This morning I woke up to the news that Guru of Gang Starr had passed away.
Since word of his illness first spread last month, I've been going back and listening a lot to their catalog, which is one of the strongest in rap. Here is a mix of many of my favorite Gang Starr songs that I made a few weeks ago:
To download the mix as a single, continuous track, click here.
To download the mix broken into individual tracks, click here.
1. Intro 2. You Know My Steez 3. Just to Get a Rep 4. Mass Appeal 5. Step in the Arena 6. Now You're Mine 7. The Militia feat. Freddie Foxxx 8. B.Y.S. 9. Take It Personal 10. The ? Remainz 11. Full Clip 12. DWYCK feat. Nice & Smooth 13. Who's Gonna Take the Weight? 14. Jazz Thing 15. Soliloquy of Chaos 16. Check the Technique 17. Credit Is Due 18. Speak Ya Clout feat. Jeru the Damaja & Lil Dap 19. It'z a Setup feat. Hannibal 20. Words I Manifest (Remix) 21. 2 Deep 22. The Place Where We Dwell 23. Suckas Need Bodyguards 24. Flip the Script 25. What You Want This Time? 26. Love Sick 27. Ex Girl to Next Girl 28. The Planet 29. Make 'em Pay 30. Execution of a Chump 31. DJ Premier Is In Deep Concentration 32. Take Two & Pass 33. Gotta Get Over (Taking Loot) 34. Rite Where You Stand feat. Jadakiss 35. I'm the Man feat. Lil Dap & Jeru the Damaja 36. Code of the Streets 37. Tonz 'o' Gunz 38. Next Time
Willie Mitchell passed away earlier this month. He produced some of the greatest soul music ever made, so this week's show collects 45 of my favorites, including some big hits from Al Green and Ann Peebles, as well as great music from a handful of lesser-knowns.
It's tough to talk about Mitchell without talking about Al Green, the artist Mitchell worked the most with and had his greatest success with. Green's gift is so overwhelming and his vocal identity is so established that it's easy to overlook Mitchell's role in shaping it. But to hear Green's work prior to recording with Mitchell, or even to hear their early recordings before Mitchell crafted Green's signature style, and to compare it with his mature style is to understand exactly how important a producer can be.
Mitchell plucked Green from relative obscurity, brought him to Memphis and recorded him for almost two years before they hit upon Green's sound. Early singles, like "Back Up Train", "Gotta Find a New World" or "All Because", show Green to be a better than average soul singer—strong, gritty, agile—but offer no clue as to how sinuous or graceful Green's vocals could be. It took two albums and a dartboard approach to find out what worked and apparently even Hi Records didn't recognize it at first; Green's breakthrough, "Tired of Being Alone", wasn't the first single from Green's second album with Mitchell, Al Green Gets Next to You, it was the fourth.
Once Mitchell hit upon a formula for Green, he worked subtle variations on a style that paired lush strings and jazzy chords with a restrained, lightly earthy backbeat. It was a perfect setting for Green’s music and their run of albums from I'm Still in Love With You to Livin' for You is almost flawless.
Mitchell’s touch was also evident in a host of other records he cut at Hi Records’ Memphis studio, both for Hi mainstays like O.V. Wright and Ann Peebles and for out-of-towners like the Detroit Emeralds and Denise LaSalle. Mitchell was not just a producer, he was an engineer, too, and the sound he coaxed from the room and from Hi’s band is instantly identifiable. Signature elements stamp all of these productions, like the wheeze of Charlie Hodges’s organ, the full, slightly tame sound of the Memphis Horns and especially the bone-dry snap of a snare drum, whether played by Al Jackson, Jr. or Howard Grimes.
The other acts Mitchell produced may have been less successful than Al Green, but many made remarkable music. When their songs were up to snuff, O.V. Wright, Syl Johnson and Ann Peebles all regularly made music that was nearly on Green’s level. Soul journeymen like the Masqueraders and George Jackson cut some of their best material with Mitchell, too.
