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

(Actually, the Charlie Wilson single I love is oiled-up seduction crap in its own endearing way. But at least in that one he's acting his age, not like some droopy-pantsed 22-year-old player.) (Btw, apparently there's also a Southern Soul singer called Charles Wilson. I wonder if that confuses anybody.)

OB Buchana's "Southern Soul Country Boy" is great. That's the 2nd catchy song of his I've heard.

Gonna be busy with family this weekend which means missing Miss Jody, Roy C., and Hardway Connection Saturday at Lamonts, and Little Royal (longtime James Brown impersonator) Sunday in Forrestville, Mad somewhere. Both of these gigs naturally are going completely unnoticed by the local mainstream media (but they'll get a sizable African-American DC area turnout anyout).

Forrestville, MD

So KAZI-Austin just segued Larry Hargrove's "I Need A Bailout" (my favorite Southern soul single of the year, and I had to call the station to finally find out who sang it) into Mel Waiters's "Everything's Going Up (By My Paycheck)" (now officially my second favorite Southern soul single of the year -- and as far as I can tell, it's just a single, not on an album.) Know nothing else about Larry Hargrove, though a quick google search indicates that he once did a song called "Leave Bill Clinton Alone."

Also been liking a couple of the (not exactly Southern Soul) current songs in KAZI's regular neo-soul rotation, namely "Sidestep" by Robin Thicke and Leela James's version of Womack and Womack's "Baby I'm Scared Of You" (off an album that, from the looks of things, appears to be mostly or all covers.)

While I'm here, here are roundtable reviews of three recent neo-soul singles from Singles Jukebox:

Charlie Wilson

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=774

Anthony Hamilton

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=712

Maxwell

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=710

Oops -- that Mel Waiters song is actually "Everything's Going Up (BUT My Paycheck)."

Though actually, the Southern Soul Singles chart at bluescritic.com lists it as just "Everything Is Going Up" (it was #2 there in April and May):

http://bluescritic.com/southernsoulsinglescharts.htm

And here is Larry Shannon Hargrove's CDBaby page for his "I Need A Bailout" album, which also has his Bill Clinton song. Maybe I should buy a copy:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/lshargrove

The Mel Waiters one is getting airplay on WPFW in DC

Re your Maxwell comments, I think these "quiet storm" singers look back not to forceful gospel-rooted soul, but to late 1970s Smokey ala "Quiet Storm" and to Luther Vandross.

I don't think of Irma Thomas as chitlin-circuit soul but sure enough in her rare appearance north at the free outdoor Duke Ellington Festival show at the Washington Monument she sang that song with words that go kinda "I Don't care what you do with my husband, just don't mess with my man." She sounded and looked great. Plus her large band-keyboard, organ and horns included-were tight. She's never gonna overpower ya like Etta or Aretha but she's got gospel-derived strength nonetheless. She did "It's Raining," but alas had no time to do (hah) "Time is on My Side."

The Bobbettes who had a hit in '57 with "Mr. Lee" did an out of the way DC area gig at Harmony Hall in Ft. Washington, MD recently that I missed. Now I see that they're gonna be on a Ponderosa Stomp goes to NY gig at Lincoln Center July 16th.

Chitlin Circuit soul coming to hipsterland!

