(The Monday Return Of) Sunday Gospel Time!

The Virginia State Ensemble:


If I Had My Wings


I Work For God

For the first time in awhile, albeit on Monday (internet connection issues prevented yesterday's post from getting off the ground), "Sunday Gospel Time" makes an appearance on the blog with this nifty two-sider. I don't know (and couldn't find) anything about the Virginia State Ensemble, but I do know that these two sides were released as a Weis single, and I know that Weis was one of the handful of small labels (such as Warren, Front Page, Arch and Dig) that Stax distributed in the early '70s. Future Spinners lead singer John Edwards had a release on the label, and tunes like Bobby Holley's "Moving Dancer" and "Soultown" by The Forevers have become funky 45 faves.

"If I Had My Wings" is a rambling, organ-led number based on the spiritual "I Got Shoes," and the male lead enthusiastically engages the chorus in call-and-response. This record is this/close to being suitable to play for dancers as well as church folk. As nice as it is, however, the flip, "I Work For God," is an outstanding ballad featuring solid singing by the chorus and a fine vocal by the female lead. I really wish I knew more about this group!

Reachin' Out in 2009!

Bobby Moore & The Rhythm Aces - Reaching Out

My New Year's resolution for 2009 is to bring the activity level of this blog back to what it used to be. I want to "get on down" as much as I can! So Happy New Year to all of you, dear readers, and let's get down to cases!

I've written about the Muscle Shoals combo Bobby Moore & The Rhythm Aces before, so I'll just note that "Reaching Out" is an appealing tune that shifts between Southern soul balladry on the choruses and a rushed groove in the verses before closing out up-tempo. Although the tempo shifts make the song unfit for dancing, it's a nice number with a nice spirit to it.

RIP Benny Gordon

Benny Gordon & The Soul Brothers - Give a Damn (About Your Fellow Man)

I hate it when RIP posts start springing up throughout the soul blogosphere, but I have learned from my man Red Kelly that Benny Gordon passed away on Christmas Eve. I'll defer to Red's blog for more info about Gordon and will simply post a tune I'd been intending to feature for awhile anyway. The funk favorite "Give a Dam" is a stone groover from the get-go, with Gordon kicking things off with a James Brown-ish grunt and then pushing through the awesome call-and-response message song, summoning a little Edwin Starr along the way. "War! Stop the war somebody, please ... I ask ya what's it for ... I tell ya it's a shame, when you have to kill a man, Lord, and you don't know his name." Powerful stuff indeed! RIP Benny.

RIP Robert Ward

Robert Ward & The Ohio Untouchables - Touch Me Not

Greetings, wonderful people! I hope the holiday season has been good to you! I know that my posting here has been very very sporadic lately. Honestly, the situation discussed in the "DMCA Blues" post almost brought me to the verge of closing down the site, but I think I'll just soldier on for awhile, and I think if push comes to shove, I'll just take the site private. We'll see how that goes. My resolution for 2009, at any rate, is to pick up the frequency of my posting to the level it was at prior to my taking the bar exam, etc. There's too much good soul music to discuss!

This week, the singer/guitarist Robert Ward, whose comeback story resulted in some fine blues albums of the '90s and beyond after an earlier stab at success as the leader of the Ohio Untouchables (who became the Ohio Players some time after he left the group in 1965) and as a session musician, passed away. Ward's watery guitar sound, by way of a Magneto amp, resulted in lots of fine sides in the early '60s for LuPine, including today's selection. "Touch Me Not" is an awesome instrumental which, despite featuring some hot saxophone solos, shows off Ward's guitar work over a groove that leaves the listener with no choice but to "get on down"!

It's fortunate that Ward was rediscovered in the early '90s and got the chance to get the recognition he deserved before his death. His fine talent will be missed.

Georgia Soul Time!

