Is It Because I'm Black?

Syl Johnson: Is It Because I'm Black
Taken from the album "Is It Because I'm Black?" on Twinight (1970)

Ken Boothe: Is It Because I'm Black
Taken from the album "Darker Than Blue: Soul From Jamdown" on Blood and Fire (2001)

Daz-I-Cue: Bloodfire
Taken from the 12" "Bloodfire" on a blacklable (2005)

Wu-Tang Clan: Hollow Bones
Taken from the album "The W" on Loud (2000)

I woke up yesterday morning to a ringing phone. Still half-asleep, I answered. "Is this Wil?" "Yes." "You've won $25 gift certificate to Aaron's Records. Come by to pick it up whenever you want." I think I may have squealed though I'm not sure because the overwhelming joy nearly blacked me out. It may not seem like much, but when youse broke as me, twenty five bucks seems like a thousand. Still in my pajamas, I jumped in my car and headed into Hollywood.

Long before the L.A. branch of Amoeba Records cast its long, dark shadow over every struggling vinyl playground within five hundred miles, a little mom and pop store on Highland Avenue reigned supreme. Back then Aaron's Records was the place to be. Forty years after opening they're still going strong, if a bit embattled from the daunting presence of Amoeba just a few blocks away. Anyhow, in celebration of their fortieth birthday they decided to go absolutely BA-NA-NA-S! They have been running massive discounts all month on their entire stock, getting progressively juicier and jucier. As of yesterday every used record in the store was 40 percent off!!! Zoinks! Crazier still, they decided to offer up a couple of celebratory bonuses to a few lucky beat junkies, myself among them. Thus the call, thus the trip to Aaron's.

All of this is just to say that amidst my wicked splurge yesterday I found this Daz-I-Cue(check out the Bugz website) remix of what is perhaps (?) my favorite soul song of all time. The reworking isn't revolutionary, but it's damn good and to be honest with you, I'd drop ten bucks on an ABBA cover of this song. Furthermore, much to the certain delight of all you lucky blokes out there in the blogosphere, it inspired me to do a post dedicated to the song that begs the question: Is there something inherently wrong with a man as white as I am, singing--no, wailing--at the top of his lungs "Is it because I'm black?" Is it weird that in the core of my soul I identify with this man's very afrocentric lyric? That it moves me, almost to tears?

I want to drive Cadillac cars! I want to make it! I want to BE somebody!

I'm not going to go into a long biography of Syl Johnson (or the Wu or Daz or Ken Boothe for that matter). I can't right now. It's like a hundred degrees outside and I got sweat coming out of my ears.

Just enjoy the music. Maybe I'll update this post when it cools down.

(Murphy's Note: I dropped my digital camera the other day so I couldn't get shots of the album covers. But honestly, peep Syl in his prime. Who needs a lousy cover?)

The Rubaiyat

Dorothy Ashby : Come Live With Me
taken from the album "Afro-Harping" on Cadet (1968)

Dorothy Ashby : The Moving Finger
taken from the album "The Rubaiyat Of Dorthy Ashby" on Cadet (1970)

I thought that after last week's post in praise of Richard Evans productions, I ought to bring out some of the heavy-hitter tracks that originally got me hooked on his sound. Here are two choice cuts from the entirely unique funky-harp queen Dorothy Ashby. While fellow jazz harpist Alice Coltrane was travelling outward and inward on the yogic path, Dorothy went in search of the divine groove- constructing adventurous stereo-panned worlds on godsent breakbeats. In Dorothy's sacred land, the kalimba and piccolo (vibraphone too!) join forces with stabbing strings and an amorphous fuzz guitar in what pilgrims recognize as nothing short of prophesy. Who could have heard the funk in an instrument so seemingly harmless? It's really on "The Moving Finger" where we see the fulfillment of her vision. Syncopated staccato stankiness on the KOTO? That's realness.

