Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

I thought that this series would come to a natural end with 1979, but the early 1980s were not as deficient as one might imagine. The difference resides in the volume of quality and the widening chasm between the great and the utterly abject in the ’80s. A lot of bad soul music was created in the ’80s, and the genre has never recovered. The next couple of installments of Any Major Soul will, I hope, highlight the bright spots in a declining genre.

The two opening tracks, by Clyde Milton and Sam Butler, are apparently quite difficult to find. Both are excellent, and would merit being regarded as ’80s soul classics – if they were more widely known outside the Northern Soul scene. Milton’s single sold on eBay for $199 last month; a promo copy of Butler’s single was going for $500 last week. I have not been able to find out anything about either singer.

Ruby Wilson has had a prolific if not necessarily high profile recording career, releasing ten albums. She has performed with the likes of Isaac Hayes and B.B. King, and apparently is a hugely popular on the Memphis circuit. She suffered a mild stroke in June last year, and has recently taken to the stage again. Check her out on Facebook, where visitors can learn how to donate towards her medical bills and order her greatest hits CD.

The Movers provide a fix of South African soul-funk. I can’t recall from which excellent site I got this track from, but I ought to express my appreciation for it.

The late Grover Washington Jr is not an obvious choice for a soul compilation, but Be Mine (Tonight) from the excellent Come Morning album does fit the bill. Grady Tate, a terribly under-appreciated singer, delivers the cool and very sexy vocals. The smash of the cymbal in the midst of the instrumental break at 5:45 is one of my favourite moment in popular music.

Con Funk Shun were founded in 1968 and after 1972 worked as a backing band at Stax. During that time they released a few albums on a local Memphis label. Their breakthrough came when they were signed by Mercury where they released a string of albums of varying quality.

Odyssey are better known for their great disco numbers, such as Native New Yorker and Going Back To My Roots. If You’re Looking For A Way Out is a slow soul song that will melt your heart, telling the story of a break-up from the point of view from a woman who still loves her man but has given up.

TRACKLISTING:
1. Clyde Milton – I’d Rather Leave On My Feet
2. Sam Butler – I Can’t Get Over Loving You
3. Grover Washington Jr feat Grady Tate - Be Mine (Tonight)
4. Maze feat Frankie Beverly – The Look In Your Eyes
5. The Dramatics - You’re The Best Thing In My Life
6. Ruby Wilson - Seeing You Again
7. Lou Rawls - I Go Crazy
8. Odyssey - If You’re Looking For A Way Out
9. The Jones Girls - At Peace With Woman
10. The Movers – Give Me A Day
11. Chaka Khan – Heed The Warning
12. Mtume - So You Wanna Be A Star
13. Tavares - I Don’t Want You Anymore
14. Patrice Rushen – Message In The Music
15. Ebonee Webb – Do Me Right (Everybody Needs A Little Love)
16. Con Funk Shun – All Up To You
17. Peaches & Herb - I Pledge My Love To You
18. Commodores – Lucy

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And a few bonus songs which didn’t fit on the CD-R length mix, of which Al Jarreau’s Spain in particular is quite astonishing:

Al Jarreau – Spain.mp3
Earth, Wind & Fire – I Wanna Be With You.mp3
Larry Graham – One In A Million.mp3
The Crusaders feat. Bill Withers – Soul Shadows.mp3
Ray Parker Jr – A Woman Needs Love.mp3
Teena Marie – I Need Your Lovin’.mp3
Stephanie Mills & Teddy Pendergrass -Two Hearts.mp3

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It seems that the first New York City mix was well received, so here’s another one. There will be at least one more (or two, depending on how popular this one turns out to be), next time going retro in black and white — like all the great New York photos.

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TRACKLISTING
1. Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Jules Munchin – New York, New York (excerpt) (1949)
NYC hook: It’s our three sailor friends’ first time in New York, and having just arrived on shore leave (happily in New York, not in LA where they might have gone on to beat up Mexicans), they already presume it to be “a helluva town” because “the Bronx is up, but the Battery’s down”. Additionally, “the people ride in a hole in the ground” (as they do in many other cities, so big deal, chums).

