Canyon - Top Of The World (Make My Reservation)

Glammy, good time, party hard rock, pop with crunchy guitars ala The Sweet or maybe Slade...

Canyon - Top Of The World (Make My Reservation)

Jiri Schelinger - Metro, Dobry Den (A National Acrobat) - Podj (Heart Of Gold)

Pretty wild Czechoslovakian cover songs from Black Sabbath & Neil Young from 1975 by Jiri Schelinger.

Jiri Schelinger - Metro, Dobry Den (A National Acrobat)

Jiri Schelinger - Podj (Heart Of Gold)

Shirley Caeser - Stand The Storm

I'm not the biggest gospel fan in the world but i just picked this album up on the cheap and this track rocks in a funky, soulful & rocking sort of way. It would have really been great if there was killer fuzz solo in the middle or end. Still pretty cool. Sounds like something Tina Turner or Merry Clayton would have done.

Shirley Caeser - Stand The Storm

Sir Mack Rice - Dark Skinned Woman - Part 1 & Part 2

This record makes me feel good. And not just because the tunes are great but because this was a gift from a friend that came just at the right time. I hadn't been feeling to well starting last wed. night and on through the weekend. I wound up going to the hospital Monday night with what i found out was acute appendicitis. With in a few hours i was in the operating room. A quick night at the hospital and return home to a new package sent from a record friend who has been more generous through the years with vinyl than i can ever re-pay him back. So i know i've gone on rants before about record ass-wipes and how many unscrupulous record jerks there out out there but for everyone of those there seems to be more "good guys" than bad. This is from one of them. The good guys.

Thanks brother!

As for Sir Mack Rice and this track:

Mack Rice (born Bonnie Rice, November 10, 1933, Clarksdale, Mississippi), is an American songwriter, whose compositions have been performed by many well-known artists, including The Staple Singers, Ike and Tina Turner, Albert King, Johnnie Taylor, Shirley Brown, Rufus Thomas, Etta James, Billy Eckstine, Eddie Floyd, Buddy Guy, The Rascals, Wilson Pickett, Albert Collins, Busta Rhymes, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Otis Clay and The Blues Brothers (in Blues Brothers 2000).
Some of his better-known songs include "Respect Yourself", "Betcha Can't Kiss Me (Just One Time)", "Cheaper to Keep Her", "Cadillac Assembly Line", "Money Talks", "Cold Women With Warm Hearts", "Do the Funky Penguin, Pt. 1", "It Sho Ain't Me", "Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin'", among others. His best known composition and only hit as a solo performer is "Mustang Sally."
Rice began his work in the R&B field in the 1950s based in Detroit, performing with the Five Scalders in 1956 and with the Falcons (fellow band members included Eddie Floyd, Wilson Pickett and Joe Stubbs) from 1957 to 1963. He performed as a solo vocalist in the years to follow, but his biggest successes were as songwriter for other artists on labels like Stax and others in the 1960s and following decades. He began his solo vocalist career at Stax in 1967, recording on Atco Records beginning in 1968. Rice is one of the few musicians whose career touched both Motown and Stax Records.
In 1992, backed by the soul band The Dynatones, Rice released his first solo album, "Right Now" on Blue Suit Records. On it he reprises a number of his hit songs along with a mixture of new tunes.
Rice lives in the Detroit area, and is still performing.

The tune from 1975 but it right at the year when funk started turning disco but it's still funky enough to stay clear of the disco ready for the dancefloor production or corniness of later years disco syrup....


Cheers!
dd


Sir Mack Rice - Dark Skinned Woman - Part 1

Sir Mack Rice - Dark Skinned Woman - Part 2

Funkhouse Express - Get Into Funky Music

Another funky flea market find here with Funkhouse Express doing Get Into Funky Music from 1975. Its a little laid back disco/funk jam that just slides along with a smooth groove. It's not stone mint but i aint complaining for a buck.

Funkhouse Express - Get Into Funky Music

Willie Colón - MC2 (Theme Realidades)

Latin Funk Supreme!

