Daryl Hall and Sharon Jones: ... What elses is there to say???

This video is ridiculous.  I'm on a roll... I think its because I am not writing much under the guise of  "the music speaks for itself".
Live From Daryl's House ep. 34: Sharon Jones

ATTENTION: Daryl Hall feat. Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings is coming to Chicago!  Tickets on sale tomorrow!!

Beyond the Aughts: This Time a Little Somethin' Soulful

I have been thinking of what I want from the year to come, and for lack of good insight have been hesitant to write about it.  Right now, however I feel perfectly fine that I did not impart to you my greeting card sentiments in proper haste.  This is because in time for Martin Luther King Day, from my own library and some of the blog-o-sphere's best offerings of the year, I whipped up one steaming hot extra concentrated dose of funk.   This mix I hope will impart to readers and passerby alike the smooth grooves and great performances to bring out the vinyl junkie, soul sister, rare groover, and funk soul brother in all of us for the year to come.  My fascination with funk and soul began with my band Marajo Funk, but if I had this mix I would have started a lot earliear.  Hopefully this will bring loyal readers and passerby alike will make you think about clicking around a bit more on the blogroll to the right of your screen and impart to you the impulse to lead your own funky journey in this coming decade. Enjoy!

Samplin' the Soul:

Lee Fields and the Expressions - Love Comes and Goes

Controller 7 - Get Ready for the Young Folks

Bobby Reed - Time is Right for Love

Nina Simone - To Love Somebody

Funkadelic - Hit it and Quit It

The Whole Damn Thing:

The Mix - Beyond the Aughts.zip


01-Love Comes And Goes 3:11 Lee Fields & The Expressions My World
02-Beverly 2:53 Eldridge Holmes Deep Southern Soul
03-Ecstasy 2:23 Ohio Players Ecstasy
04-Good Times 2:10 Aretha Franklin I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You
05-Holdin' On To My Baby's Love 2:24 Bobby Womack Anthology: Bobby Womack [Disc 2]
06-Get Ready For the Young Folks 4:02 Controller 7 12"
07-Horsin' Up 3:51 Orchestra Harlow Presenta A Ismael Miranda Latin Soul/Boogaloo
08-Time Is Right For Love 2:04 Bobby Reed Soul Sides - Nov. 3rd
09-I Love You Still (comp version) 3:32 Zilla Mayes matthewafrica.blogspot.com/
10-Move Over 2:57 Soul Children
11-To Love Somebody 2:40 Nina Simone Anthology
12-Hey You! Don't Fight It! 2:29 Montclairs Soulful Thangs Vol. 3 R&B/Soul
13-I Don't Want To Loose You 2:24 Carolyn Franklin Baby Dynamite
14-I Want To Hold Your Hand 2:20 Al Green 7"
15-Piece Of My Heart 2:43 Erma Franklin Soul Sides: Volume One
16-Your Time Is Gonna Come 3:12 The Highlighters 7"
17-We're Almost There 3:45 Michael Jackson The Motown Years 50
18-(I Wanna) Testify 3:04 The Parliaments Testify! The Best of the Early Years
19-I'm In Love 2:47 Bobby Womack Fly Me To The Moon
20-Your Easy Lovin' Ain't Pleasin' Nothin' 3:03 Mayer Hawthorne A Strange Arrangement
21-Baby Baby Baby 2:55 Aretha Franklin I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You
22-Across 110th Street 3:51 Bobby Womack Anthology: Bobby Womack [Disc 2]
23-What If We Stopped Paying Taxes? - Sharon Jones and the Dap King 5:01 Impeach the Precedent
24-Hit It And Quit It 3:50 Funkadelic Maggot Brain

Cookin' W/ Sharon' : Sharon and her Dap Kings on IFC's Cooking with the Band

So being related to both food, one of my very first blog posts, and one of my favorite bands I was super excited to hear that Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings would be making an appearance on IFC's new show with LES tattooed hipster chef Sam Mason  called "Cooking with the Band".  Food and music, together? Like that would ever be interesting... What type of twisted individual would ever think of syndicating a show focusing on two such disparate topics?  Well the Village Voice didn't much care for the new show, calling it "the end of reality cooking shows or the death of indie rock or both".   Really Village Voice? I mean really?  Frankly I would expect more from the Voice.  Indie rock has clearly been dead for at least a year.  And who ever said they had enough of Padma Lakshmi?