2. Frank Sinatra & Tony Bennett – New York New York (1994)
NYC hook: Let’s face it, our boy from Hoboken was a promiscuous man when it came to American cities. Chicago? His kind of town! L.A.? It’s a lady he can’t say goodbye to. Las Vegas? He made it! And New York? Well, more of a challenge than a love affair; it seems. By the way, the song needs no fucking high-kicks, party goers.

3. Theme – Seinfeld (1989)
NYC hook: Would Seinfeld have worked had it been set anywhere else? Nah!

4. Klaatu – Sub-Rosa Subway (1976)
NYC hook: The song that caused speculation about a clandestine Beatles reunion. Alas, it was just a bunch of Canadians with a funny name singing about Alfred Beach, the man who built America’s first subway in New York, based on the London Underground. (More on Beach)

5. NRBQ – Boys In The City (1972)
NYC hook: You might leave New York for the country, but you’ll still sing about “the trees in the Park”.

6. Harry Nilsson – I Guess The Lord Must Be In New York City (1969)
NYC hook: New York as the new Jerusalem instead of its usual role as a fetid Babylon. So Harry makes his pilgrimage to the city permanent, leaving all his sorrows behind. Same year, he soundtracked Hoffman and Voight’s exit from bad, bad NYC.

7. Mason Jennings – New York City (2002)
NYC hook: Jennings is in love in and with New York City.

8. Kevin Devine – Brooklyn Boy (2006)
NYC hook: The eponymous lad is doing coke on his birthday, prompting Kev — rarely a herald of rampant cheer — to launch into an apocalypso.

9. Ian Hunter – Central Park N West (1981)
NYC hook: Hunter obviously hates living in stinky, crime-ridden, burning New York City. Except he doesn’t: “You’ve got to be crazy to live in the city, and New York city’s the best.”

10. Donavan Frankenreiter – Spanish Harlem Incident (2007)
NYC hook: A rather decent cover of Dylan’s 1964 song about having steamy, casual interracial sex.

11. Bobby Womack – Across 110th Street (1972)
NYC hook: 110th Street is the street that divides Harlem and Manhattan. Bob is not painting a pretty picture of what lies at the other side of Manhattan: pimps and hookers, pushers and junkies jostling on the streets of “the capital of every ghetto town”.

12. Billy Joel – New York State Of Mind (1976)
NYC hook: The New Yorker might leave the city for Miami Beach or for Hollywood, but if they are anything like Bronx-born, Long Island-raised Billiam, they’ll miss the New York Times and Daily News (but not the Post, it seems) so much, they’ll feel compelled to return.

13. Ella Fitzgerald – Manhattan (1956)
NYC hook: On his wonderful radio show, Bob Dylan described the Rodgers & Hart song as a love letter to New York City. Who knew that Zimmerman had a way with words? Ella is full of giddy tenderness as she provides us with a partial road map of the city. Are pushcarts still gliding gently on Mott Street?

14. Hem – Great Houses Of New York (live) (2006)
NYC hook: Native New Yorkers Hem don’t need to mention the city in a song that incorporates its name in the title to prove that it’s set there. It suffices to refer to NYC’s winter climate as a metaphor for a dying relationship, a recurring theme in Hem’s beautiful songs..

15. The Mamas & The Papas – Twelve-Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming To The Canyon) (1968)
NYC hook: The Mamas and the Papas lived in New York before moving to Hawaii and then to California. It seems fair to say that they didn’t dig New York — “every thing there was dark and dirty “ — and this is their fuck-you note to the city. Most likely, the Daily News won’t be enough to lure them back.

16. Odyssey – Native New Yorker (1977)
NYC hook: Two decades before Thingymajig Bradshaw in Sex And The City made her, erm, acute observations about the politics of sex, Odyssey had it already figured out: “No one opens the door for a native New Yorker.” So, like, take charge of your life yourself, girl!

17. Elkow Bones & The Racketeers – A Night In New York (1983)
NYC hook: A sadly ignored club gem whose horns sounds like New York traffic to me. Delicious.