"The Rubaiyat..." is a concept album which takes it's inspiration (and some literal quotations) from the poetry of Persian renaissance (before there was a renaissance) man Omar Khayyam. When he wasn't writing about moving fingers and drinking wine, Omar was pushing boundaries in mathmatics, science, philosophy, and astronomy too. I actually used a translation of his Rubaiyat as one of the texts for my final collegiate thesis- how nerdy is that. To redeem a bit of hipness, I also referenced this particular LP and explored the art/science of DJology.

Just found out about a REALLY sick place to download mixes, read interviews, and remind yourself how much better taste in music people tend to have in the U.K., check out FutureBoogie.com for yourself. I'll be doing a mix for them pretty soon, picking out tracks now...

And on the ill mix tip, illvibe.net reminds us that there are cats over here keeping things nice too. So bollocks to you bloody euro buggahs! No offense, I don't even really know what I just wrote.

Final shout-out: Steve (aka Sema4) over @ Scissorkick.com threw a dope party on Saturday night with a couple bands that I guarantee you'll be hearing more from shortly. Nice work mang!

Wackies!!!

Itopia: Moses
taken from the album "Jah Children Invasion" on Wackies (1986)

Love Joys: It Ain't Easy
taken from the album "Jah Children Invasion" on Wackies (1986)

Wayne Jarrett: Do You Really Know
taken from the album "Jah Children Invasion" on Wackies (1986)

The year is 1986. Good music--as art, as history, as a way of life--is teetering on the precipice of extinction. Madonna reigns supreme. "Thriller" has already come and gone, heralding the beginning of the end for MJ. Hip-hop is still in it's too-early-to-be-great stages. Reggae bands across the globe are falling victim, one by one, to the insidious scourge of the synthesizer. Bob Marley is dead. Roots reggae seems to be in its death throes.

Then, on the horizon, seemingly out of nowhere: Wackies. The Bronx-based brainchild of Lloyd "Bullwackie" (I can't make this shit up) Barnes, Wackies became the beacon of hope for the despairing masses who had all but given up. Barnes recruited an incontestably solid line-up of talent, minor and major. Appearances by Sugar Minnott, Max Romeo and Horace Andy ensured the dubious listener that this was a label of substantial clout. Andy, by releasing the historic "Dance Hall Style" on Wackies, elevated the label to rock solid status (Biggup!!). However the label was also home to many lesser known artists who would cut tracks for various compilations that Wackies would periodically release. In this way the roots world was introduced to the Love Joys and Wayne Jarrett, and to a lesser extent Itopia.

The Love Joys, from Brixton, England, consisted of cousins Sonia Abel and Claudette Brown. Their first recording on the Wackies imprint was entitled "Reggae Vibes", but it wasn't until their second album, "Lovers Rock", that they were recognized as stone-cold killers of the rootical sound. (Both of these have be recently re-released and can be found quite easily) After recording these seminal female roots records, they disappeared, never again recording for Wackies or anyone else.

Wayne Jarrett. Man oh, man. Listen to this cat's voice! Is there a sweeter honey? A protege of Horace Andy's, Jarrett dropped the bomb with his "Showcase Volume One", which, along with "Dance Hall Style" is probably one of the top three recordings of this era in my book.

I'll be straight with y'all: I don't know a damn thing about Itopia. Dope track though, huh? I loves me a rootsy falsetto. Sing it brother.

A LOT of the Wackies catalogue has been or is in the process of being re-released. Seek it out and buy it. Now.

Retro Lounging with The Soulful Strings

The Soulful Strings : Within You, Without You
taken from the album "Groovin With The Soulful Strings" on Cadet (1967)

The Soulful Strings : Soul Message
taken from the album "Another Exposure" on Cadet (1968)

The Soulful Strings : Listen Here
taken from the album "In Concert" on Cadet (1969)

