Kool and the Gang recorded this great album live at P.J.’s in Hollywood California in 1971. The Album illustrated what great musicians these guys were, even through most of the band members were still teenagers at the time. ‘N.T’ (No title) is a funky bass led track with nice horns, flute and a drum break which has been sampled over 300 times. ‘Ricksonata’ has a slight Caribbean feel. There is great version of Charles Lloyd’s Latin groover ‘Sombrero Sam’ with great flute playing from D.T. ‘Ronnie’s Groove’ is a funky tune written and led by tenor man Ronnie Bell. ‘Lucky...
Ray Perez was a pianist and bandleader of seminal Venezuelan salsa group Los Dementes, recording seven albums between 67 and 68 with this outfit. Off the back of these initial successes, he was exported to New York where he worked alongside Kako’s orchestra (Francisco Angel Bastar) in the late 60’s. After finishing his stint in NYC, Perez returned to Caracas where he summoned the finest indigenous talent available to him at the time (Luis Arias, Alfredo Naranjo, Perucho Torcat, Larry Francia) and founded Los Kenya, an Afro-Venezuelan salsa group that were one of the rawest and most exiting contemporary musical...
We Want Sounds' latest compilation takes another look at Bob Shad's Mainstream Label and it's subsidiaries Brown Dog and IX Chains records that tried to harness more commercial funk, soul and disco sounds against the backdrop of the commercial failure of jazz in the seventies. This compilation takes some of the best and lesser-known recordings between 74 and 76, many of the selections reissued for the first time on vinyl. The comp opens with the instrumental and vocal versions of Grand Jury's Music Is Fun To Me, which sounds like a product of it's time, low budget disco-funk with shades...
This is the second release on Seb Whyte and Will Fox’s Motherlode Music label, dedicated to reissuing rare gems. Stratus were a cross-genre rock band formed around 1974 in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, led by Robert Ackley. Originally recorded in 1976 at Wildwood Recording Studios, an embellished description of a basement in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. This release was funded by a local dentist and promoted by ‘Cathy’, Ackley’s muse and inspiration for the release and the track ‘Girl’ in particular. Only 1000 copies were ever pressed, the majority of which were subsequently distributed by the band at shows as pseudo-business cards, with many...
Dexter Wansel's Life On Mars, What The World Is Coming To, Voyager & Time Is Slipping Away have been made avaiable on 2CDs from the BGO label. The CD package highlights some of the best output from the talented arranger, writer, musician and performer's four albums for Philadelphia International Records, dating from 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1979. Wansel started off in music as a keyboardist and synth player for some of the Philadelphia studio bands, such as MFSB and Instant Funk, while also getting gigs with the likes of Archie Bell and the Drells and Don Covay. The musical body of Wansel's work consists of space-age...
We are delighted to announce that we have three great 45's coming on our Soul Brother label in May. They are Harold McNair classic 60's British Jazz dancer 'The Hipster' made in a replica 4 prong label , Vaneese & Carolyn 'The Goodbye Song' a superb Rare Groove 2-stepper and Salena Jones versions of 'Am i The Same Girl' and the 60's Mod Jazz dancer 'Right Now'. The last two will be available as regular dinked or limited edition full centre DJ Copies Expansion also has three new 45's coming in May , Charles Earland 'Coming To You live', Future Flight...
William Bell recorded an impressive catalogue of albums and singles for the Stax label in a 13 year stay at the label . This second volume features the A and B sides of 12 singles released on the Yellow Stax label between 1968 and 1974. Amongst the many highlights are the often sampled atmospheric strung laden ballad 'I Forgot To Be Your Lover', mid tempo floater 'My Whole World is Falling Down',punchy bluesy soul ' Born Under A Bad Sign' the country soul ballad 'A Penny For Thoughts' and modern soul dancer 'You've Got The Kind Of Love I Need'....
Willie Hale a.k.a. Little Beaver (so dubbed as a child because of his prominent front teeth) was one of the extraordinarily talented musicians Henry Stone assembled at his Hialeah, FL-based T.K. Records label and its assorted imprints. Among the artists who recorded for Stone were K.C. & the Sunshine Band, Timmy Thomas, Gwen McCrae, Betty Wright, and Benny Latimore. Backing them on a lot of those records was Hale, laying down mellow and funky, jazz-influenced licks on his hollow-body Gibson. Hale’s talent was so distinctive that when Stone finally let Hale step out of the studio shadows to record his...
Hugely in-demand second Polydor studio album from Roy gets a US LP gatefold release for the first time. The Rare Groove era hails ‘We Live In Brooklyn Baby’ as one of the greatest tunes of its time. Check the ultra funky instrumental ‘Fire Weaver’. Other killers include ‘He’s A Superstar’, ‘He’s Coming’ and the original take on ‘Sweet Tears’ on this revered set from 1972. Try also the haunting ‘I Don’t Know How To Love Him. Group includes the legendary Harry Whitaker and Billy Cobham on drums as well as Ron Carter on ‘We Live In Brooklyn..’. Heavy duty set...
