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Oooooohhhhhh MAMA!!! This is one of those records that when the needle hits the wax, if you ain’t dancin’ you’re DEAD! While Roger & The Gypsies were a real group (i.e. not a name dropped on an Eddie Bo studio creation) the "singing" here is Eddie, and the production SCREAMS Eddie Bo. Opening with a super-solid bass drum beat - that feels like butts swinging in time, hands clapping and feet stomping - and Eddie’s order to "Pass out the hatchets baby!" this is a party starter of the first order. I cannot over-emphasize the power of the drums on this record. Though the beat is simple (compared to some of the mind-bending beats coming out of N.O.) - nobody….I mean NOBODY, recorded drums like New Orleans producers. They managed to capture a lot of the natural power of live drums on his records without sacrificing any of the clarity. The snares crack, the cymbals sizzle and the kick drum is DEEP. The bass comes in, followed by dual guitar lines. The first keeping a sub-beat (not unlike the multi-layered guitars in the J.B.’s) and the second soloing on top. The whole time Eddie keeps popping up with interjections of ‘Chop It!’, ‘Timber!’ and funky grunts (there is an ‘UNHH!’ on this record that manages to carry in it the weight of ALL recorded funk). The song breaks in the middle (just long enough for the dancers to catch their breath) and restarts: ‘The Bigger they come, the harder the fall! Let me chop it…let me chop it…LET ME CHOP IT!" and the drums begin again with renewed force, followed by the sinister rattle of maraccas.

When it stops, it stops without a fade, leaving the dancers with their heads spinning. Powerful stuff.

‘Pass The Hatchet" was on one of the Las Vegas Grind comps, a Minit/Instant Records retrospective, and currently on the Soul Jazz, ‘Saturday Night Fish Fry’ set (available from Dusty Groove). It also appeared on the soundtrack of the movie "Desperado".

Despite the group listed on the label, this slab of wild guitar driven funk is none other than Eddie Bo. I often wondered about who played on the 45, but confirmation came directly from Eddie (via e-mail) that neither singer Curly Moore (of ‘Get Low Down’ and ‘Don’t Pity Me’ fame, described by Bo as a ‘…singer that was hanging around the studio.’)  nor disc jockey Shelley Pope (who is listed as producer and co-writer) appear on either side of the record. Of course Allan Freed had his name on a bunch of records he had nothing to do with either…draw your own conclusions. I suspect it wasn’t the only time Eddie Bo didn’t get his fair share of the royalties. The Funky Delicacies comp ‘Eddie Bo & The Soul Finders: The Hook & Sling” lists his Scram Records cohort Al Scramuzza as composer of many of his songs (yeah…I don’t believe it either).

The disc was released on Lelan Rogers’ Nashville-based House of the Fox records, the same label that also featured singles and LP’s by Maceo & The Kings Men. Rogers had a long history as an independent label owner and record producer mentoring/producing among others, Esther Phillips (at Lenox), the 13^th Floor Elevators, Golden Dawn and Red Krayola (at International Artists) and Bettye Lavette (at Silver Fox). Eddie Bo had released ‘The Rubber Band Pts 1&2’ on Knight in 1970, but never having heard the record, I can only guess that it is in some way related.

‘Shelley’s Rubber Band opens with a super-funky wah-wah guitar and Eddie telling us ‘You’ve done Eddie Bo’s Rubber Band, and you’ve done the Meter’s Rubber Band, now lets do Shelley’s Rubber Band! Now hit it!” There is a second guitar, and then Eddie comes in on organ,  followed by some extra fat drums in a rolling funk-stravaganza . The production (as usual) is  extremely hot. The drums have a great live sound, and the guitars just twang and echo like mad.

The flip, ‘Funky Yeah’ takes the funky guitars and kicks them up a notch (or twelve). I would LOVE to know who’s playing guitar on this record, because they are ON FIRE! The combination of swampy Southern guitar with a Hendrix-like sound is striking,  not unlike some Eddie Hazell’s work on the early Funkadelic records like ‘Super Stupid’. I haven’t encountered anyone that knows exactly who played on Eddie Bo’s sessions, with the marked exception of Eddie himself, and drummers Smokey Johnson and James Black.

Both sides of this 45 are available on the above mentioned Funky Delicacies comp, as ‘Eddie’s Rubber Band’ and ‘Funky Yeah’.