18. Nicole with Timmy Thomas – New York Eyes (1985)
NYC hook: What in the name of all that’s ophthalmological are these New York Eyes that have short-lived soul starlet Nicole attracted to ’70s soulster Timmy Thomas (who I presume provides the groovy keyboard here)? Whatever they are, reciprocally gazing at Nicole’s NY eyes, they make Timmy feel good inside.

19. Beastie Boys – An Open Letter To NYC (2005)
NYC hook: And it’s another love letter: “Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten, from the Battery to the top of Manhattan. Asian, Middle-Eastern and Latin, black, white — New York you make it happen.”

20. LL Cool J feat. Leshaun Williams – Doin’ It (1995)
NYC hook: Six people are credited with writing this droll ode to physical intimacy. None of them have sought to distance themselves from this lyrical gem which surely provides all the required evidence to support the notion that ladies really can’t help themselves but love Cool James. Mr Toddrattles off the specials on today’s hum menu: “It’s the first time together and I’m feeling kinda horny, conventional methods of makin’ love kinda bore me. I wanna knock your block off, get my rocks off, blow your socks off, make sure your G-spot’s soft” (you get hard G-spots? And, more importantly, how do you get away rhyming “off” with “soft”?). With Cool James, sex is a matter of territorial chauvinism, not unlike the so-called World Series. He points out that he represents Queens, whose residents may well jostle for prime bedside seats, the better to cheer on their local stud muffin. Cool James’ hopefully softly G-spotted friend was raised “out Brooklyn”, where she learnt to yearn for a “Big Daddy” who might “pull my hair and spank me from the back” and finish off with some “candy rain”. Just as the contender from Queens might, if his dick is as big as his braggadocio.

21. Ben Folds – Rock This Bitch (NYC version) (2004)
NYC hook: Some “motherfucker in Chicago” once shouted out “rock this bitch” at a Ben Folds gig, giving rise to a tradition whereby Folds (evidently reluctantly) improvises a new “Rock This Bitch” version on the spot. As he did in this recording from the 2004 Summerstage concert. “R.O.C.K. with your C.O.C.K. out, in N.Y.C.”

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New York City – Any Major Mix Vol. 1

Apart from the phenomenally popular Christmas mix, the first two volumes of Any Major Funk have been the most downloaded mixes on this blog. Acting on apparent demand, here is Volume 3, with a fourth installment in the works. Like all my mixes, this one is timed to fit on a standard CD-R. As before, these tracks cover the golden age of disco-funk, 1978-83. So put your hands up in the air and shake ‘em like you just don’t care.

TRACKLISTING
1. Stephanie Mills – Never Knew Love Like This Before
2. McFadden & Whitehead - Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now
3. Skyy - Let Love Shine
4. Narada Michael Walden – Shoulda Loved Ya
5. B.B. & Q. Band – On The Beat
6. Shalamar - I Can Make You Feel Good
7. Booker Newberry III – Love Town
8. Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway – Back Together
9. Champaign - Can You Find The Time
10. Earth, Wind & Fire – Let’s Groove
11. The Gap Band – Oops Upside Your Head
12. Chic - I Want Your Love
13. Odyssey - Inside Out
14. Heatwave - Groove Line
15. Roy Ayers – Don’t Stop The Funk
16. G.Q. - Disco Nights

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An splendid piece on disco, by the excellent Simon Price on The Quietus site, makes reference to mind the Disco Sucks movement which found full expression in the record burning bonanza at Chicago’s Comiskey Park in July 1979 (pictured). Price’s suggestion, not a new one, that the the Disco Demolition Night in particular was fuelled by racism and homophobia has some merit.

The negative reaction to disco was not invariably racist, of course. For starters, a lot of disco was produced by white people. Just as disco was a diverse collective, so were there different reasons for rejecting it. At Comiskey Park, at least, there was a distinct racist dimension as the mob of Lynyrd Skynyrd reactionaries incinerated records not only by disco acts such as Sister Sledge and Chic, but also those of Marvin Gaye and, for crying out loud, Bill Withers.

The charge of homophobia is more difficult to substantiate, even if some Village People albums found their way on to the pyre. Nonetheless, it has merit.

