Chitlin Circuit Double-entendre -filled Soul 2004 (and onward) Theodis Ealey's "Stand Up In It" is a song of the year

So many performers to discover...but somehow must find the time. R. Kelly's beginning to sound like these guys

I just finally listened to samples of the 2004 Bobby Wayne cd Chuck mentioned back in March. Some impressive moments. I love that ache in his voice feel Wayne has on "This Heart is Haunted," and the women backing vocalists provide luscious help on the chorus and some great harmonies. "Homestead Greys" is a bit forced lyrically--"They hit a ball 500 feet, past a place they couldn't eat," but I like it anyway.

Bobby Rush appearing at the Basement in Nashv on Wednesday, I think it is.

revisionist funk, and pretty good if inevitably mannered (frantic in spots but good horn arrangements and great guitar): the Dynamites' Kaboom!, also from Nashville and featuring Charles Walker on vocals.

x-post

I just missed Bobby Rush here in DC (actually out at Lamont's in Pomonkey, MD). Sadly he got no media attention as the owner doesn't push his events through the mainstream media.

Missed Lee Fields at Lamonts also. My blue-eyed soul badge is definately gonna be revoked. Maybe seeing DC's Skip Mahoney opening for the Chi-lites and the Spinners will be enough to save me.

Top 25 Southern Soul/R & B Tracks

TW
LW
Song
Artist
Label

1 2 "1 800"- Big G on Stone River
2 1 Scat Cat...Here Kitty Kitty- Barbara Carr Ecko
3 3 It's Okay Steve Perry- Bluesland
4 5 Mississippi Woman Denise LaSalle- Ecko
5 6 I Must Be Crazy Sweet Angel- Mac
6 9 My Miss America Willie Clayton -Malaco
7 8 Don't Say No Tonight Sir Charles Jones -Jumpin'
8 10 Baby Come Back Home Vick Allen- Waldoxy
9 7 Crazy Sexy Smooth Walter Waiters -WW
10 14 Moan Patrick Harris- Lyn Rome
11 4 Brand New You, Same Old Me Bigg Joe -Baby Boy
12 16 Let's Get It On Theodis Ealey- Ifgam
13 17 Oops That's My Bad Jerry L -Mi-Jay
14 15 Boom Bam (Thank You Ma'am) Michael Rainey- Rainey
15 18 Get Low Simeo- Jomar
16 11 Playez Only Love You When They're Playing William Bell -Wilbe
17 12 Knockin' My Boot Allen O -Laryan
18 13 Love Don't Live Her No More Vince Hutchinson -VH
19 20 Can We Work It Out Stan Mosley- Double Duo
20 22 Thank You Mama L.J. Echols- Baby Boy
http://bluescritic.com/southernsoulradio.htm

Pretty good EP from a lady from Tennessee, though the best part of it might be the Bohannon/DJ Hollywood style proto-raps done by some guy at the start and end of her "Southern Soul Picnic," which is my favorite of the three songs even if "bring your own BYOB" is a redundant line (sort of like "ATM machine"). "Telling It Like It Is" has a decent proto-disco groove to it under Miz B saying the other woman might get his honey but Miz B will still get his money. Actually found the warning song "Jody's 1st Cousin" somewhat disappointing, but that may just be because Jody songs get my hopes up:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/mizbtunes

Tried hard with this guy's album, too; he's sort of doing R Kelly (i.e., he does a song called "12 Steps For Cheaters" and one called "Dirty South Steppin") trying to be Gregory Abbot trying to be Al Green or something (with a "tribute to Luther" and another song that quotes "Never Too Much"), but either his voice or the production is too thin for the songs to stick to the ribs, somehow. (Actually, my wife says his singing reminds her of Boy George. Sadly, he doesn't have Boy George's personality, or hooks.) I played the album a lot, but nothing really sank in:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/mrsam

Also, it's about to somebody linked to this on this thread, seems to me. An r&b hit. From Lafeyette, LA:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=h24_zoqu4_Q

Yea, "Cupid Shuffle's" great. I do not think it is getting r'n'b radio play around my area (DC) unfortunately.

it's about TIME, i meant.