Well anyway, being a fan of the band (I know admittedly little about the guy they are cooking with, besides that I always go running past his restaurant, W-50,  on Clinton St.), I certainly enjoyed the episode although I would have preferred that Sharon or some other members of the band had shared their own recipes instead of just kinda awkwardly standing around.  I learned a few things too from the show.  For starters I never knew that drummer Homer Steinweiss has a food blog and I am definitely going to use my food processor to make a marinade out of cilantro at some point in the near future.  Anyways, my business is not in TV reviews, so my advice is to check out the article and video preview on the New York Times website.

For your enjoyment I am going to put up the song that got me hooked on Sharon Jones oh about two and a half years ago.  This song is, in my opinion the best protest song I have ever heard from this past (understatement) tumultuous decade entitled What if We Stopped Paying Taxes?  Also coincidentally I ran into my friend Evelyn who works at Human Rights Watch and gave me their new fundraising cd entitled Causes 2 produced by the record company Waxploitation (of Danger Mouse and Gnarls Barkley fame) which includes a new track by Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, covering Bob Marley's tune It Hurts to Be Alone.  This is a great new little number.  I don't think that Sharon has the best vocal performance on this one but there is most definitely something about those horns. The thing about the Dap Kings, being a great band, is that they always pull through.  Yes, something about those horns indeed...

Bobby Womack: Fly Me to the Moon

The name Bobby Womack never really had great associations in my mind, for one reason or another. The other day however I was really taken by his version of the standard Fly Me to the Moon and decided to check him out. Now I think he is one cool chameleon, if I may say so myself.

I have two selections today. Fly Me to the Moon, is the first song off of his 1969 album of the same title and is a very clever reinterpretation of a classic but, in my opinion, oft tired song. Luckily in this version there is really something to the swing of the band and the way the instrumentation and feeling progresses. The opening guitar riff is warm and natural; and an instant hook. You can hardly recognize the song the weren't it for the horns along with the heavy two's and four's.

Opening with yet another great (though this time shorter, thus one can follow sweeter too) guitar intro is the next song on the album. Baby you Oughta Think it Over, is a textbook example of a great vocal performance. Listen to the saxophones as they emphasize Womack's entrances, each of which he is more than up for the challenge. Really, trust me, listen to it! One of my favorite things about soul music is how the different artists play can around with the many layers of their songs, simply and to such effect. The way that Womack's epic performance is framed by his band makes it that much more valuable, I think. Having a song that fully engages ten to fifteen musicians at all time is a rare thing, and with great soul you can feel the band as a single entity pushing the song forward. This is no exception, but the way that his voice rises above the band is what soul I guess is really about: getting yourself lost in pure unfettered celebration of emotion and then-some...

Summer of Soul Update: Mayer Hawthorne's "Maybe So Maybe No"

This artist was brought to my attention by Soul-Sides the other day with the track

"Your Easy Lovin' Ain't Pleasin' Nothin'"

Soul-Sides' originator Oscar Wang called his most recent album too derivative, as if that was bad thing. Though most people think that being derivative is a mark against ones creativity, I think it is beneficial to the creative process as a whole. Commercial music has been obsessed with standing out and sounding impeccable, often times to great result. But the way music is made today is not how it will always be made, this process creates, in my opinion what is an unrealistic expectation placed on artists, to be completely original. Let me remind you we only have 12 different notes in western music. And especially when we recognize that what most of us consider to be a "good" pop song, follows a I-IV-V-I pattern (maybe with a deceptive cadence here, and a quick key change there). Really with most pop songs the key difference is a guitar riff or two and how angry the lead singer tends to be, speaking plainly of course.