Dig Deeper and Eli "Paperboy" Reed present:
> > > > >> The Brooklyn Soul Festival
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Featuring: Otis Clay, Barbara Lynn, Maxine Brown, Roscoe
> > > Robinson,
> > > > >> Hermon Hitson, Eli "Paperboy" Reed and the True Loves, and the
> > > Sweet
> > > > >> Divines.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Two nights of full sets from legends of soul music from around
> > > the
> > > > >> country, rarely seen individually, never before on the same bill
> > > > >> together � backed by two of the most in-demand bands in soul
> > > music
> > > > >> today. Before and after the live performances, top soul DJs from
> > > > >> around the world will spin the finest 45s for the dancefloor.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> > > > > >>
> > > > >> Day 1: Friday, August 28, 2009
> > > > >> 8pm � 4am
> > > > >> Barbara Lynn (The Soul Queen of the Gulf Coast)
> > > > >> Roscoe Robinson (The Baron of Birmingham, AL)
> > > > >> Hermon Hitson (The Georgia Grinder himself)
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Friday's artists backed by The True Loves, fresh off their
> > > world tour
> > > > >> with Eli "Paperboy" Reed, performing songs from his
> > > forthcoming album
> > > > >> on Virgin Records between sets.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Day 2: Saturday, August 29, 2009
> > > > >> 8pm � 4am
> > > > >> Otis Clay (The Crown Prince of Chicago Soul)
> > > > >> Maxine Brown (The Lovely Lady of New York Uptown Soul)
> > > > >> The Sweet Divines (NYC's Old School Soul Sensation)
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Saturday's artists backed by The Sweet Divines and the Divine
> > > Soul
> > > > >> Rhythm Band.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Come early - vinyl record & vintage clothing fair, vendors from
> > > > >> around the world � No cover!
> > > > >> 11am � 5pm
> > > > >>

More obscure old soul than contemporary chitlin circuit soul but still good stuff. I saw Otis Clay in Maryland around 2 years ago, but none of the others.

Just heard another great Mel Waiters song-"Ice Chest"

e-mail from the boogiereport.com:

Ms Beverly Goodie or Ms. Goodie as she was known in
the music industry died today 07-17-09 in the privacy of
her Houston home.

Ms. Goodie, has worked with many entertainers, such as
Little Milton, Tyrone Davis, Mel Waiters, Kenne' Wayne,
Floyd Taylor, and currently with Lil Fallay.
She was known as a popular and well loved promoter and artist manager.

Frank Kogan asks the question "What male singers over the age of fifty or acts fronted by a male singer over the age of fifty have made great popular music in the last decade?," which led me to realize I have no idea how old most of the Southern Soul guys that have been hitting this decade (Mel Waiters or Bobby Rush or Sir Charles Jones etc.) are. And most tend not to have Wiki pages. (Also not sure how consistently great their music is, though I expect many Chitlin Circuit over-50s -- both men and women -- have managed a great track or two in the '00s. If Curmudgeon or anybody has ideas, I'd be curious.)

http://koganbot.livejournal.com/156151.html

Just got back from a mostly tech-free vacation. let me think about this...

Good Caramanica Times piece from over the weekend on the return of adult soul music (which had never gone away, as this thread demonstrates.) I'd never heard of "Detroit Ballroom" (apparently a rough equvalent of "Chicago Stepping") before, and Maxwell's music bores the heck out of me, but I still want to check out those K'Jon and Kem hits he talks about. Wonder if that new Al B Sure album is any good, too...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/arts/music/08soul.html

A brand new dance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My5fxLYGTVE

Will have to check this stuff out as well, though some of this adult-contemp soul like "quiet storm" stuff from the '80s and '90s always ends up disappointing me.

For another thread I need to discuss the Coney Island dancers I saw up there in Brooklyn on the boardwalk Saturday night, couples dancing and solo dancing uniquely to Latin disco stuff.

Meanwhile out in San Francisco I chatted with a longtime public radio dj who does a soul music show and he uttered the standard critiques of chitlin circuit soul--those terrible synths and cliched raunchy lyrics. I couldn't convince him that some of the synth work has improved and that there are some gems with decent enough lyrics.

Thanks to being on a label that markets to the indie-rock world, Lee Fields is getting crossover attention. On my visit to San Francisco I heard him a bunch on KUSF (but no Malaco or Ecko artists), and I just read a recent Oliver Wang (of Soul Sides blog fame) piece on NPR's website on him. Meanwhile in my neighborhood, Field's still going for his usual crowd--he's gonna be doing a Labor Day weeekend gig down at Lamont's in Pomonkey, Maryland.

