Musical Episode 068 : A Different Strut, an hour of funky soul 45s

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Welcome back, everyone! Very excited to have another Musical Episode for you all. There’s been a bit of a break in my regular posting because there’s always a lot going on and I’m only able to do this when I have the time. I’ve always said I won’t apologize for the breaks but I do appreciate that folks continue to listen when the schedule gets irregular. Plus, if you’re wanting, there’s always the archive of the 67 (and counting) past mixes to re-visit.

I’ll mention again, I did experiment with “hosting” or talking on the podcasts a while back and I really appreciate all the positive feedback but ultimately it ended up taking a lot more time to produce mixes and I could never really get over the hump of feeling awkward and a bit forced in my current setup so for now I have no plans to talk again on the mixes; it’s just the music!

Today’s mix covers a good ten year period of 67-77 though that Luther Ingram record really could be from five years earlier and would tighten up the date range a lot. These tracks are all mostly still drawing on the soul sound though in different ways are undeniably in touch with their funky side. The Three Degrees track is a cool version of the Sly Stone song originally done by Little Sister and dare I say I prefer this version which is a bit more worked out though the Little Sister version is not without its charm. Similarly if I were asked to put on I Heard It Through The Grapevine, the Gladys Knight version would be my go-to, produced by Norman Whitfield this was actually the first version before it was so famously cut by Marvin Gaye.

The last third of the mix features two sides from the wonderful Della Reese who by this point in her incredibly storied career had begun acting as much as singing. The first single “Compared To What” is a great version of the Les McCann song from her Black is Beautiful album, the second song featured We’re Gonna Make It doesn’t seem to be on an album though I could be wrong about that.

That’s all for now, I do have a few more mixes already recorded so hopefully we’ll get back to some regularly scheduled programming! As always, I’m happy to hear from folks, you can find me on instagram at @musicalepisode where I post records and clips of songs pretty frequently.

Peace,

-George / Snack Attack

Tracklist:
Floyd Smith – Soul Strut (Dakar, 1968)
Eddie Bo – Check Your Bucket Part One (Action, 1970/73)
Gladys Knight – I Heard It Through The Grapevine (Soul, 1967)
Robert Parker – Everybody’s Hip Hugging (Nola, 1967)
George Torrance & The Naturals – Lickin’ Stick (Shout, 1968)
Wayne Cochran – C.C. Rider (King, 1970)
Margie Hendrix – I Call you Lover But You Ain’t Nothin’ But A Tramp (Mercury, 1967)
Harvey Scales & The Seven Sounds – Broadway Freeze (Magic Touch, 1968)
Syl Johnson – Different Strokes (Twilight, 1967)
Laura Lee – Crumbs Off The Table (Hot Wax, 1972)
Curley Moore and The Kool Ones – Shelley’s Rubber Band (House of The Fox, 1971)
Joe Simon – Moon Walk Part 1 (Sound Stage 7, 1969)
The Three Degrees – You’re The One (Roulette, 1971)
Della Reese – Compared To What (Avco, 1969)
Della Reese – We’re Gonna Make it (Avco, 1971)
Luther Ingram – Do You Love Somebody (Koko, 1977)
Bobby Womack – Woman’s Gotta Have It (United Artists, 1972)
Melvin Moore – Rain Go Away (Brainstorm, 1971?)
Johnny Adams – You Got Your Kind Of Life To Live (Atlantic, 1971)
Isaac Hayes – Good Love 6-9969 (Stax, 1975)
Betty Wright – Let Me Be Your Lovemaker (Alston, 1973)

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