I happen to be of the opinion the music is music, and soul is soul, and that I like soul a lot. With most music regardless of genre as long as the song doesn't bore me to death or hurt my ears, I will listen to it. Soul as a musical form, has an uplifting sound that is both easy to identify with and easy to dance to. In addition it also has a pretty well defined sound which makes it easy to copy for the reason that any listener need not know the theory (beyond basic instrumental or vocal competency) because chances are they already are more than familiar with the feeling. And therefore, if one wished, or if millions of people wished, they could all have soul cover bands and have a good time doing it. This is not the case with a form like American Idol style pop because it is largely based on vocal virtuosity and complicated studio polished arrangements for its effectiveness. Rock and Roll on the other hand seems to be too fragmented these days (between emo, indie-pop, indie-rock, pop rock, garage rock, punk rock, pop punk, etc...) to have a sound to be so recognizable. In my nebulous unprovable opinion I think that this drive for originality drove rock and roll away from its initial instinct in terms of feel, and has not found its way back on course since the late seventies, except for maybe a brief period relegated to the the first two Strokes albums (Room on Fire of course originally being chastised for its sameness with respect to Is This It, while six years later both remain among the top rock albums of the last decade). So my advice, find a sound or a band you love, copy the hell out of it/them with a few friends, and see what you get from there. No one thinks you are going to be the next pop superstar, so why even bull shit yourself into thinking to get the best result by "doing your own thing". Imitation is the purest form of flattery, so just give what you love the respect it deserves.

Here is Mayer Hawthorne's cover of Maybe So Maybe No - By the New Holidays which you of course remember from the Summer of Soul: Electric Boogaloo '09 playlist I posted a while back. Its still warm out I guess, and we haven't had the autumnal equinox, so keep that soul kickin'.

Patrice Rushen: Pizzazz

While walking around in Brooklyn, showing my visiting cousin around the city, I stopped at one of the many tables of people selling records.  Looking through this guy's collection and thinking his price for a Joe Pass album was more than I wanted to pay I happened upon a copy of Patrice Rushen's 1979 release Pizzazz.  Though I am relatively unfamiliar with her catalog, I had heard a few songs by her and knew of her talent as a musician and it was worth five dollars to me to check it out... and I did.  Much to my joy this record turned out to be, what I will call, "an uplifting parade of soul".  Though trained in jazz, in this album Rushen is able to deftly maneuver a more pop sound.  Between the vocal and orchestral arrangements what is found is a sound that blends aspects of everything from Parliament to the Talking Heads to create a sound that is both soulful and oh so utterly retro-fun.

I hope you enjoy.

Let the Music Take Me  - Patrice Rushen 

Keeping the Faith in Love - Patrice Rushen 

Soul Music in The New Millenium: As bitchin as always, maybe more so

These days, (circa Marcus Newman's summer of soul 2008) I tend to think soul music is where its at, so needless to say I have been listening to a good bit of it lately. Among many purveyors of soul there are a lot of good soul blogs out there that are proliferating soul to the masses, the most popular one probably being Soul-Sides. Another central fixture in this trend, and what hooked me (along with the aforementioned declaration of a summer of soul), is Daptone Records founded by NYU alum (my alma mater, sooner or later) Gabirel Roth a.k.a. Bosco Mann. Essentially Daptone Records is how I learned to love soul. However I always did appreciate a good groove and was once a member of a funk band, and though there is a lot I can say about Daptone Records the woman who I owe my regards to is their flagship singer, none other than miss Sharon Jones. Her backing band, you may have heard of them, is the dap kings who were are most famously known for supplying Amy Winehouse with her signiture vintage sound. They are also on the Jay-Z remix from my first post. I saw Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings last Sat. a great show, it could've been more of a dance party than it turned out to be (too many white people I suppose). Sharon, however probably wont be making an appearance in New York for a while, but if you want to see some great live daptone soul in New York check out Naomi Shelton and The Gospel Queens of Brooklyn at the Fat Cat on Christopher st. and Seventh Ave. every Friday at eight.

Here are two soul tracks. One by my lady Sharon Jones (written by Bosco Mann). The other one is sung by the eminent Nina Simone, who I guess is not really a soul artist per-say but the album this song comes from is pretty soulful and I feel provides an appropriate contrast.

Sharon Jones - How Long Do I Have to Wait?(2005)

Nina Simone - He Ain't Comin Home No More(1967)

and why not another taste of Sharon...

Why Don't We All Stop Paying Taxes?

bad ass.

Also let me add that anyone who wishes to pass on a music selection, recipe, or even a complete post yourself they should feel free to send me thier contributions.