Michael Jackson on the covers, front and back, but as a child in the '70s, Jackson Five era of course. Inside, there's plenty of MJ and Jacksons content, including a piece about director John Landis and the Thriller video.
Also in this issue of our favorite funk/soul/jazz/hiphop magazine, there's stuff on Mayer Hawthorne, The Emperor Machine, Lee Fields, Shawn Lee, Illa J, Phenomenal Handclap Band, Nicky Siano, Wah Wah Watson and others...
And as usual, there's tons of glorious full color photography, and record reviews, and record reviews with glorious full color sleeve photos... drool.
Curtis Mayfield lookin' superfly on the cover. Inside, a bunch of stuff on blaxploitation films. Also, David Holmes, Iceberg Slim, animator Ralph Bakshi, Library Music, and tons more interesting funky stuff. It would seem this is Wax Poetics' special cinema issue or somethin'. As always, great to read and just to look at, lots of vintage album cover art in full color in here to drool over. Right on.
It's the special "Africa" issue of this rad journal devoted to jazz, funk, soul, and hiphop grooves past and present. Hence, Fela Kuti on the cover. Inside, you'll also find pieces on Orchestre Poly-Rythmo, Pax Nicholas, Rail Band, Orchestra Baobab, Tony Allen, and plenty more.
As always, the magazine is packed with colorful photos of vintage record sleeves, and plenty of enthused writing about the music from other knowledgeable musicians/DJs/collectors...
Issue after issue, Wax Poetics continues to be the place to go for the most informed and passionate writing and features on soul, funk, jazz, hip-hop and beyond. This time out, it's all about the hip-hop, with KRS-One and EPMD on the dual covers and inside great features on both, as well as Ice-T, Ice-Cube, DXT, as well as some nice in memoriam pieces on Guru, Chilly B and Malcolm McLaren. Cool features on the roots of freestyle, the impact of Latinos in hip-hop culture and as always great crate digger tips highlighting some obscure rare groove records that we all will have our eyes out for. Cover to cover, always a satisfying read!
Special RnB issue. 2 different covers, Barry White or Gil Scott-Heron. Back covers too, D'Angelo or Erykah Badu. Inside, all those folks, plus plenty more, including "An Oral History Of The Wah-Wah Pedal".
The colorful magazine covering all the rad sides of soul, funk, jazz, hip-hop and beyond is back with another classy issue. This time out War and Syl Johnson each get one of the covers. Inside tons of awesome stuff including features on The Budos Band, DJ Muggs, Melvin Davis, Claus Ogerman, Johnny Colon, and Al Kooper. As well as awesome articles on the minimoog, photographer Lyle Owerko's obsession with boomboxes, and our always favorite "re: discovery" section where the best rare groove albums get the page & attention they so totally deserve. As always another smoking issue of Wax Poetics!
More good readin'. And lookin'. At pictures. It's another thick (112 page) issue of this soul, funk, jazz, hiphop, anything groovy goes magazine, packed with vintage color and b&w photos and album art to make collectors drool. This issue: pieces on Earth Wind & Fire, Ramsey Lewis, Bobby Womack, Lamont Dozier, Solomon Burke, Billy Ocean, Dennis Coffey, and more.
This now-quarterly mag of funk, soul, hiphop, jazz, and anything else groovy presents their 10th Anniversary issue, with his Purple Highness, Prince on the cover. Inside, a lot of Prince-related content, including "33 Reasons Why Prince Is Hiphop" by ?uestlove of The Roots. There's features on Morris Day, Jesse Johnson, Madhouse, The Family, 94 East...
Also: Blood Orange, DJ Quik (talking about some of his favorite records), Larry Graham, Toro y Moi, Frank Ocean, and more. All, as always, copiously illustrated with full color photography. 104 pages.
On the cover(s): Sade and Flying Lotus. Inside, also: Dam-Funk, Betty Wright, Cody Chesnutt, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Gary Bartz, and, uh, Lenny Kravitz. Among other peeps. All colorfully illustrated in the usual Wax Poetics fashion, with vintage photos and album covers and all that.
Oh, and there's a cool piece about the NYC roller disco boogie scene in the '70s!