The Devil's Music quietly slipped passed 1 million hits over the labor Day Weekend and i was to busy out & about to really do any "blog" celebrating, but I did pick up this wicked Latin funk 45 for a mere 50 cents over the weekend. So here goes, in honor of my one millionth hit.... MC2 by Willie Colon from 1975 on the Fania label.

As for Mr. Colon, here is his Wiki:

William Anthony Colón (born 28 April 1950) is a Nuyorican salsa musician. Primarily a trombonist, Colón also sings, writes, produces and acts. He is also involved in municipal politics in New York City.

Willie Colón was born in the South Bronx, New York, to Puerto Rican parents. He picked up the trumpet from a young age, and later switched to trombone, inspired by the all-trombone sound of Mon Rivera and Barry Rogers. He spent some summers at his maternal grandmother’s sister’s (La finca de Celín y Ramón) farm in in the outskirts of Manatí, Puerto Rico on the road to neighboring Ciales, Puerto Rico.[1]
He was signed to Fania Records at 15 and recorded his first album at age 17, which ultimately sold more than 300,000 copies. Due to fortuitous events, the main record producer at Fania at the time, Johnny Pacheco, recommended Héctor Lavoe to him.[2]
Mr. Colón has been a civil rights, community and political activist since the age of 16. He has served as a member of the Latino Commission on AIDS and the United Nations Immigrant Foundation, President of the Arthur Schomburg Coalition for a Better New York, member of the Board of Directors of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.[3] In 1995, Mr. Colón became the first minority to serve on the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) national board and is now a member of the ASCAP FOUNDATION.[4][5]

Musical career

Beyond the trombone, he has also worked as a composer, arranger, and singer, and eventually as a producer and director. Combining elements of jazz, rock, and salsa, his work incorporates the rhythms of traditional music from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Brazil, and "that 'other' ancestral homeland, Africa", representing the mostly one-way flow from Puerto Rico to the New York-based diaspora.[6] "His life and music commute back and forth between his home turf in the Bronx and his ancestral Puerto Rico, with more than casual stop-offs in other musical zones of the Caribbean."[6] Colón "makes the relation between diaspora and Caribbean homeland the central theme of his work," particularly in his 1971 Christmas album, Asalto navideño.[6] The lyrics and music of the songs on this album "enact the diaspora addressing the island culture in a complex, loving but at the same time mildly challenging way."[6][7]
He went on to have many successful collaborations with salsa musicians and singers such as Ismael Miranda, Celia Cruz and Soledad Bravo, and singer-songwriter Rubén Blades.[8] On his website, Colón claims to hold the "all time record for sales in the Salsa genre, [having] created 40 productions that have sold more than thirty million records worldwide."[9]
One significant overarching theme in Colón's music, which draws from many cultures and several different styles, is an exploration of the competing associations that Puerto Ricans have with their home and with the United States. Colón uses his songs to depict and investigate the problems of living in the U.S. as a Puerto Rican,[10] and also to imply the cultural contributions that Puerto Ricans have to offer.[6]


Willie Colon - MC2 (Theme Realidades)

Oliver Nelson And His Orchestra - Skull Session

Ever wonder where them West Coast gangsters got that smooth and funky keyboard sound & groove from...???

Oliver Edward Nelson (June 4, 1932 in St. Louis, Missouri – October 28, 1975) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, arranger and composer.

Oliver Nelson's family was musical: his brother was also a saxophonist who played with Cootie Williams in the 1940s, and his sister sang and played piano. Nelson began learning to play the piano when he was six, and started on the saxophone at eleven. From 1947 he played in "territory" bands around Saint Louis, before joining the Louis Jordan big band from 1950 to 1951, playing alto saxophone and arranging. After military service in the Marines, he returned to Missouri to study music composition and theory at Washington and Lincoln Universities, graduating in 1958. While back in his hometown of St. Louis, he met and married the former Miss Eileen Mitchell. From this union came a son, Oliver Nelson Jr.. Oliver and Eileen divorced, and, after graduation, Nelson moved to New York, playing with Erskine Hawkins and Wild Bill Davis, and working as the house arranger for the Apollo Theater in Harlem. He also played on the West Coast briefly with the Louie Bellson big band in 1959, and in the same year began recording as leader with small groups. From 1960 to 1961 he played tenor saxophone with Quincy Jones, both in the U.S. and on tour in Europe.

