Promo Only! These jamz are not for sale.

Here are two great sides from A&M of the Brazilian variety that for whatever reason never made it out as a commercial release. The promotional only white label release is an interesting thing as the reason for its limited release can be a result of a number of different situations. Maybe they tested them out as promos to see if there was interest and there wasn't . . . Maybe the group switched record labels, which could be the case for both of these as the Sergio track was supposedly recorded during the sessions for the "Primal Roots" album on A&M and the following album, Love Music, came out on Bell in 1973. Tamba 4 released two albums on A&M before moving back to Brazil and while I have no idea when this single came out, I think it was after their two albums as the song "California Soul" didn't see the light of day until 1968 when the 5th Dimension and Marvin & Tammi recorded it. We may never know why these records were never released commercially, but I think it's fair to say it wasn't because of poor quality.

Sergio Mendes & Brazil '77 - The Crab (Karan - gai - jo)
This song is great for a number of reasons: 1) It's a Joao Donato original tune that was far as I know was never recorded by anyone other than Sergio's troop; 2) It comes from the sessions for one of Sergio's most underrated albums "Primal Roots" which saw Sergio getting back to roots and its the one album that actually sounds like some other stuff being released in Brazil from the same time period; and lastly, 3) It's freakin' weird. Listen to that strange scream in the background!

Tamba 4 - California Soul
Sure, there's no shortage of cover versions of "California Soul", but how many feature whispy portuguese accented vocals and strange organ sounds? Just this one.

It's Been A Long Long Time . . . Since We Had A Slow Jam

I picked this one up on a whim with a whole bunch of other LPs and 45s a few weeks back. In fact, I think it came from the same vendor that sold me the Gary Bartz LP . . . I wasn't sure what to make of it, but the price was right so I gave it a chance. But there's something peculiar about this 45. What appears to be the A-Side is "I Understand My Man" written by Holland-Dozier-Holland and produced by Holland-Dozier and dates from 1966. Today's featured song is on the B-side but its date is from 1961! I think what this refers to is the publishing date of the song in its original version done by Harvey Fuqua and the Five Quails. But I'm guessing that this track was also recorded in 1966 for their lone album "Darling Baby". Enjoy!

The Elgins - It's Been A Long Long Time
Lead Vocals [Lead] - Saundra
Producer - Harvey Fuqua, Johnny Bristol
Written By - Harvey Fuqua/The Five Quails





Also another great oldie, but goodie over on Soul Spectrum Videos culled from a recent purchase, Marvin Gaye - Live in Montreaux 1980.

Election '08: Musical Shout-Outs, Part 3: To the Bleading Hearts

Smokey's first solo album is a truly underrated masterpiece that deserves its place next to the other great Motown albums of the early seventies by the likes of Marvin or Stevie. The whole thing is straight-up perfect with maybe one weak track among the batch. The original songs are all great Smokey compositions with a real intimate feel and contemporary lyrics and the production called on the help of new Motown producer and soon to be artist, Willie Hutch. I have a Soul Train video at home of him doing his very mellow thing to three of the songs from this album, but this baby-making tune was the only one I could find on the interwebs.

Smokey Robinson - Just My Soul Responding
Smokey's best attempt at a political song is this lesser-known tune with an unusual rhythm track and arrangement. Still one of the best social commentary song from the seventies if you ask me . . . To all those bleading hearts out there, Smokey feels your pain . . .

Silly Love Songs

I'm about a week away from moving into my new apartment, which means finally having access once again to my computer/iTunes library as well as my vinyl. So, for today's selections I dug through my lovely companions' iTunes in hopes of finding something good to post. I noticed a playlist that I had made for her when we first started dating, charmingly called "Silly Love Songs." It was Valentine's day and we were falling in love and I had the clever idea of secretly sneaking on to her computer, loading a playlist that I had made and putting it on to her ipod without her knowing. She was leaving on a trip, so I made sure she had her freshly loaded ipod with her and then gave her a card as I dropped her off at the airport, telling her to check her ipod for something special. I have to say I was pretty proud of myself and wonder what I can do now, more than a year in to top that . . .

The whole mix is great and deliberately sentimental. Out of the many favorites are these two Motown tunes from 1970 (Stevie) and 1971 (Smokey) that are both unmistakably Stevie and Smokey, respectively, but also kina uncharacteristic of both of their styles.

