Free Soul – Essential Argo/Cadet Grooves Vol. 3 (ARC 510) (1991)

It was a barrel-shooting excersise the choice this morning to spend 50p at Mind in Cheriton on this Acid Jazz-inspired* Charly compilation of late-60s to late-70s funk-soul-jazz originally released on Chess Records subsidiaries Argo and Cadet and designed for the Rare Groove-head in your life.

As if the presence of Terry Collier’s ebullient “Ordinary Joe” and jazz harpist Dorothy Ashby weren’t enough clue-wise to convince me of purchase, the thanking of Soul Jazz Records (who must’ve only just been founded when this collection was issued), Honest Jon’s, James Lavell, Talkin’ Loud, etc. in the liner notes sealed the deal.

Interestingly, no information readily exists for Volumes 1 and 2 of this purported series.

*It says “File under Funki/Jazz” [sic] on the back cover.

The Undisputed Truth – Smokin’ (WHK 3202) (1979)

Producers don’t usually get front cover credit, but such was Norman Whitfield’s command over urbanspacegroup The Undisputed Truth that he’s namechecked in centered, 36-pt. type for all to see on premier face of the final UT Lp sleeve. Not that it seems to have done them much good, the record didn’t even chart and the album’s only single (“Show Time”) struggled to #55 US R&B. As it happens, while many of the right funky moves are made and not that this is a total washout by any means, there is a let-down, second-tier silliness about Smokin’–I mean, talk of  their funk being “a brand new thing” and “Tazmanian monsters” and whatnot, not to mention guff about “there’s life on other planets”–that smacks of trying-to-hard-with-things-we-don’t-really-believe careerism.

So: more smoke than fire.

Another £1-still-in-its-original-plastic googah from this afternoon’s ransacking of the Lord Whiskey Cat Sanctuary Tea Rooms*.

*I did not make this place up.

Average White Band – Soul Searching (SD 18179) (1976)

Yet another Average White Band Thrifty Vinyl post and yet another sparkling funk-soul album it is, too; though perhaps slicker, more L.A. than earlier Lps, a result, I think, of the Brecker Brothers horn sound. Apart from a general regard for AWB, one reason I was specifically interested in Soul Searching was hearing a studio cut of the Hamish Stewart/Ned Doheny song “A Love of Your Own” (a live take is on the Best Of), previously mentioned here. Having got used to Doheny’s tempered blue-eyed soul approach, Stewart’s more animated technique sounds a bit overheated, though after only two listens, I’m already getting used to it. Nothing is quite as distinctive as that song, but all of it’s good and it all sounds great thanks to legendary producer Arif Mardin. I thrifted the still-in-plastic US press Soul Searching this afternoon at the Lord Whiskey Cat Sactuary Tea Rooms in Rhodes Minnis on the way to Canterbury for but one pound sterling.

Ohio Players – Fire (1974)

Perhaps more visually literate Thrifty Vinyl readers can explain what, if any, symbolism is implied by the long, steamy fireman’s hose that the wet, naked woman in some sort of state of arousal is sensuously grasping and thrusting upwards on the cover of the Ohio Players Lp Fire.

Rufus Featuring Chaka Kahn – Rufusized (1974)

A deft combo of pop, funk and rock to satisfy even the most critical of Heart FM’s Saturday night Club Classics listeners.

More hot Norman Seeff action

Labelle – Phoenix (Epic EPC 69167) (1975)

Yes! A couple of Meters among the riddim section, Allan Toussaint behind the producer’s desk and Labelle in front of the mics–what could go wrong?

Well, mainly an overly dramatic, quasi-mystical, mini-suite approach to performance, songwriting and arrangement that has more in common with notionally “hip” 70s musicals like Godspell than the wonderful, minimal funk and soul associated with the Meters, Toussaint’s previous work or, indeed, “Lady Marmalade”. Admirable for its ambition, anathema for its lack of perspective–most of the credit/blame belongs to Nona Hendrix who wrote 80% of the songs here.

Earth, Wind & Fire – Last Days and Time (Columbia C31702) (1972)

Had for £2 at a Padstow bootfair, this is the first of many posts from this year’s Cornish vac.

Super fonky, conscious third EWF album (Phillip Bailey’s first and their Columbia debut) that, if not quite a five star Lp, still pushes most all the right buttons. Some shrill singing on side two puts paid to that pesky fifth self-luminous celestial body. Note the Bitches Brew/Satanic Majesties Request-style outer sleeve with the Riot Goin’ On /Check Your Head collage action on the inside gate fold.

And another example of the strange EMI/CBS licensing conundrum elucidated by Boursin here; surely some poor schmuck had something better to do than black out Columbia 10,000 times. And three different trademarks were painstakingly cut out from the back of the Lp jacket with an Xacto knife–Jesus H!

PS: If Wilberforce doesn’t have this, he should.

Slave – The Hardness of the World (Cotillion SD 5201) (1977)

After all these years I’m still always hopeful of finding a buried treasure, a five-star quality album, not necessarily valuable, especially one heretofore unknown to me; I suppose it is what drives most diggers of crates. But that hope dims like a 2am coal fire when confronted with elpees like The Hardness of the World by Dayton, Ohio’s Slave. A senseless and boring Prog-Funk album, with all the negative connotations that implies and the worst excesses of both genres (all chops, no chunes, fussy arrangement, etc.) cancelling out any good in either. Maybe they were exciting live.

Call it Career-Choice Funk by people who literally ask God to bless them “for having such wonderful parents”.

James Brown – “Rapp Payback (Where Iz Moses)” (RCA T28) (1980)

Speaking of Super Bad, here’s the man himself making a welcome appearance on 12″ at maison Asbo following the exchange this morn of 50 pence with a stall holder in Ashford. Something of a last gasp before technology rendered his style obsolete in the pop market, Soul Brother No. 1′s inevitable concessions to TK disco (for whom this was recorded), and I guess they were big ones given the man’s aesthetic in which syncopated beat had primacy, was to update his 1974 hit “The Payback” faster with a four-on-the-floor kick. Happily, this does not water down the funk one iota–it’s still pretty raw compared to most disco, and though there is acknowledgment of Funkadelic in feel, this is nowhere near as kooky as those former bandmates.

The relative scarcity of the JB twelve strikes me as odd since the nature of his singles so demands the foot-long format–I mean exactly how many of his 7″s were divvied up in the middle? The edit included on my Star Time box set only goes for 4:36; present company breaks down, then extends for another 2:24 of super badness. Even so, “Rapp Payback” was too mighty to be contained on one side and a Pt II carries on partying for another three and half minutes on the b.

Funkadelic – One Nation Under a Groove Lp + 12″ (WB 56 539)

I have purchased this album now four times in the last 30 years: in 1980, I bought a drilled cassette copy; later in the decade I found it, again, in the cut out section, this time on vinyl including bonus 7″ of “Maggot Brain”; both versions were since lost; in the 90s, I bought the Priority Records CD re-issue. However, I will be giving that copy to my friend Vince since I got this original WB vinyl copy for a quid today which includes a fugging awesome DJ helping bonus 12″ of the title song and previously mentioned “Maggot”, winner of the most overplayed guitar solo ever award.

And I will make it my life’s work to read every Pedro Bell cartoon on the glorious stoner friendly gatefold. Word.