Disco was a broad movement borne of gay and soul-funk clubs alike. Sartorial flamboyance, funky basslines and synth experiments tended to blend across the sub-genres of what would become known as disco. The homophobia was not necessarily of a gay-bashing kind, but arguably was grounded rather in the disco culture’s threat to the prevalent models of masculinity. When the mob at Comiskey Park burnt Earth, Wind & Fire records, possibly while humming Emerson, Lake & Palmer, part of their unarticulated objection related to extravagant costumes worn by men who sang in girly voices (those tight pants, ha ha di-fucking ha)! Disco corrupted the traditional models of manhood; and it subverted prevailing social (and sonic) norms. Comiskey Park and the Disco Sucks movement were, in part, a reaction to that.

A few years later this threat to masculinity found expression again when many believed Prince to be a homosexual because of his Purple Rain stylings. Of course, Prince has bedded more beautiful women than many of his accusers might have even laid eyes on in their sorry lives. But the effete Prince subverted the standard notions of masculinity, and therefore he just had to be gay. Happily, times have changed.

Of course, the camp exploits of Dee Snyder and David Lee Roth, or indeed Kiss, did not cause infernos of vinyl. But these did their shtick with a nod and a wink their rock fan constituency could understand and relate to. Their brand of camp was amusing, not gay, with Snyder looking like a superannuated, hairy-legged hooker. The same sort of fans denied, at the pain of death, that Freddy Mercury was gay. And the Kiss make-up was not considered camp to them but extensions of the members’ personae. There was nothing here that threatened their concepts of masculinity like the unironic flamboyance of many disco stars.

But homphobia and racism surely were not the primary incitement for Disco Sucks. Disco sucked not because the music was bad (as some indisputably was) or because Verdine White played the bass while sporting silver flamingo wings. It sucked because, like punk, it ate itself. The exclusivism of clubs such as Studio 54 caused resentment — even among those who produced disco music. Chic’s Nile Rodgers and Bernie Edwards wrote Le Freak after they were denied entry to Studio 54. The original title was Fuck Off. And yet, how can the artists be blamed for the behavior of those who played their records. Effigies of nightclub owners, not records by the artists, might have made for more appropriate burning matter at Comiskey Park.

The anti-disco sentiment was fed by disco’s ubiquity, starting with Saturday Night Fever (a gritty film which disowns the phoniness associated with the Studio 54 culture, something usually overlooked in favour of Barry Gibb’s sterility-inducing trousers). Disco Sucks was in its essence a reaction to SNF and Travolta’s suit, and to Ethel Merman and Sesame Street recording “disco” albums, the hedonism of the élite, and the occasional musical horror which was falsely considered to be representative of disco.

And here we enter the final error of the Disco Sucks movement: the false notion that disco is a single, homogenous genre. As in rock music, there are common elements. Most disco songs have a 4/4 beat, basslines tend to drive the songs, and so on. And yet, take songs like I Feel Love by Donna Summer and Shoulda Loved Ya by Narada Michael Walden. Both fall broadly within the disco genre, but one is Euro-Disco and the other is what I’d call Disco-Funk. They are as different as Sweet Home Alabama is from A Whole Lotta Rosie. Then there was the pop-disco stuff such as Y.M.C.A. (though I’d be reluctant to call it disco), which is quite different from either Summer or Walden. Blondie’s disco stuff, Heart Of Glass or Atomic, represents yet another separate genre; it’s disco, of a sort, but not in the way Cheryl Lynn’s Got To Be Real is disco. Like Rock, Disco is a collective term for many sub-genres. Sample the different, and by no means comprehensive, strains of disco below. The headings are not necessarily official (OK, I made some up).

Disco Standards
Odyssey – Native New Yorker (1977).mp3
Taste Of Honey – Boogie Oogie Oogie (1978).mp3
The Trammps – Disco Inferno (1976).mp3
KC & the Sunshine Band – Shake Your Booty (1976).mp3
Chic – Le Freak (1978).mp3*
Santa Esmeralda – Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood (1977).mp3*
Jermaine Jackson – Let’s Get Serious (1979).mp3*

Disco Funk
Stretch – Why Did You Do It (1975).mp3
Roy Ayers – Don’t Stop The Funk (1979).mp3
Brothers Johnson – Stomp (1979).mp3
Earth, Wind & Fire – Let’s Groove (1981).mp3*

