DJ's Old-Time Granny and Dyn-O-Mite spin old school soul, funk, and disco jams! The show airs on special occasions on WCOM radio, 103.5 FM in Carrboro, NC, and streams online worldwide. www.resoul.org
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Showing posts with label Elliott Road PTA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elliott Road PTA. Show all posts
My copy of the Maze record that served up today's JOTD still has its original $4.99 price sticker from the House Of Sight & Sound. Which is a store where a lot of the great soul, jazz, funk & fusion vinyl I recently scored at the Elliott Road PTA apparently came from. Now I'm curious to know where that store was. Google seems to indicate it may have been in Van Nuys, CA, described in a 1963 Billboard article as a "prime San Fernando Valley dealer."
A little more digging turned up a photo of the place!
The House of Sight & Sound circa 1960s, located at Van Nuys and Victory in the San Fernando Valley
And Billboard ran a complete article on the spot, dated 7/4/64, confirming it was THE main record store in the area, and also sold a full line of stereo equipment, TV's, even pianos. That's pretty cool. Billboard reported that "S&S customers primarily purchase middle of the road LP's, but jazz purchases are starting to increase as a result of new people into the Valley," according to Jerry Johnson, the store's owner.
Today's joint proves that you can't judge an LP by its cover. I picked this beauty up at the Elliott Road PTA last month, in one of my two huge mid-winter thrift sto' vinyl scores. But I put off listening to it, because...it just looked silly. I figured it would be some commercial-sounding, rip-off disco bullshit, maybe the West Coast, Fantasy Records, all-black version of the Village People.
Turns out I was totally wrong. Goin' Bananas by Side Effect is a soul/funk masterpiece. On yellow vinyl! "Produced by Wayne Henderson for At-Home Productions (All good music starts At-Home!)" will forever after be recognized by me as a sign of quality, as any fan of the Crusaders can testify (except for heads like my Choice Sides co-host Obliveon, who feels like they let down the planet by moving away from their hard bop origins as the Jazz Crusaders).
"Everybody, can't you feel the effective side...that's really real."
Keep On Keepin' On is my fave, but it was hard to choose, 'cuz there's lots of goodies, including Open Up Your Heart, It's All In Your Mind, and Mr. Monday. The last one, in particular, I listened to about 10 times in a row, since it's so smooth and delectable, and after all, today is Monday, dammit! But predictably, not on YouTube.
I'm not gonna wax poetic for too long about KOKO, just let me say that it features scat singing! And zodiac shout-outs! And a super positive message laid down over a mellow, funky groove. Did I mention that the record is yellow, like a banana?
Today I've been reflecting on the passage of time, life's ups and downs, and how some things always seem to cycle back around. Part of it is that last night I watched a documentary on Hugh Hefner that David Lynch co-produced back in the early 90s titled Hugh Hefner: Once Upon A Time (not be be confused with the recent doc Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel, directed by Brigette Berman). And I was struck by a dark episode involving the suicide of Hefner's executive secretary in early 1975, a woman named Bobbie Arnstein, who was also one of his closest friends. She was targeted by the feds in a vicious attempt by Republican prosecutors (including future Illinois governor "Big" Jim Thompson) to nail Hefner by entangling him in a drug investigation, in the hopes of destroying his publishing empire.
A grieving Hefner reacts to the suicide of Bobbie Arnstein.
Hefner was an early financial supporter of NORML, and funded a bevy of other very liberal causes through the Playboy Foundation. Between his progressive, pro-legalization political agenda and very public role as pied piper of the sexual revolution (no less a cultural authority than Roger Ebert called Playboy "the most influential magazine of its time"), he made a lot of enemies in the conservative, puritan, law-and-order establishment of the 1960s and early 70s, and they seized their chance to try to bring him down.
But the tragedy was that Arnstein, a fragile, gentle, brilliant soul, got caught in the crossfire, sentenced to an excessive fifteen-year jail term on trumped-up charges, all in the hopes that she would implicate her boss for something he didn't do. Even right-wing columnist William Safire denounced the prosecutors' tactics in the New York Times, editorializing "It is one thing to give a cooperative witness a break, entirely another to threaten to let a defendant rot in the slammer until he or she tells the story the prosecution wants." Well, she killed herself instead. What a shame.