I’ve tried to capture some of the breadth of Mitchell’s work in my mix. It’s not really his greatest hits (that would have required too much Al Green) or a selection of songs that have been popularized by sampling (though many were) and Mitchell’s work as a trumpeter and bandleader gets really short shrift (truth be told, I really dislike the music he made under his own name). I chose my favorites and tried to shape them into a mix that would function as an introduction or a celebration of his incredible body of productions. Enjoy.
1. Al Green: Love & Happiness 2. Al Green: Love Ritual (Remix) 3. Ann Peebles: Somebody's On Your Case 4. O.V. Wright: Ace of Spades 5. Syl Johnson: The Love You Left Behind 6. Ann Peebles: It's Your Thing 7. O.V. Wright: A Nickel & a Nail 8. Willie Mitchell: Groovin' 9. Al Green: So You're Leaving 10. Al Green: Tired of Being Alone 11. Al Green: Let's Stay Together 12. Ann Peebles: I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down 13. Al Green: Call Me 14. Al Green: Your Love Is the Morning Sun 15. George Jackson: Aretha, Sing One For Me 16. Jean Plum: Here I Go Again 17. Syl Johnson: Anyway the Wind Blows 18. Ann Peebles: I Can't Stand the Rain 19. The Detroit Emeralds: Baby Let Me Take You In My Arms 20. Al Green: I'm a Ram 21. O.V. Wright: Are You Going Where I'm Coming From 22. Ann Peebles: Run, Run, Run 23. O.V. Wright: I'd Rather Be Blind, Cripple & Crazy 24. Ann Peebles: Trouble, Heartaches & Sadness 25. Al Green: I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry 26. Al Green: I'm Glad You're Mine 27. Al Green: What a Wonderful Thing Love Is 28. O.V. Wright: Let's Straighten It Out 29. The Masqueraders: Let the Love Bells Ring 30. Al Green: La La For You 31. Syl Johnson: Steppin' Out 32. Syl Johnson: I Hate I Walked Away 33. Syl Johnson: Could It Be I'm Falling In Love 34. Al Green: I Wish You Were Here 35. Al Green: Simply Beautiful 36. Erma Coffee: You Made Me What I Am 37. George Jackson: Let Them Know You Care 38. Al Green: Something 39. Al Green: Strong As Death (Sweet As Love) 40. Syl Johnson: Wind Blow Her Back My Way 41. Betty Everett: Just a Matter of Time 42. Teacher's Edition: Sleepy People 43. Al Green: Jesus Is Waiting 44. Syl Johnson: It Ain't Easy 45. Ann Peebles: I Still Love You
If there's interest, I might break the mix into individual tracks and upload them as a .zip, but it's kinda a lot of work, so we'll see.
Statistical shits and giggles:
Number of songs by Al Green: 17 Number of songs by Syl Johnson: 7 Number of songs by Ann Peebles: 6 Number of songs by O.V. Wright: 5 Number of songs by George Jackson: 2 Number of songs by none of the above: 8
December 4, 2007 was going to be about the best day ever: my lady and I had fancy reservations to celebrate our first 6 months together, I had gamed my Netflix queue to get the first 3 discs of Season 4 of The Wire in the mail and two of my favorite rappers had albums coming out (Ghostface's Fishscale and Scarface's Made).
That morning I turned on the computer and saw that Pimp C had died and it knocked me sideways. The news hit me harder than most rap deaths because it was so unexpected and it seemed so unfair.
I've been meaning to do some kind of tribute mix ever since. A few days after Pimp C passed, I devoted a full KALX show to his music, but due to technical constraints, time constraints and the goddamn FCC, it wasn't what I wanted it to be. This is.
This week's show is not a best of or a greatest hits, it's just a mix of some of my favorite songs featuring Pimp C. I spent a fair amount of time on sequencing but mixed it live, so pardon me if it's occasionally choppy. Also, to keep the mix short and maintain the focus I had to omit a ton of great verses by Bun B-- don't forget him.