Langston & French - Tumbling Down (stream only)

Kudos are in order for Georgia Soul's Brian Poust, who is featured in the new issue of Stomp and Stammer in connection with the magazine's feature on the Numero comp Eccentric Soul: The Tragar and Note Labels, which Brian helped put together. The article spotlights Poust's journey in unearthing information and recordings from the Atlanta soul label and some of the musicians who made the rare records featured on the two-disc comp.

Today's selection comes from that comp. Langston George was the "fourth Pip" in the early years of Gladys Knight & The Pips, and he hooked up with Charles French to record the great Southern soul ballad "Tumbling Down," not to be confused with the James Fry record on Hi of the same name. The two men nail the ballad with their solo parts and harmonizing, and their voices remind me somewhat of Nashville soulsters Earl Gaines and Jimmy Church. It's a fine recording, one of the many that earn that distinction on the comp!

DMCA Blues

I received this email from Blogger yesterday:

Blogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that certain content in your blog infringes upon the copyrights of others. The URL(s) of the allegedly infringing post(s) may be found at the end of this message.

The notice that we received from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and the record companies it represents, with any personally identifying information removed, will be posted online by a service called Chilling Effects at http://www.chillingeffects.org. We do this in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Please note that it may take Chilling Effects up to several weeks to post the notice online at the link provided.

The IFPI is a trade association that represents over 1,400 major and independent record companies in the US and internationally who create, manufacture and distribute sound recordings (the "IFPI Represented Companies").

The DMCA is a United States copyright law that provides guidelines for online service provider liability in case of copyright infringement. We are in the process of removing from our servers the links that allegedly infringe upon the copyrights of others. If we did not do so, we would be subject to a claim of copyright infringement, regardless of its merits. See http://www.educause.edu/Browse/645?PARENT_ID=254 for more information about the DMCA, and see http://www.google.com/dmca.html for the process that Blogger requires in order to make a DMCA complaint.

Blogger can reinstate these posts upon receipt of a counter notification pursuant to sections 512(g)(2) and 3) of the DMCA. For more information about the requirements of a counter notification and a link to a sample counter notification, see http://www.google.com/dmca.html#counter.

Please note that repeated violations to our Terms of Service may result in further remedial action taken against your Blogger account. If you have legal questions about this notification, you should retain your own legal counsel. If you have any other questions about this notification, please let us know.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team

Affected URLs:

http://stepfatherofsoul.blogspot.com/2007/12/rip-ike-turner.html

Several of my fellow soul bloggers have received similar notices fairly recently, which means that the copyright battle about online music has now moved from the world of Napster and file sharing to the blogging world. I had expected for some time that such a notice would cross my path, considering the relatively prolific posting that I do. As an attorney who has taken an intellectual property class or two, I am quite aware of the arguments made by the music industry about digital music sources, and in general I agree with them. It was in consideration of these arguments that I put a disclaimer on this blog some time ago to the effect that all material on this blog is copyrighted, that it is only here for noncommercial use (per the "fair use doctrine") and that if any objections existed that I would remove such offending material. I think it is clear that all music bloggers operate under such good faith attempts to share great music without breaking copyright law, but one man's "good faith" is another man's thievery, and Blogger, understandably, wants to stay out of the fray as much as possible. However, it does sadden me to see that I have to share my passion for great music under the cloud of impersonal legalese from Blogger.

So what to do? I am certainly disinclined to close up shop and file "Get on Down ..." away as a pleasant three-year online adventure, but I don't want Blogger to close down the blog arbitrarily should the IFPI, RIAA or any other organization protest about any content I have here. For the moment, my attempt at a compromise will be to continue the blog here on Blogger but make all posts "stream only" while I search for a different location to host the blog. Can any of my fellow bloggers who use Wordpress offer their opinion as to such matters? I would appreciate it.

Get on Down ... #31!