* Doug Anderson - 'Look Out Mama, Here Comes The Preacher' on Janus
   Curly Moore & The Cool Ones - 'Shelley's Rubber Band' on House Of The Fox
   James K Nine - 'Live It Up' on Federal
   and no doubt a few others
** Confirmed by Banashak in Jeff Hannusch's book 'I Hear You Knockin''

#5 - Candy Phillips - Timber Pts 1&2 (Atlantic)

#6 - Eddie Bo - Hook and Sling Pts 1&2 (Scram)

Listen to samples in RealAudio  

Considering how many Eddie Bo obscurities and side projects there are, some funk fans might find this to be too obvious a choice for Jam of the Month. ‘Hook & Sling Pts 1&2’ is by far the easiest of Eddie Bo’s funk era discs to find (it was after all a national Top 10 hit in 1969) and it has become for many their introduction to the wonders of New Orleans funk in general, and Eddie Bo in particular. It is also one of his best.

It’s easy to see why the record was a hit. It is extremely catchy and funky without being too rough. Featuring Eddie on vocals (and how can you resist the opening ‘ Ready? Yeahhhhh! Let’s go! One, two, one, two three four! The name of this thing is Hook and Sling!’), and the almost unfathomable brilliance of James Black’s drumming, ‘Hook & Sling’ catches the ear immediately. The guitar line (which sounds as if it was lifted from ‘Mexican Shuffle’ by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass) is a great contrast (and counterpoint) to the drums and is a great illustration of Bo’s complex brand of funk.
In a lot of ways, if one sees James Brown as the Charlie Parker of funk – the main architect of the sound as Parker was to bebop – than Eddie Bo is in many ways the music’s Thelonious Monk – taking the basic concepts and twisting them into unsual and compelling new shapes. The drums of James Black have a lot to do with that. Black took the percussion of the New Orleans ‘second line’ and translated it into the sound of funk better than almost anyone else (Ziggy Modeliste and Smokey Johnson included).  His playing has an infinite complexity that while dizzying, always maintains an internal logic and attachment to the beat. Juxtaposed with Billy Higgins’ New Orleans influenced playing on Ornette Coleman’s Atlantic albums of the early 60’s, the two styles, while wildly different seem to be objects rotating on the same axis.

Part 2 - which for some reason is marked as the plug side on the 45 – doesn’t differ too much from the a-side, with Eddie raving wildly (calling to the ‘…girl over there in the green dress with the great big old yams!” – YAMS?!?! Hmmmmm…) and riffing over the track.

The track did inspire imitators in it’s time. Abraham’s ‘Hook & Boogie Pts 1&2 (Hy Sign) is close enough to the original to be treading in rip-off territory, and sounds like it was put out to take advantage of confused or intoxicated record buyers. The Fantastic Johnny C’s ‘Let’s Do It Together’ (Branding Iron/Kama Sutra) is more in the line of homage/follow-up, with it’s chorus of ‘Lets hook it babe, let’s do it together!’ and a guitar lead that references the original without repeating it.

I would suggest that those that don’t have a copy of the original, stay away from E-bay and look for a copy at record shows (where I recently picked up a new, mint-y copy for $10.00). The Eddie Bo reissues on Tuff City/Funky Delicacies mess with the original mix/length of the track, and their annotation sucks. You can however hear ‘Hook & Sling Pt2’ on the Soul Jazz comp ‘New Orleans Funk’. The Abraham track has been comped a few times on bootlegs, but as far as I know the Fantastic Johnny C cut is only available in the original.
 - LG

#7 - Mary Jane Hooper - I've Got Reasons b/w Teach Me

FFor those that are in the know on the subject of Bo, the name Mary Jane Hooper looms large indeed. The singer known alternately as Inez Cheatham, Mary Jane Hooper and Sena Fletcher (her real name) joined the master of New Orleans funk in the studio to make some of his best remembered 45's. As Inez Cheatham she duetted with Eddie on  the legendary, break-heavy ‘Lover & A Friend’ for Seven B/Capitol. As Mary Jane Hooper she and Bo recorded ‘That’s How Strong My Love Is’ for World Pacific, and this monster for Power/Power-Pac (among others). You can imagine my shock/delight the day I pulled my copy out of a box of $2.00 records (it’s been pulling $75 - $100 a copy of late).

Known to many from it’s appearance on the Soul Jazz ‘New Orleans Funk’ collection, ‘I’ve Got Reasons’ is one of Eddie Bo’s best tunes and funkiest arrangements. The interplay of Hooper’s sassy vocal, and the funky guitar refrain is brilliant. The sound of the tune manages to bridge the feel of mid-60’s New Orleans soul and the dawn of funk. While Bo’s organ keeps things chugging along, the best part of the record is the vocal. Hooper’s singing gives the song much of it’s energy, and when she gets to the ‘Baby, baby, baby, baby!’ at the end of the verse the record just soars. Hooper/Cheatham/Fletcher was a powerful soul singer, and the fact that little is known of her after the early 70’s is a crying shame.

