I first came across items from the Tuff City/Funky Delicacies/Night Train catalogues via Dusty Groove. I went to the Tuff City web site and was amazed by he variety of funk and R&B discs, especially the New Orleans stuff. They had album-length compilations by Mary Jane Hooper, Smokey Johnson, and best of all Eddie Bo. ‘Here it is." I thought to myself. ‘I’ll probably end up getting everything on this label.’ Unfortunately, after actually sampling the label’s product (and dismal customer service) I have come to the realization that this treasure trove of music has fallen into the hands of a company that is ill-equipped to do it justice.
       Call it record-collector anal-retentive behavior, but when someone takes it upon themselves to reissue rare music, they owe it to the people buying it to do a little research and include it in the package. When you’re talking about New Orleans soul, funk and R&B, almost all of which was recorded for small, independent labels – some of the artists recording for MANY of these labels over the course of a career – there is very little information out there. Most people have no idea who Eddie Bo was, or how important a musical force he was. Even artists like Allen Toussaint, who compared to Eddie Bo is positively famous are woefully under-represented in standard reference (what there is).
     The fact that Tuff City is an independent label is no excuse either. One need only look to UK labels like Bam-Caruso and Demon to see the amazing quality that an archival re-releases can have if the right people are involved.
      Case in point is ‘Eddie Bo & The Soul Finders: The Hook & Sling’. Eddie Bo is, like Allen Toussaint, and to a lesser extent Wardell Quezerque, as close to an ‘auteur’ as you will find in New Orleans music. He is a performer, composer, arranger, and producer, in addition to acting as a talent scout of sorts at labels like Ric, Ron Seven B, Bo Sound and Scram . His career stretches from the 1950’s to the present day. What most people are interested in now are his soul and funk records from the mid-60’s to the early 70’s. As a compilation of his work, ‘The Hook & Sling’ certainly appears to include most of the right songs, with the marked exception of ‘Lover and a Friend’, his duet with Inez Cheatham (aka Mary Jane Hooper, aka Sena Fletcher), and his own 'Getting To The Middle'.
      However Bo’s biggest hit ‘Hook & Sling’ appears in a truncated, remixed, continuous version (it was originally two sides of a 45). Other tunes were originally released with different titles, under other names - i.e. ‘Funky Jam’ which was originally released as ‘Live It Up’ by James K Nine, and ‘Eddies Rubber Band’ (originally ‘Shelly’s Rubber Band) and ‘Funky Yeah’ which were released on a House Of The Fox 45 as Curly Moore and the Kool Ones. These changes are not noted anywhere in the liner notes, which are rudimentary at best. They contain no mention of release dates, personnel, original labels. There are no label scans, only two photos and one of them (the cover photo) is from a book about the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
     The Wardell Quezerque and James Booker sets have even less information. The Booker set, while full of great music, verges on deception with the ‘funky 45’ in the title. Nothing on the album is from later than 1963, and while soulful, is hardly funky. The cover of the Quezerque set says the tracks are pulled from the vaults of several labels, but never says which tracks are from which labels. It never mentions that Quezerque also worked for such labels as Malaco and Chimneyville where he was responsible for producing and arranging tracks like King Floyd’s ‘Groove Me’, a national hit.
    I suppose in the end it’s a moot point. I will continue to buy these records (where else are you going to find a whole album of Smokey Johnson tracks?).
     An interesting contrast are the ‘New Orleans Funk’ and ‘Saturday Night Fish Fry’ collections on the UK label Soul Jazz. Once again the English have to roll up and show us how it’s done. Both of these sets are amazing, and fortunately fairly easy to track down via outlets like Dusty Groove and the Louisiana Music Factory (http://www.louisianamusicfactory.com/default.asp). Both compilations feature a very well thought out cross-section of New Orleans, soul, funk and R&B, including many rarities (like Salt, Roger & The Gypsies and the Explosions), and some of the more familiar tunes. The ‘Saturday Night Fish Fry’2-LP set - the more recent release - features a deluxe package complete with label scans, detailed track information as well as interviews with Marshal Sehorn, Cosimo Matassa and Eddie Bo. They are the kind of collections that are comprehensive enough for collectors but also sure to please casual listeners too (after all, it is amazing music).