Tina Mason – Are You There

Tina Mason

Listen/Download – Tina Mason – Are You There

Greetings all.

Before we get started this week …

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It’s time for the 2017 Funky16Corners Pledge Drive.

Since Iron Leg, and the Iron Leg Radio Show podcast are dependent of the continued health of Funky16Corners, and continue under the banner of the Funky16Corners Radio Network, it behooves me to post these links here, too.

The pledging will also take a slightly different form this year, moving to Patreon (click here or on the logo below to go to the Funky16Corners page) , where you will be able to spread your contributions out over the entire year, which will help cover the ongoing server/broadcast/hardware expenses. This year has seen the upgrade of a couple of crucial pieces of equipment, and any help you fine people can provide will keep the machinery moving here at Funky16Corners central. So please dig deep so we can continue to do the same!

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The record you see before you made its way into my crates a few years back via the inclusion of an early version of the the song ‘What’. That tune, written by HB Barnum was originally recorded by Judy Street and went on to become a Northern Soul classic.

The version by Tina Mason (recorded/released shortly after the Street 45) is a slightly slower, more stylish affair, but still cool.

Mason had a short but interesting recording career, first with Tina and the Mustangs on Capitol, then on her one full album.

She had a certain amount of Southern California success, having performed at Disneyland and then becoming a regular on ‘Where the Action Is’ (where she met her future husband, Phil ‘Fang’ Volk of Paul Revere and the Raiders.

Her 1967 album ‘Is Something Wonderful’ was produced by David Axelrod and arranged by HB Barnum (no doubt the reason she recorded ‘What’) and features a wide variety of sounds.

Mason’s stuff walked the line between girl-group and soul, as well as a certain kind of sophisticated pop.

Today’s selection is a great cover of the Bacharach/David ‘Are You There (With Another Girl)’ (title truncated on Mason’s album), which was a hit for Dionne Warwick in 1965.

Mason’s version is a great showcase for her voice, backed with a lush arrangement, sounding like a kinder, gentler wall of sound. There’s a booming bass, shimmering rhythm guitar and understated strings and brass, with a female chorus backing Mason’s lead vocal.

The production by Axelrod is typically first-rate, and it’s a wonderful take on a great song.

The LP is apparently pretty hard to find these days, but it was reissued (with bonus tracks) on CD in 2008 by Now Sounds.

I hope you dig the track, and I’ll see you all next week.

Peace

Larry

 

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

Shotgun Express – Curtains

Shotgun Express

Listen/Download – Shotgun Express – Curtains

Greetings all.

Before we get started this week …

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Make sure you check out my weekly show for WFMU’s Give the Drummer Radio, Testify! . If you dig Funky16Corners and/or Iron Leg I think you’ll dig it. I’ll be on the air every Wednesday night from 10-12, live, so tune in when you get a chance!
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I come to you today with one of the grooviest mod Hammond 45s ever pressed into polyvinylplasticwhatever.

The Shotgun Express were a short lived sort-of-supergroup, featuring Rod Stewart, Beryl Marsden, Peter Bardens, John Mooreshead and Phil Sawyer (Bardens, Mooreshead and Sawyer all having made their way through the UK beat and beyond scenes).

The group only ever waxed two 45s (gathered in Europe on a single EP), only one of which was released here in the US, all in 1966.

Today’s selection is the flipside of the first Shotgun Express 45 (the topside of which was featured in the space previously).

‘Curtains’ is a hard charging, dance floor ready feature for organist Bardens, as well as some absolutely pounding bass and drums that muscle their way through the mix like a truck speeding down the street.

It is a superbly played and produced side, that manages to blend R&B and jazz expertly with enough verve to get the kids in the bespoke suits off their scooters and on to the floor grooving.

Big thanks go out – as always – to my man Mr Luther who first fed this one into my ears via mixtape decades ago.

I was lucky enough to finally score a copy of my own (the UK issue, with the US 45 on Uptown being even rarer) a few years ago, and it holds a place of honor in my crates.

I hope you dig it as much as I do, and I’ll see you all next week.