Bobbie's story struck me, and I kept thinking about her today, so it's fitting that I would discover this track, which is a fairly unknown Nancy Wilson gem. From her 1976 Capitol LP This Mother's Daughter, it was written by Eugene McDaniels, who also penned the album's title track. McDaniels is a soul genius singer and songwriter currently living as a self-described "hermit" in Maine and an artist who, like Nancy Wilson, I also had never heard of before today. But his Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse LP from '71 apparently provided samples for classic tracks from hip hop outifts like Tribe, the Beatnuts, and the Beastie Boys.
(Note from 2018 - apparently, less than six months after this post was originally written, Gene McDaniels died peacefully at his home in Kittery, Maine on July 29, 2011. Love, peace, and mad props to an amazing musician and songwriter.)
This was an Elliott Road thrift store find. By the time it dropped in '76, "Sweet Nancy" had already released an amazing 40 other albums in her career as a jazz vocalist stretching back to 1959.
Although this record was not among either of the two huge thrift sto' scores I stumbled onto within the past month, it surfaced today thanx to another track that was. That other track being Double Cross by First Choice, and I found the original 12" at the Elliott Road PTA, released in 1981 on Gold Mind Records (headed by producer Norman Harris). Featuring a remix on one side by Bobby DJ Guttadaro of Ice Palace fame (he spun at both the original Fire Island disco and its New York City sister club on West 57th Street). Bobby DJ was also notable for having supervised the production of the soundtrack to the Soul'ed Out, UnLtd. crew's all-time favorite disco flick, Thank God It's Friday. Old-Time Granny sez she's seen this, like, five times, which is more than I have!
Anyway, I already had a sealed copy of a Salsoul reissue of Double Cross, with Let's Celebrate by Skyy on the flip. Which was written by Skyy member Tommy McConnell, and not the group's superstar producer, Randy Muller, who was also the force behind Brass Construction and arranger for B.T. Express. And as I was checking out my copy of Skyy's Skyy Line LP, to compare the album version with the extended 12" mix, I happened across today’s JOTD – Get Into The Beat. Which was the LP's closing cut, and has got a smooth, silky, roller disco funk sound going on all over the place.
And judging from the minimal action it's gotten on YouTube, this remains a relatively unknown deep cut from Skyy. But it WAS written by Randy Muller, and it shows, ranking right up there with their other upbeat, slammin' mega-hits that he penned, like First Time Around, (a track that spawned an amazing remix by Larry Levan, featured on the 1979 LP Larry Levan's Greatest Mixes Volume Two, which also included Larry's classic remix of Double Cross), Here's To You, and Call Me.
Seeing as how I'm up late, and attempting to get to bed, I was not trying to anoint a new Joint Of The Day right now. But one just fell into my lap. You can always tell a great track 'round about the time you realize it's the fourth time you've had the needle on repeat, and when it's getting close to the end, all you want to do is listen to it again.
This is a thrift store record, vintage Elliott Road PTA. Letta Mbulu, the track is Buza (There's A Light At The End Of A Tunnel), off her LP Letta, released 1978 on A&M. She sings this particular cut in Xhosa, and it uses a Mbaqanga rhythm. That's what it says in the notes. Co-written with her by the legendary Motown producer/songwriter Lamont Dozier.
The album was co-produced by Herb Alpert, Stewart Levine, and Letta's husband Caiphus Semenya. Featuring a huge ensemble of horn players and percussionists, including Paulinho da Costa. Plus other standout tracks of a disco-funk-afro-jazz flavor, including Baile Baneso and I Can Depend On You. The whole package is positive, powerful, and Letta imparts some deep wisdom on the inner sleeve:
"I feel that the spirit of the music I make is universal, like the soul of man. It transcends all psychological, cultural and racial barriers. Love, Peace, and Progress - Letta Mbulu"
Buza is my fave. I'm diggin' it. And unfortunately, it's not available on YouTube, although you can get a taste of another track off Letta, Jikijela Ngamatje.
(Note from July, 2014 - It took four and a half years, until this past May, but somebody finally got wise to what a crime against humanity it was that this track was missing from the YouTube multiverse and uploaded it! Mad props to Zakhele Gumede!
