Andrea Benini is a musician, music producer and composer from Cesena, Italy, and is more commonly known as
Mop Mop, or at least the head of a changing group of musicians who use that name. In 2005, collective Mop Mop released an album of
cool vibes, spare paino lines, tight grooves (
5 sample tracks, streaming on Grooveshark). The group has changed over the years, releasing a total of four albums, with the most recent, Isle of Magic, containing
13 tracks of pure voodoo jazz, Caribbean flavors, Afro-funk, exotic rhythms and soul music.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on May 10, 2013 -
3 comments
In 1965 guitar legend Jimi Hendrix was doing the chitlin circuit with R&B acts, where he honed some of the guitar artistry as well as the showman skills that would soon set the world on fire. Here's a taste of that pre-rock star Jimi, as a member of the Buddy and Stacy revue, doing the Junior Walker classic
Shotgun. If you want more pre-rock star Jimi, well, there's...
[more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite
on May 6, 2013 -
38 comments
In the wake of their grunge-y breakout hit
"Creep" and the success of sophomore record
The Bends, Thom Yorke and the rest of
Radiohead were under pressure to deliver once more.
So they shut themselves away inside the echoing halls of
a secluded 16th century manor and got to work.
What emerged from that crumbling Elizabethan castle fifteen years ago today was a shockingly ambitious masterpiece of progressive rock, a visionary concept album that explored
the "fridge buzz" of modernity -- alienation, social disconnection, existential dread,
the impersonal hum of technology -- through a mosaic of
challenging,
innovative,
eerily beautiful music unlike anything else at the time.
Tentatively called
Ones and Zeroes, then
Your Home May Be at Risk If You Do Not Keep Up Payments, the band finally settled on
OK Computer, an appropriately enigmatic title for this
acclaimed harbinger of millennial angst. For more, you can watch the retrospective
OK Computer: A Classic Album Under Review for a track-by-track rundown, or the unsettling documentary
Meeting People is Easy for a look at how the album's whirlwind tour nearly gave Yorke
a nervous breakdown. Or look inside for more details and cool interpretations of all the tracks -- including
an upcoming MeFi Music Challenge! [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Jun 16, 2012 -
66 comments
On January 13 and 14, 1972,
Aretha Franklin sang during services at the Reverend James Cleveland's New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. The audio recordings released as
Amazing Grace remain the largest-selling gospel album in history. However, of the 20 hours of 16mm film footage by Sydney Pollack - intended as a concert movie for tandem release -
only a few snippets have ever been seen.
(previously: 1, 2)
posted by Trurl
on Apr 22, 2012 -
8 comments
New Year's Eve is fast approaching, and for lots of folks that means... drinking. Plenty of drinking. And since there's no shortage of singers and songwriters who've had a little something to say about that particular topic, maybe some of the following tunes can serve as an appropriate soundtrack to your own joyous (or not?) imbibing of spirits. For example, there's... Jimmy Liggins with his succinct rendition of
Drunk, and there's...
[more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Dec 30, 2011 -
67 comments
Say, you wanna hear a sad song? Eddie Hinton was a guitar player, vocalist, and songwriter from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Co-writer of one of the tenderest, sexiest hits of the late 60s, Dusty Springfield's
Breakfast in Bed, Hinton was a key member of the world-famous
Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section from 1967 to 1971 (turning down an invitation from Duane Allman to be a member of the Allman Brothers Band) who worked as a studio musician on albums by Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, the Staples Singers, and Toots Hibbert, but his early success was
sidetracked by mental problems, booze, and drugs.
[more inside]
posted by BitterOldPunk
on May 31, 2011 -
22 comments
How Soul Music Became "Soul Music."
A writer takes the occasion of the release of
Adele's new album,
21, to explore the popularity and implications of the young British soul singers.