Peace

Larry

 

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

Testify Episode #4

Testify Intro
Globetrotters – Globetrotters Theme (Kirshner)
Gil-Scott Heron – The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Flying Dutchman)
James Rivers – Fonky Flute (Kon-Ti)
Horace Andy – Show and Tell (Money Disc)
JJ Barnes – Don’t Bring Me No Bad News (Ric Tic)
Gloria Jones – Tainted Love (Champion)
Intruders – Every Day Is Like a Holiday (Gamble)

Gabor Szabo – Pretty Girl Why (Blue Thumb)
Gary Burton Quartet – Sweet Rain (RCA)
Nino Rota – Cimitero (RCA)
Grateful Dead – Dark Star (45 Edit) (Warner Brothers)
Grateful Dead – Doin’ That Rag (Alt) (Warner Brothers)
Neil Young – The Loner (Warner Brothers)
Kaleidoscope – Egyptian Gardens (Epic)
Kaleidoscope – Pulsating Dream (Epic)
Harumi – Talk About It (Verve)

Waylon Jennings – Love of the Common People (RCA)
Waylon Jennings – You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away (RCA)
The Gosdin Brothers – Sound of Goodbye (Capitol)
Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers – So You Say You Lost Your Baby (Columbia)
Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers – I Found You (Columbia)
Everly Brothers – T for Texas (Warner Brothers)
Flying Burrito Brothers – Hot Burrito #2 (A&M)
Poco – Hurry Up (Epic)

Darelycks – Bad Trip (Fine)
Mouse and the Traps – Lie Beg Borrow and Steal (Fraternity)
The Choir – I’m Going Home (Roulette)
The New Yorkers – Mr Kirby (Scepter)
Them – One Two Brown Eyes (Parrot)
Terry Reid – Superlungs (Epic)

Colin Blunstone – Caroline Goodbye (Epic)
Four King Cousins – God Only Knows (Capitol)
Four King Cousins – I Fell (Capitol)
Paul Williams – Trust (A&M)
Al Wilson – The Dolphins (Soul City)

Rex Garvin and the Mighty Cravers – I Gotta Go Now (Up On the Floor) (Like)

Testify Episode #4. Originally broadcast 06/07/2017

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Now dig this!

Offered today for your delectation is the most recent episode of my show Testify! which sails out over the airwaves live, every Wednesday night from 10-12 on WFMU’s Give the Drummer Radio.

Since it is at its heart as Iron Leggy as it is Funky16Cornered, I thought you might dig it.

I also bring you news, that being that the Iron Leg Radio Show will – as part of the Funky16Corners Radio Network – be going live as well, on a monthly basis.

I will provide more details as the date of the first episode approaches.

Until then, dig Testify! (tune in on Wednesday night) and I’ll see you all next week.

Peace

Larry

Iron Leg Radio Show Episode #74

Why hello there!

Playlist

ILRS#74

John Fred and his Playboy Band – Miss Knocker (UNI)
Fever Tree – Come On In (Ampex)
Fever Tree – She Comes In Colors (Ampex)
Litter – For What It’s Worth (Probe)
Bob Theile, The New Happy Times Orchestra and Gabor Szabo , with the California Dreamers, Tom Scott and Bill Plummer– Fakin’ It (Impulse)
Bob Theile, The New Happy Times Orchestra and Gabor Szabo , with the California Dreamers, Tom Scott and Bill Plummer – Krishna (Impulse)
Ted Heath and His Music – Satisfaction (London)
Ted Heath and His Music – Dontcha Hear Me Calling To Ya (London)
Ted Heath and His Music – Spinning Wheel (London)
David McCallum – 1-2-3 (Warner Brothers)
Duane Eddy – Batman (Reprise)

Newbury Park – My God and I (Cream)
Bobbie Gentry – Apartment 21 (Capitol)
Kris Kristofferson – Blame It On the Stones (Monument)
Randy Horan – The Daydream (Hickory)
Odetta – My God and I (Polydor)

Phil Moore Jr – You Showed Me (Atco)
Unspoken Word – And It’s Gone (UA)
Unspoken Word – On a Beautiful Day (UA)
Lennon Sisters – Green Tambourine (Mercury)
Lennon Sisters – Everything That Touches You (Mercury)
CB Victoria – Any Time at All (GRT)
Any Trouble – Second Choice (Stiff)
Any Trouble – Growing Up (Stiff)
Any Trouble – The Name of the Game (Stiff)

Listen/Download -Iron Leg Radio Show Episode #74 – 176MB/256kbps

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Greetings all.

