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
And it's a good thing it did! A driving, proto-hi-NRG track that hit #3 on the British club charts when it was released in '78. With vocals by Donna Jones, who shook her groove thing under the strobelights in a very disco-rific promo video!
The Way That You Do It, an earlier track by Pussyfoot, was banned by the BBC for its sexually suggestive lyrics when it was released in 1976, and subsequently spent eight weeks as the #1 single in the UK.
Last nite I had dinner at the Capital Club in Raleigh with a new friend. Later on, we ran into DJ's Tongue & Groove downstairs at Neptune's, when B. Shaw (aka the longtime employee and new co-owner of Nice Price Books Raleigh) was DJ'ing.
The best thing he played all night was this:
An amazing slice of gospel soul from 1971. No telling if it was off an original copy, but I wouldn't be surprised, even tho' it's a $500 record! I'm jus' sayin', that's the kind of rare grooves you run across when you work in a used record store for several years.
From their double LP Power In Numbers that dropped in 2002, this track by Jurassic 5 reminds us of everything that was positive and life-affirming about the yes y'allin' days of old school hip hop.
It sampled Prophets of Rage by Public Enemy, and an early 70s track called Look Hear by Clive Hicks, who I'd never heard of before digging into the history of this track. But apparently he was a guitarist responsible for some seriously funky contributions to the crate-digging universe.
The year after Power In Numbers came out, Jurassic 5 did a show at the Cradle, and while they were in town, three of them visited the Lost City. They were all very chill and down to earth, and bought a fat stack of records while they were in the joint.
Yvonne Elliman burst onto the scene playing the role of Mary Magdalene in the original Broadway and film productions of Jesus Christ Superstar in the early 70s. She was one of the backup singers on Clapton's version of I Shot The Sheriff. Then she released a couple of albums on RSO records and hit #1 in 1977 with the Bee Gees track she performed on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, If I Can't Have You.
But onto this track right here, which is pretty superb.
And it's the only track on her Love Me LP from 1976 (produced by Freddie Perren) that she wrote herself.
This afternoon, I was heading back from the Swansea Sal's, where I picked up a copy of Spectacular Space Hits by the Odyssey Orchestra, MC Hammer's 1st album from '88, and a 12" released by Jive Electro in '99 with Bad Boy Bill and Doc Martin doing remixes of Tribe and Kool Moe Dee tracks.
Anyway, I turned on the radio and heard a really rockin' jam fading out. The DJ piped up, said we were listening to Cosmik Radio, and next up, we should "get ready for Lady." Then the track kicked in, and I was feeling it big time.
Lady are a duo featuring former Missy Elliott protege Nicole Wray and UK singer Terri Walker, who met in New York. Their self-titled, full-length debut dropped on Brooklyn-based Truth & Soul Records back in March.
Turns out Cosmik Radio has been on the airwaves for eight whole years, during which time DJ Cosmik has served up heaping helpings of funky goodness for her listeners. A stew of "soulful r&b, hip hop and urban music that is mostly underground or unreleased, as well as incorporating some more popular artists," according to the show's official bio.
DJ Cosmik is also an artist and producer who's apparently toured with Doodlebug from the Digables. And not too long ago she interviewed Devin the Dude!
The cosmik consciousness must be spreading, 'cuz now the show's on two other local stations (WBSR and The Buzz 96.7 FM) besides broadcasting Tuesdays from 1-3 pm on WRIU! That's positive. Now that we know the score, we'll definitely be tunin' in...
Devin's back with anotha great track. This one's the newest slice of Devin out there, off his latest album One For The Road, which hit the streets on October 8th.
A laid back tribute to a lady who didn't get the attention she deserved, and how things went down from there. This is a track that will hopefully make you treat the special someone in your life a little better, so you don't end up hangin' round some shithouse all by your lonesome! In this interview, Devin reveals a little bit about what went into One For The Road's creation.
When Sploo convinced me to buy out Funhouse Records' leftover back stock after they closed down in 1999, which to this day remains the greatest record score I've ever stumbled onto, I ended up with multiple sealed copies of this track's original 1981 release on Prelude, mixed by Francois Kevorkian and Larry Levan. You'd think it wouldn't get any better than that, kids. But it did! Shep Pettibone's mastermix is the definitive word on this track. However, I also have to give props to another Body Music video:
which features a (modern day) remix of the original Levan/Kevorkian track, synced up with vintage footage of the Strikers performing it at NYC's Peppermint Lounge in the early 80s.
