Ode To The Big Sea

 
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soul

 

Ray Pollard - The Drifter

An amazing northern soul classic.
 

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The Moments - To You With Love

Beautifully sampled by J Dilla for his Donuts album on the track 'Last Donut of the Night'...

Here's the Dilla take...

Filed under  //   hip hop   soul  

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Johnnie Taylor - What about my love

Is this the smoothest record ever?

You'll probably recognise the intro as it was sampled by the Shapeshifters for "Lola's Theme" - that makes me cringe I have to say, but you gotta listen to it all the way through to hear a real soul master at work.

Johnnie Taylor was one of the leading artists on the infamous soul label Stax records. He worked with the likes of Booker T & the MG's & Isaac Hayes.

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Dee Edwards - ( I Can ) Deal With That

An amazing rare soul record released back in the 70's. I discovered this via Ubiquity records side shoot 'Luv N' Haight' that released an album called 'Searching for Soul' and let me tell you there are some gems on that album!

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Curtis Mayfield - Give Me Your Love sample

This morning I was listening to Curtis Mayfield's legendary album "Superfly" from 1972 on my way to work, as you do, and suddenly a cheeky sample jumped out at me.

Unfortunately it was one of those samples where I could hear the part of the song that used it in my head, but had no clue as to the name of it or even the artist. Rage!

I knew it was a hip hop tune and after a quick Google search and a look on the awesome sample site The Breaks, I had to turn to a manual search through my library of mp3s.

Amazingly I some how managed to find it!

The original Mayfield track I'm referring to is called 'Give Me Your Love' and is well worth a listen. The sample is right at the beginning on 9 seconds.

The track that takes the sample is "Whassup With U?" ft. Keisha Shontelle by 9th Wonder from the quality album "The Formula".

Filed under  //   funk   hip hop   soul  

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Raphael Saadiq - The Way I See It

I feel a massive 60's & 70's soul/funk/motown revival is on the horizon.

Amy Winehouse clearly had huge success with 'Back to Black'; proving beyond doubt there's a demand. She's sold 10 millions copies of that album.

There are plenty of bands and artists producing their own modern take on the genre. Think Orgone, Connie Price & The Keystones and El Michel's Affair to name just a few.

There are even record labels like Love 'n Haight, Daptone Records and Truth & Soul being created purely to release the records everyone missed first time round or dedicate themselves to those new bands infatuated with it.

However, I have to say I never saw this one coming.

Raphael Saadiq is the latest artist to join in revival with his new album The Way I See It. It's a brave move. A massive departure from his recognised sound.

My initial impressions are good. I'm not expecting him to produce a true authentic 60's soul LP and I'm certainly not going to take the easy route out and brush it off as pure imitation as I'm sure some 'purists' will.

He's got a few high profile collaborations in there for good measure. Joss Stone, Jay Z, CJ Hilton and a certain Stevie Wonder.

Massive respect to Raphael Saadiq and Columbia Records for setting up Raphael Saadiq TV on youtube and actually posting all the tracks from the album.

Picking out one track to put on this blog post was not easy. This track is called 'Oh Girl', a proper soul ballad that sounds like it could have been performed by The Delfonics... it's amazing.

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Charmels - As Long As I've Got You

I posted a while back about a band called El Michel's Affair and a jazz/soul instrumental they'd done of the Wu Tang Clan's anthem C.R.E.A.M

Well this evening I stumbled across the original track the Wu Tang Clan sampled... It is truely amazing!

Filed under  //   soul  

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Mike James Kirkland

As my quest for the original soul sound of the 60's and 70's continues I'm beginning to discover some amazing underated musicians.

Mike James Kirkland should be heralded along side the likes of Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield he's that good. However, his two albums released in the early 70's ("Hang On In There" and "Doin' It Right") simply dissapeared into obscurity.

Recently the ultra-rare groove scene stumbled on "Doin' It Right' and now original copies of it reportedly exchange hands for $500 or more such that it is so rare and at the same time, so good.

Fortunately for the non-collectors the two albums have been re-issued by the notorious Luv n' Haight rare groove reissue label with the help of Ubiquity.

Check out the track 'Together'...

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The Sylvers - Only One Can Win

J Dilla was a genius.

Take one old 70's record...

And make it into the ruffest hip-hop tune. As featured on his album 'Donuts', I could listen to this on repeat all day...

Filed under  //   hip hop   soul  

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Al Green - Lay It Down

What an album! Pure soul and funk!

I didn't realise Questlove & James Poyser were so heavily involved (The main duo behind The Yessirs)

Also the Dapkings (band Ronson used for the Winehouse album) provide the horns.

Add John Legend and Corinne Bailey Rae into the mix and I guess it's no surprise this album is as good as it is.

Check the making of for an interesting insight...

Filed under  //   soul  

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