On the bill with Lee on Saturday the 5th is somebody named Maurice Wynn, plus great Maryland band the Hardway Connection, Donnie Ray, and others. Just read the following about Maurice, not sure if I have ever heard him:

Much to the consternation of his fans, Maurice Wynn has not been heard from since his great, turn-of-the-century single. "What She Don't Know" has become a staple of Southern Soul--one of those hits that define the very form--yet it remains a brilliant anomaly, like a comet streaking across the sky. And Wynn remains, whether by choice or circumstance, the proverbial one-hit wonder. --Daddy B. Nice

JK McCoy Rest In Peace
The Boogie Report has learned that Music Industry Veteran JK McCoy died yesterday in Montgomery.

McCoy who's given name was Bruce Knight was discovered yesterday when he didnt respond to several attempts to contact him.

McCoy who was CEO of JK Consulting had worked as a radio announcer throughout the southwest he also was the founding editor of the Chitlin Circuit Magazine.

Some folks on the Yahoo Southern Soul e-mail group are raving about Tommy Tate : " When hearts grow cold " CD I have not heard it yet

So several months later, the Southern Soul show on KAZI Austin is now playing an entirely different song also apparently called "I Need A Bailout," slower and less clever and less comical and less catchy than local guy Larry Shannon Hargrove's one (which is still my favorite Southern Soul song of the year, and one of my overall top ten singles). The new one says the guy has two college degrees but got caught with either 10 K's or 10 Keys (as in kilos?), plus his wife left him, so now "like Fanny Mae, AIG, and Chrysler, I need a bailout." It's okay, I guess; don't really recommend it, but do wonder who does it.

Mel Waiters "Everything is Going Up (but my paycheck)" is pretty good too.

soul and blues report.com top 25 http://www.soulandbluesreport.com/sbr/top_25.html

September 4, 2009

1

1 1
Everything Is Going Up
Mel Waiters
Waldoxy

2
2
Man Enough
Karen Wolfe
B & J

4
3
Forbidden Love Affair
Vick Allen
Soul 1st.

3
4
Gone On
Marvin Sease
Malaco

6
5
I Ran A Good Man Away
Lacee
Advantage

7
6
Cheatin' On The Cheatin'
Lenny Williams
Lenlon

5
7
Upside Down
Shirley Brown
Malaco

8
8
That's My Story
Chairman Of The Board
Surfside

12
9
Dog Caught By The Cat
Donnie Ray
Ecko

9
10
Ms. Jody's Thing
Ms. Jody
Ecko

18
11
Rehab
T. K. Soul
Soulful

11
12
Boy Toy
Pat Cooley
L&L

10
13
The Beauty Shop
Omar Cunningham
Soul 1st.

14
14
The Recipe
Bigg Robb
Over25sounds

13
15
I'm A Woman
Nellie Tiger Travis
CDS

15
16
Lock My Door
Jeff Floyd
Wilbe

19
17
Meow
J. Blackfoot
JEA/Right Now

24
18
Around The World
Latimore
Latstone

22
19
Dance The Night Away
Willie Clayton
C&C Ent.

20
20
Love Under Arrest
Lil Fallay
Tubor

17
21
One Night Stand
Andre Lee
Capetown

21
22
On The Back Road
Terry Wright
MacWright

25
23
Sex Appeal
Charles Wilson
CDS

-
24
Dirty Woman
David Brinston / Blackfoot
Ecko

23
25
Look Good For You

Carl MarshallMs. Jody

It's not that NPR doesn't like black music. It merely maintains a strict preference for black music that few actual living African-Americans listen to. Rosen from his slate.com piece

While Jody Rosen kinda has a point with his critique of NPR for only playing black people who are Dead, Old, Retro, or Foreign (DORF), NPR does not play folks on this thread even though they're old(except maybe for Lee Fields who happens to be on an indie-rock label now). I am wondering if Rosen has even seen any of the folks written about on this thread.