1. One Day (UGK) 2. Playaz from the South (UGK) 3. Suicide Doors (David Banner) 4. Like That (Remix) (UGK) 5. Pourin' Up (Pimp C) 6. Chunk Up the Deuce (Lil Keke) 7. Sippin' On Some Syrup (Three 6 Mafia) 8. The Game Belongs to Me (UGK) 9. Big Pimpin' (Jay-Z) 10. Gravy (UGK) 11. Something Good (UGK) 12. Pregnant Pussy (UGK) 13. I Left It Wet for You (UGK) 14. Use Me Up (UGK) 15. I'sa Playa feat. Bun B (Pimp C) 16. Int'l Players Anthem (I Choose You) feat. Outkast (UGK) 17. What Means the World to You RMX feat. Trina (Cam’ron) 18. I'm In Love With a Stripper RMX feat. Paul Wall (T-Pain) 19. Cause I'm a Playa (Project Pat) 20. 3 in the Mornin feat. DJ Screw (UGK) 21. I'm So Bad (UGK) 22. Freaky Deaky (Willie D) 23. Swang (Trae) 24. It's Supposed to Bubble (UGK) 25. Ridin' Dirty (UGK) 26. Swishas & Erb (UGK) 27. Comin' Up (Pimp C) 28. Ain't That a Bitch feat. Devin the Dude (UGK) 29. Havin Thangs (Big Mike) 30. Havin' Thangs feat. Big Mike (Pimp C) 31. Let Me See It (UGK) 32. Dirty Money (UGK) 33. Da Game Been Good to Me (UGK) 34. Get Crunk (Crooked Lettaz) 35. Murder Man Dance (Spice 1) 36. A Thin Line (Pimp C) 37. Cocaine in the Back of the Ride (UGK) 38. Talkin Smart (Project Pat) 39. Front, Back & Side to Side (UGK) 40. Used to Be feat. E-40 & B Legit (UGK) 41. Fuck You (Lil Boosie) 42. Choppin' Blades (UGK) 43. Murder (UGK) 44. Pocket Full of Stones (Port Arthur Remix) (UGK) 45. Overstand Me (Pimp C) 46. Look at Me (UGK) 47. I Don't Owe U feat. Ronnie Spencer (918) 48. Akickdoe! (C-Murder) 49. Family Affair (UGK) 50. Holdin’ Na (UGK) 51. Knockin Doors Down (Pimp C) 52. Bumpin’ My Music feat. Project Pat (Ray Cash) 53. They Down With Us (Scarface) 54. Pinky Ring (UGK) 55. Heaven (UGK) 56. I Miss My Homies feat. Silkk the Shocker (Master P)
John Rivas a/k/a Mr. Magic a/k/a Sir Juice was the first air personality to host a rap show on commercial radio, NYC's WBLS. If Magic hadn't been the first, someone else probably would have had that distinction, but his position and personality made him one of the defining figures in '80s rap music. He broke a ton of records, put on people like Marley Marl and Mr. Cee and set off some major beefs.
For people like me who lived outside the Tri-state area, he was mainly known for the Profile label Mr. Magic's Rap Attack compilations he put out and the many records that referenced him. This is a dub version of the first to do so:
Without Whodini's rapping, this is more or less a Thomas Dolby record-- he wrote, produced and played it. I'm not really a fan (sorry, Cosmo!), but I love the clap breakdowns and the Mr. Magic drop that starts off this version.
There have also been some cool tributes to Magic. I caught a little bit of Marley Marl mixing live yesterday on WBLS ("Symphony" acapella, woot!). Mr. Cee also did a good tribute you can DL here.
I was really sad to read that Grandmaster Roc Raida passed away, especially so soon after the death of DJ AM. I only met Raida once but he seemed like a really genuine and humble guy.
There's no question he was one of the greatest scratch/battle DJs who ever did it, but when I think of him the first thing that comes to mind is always this, which he and Knobody produced:
The X-Ecutioners: "Let It Bang" feat. M.O.P. (Loud, 2001)
I can't think of any other song that gets me charged like this does. It's also about the only time M.O.P.'s rap/metal fuckery has fully clicked for me, aside from maybe "Cold World". (I love M.O.P. but dudes, please, less Mash Out Posse, more First Family 4 Life.)
