things and time will tell.

Horace Andy + Sly & Robbie – Zion Gate Tropical Dubwise – TD12001 Vinyl, 12", 45 RPM, Maxi-Single, Stereo, France, 2021 info A modern Horace Andy follow up to my last post, on this re-cut of his 1973 song  Zion Gate . His voice is in great form as he delivers this reminder to live righteously before it's too late. I appreciate the spiritual clarity at a moment when the world seems pretty dedicated to handing me complication. Andy has released some quality records in the last few years, especially two brilliant LPs for On-U Sound. As much as I like his reinvention in the 90s and 2000s through his work with Massive Attack, it's been great hearing such successful new reggae recordings from this veteran, 50-odd years into his career. Horace Andy teamed up with Sly and Robbie on this single, released just a few months before Robbie Shakespeare sadly passed away in December, 2021. Sly & Robbie lead their classic Taxi Gang band on the backing track and don't disappoin...

Brentford All Stars / Dub Specialist – Greedy G / Granny Scratch Scratch Soul Jazz Records – SJR478-12 Vinyl, 12", 45 RPM, UK, 2021 info It's hard to overstate the importance of Studio One in Jamaican music. The late Coxsone Dodd's record label is easily the most important in the history of reggae and the rhythms from his 1960s and 70s productions are still regularly getting a new shine and re-versioned for the  riddims  of today. Those tunes, revamped for the 1980s dancehall era by the Roots Radics and others, make up some of my favorite musical obsessions. All that said, I'm sharing a Studio One record today, but it's something else altogether. This is a recent 12" single from the UK collecting two Studio One tracks cut that I'm pretty sure were cut in the early to mid 70s. But these aren't the early reggae or rocksteady classics, instead we get two storming funk cuts. On  Greedy G ,  the Brentford All Stars (one of the regular names used for Coxson...

Sun Ra – The Mike Huckaby Reel-To-Reel Edits Vol. 1 Kindred Spirits, Art Yard – KSAY-MH01 Vinyl, 12", 45 RPM, Netherlands, May 2011 info Sun Ra – The Mike Huckaby Reel-To-Reel Edits Vol. 2 Kindred Spirits, Art Yard – KSAY-MH02 Vinyl, 12", 33 ⅓ RPM, 45 RPM, Netherlands, Sep 27, 2011 info Before I had ever bumped into the word afrofuturism  (and long before I saw it  turning up in pop culture commentary ), I had gained Sun Ra in my musical vocabulary. And while it had never been my scene at the time, Detroit techno was there playing in the background, too.  I won't give a long speech, but let me say this: Neither Sun Ra nor Mike Huckaby's music proclaims itself as "political." Their records don't immediately or overtly identify themselves as reflecting the radical imagination that movements need (and that Black leaders, artists and organizers have so often provided). I'm no expert on jazz and even less so on techno. I really don't know Sun Ra or Hu...

Jill Scott – Slowly Surely (Theo Parrish Remix) Label: Not On Label (Theo Parrish) – JSTP 1 Vinyl, 12", 33 ⅓ RPM, Single Sided, Unofficial Release, UK, 2002 info Slowly Surely is hands down my favorite song by Jill Scott, remixed here by one of Detroit's most important house producers, Theo Parrish. I already loved the original track off her first album when I heard this single-sided bootleg 12" a couple years later (2002?). Parrish made something magic here, working with an already beautiful song and building it into a deep house epic. Jittering, clicking beats give way to bass over looping sounds from the original track. (How great is that sample- Anyone know where it comes from?) Percussion, echoing handclaps, and other mysterious sounds and beats flow in and out of the mix, topped by layer upon layer of Jill's voice until a mellow soul cut becomes some kind of dense, psychedelic, dancefloor ecstacy. My wife and I saw her live years ago. I remember us talking,...

Boogie Down Productions – Jack Of Spades / I'm Still #1 Jive – 1169-1-JD Vinyl, 12", US, 1988 info About a week ago, S sends a text to me and R saying "I know y'all are watching this brilliance!" Um... I had forgotten. A few seconds of panic followed as I tried to piece together what I had dropped the ball on. Another text or two and I realized it wasn't a union press conference or something that I was missing, but something far more important and profound: the KRS-One/Big Daddy Kane "Verzuz" battle! My son had it up on his iPad a minute later and we got to catch an hour that gave me more joy than anything I've seen on TV in years. Plenty of other places to  see what you missed ,  hear some highlights from the battle  or  read some color commentary . Of course I think KRS won, but I'm biased. My Boogie Down Productions cassette tapes were life changing. KRS-One got called "the Teacha," but it wasn't just that his rhymes and com...