I wonder if Jody Rosen of Slate has every heard any of this stuff, or gone to a show

I need to catch up on recent Southern soul releases

I hate when old soul artist gigs are marketed only to (generally white)record collector geeks and indie rockers, but this show was fun even though the $25 price and the obscure names kept the Sharon Jones fans away (and the middle-aged DC African American audience never even knew about the show)...Here's what I posted on the Numero label thread--

Just saw the Eccentric Soul review tour before a small DC crowd. Syl Johnson was a lot of fun--seemed drunk but his raspy soul vocals on numbers like "Any way the Wind Blows," "Come on, Sock it to Me," and "Take Me to the River" sounded great. He was carrying on between several songs about royalties he got from Wu Tang Clan and Kid Rock samples, and he was happily reminiscing about his 1968 appearance at the Howard Theatre. Plus he was wearing a Megadeth t-shirt under his sports jacket. Renaldo Domino wasn't bad and the young backing band JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound were kind of uneven, but mostly impressive. The Notations harmonies and gold jackets were awesome, although they spent too much time doing jokes and schtick.

― curmudgeon, Wednesday, November 11, 2009 5:56 AM (9 hours

While the above gig got some attention, tonight's O'Jays and many more Philly soul '70s revue at DAR Constitution Hall in DC has been just advertised on quiet storm radio and via an e-mail thing marketed to suburban Maryland based African-Americans (and me!) so it's getting little crossover attention from record geeks or mainstream media.

Awesome old-school Beaumont, Texas left-handed guitarist singer Barbara Lynn is at the Library of Congress for free at lunchtime/noon and at the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage for free and webcast on the K. Ctr site from 6 to 7 today Wednesday November 18th. Check her out on youtube. She had a hit in 62, and another one later that the Rolling Stones covered. Plus Moby sampled her. She's as cool as anyone connected with the Eccentric Soul revue. Maybe even indie-rock Sharon Jones & the Dap-kings fans would like her.

I think my W. City Paper preview is the only publicity the Lynn show has gotten.

She was good not great. I liked her soul material more than the blues stuff and the Elvis cover.

My longtime local faves the Hardway Connection always do well down in the Carolinas with the beach music crowd. Saw this on a blog (some interesting stuff by North Carolina freelancer Dariel B on it):

http://darielb.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/beach-blues-rock-a-big-ole-fish-shtick/

November is going to be a great month for music fans along the S.C. Grand Strand. If Carolina beach music is your bag, a special weekend of Carolina Beach Music Academy (CBMA) awards, live music and shag dancing is set for Nov. 11 – 15

On Saturday, the CBMA Benefit Cookout & Showcase gets started at noon and runs until 3 p.m. The pig pickin’ is being hosted by Carolina deejays Big John Ruth (102.9 FM) and Neal “Soul Dog” Furr. Gary Smith (WLWL 770AM) will host the showcase, which features the Taylor Manning Band along with the Tim Clark Band plus some surprise artists singing to tracks.
The Industry Awards show, hosted by deejays Chad Sain and Ray Scott starts at 4 p.m. at the Spanish Galleon. Get there early. This is a popular event (Saturday passes are required this year.). Saturday night shows include the Fantastic Shakers at the O.D. Beach Club; The Castaways AND Hardway Connection at the Spanish Galleon; Holiday Band at Fat harold’s; Tommy black & Blooz at Duck’s and The Souls AND the Sand Band at Pirate’s Cove.
Sunday morning is the popular band fair (and yes, some of them are awake) where fans can meet the artists, get autographs, photos, Ced, T-shirts and more.
The culmination of the weekend is the annual awards show held at the Alabama Theatre in North Myrtle Beach. R&B performer Clifford Curry (“She Shot a Hole In My Soul,” “We’re Gonta Hate Ourselves In the Morning,” “Beach Music & Barbecue”) is scheduled to perform. So is Nashville’s soul blues artist Rickey Godfrey The 2009 inductees into the Carolina Beach Music Hall of Fame include R&B singer Chuck Jackson, probably best known for his 1962 recording of “Any Day Now” (Burt Bacharach-Bob Hilliard). He recorded the classic “How Long Have You Been Loving Me” on Carolina Records, a collaboration with Charles Wallet, who penned “Brenda,” O.C. Smith’s 1986 hit single.

http://www.cammy.org/winners.html

Hardway Connection won best National Dance/Shag Song with
"Dirty O' Man”

And Hardway still have no website, no myspace...Nuthin. They're gigging from the Maryland African-American burbs on down through the Carolinas pretty regularly it appears. I think they might even be at Lamonts tonight(a club that has no website). Amazing.