The sample always cracks me up because it starts off sounding like Devendra Banhart covering the intro to Arrested Development and then goes from soft-hands to max power out of nowhere.
In my last post I happened to mention legendary jazz composer and theorist George Russell. He died about 4 days later of complications from Alzheimer's. He was 86.
His music generally didn't tend towards grooviness, so I think this flies below the radar:
George Russell Sextet: "Event I" (Soul Note, 1980)
It's edited from the 1980 version of Electronic Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature, which, like a lot of great stuff on Soul Note, is available dirt cheap in electronic form.
Yesterday's New York Times had a brief obituary for Drake Levin, who was best known as guitarist for the 60s-era pop group Paul Revere & the Raiders. I mainly know his music through his work with Brotherhood and Friendsound, the bands he formed with Phil Volk and Michael Smith after the three split the Raiders.
Brotherhood and Friendsound operated in tandem. They had more or less the same personnel and recorded for the same label at the same time. Friendsound's sole LP has got to be one of the stranger things RCA ever put out. A couple tracks resemble songs but mostly it's a weird amalgam of jamming and experimentation with tape effects. On some tracks, like this, it really works:
I had forgotten how great this song is; it's just about the pinnacle of psychedelic soul. I had also forgotten how low budget the J5 cartoon show was; half the pleasure in watching it is catching all the corners they cut with the bare-bones backgrounds, the endlessly repeating frames and so on.
Yesterday when I read that Michael Jackson had passed away, I felt like someone had punched me in the chest. I was disoriented and I couldn't breathe right.
I've been listening to a lot of his music in the last 24 hours-- ripping old favorites and classics that weren't in my mp3 library, checking out post-Thriller albums I'd glossed over and trying to wrap my head around his musical legacy.
I haven't had time to pull together any sort of overarching retrospective, although I'll do so on my radio show this coming Wednesday. Here are a handful of favorites that aren't necessarily obscure but also maybe not the first ones people think of.
It's amazing how well MJ handled adult material. He might have had the voice of a twelve year-old but he really put across a greater depth of feeling than you'd expect a kid his age could.
I never listened to much of MJ's post-Thriller output when it was new. When I heard it, I was usually turned off by what I felt were poor production or song choices-- just way too many rock crossover attempts and songs about fame or children. He did cut a lot of great songs, though. Here are some:
Too Def: I Am What I Am Ministers of Black: Step Into My Office YZ: Tower with the Power Blvd Mosse: You Can't Escape the Hypeness Poor Righteous Teachers: Strictly Mashion YZ: In Control of Things Poor Righteous Teachers: Shakilya (JRH) Tony D: Inspiration Abstract
Wise Intelligent: Steady Slangin' Scott Lark Da Sensei: Insight Poor Righteous Teachers: So Many Teachers Poor Righteous Teachers: Rock Dis Funky Joint Poor Righteous Teachers: Time to Say Peace RMX YZ: Thinking of a Master Plan Ice Cream Tee: Keep Hushin'
It was the first time I'd recorded mixing vinyl in a long while. It felt weird.
Although he's best known for producing the first two Poor Righteous Teachers albums, he also rapped (solo and in Crusaders for Real Hip Hop) and produced a ton of other great rap music, much of which remains below the radar. Here are two of my favorites:
New Orleans soul and funk legend Eddie Bo passed away Wednesday. If you're not familiar with songs like "Hook & Sling" and "Check Your Bucket" or the many great songs he wrote for other artists, grab this and this. Neither comp is the overview Bo deserves--his discography as an artist and producer is both broad and deep--but they're both decent starting points.
Here are two of my favorite songs he wrote for other artists:
As a bonus, here's Qbert murdering Bo's biggest hit, "Hook & Sling". The tape this is drawn from, Demolition Pumpkin Squeeze Musik, is one of my favorite mixes.
Ian Carr was super-underrated, at least in the U.S.