Disco Soul
Love Unlimited Orchestra – Love’s Theme (1973).mp3
George McCrae – Rock Your Baby (1974).mp3*
Jesse Green – Nice And Slow (1976).mp3*
Eddie Kendricks – Keep On Trucking (1973).mp3*

Euro Disco
Silver Convention – Fly Robin Fly (1976).

mp3
Donna Summer – I Feel Love (1977).mp3
Boney M – Daddy Cool (1976).mp3*
Baccara – Yes Sir, I Can Boogie (1977).mp3*
Patrick Hernandez – Born To Be Alive (1979).mp3*
Amanda Lear – The Queen Of Chinatown (1977).mp3*

Synth Disco
Space – Magic Fly (1977).mp3*

That’s 22 tracks: enough to make yourself a third volume of Any Major Funk.
Any Major Funk Vol 1
Any Major Funk Vol 2

And after love comes the break-up. We’ll deal with the long-term effects of that later. For now, let’s get caught in the moment of the break-up.

Kris Kristofferson – For The Good Times.mp3
Few songs are as much in the moment as this: Kris is proposing break-up sex to celebrate what must have been a great relationship, and to signify that the split is amicable (“There’s no need to watch the bridges that we’re burning”). There is still some love there (it is unclear who actually wants to leave). There is much tenderness in the chorus: “Lay your head upon my pillow.Hold your warm and tender body close to mine. Hear the whisper of the raindrops, blowin’ soft against the window,and make believe you love me one more time…for the good times.”

Crowded House – Better Be Home Soon (live).mp3
Interpreting Crowded House lyrics can be a precarious past-time. I read those for “Better Be Home Soon” (here a live version from the Farewell To The World album) as a desperate plea to save a relationship. Perhaps the couple has already separated, or one partner is playing away, or (as I read it) the couple is experiencing a great personal distance, but the protagonist is asking to fix a relationship that is dying. The effort must come from both sides: “So don’t say no, don’t say nothing’s wrong, cause when you get back home, maybe I’ll be gone.” This is a great song to play on guitar. For the tabs check out the Guitariotabs blog whence I borrowed this file from.

Missy Higgins – Ten Days.mp3
A relationship is certainly dying in this song, by another Australian artist, but not so much because the love has been extinguished, but as the effect of long-distance (“so tell me, did you really think…I had gone when you couldn’t see me anymore?”). Missy is “cutting the ropes”, even though “you’re still the only one that feels like home”.

Powderfinger – Wishing On The Same Moon.mp3
More Aussie heartbreak in this slow-rock song from last year’s Dream Days at the Hotel Existence album. The dude is still totally in love, but has been left. He’s not bitter yet (that’ll be dealt with in later posts); in fact “whenever you set free your devil smile on me, I melt”. The poor guy knows it’s over, and is now reduced to begging: “I’m calling out for you, pleading for your love. You’re falling from my view and there’s nothing I can do.” So, what does one do when one cannot be with one’s love? Why, look up at the stars and the moon, of course. That’s what they are there for, it’s what he and she can share: “I’m waiting in the afternoon for the sun to sink and let the night back in. It’s when I feel close to you, when the stars they swoon and bring their night time bloom.”

Prefab Sprout – When Love Breaks Down.mp3
An obvious break-up song from the great 1985 Steve McQueen album. There isn’t much drama in this split; the relationship is fizzling out, the inevitable being delayed to avoid the pain. They don’t see each other much, so “absence makes the heart lose weight, till love breaks down, love breaks down.” So, what will it be like when he’s single again? Paddy’ take: “When love breaks down, you join the wrecks who leave their hearts for easy sex.”

Carole King – It’s Too Late.mp3
Another song about love fading undramatically. “It used to be so easy living here with you. You were light and breezy and I knew just what to do. Now you look so unhappy and I feel like a fool” — that is such a brutal realisation. It’s over, but it is reciprocal: “There’ll be good times again for me and you, but we just can’t stay together, can’t you feel it too? Still I’m glad for what we had and how I once loved you.” They’ll have their memories, and they’ll be good.