Aargh. Mel Waiters coming to Leesburg, Virginia (1 1/2 hours from me I think) and Upper Marlboro (outside of DC)next weekend and I cannot make either gig. Waiters is with a bunch of other great folks at the Upper Marlboro show: Bobby Womack, Millie Jackson, Clarence Carter and Roy C.

I just now played a comp on Trikont called Motel Lovers: Southern Soul From the Chitlin' Circuit, all recent stuff, sounds GREAT on first listen; Trikont is distributed through Light in the Attic. (Chuck, if yr still in touch with Tony Green, he should know about this for sure.)

I think that comp has that 2001 Sir Charles Jones song "Friday" where Charles smoothly recites, "Mel Waiters on the radio singing about the whiskey."

Wow, I need to get that. (If Light in the Attic aren't upset about Michaelangelo not liking the Betty Davis reissues much, they can't be upset about me, right?)

Anyway, second to last song (and only recent song) played at Lalena's high school reunion in Houston last night (right before the closing "Rio" by Duran Duran): "Cupid Shuffle." Interesting. I had no idea that it was a line dance; shows what I know. Turns out it's the new "Electric Boogie," judging from all the people who got up there for it. Is that happening nationwide?

I think that comp has that 2001 Sir Charles Jones song "Friday" where Charles smoothly recites, "Mel Waiters on the radio singing about the whiskey."

It does indeed; track two.

also, where oh where is Rickey/Timi Yuro on this thread anyway? I know he digs this type of stuff.

and MAJOR thanks for the Southern Soul Radio link, Curmudgeon; the charts and CD store look like great resources.

Chuck, I do not think "Cupid Shuffle" became a big line dance nationwide (probably just the South and I'll count Texas as part of the South).

Grrrrrr, have to go in and work today and miss another soul show down at Lamont's in Pomonkey, Maryland. At least I think there's one--Lamont's website hasn't worked in years (and was only briefly working at all). I heard a brief mention on the local Pacifica public radio station WPFW that there is a show there today. At the beginning of the summer I called down and Lamont answered and he mailed me (snail mail he has no e-mail) flyers for his July and August shows. But he never returned my last voicemail asking more up to date info. Is this any way to run a club?

I see on the country thread someone touting a new Bettye Lavette cd.

I just now played a comp on Trikont called Motel Lovers: Southern Soul From the Chitlin' Circuit, all recent stuff, sounds GREAT on first listen; Trikont is distributed through Light in the Attic

This may well be my album of the year, if it counts as being an album from this year (which right now I'm leaning toward thinking it does, since it compiles relatively recent rather than really old stuff.) Anyway, Matos, thanks of the tip! It's great!

I guess 2001 counts as relatively recent

soulandbluesreport.com August 24th 2007

W Q I D SOUL 105

Hattiesburg, MS

Friday Night Fish Fry Mel Waiters

Good Loving Carl Marshall

You Dog’s About To Ms. Jody

I’m Just A Fool For Pt.2 J Blackfoot / Jones

Mississippi Woman Denise LaSalle

Never Coming Home Betty Padgett

Party Like Back In The T. K. Soul

I Like Big Girls Big Joe

My Miss America Willie Clayton

She Thought I Was Bigg Robb

Baby Come Back Home Vick Allen

Willie Clayton's "Three People(sleeping in my bed)" from that comp on Trikont called "Motel Lovers: Southern Soul From the Chitlin' Circuit" first came out in 1998. Not denying this looks like a great comp, just wanted to make clear that it covers material that goes back almost 10 years. This comp also proves the point that if music is released within the past 2 decades and not promoted/marketed to alt-weekly (or major newspaper or magazine) music critics (and is not on the national top 40 charts) it can be ignored or missed for years by many (despite the internet blah blah blah)

Don't disagree with you, but "within the last ten years" is "relatively recent," as reissues go. In other words, it's closer to a best-of album by a late '90s/early '00s act than an archival revival of material from decades ago. I've certainly voted for older stuff on top-ten ballots. And right, it's the sort of stuff that could fall through the cracks -- but there's tons of music out there, and a finite amount of time to keep up with it all; it's inevitable that something will fall through. (If I lived in a part of the country that where this sort of music is actually still popular -- or if I had more time to listen to explore Internet radio -- I may well have heard some of it sooner, of course.)

