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

I need to go to Ecko's site and see what they've released in '11.

I think Donnie Ray and Ms. Jody are the only 2011 Ecko releases so far. I like them both, don't love them. (Don't think Ms. Jody's album is anywhere near as good as Sweet Angel's last year, for instance.) Also, Ecko put out both Gerod Rayborn's Call Before You Come!!! and O.B. Buchana's That Thang Thang in late 2010, but they didn't send out promos (at least to me) until this year; if I counted them as 2011 releases, which I might, both would rank among my very favorite new albums so far this year. (I've got a loooooooong Southern Soul roundup piece slated to run in the Voice sometime in the next couple weeks; space permitting, all of these albums should get at least a mention in there. Though I added Rayborn at the last minute, which pushed me over the wordcount -- so we'll see.)

Good for you and for the cause, hopefully. I need to write something for my local alt-weekly

Closely related, here's a blog post, then a playlist, on the history of country music by black artists (many of them moonlighting Southern Soulsters), which I did for Rhapsody a few weeks back:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2011/02/blackcountry.html

http://www.rhapsody.com/playlistcentral/playlistdetail?playlistId=ply.44160337

1550 or so words by me on current Southern Soul, running in the Voice this week:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-03-09/music/southern-soul-guide-sweet-angel-mel-waiters-and-luther-lackey/

Nice overview.

I remember seeing Bobby Rush and his skimpily dressed women dancers shocking folks at a mostly safe roots-rock blues bill at Wolf Trap Park, an upscale location outside DC. He was once on the cover of Living Blues and leaned more to the blues side than soul back then.

Xhuxk, have you gotten any reaction to the piece? I posted it on my facebook page and am curious whether it made its way to other critics and non-fanatics of the V. Voice blog.

Heard an awesome Sweet Angel song on DC radio station WPFW's southern soul show this Saturday.

She's pretty great. And yeah, I got some excellent response to the piece from within the Southern Soul community -- including from Daddy B. Nice, and from a reader of his blog who called "the most comprehensive celebration of the current southern soul scene that any mainstream publication has run in years -- maybe decades. I can't believe how deep this guy goes." Which is extremely flattering, obviously. Here's part of what Daddy B. Nice (not his real name) wrote to me:

I've had the chance to read your piece carefully 2X now. It's really well done.
I particularly liked your last-paragraph analysis of the differences between the media-known "stars" and the Southern Soul stars. That is a pivotal point, and you addressed it well. I thought the Wilbe* comment was right on.
It's funny--I had some other feedback (not a letter I can send you) that did not like your take on that point. Which only proves this will be a flash point (if and) as Southern Soul gets more visible.
Another amusing coincidence: I finally gave my seal of approval to Sharon Jones this past week for "I Learned The Hard Way."

* - I think he means "Wilco" here.

And yeah, that Sharon Jones song (which still doesn't really grab me) is, interestingly enough, the number-two recommended single on his blog (behind a Marvin Sease "Last Will And Testimony" recorded in a church) this month:

Simultaneously sophomoric and slavish in their imitation of vintage soul, the Dap-Kings--critical darlings of the "Nu-Soul" set--have deserved the skepticism of true Southern Soul fans who hear the real thing every day.
No longer. With "I Learned The Hard Way," their full-bodied, orchestra-of-real-instruments now poses a threat and inspiration to the synth-based recordings of most Southern Soul and soul-blues acts.
With Sharon Jones sounding like Darlene Love and Martha Reeves combined and a great arrangement and chorus reminiscent of The Fifth Dimension, "I Learned The Hard Way" is more than ready to enter Southern Soul radio rotation with the rest of the "grown-folks" music.

Sadly, response to my piece from outside the Southern Soul community has been basically nonexistent. Who the heck reads the Voice anymore anyway, right?

By the way, not sure whether you knew this, but Bobby Rush actually played SXSW this weekend -- or at least was scheduled to (I don't know anybody who actually saw the set), on the 18th floor of a Hilton Hotel no less. It was easily the SXSW performance I was most excited about catching, but I couldn't go -- getting from I-35 and 5th to the all-night Kanye extravaganza that Rolling Stone had assigned me to review would've been cutting it way too close. So I went to see Bubble Puppy instead.

