Grab Bag Across the Soul Spectrum

It's been awhile . . . apologies. I'm gonna blame it on wedding planning, but not sure that really explains it. To make it up to you I'm giving you a grab-bag of 45s I've picked up around San Francisco at a Ricky's in the Lower Haight and a garage sale in Glen Park of all places. Enjoy.


Harvey Scales & The 7 Sounds - Get Down
A bit beat up, but still very listenable. This one must have been during that "freeze" dance craze. I love that "freeze" breakdown. "Don't move a muscle!"


Maxayn - Check Out Your Mind
The classic Mayfield cut done by the strange gender and racially mixed Maxayn. Interesting fact: The disco auteur Mandre, was the brains behind this band.

J.J. Jackson - I Dig Girls
I don't know anything about this guy, but I LOVE this song. A simple message that I can relate to.





Hugh Masekela - Gettin' It On
Man, this one blew my socks off. Talk about early Afro-funk, this takes James Brown's chicken- scratch and pairs it with Hugh's layered horns. money.

Worst Week . . . EVER!

Have you ever had one of the days where it seems like everything and everyone is conspiring against you? A day when NOTHING goes right? Well, I had a whole week like that, last week.



Monday: I went into work early to prepare for an important meeting later that day to find that my brand-new work laptop refused to start up. Our IT person works from noon til late, so I wasn't able to get back to work until close to the end of the day. Needless to say I was frustrated, the meeting had to be postponed and regardless of the fact it wasn't my fault, it still reflected poorly on me.

Tuesday: Without going into details, I overdrafted my bank-account. I'm not the kind of person that balances my checkbook or anything, but I'm also not horribly irresponsible with my money. I think the problem had to do with the Tuesday bank holiday. Either way I had the embarrassing experience of being declined when trying to buy my morning bagel at my usual spot around the corner from work.

Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes - Bad Luck








Wednesday: After moving to California, my girlfriend (a CA native) explained to me that drivers in California don't come to complete stops at stop signs. They call it a "rolling stop" or a "California stop". I changed my ways, but on my way to a work conference on Wednesday morning I got pulled over blocks from my house for making (or not making) such a "stop." Clearly, telling the Po-Po that "that's how we do" in California doesn't really work. Here's to a $160 fine and driving school!

Ellen McIlwaine - Born Under A Bad Sign












Thursday: Hallelujah! Nothing horrible happened, but needless to say I was still reeling from the disasters of the previous three days.

Friday: So, after work I went to see the new James Bond movie with Jamie and some work friends of hers. Before the show I went to put my heavy bags into the trunk of the car, parked no less than a block from the theater. It was too good to be true. After the less-than-steller Bond flick we went to a bar and as I went to the trunk to grab something from my bag, I was startled to find that IT WAS NOT THERE! Just my backpack was gone. The backpack with my brand-new, recently fixed work computer. Sunglasses, my current book and few smaller items were also sacrificed to the clever thief who must have watched me place my bags in the trunk. Surprisingly, there was no visible sign of forced entry into the car.


Earth, Wind & Fire - Keep Your Head to the Sky









Friday was the Full Moon, so it stands to reason that somehow my lunar vibrations were out of sync or some such shit, but thankfully my life has returned to normal, more or less, since then. I'm trying my best to focus on the positive. The last two songs are some of my favorites for doing just that.

The Impressions - We're Rolling On (Part One)

Curtis Mayfield or Patti Jo?

Well, its not really a competition. All the tracks featured here were produced and written by Curtis Mayfield and arranged by Rich Tufo. Curtis's versions are both buried on the B sides of their respective albums and at first listen seem like merely solid album cuts. But after listening to Patti Jo's excellent interpretations, I felt compelled to hear them back to back. Both of the Patti Jo tracks have been compiled and re-released before (though they are still rare and expensive in the original 7") I was lucky enough to glean them from Scepter records awesome "Disco Gold" (more on that later) which was kind enough to provide both singles.


Patti Jo- Ain't No Love Lost

Curtis Mayfield - Ain't No Love Lost I can really dig the warbling vocals on Patti's version here. Curtis does his smooth thing as usual. I love how he changes the lyric about becoming "some Casanova" to becoming "some Miss Casanova." The Curtis version is off his album "Got to Find a Way."


Curtis Mayfield - Make Me Believe in You

Patti Jo - Make Me Believe in You I first heard Patti's version of this song about eight years ago on a OST records re-edit I randomly bought at open mind records in San Francisco. I remember thinking: "Too funky..." I love the more psychedelic orchestrated direction Curtis takes his version in contrasted with Patti's harder one. In both cases Curtis's versions were released after Patti Jo's. the Curtis version is off his album "Sweet Exorcist."