I think after Marvin Sease and ZZ Hill (who were better marketed) some people wrote off this genre, and you're right --without easier access to radio or clubs--from DC down to Florida--NY critics at least have not paid attention.

1988
LEAD: Denise LaSalle, the veteran rhythm-and-blues singer, made her first appearance in New York in over 15 years Saturday afternoon at the Central Park Band Shell. NYTimes

Have Denise and Mel Waiters and others not been playing New York?

Just posted about this Florida fellow on the rolling country thread:

First song on that Bobby Bowens Southern soul album, "She Got a Lump For a Rump (Rump Shaker)," steals its horn riff from "Mr. Big Stuff" and words from "Brick House." Later on he does a rewrite of Kool and the Gang's "Get Down On It" and doesn't even bother to change that title (though I think it's not meant to be a cover, per se'), and another good one is "Your Love is a Tower of Power," though never having listened to them much I have no idea if it actually sounds like Tower of Power. And there are spoken parts on the album (by him and some lady) that make me think of Richard "Dimples" Fields and Barbara Mason, though maybe not intentionally. Some good '70s bubblegum funk too -- real fun record.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/bobbybowens3

from country thread:

Some more thoughts on Bobby Bowens's new album:

1. The girl-moans in "Scratch My Itch" are straight out of "I'll Take You There" by the Staple Singers, and oddly, there's also a title called "Let's Do It Again"--i.e., same title as another Staples hit.
2. "Reaching For the Top" is probably far-and-away, over the top, the most blatant old old old school style hip-hop track I've heard all year. (Eat your heart out, Cowboy Troy.) Very 1980! I love it.
3. "Let's Do It Again" is more 1990: New Jack Swing!

Anybody read this site?

http://www.soulexpress.net/deep207.htm

I saw Chicago's Otis Clay Sunday afternoon for free headlining the Bluebird Blues Festival at Prince George's Community College in suburban Maryland (near DC). In red polyester pants and bright red boots, this now 65-year-old can still sing. Unfortunately, he only had an hour and did not pace the set well. He used the late Tyrone Davis' band, and while they can play, I do not want to hear solos extended that long. Clay also stretched out the audience participation part too long, and then jumped around from song to song, starting and stopping "Love and Happiness," "Soul Man," and others. He did "A Nickel and a Nail," a great soul shouter that I identify with OV Wright.

It always surprises me how few white folks go to the PG Community College Fest. It's a well-curated event on a college campus in the middle of the day. I guess people don't like to drive far, and it's not near a metro either. And many African-American blues and soul fans do not go to Northern Virginia club gigs that I figure they would be interested in either. Whatever.

Ha! I just heard the Dean himself, Robert Christgau, endorsing the Motel Lovers comp on NPR's All Things Considered. He praised Barbara Carr, and played a portion of her song, highlighted a 2003 Mel Waiters contribution, and others, gave a mild dis to Mavis Staples and some other comeback artists, and not sure about the exact quote--said something about how it took a German reissue label to highlight this stuff and overcome the myopia of the American music business.

Chuck, you gotta get him to read this thread!

