Kathleen Loves Music

Bulldogs photograph by iDream_in_Infrared’s

Mississippi Fred McDowell & Honest Tom Pomposello > Bulldog Blues [Dance Remix]

This track is cool. Very cool. It’s the electro blues, yawl. It’s never been released anywhere, so heads up.

It sure is nothing like you’ve ever heard before. Try it, you’ll see. A holy alliance of the legendary country blues musician Mississippi Fred McDowell and his student, mentor, and friend (and my friend) Tom Pomposello, the tracks were recorded in the winter of 1971 (they were, in fact, Fred’s last recordings before he passed away in 1972), and overdubbed/remixed in 1998 by Tom (also his last project before he passed away in 1999) and Lenny Kravitz’s partner, composer/producer/mixer Dave Baron.  The 26 years between sessions is the secret sauce.

After recording Fred’s last album, Tom asked Fred for some coaching at a demo session. Fred wanted to sing along with Tom’s guitar, and Tom, nervous about his still forming skills thought [Read more…]

If you’re a fan of Doug TenNapel’s films or videogames, you’re probably also a huge fan of the fabulous composer Terry Scott Taylor, even if you’re not aware of it. I sure am, and since Frederator Studios is trying to make the movie version of Doug’s famous videogame The Neverhood, I thought I share what a great time I’m having with Terry’s songs and music from the game, Terry S. Taylor’s Imaginarium: Songs from The Neverhood (on Dreamworks/Stunt Music).

You’ll have to buy the two-disc set to get all the songs and demos in full quality (and a whole bonus disc of Skullmonkeys music) and the great liner notes story by Terry. Loving classic cartoon music (and though there’s nothing whatsoever old fashioned about this soundtrack, it’s obvious so do Terry and Doug) I can never get enough of this soundtrack (and remember, this was for a game).

Play on shuffle. Have a great day.

1. Klaymen Shuffle
2. Olley Oxen Free
3. Everybody Way Oh
4. Rock and Roll Dixie
5. Cough Drops
6. Skat Radio
7. Lowdee Huh
8. Klaymen’s Theme
[Read more…]

The Impressions > We’re a Winner

It doesn’t take much to get me in an impressionistic mood, so our friend Steve Woolf’s photo and title moved me there today.

Was Curtis Mayfield the most impressive singer/songwriter of his day? Of his genre? Probably. And it’s probably why it took me so long to pick a single to feature here. I ended up with We’re a Winner because aside from being a favorite I seem to remember it being a core sample for something from the Space Jam soundtrack, so I thought some of the older young folk reading might recognize it.

–Fred

Joan Osborne > How Sweet It Is

Joan Osborne never quite registered on my radar. She was a wonderful singer who sang a hit I liked (the bluesy video for “One of Us” was great) and she was one of the modern day highlights of The Funk Brothers’ Standing in the Shadows of Motown, but nothing really made her break through for me. In fact, I’ve been meaning to post this CD since I started this blog, but somehow nothing compelled me to complete the thought.

One day a few years ago I was out having a business breakfast and in the background there was a song playing that had a familiar feeling, but I knew I didn’t know it at all. I never pay attention to the words but I wanted to know about the track and the lyric “how sweet it is” kept repeating. I knew it wasn’t the Marvin Gaye song, but [Read more…]

KC & The Sunshine Band > Keep It Comin’ Love
KC & The Sunshine Band > I’m Your Boogie Man

OK, go ahead and laugh. I love K.C. & The Sunshine Band. Why? Because they were one of the great Southern funk bands. Really.

