things and time will tell.

Syl Johnson & Jimmy Johnson – Two Johnsons Are Better Than One Evidence – ECD 26122-2 CD, Album, USA & Canada, 2002 info A quick post, but after talking to R a couple days ago I realized I should share this one. Chicago lost two of our unsung musical treasures last week. Tragically, the losses came just a few days apart from the same family when soul singer Syl Johnson followed his big brother, blues guitarist Jimmy Johnson, in passing. Jimmy was 93 and Sylvester (who is also the father of R&B singer Syleena Johnson ) was 85. Jimmy was under appreciated, slugging away working the Chicago blues circuit for decades. He had backed other artists on guitar, but I'm pretty sure he was 50 or so before putting out an album under his own name. Syl was best known for the great soul sides he had cut in the late 60s and early 70s for Twinight here in Chicago and, later, Hi Records in Memphis. He kept recording blues and soul records for smaller labels into the 1990s, but his later ...

The Brothers And Sisters – I Am Somebody Toddlin' Town Records – 128 Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, US, 1969 info A quick break from the Lee "Scratch" Perry tributes to celebrate a birthday... (I hope you aren't too bored with the LSP productions yet though, still have a couple more planned!) Last weekend, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr. celebrated his 80th birthday. Far more important tributes were made, but I figured it was an excuse to share this with you. Reverend Jackson is an institution in my little corner of the world, and I don't say that critically. Organizations are ultimately just made of people. I've come to respect more every year just how fragile these things we build around us can be. And just how important it is to have institutions that weather the storms, that exist (even imperfectly) for our people to draw on, to find some basic structures and lessons when the time comes. The significance not just of his decades of activism, but of Black instituti...

Bobbi Humphrey ‎– Chicago, Damn Blue Note ‎– BN-XW395-W Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, US, 1973 info I think I've mentioned this before, but there aren't really enough quality flute-led funk songs in my life. Here's a favorite by flautist Bobbi Humphrey, served up on a 45 from Blue Note in 1973 in the midst of their soul jazz years. You can usually sign me up for the extended, 8 minute plus disco mix of a song I love, but I do really enjoy the shortened single edits of these two tracks from Humphrey's excellent Blacks And Blues  LP. Each has been chopped to less than half the length of their full album version, but, especially on the A side, it really does highlight the song's funk strengths. Chicago, Damn  is a classic in my book (and not just because it has one of the greatest song titles of all time). The song is written and produced by the great Larry Mizell and I'm pretty sure it features his brother Fonce on the Clavinet. Great synth and percussion, but of course...

Donny Hathaway And June Conquest ‎– I Thank You / Just Another Reason Curtom ‎– CR 1971 Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, US, 1972 Info Just a quick one. The great Donny Hathaway in two duets with the less well known June Conquest on this 1972 single. (How someone can remain obscure with a name as brilliant as June Conquest is beyond me.) Curtis Mayfield wrote the excellent A side and released this on his Curtom record label. I could be wrong, but I think the track was actually cut and first released as Hathaway's first single a few years earlier ('69?), but credited to just "Donny & June." Curtom presumably reissued it a couple years later to take advantage of the success he was finding with his first singles and LP on ATCO. Honestly, my 45 here sounds pretty awful. I'm pretty sure I was given it for free by someone who had it sitting in her basement for the previous 20 years. I loved it and I Thank You once saw regular play when I had a chance to DJ a soul set in a p...

A second appearance on this blog for the students of Chicago's Carver High School. Sharing their debut 12" featuring the Class of 1983  was half the reason I initially set this thing up, so I highly recommend checking it out if you missed it. By 1985, Carver's music teacher, John Harris, had picked up a Linn drum  and was ready to drop another of Chicago's earliest hip-hop records with a new crew of Carver High MCs... Carver High ‎– Boogie With A Book (Let's Read!) Challenger Records ‎– CH7300 Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, US, 1985 Info I can't tell you much more about Chicago's far South side rap pioneers than what I shared in that previous post. Two and a half years later and we get to see that these high school students (along with their music teacher and his Motherfox bandmates) were tracking some of the changes in hip-hop styles that were bubbling up. Again: this was 1985 . The Midwest wasn't exactly overflowing with homegrown hip-hop records yet... But...

With Chicago Teachers Union members across the city who are both missing their students pretty bad right about now and still trying to keep up the struggle, I thought this single might be appropriate... Baby Huey & The Babysitters 'Mighty' 'Mighty' Children (Unite Yourself This Hour) Curtom ‎– CR 1939 Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, US, 1969 For a few short years in the late 60s, James T. Ramey transformed himself into Baby Huey, a 300+ lb force of nature in the Chicago music scene. After a handful of singles on smaller labels and a wild reputation for their live performances, Baby Huey & The Babysitters were picked up by Curtis Mayfield's Curtom record label. Curtis himself produced three band's last couple of 45s as well as Baby Huey's only LP, "The Baby Huey Story - The Living Legend," which was released by Curtom posthumously after the 25 year old Huey died in 1970. One of those two Curtom singles included the Babysit...

Let’s see how this goes… We’ll kick it off with what must be one of the very first hip-hop tracks ever cut in Chicago. Artist: Carver Area High School Presents the Carver Seniors ‎– Class of ‘83 Get Live Eighty-Three, “83” Get Live (Senior Rap) and The Carver Senior Song Challenger Records ‎– CH-1000 Vinyl, 12", 33 ⅓ RPM, US, 1982 In the early 1980s, Challenger Records issued a small string of records featuring the students of Carver Area High School, now Carver Military Academy , on the far Southside of Chicago. Named for the school’s mascot and Challengers sports teams, the record label seems to have been driven by teacher and musician John Harris. They pressed up a handful of vinyl releases featuring the same logo that still shows up on the school’s jerseys . What’s the best you can really hope for from a senior class commemorative record? Well, when a high school band teacher sneaks a credit for his funk band, Motherfox, onto the back of a public school issued rec...