You can hear him here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14509734

September 18, 2007 · The CD Motel Lovers is a collection of Southern soul music from the Chitlin' circuit. It's a compilation of American music put together by a German record company. The music is honest ... and full of sex

been listening to Roman Carter's forthcoming Never Slow Down on the Bong Load label. He was one-third of the Carter Bros., south Alabama guys who moved to Southern Cal in the late '40s, and they recorded for Jewel out of Shreveport in the '60s. Back then they praised roast possum and bemoaned women who talk in their sleep--not during sex, apparently--and called them the wrong names. Good stuff, sort of a cross between Freddie King and Stax. Had a couplea hits, too, on Jewel around '65, biggest one I can find being a good one called "Little Country Woman." New one's more like the beat-driven Hill Country blues of Burnside. Pretty darned good,dobro, slide, synth, and Roman's virile vocals, and another producer's record--in this case, the excellent Tom Rothrock (who scored one of my fave recent guy's-guy's movies, Michael Mann's L.A.-dystopia morality tale Collateral, featuring blind blues singer Jamie Foxx squaring off with plantation owner Tom Cruise).

Sounds good. I know Rothrock as the guy who did the RL Burnside remixes.

well, here's something on Bettye LaVette's new one:
http://www.knoxvoice.com/arts-amp-entertainment/so-you-want-some-street-cred/child-of-the-seventies-singer-for-all-times-31.html

I just now played a comp on Trikont called Motel Lovers: Southern Soul From the Chitlin' Circuit, all recent stuff, sounds GREAT on first listen; Trikont is distributed through Light in the Attic

This may well be my album of the year, if it counts as being an album from this year (which right now I'm leaning toward thinking it does, since it compiles relatively recent rather than really old stuff.) Anyway, Matos, thanks of the tip! It's great!

Fuck yeah! This shit is great! More releases like this please!

Thank you Germans for taking songs from various small label, sometimes hard to find American records and putting them together on one record and marketing them to us internet folks...

Cds by the individual artists on that comp are worth picking up--Sease, Mel Waiters, Barbara Carr...As discussed upthread

more goodies here at chitlincircuit.com
http://www.chittlincircuit.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=TOP100&file=form&function=search&sqldadabik=&page=0&table_name=TOP100

Bettye Lavette's everywhere--well, a big Washington Post review,Edd's article, and the cover of that blues magazine that I do not like as much as Living Blues but I see in my local Borders book store(that sadly no longer carries Living Blues). In Spin or somewhere she actually got a semi-dis, or actually her backing band for the project the Drive-by-Truckers and associates did.

Me, I just keep wondering why the folks who suggest material to her to choose seem to only suggest stuff by Anglo songwriters(Maybe she finds the songs herself, but I thought I read that her hubby and her producers often give her mixtapes of songs they like and she chooses from those cuts). I like it and all, but still seems perplexing a bit to me, and predictable.

A Woman Like Me is the only Bettye I own. I like it fine, but nowhere near as much as I like the Motel Lovers comp. Can't imagine that the Drive-by Truckers backing her is a very good idea, though.

LaVette told me she's the one who picks the songs. I know one of the guys whose songs appears on the record--the last song, "Guess We Shouldn't Talk about That Now." I'm not exactly sure what the color line is or should be when it comes to all this, and LaVette stressed her experiences covering the Great American Songbook shit she had to do to keep gigs during her dark years. She was proud of that. But yeah, I do think she could have easly done stuff by George Jackson or whoever, black songwriters, Hayes-Porter, there's a lot of stuff out there. I actually think the Truckers do a good job on the record. I think, given the record biz, that we're just not going to see her or any soul figure from the past getting, like, the Bar-Kays or the Meters backing them up. This points out, of course, the myopia bizzers have about Soul and the Blues, their reverence which is of course misplaced. But also, please remember, it also points out the aspirations of a singer like LaVette--the urge to be just a good singer, not necessarily a soul singer. Because, where did that ever get her up until now?

It is sad that she has to sing songs by Lucinda Williams(whom I like) and have the DBTs back her(uh, I don't know their music well) in order to prove that she's just a good singer, not necessarily a soul singer. But unfortunately that's how the biz and America works. But somehow Cat Power gets the Hi band to back her (and gets tons more media ink than Mel Waiters or Barbara Carr or others slogging it out on the chitlin circuit as Lavette once did for years). I'd like to see Lavette mix it up(at this point in her career I think she can, maybe)--Percy Mayfield songs, something from a current neo-soul r'n'b artist, veteran Memphis or New Orleans musicians...