Welcome to this month’s episode of the Iron Leg Radio Show.

We have lots of groovers for you this month, including lots of new arrivals, a set of cover versions of John Buck Wilkin songs and some old faves as well.

So pull down the ones and zeros, dig it and I’ll see you next week.

Make sure you subscribe to the podcast in iTunes!

Peace

Larry

 

PS Head over to Funky16Corners

Testify! Episode #2

Testify Episode #2. Originally broadcast 05/24/2017

Testify Intro
Roger and the Gypsies – Pass the Hatchet Pt1 (Seven B)
Roy Ward – Horse With a Freeze Pt1 (SevenB)
Bobby Williams – Boogaloo Mardi Gras Pt1 (Capitol)
James K Nine – Live It Up (Federal)
Curly Moore and the Kool Ones – Shelley’s Rubber Band (House of the Fox)
Doug Anderson – Hey Mama Here Comes the Preacher (Janus)

Theme From the Saint
Billy Strange – Theme From the Man From U.N.C.L.E. (GNP)
Baker Knight and the Knightmares – Hallucinations (Reprise)
Beckett Quintet – No Correspondence (Gemcor)
Blue Things – Orange Rooftop of Your Mind (RCA)
Cast of Thousands – Girl What You Gonna Do (Tower)
Motifs – If I Gave You Love (Selsom)
Beauregard and the Tuffs – Ramblin’ Rose (Decca)
The Kinks – The Last of the Steam Powered Trains (Reprise)

Soupy Sales – The Mouse (ABC-Paramount)
Maggie Thrett – Soupy (From tha Soul)
Evie Sands – I Can’t Let Go (Blue Cat)
Shangri Las – Bulldog (Red Bird)
Janis Ian – Letter To John (Verve)
Sly and the Family Stone – Dance to the Medley (Epic)

The Isley Brothers – Testify Pts 1&2 (T-Neck)
Ray Sharpe – Help Me (Get the Feeling) (Atco)
Billy Lamont – Sweet Thang (20th Century Fox)
Lonnie Youngblood – Go Go Shoes (Fairmount)
Lonnie Youngblood – Soul Food (That’s What I Like) (Fairmount)
Sonny Hopson WHAT Aircheck 1969
Jerry Blavat and Yon Teenagers – Discophonic Walk (Favor)
Georgie Woods – Potato Salad Pt1 (Fat Back)
John R – Keep On Scratchin’ (Smash)
E Rodney Jones with Larry and the Hippies Band – Right On Right On Sex Machine (Westbound)
Hank Marr – White House Party (Wingate)
Music Out
Rex Garvin and the Mighty Cravers – I Gotta Go Now (Out On the Floor) (Like)

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Greetings all

I am in the process of gearing up for this year’s fundraiser, as well as a reassessment of blogging/podcasting workload.

All podcasts, Funky16Corners Radio Show, Iron Leg Radio Show and my weekly live bag, Testify! on WFMU’s Give the Drummer Radio will continue going forward.

The actual written end of the blogs may undergo some truncation to accommodate the increased production schedule.

I want to keep the Iron Leg Radio Show as the first post of the month, so the new episode will be dropping next Sunday, 6/2/17.

This week I’m posting this past week’s episode of Testify! which I think you’ll dig if you enjoy either of the blogs/podcasts.

You can also hit up my archive page over at WFMU for the previous episode, as well as all episodes going forward (broadcast every Wednesday night from 10-12).

So dig this, and I’ll see you all next week.

Peace

Larry

Playboys of Edinburg – Mickey’s Monkey

Playboys of Edinburg

Listen/Download – Playboys of Edinburg – Mickey’s Monkey

Greetings all.

Before we get started this week I have some important news.

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In related news, my new weekly radio show for WFMU’s Give the Drummer Radio, Testify! had it’s inaugural episode last week and is archived over there. If you dig Funky16Corners and/or Iron Leg I think you’ll dig it. I’ll be on the air every Wednesday night from 10-12, live, so tune in when you get a chance!
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The record I bring you today is the result of a seed planted in my head way back in the 80s, when their name popped up in a spectacular radio station promo from a mid-60s concert in Texas called the Now Sounds Groove In.