The flip-side, ‘Teach Me’ is a heartfelt ballad that wouldn’t sound out of place beside Irma Thomas records of the same period.

A few years back the (in my opinion) highly suspect Tuff City/Funky Delicacies label released a ‘retrospective’ of her solo work, with one side of the album having the full versions of some of the records and the flip side with the instrumental tracks only. I wouldn’t normally recommend one of their releases, but since you’re unlikely to find this stuff anywhere else (without shelling out a pile of dough), I’ll make an exception just this once.

#8
Eddie Bo
S.G.B. b/w Solid Foundation
(Seven B)

Click on the label to hear a sample!

If you’ve ever been to this page before, you know we think Eddie Bo is one of the undisputed musical masters of the ages. Known to most as a provider of the funk, Eddie is so much more. He started out (and continues today) as one of the masters of old school Big Easy piano, and has recorded R&B, soul, funk and jazz. Many fans are only familiar with his funky work, as a leader and as a composer/producer/arranger for others, including the Explosions, Marilyn Barbarin, Chuck Carbo and others.

I’m here to tell you that his pre-funk work is well worth seeking out. The 1967 outing, ‘S.G.B. (Stone Graveyard Business)’ b/w ‘Solid Foundation’ is one of his best. The dividing line between what we now consider R&B and ‘soul’ can be  - like the line between jazz and R&B often is – blurry. This is never more true than in New Orleans. The musicians  of the Crescent City have always traveled their own stylistic byways. Their sounds draw from one of the more interesting palettes, and as a result the records they make are often difficult to pigeonhole (I see this as a good thing). Some of the greatest early 60’s soul records came out of New Orleans, like Bennie Spellman’s ‘Fortune Teller’ and ‘I Feel Good’, and Diamond Joe’s

Gossip Gossip’. They may not have been the heart of teen dance parties, but they were catching the ears of some of the era’s most influential musicians, especially in the UK.

 Eddie Bo’s early 60’s recordings (for many labels) run the gamut from the Impressions inspired sounds of ‘Fare Thee Well’, to the pounding proto-funk of Roger & The Gypsies ‘Pass The Hatchet’ to soulful pop like ‘From This Day On’.

‘S.G.B. (Stone Graveyard Business)’ bears the distinct mark of James Brown’s ‘Out of Sight’. It shows Eddie Bo taking part in the evolution of soul that would shortly give birth to funk. Of course Eddie’s taken the razor sharp twists and turns of the James Brown band and marinated them in the slightly lazy (but delicious) flavors of the Big Easy. Things are slowed down a touch while bringing out more of the grit and depth of the music. It helps that Eddie’s working that slightly threatening lyrical edge (not unlike Willie Tee’s ‘Thank You John’, one of the most demented lyrics to come out of New Orleans or anywhere else for that matter.

‘Solid Foundation’ moves in a more pop-soul direction, like the earlier ‘Fence of Love’ (also on Seven B).

I have a lot of records, (probably too many by some standards). I’ve come to a point in my collection where there aren’t too many things that I want, that I haven’t been able to track down. Unfortunately, those discs that languish on my ‘wants’ list have been there for a while. All of them are rare. Some of them are going for crazy money, and other just keep slipping through the cracks.

Rare records, whether you’re talking about funk, soul, jazz or whatever, are usually ‘rare’ for a couple of reasons. Some 45’s, like ‘Damn Ph’aint’ by the Herb Johnson Settlement on Toxsan are rare because there never were more than a few copies. Other records are rare not only for the usual reasons, but because of fluctuations in the collector market.

This months Eddie Bo Jam of the Month is a great example of the latter.

‘Lover & A Friend’, the second – and best -  in the series of duets between Eddie Bo and Inez Cheatham (aka Mary Jane Hooper, see the Eddie Bo Jam of the Month archive for more info), was released both on the local New Orleans imprint Seven B, and  nationally on Capitol. It didn’t make a significant impact at the time of release, and as a result is as hard to find as much of the rest of Eddie Bo’s body of work (with the marked exception of ‘Hook & Sling’). It is one Eddie’s best 45’s, with great interplay between the two singers, a fantastic tune and a memorable chorus. It also opens with a world-class New Orleans drum break, which is what takes us to the next part of our story.