My high school art teacher (an accordian-playing, thick-rimmed -glasses-wearing, Reno-born, black-haired-stringbean-of-a-woman) is one of the few characters that I find myself increasingly influenced by, and appreciative of, the further I grow into my own quirkiness. For a substantial part of my Junior and Senior years, I would stay at work in the art studio, bumping music from a box that I rarely allowed out of my control, until 6 or 7, when sports practices were finishing up. My driver's license was tragically taken away from me by an unruly state of bureaucratic affairs, and so I often relied on getting rides home from post-sports-practice folks. During these delicious hours of acrylic paint and charcoal smudges, my art teacher became my closest "older" friend. Kooky indeed, she spent almost an entire year working on a dark, pre-renaissance, life sized self-portrait with a crow's face in place of her own. Visiting the apartment where she lived with her equally amazing and creative boyfriend (last I heard, he was painting backdrops for Spongebob Squarepants), always entailed a thorough schooling from their inspirational vinyl collection. The eating of pot brownies would not be out of the question and I was certain to walk away with a new mixtape that would continue to enlighten and awe at least until the next installment.

The point is, my art teacher and her boyfriend, who had lived in Chicago together previously, were the ones to teach me about Cadet records and the brilliant work of Richard Evans. To this day I'm diggin after items that I have on tape from their collection- like both of the Dorthy Ashby albums that make any proper beatfreak flip. Before those albums were reissued, I wasn't sure if they even existed outside of my art teacher's abode. Anyway, here are some other fine things that Evans was behind. Highly cutting edge in their day, these albums represent some of the earlier experiments merging string orchestrations with pop and soul. It's interesting when you think about how common that became in disco later on, and how common it remains today (G Unit's got strings for days). There's a bunch of other choice selections on this plastic, including the more well known "Burning Spear" (which later became a disco hit), a siiiick cover of "MacArthur Park", and the sample friendly "Who Who Song".

Also, check out a nice blog by Kansas City rocker DJ Ozgood - A Damn Shame

And DJ Carlito comes correct as well (he's got radio mixes available) - Carlito's Blog

The Living Blues

Albert King, Pop Staples & Steve Cropper: Tupelo
taken from the album "Jammed Together" on Stax (1969)

Charlie Musselwhite: Christo Redemptor
taken from the album "Stand Back!" on Vanguard (1966)

There was a time when mixtapes spoke the words that we didn’t know how to. Maybe it was in the eighth grade, and you, lacking the proper tag lines or else not having reached the necessary threshold of drunkenness, couldn’t possibly conjure in your own stoned-out vernacular how you felt about such-and-such dream girl. But you had to tell her somehow. So you spent hours in front of your boom box digging out proper servings "Bonita Applebaum", "Sexual Healing", "Brown Eyed Girl"—whatever. The fact that you were jumping more genres, song-to-song, than a David Byrne compilation didn’t matter: What mattered was the message. And how that message was conveyed by the masters; guys who’d been in your selfsame shoes, had a little perspective, and had a few choice lyrics and a nice groove to jam on.

You’d give the girl the tape with a timid grin, and maybe she’d give it a listen and maybe she wouldn’t. And maybe she’d understand the not-so-clandestine message and maybe she wouldn’t. But at least you’d said your piece.

Blues music has always been particulary potent in these contexts. Mainly because, at its core, it is so emotionally evocative. And, not incidentally, because a vast quantity of the stuff was recorded specifically to either woo a girl or to pine her leaving. It comes from an emotional place.

But let’s forget about the girl for a minute. What I’m really getting at is the rawness of the sentiment that is expressed through a plaintive falsetto, or the transcendent power of a repetitive blues riff. In many cases the lyrics themselves are almost arbitrary. (Some of the most moving moments in blues music are in the half-sung, improvised raps in the middle of an otherwise scripted song.) It’s that you can simply feel what is being sung or played or even just rapped about.

So here’s the rub. I was driving up to S.F. about a week and a half ago—just as the flood waters were rising, and New Orleans was devolving into chaos—listening to hour after hour of NPR coverage of the horrors going on down there, and I started to feel overwhelmed with all these inexplicable feelings. And I couldn’t make any sense of them. So I turned the radio off somewhere around Fresno. I popped in an old mixtape I had made a few years back and the first song to play is "Tupelo". And about a minute in, when Pop says “women and children/ screaming and crying, “—man, I just lost it.

