rockin pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu

As i trudged down Bourbon Street in the stifling 95 degree heat, past the shop windows with the miniature Louis Armstrong figurines and the bars blasting out some kind of modernised Dixieland, my heart began to sink.

If anything New Orleans was starting to resemble nothing more than the town i grew up in back in the UK, Blackpool. The same tacky insistence on reminding us of 'What a party town we were in!" the same tired shop facades that had clearly seen better days and the same misguided attempt to make a cash cow out of a name.

When in 1995 me and my then girlfriend had booked a trip round the USA and were deciding where to go, New Orleans was at the top of the list of potential destinations, but ultimately it was the most disappointing. We were there for just over a week, but my abiding memories is fat tourists with 'I love New Orleans' T-shirts a huge swamp rat who lived in the fire place of our guest room (he used to come out at night when the light was off and make loud digesting noises) and a couple of Pool hustlers who i (stupidly) beat at pool and who according to a local we made friends with had spent the rest of the night looking for me with a gun. I started to kind of hate Jazz music.

But over the last few years I've been thinking more and more about New Orleans and how, unfortunately, I'd been completely unaware of an awe-inspiring strain of soul and funk that these days continuously blasts out of my speakers come most weekends. A bunch of musicians, singers and arrangers (including Allen Toussaint. The Meters, Eddie Bo, Betty Harris, Lee Dorsey and Irma Thomas) whose names are unfamiliar to most, but who, to soul and funk aficionados, represent some of the most enduring names in the genre.

Now I could fill another 20 paragraphs writing about how James Black’s drumming fills my soul like few other musicians, or how nobody makes me dance AND smile like Lee Dorsey does. I could also write about how this music actually does have connections with the old Dixie Land scene (A main feature of Jazz in New Orleans were the Jazz Funeral Marching bands. Solemn Brass bands accompanying a coffin would, on burial, be joined by a second line of drummers and dancers, which would turn the event into a celebration of the spirit cutting free from earth. This is where New Orleans Soul & Funk takes it origins). But I wont. Music this beautiful and true should be listened to, danced to, drank to.

I will mention that if you want to dip your toe into this fertile scene, the Soul Jazz compilations are an excellent place to start, also there’s a fantastic blog called Funky16Corners which has led me to some amazing discoveries from this (and many other) soul & funk scene(s).

Now for some tunes:

Lee Dorsey - Give It Up


Eddie Bo - Hook N Sling (Part 1)



The Meters - Just Kissed My Baby 

Roger and the Gypsies - Pass the Hatchet (pts 1&2)

Betty Harris - Break In The Road



Aaron Neville - Hercules

  
Inell Young - The Next Ball Game


see ya!

Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before

Did indie become alternative or did alternative become indie? Is Spotify going to kill iTunes? Were Duran Duran a better pop band than The Kaiser Chiefs (Does anybody care?) What kind of album would Buddy Holly have produced in the mid-sixties? Was the demise of Top Of The Pops a victim of digital tv or noughties pop? Why couldn't have Otis Redding missed that plane?

Why hasn't everybody heard of Benny Profane?

Seriously, if there's a better, more overlooked band, like ever, i'll eat my stetson hat. The first song i heard by Benny Profane (on the John Peel show, summer of '89 - see previous post), "Stitch That" blew my head off and i immediately checked out it's parent album, "Trapdoor Swing". What an amazing hybrid. Musically i could hear shades of The Fall, Johnny Cash, The Velvets, Frankie Laine, Frank Sinatra and loads of old cowboy tunes , whilst lyrically it was referencing or alluding to pretty heavyweight writers such as Pynchon, Pinter, Vonnegut and Heller, not just for a pose, but actually following their attempts of decomposition, or blurring of high and low culture into a three minute pop song. Pretty mind blowing stuff for a 17 year old. I naively thought that it was only a matter of time before they were massive, that's what happens when somebody writes music good as this right? But they split up one year after i discovered them (not however before i'd snaggled a support slot for my first band The Cherrydales
at their final gig at Blackpool Jenks...)disillusioned with a lack of success.

My favourite Profane tune is probably one called 'Here Comes The Floor' which is rich with dazzling imagery, but here's that first track i heard, "Stitch That", excuse the slightly leaden 80's production and dig those lyrics and delivery. stitchthat.mp3

"and now the sounds of the limitations of our existence from the maddening crowd"

The Squire Of Somerton. i could write a book about The Squire, or Toby Jenkins as he's known to his friends, of whom, happily, i'm one. Out of all the artists i've worked with over the years, nobody who's deserved such success has achieved so little. This is a man who, when on the top of his form (and excuse me if i gush), has the melodic range of Brian Wilson, the abilty to out 'tap' Joe Santriani and can make Elton John's piano paying sound like Les Dawson. Whether as a member of Fort Lauderdale, Zan Pan or solo, The Squire has been knocking out twisted, top notch, proto-psychedelia for the last decade with absolutely no due recognition. The last i heard Toby was writing a ballet based on Mikhail Bulgakov's Master & Margarita, which will no doubt be exasperating, exhilarating and completely ignored.

Listen to this track (on which The Squire plays everything), the various interweaving themes and melodies the way the words and music are there for an absolute reason, the sheer joy a musical journey can take you on if you allow it and then gasp at the guitar solo which Toby once described to me as a mere mortal reaching for the stars... Squire of Somerton - Transverberrations.mp3

I find as i get older, i dance less often, but enjoy it more and more. I think this could be partly because i've learned which music gets me going and there's nothing that gets me going more-so than Lee Dorsey's Yes We Can (Part 1). Now, if you hadn't guessed already the general theme for this post was to write about artists who i think have been unfairly neglected and as a result it was touch and go whether to include Lee, as here is a man who hit the charts both here and in the USA, but my point is... Why the hell is Yes We Can and Lee Dorsey himself for that matter not an absolute unmitigated, respected part of the Rock/Pop/Soul cannon in the same way that Otis, Sam Cooke or Issac Hayes are? Why did i have to wait until i was in my early thirties before i heard this monster?

Download this and keep it kids, keep it for those night when you push the sofa back and kick your shoes off... lee dorsey - 01 - yes we can part i.mp3

Be good now...