After six albums as leader between 1959 and 1961 for the Prestige label (with such musicians as Kenny Dorham, Johnny Hammond Smith, Eric Dolphy, Roy Haynes, King Curtis and Jimmy Forrest), Nelson's big breakthrough came with The Blues and the Abstract Truth, on Impulse!, featuring the tune "Stolen Moments," now considered a standard. This made his name as a composer and arranger, and he went on to record a number of big-band albums, as well as working as an arranger for Cannonball Adderley, Sonny Rollins, Eddie Davis, Johnny Hodges, Wes Montgomery, Buddy Rich, Jimmy Smith, Billy Taylor, Stanley Turrentine, Irene Reid, Gene Ammons and many others. He also led all-star big bands in various live performances between 1966 and 1975. Nelson continued to perform as a soloist during this period, though increasingly on soprano saxophone.
In 1967, Nelson moved to Los Angeles. Apart from his big-band appearances (in Berlin, Montreux, New York, and Los Angeles), he toured West Africa with a small group. He also spent a great deal of time composing music for television (Ironside, Night Gallery, Columbo, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, and Longstreet) and films (Death of a Gunfighter and he arranged Gato Barbieri's music for Last Tango in Paris). He produced and arranged for pop stars such as Nancy Wilson, James Brown, the Temptations, and Diana Ross. Less well-known is the fact that Nelson composed several symphonic works, and was also deeply involved in jazz education, returning to his alma mater, Washington University, in the summer of 1969 to lead a five-week long clinic that also featured such guest performers as Phil Woods, Mel Lewis, Thad Jones, Sir Roland Hanna, and Ron Carter. Nelson died of a heart attack on 28 October 1975, aged 43.

This track also featured Lonnie Liston Smith: Lonnie Liston Smith, Jr. (born December 28, 1940 in Richmond, Virginia) is an American jazz, soul, and funk musician who played with important free jazz artists such as Pharoah Sanders and Miles Davis before forming Lonnie Liston Smith And The Cosmic Echoes, recording a number of albums widely regarded as classics in the fusion / Quiet Storm / smooth jazz and acid jazz genres.

Oliver Nelson And His Orchestra - Skull Session

Pan Earth - The Mandingo

Some killer funk jams here from 1975 on the Family Spirt record label. 75 is a little late in the funk game w/ most tunes by then crossing over into the disco category but these hold pretty true. Some Funky & FUZZY & buzzy guitars help the cause as well! If you follow this blog at all ya know how the devil feels about fuzzy guitars!!! I think the instrumental version is even better/fuzzier where the git can really be heard w/ out the vox... As for Pan Earth i know nothing. I took a shot based on title alone, and thinking it might be disco because of the year i almost didn't, but i'm glad i did as this one has made a bunch of mixes and comps for friends. Hope you dig it as much as me...?

Pan Earth - The Mandingo

Pan Earth - The Mandingo Instrumental

Skull Snaps - Al's Razor Blade

Skull Snaps was a mysterious funk group that released one eponymous album on the small GSF label in 1973 before disappearing. They were in fact the group originally known as The Diplomats who had released numerous singles between 1963 and 1970 with middling success.

Original vinyl copies of Skull Snaps' one and only LP continue to exchange hands on the rare groove market for three figures. There are two reasons for this: one, it's rare, and two, the drum breaks from the album have been feasted upon for samples so frequently that samples of the samples have likely been sampled. It's not that the album is spectacular — it's merely a decent early-'70s funk record from some accomplished musicians who don't exactly leave a trademark of their own throughout its nine songs. This soul-drenched funk album is most notable for the drums of "It's a New Day." It's the album's strongest cut, and the opening drum pattern is as ubiquitous they come — you can hear it get put to re-use in well over two dozen popular rap songs.

