The Magnificent Goldberg

1. Ha! I was about to cite King Curtis as excatly that. I absolutely agree with you there, Kenny! And the continuity continues with the James Brown band - Eldee Williams is virtualy an unreconstructed honker (but what a player on those early JB instrumentals!), but St Clair and Maceo relate more clearly to Soul, and to King Curtis. And also Pee Wee, with a Rollins influence (Sonny, not Harold ). Indeed. Over here, we didn't start making a distinction between R&B and Soul until well into the mid-sixties. Good call. Especially in regard to his recording of "Fine and mellow", which I lurve dearly. Yes. I keep meaning to get a 5 Royales album, but never have. Is there room for a recommendation in this thread? I think you're probably right as regards vocalists, but not instrumentally. It wasn't only Booker T & the MGs; there was a quite large bunch of R&B/Soul/Funk bands like the Mar-Keys, the Packers, Little Mac & the Boss Sounds, Don & Dewey, the Bar-Kays, Watts 103rd St Rhythm Band, Garnell Cooper & the Kinfolks, Rex Garvin & the Mighty Cravers, The (Fabulous) Counts, the Sonny Knight Quartette and quite a few others whose records have surfaced in compilations by Funky 16 Corners - and Noj has a good few more. There are a good few of these bands included in the Rhino compilation "What it is: Funky Soul and Rare Grooves", as well as quite a few jazz musicians who were recording material that really was riding both the R&B/Soul/Funk rail and the Jazz rail. And in the sixties, Latin bands emerged from roots coming from this tradition, as well as more conventional Afro-Cuban traditions - Mongo Santamaria, El Chicano, the Afro-Blues Quintet + 1, Pucho & the Latin Soul Brothers. I hear a continuity in all this from the honkers, through the organ groups of Bill Doggett, Lorenzo Holden, Tommy Dean, Ernie Freeman, etc into the sixties bands. There are no real boundaries in all this, just marketing initiatives MG

You forgot "What are you drinking, now" - which gets my vote. Or, do you mean what wastes most time in the most enjoyable way? If so, it's gotta be "Sexiest album sleeves". MG

And the Patterson Christmas album, with the same title as the Timmons. PLEASE! MG

Our man Flint Jesse Stone Pebbles

So, how would such a performer get a hearing? MG

A bit more modern jazz Cedar Walton - Cedar - Prestige (Transatlantic UK) now Bill Hardman - Politely - Muse Both with Junior Cook - v nice. MG

I think that's what Steve was saying, though he didn't put it neatly, as you did. I always thought of MW, HW and LW as a louder, City version of the Mississippi John Hurts & R Johnsons. And I felt there was a big difference between them and B B King, T-Bone, Lowell Fulson and others. The obvious thing was that there was a lot of jazz in those latter people's music, much as there had been in late forties/early fifties R&B. And still was in Ray Charles' records. MG PS - Oh, and the fact that T-Bone and Lowell came from way out west made a difference, too.

That's the ticket! MG

A bit more blues Little Walter - Hate to see you go - Chess (All Platinum) then some modern jazz Leo Parker - Rollin' with Leo - BN DMM MG

Yeah, it's OK if you like poppy kinds of music like jazz; you probably CAN get whatever you want, somehow or other, if you're prepared to pay the price. On the other hand, if you're looking for contemporary music from Francophone West Africa, good luck on the web, sonny - go to West Africa for it. And for records from the sixties/seventies/eighties, well, tough, bud. Can't even get a download of Jackie Ivory's "Soul discovery" (Good thing I've got the LP ) MG

Pulled out a few blues LPs for today, starting with Buddy Guy - In the beginning - Red Lightnin' (Artistic and Chess sides. RL001!) next Lonesome Sundown - Been gone too long - Joliet (P-Vine) MG

Sir Charles Irving Irving Berlin Alexander

More to the point, if he was that purist he could never have written 'Wonderful Tonight'! I've broad ears but thats my 'non plus ultra'! Don't know that song. Shrug. MG

Dudes, you (or rather Fantasy) reissued the same titles on SACD years ago. This is like promoting "HD-remastered" DVDs, when the same titles are available on Blu-ray. My goodness! Surely you're not implying that there's one born every minute? MG

Well, he wasn't THAT purist. I recall some interview where he said his favourite record in his collection was Don & Dewey's "Soul motion"/"Stretching out", (which he had on the original label - Rush - though it's MUCH more difficult to find the original British issue, on Pye's Cameo-Parkway label, which sold about 6 copies). Don & Dewey were a well-known west coast R&B vocal duo, who had learned violin and organ. Don was later better known as Sugarcane Harris. The single was produced by Sonny Bono. Well, it's an ACE single. Not Blues, not Jazz, not R&B, not Soul, but just fantastic. MG

Snow White Mister Snow Frosty the Snowman

Is it CHEAP to remaster an album? MG

The letters on some of the keys of my PC are coming off, too (But it's teaching me to type without looking down ) I'm not sure that it really required a special historical appreciation to get into R&B in the sixties. As I recollect (at least for myself) the first thing I ever read (but I was already a fan, just didn't know the history) that pointed to R&B and the R&B aesthetic was a 1961 article in the Record Mirror (a pop paper of the time) about Clarence "Frogman" Henry, between the British release of "But I do" and "You alwas hurt the one you love". The article was written by someone called Jones, who I think was the assistant editor or something quite senior in the RM. That was followed, next week, by a load of letters from readers who wanted more of this kind of educational stuff. And so the RM became the pop magazine of choice for fans of all kinds of black pop music (except jazz). Yes, there was lots about Soul, of course, because that was pretty well unknown to most pop buyers at the time (eg Marvin Gaye, in 1963, was a "Great unknown" - Motown had no British hits until 1964), but there were articles on all sorts of people; Blues, Gospel, R&B, Soul and, later, Funk. But also Rockabilly, which was perceived as being relevant, too. I also recall some brief histories of indie record companies. Funny, I usually read the New Musical Express in those days, because it had excellent listings of all forthcoming releases, including catalogue numbers, so I could pre-order stuff. But that week of the Frogman article, I happened to pick up the Record Mirror (as well? instead? dunno). Some accidents have a big effect. MG

Hm, well, we'll see. Thank you all. MG

Benin is very overlooked. I don't have much from there, but it's good. Thanks for the tip. MG

Ivory Coast Thank you, Rod MG

Good grief! $80 a set! Bollocks to that! I'm a professional cheapskate; average price I pay for CDs is $7-8. Maximum ever (when I was at work) was about $60 (for an LP). Thanks folks, but I'm clearly out of my league in even thinking of this. MG

MG Not sure where this one's from MG

Jocko Henderson Symphony Sid The Mighty Burner

Each to his own. I'm no fan of either, but this strikes me as both absurd - and inaccurate, in the sense that the cultural landscape was so different. Even if you consider Winter a "white boy playing (at) the blues", he nevertheless came up in era quite different from navel-gazing that attended WM's career. Each is concerned with only a small fraction of the past of the music that they love, which they believe to be the crucial bits of those kinds of music. For example, has Johnny Winter ever shown any interest in Joe Liggins, Charles Brown, Roy Milton, Harmonica Fats, Esther Phillips, Big Maybelle? (I don't know the answer to that question, by the way, so it isn't rhetorical.) MG