Playlist - 12/16/2017

Root Down (And Get It) – Jimmy Smith

1972 Album Cover, Jimmy Smith Live!

Dissinfordollars – Bernie Worrell

Let Me Lay My Funk On You – Poison

Poison

Big Footin’ – Parliament

Walking Home Together – Maceo Parker

Everybody wants to be from Space

Funk Funk – Cameo 

Galaxy – War 

Which Way Do I Disco? – Fuzzy Haskins

LP Cover, Whole Nother Thang by Fuzzy Haskins, 1976

Open Sesame, pt 2 - Kool & the Gang (link is to clip from Saturday Night Fever (1977) featuring this song)

Mr. Cool – Rasputin Stash

Detail from 1971 LP Cover, Rasputin's Stash [sic]

You Don’t Need a Dance! – Breakestra    
Cloud Nine – The Temptations
Detroit – Paul Humphrey & The Cool-Aid Chemists

Mandrill showcase (Five Sets All the Way Live)

Pages from booklet included with Just Outside of Town (1974)

Fencewalk (1973)
Mango Meat (1974)
Ali Bombaye I (Zaire Chant) (link is to Ali fight in Zaire with crowd chant)
Funky Monkey (1977)
Lord of the Golden Baboon (1972)
Cohelo (1972)

Back Cover, Mandrilland (1974)

Side One of Mandrilland (1974)

Positive Thing

Positive Thing +
Skying Upward

The Road to Love

Armadillo

Livin' It Up (1976)
Hang Loose (1973)

Mandrill (1971)

LP Cover, Mandrill (1971)

Suite: Peace and Love (Amani na Mapenzi)

— Movement I (Birth)

— Movement II (Now)
— Movement III (Time)

— Movement IV (Encounter)

— Movement V (Beginning)

Can You Get It (Suzie Caesar) (1977)

Children of the Sun (1972)

Rear Cover, Mandrill Is (1972)

Just Kissed My Baby – The Meters    

Getting Down for Xmas – Milly and Silly

Home Is Where the Hatred Is – Esther Phillips

Running – Baby Huey and the Babysitters
Rainy Day, Dream Away – The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Front & rear LP Cover, Electric Ladyland (1968, UK version only)

a bit about "The Break"
Amen Brother – The Winstons (link is to NWA's "Straight Outta Compton" which samples the break: diced up & slowed down)
Looking Out My Window - Tom Jones (link is to Stesasonic's "Go Stetsa" (1986) which samples the break)

Getting the Corners – The TSU Tornados

45 Label, "Getting the Corners" by The TSU Tornados

Time For Change – Speedometer

Getting Uptown (To Get Down) – United 8

The Stretch, pt 1 – The Detroit Sex Machines

Image of the Detroit Sex Machines onstage back in tha day

Funky Hot Grits – Rufus Thomas

Hold On – Alabama Shakes
Take Yo' Praise - Camille Yarbrough (link is to Fatboy Slim's "Praise You" which samples this song)

LP Cover, Camille Yarbrough, The Iron Pot Cooker (1975)

We'll be on a short hiatus during the holidays. Music on the One returns on January 13th for a new semester of Deep Bottom. Take care of yourselves & your loved ones during the holidays! Much love!

Here to Teach the Children...

On February 4th, 1973, the black community of Los Angeles turned it out for one of the premier black music labels, Stax-Volt Records from Memphis, Tennessee, on the seventh anniversary of the riots that consumed the Watts neighborhood. The location was the Los Angeles Coliseum, the stage was 20 feet off the ground (erected in the middle of the night), tickets for the benefit event were just $1, and an estimated 112,000 people showed up to dance and celebrate black music. Jesse Jackson gave a rousing benediction, Kim Weston raised a sea of fists to the Black National Anthem (otherwise known as "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing"), and the day and evening were brought to life with a wide range of musical styles & performances from Richard Pryor's comedy to the Soul Children's gospel to Carla Thomas' soul to Albert King's blues to the Bar-Kays' outright funk. The Staples Singers. David Porter. On top of the pile was Mr. Black Moses himself, Isaac Hayes, looking even more massive than usual in his vest made of golden chains.* Stax-Volt was all the way live that night. Black America was shown to be loud, proud, and vocal. This festival of truly gargantuan proportions went off without a hitch or violence (this is 4 years after Altamont revealed the ugly side of the white counterculture).**

Highlights from the concert were featured on the documentary Wattstax (link to full version on YouTube, subtitled in French) and two double-LP recordings (aka The Living Word) display the glorious variety of the entertainment that sunny February.

