things and time will tell.

Ann Sexton – You're Gonna Miss Me / You're Losing Me Seventy Seven Records – 77-133 Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, US, 1973 info I know I can write too much sometimes (much like my talking in real life, yes, I know), but this one should be quick. Continuing with the funk records (of various sorts) featured in the last couple posts, today we have a great lost single from 1973. I've got no stories to tell you about Ann Sexton.  Until I started writing this and saw that others have documented some of her history , I knew pretty much nothing about Sexton except that she was a Southern soul singer who, from the records I've heard, deserved to be much more widely remembered. I knew she had recorded a couple albums and a clutch of singles for Nashville's Seventy-Seven records and a few other labels though the 1970s. After that, she disappears (from the record bins and my radar anyway).  According to the internet, she got fed up with the music industry, left the south for NYC in ...

Stro Elliot – Black & Loud: James Brown Reimagined By Stro Elliot Republic Records – B0033643-01 Vinyl, LP, Album, US, 2022 info Many years ago, I was riding in a car with someone a little older (and a lot cooler) than me. The guy went on to become a pretty successful DJ and producer, so not shockingly, we were talking music. The thing that I always remember about this conversation is this moment when the Godfather of Soul gets mentioned and the guy turns to say to me in his most serious voice "James Brown invented modern music." True enough for me. Remixing absolute legends from decades ago is risky business. Remixing an album's worth of stone classics that form the bedrock of modern music? Not likely to end well. Stro Elliot pulls it off though on his recent album of James Brown reworks.  My last post featured a Jamaican rework of James Brown from many years ago  and I thought it might be fun to follow it up with this new effort. Elliot  has become a lot more visibl...

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...

Romain Virgo – Minimum Wage Penthouse Records – PHEU 007 Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, Germany, 2013 Info The minimum wage in Chicago went up yesterday, so I'm sharing this one to celebrate. Romain Virgo really caught my attention when I started hearing the young singer turn up on mixtapes in the early 2010s. Pop reggae to be sure, complete with lovers' songs and radio friendly hooks, all done well. So it's modern JA pop, but, at least on those early records and mixtapes that caught my ear, Virgo had a nice way of regularly working in tributes to the classic songs and rhythms slipping in his thoughts about the state of the world. Not big political statements, but even some of those lovers tunes were clear about where they stood, telling the stories of strugglers and working people. The first song I remember hearing by him, Rich In Love , is a good example. I am rich in love Financially I'm a pauper It's just you that I'm after... What's not to love? (If you check ...

Sun Ra - Mike Huckaby Bonus Beats! Mike Huckaby - Sun Ra Reel To Reel Session - Live at Amoeba Records, LA - July 13, 2017 & Sun Ra - "The Lady With The Golden Stockings" (Mike Huckaby edit) A  quick post: A few days ago I shared a couple 12"s of Sun Ra edits by Mike Huckaby . If you were feeling those all, here are a couple bonuses to keep that vibe going. I love this stuff.  The excellent UK label Strut Records has been releasing Sun Ra compilations and albums over the last ten years or so, sometimes partnered with Art Yard (who, along with the Kindred Spirits label, issued those Huckaby edit 12s back in 2011). I seems like they had been planning at some point to promote one of those compilations by reviving this idea and releasing some more "Mike Huckaby reel-to-reel edits." As far as I know, the only other track that ever made it's way into the world for us all to hear was  this edit of The Lady With The Golden Stockings  that the label posted to So...

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...

KRS-One (as Big Joe Krash) – Break The Chain, Vol. 1 No. 1 Marvel Music, Inc. – [no cat. #] Cassette, EP + Comic Book, US, 1994 info Last year I said something about a certain hip-hop meets Marvel comics TV show that was so out of my dreams that someone could have made it up just to mess with me. File this in that same folder: KRS-One and one of my favorite comic book artists teamed up to make a hip-hop, after school special style, comic for the kids, complete with a cassette featuring three all-ages, Return Of The Boom Bap  era Boogie Down Productions tracks that you've never heard. Almost has to be a story designed to send me on some e-bay/discogs wild goose chase... Except it's true and I just got my hands on a copy that's been sitting in someone's closet unopened for the last 28 years. 1994: record producer Marshall Chess (ex-of Chess and Cadet Records) somehow pulls Kris and brilliant cartoonist Kyle Baker into a Marvel Comics deal to produce an educational comic...