although most of Real Thing is comprised of covers of various tunes of the day (the lead-off track is a jazzy cover of "Jimmy Mack"), the original "Peewee's Groove In D" finds JB and the band doing a slinky funk number. After the "Mr. Pitiful"-inspired opening, JB does his usual organ noodling over a groove that Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis cooked up for him. It's a nice jam that is a good way to kick off this week.

The Gospel According to Bobby Bland

Bobby Bland - Ain't God Something

In the liner notes to one of the three great Bobby Bland Duke recordings anthologies, the author sadly surmised that the world was a poorer place for not having a "Bobby Bland Sings Gospel" LP. That's a position I agree with. Both Bland and B.B. King brought a strong dose of gospel style to their blues classics, and King even recorded some gospel material during his tenure with the Biharis in the '50s, which has been reissued. A Bobby Bland gospel album would've worked even better than the gospel records King made, considering Bland's masterful singing style and his C.L. Franklin-inspired "squall." Fortunately, we have today's selection to show that Bland could handle gospel material.

"Ain't God Something" was the flip of "Come Fly With Me" (Bland's last 45 for ABC before the label was folded into MCA) and, to be fair, it fits more alongside the "Mighty High"-era stuff that the Mighty Clouds of Joy was doing at the time than more straight-ahead gospel records of the '70s; if you weren't paying careful attention, you could miss that Bland was singing about God and religious stuff. That being said, however, Bland provides a solid - albeit very restrained - performance to the ballad.

Friday Fun With Swamp Dogg!

Swamp Dogg - Ebony and Jet

Swamp Dogg (Jerry Williams, Jr.) and his idiosyncratic records of the '70s were given little attention by R&B radio (his only R&B hit as Swamp Dogg was the comic blues "Mama's Baby, Daddy's Maybe"), but the corpus of Swamp's works is a very interesting lot, ranging from the country soul of "Sam Stone" through to political rants like "God Bless America For What" to downright silliness, like today's selection, which was the flip of his 1973 Brut single "Buzzard Luck" (featured in a 2006 post). Here's Swamp ponders why, despite his alleged success, he hasn't received recognition by Ebony and Jet magazines, both of which remain dominant figures in the black press. Well, Swamp, perhaps it didn't help you much that your plea is backed by a countrified band, replete with banjo picking! (Of course, I'm sure his plea was strictly tongue-in-cheek!)

A Somewhat Scratchy Wednesday!

The Sims Twins - Thankful

A while ago I posted the Sims Twins' "You've Got To Do The Best You Can (With What You've Got)" as a "message in my mailbox". Today I'm featuring the flip. "Thankful" has the J.W. Alexander "SAR Records" sound all over it, which of course is a good thing, and the Sims brothers do the gospel-tinged ballad justice with their usual good singing. I apologize for the scratchiness of this side, but those are the perils of vinyl!


(EDITOR'S NOTE - Thanks to Ben the Balladeer for cleaning up the MP3 for me; it's not as scratchy now!)

Sharon Jones Video at "Put The Needle On The Record"!

Over at Put The Needle On The Record, SoulBrutha has some great video of Sharon Jones, Lee Fields and The Dap-Kings, working it out with a James Brown medley (Jones and Fields) and two performances by Jones and the band in support of the new album. It's hot stuff! Check it out!

"Get on Down " #22!

The new episode of "Get on Down With the Stepfather of Soul!" is now online! Here's the playlist:

1. Monk Higgins - Who Dun It
2. The Supremes - The Nitty Gritty
3. Barry White - All In The Run Of A Day
4. Bobby Bland - Sad Feeling
5. Mitty Collier - I'm Satisfied
6. Tommy Youngblood - Back In The Saddle
7. Lattimore Brown - Yak-A-Poo
8. Don Covay & The Jefferson Lemon Blues Band - Ice Cream Man (The Gimme Game)
9. Booker T. & The M.G's "McLemore Avenue" Radio Ad
10. Gloria Walker - Walking With My New Love
11. Joe Tex - Take The Fifth Amendment
12. Bettye LaVette - I'm Holding On
13. The Philly Four - The Elephant (Pt. 1)
14. Lou Donaldson - Who's Making Love
15. Inez & Charlie Foxx & Their Mockin' Band - Speed Ticket
16. Thelma Jones - The House That Jack Built
17. Aretha Franklin Coca-Cola Radio Ad
18. Hank Ballard Along With The Dapps - You're So Sexy
19. Bernie Hayes - Tribute To A Black Woman (Pt. 1)
20. The Impressions - Choice Of Colors
21. Lou Rawls - Your Good Thing (Is About To End)
22. Jackie Moore - Dear John
23. The Messiahs Of Glory - Please Lord
24. King Curtis & The King Pins - This Is Soul

More Barbara Acklin!

Barbara Acklin - Just Ain't No Love

Barbara Acklin has been featured on the blog recently, so I'll just say that "Just Ain't No Love" is loping Chicago soul at its best. Acklin's soprano rides the trademark Brunswick groove nicely and the background singers provide great support.

(EDITOR'S NOTE - I'm going to try to get a new podcast up this weekend!)

