Hi, Hello, How you doing...?

Last week, I blogged about my awesome night out seeing Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings at The Roundhouse, but what I neglected to mention in my review was, on my way to meet my buddy at the venue, I noticed walking just in front of me was Bosco Man aka Gabriel Roth – bass player with The Dap-Kings and Daptone Records head honcho.  He’s walking just a few feet ahead and I completely blow the opportunity of a photo and a signed ticket stub by not being bold enough to tap him on the shoulder and say ‘hi’.  (It was funny though, seeing him approached by a scalper and offered the chance of buying tickets for the gig, clearly having no idea who he actually was.)

It’s always difficult isn’t it – having the opportunity to meet one of your heroes and being fearful of it being a complete disaster.  Thankfully, it isn’t something that’s happened yet and I do actually have a few really cool incidents where it’s worked out pretty well…

“Oooh, this is ‘Karma Flower’.  This is the first song from Nicola Conte’s album, ‘Rituals’, and this song has vocals by Kim Sanders.”

“You’re so sad.”

“That’s why we’re here.”

The above is an exchange between me and my wife, Saturday 11th June 2011, as we’re sat at the beautiful surroundings of Ronnie Scott’s Jazz club in Soho (my first time!) watching the sublime performance of a genuine hero of mine, Nicola Conte.  I tend to drag my wife to most gigs and everything she tends to know about said artist(s) comes from the ramblings I rain down on her, as demonstrated through the above exchange for example.  So anyway, after the gig, through the crowd that’s shuffling out of the door, comes Nicola Conte holding a rollup cigarette and a box of matches, heading for the front door.  My eyes widen as he’s standing directly in front of us but my wife, big beaming smile, extends her hand and says, “Hello”.  He smiles back and shakes her hand, and I figure I can’t go wrong and do the same thing.  Excellent, he smiles back and shakes my hand.  This is excellent!  As he heads out the door, my wife then pulls the Ronnie Scott’s brochure out of her bag and says:

“We should get him to sign the brochure!”

Good idea!  She rushes out after him and by the time I’m out of the door, I see them talking and he’s smiling and signing the brochure.  She thanks him and then says:  “I really loved your album ‘Rituals’!”

I burst in to laughter at first but, thinking about it, I feel like one of the cool kids just stole my homework and passed it into the teacher! 

And then there’s the time I met Soulive after their Jazz Café gig, 23rd October 2010.  I had to wait 6 years for the opportunity but I’m happy to say that I own a signed ticket stub and a signed copy of their album ‘Rubber Soulive’.  Soulive are my favourite band of all time so it was excellent to be able to tell them that but what I didn’t tell them is that their song ‘Joyful Girl’ was actually my wedding song.  It would have been such an incredible thing to share with them so I’m really disappointed that I missed the opportunity and, on that note, that’s what I’ll leave you guys with.  Thanks for reading.

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings [LIVE, 16th May 2014 @ The Roundhouse]

Back in August 2013, I was very sad to post the news that Sharon Jones had been diagnosed with cancer – a move that forced Daptone Records to halt the imminent release of the band’s sixth album, but more importantly, it was something that had friends, family and fans praying for Jones’s speedy recovery and a return to fighting fit health.

Incredibly, it only took less than six months before Daptone Records felt confident in rescheduling the release of ‘Give The People What They Want’, and it was a further five months before Sharon Jones, who Binky Griptite of The Dap-Kings introduced  as “the woman who kicked cancer’s ass”, was once again able to grace a Camden stage.

I don’t tend to feel confident in things that I write where I feel somewhat ‘emotionally invested’ in the person or event so I do usually shy away from such pieces as they can come off as too ‘fan boyish’, but the whole point of this blog is to enable me to bask in the pure joy that music gives me and in the hopes that someone reading this can in some way connect with that – so when I say that seeing Sharon Jones walk out to that stage (as I’m lucky enough to have seen twice before), it was one of the most moving and genuinely joyous performances that I could ever have hoped to see.  Other than her hair, which is now starting to grow back, there was no indication of the hellacious year 2013 would have been for her – if there was, then she left it backstage because as she swaggered out to met her fever-pitch audience, she sang better than she ever has and she performed better than she – or anyone else on The Roundhouse stage – ever has too!

Woah… y’see, now I have to reign myself in as I feel the fan boy starting to take over again!

