This is Eddie’s House, Junior

 

Just got back from getting my first Covid vaccination.

 

 

Not really sure what I'm feeling about it all. It should mean somethin' but as usual, nothin'. It all seems so...kinda strange. With everything we've all been going through since early last year, perhaps I'm not really aware of how numb I've become. But it's more than that. It's like it's some...odd deja vu. Like I already saw this moment happening but I have no inkling of what comes next. But I ramble on...it's probably just the drug...been listening to "Death Letter" too much...

February 28

 

 

Always thought it weird that Black History Month was given February (yeah, Abraham Lincoln & Frederick Douglass' birthdays), the shortest month of all. Systemic racism or just my pessimism? Last day of the month, thought I'd post up all my leftovers. 

Incorporated Thang Band - Lifestyles of the Roach & Famous, Warner Bros 1-25617, 1988.
all decryption codes in comments

Side 1 -
Body Jackin'
Storyteller
Still Tight
Androgynous View

Side 2 -
Jack of All Trades
I'd Do Anything for You
What if the Girl Says Yes?
44-22-38

P-Funk spin-off - the Andre Foxxe connection.

 

Trey Lewd - Drop the Line, Reprise Records 9 26319-2, 1992.

I'll Be Good to You
Hoodlum who Ride
Duck & Cover (Nuclear Butt-Bomb Booty Bang Bang)
Yank My Doodle
Rooster
Nothing Comes to a Sleeper but a Dream
Wipe of the Week
Drop the Line
Man of All Seasons
The Next Thing You Know (We'll Be)
Squeeze Toy

Andre Foxxe, Trey Stone, &  Tracey Lewis (son of George Clinton & Tamala Lewis) connection.

 

 

Black Nasty - Talking to the People, Enterprise ENS-1031, 1973.

Side One -
Talking to the People
I Must Be in Love
Nasty Soul
Getting Funky Round Here
Black Nasty Boogie

Side Two -
We're Doing Our Thing
I Have no Choice
It's Not the World
Rushin' Sea
Booger the Hooker

Mentored by Johnnie Mae Matthews, Black Nasty featured her son Artwell Matthews on drums & her daughter Audrey Matthews as a lead singer.

 

 

 

Bobby Womack & J.J. Johnson - Across 110th Street OST, United Artists UAS 29451, 1972.

Side A -
Across 110th Street
Harlem Clavinette (instrumental)
If You Don't Want My Love
Hang on in There (instrumental)
Quicksand
Harlem Love Theme (instrumental)

Side B -
Across 110th Street (instrumental)
Do it Right
Hang on in There
If You Don't Want My Love (instrumental)
Across 110th Street Part II

More Bobby...you can never have too much Womack. Instrumentals by J.J. Johnson.

 

 

& wrapping things up, we mustn’t forget the Blues on Black History Month...

Son House - Father of the Delta Blues 2xCD, Columbia C2K 48867, 1992.

CD1 -

Death Letter
Pearline
Louise McGhee
John the Revelator
Empire State Express
Preachin Blues
Grinnin' in Your Face
Levee Camp Moan

CD 2 -

Death Letter (alternate take)
Levee Camp Moan (alternate take)
Grinnin' in Your Face (alternate take)
John the Revelator (alternate take)
Preachin' Blue (alternate take)
President Kennedy (previously unreleased)
A Down the Staff (previously unreleased)
Motherless Children (previously unreleased)
Yonder Comes My Mother (previously unreleased)
Shake it & Break It (previously unreleased)
Pony Blues (previously unreleased)
Downhearted Blues (previously unreleased)

Eddie James House, Jr...from Riverton, Mississippi to Detroit, Michigan to the World.

 

 

 

 

 

Hopefully saving the most important lesson for last, hoping to make that lasting impression. 

Black history is American history. American history is Black history.

Enjoy,
NØ

Soul Men

 Four Lessons

 

 

Studying the lives of the following four musicians will teach a great lesson in Black History. I will leave it to others better equipped & better acquainted to tell those tales.

Here are a few choices:
Curtis Mayfield - People Never Give Up, author Peter Burns
Bill Withers - Still Bill directed by Damani Baker & Alex Vlack: documentary 1h 18m
Bobby Womack - Midnight Mover memoir: autobiography
Charles Bradley - Soul of America, a documentary directed by Poull Brien

These men tasted Amerikkka at it bitterest & its sweetest. They filled their music with that heady repast & all its intimate tastes. If we just listen & learn, enjoy to the depths of our souls, we will all be better people.