Too bad. Maybe you need to tweet or e-mail the piece to critics folks like Will Hermes, Jon Caramanica, Ann Powers(now writing for NPR music as well as LA Times) and to NPR music head Bob Boilen and a Pitchfork editor even if they might find that annoying.

Ann wrote something for NPR's site about how she worries when she goes to SxSW whether she is following the important music. I think your article could alert her to something she's missing.

We need to get these other critics on board

Eh, other critics never believe me anyhow.

Anyway. Another reason I really wish I'd been able to go to Bobby Rush's SXSW show, from this morning's Statesman:

Legendary piano player Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins , who gave Austin a walking, talking monument to the blues when he moved here in 2003, died from cardiac arrest Monday at his home in North Austin....
Even in failing health, Perkins went to Antone's nightclub three or four times a week to sell CDs and DVDs and chat with fans. He was often called onstage to jam, including Saturday at South by Southwest, when he played piano for fellow Mississippi native Bobby Rush.

That would have been nice to see. I think I will add that to the Perkins RIP thread

http://spinningsoul.com/2011/04/breaking-malaco-destroyed-by-tornado/

Malaco Records facilities got destroyed by a tornado. Thankfully noone in the buildings got killed or hurt.

Sounds like they lost some historic master tapes

None of the tv news stories I watched on the tornados even mentioned this.

Maybe they didn't lose tapes:

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20110419/NEWS/110419001/Malaco-Records-rebuild-bigger-better-after-tornado?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CHome

And Malaco's thousands of precious master
tapes weathered the storm in a vault-type building made of concrete blocks and supported by reinforced steel. "A few of them got wet," Couch said, "but they're all OK."

The recording studio was dark and dank Monday. A grand piano and a Hammond B3 organ were barely visible, buried in debris. The sound of music was replaced by the flapping of a blue tarp, serving as a temporary roof. Pieces of the wood tile floor - upon which music legends have walked - were scattered about. Amplifiers and microphones looked soulless and lonely.

I have plenty of catching up to do in this genre

Pretty great Shaila Dewan article from the NY Times travel section a few days ago, about zydeco trail rides in Southern Louisiana -- obviously only tangentially related to Southern Soul, except that my favorite Southern Soul song so far this year (not a single I don't think) is "Trail Ride" by Carl Sims, and I'd been meaning for a couple weeks to google "trail ride" to find out what it meant. So now I wonder whether there are also Southern Soul trail rides, or Carl just likes zydeco too. (There's no zydeco I can detect in his new CD's music, though I would suspect that -- in Southern Louisiana at least -- Southern Soul and zydeco audiences might overlap a bit):

http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/travel/24zydeco.html

As a longtime Boozoo Chavis fan, follower of zydeco since the '80s, and listener to a W. DC radio show hosted by transplanted Afro-Creole Texan, Texas Fred the Zydeco Cowboy, I had a pretty good idea of what trail rides were about, but that article nicely spells it out in detail. Yep, there's a crossover between Southern soul and zydeco down in that region of the country.

I should post that article on the rarely used zydeco thread I started here.

A commenter at Amazon says the following about Carl Sims (who I know little about). "Trail Ride" is on his new album

Once upon a time Carl Sims was on the verge of mainstream stardom when his debut LP "House Of Love", (featuring "17 Days Of Loving" & "I'm Trapped") became a worldwide hit in Soul circles. An amazingly Soulful, smoky-voiced Soulman was born. Unfortunately, his sophomore LP didn't measure up in terms of sales and quality so Sims found himself stuck in the "chittlin circuit" and he's has been there ever since. But this new LP, "Hell On My Hands", is going to force everybody to take a second look (listen) to Carl Sims. The title track is a stone classic- a dramatic, midpaced ballad that will sound great on radio. Other top notch ballads like "Go On", "Just One Night" & "Still The One" are mixed with funky dancers ("Trail Ride", "Sugar Daddy) and a fgew choice covers, including a Willie Mitchell/Al Green/Hi Records-inspired take on Tony Toni Tone's "Thinkin' Of You" (renamed "Thinkin' About You" here

Mainstream stardom, huh. Interesting.