Nuyorican Soul featuring Jocelyn Brown & Roy Ayers – I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun / Sweet Tears Talkin' Loud – TLXX 26, Giant Step Records – 574 969-1 Vinyl, 12", 45 RPM, Single, UK, Oct 13, 1997 info Look, I'm often a mess. That's just par for the course and whatever is stressing me out on any particular day probably isn't dramatically changing my playlist. Sure, there are songs that mostly get a spin when I've got some anger to work out and others that come out when the clouds break and I'm in a lighter mood . But when life actually feels  broken , when things are clearly impossible and I just can't will myself into seeing how progress is possible, there are two or three songs that I go back to over and over again. I'm definitely not the most religious person that you know, but I think I'd say those songs give me hope on some kind of spiritual level. Faith? Maybe. It's not completely rational and I gave up trying to self-analyze on ...

Chumbawamba ‎– (Someone's Always Telling You How To) Behave Agit Prop ‎– AGIT 666 Vinyl, 12", Maxi-Single, UK, 1992 info Ahem. Ok, let's deal with a few things up front.  1. Yes, they are the same band that did that one song in the late '90s .  2. No, that isn't their only song. They were together for 30 years, roughly 15 on either side of their one bonafide international hit. Started as a punk band before discovering samples and dance music and ended their career as a legit folk music group, but had a good long run as an anarchist pop band in the middle.  3. Yeah, I got it- you remember their song being  about drinking booze and getting up again . But I swear, they spent decades as serious radicals playing music . They funded and supported 100 causes, have the only 1990s pop music video I know of about shooting racists , and kept trying to figure out what a pop band could contribute to the movements . (It's not in the video, but at that same awards show, after...

Raphael Green & Dr. Alimantado / Hugo Blackwood & Dr. Alimantado – Rasta Train / Reggae Music Upsetter – no catalog number Vinyl, 12", 45 RPM Jamaica, 1977 info I got a really nice email the other day from a good friend who I haven't seen in far too long due to a conspiracy of the pandemic, many miles, work commitments, and my pathologic inability to pick up the phone and talk to people. (Sorry.) He told me that listening to the Police And Thieves 12" that I posted recently had sent him down a Lee Perry rabbit hole. So a contribution to that particular obsession... This 1977 single has Lee Perry producing two very different songs with two obscure singers, each paired with the great deejay, Dr. Alimantado for these extended 12" disco mixes. The A side features Raphael Green and the good Doctor on the upbeat Rasta Train . Backing vocal "shoobee doobee doo" harmonies might be from the Heptones? It would have been right around the same time that they we...

Junior Murvin ‎– Police And Thieves Island Records ‎– 12WIP 6539 Vinyl, 12", 45 RPM, Single, UK, 1980 info Junior Murvin's Police And Thieves has to be one of the most memorable pieces of reggae songwriting ever. Urgent lyrics delivered with the gentleness of Murvin's unmistakable Curtis-Mayfield-in-JA falsetto and the production magic worked up by Lee Perry on the Upsetters' backing track combine to make something special. It's one of the reggae songs that everyone would know if there was any justice in this world. Of course, the lack of justice in this world inspired the lyrics when Junior Murvin and Scratch wrote this in 1976, then quickly recorded the single at Perry's Black Ark studio. The lyrics tell of gang violence and even worse police brutality. The words were clearly spilling out of the Kingston headlines of the day, but they've also tragically proven timeless. New versions of this still get cut every few years, easily translating to different c...

Afrika Bambaataa & The Godfather Of Soul James Brown ‎– Unity Tommy Boy ‎– TB 847 Vinyl, 12", 33 ⅓ RPM, US, 1984 info 25 minutes of James Brown diving head first into hip hop ala 1984, brought to the party by his greatest NYC disciple, Afrika Bambaataa. They rap against cold war greed and violence and the virtues of funk over live breakbeats supplied by some of my favorite musicians. It's a shame this record isn't more remembered, it's a gem. The '80s weren't packed with new highlights in the James Brown discography, but hanging out with the Universal Zulu Nation brought something out in him and the Godfather of Soul gives a great performance on Unity . Maybe he enjoyed hearing his music being kept fresh. Maybe he was moved by Bambaataa's obvious joy at getting to record with his hero. Or maybe he was just feeling inspired to preach that day on the power of funk, the dangers of nuclear war, the importance of education and the gospel of " peace, uni...