Flash forward 32 years, to the collections of DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist. The two master diggers/djs got together and spun (and recorded) two sets of mixes based on funk 45’s as a practice session for a Future Primitive Sound Session in San Francisco. One of these records was Eddie Bo and Inez Cheatham’s ‘Lover and a Friend’. The show itself was recorded (and bootlegged), and eventually the ‘practice’ mix found it’s way to legitimate (and bootleg) release. To say that these releases became a phenomenon in the collector/dj underground would be a drastic understatement. Cut Chemist and DJ Shadow spurred on (at least within the turntablist world) a new rage for rare funk 45’s, as both mixing fodder and as a new way of counting coup (the Deep Funk collecting world already several years old at that point).  This also spurred creation of bootleg compilations (on vinyl and CD) of the tunes from the Brainfreeze mixes.

Suddenly (as fans and collectors were able to pick apart what records had been used in the mix) many of these records skyrocketed in value. This was due in large part to the presence of E-Bay, on which these 45s were listed as ‘Brainfreeze’ breaks and started bidding wars from collectors eager to grab all of the sampled discs (the name is derived from the fact that one of the sampled records was a promo 45 from the 60’s called ‘Dance the Slurp’, an advertisement for frozen Slurpee drinks -  from the US convenience store chain 7-11 -  which, despite it’s huge price tag is not a funk record, but rather a crappy novelty). Some of these records (including two other Eddie Bo 45’s that were in the mix, ‘The Thang’ and ‘From This Day On’) were already extremely rare, costly and genuinely funky (like ‘Hung Up’ by Salt, ‘Baby Don’t Cry’ by the Third Guitar and ‘Sexy Coffee Pot’ by Tony Alvon & The Belairs). Some, like the Rufus Thomas records included in the mix were funky, but not at all rare, and others -  like the 7-11 45 - were not at all funky , but had their value go through the roof because of their presence in this mix.

Reaction to this in the collector community has been mixed. Some see Brainfreeze as a curse (which is how I felt before I heard the mixes). Others (and I now count myself in this group) think the mixes are incredible, know that some of these 45s were as rare as all hell to start with, and know that some of the records aren’t worth digging for anyway. The increased cost/popularity of sampled 45s is not a new phenomenon; And, if it brings once forgotten but deserving records back into the spotlight it’s not entirely bad either.

DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist followed Brainfreeze with  a sequel of sorts called Product Placement.

Check out John Book’s outstanding site dedicated to the Brainfreeze phenomenon.

#10 - The Cinderella Records Sides

Though the master is know best for his funky sides, Eddie Bo had a long, solid career from the mid-1950’s on, recording for a number of New Orleans, and national labels.

In 1963 Bo recorded four sides for local New Orleans label Cinderella records (which had also issued several 45’s by Art Neville (pre-Meters) and Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown among others.

These 45s, like many of Bo’s early singles matched an upbeat tune on the a-side and a ballad on the flip.

The first of the Cinderella 45’s is ‘Shake , Rock and Soul’ b/w ‘Reassure Me’. ‘Shake, Rock and Soul’ (as it’s title might lead you to believe) bears a passing structural resemblance (in the chorus) to Joe Turner’s “Shake Rattle and Roll’. The record features a party atmosphere (compare this to some of Bo’s work as songwriter/producer with Oliver Morgan, i.e 'Roll Call' or 'La La Man' on Seven B), with some great singing by Bo in the verses. Like his Chess, Blue Jay and early Seven B sides, the Cinderella recordings mark an important transitional period in Bo’s sound. We see him moving (like many of his contemporaries) from a bluesier R&B vibe into the world of Soul.

The second Cinderella 45, ‘Just Like a Monkey’ b/w ‘Have Mercy On Me’ goes even further in that direction. The a-side is an homage to the Miracle’s ‘Mickey’s Monkey’ with an energetic, bouncing beat, a female backing chorus and another solid vocal by Bo. Listen to this side by side with some of Bo’s Chess sides and the influence of Detroit and Chicago (especially the Impressions-styled ‘Let It Roll’)  isn’t hard to see.

Interestingly enough, as the years moved on, the evidence of that influence (and later especially, that of James Brown) would begin to wane, with Bo eventually crafting a funk sound that was entirely his own and deeply ‘New Orleans’.

Hip Drop Pts 1&2

Jam of the Month Double Feature!
Oliver Morgan - Bobby Williams Group

Oliver Morgan - Roll Call b/w Sure Is Nice (Seven B)

The Bobby Williams Group - Boogaloo Mardi Gras Pts 1&2 (Capitol)

*If it is in fact the 'Funky Superfly' guy, please let me know