I'm liking another song from Richmond Virginia's Big G: "Two-step in the Name of Love"

Yeah, "mainstream stardom" sounds like a bit of a stretch. Anyway, I've been meaning to say that Sims's new one is a good album, but the only absolutely killer tracks I'm hearing are "Trail Ride" and the super paranoid cheating-husband single "Hell On My Hands" (the title/opening cut). Was not aware that "Thinkin' About You" was a Tony Toni Tone remake, but he also covers Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr.'s "You Don't Have To Be A Star" (as a duet with one Debra Benson) -- probably my third favorite track on the CD, actually. (Technically, it's my favorite 2011 Southern Soul album so far, though I'm way more likely to list Carl Marshall's late 2010 Love Who You Wanna Love on a 2011 best-albums ballot, since I didn't actually hear it until this year.)

I wanna hear Donnie Ray's newest on Ecko. Although I gotta get on their mailing list--their cds are pretty pricey

http://www.basement-group.co.uk/

In the Basement UK old-school soul magazine (there's a Marvin Sease obit too)

I need to just buy some recent Southern soul releases, then review them and then try to get on mailing lists...

Theotis Ealey (who I mentioned in the subheading for this thread many years back) is touring with some blues-rockers on a bill entitled "The Legendary Rhythm and Blues Revue" . The Washington DC area gig includes:

The Tommy Castro Band, Deanna Bogart, Rick Estrin and Theodis Ealey

I thought the Wilbe* comment was right on.

x-post back to March 21st comments from Daddy Nice re Xchuck overview of southern soul -Maybe he does not mean Wilco and means William Bell, Stax soul singer who has a label and a website called "Wilbe"

Daddy B. Nice below talking about Sir Jonathan Burton's song. Burton was at Lamont's in Pomonkey, MD July 2nd, while I watching Swamp Dogg in nearby DC

A recent press release from CDS Records proclaims "Too Much Booty Shakin'"'s dominance of Southern Soul radio as follows:

#1 Soul And Blues Report
#1 Southern Soul Top 20
#1 Blues Critic Radio
#1 American Blues Network

while I was watching

I like the Jonathan Burton song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIUOzX6wP0g

MARK YOUR CALENDARS for the 2011 Jus` Blues Music Awards, August 3rd - 5th on Beale Street in downtown Memphis, Tennessee. The Jus` Blues Music Awards is a unique entertainment event that attracts Blues & Soul music artists, industry professionals and fans from across the globe. It is credited with being one of the most important Award Shows in Blues & Southern Soul music for African-American performers. Proceeds from the events benefit the “Blues Got A Soul” program.

Another chart

http://www.soulbluesmusic.com/southernsoulbluescharts.htm

There's a book review in yesterday's Washington Post of a book re the beginning of the Chitlin Circuit. The review says some wrongheaded things in the piece. Will link to it later.

Here it is: a mediocre, flawed review of Preston Lauterbach's "The Chitlin Circuit"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/the-chitlin-circuit-by-preston-lauterbach-about-pre-rock-black-music/2011/06/27/gIQAyjy73H_story.html

I still have lots of catch-up listening to do. Daddy Nice seems to find most of the 2011 releases flawed in some way.

I posted that Jonathan Burton song on the Summer Jams 2011 thread but noone commented on it. Oh well. It's better than most of that Euro club stuff on the list.

Also better is Sheba Potts-Wright's tribute to the late Marvin Sease entitled "Mr. Jody You Did Your Job". Can't find it on Youtube

Just heard Bobby Blue Bland's "Members Only" for the first time in ages. Wow, what a stirring number.

Curmudgeon! I love "Too Much Booty Shakin' Up In Here".

Great. I have long been convinced a proper mixtape of danceable southern soul could win over folks into contemporary funky stuff.

That Carl Sims album is a bit formulaic but he sure does that formula well.

Latimore's "Mr. Right Now" starts off slow but then the hook nicely kicks in. Curious about the album

I now have a new level of appreciation for "Too Much Booty Shakin":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NCfb_S4OMA&feature=related

Ah.

line dancing is most certainly a big thing with folks into this style

I missed the recent Washington DC appearance of soulful bluesman Johnny Rawls who also has a recent album out. He appeared at a tiny suburban Virginia club on a weeknight with no publicity. He's not exactly southern soul but close enough to deserve mention on this thread. I want to check out his album as I have heard good things about him from folks I respect.

I need to look at later the photos of the Rawls gig that I believe In a Blue Mood blogger Ron W posted on flickr.

Gonna be out of town this weekend and will miss (again!) Lee Fields at Lamont's in Pomonkey, MD. The gig has gotten little to no press attention