The latest from the *(Asterik) label run by the Numero Group folks should perk up the ears of all those who have kept up with their great Eccentric Soul series. In fact one of the earliest releases in that series put the spotlight on the
There is little doubt that the band behind James Brown from the late sixties to the mid seventies was just about the tightest unit around. Of course, Brown's habit of fining his players for missing beats would keep any band in check. But the band wasn't dubbed The JB's until after a legendary moment where most of Brown's band, including key figures Fred Wesley, Maceo Parker, and Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis, up and quit on him. Brown, in a pinch, quickly grabbed a young Cincinnati-based backing band, The Pacemakers, which included a young Bootsy Collins before he joined Funkadelic. With a new band, a new decade and a new sound, Brown pretty much singlehandedly created funk music, and the recently defected Wesley, Parker, and Ellis quickly returned to the fold. The JB's went under many different names and line-ups, including Fred Wesley and the JB's, Maceo and The Macks, Fred Wesley and The New JB's. The Last Word, and The First Family, but the core personnel were more or less the same except for the Collins brothers who were only on the first JB's 1970 lp Food For Thought which contained the hits "Pass The Peas" and "Gimme Some More". All of their records up until 1974 are solid funk staples with hits "Doing It To Death", "Same Beat", and "If You Don't Get It Right The First Time, Back It Up and Try It Again, Party" that would be endlessly sampled in hip hop for decades to come. Good to have these on vinyl again! Funk essentials!
There is little doubt that the band behind James Brown from the late sixties to the mid seventies was just about the tightest unit around. Of course, Brown's habit of fining his players for missing beats would keep any band in check. But the band wasn't dubbed The JB's until after a legendary moment where most of Brown's band, including key figures Fred Wesley, Maceo Parker, and Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis, up and quit on him. Brown, in a pinch, quickly grabbed a young Cincinnati-based backing band, The Pacemakers, which included a young Bootsy Collins before he joined Funkadelic. With a new band, a new decade and a new sound, Brown pretty much singlehandedly created funk music, and the recently defected Wesley, Parker, and Ellis quickly returned to the fold. The JB's went under many different names and line-ups, including Fred Wesley and the JB's, Maceo and The Macks, Fred Wesley and The New JB's. The Last Word, and The First Family, but the core personnel were more or less the same except for the Collins brothers who were only on the first JB's 1970 lp Food For Thought which contained the hits "Pass The Peas" and "Gimme Some More". All of their records up until 1974 are solid funk staples with hits "Doing It To Death", "Same Beat", and "If You Don't Get It Right The First Time, Back It Up and Try It Again, Party" that would be endlessly sampled in hip hop for decades to come. Good to have these on vinyl again! Funk essentials!
This is a reissue of Tony White's second (or third?) solo album, and the one that is considered his best. A prolific songwriter (the stunning "Rainy Night in Georgia" as well as hits performed by everyone from Elvis to Etta James to Ray Charles), he's got
The Female James Brown. Holy Shit!
Sometimes we just have to pinch ourselves to make sure we're not dreaming, and that Japan's EM Records and all the crazy stuff they somehow find and reissue is actually real! Seriously, it's hard to believe, EM dig up such obscure things that are just so AQ-perfect, so darn weird. We have whole sub-genres of stuff in stock here at the store all because of EM - steel pan funk, psychedelic surf soundtracks, singing saw music! And quite a few one-off items that pretty much represent new genres in and off themselves. Like this one, which EM almost too tamely describes as "Obscure evil psycho machine-funk from '80s Washington D.C. Psychedelic madness!".
From the moment Wicked Witch showed up in the mail, we were ensorcelled. Heck, this pretty much had us with the cover, featuring a Vice magazine Dos and/or Don'ts worthy photo of a mysterious, ridiculously bad ass lookin' African American fellow wearing shiny black leather and spikes, sporting a knife in a scabbard attached to one of his boots. He's got his hands on his hips, his eyeballs are colored in red, and we sure wouldn't want to mess with his rad dudeness. But even that strange, sinister image couldn't have prepared us for what this actually sounds like... Which is, to us, ARIEL PINK PLAYING FUNK!! It's that damaged, that lysergic, a one-man outsider take on the druggiest moments from early '70s Miles Davis and especially Funkadelic, like "Wars Of Armageddon" off of Maggot Brain ferinstance.
The first track of this anthology, "Fancy Dancer", a 7" single from 1985, drops the listener right in at the deep end, a dense miasmic phantasmagoria of percolating off-kilter grooves, funky vampings, and creepy, low-end synth buzzings and growlings, further made freakier towards the end of its 5 1/2 minutes with a dose of wild psychedelic electric guitar soloing. Damn. Don't even know if funk is the right word for this. How about "glunk"? 'Cause it's got such a melty, gooey viscosity to it. The credits tell us this appeared on a 7" single from 1985, with all instruments and vocals by Richard Simms (he's the cover star, he's Wicked Witch, and he's apparently quite a character!). Next, track two, "Erratic Behaviour", is maybe even more murky and chaotic, a mixture of echoing, babbling voices and tick-tocking drum machine, set loose amidst swirling electronics. It comes from another 7" single, circa '83, as does the similar track three, "X Rated", which adds some "sensual" guest female sex-freak vocal exhibitionism over the lashing beats, bass throbs, and general dementia. But it's at least as spooky as it is sexy...
