Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires - "Changes" (2016) (Live on KEXP)

Hello Friends,

We've posted the video for this song last year, but we felt the need to post this as well for its pure emotional power punch.

Wow... is it getting dusty in here?

Changes

Charles Bradley - "Changes" (2016) - Daptone Records 

Hello Friends,

Dim the lights and break out the malt liquor, things are about to get sweaty & soulful! 

The last thing we thought we needed in our lives was another James Brown/Al Green/Otis Redding-sounding soul singer with a backing band vaguely reminiscent of Booker T. & the MGs.  Boy were we WRONG!  This record was one of our favorites from 2016! 

Charles Bradley (who, incidentally, once made a living as a James Brown impersonator named "Black Velvet") holds the pain of the world in the lines on his face, the sweat from his brow and in the quiver of his voice.

Backed by a bunch of white Brooklyn hipsters (pretty much the Daptone Records' house bands), Changes, is an instant classic!  His third full length record, its as authentic and heart-breaking as they come!

The heartbreak starts right away with Bradley declaring that life's treated him pretty hard... "America, you've been real honest, hurt, and sweet to me"... before breaking into a refrain of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". 

Throughout the album Bradley documents his struggles; his longing to go home again and to be a good and "righteous" man. No matter how many times the world may shit on him, Charles Bradley bounces back.  His faith and talent and super-human resilience will help carry him though.

Undoubtedly, the album's highlight is Bradley's take on the Black Sabbath classic, "Changes" which becomes a tearjerking ode to his recently departed mother, whom Bradley only re-connected with (and took care of) as an adult.

Man, he takes this heavy metal ballad to a Whole New Level.  If the tiny hairs on your arms don't move just a little while listening to this, you may have to check your pulse!

RATING: 5 all my days are filled with tears wish I could go back and change these years out of 5

Solange - "Rise/Weary" Live (2016)

Hello Friends,

Not normally our cup of tea, but surprisingly the lastest album by Solange Knowles (A Seat At The Table) really knocked our socks off!

Its a pretty amazing record featuring very sparse production, minimalist arrangements, strong emotions, soulful lyrics and a very, very retro vibe.

Highly recommended.  Check out this live performance on Jimmy Fallon from December!

Enjoy!

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - "Stranger To My Happiness" (2014)

Happy Friday Friends!

We've been really digging stuff released on Brooklyn's Daptone Records record label.

We think Charles Bradley is the greatest soul singer since Josh Groban James Brown and Sharon Jones is another marquee name on the label.  She's nearly as amazing.

Nice job Daptone!

"Stranger To My Happiness" is from her 2014 release, Give The People What They Want (not to be confused with the 1981 Kinks album!)

She's definitely worth checking out!

Also kids, don't plan on seeing her on tour anytime soon.  Sadly, Sharon Jones died last year at the much-too-young age of 60 from pancreatic cancer.

RATS!

I guess you can say heaven gained another (sassy) angel!*

(* or not)

Charles Bradley - "Changes" (2016)

We're not sure about you, friends, but this song by Charles Bradley is pretty much exactly where we're at these days, musically speaking!

Heavy, intense, soulful & black.

Enjoy!

Love To Love You Baby

Donna Summer - "Love To Love You Baby" (1975) - Oasis Records

Hello Friends,

Sultry sounds from the turntable tonight!

Love to Love You Baby is not only Donna Summer's first release in the U.S. (her actual first release, Lady of the Night, would only be released in the Netherlands) but it also remains a seminal release in the Disco movement of the 1970's.

The title song takes up all of Side One and boy-oh-boy is it a doozy!  A sexy, sultry and sweaty disco opus featuring Giorgio Moroder & Pete Bellotte's sparingly calculated production values with plenty of wah-wah guitar, boogieing bass lines, futuristic-sounding synthesizers and Summer's breathy and sensual vocals with orgasmic moans and ecstatic groans aplenty!

Whereas Side One is an epic of the early disco era, Side Two is a bit of a mixed bag containing more soulful ballads and less speed- and sex-fueled dance tunes.