Without getting too leaden with the touchy-feely talk, this post is in honor of the folks down there. These tracks resonate very strongly with me right now. Individually and especially together they possess all of the painfully acute resonance of great music that just makes sense given the right context.

The first track is an all-star line-up of Stax vets, Pop Staples (of the more gospel-oriented Staples singers), virtuoso southpaw guitarist Albert King, and Steve Cropper, who, as a founding member of the MG’s, and as a writer/arranger for Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and Sam & Dave, was instrumental in creating the 60’s southern soul sound. The three of them united on "Jammed Together" (produced by Isaac Hayes) to create an essential late 60’s blues record.

Charlie Musselwhite hailed originally from Missouri, but arrived at legendary bluesman status under the tutelage of the great Sonny Boy Williamson on the Chicago scene in the 60’s. Christo Redemptor (an appropriately Biblical title given the magnitude of the disaster in the Gulf states) is taken from his first release, "Stand Back!"

Gal's Got It

Gal Costa : O Vento
taken from the album "Gal Canta Caymmi" on Philips (1976)

Gal Costa : Minha Estrela E Do Oriente
taken from the album "Caras & Bocas" on Philips (1977)

First off, some basic news:
The Crate now has another official vinyl-freak bloggerista! Let's all give a warm welcome to L.A.'s illest up 'n comer DJ/beat meistro- Murphy's Law (ever though of Murphy Slaw as an alternate?). He's the man responsible for the 80's soul gems from last week, and he also happens to be my little bro. For all you cats who rely on your weekly fix, we're upping the dosage, so be forewarned. That means twice the Gumbo Funk, laid down thick and saucy from both coasts. Slurp it up.

Been busy here, working a bit of sound design for a cool indy theater production that's a worthy ticket for anyone in search of a good laugh. Props to the Posse. Got busy with big bad Busquelo at Bembe on Thursday night and that's looking like it'll start to be a regular throwdown. Getting juiced for Quantic meets Nickodemus here in BK this upcoming week. Then again @ Turntables on the Hudson, I told you already that the album is hot! I'm also spinning at the Kontrast show this Wednesday at The Slipper Room. Swing by and check out some seriously talented hip hop headz. And there's about 200 other dope parties popping off that I'm probably gonna miss- there can be no doubting that the city keeps you on yer toes.

You want to hear about Gal Costa yet? In the scheme of her career, these two albums are not the most outstanding and rebellious. But I think it's a crime to overlook the moments of greatness that pop up herein. O Vento's simple "tic toc" groove has more than enough bump to keep me satisfied, and her jumpy vocal tweaking towards the close of the track is healthy food for a vocalist. Estrela is more of what I like in the first cut. Smooth and choppy at the same time, it's jazzy funk with a really catchy hook. This is one of those tunes that will pop into my head randomly while waiting for a train at 2 AM after not listening to the record for months. There's at least 2 other tracks on the disc that will likely have a similar effect on you. You can pick up a copy of "Caras & Bocas" for $8 and see for yourself.

Something For the Kids

Midnight Star : Curious
taken from the album "Planetary Invasion" on Solar (1984)

Imagination : So Good, So Right
taken from the album "Body Talk" on MCA (1981)

Someday I’ll have children. Not soon, but eventually. And someday those children of mine will reach an age when, if but slowly, they awaken to the world of soul music. Perhaps they’ll be listening to the radio in friend’s car one day and hear those first plucked strings of Love and Happiness, or maybe they’ll be seduced in a record store by Sam Cooke’s alluring smile, enough to pick up Night Beat and give it a listen.

If my future progeny inherit even a shadow of my love for R&B, they’ll be hooked from that day forward. Chances are they’ll want to know more about this universe of groove… At which point, noticing the tens of thousands of records (let’s be optimistic here: this is years from now) that their father has lying around the house, my child may come to me and say, ‘Father, tell me what you know about this thing called Soul Music.’