Where was I? oh yes… songs from ‘Give The People What They Want’ were expectedly the main focus of the night’s playlist, but small dips into past hits, including ‘100 Days, 100 Nights’ and a cover of ‘I Heard it Through the Grapevine’ kept people entertained;  The Dapettes even took centre-stage a couple times to showcase songs from their new release, and even members of the crowd were pulled up on stage to shake their tail-feathers with Sharon – I kinda fell in love with ‘Beatrice’ a little bit, while ‘Monique’ looked slightly better suited for a One Direction concert (bless you Monique J); the guy who started unbuttoning his shirt kinda stole the show a little bit and may have had security taking a small step closer to the stage in preparation for the worst case, but it was awesome fun nonetheless.

If you ever have the chance to see Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings perform live, you’re doing yourself a disservice by not grabbing the opportunity immediately.  The most obvious comparisons to their stage show hark back to a James Brown or Tina Turner from decades previous which I understand can come off as a lazy comparison to make, and it also potentially discredits the charisma and personality which is quintessentially Sharon Jones and quintessentially Daptone.  While it can be said that had this group been making music together 40 years ago international superstardom would await and their name would roll off the tongues of anyone praising the greats like the aforementioned Brown and Turner, I actually think they’re served perfectly to provide a performance style and aesthetic to a generation that’s never experienced it and, quite frankly, are pretty hungry for it.

It’s great to have you back Ms Jones!

It's Coming Up Again

So I'm on season 1, episode 4, of Fargo - cool show by the way!  Anyway, to bring you up to speed... Lester Nygaard gets kidnapped by two men who suspect him of murder; as they're about to kill him by throwing him in a freezing lake, he manages to escape and, in a bid for security, punches a policeman on the nose in the hopes of being arrested.  (Lester's not as innocent as he may seem which is why he can't just come out and tell the cop that he's being chased by two men who want to kill him.)  So, as hoped, he gets arrested.

The two kidnappers though, both blaming each other for Lester managing to escape, end up having a huge brawl in a local bar, which in turn gets them arrested and taken away by the police. As Lester sits all alone in in his holding cell, thankful of not having been frozen in ice, who should be escorted in by the police...?  You guessed it, the brawling kidnappers.

Busted. 

All alone in a cell with two dudes who want to kill you.

Picture that scene if you will: you're Lester, the men have been brought in, the policeman has now walked off... what one song would encapsulate that "Oh s##t!" moment...

Now I'm thinking "To hell with Lester, who's singing this!?"  This fantastic piece of gospel-infused funk is courtesy of The Relatives - a trio of singers formed in 1970 and who have just had their debut release issued by Yep Roc Records, 2013.

The album release 'The Electric Word' is now crazy high on my 'to buy' list but I wanted to leave you guys with this excellent piece while I catch up too.

James Brown

I'm currently reading an autobiography by James Brown, and as keen a fan as I am, I have to admit it's a tough read - I can't think of any biography I've read that bombards you with as many dates, names and places as this one does, and it must be a result of an incredible memory or a helluva lot of research.

It genuinelly is fascinating though - his stories about growing up in a brothel, his time in juvenile prison, his early interactions with up and coming stars like Little Richard and Tina Turner; but out of all these stories, there was one that I really wanted to share with you guys.  The following is an extract from the book and it details his very first recording session for King Records, 4th February 1956:

They rolled the tape and we ripped into "Please" in our style. When we were halfway through, Mr Nathan [Syd Nathan, who started the record label] suddenly jumped up from the board.

"What's that? What in the hell are they doing? Stop the tape," he yelled. "That doesn't sound right to my ears." He was in a rage. "What's going on here?" He turned on Gene Redd, who just shrugged because he didn't understand it, either. Then he turned to Ralph Bass. "I sent you out to bring back some talent, and this is what I hear. The demo was awful, and this is worse. I don't know why I have you working here. Nobody wants to hear that noise."

"It's a good song, Syd," Ralph said. "Give them a chance."

"A good song?" He looked at Ralph like Ralph was crazy. "It's a stupid song. It's got only one word in it. I've heard enough." He stormed out of the room and up the stairs to his office.

We were frozen in the studio. We had made it through only half a track of our first professional recording session, and the owner of the company had walked out in the middle saying we were so bad he couldn't use us. We were thinking, "Oh, Lord, we're fixing to get sent away, and we just got here." Gene came from behind the glass to talk to us.

"Can't you do it some other way?" he asked.

"That's the way we've always done it," I said.

"But Mr Nathan doesn't like it," he said.

"Mr Nathan doesn't understand it," I said. He looked disturbed at that. "Everybody's music can't be alike, Mr Redd. If everybody comes up here and goes to cutting alike, then nobody's going to do anything."

I showed him the chord changes on the piano and explained to him what we were doing. Once he understood, and it made sense to him, he said he would go and tell Mr Nathan that they should try it, even if it sounded funny. He was gone a long time. While we were waiting, hanging out in the hall, we could hear them yelling upstairs behind closed doors. When Gene came back, all he said was, "Okay, we're going to cut it." When Mr Nathan never showed up again, we couldn't help feeling that the session wasn't legit, but we went ahead with it anyway.  [...]