Today to get your weekend started I give you this single from 1975 that does not appear on the very collectible Skull Snaps full length album! A very cool groovy funky instrumental jam with plenty of wicked guitar work, just what the devil digs! Dig?

Skull Snaps - Al's Razor Blade

Billy Larkin - The Devil In Mrs. Jones

So instead of the Devil in Miss Jones here we have the Devil Mrs. Jones...

A funky little country bopper with some cool organ about this poor sucker being tormented by Mrs. Jones... I wonder what she looked like...???


Billy Larkin - The Devil In Mrs. Jones

Deodato - Black Dog

DJ Prestige turned me on to this nugget and since he used it in his Summer Sweep mix I don't he'll mind if i post it proper for you all to take in on this Friday!

One more for the Led Zep covers vault:

The low down:

Eumir Deodato (born on 22 June 1943 in Rio de Janeiro) is a Grammy Award-winning Brazilian musician, producer and arranger primarily based in the jazz realm but who historically has been known for eclectic melding of big band and combo jazz with varied elements of rock/pop, R&B/funk, Brazilian/Latin, and symphonic or orchestral music. [1] Mainly, his records can be categorized as pop jazz or crossover jazz. His successes as an original artist (keyboards) occurred mainly in the 1970s. Since then, he has produced more than 500 albums for acts ranging from Kool and the Gang to Björk and k.d. lang.

Deodato was born Eumir Deodato Almeida on 22 June 1943 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, of Italian and Portuguese parents. He is a musical autodidact, starting with the accordion at age 12 but rapidly learning instrumental and orchestral skills that culminated in his first recording session at age 17. Originally working as pianist and arranger in the Rio bossa nova scene, he rapidly outgrew this and, along with many other Brazilian musicians during the military dictatorship[citation needed] in their country, moved to New York, working with composer Luiz Bonfá and later with producer Creed Taylor as an arranger. Additionally, he became keyboardist in Taylor's expanding group of backing artists.


Recording career
His first album in the USA, Prelude, released in 1972, was of a big band Latin jazz style that immediately attracted a wide audience. His funky version of Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra won the 1973 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance and went No. 2 in the pop charts in the US and No. 7 in the UK. It was subsequently used to great effect in the 1979 film Being There, starring Peter Sellers and Shirley Maclaine. It was also covered extensively by the rock band Phish in their live performances and included in several of their live releases.

His second album, Deodato 2, despite being of the same style and quality, however failed to meet sales expectations, and practically led to the demise of the record label CTI (Creed Taylor Inc.).[citation needed] His early career records used guitarist John Tropea and quintessential jazz fusion flautist Hubert Laws. Deodato continued recording until the late 1980s on the Warner Bros label, but never reached the level of his early successes, although two singles, "SOS, Fire In The Sky" and "Are You For Real", were Top 20 Billboard Dance hits in 1985.

Two of his songs, 'Latin Flute' and 'Super Strut' are featured in the video game: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and on the subsequent soundtrack, titled "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Vol. 7 - Radio Espantoso".


Producer and arranger
Deodato has been in demand as a producer and arranger since the 1960s. In all, he has worked on over 500 albums, fifteen of which have reached platinum. His skills as an arranger provided entree to the American recording industry, writing charts for Wes Montgomery, compatriot chanteuse Astrud Gilberto, and most notably Frank Sinatra, the results of which were released as the bossa nova side of Sinatra's 1971 LP, Sinatra & Company. Other collaborations have included production duties for Kool and the Gang in the early 1980s, the first soloalbum by Kevin Rowland of Dexys Midnight Runners in 1988 and orchestrations for Björk on her 1997 album Homogenic. Deodato had previously worked on Björk's song "Isobel", making a mix which was later released on her album Telegram, produced by Björk, Nellee Hooper, Tricky, Howie B. and Deodato himself. In 2007 Dedato co-produced the single called "Paris, Tokyo" which is on the album Lupe Fiasco's The Cool. He has also written scores for a number of films.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Deodato - Black Dog