Then, track four, "Vera's Back", suddenly shifts things into another realm, delving into Wicked Witch pre-history. Written and produced by Simms, this track was originally released in on a 12" in 1978 by a band he was in (on bass and vocals) called Paradiagm [sic]. It's twelve minute workout of shredding jazzfunk fusion, with over the top chops, a la Return To Forever, with violin and echoing vocals and proggy changes galore. It's a lot "cleaner", less distorted and drugged out than Wicked Witch's later bizarre cauldron bubblings, but still pretty crazy, some of it like Goblin on speed!
The next three tracks bring us back to the more unusual funk (or glunk?) stylings of Rick Simms solo in the '80s, with two takes (one instrumental, one vocal, though both have vocals, the latter just more n' nuttier of 'em) of a track called "Electric War", from a 1984 Wicked Witch 12", and then, for a finale, the disc comes full circle with a previously unreleased, extreme remix of "Fancy Dancer" done in '86. Again, weird, dense, DIY outsider grooviness. Yep, CHAOS: 1978-86 is aptly titled. And we're still astonished, dunno how EM does it. Who digs deeper? You couldn't make this stuff up, we know, but we're still pinching ourselves. Maybe Wax Poetics will do a feature on Wicked Witch one of these days... we can only imagine what became of Simms, perhaps institutionalized in some asylum for the Funkily Insane. In the meantime, you can pour over the photos included herein.
FYI, the above review describes the programming of the cd version, EM's lp of this has a slightly different running order and in fact some different tracks! The vinyl edition omits the "Fancy Dancer" remix and the "Electric War" vocal version. But, its "Erratic Behaviour" and "X Rated" are both remixes different from what's on the cd. And, there's a whole 'nother previously unreleased cut on the lp, "Under Your Spell", eight and half minutes long, from 1986! So we can't tell you which format to choose. Either one, or both, are highly recommended!
In the long wake of Hurricane Katrina, it's good to remind ourselves of the amazing musical legacy of New Orleans. So what better time than now to get this 2 disc reissue of one of the more unique and underrated funk groups of the early seventies, The Wild Magnolias. The first Mardi-Gras Indian group to get signed to a major label (they're not real Native Americans, but African-Americans partaking in a long-time tradition of street�based competition with rival tribal factions fully decked out in elaborately ornate, feathered Indian regalia), The Wild Magnolias were known for their gospel like call-and-response vocal chants over driving funk rhythms provided by The New Orleans Project led by keyboardist Willie Tee. Compiling their 1973 self-titled debut, and 1975 follow-up, They Call us Wild, the Magnolias mix up original songs sung in native-sounding patois ("Handa Wanda", "Ho Na Nae") with interesting takes on New Orleans folk standards such as "Saints" and "Shoo Fly". Includes a PDF version of a 68 page book about their impressive history. An awesome reissue of some bad-ass funk and an amazing peek into one of New Orleans most unique street traditions!
Andre Williams has been making records for over 50 years now -- Wow! Often credited as being the godfather of Rap as his vocal delivery and raw stylings foreshadowed the MC and the birth of hip-hop and beat 'em to the punch by decades. He also of course has always been a serious presence in blues, soul and rock 'n' roll as well. This new release finds his voice still sounding as good as ever and it's an album of seriously solid rhythm and blues. His life's struggles years of hard times are felt in every one of his songs yet through it all you get the feeling that Williams is that rare kind of survivor that will keep playing music till the day he dies. A documentary is set to come out soon on his life & music so hopefully a whole new crowd will discover the man and his music and realize just how much he contributed to music as we know it.
With a seemingly endless supply of amazing soul and funk reissues surfacing seemingly every day, we kept hoping that some current music makers would take some notes and cues from that golden age of soul and funk and start making some seriously raw and tasty soul of their own. Besides the great Sharon Jones & The Dapkings there had been a huge lack of killer modern old school soul. Luckily we think there might be a bit of a renaissance on the horizon. With The Dapkings backing Amy Winehouse and reaching mainstream audiences we think the time is ripe for a whole lot more great soul to replace the overproduced schlock that has dominated the r&b world for way too long now. With a band of great players from Finland of all places, Nicole Willis has made one of the best soul records of the year! After years as a backup and guest vocalist for everyone from Curtis Mayfield, Leftfield and Dee-Lite, Willis is finally the main attraction. After a few impossible to find outings Keep Reachin' Up seems like it will be the one that makes people stand up and take notice. It's a good thing too cuz damn does this record smoke!