I could begin with the obvious choices. Marvin. Ray. Stevie. Curtis. Babyface. But no, I must remind myself, I will save those for later; those musical monoliths will be discovered in due course. I will begin my story elsewhere, in the least likely of places: A land of twinkling synthesizers and flaring purple outfits. A land of blips and beeps and drum machines. A land where superstars were defined both by the length of their jeri-curl and their instrumental intro’s. Where all roads lead to glorious, candle-lit, very slow sex. This is 80’s soul.

Midnight Star is a clear favorite. Purveyors of "Midas Touch" and "No Parking On The Dancefloor"-quality jams, the Calloway brothers hit (harder still?) with the subtler, drop-them-panties anthem that was later sampled to great effect by Kurious Jorge (an essential early-Nineties one-album wonder who has since dropped into obscurity). There is an element of cheesiness that pervades many of the masterworks of this genre, but don’t be fooled—these are certified bullets. The kind of tune that registers on such a satisfying gut level, that I have actually seen grown white men weep on a dancefloor when Curious drops.

Lesser known Imagination can hang with the best of them. A European, Eighties-era funk/soul outfit? Unheard of, right? (No, Boney-M doesn’t count.) If the three solid minutes of slow-building electro-instrumental introduction (think Kano) don’t have you and your girl in a compromised position on your parents’ couch then you’ll certainly find yourself there by the time the hauntingly simple chorus hits. And it is Oh-so-good, Oh-so-right.

For added effect, drop the two, back to back in a set. They mix perfectly and will very likely induce massive group ejaculation.

With a little fatherly advice like this, it’s safe to say my kids are gonna get laid. A lot.

Sudan, Louisiana

Keziah Jones : Kpafuca
taken from the album "Black Orpheus" on EMI (2003)

Ikwunga with Dele Sosimi : Di Bombs
taken from the album "Calabash" on Rebisi Hut Records (2004)

A while back now (I guess it's been 6 months already), I had the opportunity to bring the currently reigning Rugged-Afro-Diva-Empress (shown above in the ill VIA logo shirt), known to the world as Wunmi, on my radio show. We started the conversation talking about her involvement with a really good independent Afrobeat compilation called A.S.A.P., which donates proceeds towards the relief effort in Darfur. One of her songs is featured on the comp, along with a different selection from Keziah and the Ikwunga track I'm posting this week.

Thinking about New Orleans, I was reminded of our interview, and the similarly despicable show of inhumanity that continues to express itself in East Africa today. It also happens to be that she's performing tomorrow as part of the Afro-Punk extravaganza. I'm hoping she does a live version of the extremely firey single she recently cut with West African groove guru Franck Biyong. The scene will be extra heated tomorrow for sure, because just like Kanye, there's nuff folks who are sizzling and stewing and boiling over. And that's where music comes from- don't ya know?

Nigerian born Keziah Jones is "Captain Rugged". This album is nothing short of mind-blowing. Dead on. From future afro-funk, to broken soul, to political poetics- this album is waaaay more than just a Fela photocopy (no disrespect). Some of you may have heard the Osunlade remix of this tune on the Yoruba Soul Sessions album, but don't think for a minute that this track is the only gem on here. Solid and diverse throughout, Black Orpheus is one of my absolute favorite albums I've discovered all year. Help support this man, good music, and your own aural health by picking up a copy.

Ikwunga was unknown to me until the A.S.A.P. compilation, but since then "Di Bombs" has been in my heavy rotation. Sycopated, political, verse abstraction with a a classic groove from Dele Sosimi, who worked with Fela as a member of Egypt 80. Check out the entire Calabash album here.

Last tidbit: I got The Gumbo Funk E.P. into Ameoba music (both L.A. and S.F. locations). So If you're on the Left Coast and are paranoid of ordering CDs online or are just too lazy to start a paypal account, you can now go and hunt down the goods at a couple of my all-time favorite music stores.