Curtis Mayfield

Curtis Lee Mayfield (June 3, 1942 – December 26, 1999) was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, & record producer. Mayfield was one of the most influential musicians behind politically conscious African-American music.  Mayfield sang openly about civil rights & black pride. He is  known for introducing social consciousness into African-American music. Having been raised in the Cabrini-Green projects of Chicago, he witnessed many of the tragedies of the urban ghetto first hand. Curtis was quoted saying "With everything I saw on the streets as a young black kid, it wasn't hard during the later fifties & sixties for me to write my heartfelt way of how I visualized things, how I thought things ought to be."

Curtis Mayfield - Give, Get, Take, & Have, Curtom CU 5007, 1976.
all decryption codes in comments

Side 1 -
In Your Arms Again (Shake It)
This Love is Sweet
P.S. I Love You
Party Night

Side 2 -
Get a Little Bit (Give, Get, Take, & Have)
Soul Music
Only You Babe
Mr. Welfare Man

Bill Withers

William Harrison "Bill" Withers Jr. (July 4, 1938 – March 30, 2020) was an American singer-songwriter & musician. Withers was known for his "smooth" baritone vocals & "sumptuous" soul arrangements. He wrote some of the most covered songs of the 1970s, including "Lean on Me" and "Ain't No Sunshine". The ultimate homespun hitmaker, Withers had an innate sense of what might make a song memorable. He had little interest in excess attitude or accoutrements. Ultimately Withers reminded us that it's the everyday that is the most meaningful: work, family, love, loss.

Bill Withers - Lovely Day: The Very Best of..., Columbia 520146 2, 2005.

Lovely Day
Use Me
Just the Two of Us
Lean on Me
Ain’t No Sunshine
I Don’t Know
Who is He (& What is He to You?)
Harlem
Kissing My Love
Hello Like Before
Let Me Be the One You Need
Watching You, Watching Me
In the Name of Love
Tender Things
Lonely Town, Lonely Street
I Don’t Want You on My Mind
Grandma’s Hands
I Want to Spensd the Night
I Wish You Well

 

Bobby Womack

Robert Dwayne Womack (March 4, 1944 – June 27, 2014) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, & record producer. Born in Cleveland's Fairfax neighborhood, near East 85th Street & Quincy Avenue, Bobby was the third of five brothers. They all grew up in the Cleveland slums, so poor that the family would fish pig snouts out of the local supermarket's trash. He had to share a bed with his brothers. His mother told him he could "sing his way out of the ghetto." Recalling his childhood, Bobby said, "We came up very poor.  The neighborhood was so ghetto that we didn't bother the rats & they didn't bother us. Womack honestly recalled his frequent drug use. Womack said he began using cocaine sometime in the late 1960s. He had become close friends with Sly Stone & was an enthusiastic participant in Stone's infamous drug binges. Womack told Rolling Stone in 1984: "I was really off into the drugs. Blowing as much coke as I could blow. And drinking. And smoking weed and taking pills. Doing that all day, staying up seven, eight days. Me & Sly were running partners."

Here's Bobby's very last hurrah...

Bobby Womack - The Bravest Man in the Universe, XL Recordings XLCD561, 2012.

The Bravest Man in the Universe
Please Forgive My Heart
Deep River
Dayglo Reflection
Whatever Happened to the Times
Stupid Introlude
If There Wasn't Something There
Love is Gonna Lift You Up
Nothin' Can Save Ya
Jubilee (Don't Let Nobody Turn You Around)

 

 

 

 

Charles Bradley

Charles Edward Bradley (November 5, 1948 – September 23, 2017) was an American singer. After years of obscurity & a part-time music career, Bradley came to prominence in his early 50s. He had traveled the world but in the mid 90s he returned to Brooklyn to be near his mother. It was there he began making a living moonlighting as a James Brown impersonator in local clubs under the name "Black Velvet".  While performing as "Black Velvet", he was eventually discovered by Gabriel Roth (better known as "Bosco Mann"), a co-founder of Daptone Records. Bradley's performances & style were consistent with the revivalist approach of Daptone Records, celebrating the feel of funk & soul music from the 1960s / 1970s.

Charles Bradley - No Time for Dreaming, Daptone Records DAP-022, 2011.

The World (is Going Up in Flames)
The Telephone Song
Golden Rule
I Believe in Your Love
Trouble in the Land
Lovin' You, Baby
No Time for Dreaming
How Long
In You (I Found a Love)
Why is it so Hard
Since Our Last Goodbye
Heartaches & Pain

Nothin' can save ya.

Enjoy,
NØ