Linval Thompson / U Brown ‎– Train To Zion Label: Socialist Roots (no cat. number) Vinyl, 12", 45 RPM, Jamaica, 1976 info This "disco 45" came out in 1976 on the short lived record label of the Socialist Roots Hi Fi sound system in Kingston, during a period of growing political violence that was shaking the city. Despite the sound's affiliation with the then-increasingly leftwing People's National Party, Socialist Roots released this peace song calling on the armed factions of both the PNP and their rival JLP to put down the guns and ride the Train To Zion  (or at least come work it out in the dance). The great Linval Thompson stars here, in his days as a roots singer before hitting it even bigger as a producer in the '80s dancehall era. In Jamaican "discomix" style, Thompson's Train To Zion mixes straight into a deejay version by U Brown (which was also released as a standalone 7" under the title Black Star Liner ). Excellent performance...

Working Week ‎– Inner City Blues Virgin ‎– VSX 1273 Vinyl, 12", 45 RPM, Canada, 1985 Info I would have felt clever if I'd gotten my act together to post a Working Week record for May Day. International Workers' Day and Mothers' Day just came and I wasn't able to keep up here, but better late than never... I hope they were good for everyone. Today: The 12" single of Working Week's 1985 take on a Marvin Gaye classic. The band had it's roots in Weekend, a group fronted by singer Alison Statton after her time in Young Marble Giants. Some of YMG's quirky, minimalist, indie pop snuck through to the earliest Weekend recordings, but Weekend's lounge and jazz leanings took the lead during their brief 1981-83 run. By the time of their last record, they were joined by pianist Keith Tippett for a live album recorded at the famous London jazz club Ronnie Scott's. Weekend called it quits in 1983, but guitarist Simon Booth and saxophonist Larry Stabbins d...

While we're on the topic... Wood, Brass & Steel ‎– Funkanova / What Cha Say White label ‎– AN-001-A Vinyl, 12", 45 RPM, Unofficial Release, US, 2005 info This is a 2005 white label featuring Kenny Dope re-edits of two disco funk burners from Wood, Brass & Steel. Kenny Dope Gonzalez is best known for his house productions as half of Masters At Work, but the guy's soul, funk and disco credentials run deep with many years of disco mixes, hip-hop productions, and running his Dopewax and  Kay-Dee Records labels. Kenny slipped these mixes into the world on one bootleg 12" and, as far as I know, they've never been issued anywhere else (other than one track popping up on CD-R promo mix CD he made once promoting a Kenny Dope disco compilation). It's a shame, these are something special. I had forgotten I had this- even better than I remember! Both tracks come from WB&S's 1976 self titled LP. By now Doug Wimbish had officially joined the group on bass. ...

A Keith LeBlanc and Adrian Sherwood production from 1984, paying tribute to the massive Miners Strike then taking place in the UK. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this is probably the greatest pro-union, electro hip-hop single of all time. (I dream of a world where it would have more competition!) The Enemy Within - Support The Miners Rough Trade - RTT 151 Vinyl, 12", 45 RPM, UK, 1984 More info on Discogs Tracklist A        Strike B        Strike (General Mix) Keith LeBlanc is an American drummer, probably best known for his 1983  No Sell Out  single, released by a still new Tommy Boy Records. The record was credited to Malcolm X, whose  cut up speeches were set over a LeBlanc produced beat . Although claims that it was the first record to use "sampling" or the first to use a DMX drum machine are laying it on a bit too thick,  No Sell Out  is rightly celebrated as a key moment in hi...

Short and sweet today... A D'Angelo cover of what might be my favorite Prince song. Is there another artist in the last 25 years that you'd trust more to do justice to a Prince cover? Capitol Records ‎– SPRO 7087 6 12813 1 6 Vinyl, 12", Promo, US, 1997 info A She's Always In My Hair B She's Always In My Hair D'Angelo + Raphael Saadiq + Questlove + Prince. Do you really need to know more? I missed this back in the day, when it first came out buried in a late 90s horror movie soundtrack. A promo single was also released, on crackly vinyl in the US and CD for Europe and Japan. I eventually grabbed a copy of the 12", washed, recorded and the worst of the pops removed this week. Same track on both sides, so hopefully you'll forgive me for only putting one of them on here. (From side 2, if you're curious...)  I put some work into it but just don't have the hours that someone could spend trying to clean up the recording of this terribly noisy reco...