DJ Nirso explores the connection between Africa, North and South America with tasteful remixes and mixtapes.
posted by Tom-B on Jan 31, 2013 - 1 comment

Some say that surf guitar started here: Johnny Guitar Watson - Space Guitar
Young John Watson's first appearance on wax: Chuck Higgins & his Mellotones - Motor Head Baby
Also back in the day: Johnny "Guitar" Watson - The Bear
And not so far back in the day - a Frank Zappa jam with Tuva throat Singers, Chieftains and Johnny ''Guitar'' Watson [more inside]
posted by y2karl on Dec 22, 2012 - 10 comments

Get Down On It:
Jean Knight - Mr Big Stuff
Marvin Gaye - Got To Give It Up
The Five Stairsteps - Ooh Child
Al Green - Tired of Being Alone
Shirley Brown - Woman to Woman
Joe Tex - I Gotcha
A Taste of Honey - Sukiyaki
Yellow Magic Orchestra - Firecracker
Five Star- All Fall Down
Eddie Kendricks - Happy
Aretha Franklin - Rock Steady
Al Green - Love and Happiness
The Staples Singers Come Go With Me
Sly & the Family Stone - Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)

And as no Soul Train post would be complete without a line dance: Temptations - Papa Was A Rolling Stone [more inside]
posted by y2karl on Dec 21, 2012 - 46 comments

"She's known as the hardest working young lady in show business today. Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Tina Turner." [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen on Oct 26, 2012 - 10 comments

In decades past, R&B and soul artists didn't shy away from covering country songs. That's right, children, straight up country songs. And the results were often stunningly good. For example, Al Green's performance of Kris Kristofferson's For the Good Times (best known as a hit for country crooner Ray Price). Or Ray Charles' performance of Eddy Arnold's You Don't Know Me. Or Aretha Franklin's performance of country chestnut You Are My Sunshine, first recorded in 1939 by the Pine Ridge Boys. And... [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite on Sep 30, 2012 - 98 comments

GRiZ - Mad Liberation. Take a 21 year old bedroom producer from Michigan, raise them on the the internet with a near complete access to the history of modern music with a focus on electronic/dance and apparently you get this incredibly humanistic and cross-cultural album that's both homage, monument and appropriation of hundreds of influences in modern music in an incredibly dubby dubstep framework. (Free album download here.)
posted by loquacious on Sep 5, 2012 - 67 comments

After years of rumored depression, drug and alcohol addiction, and legal issues, D'Angelo is poised to make a comeback. [more inside]
posted by reenum on Jan 29, 2012 - 26 comments

The man who lent his wonderfully warm and soaring voice to the rolling soul ballad Get It While You Can, the limber southern funk of Eight Days on the Road, the coolly driving How Come My Bulldog Don't Bark, the mellow soul lilt (with breathtaking falsetto interjections!) of I Learned It All the Hard Way and so many other delightful soul numbers has died. Farewell Howard Tate. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite on Dec 4, 2011 - 17 comments

The hoodoo lady and the hoodoo man had a voodoo child. Uh huh, yes, yes, voodoo voodoo.
posted by flapjax at midnite on Jul 18, 2011 - 34 comments

Gladys Horton, a founding member of the pioneering (yet undervalued by Berry Gordy and Motown) girl group The Marvelettes, who sang lead on their 1961 classic Please Mr. Postman has passed on. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite on Jan 27, 2011 - 19 comments

Sister Sue, tell me baby what are we gonna do. She said take two candles, and then you burn them out. Make a paper boat, light it and send it out, send it out now ... Willy DeVille (formerly William Dorsay), died of pancreatic cancer on August 6, at the age of 58. So much of his music evoked the languid heat of a city night. This might be a good evening to turn it up loud. [more inside]
posted by maudlin on Aug 7, 2009 - 21 comments

Jackie Shane could rock the Sapphire Club. He was part of the Toronto Sound of the sixties, and made his mark not only for his soulful voice, but also for his flamboyent, gender ambiguous appearance (video). His song Any Other Way went to Number Two on the Canadian Billboard chart in 1963, and was his biggest hit. While his discography was short and he has faded into obscurity, he has been recognized by the queer community and music bloggers as a trail-blazing performer. In My Tenement, Comin Down, You Are My Sunshine, Stand Up Strait and Tall, Don't Play That Song.
posted by kimdog on Jul 27, 2009 - 8 comments

"A wildly flamboyant funk diva with few equals even three decades after her debut, Betty Davis combined the gritty emotional realism of Tina Turner, the futurist fashion sense of David Bowie, and the trendsetting flair of Miles Davis, her husband for a year. ... she turned Miles on to Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone (providing the spark that led to his musical reinvention on In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew), then proved her own talents with a trio of sizzling mid-'70s solo LPs." - All Music Guide (many links nsfw-ish)
posted by Joe Beese on Feb 17, 2009 - 22 comments

The Soul is in the Soundtrack . . . Barack Obama's soundtrack, that is . . . [more inside]
posted by fourcheesemac on Nov 2, 2008 - 41 comments