I never saw the band in the flesh until the 90s (by which time they were a pale nostalgia act playing a Nick-at-Nite party) but on television they were a revelation. Like everyone else, I’d dismissed them as a pop disco band. But watching them focused me on the band who grooved as hard as anyone I’d ever seen including James Brown and Kool & the Gang. A white rhythm section & African-American horns it turned out they were among the studio musicians who’d backed Betty Wright, George & Gwen McCrae, and lots of others in TK Records‘ Florida heyday. Richard Finch and Henry Casey (K.C.) wrote material for all of them, including [Read more…]

Harold Melvin & the Bluenotes > The Love I Lost

If you think you know this song because it was a ubiquitously enormous hit, listen again. The hit was “The Love I Lost Part 1” and this one is the whole six minute version.

So what difference does it make?

Well, I’d pretty much forgotten myself until I heard it again on satellite radio the other day. This record was at the height of HM&TBN’s tenure at Philadelphia Intl. with Gamble & Huff and when Teddy Pendergrass was at the height of his powers. And what heights they were.

Teddy was one of the great improvisers of all time. You can hear it about halfway through this record. Teddy starts working over the rhythm section and the repeated vocal choruses like it’s the last time he’s going to sing again. And while he’s doing it he takes us to church (as Dan Meth mentioned to me today) and teaches us [Read more…]

Fred Wesley & the J.B.s > Doin’ It To Death

Never was a song so aptly named. (Put it on a loop, play it all day, and I guarantee the result.)

Though the official assignation was “Fred Wesley & the J.B.s”, they could have just as easily been “Maceo & the Macks”, “The Last Word”, or just plain (not vanilla) “The J.B.s“, all essentially the later instrumental recordings of James Brown. James was in such demand twenty years into his career that the market just couldn’t absorb yet more singles, so he just kept releasing them under whatever name made sense that day.

This single just seems like a JB party from start to finish. From the opening “Hit it!” to “We’re gonna have a funky good time” through “We’re going to take you highhhhhhherrrr” everyone sounds like they just showed up, hit the deep groove and kept going all night. The fade out must [Read more…]

Lester Bowie > Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag

What I completely missed when I stopped listening to the avant-garde in jazz in the late 70s was Lester Bowie’s sense of humor. And the fact that as members of the same generation we probably liked the same breadth of music (after all, he was married at one time to Fontella Bass).

So when Lester died several years ago and I heard this track on the radio I was bowled over and went out and bought every one of Lester’s solo CDs. I already had a lot of his Art Ensemble of Chicago recordings, but I chased these like they were the Holy Grail. Sure he’s progressive, but he’s also funky, he’s funny, he’s serious.
[Read more…]

Charles Walker & the NYC Blues Band > Scratch My Back

The whole story of this record is too long and too good to go into in one short blog post. (Some day on the Oblivion blog.) Suffice it to say it goes from discovery to borrowed guitars in South Bronx pawn shops to money borrowed from friends to a Harlem funeral with dueling, crying wives.

My friend and partner Tom Pomposello was a bluesman (Italian, from Long Island, but truly, a bluesman) with an evangelical vision of New York, more known for Frank Sinatra and the Brill Building than blues. I’ve forgotten right now where he first met Charles, but Tom became convinced he was the ticket.

Subsequently he fell for every scam Charles laid on us, particularly the ones that required an immediate cash outlay (”You can never move too fast in this business, Fred.”) all the way to Charles’ aforementioned [Read more…]

Mississippi Fred McDowell > My Babe

In late 1971 I was 20 years old and visiting my hippie friend Tom Pomposello at his “liberation” record store in our home town of Huntington, Long Island. He asked if my college radio staion had any recording equipment, and would I please come to the (Greenwich) Village Gaslight and record him playing bass with bluesman Mississippi Fred McDowell. The only blues I knew about was what I’d seen during the rock blues revival at the Fillmore East like B.B. and Albert Kings, but I figured that anyone with “Mississippi” in their name playing the very cool Gaslight must be famous. How Tom came to be playing with anyone famous is a question unanswered to this day. I dragged my friend Roy down with me and the mono tape recorder; we recorded the show and played it on my radio show.

A couple of years later Tom and I got the bright [Read more…]