The Third Anniversary show is now online and will be on iTunes soon! Enjoy! Here's the playlist:

1. The Holidays - All That Is Required Is You
2. The Artistics - Hard to Carry On
3. Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - If You Can Want
4. Ocie Smith - Everybody But Me
5. Rose Batiste - Come Back in a Hurry
6. Garnet Mimms - Stop and Think It Over
7. Terri Bryant - (You'd Better) Straighten Up and Fly Right
8. The Drifters - Coca-Cola Radio Ad
9. Tammi Terrell - All I Do (Is Think About You)
10. The Profiles - Got to Be Your Lover
11. Roy Lee Johnson - Boogaloo #3
12. Herbie Mann - Philly Dog
13. Stu Gardner - Never Gonna Hurt Again
14. Charles Spurling - That Woman
15. Earl Van Dyke - The Whip A Rang
16. Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band "Express Yourself" Radio Ad
17. Helene Smith - I Am Controlled by Your Love
18. Maurice & Mac - Lean on Me
19. Phillip Mitchell - Keep on Talking
20. Percy Sledge - Baby, Help Me
21. Dizzy Jones - Just As Sure (As You Play, You Must Pay)
22. G. L. Crockett - Gonna Make You Love Me
23. Diamond Joe - Fair Play
24. Jr. Walker & The All-Stars - Sweet Soul

The 2008 Soul of Sir Tom!

Tom Jones - The Hitter (stream only)

Your everlovin' Stepfather of Soul is working on a playlist for a new podcast, but in the meantime, the new CD by Tom Jones, 24 Hours (to be released in the US on Tuesday), has been getting some of my attention since the kind folks at Giant Step sent me a review copy.

Yes, I'm talking about that Tom Jones. The tight slacks-wearing Welshman whose place in the pantheon of cheese sometimes obscures some serious chops and, as I discussed when Luciano Pavarotti died, some serious soul, despite his not being a soul singer, per se. (And, of course, serious soul fans are aware of several Parrot sides of his that meet "soul record" standards. Some of my fellow soul bloggers have covered some of them.)

Anyway, 24 Hours is one of those "autumnal" albums like Solomon Burke's Don't Give Up on Me was: Jones still sounds good at age 68, but time has added something to his voice that makes songs like today's selection particularly poignant. Miami soul queen Betty Wright co-produced Jones' cover of Bruce Springsteen's "The Hitter," and in his hands the song's dark story takes on extra weight thanks to an arrangement that turns Springsteen's song into a Southern Soul-flavored thing with its 12/8 rhythm and strong horn charts. Although the lyrics clearly reflect a broken boxer's return home after a fall from the top, Jones' vocals, which at times sound almost as if channeling Burke, capture the world-weariness of the song perfectly. This is strong stuff! Tom Jones has got soul, y'all!

The Chicago Soul Antidote

Syl Johnson - Sorry 'Bout Dat!

Last night I fired up the DVR and watched two episodes of the new VH1 Soul series Soul Cities, hosted by Nelson George. The premise of the series is that George visits cities that figure(d) heavily into the soul music scene and explores the music, musicians and culture of said cities. I saw the Philadelphia and Chicago episodes, and ended up disappointed. First of all, the shows are only thirty minutes long, and both cities could have easily yielded an hour's worth of material; as a result, the music history part of the shows is pretty superficial. Second, although I understand that the culture of the cities was to be featured, the segments about Philly cheesesteaks and Chicago deep-dish pizza (in which George went into restaurant kitchens and was shown how these delicacies are prepared) looked more like they belonged on Food Network instead of VH1 Soul, and the time spent on them could've allowed for more music to be featured. Third, I feel like Nelson George was highly under-utilized in the program. George's The Death of Rhythm & Blues was a cornerstone of my education about soul music history, and his writing about newer R&B and hip-hop is equally enlightening, but the overall superficiality of the shows made him appear to me more as a generic travelogue host rather than the insightful music scholar he is.

Now, don't get me wrong - it's highly unlikely that the show was intended for hardcore soul fans, and the need to cover music history, culture, and present music in the cities within a thirty-minute frame means that corners had to be cut. And there were some highlights, such as George's discussion with Gamble and Huff on the Philadelphia show, which included the two doing an impromptu performance of "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine," a chat with the newly-reunited Labelle (featuring a quick line or two of "For the Love of Money" which proved that Patti, Sarah and Nona are still on-point vocally), a visit to Val Shively's amazingly overwhelming record store (I'm talking floor to ceiling records here), and, if I saw correctly, a visit to Mr. Peabody's in Chicago, which is one of my favorite record shops.