Until today, I'd never heard of Gossip before. Now I know what I've been missing. This track is from their 2009 LP Music for Men, produced by Rick Rubin.
And no, it's not a cover of the Men Without Hats classic.
Somewhere along the way, I came across a doublepack of Kiss FM classics from 1982, all mixed by Shep Pettibone. Off that comes today's joint of the day, a shout out to the lovelorn out there! In fact, I'll make it long-distance dedication to a woman named Jennifer Garam, blogger and founder of the Writeous Chicks, who last month went on what she thought was a great first date with a guy she met online, only to never hear back from him.
This here's a record I had been meaning to listen to for a while before it finally landed on my turntable this morning - Mandrill Is, the second LP by Mandrill, which dropped in early 1972. And when the needle hit the groove, the very first track hit me with an eargasmic blast of funk. By the time it was over, I had a mad smile on my face and my day was off to a great start.
And the rest of the album was dope, too, especially tracks like I Refuse To Smile and the closer, The Sun Must Go Down, which sounds like a missing Strawberry Alarm Clock track off Z-man's party mix from Beyond The Valley of the Dolls. I first discovered Mandrill thanks to DJ Bro Rabb, aka Phil Bell, who gave me a mixtape about 15 years back that I think had their first LP on one side, and a classic Detroit Emeralds album on the other. Originally formed in Brooklyn in 1968, the band's nucleus were the Panama-born Wilson brothers (Carlos, Lou, and Ric). In a 2012 interview given shortly before Lou Wilson's January, 2013 death, he and Ric described the origins of their polyglot funk sound as the "melting pot" of music from all corners of the world that the brothers heard while growing up in Panama. I never knew that Mandrill contributed a track to The Warriors soundtrack, which is a joint for another day, since I just scored that record at a yard sale last month.
A German pressing, this particular copy of Mandrill Is came from a antiques mall in Rhode Island I visited earlier this year. Convinced dude at the counter to sell it to me for two or three bucks, because it was a little scratched. It does skip on one totally out-there track, Universal Rhythms, which is too bad, because that particular track showed Mandrill was onto some meaning of life shit as they broke down the rhythms of the universe, all explained by the Enchanting Wizard of Rhythm. But I was still able to decipher the track's central message, a timeless reminder for us all - "Higher levels of consciousness demand rhythms of peacefulness."
I heard Tower of Power's classic fourth LP Back To Oakland for the first-ever time today, courtesy of a CD I picked up at the yard sale my man Chris threw a few weeks back. That cat had good musical taste, there's no doubt. He said he saw the Digables play circa the spring of '93, which was when I caught them at the Purple Gator in Myrtle Beach. Around the same time, he also said he saw Blind Melon open for Lenny Kravitz at Brown's spring bash (Chris went to RISD), which must have been a stop on the Universal Love tour that later swung through Chapel Hill. I went to that show with Mel and Steve, and Steve got to hang out with Lenny backstage.
Anyway, one of the dozen CD's I picked up from Chris was Back To Oakland. I'm pretty sure I've got a scratched up copy of this on vinyl. But I'd never listened to it, probably becuz it was too scratched up. My loss, since the record is super tight, with a totally funkified horn section that inspired multiple chills. And virtually a concept album, exploring an underlying theme of a relationship on the rocks throughout stellar tracks like Don't Change Horses (in the Middle of a Stream), Just When We Start Makin' It, Can't You See (You Doin' Me Wrong), Time Will Tell, Man From The Past, the beautiful slow number Below Us, All The City Lights, and finally, this highlight, Love's Been Gone So Long.
Written by Bruce Conte, formerly of The Loading Zone. He replaced original guitarist Willie James Fulton when he joined the band at the start of the recording sessions for its third album, the self-titled Tower of Power (1973), which went gold. Conte stayed with the band until 1979, playing on seven LP's altogether and writing a number of songs. He reunited with TOP for a brief time starting in 2006. Last year, Conte announced he had leukemia. Visit his website for more info about his career and current struggle to beat his illness.