Btw, good piece, Edd--hmm, now I'm actaully curious about hearing the new Bettye record.

I heard great new (the dj said they were new) songs from Denise Lasalle and Barbara Carr on WPFW yesterday. I should write about them. They deserve attention too. We need to get people thinking about these various parallel worlds(all different but related musically a bit)--Southern chitlin chircuit soul, Bettye Lavette's, Sharon Jones and the Daptone thing(big NY Times article), etc. Jones from the NY Times article:

“Even what’s-his-name, Ronson,” she continued, referring to the New York D.J. Mark Ronson, who produced the bulk of “Back to Black,” Ms. Winehouse’s hit album. “They came to us to get the sound they wanted behind their music. We were just sitting here minding our own business, doing our little 45s and albums, and all of a sudden they were like, ‘I want your sound.’”

Thanks to Ms. Winehouse and singers like Joss Stone, Ryan Shaw and Marc Broussard, retro soul styles are enjoying a greater presence in mainstream pop than they have had in years. The Dap-Kings are the most obsessive and skillful revivalists of the bunch, and they are clearly grateful for the exposure they have gotten from Ms. Winehouse and Mr. Ronson, who recently hired the Dap-Kings horns to back him up as the house band at the MTV Video Music Awards.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/29/arts/music/29jone.html?ref=music BEN SISARIO
Published: September 29, 2007

I don't really know the the Dap-kings oeuvre. The very little bits I've heard never seemed as interesting to me as the chitlin circuit soul acts or original older acts. But maybe I should give 'em a shot.

From Rolling Country thread, applicable here too:

And wow, this new Trikont German comp Dirty Laundry: The Soul of Black Country is fucking incredible, and a whole lot more playable and less academic than Warner Bros. (still nonetheless great and indispensible) three-disc From Where I Stand: The Black Experience In Country Music from 1988. Pick hits so far are from Candi Staton, Clarence Gatemouth Brown (who I've never really explored before, but who does this great swampy cajun cross between Bo Diddley and Creedence's "Up Around the Bend" called "Mama Mambo"), Andre Williams, and Solomon Burke. But I've only just begun to listen:

http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/6833866/a/Dirty+Laundry:+The+Soul+Of+Black+Country.htm

(Oops, Warner Bros box was 1998, not 1988.)

Bettye Lavette oughta cover some songs by some of those Black Country singers even if it won't convince media folks that she's a great singer, period, and not just a great soul singer.

curmudgeon can you email me? different matter than the thread, but I'd appreciate it. thanks

Bettye Lavette oughta cover some songs by some of those Black Country singers

She's actually one of them! She covers "Just Stopped In To See What Condition My Condition Was In," and pretty well, too. (Just noticed, though, that the comp may not be as new as I thought -- that link has 2005, and the copyright on the back of the CD cover says 2004. Oh well: Germany's a long way away, so sometimes it takes stuff a while to get here.)

Thanks to Ms. Winehouse and singers like Joss Stone, Ryan Shaw and Marc Broussard, retro soul styles are enjoying a greater presence in mainstream pop than they have had in years.

Not sure I'm buying this. Aren't there are always supposed retro-soul hits that don't actually sound like old soul music did, whether it's Stevie Winwood or D'Angelo or Tone Tony Tone or Bonnie Raitt or Erykah Badu or whoever? (Okay, probably not the best examples, but you get my point.) The new singers are just the next in line; they're filling an eternal niche. (And I've never really understood what people hear in Sharon Jones, either, though that's just me.)

(Not to mention isn't there always R. Kelly, who has moments that sound more like old soul music than any of them?) (Which doesn't mean I make much attempt to keep up with him. Still haven't heard his '07 album.)

Then again, it's not like I've ever listened to Ryan Shaw or Marc Broussard all that much, I admit. Maybe they're better than I'm giving them credit for?