"Because if we're truly living in an age that defies stereotypes and explodes clichés, where distances of all kinds have been virtually obliterated, then everything—timbre, blue notes, pronunciation, timing, diction—is available as stylistic options." [more inside]
posted by beisny
on Mar 6, 2011 -
36 comments
It’s maybe a
little early yet for year’s end retrospectives, but who cares:
we’ve got 157 songs, 10.5 hours, 1.12 GB of “some of the best and most notable music from 2010... covering indie, pop, rock, punk, folk, rap, R&B, soul, dance, country, modern classical, ambient and electronic music, and in many cases, hard-to-classify genre hybrids.” —Curated by FluxBlog’s own Matthew Perpetua.
posted by kipmanley
on Dec 3, 2010 -
30 comments
As undeniably great as the golden age Motown studio
musicians were, and as indisputably funky and creative as the
arrangements were, you still have to think that maybe it would've been a good idea to release some of
The Temptations amazing vocal group artistry in unaccompanied form. Maybe as B-sides or something. Well, that never happened back in the day, as far as I know, but we are extremely fortunate now to be able to hear a capella versions of many of the Tempts biggest hits, in stunningly impressive and thoroughly enjoyable unaccompanied renditions:
Runaway Child Running Wild,
Just My Imagination,
Papa Was a Rolling Stone,
Ball of Confusion,
Get Ready and
Cloud Nine . And folks, there's more a capella from the Tempts and other Motown acts floating around on the Tubes out there, so feel free to link to them in the thread, cause, you know, I
Ain't Too Proud To Beg.
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Jun 1, 2010 -
39 comments
Janelle Monae has been busy since the release of
The Chase EP, the first of four "suites" that make up her genre-bending epic set in the distant future. She's been
"discovered" by Diddy, continued to find
inspiration in
unexpected places, founded an
artists' collective in her adopted hometown of Atlanta, and found time to
speak to Vogue about her singular sense of style. Somewhere in there, she's also recorded the next two parts of the Metropolis Suite, titled
The Archandroid (which is out today), put out a
teaser for the album, and also the video for the first single, Tightrope. [more inside]
posted by heeeraldo
on May 18, 2010 -
24 comments
Dennis Coffey was one of the most prolific Detroit session and solo guitarists. His revamped site features a couple phenomenal podcasts of his music and interviews.
posted by klangklangston
on Mar 25, 2010 -
8 comments
The man behind the classic sound of Al Green, Memphis producer and soulmeister supreme
Willie Mitchell has
passed on. Many of the Al Green sides are legendary, of course, and very well known (as is the fantastic "I Can't Stand the Rain, by Ann Peebles), but be sure and head over to the excellent
Funky 16 Corners where you can hear three of his lesser-known but
deeply grooving productions. Fat stuff. So long, Willie Mitchell, and thanks for the wonderful music.
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Jan 6, 2010 -
24 comments
There was a historic music festival in the summer of 1969. But it's not the one that took place in Bethel, NY. The
Harlem Cultural Festival ran from
June 29 to August 24 that summer, presenting a concert every Sunday afternoon in
Mount Morris Park (known today as Marcus Garvey Park).
Three hundred thousand people turned out for the
six free concerts, hearing acts like
Nina Simone , Sly & the Family Stone (the only act to play both Woodstock and the "black Woodstock"), Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson, The 5th Dimension, Moms Mabley and. Speakers included Jesse Jackson and "blue-eyed soul brother" Mayor John Lindsay. Security was courtesy of the
Black Panthers, since the NYC police refused to provide it. Filmmaker Hal Tulchin recorded
over 50 hours of concert footage, which has remained unreleased.
Historic Films seems to hold the footage; it was supposed to be made into a movie to
premiere at Sundance 2007, but its
release seems to be continually delayed for reasons unclear.
[more inside]
posted by Miko
on Aug 20, 2009 -
19 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
Greil Marcus writes
Real Life Top Ten for the Believer Magazine, in which he lists "anything that remotely has to do with music, a dress Bette Midler wore at an awards show or a great guitar solo in the middle of a song that otherwise wasn't very interesting." But he's been writing this
column online for just about
10 years. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue
on Jun 25, 2009 -
4 comments
Soul! New York City PBS affiliate WNET have digitized 9 episodes of
Soul!, a early 1970's live music program, providing a groovy video interface with chapters to break down each hour long episode.
[more inside]
posted by myopicman
on Apr 23, 2009 -
20 comments