Whew! Intense! Now that I got you in the mode, lets all chill out with this: (off his album, "Give Get Take and Have")

Curtis Mayfield - Only You Babe

Leroy Hutson, "The Man"

I've been reading this book lately, "Curtis Mayfield: People, Never Give Up", and while its reminded me of some great Curtis songs and albums as well as some lesser known colleagues of Curtis' the book is a real snoozer. If you check out the few reviews on amazon I'm relieved to find that I'm not alone in my sentiments. On Wednesday I went by "Israel's record dungeon" for what might be my last time as a New Yorker and lucked out in finding Leroy Hutson's first album "Love, Oh, Love" in great condition. I've been so impressed with Leroy and wanted to share some of my favorite tracks.

Leroy took over for Curtis when the little man went solo, but before long it was clear that Leroy had the potential to go solo as well. I've not heard Leroy's work with The Impressions, but I'm gonna keep my eyes peeled for the one record that he sings on: "Time Have Changed".

Ground Hog - Bumpin'
Around the time of his work with the Impressions and working on his first solo record he put this little song together with Curtom arranger, Rich Tufo. I noticed Leroy's name on the writing credit, but until I was reading the Burns biography of Mayfield I didn't realize that this was a Hutson project and not just a song of his.

Leroy Hutson - Lucky Fellow
Great song from his album "Hutson" which I need to track down.








Leroy Hutson - Love the Feeling
Leroy Hutson - Don't It Make You Feel Good?
Here are two of my favorite Hutson joints from my favorite album of his (so far). There are at least two other great songs on this album that you should track down on reissue LP or CD here.

Another Disco Monster: Sisters Love

In preparation for a recent trip to the Bay Area I bumped "The Mack" to the top of my Netflix cue, seeing as it's an iconic look at early seventies Oakland. I didn't get around to watching it until after I got back, but I must say for a Blaxploitation flick it is one of the best I've seen, not to say that I'm an expert. The acting is extremely melodramatic but the lead parts by Max Julien and Richard Pryor are very memorable. There are lots of elements from this movie that have been cherry-picked by the Hip Hop scene (think Too Short, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and most of the West Coast scene) and even what most of popular culture imagines when they think of pimps, pimp style, mink coats and purple fedoras . . . you know the deal. This movie was probably the first to put that stuff on screen. Check out the video over at Soul Spectrum Videos for an iconic scene that features a musical performance from the Dr. Frankenstein that gave birth to this post's "Disco Monster." Also, if you're a fan of Dave Chappelle and remember his skit "Player Hater's Ball" you will no doubt catch some references.

As the story goes, The Sisters Love were given a cameo slot in the film and it was their manager or producer that suggested to the director to use Willie Hutch for the soundtrack and what a soundtrack it is! It features some great tunes, including the classic "Brother's Gonna Work It Out." But for me, the song that The Sisters Love perform in the movie is a revelation. Having only really heard their classic remake of Curtis Mayfield's "Give Me Your Love," and another song ((I Could Never Make) A Better Man Than You) that they lip-synch on a bootleg Soul Train tape, I was unaware of any other songs of theirs.

The Sisters Love - Now Is the Time
This song is a funk monster with the Sisters giving a rousing, gut-bucket performance over a slamming groove that is much more sinister and in-your-face than most other female vocal groups of the time. The Supremes or Honey Cone they were not. With the quality of their limited output (8 singles for a total of 16 songs) it's a wonder they never got a full length record deal. I mean, they opened for The Jackson 5 for crying out loud! That is a tour slot that you have to work for. Then you see the Soul Train videos (check 'em out over at SS Videos) and you start to get it. They may have been damn good performers with top-shelf songs but they were not the most attractive girl group around. Even before MTV, they were not getting their dues for their music. Hell, there might have been many other factors at play, but from my comfy office chair, it seems to me that the lead-singer's gap toothed vocal stylings might have been the nail in their commercially unsuccessful coffin.


The Sisters Love - Give Me Your Love (Danny Krivit re-edit)
From a "Funk Monster" to the real "Disco Monster." This is legendary New York Disco DJ, Danny Krivit's re-edit of The Sisters Love's biggest hit. Krivit, who regulaly DJs in NYC (check out his 718 Sessions if you're in NYC or passing through for one of the best sound systems you've ever heard and a crowd that has NO SHAME in shaking their collective groove-thangs) seemlessly extends the bass-heavy groove of this song and turns a 45-only masterpiece into an eight minute epic classic!