The British trumpeter and composer led two great bands, the Don Rendell/Ian Carr Quintet and Nucleus. With the former, he cut some beautiful and haunting music; the latter band added a backbeat and sometimes upped the tempo but usually retained some of the quintet's brooding lyricism-- I wasn't that surprised to read in obits that Carr had lifelong problems with depression.
It's always been a little surprising to me that he wasn't more popular; his music seemed to me like it could appeal to a lot of audiences that didn't pick up on him. That is, if you like early 70s Miles Davis, Can, Endtroducing-era DJ Shadow, CTI-era Freddie Hubbard, the more droning Black Sabbath material, Marc Moulin's Placebo or anything moody and funky, his music is probably for you.
Just about everything he released is in print on a series of UK twofer reissues. I've heard almost everything he did and I've never heard a bad record from him. On the straight ahead jazz end, Shades of Blue/Dusk Fire is great; for the jazz-rock stuff, maybe start with Solar Plexus/Belladonna or Labyrinth/Roots. This is from the latter:
Joe Cuba, the conguero and bandleader who more or less invented the boogaloo, passed away this week.
Most of my favorites by him-- "El Pito", "Bang Bang" and, especially, "Do You Feel It?"-- are in print one way or another, but here's another that isn't:
Neither of these songs really reflects what Miriam Makeba was famous for, although I guess they demonstrate that her voice was amazing and that she could tear up a lot of styles.
This song sounds like a cross between "Season of the Witch" and "Down by the River" and since I like basically any version of either of those, I kinda love this.
I swear to God, every rap 12" on Elektra from this era is mastered to sound like a worn-out cassette-- no high-end and mainly muffled mids. I had to EQ like crazy to make this sound half-decent.
Studs Terkel died Friday. He'd been on my mind lately because the current economic mess had me thinking about Hard Times, his oral history of the depression.
I've never read the book but years ago I impulse-bought a 2-LP set of interviews that fed it, basically a series of monologues from ordinary people in extraordinarily bad times. The immediacy and vividness of the stories was electrifying-- they were so specific and so personal that they really brought the era (and what I might otherwise think of as a pretty dull subject) alive. This one is pretty representative:
I guess the song is about a psychological crisis than an economic one, but still. Curtis Mayfield was often a really awkward lyricist ("of my body's house/I'm afraid to come outside") but the clumsiness works here.
Next to Edwin Starr, Stubbs was about as raw as Motown singers got. I tend to think James Jamerson is a little overrated but his bass part on this song is phenomenal.
Neal Hefti passed away Saturday. Before he achieved his most lasting fame as a TV and film composer, he was prominent as an arranger with Count Basie's big band and he wrote a number of great jazz standards.
Growing up, I heard various versions of this one all the time:
My mom used to listen to KJAZ religiously and in particular to a weekly segment (Sundays, 10:00 a.m.?) where they'd play a different version of "Li'l Darling". I doubt they ever played this one, but there are dozens of others. (BTW, it's killing me that I can't think of a good version of Hefti's "Girl Talk"-- I know I have a cool one lying around somewhere.)
Of course, Hefti is best-remembered these days as the writer of the themes to the "Odd Couple" and this, here bastardized by unidentified members of Sun Ra's Arkestra and the Blues Project:
The Sensational Guitars of Dan & Dale: "Batman Theme" (Tifton, 1966)
This one has always reminded me of the Batman theme:
The Mitch Mitchell who made this is not the Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer, but instead an Ohio guy featured on this fine compilation and this l'il mix. Gene King also collaborated on Mitchell's "Never Walk Out on You" and, to hear the record tell it, was a real cool cat.
Finally, this one reminds me of the scatting on the Mitch Mitchell record, and has been stuck in my head on and off for months:
Segun Bucknor & His Revolution: "La La La" (Polydor, 197?/Strut, 2001)
The compilation it's drawn from, Nigeria 70, was released well ahead of the current glut of Afrobeat compilations but remains one of the best. The recent sequel is pretty great, too, and is still in print.