I'm featuring Chicago soul today as an antidote to all that disappointment, which is needed also because Chicago soul and its musicians were given an even shorter shrift in its episode than Philly soul and its artists were on the other episode. Syl Johnson's funky groovers for Twilight/Twinight are not that uncommon to rare soul fans, but they are always a treat to hear. Johnson's wailing is complimented by hard-hitting bands (the Deacons and Pieces of Peace for the Chicago-recorded stuff and the Hi Rhythm Section on Memphis-recorded sides like "Dresses Too Short"), and the tunes crackle with an energy that was somewhat lost when Johnson moved formally to Hi Records and slipped into the velvet grooves that Willie Mitchell was concocting for labelmates Al Green and Ann Peebles. "Sorry 'Bout Dat!" was the B-side of Johnson's second Twinight single, and while the groove surges along, Johnson's tongue-in-cheek apology for making folks dance so hard is worthy of a chuckle.

"Get on Down" ... In It's Fourth Year!

Rita Dacosta - Don't Bring Me Down

In the flurry of activity that has surrounded bar exam results and new job adjustments, your ever-lovin' Stepfather of Soul has forgotten to celebrate the third anniversary of this blog! Although this year I have not been able to keep the near-daily pace I kept in 2005, 2006 and 2007, I hope that you, dear readers, are still enjoying my offerings! Hopefully, I'll get an anniversary podcast up here soon!

Today's selection is one of the Northern Soul anthems that truly defines the spirit and magic that drove the NS movement in its heyday. "Don't Bring Me Down" by Rita Dacosta is one of those records that sells for big bank today (the original Mohawk 45 sells for around $500 and Mohawk and Contempo reissues come in at around $30), and for good reason. The mysterious Dacosta (my research yielded an album and a discussion of whether she was married to jazz great Stanley Turrentine) brings a classy reading to this stomper, and the optimistic lyrics and dramatic arrangement ("come on up and let me love you, let me love you; we're gonna fly - you've got to try - we're gonna fly - here is the sky") evokes in my mind images of punters working it out at Wigan and other Northern Soul venues, carried away by the tune's surging magic.

Thanks to R. Soos for this track!

Soul Men: Together, Yet Apart

Sam & Dave - Don't Pull Your Love

Sam Moore must be one of the most litigation-minded soul singers out there. On the right side of justice, he's lobbied for better royalties for classic soul artists, but on the other hand he's taken possessory stances about songs like "Soul Man" which are not legally tenable and make him look, in my opinion, somewhat foolish. His newest foray is a lawsuit against the makers of the Bernie Mac-Samuel L. Jackson movie Soul Men, which opens this weekend. He takes umbrage at the title, of course, but also the story, which he claims is based on the Sam & Dave story. Naturally, there are some parallels (two estranged soul singers who were once very close), but a look at the movie's trailer makes that whole argument sound foolish: at most, this movie is probably going to be a "black Blues Brothers" type of thing. Fortunately, we can always turn to Sam & Dave's music, which is awesome regardless of Moore's quixotic courtroom activities.

"Don't Pull Your Love," a cover of the Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds hit, was a 1971 Atlantic single for Sam & Dave, whose relationship by that time was strictly personal, as the two were not on speaking terms. The estrangement almost shows in the record, as the two men sound as if they recorded their parts separately: Dave handles all of the verses and the song's bridge, and Sam sings the choruses. The arrangement choice was wise, as the brassy groove of the Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds record was replaced by a slower, churchy sound (dig the piano opening). It's a fine recording, certainly better than the record's flip, an answer record to Johnnie Taylor's "Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone" called "Jody Ryder Got Killed"!

We Shall Have Overcome!

Mahalia Jackson - We Shall Overcome

God has worked in America tonight.



God bless America.