Immediately, the party comes crashing to halt with the heartbreaking ballad "Full of Emptiness".  A great and incredibly sad song sung with unmistakable sincerity by Summer. It does come off as a bit of a buzzkill, however.

"Need-a-Man Blues" gets things (temporarily) back on track with Moroder's signature electro-funk instrumentation doing what it does best lying just below the surface!

"Whispering Waves" is another pretty ballad but ITS KILLING US.  Its sounds like a 1970's Massengill commercial!  What the hell happened to the spazzy, swirling up-tempo sleaziness of the album's first side??  My boner is slowly turning into tears!  (Although, for whatever its worth, there is some pretty nice guitar work going on here.)

Thank god that "Pandora's Box" gets us back to at least a mid-tempo shuffle!!  It actually starts out reminding us of Rundgren's "Hello Its Me", but ends up being more of a straightforward R&B song.

The side ends with a country-twinged reprise of "Full of Emptiness" (which would have been an amazing "come down" to the album if everything leading up to it was as high energy as the title track!)

As a whole, this album doesn't really work which is to be expected, historically speaking. Donna Summer was new to the scene as was the genre that she would eventually dominate!  Just the fact that a disco/dance track would take up all of a side is pretty amazing (in 1975 the only bands doing this would be prog rock/art rock bands like Yes, Genesis or Pink Floyd!)  This album captures her and Moroder in their relative infancy with Love To Love You Baby setting the table for the next half decade or so of greatness!

RATING: 4 do it to me again and again you put me in such an awful spin out of 5

Sticky Fingers

Ohio Players - "Honey" (1975) - Mercury Records

Listen girl,

Don't you hold on to me for the things that I've got.

Its heating up outside and its getting warm in here too!  I'll pour some cocktails, dim the lights and put this record on the turntable while you slip out of those sticky clothes!

Last year we got down and dirty with the Ohio Players' fantastic fifth record, Skin Tight, and tonight we've got their seventh record on the turntable and its almost as funktastic!

This is album oozes stickiness.  (in a good way!)

Beginning with quiet and fluttering piano notes that seem to descend to Earth from above the clouds, the sultry "Honey" gets thing started nice and easy. You so, so sweet girl, you're so sweet like honey.  It keeps me stuck on you girl.  

It almost makes me wish that the tiki bar had a lava lamp!

Hey that drum beat intro sounds familiar on the next song!  Is it Paradise City?  Nope.  It's "Fopp". As in Fopp with me and I'll Fopp with you and Fopped so hard that I lost my shoe!

Things slow down to a sensual pace again on "Let's Love" because it takes an L and an O and a V and an E. 

"Ain't Givin' Up No Ground" is insanely funky and threatens to break up the mood a little luckily the dancing fingers of Billy Beck are there to save us once again with the flittering notes of his electric piano.

Side Two is equally as hot sticky & sweet with the rather remarkable "Sweet Sticky Thing". Your beehive is full of bees, I wish you had a place for me.  Will you share your beehive with me, you sweet, sticky thing? 

Oh shit!  Things are warming up again and its time for a second wind.  "Love Rollercoaster" would be The Ohio Players' second # 1 hit and is one of the bounciest tunes in all of funkdom.  I want to ride, yeaah!

If you're not dancing around the tiki bar when this song comes on, you just might be passed out.

We're in the home stretch now girl.  This record's about to end and we've got some unfinished business.  Let's quiet things down a bit, sit back and enjoy.

Unfortunately, things get downright dark and maudlin on the closing number, "Alone".  

I don't want to be alone.  Pick me up off the floor. Jeez... you don't want to be alone? Well then stop covering your dates in honey and taking them to amusement parks!!

FUN FACT: Hey kids, did you know that there was an urban legend that the blood-curdling scream heard at about the 2:30 mark in "Love Rollercoaster" was of the LP's cover model screaming in agony as batches of hot honey were poured down her naked body?  Actually, its a scream from one of the band members imitating a scream he might have had on a rollercoaster.  As far as we know, no one was hurt, maimed or murdered while shooting the album's cover art.  