Fleetwood Mac – Go Your Own Way.mp3
A classic in the genre, this track, from the 1977 Rumous album, was Lindsay Buckingham’s “fuck off” letter to Stevie Nicks. He wants to give her his world, but “how can I when you won’t take it from me”. Much has been made of the line: “Packing up, shacking up is all you wanna do”. Either Stevie was cheating (which she denies), or it refers to the rejected wedding proposal. Mick Fleetwood’s furious drumming and Buckingham’s angry guitar solo help to underscore the acidity of the lyrics.

Abba – The Winner Takes It All.mp3
Another song about band members splitting. Everything that has been said in praise of this song is true. Agnetha’s vocals are drenched in the pain of her own separation from Bjorn, who said he wrote it with a bottle of whisky as a companion. “I was in your arms, thinking I belonged there. I figured it made sense, building me a fence. Building me a home, thinking I’d be strong there, but I was a fool, playing by the rules.” The disillusionment of love, and trust, broken. The dude goes on to somebody else, (“but tell me, does she kiss like I used to kiss you?”). In this split someone is going on with life, the other feels foolish, desperate, frustrated and lonely.

Earth, Wind & Fire – After The Love Has Gone.mp3*
A marriage is blowing up after several good years, and our man can’t understand why. “We knew love would last. Every night, something right would invite us to begin the day.” Then things went awry. “Something happened along the way, what used to be happy was sad…” Words and melody combine to express an inner drama in the singer’s bid to make sense of it all (seeing as it’s Maurice White singing here, maybe a clue is in his sexual selfishness as revealed in yesterday’s post).

Odyssey – If You’re Looking For A Way Out.mp3
This is the saddest song among all these sad songs. A ballad from the funkster’s 1980 Hang Together album, the singer knows her man’s love has died, and puts the ball into his court. “Tell me I’m wrong”, but if she isn’t, “if you’re looking for a way out, I won’t stand here in your way”. Dude needs telling. She knows he cares: “Ain’t that just like you to worry about me. But we promised to be honest with each other for all eternity.” But she also knows that his love is gone: “Your kisses taste the same, but it’s just a sweet disguise.” Are you feeling tears coming on yet? Try this for size then: “Don’t look at the tears that I’m crying, they’ll only make you wanna stay. Don’t kiss me again, ’cause I’m dying to keep you from running away.” So what does the guy do when he is told: “Better tell me what’s in you heart. Oh baby now stop pretending, stop pretending, stop pretending”? He might be ready to tell her what’s in his heart, but then she adds: “Don’t you know I’ll always love you.” Checkmate.

This mix might come in time for your New Year’s Eve party: great disco/funk tracks from the glory years, 1978-82. The songs should fit on a CD-R.

I’ve tried to stay clear of the usual fare offered disco samplers, so no synth-driven Euro disco, no Bee Gees, no Michael Jackson, no Alicia Bridges, and damn well no Village People or Boney M. This mix is not supposed to encourage the “hilarious” donning of Afro wigs, white suits and other such hi-jinx as doing the Travolta SNF pose. This is for people who take the funk and disco seriously and groove to it joyously.

1. Odyssey - Going Back To My Roots (1981)
2. Cheryl Lynn – Got To Be Real (1978)
3. Raydio – It’s Time To Party Now (1980)
4. Billy Ocean – Stay The Night (1980)
5. Shalamar - A Night To Remember (1982)
6. Skyy - Here’s To You (1980)
7. One Way feat. Al Hudson – Push (1979)
8. Positive Force – We Got The Funk (1980)
9. Fat Larry’s Band - Act Like You Know It (1982)
10. Jimmy ‘Bo’ Horne – Spank (1978)
11. Sharon Brown – I Specialise In Love (1982)
12. Tom Browne – Funkin’ For Jamaica (1980)
13. The Whispers – Let’s Go All The Way (1978)
14. Hi Gloss – You’ll Never Know (1981)
15. Sister Sledge – He’s The Greatest Dancer (1978)
16. Webster Lewis – Give Me Some Emotion (1979)
17. Leon Haywood – Don’t Push It, Don’t Force It (1980)
18. Rodney Franklin - The Groove (1980)

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