I gotta call the Hardway folks and do an article. It's been 10 years now since I wrote a feature on them for the Washington CP. I wonder if that Carter Barron gig they did then was their last show in DC itself.

Still lots of Southern soul for me to catch up on. Heard great songs from Jeff Floyd and from Miss Jody over the weekend. It's too bad the cheesy synths Ecko was once known for have scared many away from this genre (or at least this thread!).

xchuckx come back, otherwise it's just me talking to myself here (unless folks are lurking).

http://www.soulandbluesreport.com/website/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9&Itemid=9

I should post that list over on the best magazine and websites of 2009 thread just to offer something other than indie-rock (even if this list is not a critics one or even a year-end one).

Yes I should. Waiting for Hardway's guitarist to call me back. It's like these guys don't want publicity.

http://bluescritic.com/southernsoulbluescharts.htm

I'm still lurking here, btw, curmudgeon; just have somehow, inadvertently, fallen out of the habit of tuning into the Southern soul radio shows here, so I don't have much to say. "I Need A Bailout" by Larry Shannon Hargrove and "There Goes My Baby" by Charlie Wilson did make my Pazz & Jop singles ballot, however. And in the past couple months I've picked up these old chitlin circuit albums used for $1 each.

J. Blackfoot - Physical Attraction (Sound Town 1984)
Freedom - Are You Available (Malaco 1984)
Little Milton - Annie Mae's Cafe (Malaco 1986)
O.B. McClinton - Album No. 2 (Hometown Productions 1986)

Freedom is an interesting self-contained-band mix of down-home red-clay soul and chubbier early '80s commmercial funk (including a Prince cover). That's the only one I've played so far, though I already think it's interesting that Blackfoot covers "I Don't Remember Loving You," a great loss-of-one's-mind song that was a country hit for John Conlee.

Also bought these $1 albums back in October; like both Blands (esp the 1974 one), but haven't gotten to the Smith one yet.

Bobby Bland - Dreamer (Dunhill 1974) (w/ "Ain't No Love In The Heart Of The City," later sampled in Jay-Z song of the same name)
Bobby Bland - Get On Down With (Dunhill 1975) (w/ covers of Merle Haggard and Charlie Rich songs)
O.C. Smith - Hickory Holler Revisited (Columbia 1968)

O.B. and O.C. probably techically more "African American country" than "Southern Soul," though it's a fine line of course. And they'll always be lumped in with actual southern soulster O.V. Wright in my head.

Wow, those all look great. I forget which old Bobby Bland vinyl I have. I just know a few J. Blackfoot songs, and only know O.B. and O.C. by name. O.V. Wright is the man.

I just decided last minute that another OB, OB Buchana (no periods just OB), has released my southern soul chitlin circuit fave album for the year, "It's My Time" on Ecko. He has previously done that great song "Southern Soul Country Boy". Most soul nerds will knee-jerk snear at the Ecko synths and the lyrics but I think it goes beyond those stereotypes.

It's available for sale as a download from Amazon, I-tunes and Ecko, in addition to other formats.

He's not breaking any new ground, he's just exhibiting the best qualities of the genre

Here's Daddy B. Nice's bio of OB Buchana

http://www.southernsoulrnb.com/artistguide.cfm?aid=56

Daddy B says his name is "O.B." not "OB" . Not sure who is right.

He doesn't get much media attention based on the quick google search of websites, news, and blogs I just did. One Brit blogger, one Frenchman and a few US southern soul biz sites.