Too many R.I.P. posts lately. I think I may have to change the name of the blog to "I hear dead people". Or maybe "but I digress", to account for all the "reminds me of this" side-trips.
If you were to rank all of Belgium's cultural products in terms of awesomeness, the late Marc Moulin would rank somewhere between the french fry and Tintin.
He was one of those artists who managed to be way ahead of the curve not once, but several times-- first with the moody jazz funk of his early 70s recordings with Placebo, which eerily anticipated the sound of mid-90s NYC rap, and then with his late 70s recording with Telex, which were a big influence on Detroit's techno pioneers. Shit, even what little I've heard of the stuff he released in the last decade was pretty cool.
He wrote a ton of great soul music, from the Marvelettes' "Too Many Fish in the Sea" to Rose Royce's "I Wanna Get Next to You" and was a phenomenal producer. Taking over from Smokey Robinson in the late 1960s, he reshaped the sound of the Temptations and pioneered a crazily lush, psychedelic brand of soul.
Earl Palmer passed away late last week at the age of 84. Although he wasn't a household name, I guarantee you've heard his playing-- for decades he was one of the most widely-recorded musicians on the L.A. studio scene, recording with everyone from Frank Sinatra to Neil Young.
Although he plays on dozens if not hundreds of records I own, I never really fixed on his name until I heard his playing on David Axelrod's Songs of Innocence album. Palmer was, along the great bassist Carol Kaye, the core of Axelrod's rhythm section in the era of Axelrod's great productions for Capitol Records. Axelrod's music is really hard to pin down genre-wise; it flirts with jazz, rock and orchestral music, but never settles into any one groove for long. Palmer did a phenomenal job of tying them all together, as this song illustrates:
The song is all over the place, with themes and dynamics shifting almost constantly, but Palmer stays in such a deep pocket throughout that all the changes make sense. On the strength of playing like this, he's maybe my favorite drummer ever.
Modest digression: I can't really let the opportunity slip to mention that Palmer was from New Orleans, which has produced more great drummers than anywhere (Ziggy Modeliste, Idris Muhammad, Smokey Johnson, James Black, Clayton Fillyau, Baby Dodds, etc. etc.).
Jerry Wexler passed away this week. He was really old.
As one of the top guys at Atlantic Records, he was responsible for discovering (or re-discovering), signing, recording and promoting phenomenal black music from the early 50s on, including some of the titans: Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, to name three.
It's difficult to know how much credit to ascribe to guys on the business side of the music industry, but Wexler's history of being in the right place at the right time over and over again marks him as special. Wexler's particular gift appears to have been recognizing genius and finding the best possible setting for it--send Dusty to Memphis! Aretha to Muscle Shoals! Pickett, too! no, wait, send Pickett to Philadelphia! let Ray Charles do whatever he damn well pleases!
In honor of the late George Carlin, here's my favorite ever instance of obscenity for its own sake. Even with an assist from Ice-T's "Warning", Devin actually only manages to use four out of the seven words you can never say on television, but it's still ecstatically filthy.
Over on DJ Day's blog, I read that Jimmy McGriff had passed away.
I can't really speak to his importance as an organ stylist, but throughout the 60s and 70s he was probably the most consistently funky of the many jazz organ players working the R&B crossover market.
Here are a few of my favorites by him. The first four are just solid funk; the last three are winning oddities-- McGriff backing the great soul singer Junior Parker on one of their two full-length collaborations, him playing piano (or simply comping on pedals while someone else does), and him riding a synth bassline, respectively.
Jimmy McGriff: "Charlotte" (Solid State, 1969)
Jimmy McGriff: "Chris Cross" (Solid State, 1969)
Jimmy McGriff: "Fat Cakes" (Capitol, 1971)
Jimmy McGriff: "Super Funk" (Groove Merchant, 1973)
Jimmy McGriff & Junior Parker: "It Ain't What You Got" (Capitol, 1971)
Jimmy McGriff: "Deb Sombo" (Blue Note, 1970)
Jimmy McGriff: "Stump Juice" (Groove Merchant, 1975)
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