Much like the Sharon Jones record, if you close your eyes and listen to Willis you feel like you're in another time entirely. She perfectly recalls that amazing uptempo 70's soul sound that would influence so many folks and pave the way for disco. Her voice is strong and assured, sexy and dripping with a sensuality that can NOT be denied. You can imagine how much Larry Levan would have loved her voice, as you can hear echoes of Gwen Guthrie, Betty Wright and even The Supremes in her songs. What makes Keep Reachin' Up so irresistible is the impeccable music and arrangements played by The Soul Investigators who include her husband Warp Alumnus Jimi Tenor whose take on classic sound is scary perfect (and we have to say we might prefer him in a behind the scenes capacity way more that as a front man) and the amazing playing by The Pekka Kuusisto String Orchestra. Every element is perfect. PERFECT! This has fast become a unanimous favorite around AQ (even with Andee who is typically a bit soul-shy) and we're pretty sure you will fall hard for this as well. So damn good!
If you have been paying attention to the British tabloids and gossip blogs lately, then most likely you, like us, have heard about Ms. Winehouse's drunken antics (her ongoing feuds with white Brit soul-sister Lily Allen, her heckling Bono at a recent awards show, or her oddball sense of fashion), long before you would have actually heard her sing. But who doesn't love a Hot Mess these days, especially one who can surprisingly deliver the classic soul goods as forcefully as she. Seriously, every time we play this, customers do double takes when they see her skinny frame on the cd and hear this big ballsy voice, they just don't match up. At least not until you hear the lyrics, especially on the opening track, the very timely "Rehab", and you can see that her rough charm belies some hefty emotional damage. Backed by the Dap-Kings (well, the band sounds like them and she's touring with them, so we think it's them) and featuring a cameo by Ghostface Killah, Ms. Winehouse's second album is a lovelorn soul cocktail made from the tawdry shards of a broken gin bottle.
Who is that fresh and smiling face on the cover? Is that really Amy Winehouse? We didn't recognize her without her ratty beehive, missing teeth, coke boogers and prison tattoos. Oh right, this is her first record. It's finally available domestically and probably her label fearing she'll never get it together enough to make another record are eager to get more dough from their falling star. Although we have to admit, Miss Winehouse is a much better artist when she's battling her demons than when she doesn't have any, as Frank will attest. Back To Black was one of the best records this year, not just because of the tightness of the band or it's retro soul focus but also in the sincerity of her delivery, and the almost gut-wrenching honesty of her songwriting.
Frank has some good moments too. Her vocal delivery sounds amazingly older than a 17 year old, but the music relies on a dated blend of jazz and hip-hop tinged R&B that hasn't aged as well. The songwriting shows promise but it just doesn't quite add up as a complete work. No wonder Miss Winehouse distanced herself from this record. Too bad she couldn't convince the label to do the same. Not that it's really all that bad, just not nearly in the same league as her follow-up.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE** (well, the cd is on sale, the vinyl isn't.)
Bill Withers' second album Still Bill was not only one of the essential soul/funk records of the seventies with hits like "Use Me", "Lean On Me", and "Who Is He (And What Is He To You?)", but "Use Me" and "Kissing My Love", it's also been sampled on endless hip-hop records from Eric B. & Rakim, Jungle Brothers, Scholly D., Dr. Dre, Jamal-Ski, WC & The Maad Circle just to name a few. Stoned soul jams rarely get better than this. Compact disc version available at the **SALE **SALE* *SALE** nice price of just 5.00, or you freespending turntable types can get the freshly reissued 180 gram vinyl version!
Betty Wright's classic album Hard To Stop, a 1973 follow-up album to her hit song "Clean Up Woman", remastered in all its glory. Features "I Am Woman", "The Babysitter", "If You Think You've Got Soul" and "It's Hard To Stop (Doing Something When It's Good To You)". If anyone has '70s SOUL POWER, it is Betty Wright. Well aaaaaallllriiightahh!
Similar to how Jack White of the White Stripes helped introduce the amazing voice of Loretta Lynn to a new generation with her album Van Lear Rose, The Roots have given legendary soul vocalist Betty Wright a much deserved late career moment in the spotlight with this new collaboration.