Before we left Cincinnati we saw a handful of 78 RPM pressings of "Please," but as soon as we got back to Macon we got worried. We heard that Ralph Bass had been fired and King wasn't going to release the record. Mr Nathan hated the master as much as he hated the demo. Mr Brantly was on the phone to him every day for nearly a month. At the end of February, Mr Nathan told him against his better judgment he was going to put the record out on his Federal label. So on March 3, 1956, "Please Please Please" was released. Eventually, it sold a million copies.

James Brown 'The Godfather of Soul', James Brown and Bruce Tucker, 1986, Aurum Press.

Dome Records: Rising to the Top+

Following the feature on Dome Records we published last week, I thought it only right to dip into the Dome catalogue a little bit and showcase a few albums that are some of my favourites...

'Clementine Sun' by Khari Cabral Simmons [2012]

Brand new – in many ways – for Dome Records in 2012, Simmons’ album sounds like nothing else I can think of ever having come out from UK’s Dome, which is a great thing!  Heavily summer soul and jazz-tinged, this bass player has rounded up an impressive array of talent for his debut release, including the brilliant bossa star, Sabrina Malheiros, who appears on the appropriately-named, ‘Major Bossa’; label-mates, Incognito, who contribute to the album’s standout song, ‘How Can We Go Wrong’; Oteil Burbridge (who, as a quick aside, can also be heard on 2011’s live release from Soulive, along with his brother Kofi Burbridge, ‘Bowlive’ – very worth the price of purchase if I may say!) who plays bass on ‘Ninos’; and India.Arie, who appears on the Stevie Wonder cover of ‘Never In Your Sun’, and had boasted Simmons as a member of her band for some years.

'Bees + Things + Flowers' by Incognito [2006]

The legendary, and vastly under-appreciated, Incognito can boast numerous Dome Records releases to their name, including ‘Who Needs Love’, ‘Tales From The Beach’, ‘Eleven’ and ‘Adventures In Black Sunshine’, among others. As usual, the album is headed up by Jean-Paul Maunick (Bluey), and ‘Bees + Flowers + Things’ marks the group’s first album consisting of cover versions. Songs by Roy Ayers and Earth, Wind & Fire see their work given a deluxe makeover, as well previous works by Incognito themselves, which are given new perspectives, and help paint the portrait of true summer soul music.
‘Bees + Flowers + Things’ was rivalled by a fellow Incognito release, ‘Who Needs Love’, for inclusion on this list (which we hold in equal esteem), but was narrowly pipped to the post due to the incredible cover of America’s ‘Tin Man’ that is a sublime slice of soul music and a remake that needs to be heard, appreciated and adored!

'...Left' by Eric Roberson [2007]

Eric Roberson (Erro) has long been one of contemporary soul’s most bankable artists. With album releases that have spanned nearly 10 years, as well as being a staple on the live circuit (including being a long-term resident at London’s Jazz Café), Eric Roberson’s 2007 album release, ‘…Left’, went leaps and bounds to introducing him to a new market.
The album featured Roberson’s first guest vocals from a hip-hop artist (Phonte of Little Brother), along with production from Kev Brown, James Poyser and J Dilla. A consistent and cohesive piece of work highlighting Roberson’s vocal, production and song-writing ability – his talents soar through unique songs like ‘Only For You’, ‘The Baby Song’, ‘Iluvu2much’ and the luxurious 8+ minute, ‘Couldn’t Hear Her’, with extraordinary guitar-work from Curt Chambers.
Hopefully, through Dome Records, his mature and versatile blend of soul music will continue to grow and be heard for many more years to come.

'A Poem About Ms Doss' by Conya Doss [2002]

The award-winning soul singer marked the beginning of her long-term relationship with Dome Records in 2002, with the release of her debut album, ‘A Poem About Ms Doss’, which has, at this time, been followed by a further three albums, ‘Just Because’, ‘Love Rain Down’ and ‘Still…’.
Hailing from Cleveland, Ohio, Doss has a CV that lists her having worked with 3LW, Dwele and Gerald Levert, as well as being the recipient of numerous awards from BET to Soultraks.
‘A Poem About Ms Doss’, the album that started it all, was produced by Tony Nicholas (who would go on to head up Nu Mecca Records) and was littered with stirring soul songs from mid-tempo grooves, to lush ballads, and even including a standout cover of Norman Connors and Michael Henderson’s ‘You Are My Starship’. A solid debut outing from a consistently evolving artist, with an ever-expanding Dome Records library.