* That shit was floor-length too, but Hayes didn't even win best outfit onstage though. That honor goes to Mr. Rufus Thomas, charging out for his set in a bright pink cape with a matching suit, shorts and shirt underneath, white boots, and big-ass medallion. That's the CLOWN Prince of Dance to you, ladies & gentlemen!

That's what I'm TELLING you!

** This is despite numerous charges en masse onto the football field to dance. This is usually the moment The Man freaks out and starts lobbing tear gas. But not that day. Not that day.

Coming next Saturday

As promised, we will finally get around to our introduction to the music of Mandrill:

Mandrill in 1977, featuring the four Wilson brothers (back from left: Dr. Ric Wilson,
 Lou Wilson, Doug Rodrigues, Wolf Wilson; front: Neftali Santiago, Claude "Coffee" Cave, Carlos Wilson)

Mandrill was formed in the late sixties in Brooklyn. Featuring three Wilson brothers, Carlos (trombone & flute), Lou (RIP, trumpet, percussion), and Dr. Ric (alto sax, he went to medical school as a cardiologist), the children of Afro-Panamanian immigrants, and a revolving multiracial lineup, Mandrill brought to the world a seething, powerful, diasporic Funk. Rock, blues, soul, Latinx styles, and even country surfaces in their complex, introspective, celebratory music. Their first album (self-titled, 1970, Polydor) was an audacious debut, eschewing an outright single in favor of dense instrumentals, including the four-minute musical history lesson also titled "Mandrill" and a second side dominated by the five-part suite "Peace and Love (Amani Na Mapenzi)".

1971 Debut album

The next album, Mandrill Is (1972, Polydor) was only slightly more mainstream, featuring more vocal performances and several dance-floor burners straight up in the deep Funk pocket, including "Ape Is High" and "Git It All". This album featured the lineup that would remain for several more classic albums: Claude "Coffee" Cave (keyboards), Omar Mesa (lead guitar), Fudgie Kae Solomon (bass [RIP, 1974]), and Neftali Santiago (drums). Also featured on this album is a brilliant instrumental "Lord of the Golden Baboon" whose leading horn blast became a hip hop standard (see  EPMD's "Rampage" if you don't remember).

The next album, 1973's Composite Truth, was arguably their most famous and popular record, anchored by the concert standard "Fencewalk".

1973's Composite Truth, featuring the full "classic" lineup

The next two albums, 1973's Just Outside of Town and 1974's double album Mandrilland, are a bit more uneven, but with heights of staggering brilliance. "Two Sisters of Mystery," written & sung by Neftali Santiago was the anchoring sample of Public Enemy's "By The Time I Get to Arizona". Another track, "Fat City Strut" is a diamond-hard instrumental modulating between pure street funk and Latin dance party. And the wistful "House of Wood" from the latter album is a pure soul tragedy.

Mandrill moved from Polydor to United Artists in 1975, and continued to record, though the classic lineup had largely dissolved. Cave and Santiago stayed on, but Solomon died of a drug overdose in 1974 and Mesa turned to his religious explorations. A fourth Wilson brother, "Wolf" joined right around this time.

By 1975, major labels were starting to pressure black bands to conform to the new disco sound, which favored less involved drumlines & percussion (dominated by the hi-hat cymbal), frequent string accompaniment, and less conscious lyrical content. And Mandrill was no different, though they managed three more very good albums, 1975's Solid and Beast from the East and 1977's We Are One (featuring two tough dance-floor favorites "Funky Monkey" and "Can You Get It (Suzie Caesar)). Though they had tracks on two popular movie soundtracks ("Ali Bombaye (Zaire Chant)" on 1977's Muhammad Ali biopic "The Greatest" and "Echoes in My Mind" on 1981's "The Warriors"), their subsequent albums seem unmoored, lost, and less playful and certainly less dangerous. And they were not popular in sales nor have they proven essential listening.

So it goes. The seventies were a bitch. Few Funk bands survived, and none without massive changes.

Music on the One, though, is here to celebrate the best and the brightest. We'll be dropping four or five sets of tight, tough Mandrill cuts for your musical improvement & enjoyment. Mandrill is a band that true Funk heads have always known, though their name may not be as recognizable as James Brown or Parliament.

So be there: Thinking cap and dancing shoes practically required. Invest in both.

Back cover of Mandrill's 1971 debut album