Wright started cutting records as a teen in the late '60s, and in fact one of her earliest recordings, as a pre-teen, was found a few years ago by the Numero Group, and was included on the Eccentric Soul: The Deep City Label collection. Her best known albums and period are from the early '70s, I Love The Way You Love, and Hard To Stop are bona fide soul/funk classics. She's kept pretty active throughout her long career, showing up on records by Angie Scott and Erykah Badu in recent years, but not releasing a solo album in over a decade. The pairing of Wright and The Roots could not have been more perfect. While later albums by many great soul singers tend toward the overproduced, glossy, and generic, The Roots lay down a foundation on all the tracks here that are rooted in a warm, organic deep soul vibe. Allowing Wright's voice to sound as powerful and as soulfully wise as ever. Guest spots by Snoop Dogg and Lil Wayne, serve not as a lame attempt to seem hip or relevant, but instead you can tell those guys have mad respect for her, in fact Lil Wayne had her on one of HIS tracks a couple years ago.
The songs here travel from impassioned burners to slow jams, and with The Roots in the driver's seat they always make the smoothest of transitions, and they have definitely helped Wright find her voice in a way that hasn't been displayed in way too long.
The ultimate in deep Memphis soul, O.V. Wright possessed a voice as smooth as it was strong. Memphis Unlimited featured a legendary band backing him up, including the likes of Leroy, Charles and Teenie Hodges, Howard Grimes, James Mitchell, as well as The Memphis Strings, and immaculate production by the legendary Willie Mitchell. Originally released in 1973, Memphis Unlimited is a truly immaculate deep hitting soul album that slow burns and hits every mark from start to finish. While he never reached the same kind of mainstream fame, his records and voice really do remind us of the great Al Green. No doubt, Cat Power has listened to this record MANY times as she recruited many of the same players to join her all star back up band to record The Greatest. This has become a permanent Sunday afternoon record for us with its perfect mix of Southern breeze and deep soul stirring conviction.
We're all pretty well acquainted with the genesis of rap in sixties and seventies in the socially conscious (nay, revolutionary) poetry of the Last Poets and Gil Scott Heron. Camille Yarbrough represents nascent hip-hop's femme-flip-side. Effortlessly phasing from poetry to song, Yarbrough's dynamic is matched by guitar player Cornell Dupree and accompanied by clarinet, and all kinds of
Sick electric funk and smoove jazz coexist on this new reissue on local label 4 Men With Beards. It comes chock full of fuzzed out guitar and chunky organ grooves along with slower romantic numbers that veer a bit close to cocktail lounge territory for our liking. Young-Holt Unlimited had hits like "Soulful Strut" for Atlantic and featured members of the Ramsey Lewis Trio. "Oh Girl" was produced by Michael Cuscuna, who produced the Art Ensemble's Bap-tizm (also reissued on 4 Men With Beards), and has string aranngements by Eumir Deodato, the guy who made a disco version of "Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001)" and produced Kool and the Gang. A very slick, jazzy instrumental rare groove classic. ----* ----* Nonesuch Explorer Titles! : ----* We just got the first batch of the Indonesia / South Pacific installment of Nonesuch's Explorer reissues, which total 12 in number. Ten of the discs are from either Java or Bali and just about each one features an entirely different form of gamelan. A Gamelan, as a cursory way of introduction, is an orchestra of primarily bronze (though bamboo gamelan are also common) percussion instruments -- metallophones, gongs, gong-chimes -- and drums. Quite often a gamelan will have a specific repertoire that it is exclusively built for the performance of, and certain ceremonial gamelan are limited to the performance of a single piece. On top of this, throughout Java and Bali there is an ever changing world of both village and court traditions which continue to defy definitions. These discs just in from Bali and Central & Western Java just scratch the surface of gamelan throughout Indonesia, but they're a fine introduction anyway.
Are you ready for some talk boxin block rockin boot knockin FUNK!?!? We sure are! And here it is... The debut record from the funky Ohio family Troutman, newly reissued on cd, Zapp! This is some original bass music right here, groovy as hell with a tight, almost drum machine like pocket and that O.G. talk box sound we all know and love. In fact Zapp is the reason that sound has entered our musical collective pop-consciousness, and we are most thankful for it! The lead single, and the most recognizable hit, "More Bounce To The Ounce" came to be a defining musical achievement, spawning a multitude of rad west coast hip hop, and becoming THEE sound of lowrider culture. Zapp's music is also surprisingly hypnotic...the groove is so strong and their forms are perfectly repetitive, there's plenty of room to get lost in the funk. Perfect music to cruise to, top down, real slow down the strip. Summers not that far off! A G-Funk classic! Ooooh Weee.