Stevie Wonder - Sugar
This Stevie song rules! Those drums are so huge - I wonder if he played them. And that hook. The song is nothing BUT hook. Hearing it for the first time I immediately knew it was Stevie, but also I was also bewildered that I had never heard it before. The title is perfect as it's about the sweetest bit of pop confection that Stevie ever laid to wax.

Smokey Robinson & the Miracles - Crazy About the La La La
I think my brother, Charlie, might have tipped me off to this one. Once again William Robinson is a genius with lyrics, telling the audience about this "thing" that he's crazy about without ever saying what it is, just "la la la." The way he sings you get the impression that the "la la la" might be something that the conservative Motown execs (himself being VP at this time, I think) wouldn't want uttered on the pop charts. Knowing Smokey's predilection for women and illict substances, it really could be either, or maybe he's talking about "toast and jam."

A Cover From Another Mutha

So, another event I went to a few weeks ago was a show with The Sweet Divines and Eli "The Paperboy Reed" at Union Hall in Park Slope, Brooklyn. That's only the pretext for this post and I WILL post about the Sweet Divines very soon. Before the first act went on tunes were provided by The Honeydripper, an affiliate of the Daptone Records crew. She played this one song that took me nearly the whole duration of the song to place. I recognized the melody and lyrics, but the version I was listening to sounded nothing like the song I was familiar with. I finally placed it . . . it was a Stevie Wonder song from his underrated 1980 album "Hotter Than July." I'm gonna place the songs in the order that they came into my consciousness, so we'll listen to the Stevie version first . . .

Stevie Wonder - All I Do
This is easily my favorite latter-day stevie (post songs in the key of life) song. It's a tender, mid-tempo disco soul groover and Stevie just nails everything about it. Once again, I owe it to my brother to hip me to this one.


Tammi Terrel - All I Do (Is Think About You)
So, now that you're listening to the Tammi version, it's like, "wait, which one came first?" especially considering the song was written by Stevie along with some of the usual Motown song-writing suspects: Clarence Paul and Morris Broadnax. Stevie never recorded it back in 1966. He waited 14 years to record his own song. And more interesting yet, the only version prior to Stevie's that was released was performed by Brenda Halloway, but her version was actually Tammi's version with Tammi's vocals stripped off and Brenda's put on to the same rhythm track. Tammi's version was only released in 2002 on the compilation "A Cellarful of Motown." Needless to say, this is a dynamite song and listening to the two versions side by side, its illuminating how differently the artists took this song 14 years apart. Thanks Honeydripper for playing this . . .

Pop-Psychologi-Soul

These days you just don't have too many pop songs that attempt to tell a story or really get deep into an issue and explore it throughout the course of the three minute duration. The two songs we have here are both soul tunes from 1970 give or take a year and deal with some pretty serious subject matter, taking some pages from the Psychology 101 textbooks to explain themselves. The Four Tops get pretty deep in their analysis of personality development from generation to generation. For all you parents out there, listen attentively. Reggie Milner uses a concept that I wouldn't think of as being a household term, "habit-forming", and writes a love song using this idea to explain his attachment to the lady in question. Heavy stuff.

The Four Tops - My Past Just Crossed My Future
This first song by the Four Tops was one that picked up when I was in Portland over the holidays, but I had it on hold with a whole bunch of other joints that I was waiting to records from vinyl. It's a monster, let me tell you! The beat starts and doesn't stop for the full length of the song. There's kind of a chorus, where the song title is passionately delivered by the lead singer (any idea which "Top" this is?), but all the while the rhythm section just keeps on cooking. I couldn't find any references to this song being sampled, but that beat is begging for it. It might be because those tops never stop singing leaving no open drums from which to cop.

Fun fact: Levi Stubbs provided the voice for Audrey the man-eating plant in the film version of Little Shop of Horrors.

If you're interested, you can find a copy of the LP here.

Reggie Milner - Habit Forming Love
I found this promo-only 45 in Pennsylvania a couple of summers ago. It was white-label and on Volt, so I said what the heck. The groove on this is almost more reminiscent of Curtis Mayfield's Chicago-style soul arrangements than it is of something that probably came out of Memphis (the home of Stax/Volt). I can't seem to find anything else out about Mr. Milner except that he has only released a handful of singles in his career, another of which was included on the same Stax/Volt box set.

I like how close to the fade-out Reggie pleads with desperation in his voice that he's "got to be a part of this un-hooked generation." It's like Reggie sat down and read a Time magazine article about current thoughts in American pyschology and used his favorite buzz words in this pop-soul gem. Could be . . .

You can find this track on The Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles, Volume 2 (1969-1971).