Head Shaking Chicago Soul from Barbara Carr

This track can be found on the “Singles Mixer Vol. 2” podcast.

Holy smokes…

Found this record, a one-sided promo, while on a trip to Chicago.  While all things (unusual grooves in the record, the title, the misspelling of the name and the co-production credit of Billy Davis) pointed in the right direction, I try never to hype myself up too much before hearing something new.  It’s way too easy to start imagining the greatest record in the world only to be disappointed with a so-so cookie cutter track.

This, my friends, was not one of those times.  I got back to the room (Two Urns Bed & Breakfast in Wicker Park!) and didn’t have a portable with me (stupid in retrospect) but I found the record on youtube and then spent the next 2.5 minutes in a hair whipping fit. 

Needless to say, it’s a scorcher with all the elements.

Heavy drums, horns galore, backup singers screaming for you to ‘Shake Your Head’ and a total party vibe with a beat that has just enough swing to it that you feel like freaking out but not moshing.

Barbara Carr took a familiar route to end up in Chicago and recording on Chess.  From St. Louis she was performing in a local group The Petites before meeting Oliver Sain and auditioning to be in his band.  Sain’s band, like Ike Turner and the revolving cast of Ikettes, turned out a lot solo careers, some longer lasting than others.

Unfortunately Chess didn’t put a whole lot of muscle behind her career (I mean, there’s no B side and the record has her name spelled wrong…) and Carr became disillusioned with recording and turned her focus on her family and in later years on music again.

It’s unfortunate there wasn’t some more energy behind her career at this point because even throw away sessions of this caliber would send me into a digging frenzy.  Still, don’t want to be greedy; lets remain grateful this late 60’s romper was released into the world at all.

All the best,

-George / Snack Attack