Solomon's Southern Soul

Solomon Burke - Uptight Good Woman

After Solomon Burke's tenure with Atlantic ended in 1968, the "King of Rock 'n' Soul" moved on to Bell Records, where he would record for a couple of years before beginning a nomadic '70s stretch where his records would come out on MGM, ABC, Chess, Amherst and Infinity. The Bell material, although not as commercially successful as his prior work, was very good, as Solomon explored his rootsier side, where his very first Atlantic sides had come before Bert Berns polished him up somewhat. Today's selection was the male counterpart to Laura Lee's "Uptight Good Man" (the follow up to "Dirty Man"), and Burke works his usual magic with the Penn-Oldham tune. Speaking of the two writers, if you are members of the Yahoo! group "southernsoul" (and if not, you need to do so right away), you should check out the MP3 that FAME Studios' Rodney Hall provided of Dann Penn and Spooner Oldham doing a demo of the song. It's pretty powerful stuff!

The Sho' 'Nuff Blues

Mel Brown - Seven Forty-Seven (Airport Blues)

Eclectic instrumentalist Mel Brown is best known for his blues/jazz/funk LPs for ABC's Impulse label (1968-1973), where his guitar work was featured on fine tracks like "Chicken Fat," "Eighteen Pounds of Unclean Chitlins" (a very interesting jazz/funk thing that I have to post another time) and "W-2 Withholding." His career as a sideman, however, links together everyone from Johnny Otis to T-Bone Walker to Bobby Bland, and his return to the spotlight in the late-'90s has resulted in lots of accolades in the blues field. Today's selection came from his LP Mel Brown's Fifth, and it features his father, John Henry "Bubba" Brown, laying down the blues with authority. I know Thursday is not "blues day" around here, but this groovy thing will hit the spot, I guarantee!

Honey? Honey!? I Think There's Something Funny!

The Acklin Brothers - Junior's Angle

The Electrophonic Brian Phillips introduced me to today's selection, which at the time I had only seen referenced in Rob Bowman's history of Stax, Soulsville, U.S.A. The Acklin Brothers released "Junior's Angle" b/w "I Want My Baby" on De'Voice, an Arkansas-based label co-owned by Alvertis Isbell, aka Al Bell, who would go on to figure greatly in the Stax story. If I recall Bowman's note about the label correctly, this was only one of two 45s on the label, if not the sole release.

Outside of the Stax connection mentioned above, however, my knowledge about the group is nonexistent; I have to share the sentiment expressed on the website Bob's Scratchy Records, which I found while researching this record - "I dont know s--- about this one but I like it a lot!" I liked it enough to buy a copy for myself. Both sides of the record reveal a doo wop sound that hinted at the soul sounds to come. "Junior's Angle," the uptempo side, is a rock 'n' roller, in which a "Kingfish"-sounding dad wonders why his teenaged son is suddenly being so helpful around the house. It's an off-the-wall record that's just fun to listen to; how can you not enjoy lyrics like "He done mopped the kitchen, he done fed the chickens, he ain't played no records, he ain't called no people; I wonder if he has that rock 'n' roll fever?"

Gone the Last Mile!

The Sensational Nightingales - The Last Mile of the Way

Today has been yet another busy busy day for your ever-lovin' Stepfather, but we closed the transaction, so all is well. It's only appropriate that this gospel classic, as breezily performed by the Charles Johnson-led Sensational Nightingales, is today's feature.

Have No Fear, The Dog Is Here (Again)!

Rufus Thomas - Stop Kicking My Dog Around

Long before James Brown created a mini-industry out of his "Popcorn" records, Rufus Thomas had a string of records centered around the raunchy R&B dance the Dog: the first, "The Dog," did well, but then "Walkin' the Dog" was a smash hit in 1963. Rufus and Stax knew a good thing when they had it, so two more "Dog" records came out within a year, "Can Your Monkey Do The Dog" (my favorite of the series) and "Somebody Stole My Dog." The release of the comp Can't Get Away From This Dog in the '90s revealed two more "Dog" records which had been recorded but left in the can, probably wisely since the franchise was fairly diluted by that point and Thomas had hit with his first non-Dog hit, "Jump Back," in early '64 (it should be noted, however, that the Mar-Keys' 1966 hit "Philly Dog" was going to be a revival of the series, but Rufus couldn't get any lyrics together, so the instrumental groove was toyed with until the hit record took shape - Thomas was given songwriter credit). Although the CD's title track is appealing, with its "Get Down With It"-styled spoken opening and use of the "ooh-ahh" line from "Twine Time," "Stop Kicking My Dog Around" (which, according to the liner notes, was cooked up partially by Sam Cooke!) is a breezy pop-slanted thing which finds Rufus crooning his request while the Drapels provide nice backup. Although Rufus is crooning, don't think he's playing: "too bad, too sad, if you fool around and make me mad ... I can't hold my temper long," he sings. The entire comp is worth getting a hold of, as it includes other fun stuff, such as the driving "44 Long," his and Carla's version of "Don't Mess Up a Good Thing" and an alternate version of "Jump Back."