Everyone has one. Here are a few off mine, mainly ones with Youtubes. Hopefully Record Santa will dig these up for me someday.
The Upfronts “Most of The Pretty Young Girls”
The Sweets “Something About My Baby”
The Soul Vendors “Ringo Rock”
The Echoes “Million Dollar Bill”
Kings of Soul “Is Your Love for Me”
“everyday I work real hard to try to make you look so nice”
ATTEMPTING IN VAIN to forget about the coldest 24 hous of the season, how about an absolute favorite tune from one of my absolute favorite soul music micro-genres: the lowrider oldie.
Something of an update on the doo-wop sound of earlier in the decade, the term was born -most notably- out of the Latino neighborhoods of East Los Angeles. Songs like this and others would flutter out of the AM radio on muggy summer nights, providing the perfect soundtrack for crusing with your sweetheart down the urban boulevards and oceanside heights
Lucky for us, Pretty Baby has all the hallmarks of a great barrio soul classic. The hopefully romantic lyrics, falsetto backing vocals, and steady back-beat are married to rudimentary -some may say janky- production values, giving the track an urgent authenticity and therefore, an underlying element of danger.
Enjoy the track and think ahead to summer and your next midnight joy ride.
“suddenly you come to thrill my soul”
LET’S VAMP IN the psychedelic jungle a little longer with this one. Nora Dean was one of the great female singers of her era, but only ever recorded a small handful of her own sides, the most famous being the skinhead classic Barb Wire.
The flip side to a Hugh Roy track, Angie-La-La looks unassuming enough. Based on circumstantial evidence, the seasoned reggae expert would probably assume this cut to be a simple early-70s reggae side, likely still owing some influence to the rocksteady era. What a surprise then to drop the needle and be taken in by the hypnotic percussion, droning organ, and deconstructed vocals. Everything brilliantly comes together somehow; a slow crawl working in a bizarre cohesion to become almost multi-sensory, totally unique in its construction and yet sounding to something almost universally primal. A strange one for sure, have a listen!
b-side: Hugh Roy, This Station Rule the Nation
“black night is falling down around us”
SONICALLY SPEAKING, SWEET Thing resembles something you’d be prone to hear stumbling into an Accra discotheque back in the day with your mind melting on some West African voodoo drug the bellboy slipped you for an extra tip. But no, this utterly mental psychedelic disco/funk piece somehow surfaced from, not half way around the globe, but the trenches of Milwaukee’s north side in 1978.
Nobody really knows the story of how this tune, with its driving percussion, twisting horns, and nightmarish vocals came into being; Cobie Joe transcended this physical plane about a year before local record sleuths could finally track him. Its orgins will remain a secret for now, hidden behind every sound that eminates from the grooves of this mke-afro-psych gem.
“so beware of some other guy”
HERE’S A CURRENT hometown favorite that I just got around to picking up for some reason. An exquisite mid-tempo soul side by Milwaukee’s Esquires who, despite some [very] modest commercial success in their day, remain just a footnote in the repackaging of r&b history.
The group unfortunately exists in sort of a soul music limbo. Their records aren’t rare or dancey enough to be fully appreciated by the DJ scene, and their success wasn’t great enough to ever earn any nods from esteemed guardians of culture like ROLLING STONE or VH1.
There was a time though, when all the young soul acts in town aspired to be like The Esquires. One listen to the lush arrangements and stunning falsetto harmonies and its easy to see why. A class tune by any measure. Enjoy!
“before he became the major league champ, he stood around just like me and the fellas”
IN SOME CIRCLES this record is a certified classic. A story of youthful friendship and optimism meeting the harsh realities of growing up poor in the big city. UTSL manages to simultaneously paint a very specific picture of the street corners in east L.A. during the 1960s, while still striking a universal chord with down-and-out dreamers everywhere (as James Conwell sings at the close: “In every city and every town”). Its a track, both lyrically and musically, that pleads with itself to remain upbeat, but can’t escape the melancholy written into every horn line, vocal harmony, and strike of the vibes.
The Exits recorded a small handful of other tunes and would then fade into obscurity. Before doing so, they would return to this romantic hope-in-the-ghetto theme with their sought after rarity Another Sundown in Watts – a record I would love to feature here someday.
b-side: Got to Have Money
“Although dem say dem rough, but I know I’m tough”
BIG ROCKSTEADY KILLER from Hopeton Lewis. Recording for the Merritone label in the 1960s, Lewis released a string of unfadable singles coveted by today’s deep fans and collectors. Despite having essentially been written out of the history of popular Jamaican music, tunes like this one, Rocka Shocka, Cool Cool Collie, and Sounds and Pressure set down the foundation defining the era’s attitude and cool.
This copy had been sweltering in the tropics of Jamaica for the last four decades and the condition shows it. Still, the head-rattling bass and razor sharp delivery cut through the wear to bring us one serious tuff tune .
b-side: Don’t Cry
the truth is
T U F F T U N E S 