Archive for the A Northern Soul Category
Two of my favorite talents in the extensive world of music remain the illustrious DJ Day and Kansas City’s #1 soul brother, soul singer and virtuoso Miles Bonny. DJ Day, whom I have written extensive praises of, wrote on his own blog, Like A Throttle, about how he came to generate this genuinely soul-stirring rendition of “Still Ray” by Raphael Saadiq.
I came home and listened to it, figured out the piano part and played everything else from there. Once I was finished I called my man Miles Bonny to lay down vocals and trumpet like only he can and here it is, free for you.
Word is this may yet still come out on vinyl, but it’s way too good to let collect dust. Enjoy this track and let it fill you with the essence. Keep up with DJ Day over at Like A Throttle.
Through time and circumstance, a lot of what record fans consider to be “classic” falls by the wayside. Such is the fate of the critically-acclaimed and oft-sampled solo album by soul master, funk pioneer and session mastermind Don Blackman. This 1982 record is still available as an import for a whopping $39.99 in the U.S. However, it’s worth every cent of that and more. Flawless keyboard arrangements and vocals, tight funky-basslines, synth and Moog progressions that are unlike anything you’re likely to hear anywhere else, the album transcends its out-of-print status on repeated listenings.
Funk fans, take note of this one.
Last year, I procrastinated heavily. I think there were a lot of good records that came out the last couple of years, but I started to think that for every record that came out, there was an equal number of these “best-of” lists being bandied about. At first I thought, “Wow, it’s finally happened. Everyone’s a music critic.” Then, with this pervasive thought entrenched in my gourd, I started reading these other lists before making my own.
I suddenly felt small.
So deadlines for the “best of 2007″ rolled around, and I was in a tailspin, dogged by the massive amount of music I had encountered. I kept reflecting on these words of Billy Corgan that I’d read years ago. Billy had once quipped to, I think, Rolling Stone, that, “Not every year can be a great, or even good, year in music.” This thought just stirred in my head and fed into some neurosis. The thought actually fucked with me; maybe 2007 wasn’t that great? Or was it? So I slacked until it was way too late to really do it with any fervor.
Newsflash: Shit aint happening like that this year. I’m past all that, and this year’s going to be different.
And the hits just keep on coming…..
Among the ranks of America’s greatest soul songwriters and composers, few stand taller than Norman Whitfield, who died at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles after a lengthy illness. His contributions to American soul music count among the most prized and revered. His studio experimentations with sound shaped a blueprint for the significant, powerful changes in the Motown sound and the sound of northern soul that took place in the 1970’s.
Whitfield shared both the producer helm and co-songwriting duties on a number of Motown staples with Barrett Strong, producing a string of classics for The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Edwin Starr, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Rare Earth and The Undisputed Truth. As a composer, he is most well known for the soundtrack to the 1970’s film Car Wash, a soundtrack whose relevance to R&B, soul music, funk and disco surpassed the impact of the film itself. The soundtrack would win a Grammy in 1977 for Album of Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or a Television Special.
Whitfield had been suffering from diabetes. No funeral arrangements have been made at this time.