The radio spot appeared on a compilation of Texas garage punk, and it became a staple of my mix tapes back in the day.

Hosted by the Houston Post (the spot was narrated by Scott Holtzman of the Fever Tree, who provided an original psychedelic jingle for the ad), the concert featured a bunch of Texas bands, some of which I knew (the Fever Tree, Moving Sidewalks, Countdown 5, A440, Neal Ford and the Fanatics) and some that were new to me (The Glass Can, Coastliners, Sixpence, Thursday’s Children, Dimensions) including the Playboys of Edinburg.

Though I had never heard the group, the name stuck in my head (along with the rest of the commercial) and when I happened upon the 45 you see before you today, I had to grab it.

When I had only heard the ad, I assumed that the name was yet another grab at the British Invasion, a la the Playboys of Edinburgh (Scotland). The band was in fact the Playboys of Edinburg (Texas), a border down in the Southeast part of the state.

The A-side of their 1967 45, ‘Sanford Ringleton the 3rd of Abernathy’ is a kind of Kinks-y pop thing, but the flip, a cover of the Miracles ‘Mickey’s Monkey’ is a smoker.

They really lay into the tune, with some wailing organ and pounding drums (and handclaps) and I’d put their take right up there with the Rascals version.

The group released a handful of 45s for local and national labels between 1966 and 1970 (including a few later on as POE) and their version of ‘Mickey’s Monkey’ was a regional hit in Texas.

It’s a groovy 45, and I hope you dig it.

See you next week.

Peace

Larry

 

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

The Cowsills – Anything Changes

The (Bill-less) Cowsills performing ‘Anything Changes’ on TV

Listen/Download – The Cowsills – Anything Changes

Greetings all.

It is always – even in a small degree – my intention that your mind be blown when you visit Iron Leg. Mileage will vary, depending on the proximity of your tastes to my own, but every once in a while I know that I’m posting something pretty much guaranteed to hit the mark.

Today’s selection is one of those.

The Cowsills are one of the truly great, and deeply underestimated pop bands of the 1960s.

Their greatness owes a lot to the vision of the eldest Cowsill brother, and de facto leader of the band, Bill.

Unfortunately, due to his clashing with their father, a volatile individual who was seemingly more interested in marketing his children as teen idols than in nurturing their musical talent, Bill the younger was forced out of the Cowsills in 1968 (though there seem to be indicators that he was clandestinely involved in the group’s records to some extent afterward).

The first album the Cowsills would record after his departure would be 1969’s ‘II x II’.

Today’s selection blew me away the first time I heard it, mainly because it’s one of the heaviest things the Cowsills ever recorded.

‘Anything Changes’, written by Bob and Paul Cowsill, opens with what sounds like a Hammond organ being pushed into a giant reverb tank, followed by fuzz guitar and heavy bass.

The sound is a lot closer to the kind of thing Stephen Stills was doing toward the end of his tenure with the Buffalo Springfield and on into CSNY, and the really groovy thing is, that on top of all this heaviness is a nice, juicy layer of those patented Cowsills harmonies.

Though Bill co-wrote a few songs on the album, I have no idea if he managed to play on it at all.

In the years after he was ousted, he recorded a very cool solo album for MGM (‘Nervous Breakthrough’) and did some freelance production work for Bodine (featuring ex-members of the Daily Flash) and Lightmyth.

He would eventually make a brief reconnection with the Cowsills, and then do a one-off (and rare) single in 1974 with a band called Bridey Murphy, composed of Barry, Paul and Bill Cowsill as well as Waddy Wachtel, who along with his girlfriend Judi Pulver had been in the oribit of the Cowsills for a few years as songwriters.

Fortunately, all of the Cowsills albums are excellent, cheap and plentiful, and if you don’t have them, you should go out to one of your finer garage sales or flea markets and scoop them up.

Dig the sounds, and I’ll be back next week with a new episode of the Iron Leg Radio Show.

Until then

Peace

Larry

 

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.