By the way, the cover model is Ester Cordet, a stewardess, who was a also Playboy Magazine's first Latin Playmate.  Here's some more of Ester.  Enjoy!

RATING: 4 Sweet Sticky Things Leaving Honey Everywhere out of 5

SLY!

Sly & The Family Stone - "Greatest Hits" (1970) - Epic Records

Hello Friends,

Things are getting funky tonight at the Tiki Bar.

Even though Sly & The Family Stone would be around up until the early 80's, this Greatest Hits collection was released just three short years into their career and mines material from four pretty great albums.  (Also released to probably capitalize on their great performance at Woodstock the year before!)  Late 60's psychedelic soul at its very best!

If we threw parties, this records would definitely be in our "party rotation"!

(And there's little doubt that these guys knew how to party!)

RATING: 4.5 Lookin' At The Devil Grinnin' At A Gun out of 5 

Skin Tight!

Ohio Players - "Skin Tight" (1974) - Mercury Records

Hello Friends,

We've got Dayton, Ohio's favorite funk band on the turntable this Saturday night and Holy Crap its funktastic!

Skin Tight would be the band's fifth LP, their first for Mercury Records, and the first to feature more jazz-based & disco arrangements which would eventually launch the band into a much more mainstream direction.

Its a soulful and funky affair with lots and lots of layers of vocals and music which makes it a particularly good listen on vinyl.  Every time you put this record on the turntable, you're almost guaranteed to hear something you haven't heard before!  (Not to mention, it continues the tradition of the Players' super sexy and risque album covers!)

The title track gets things started and the Vinyl in the Valley headquarters is rockin'.  Its officially our favorite funk song of the moment.

Check out those capes!

Things get turned up even higher on the next song, "Streakin' Cheek to Cheek" featuring a driving wah-wah, some killer Fender Rhodes soloing & a right-up-in-your grill horn section to really get your juices flowing.  The layering and complex, but accessible, arrangements in a song like this would lay the groundwork for everything Prince would revolutionize within the next ten years or so! 

Side One winds down with the oozing, sexy, soulful ballad, "It's Your Night / Words of Love" that ends with a minute-or-so long piano interlude that could have been written by Gershwin (or Vince Guaraldi). (Plus we really, really like the muted guitar fills in the chorus!)

Flip the record and we're off to the races once again with the amazing "Jive Turkey", a funky kiss-off anthem to end all funky kiss-off anthems!  One of the guys singing even sounds a little like Fozzie Bear... Waka Waka!

Things get a little schmaltzy and lovey-dovey on "Heaven Must Be Like This".     


The record's sixth & final song is the ballad, "Is Anybody Gonna Be Saved?"  It starts out dark & menacing (like a foggy night under a street lamp) and builds up to a full-blown gospel-funk epic!  Damn!

Dayton, representin'.

RATING: 4.5 Bad Bad Missus in those Skin Tight Britches out of 5

Dusty!

Dusty Springfield - Dusty (1964)

Hello Sports Fans!

Touted as America's newest lesbian singing star, Dusty's second stateside LP is a decent mix of blue-eyed soul and pre-British Invasion R&B.

The first four oustanding tracks would all sound right at home on one of your "break up" mix tapes that you made back in high school. "All Cried Out", "I Wish I'd Never Loved You", "Can I Get a Witness" and the epic-sounding, "Summer is Over" are all pretty amazing!

The rest of the album gets a little sugary, but the highlight of the record is the closing number: an emotional and raucous rendition of the Burt Bacharach & Hal David break-up ballad, "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself." 

Overall, this is a good 60's pop album that lays the groundwork for the big, soulful sounds that she would become much more famous for later in the decade.

In case you're interested, here's a clip of the White Stripes performing "IJDKWTDWM" live in Glastonbury in 2005. 

The White Stripes - I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself (live)

RATING: 4 peroxide bottles out of a possible 5