Pin your ears back for a dozen instrumental gems from when music was great!
"Jungle Street" was recorded by London trio, The Scorpions, in 1961 - and deemed not good enough for release. A remastered version finally scuttled onto the market in 2014 - sounds pretty good to me! Now, where did I put those winkle-pickers...
Drummer Earl Palmer (1924-2008) boasted quite an impressive CV, what with playing on Fat's Domino's "The Fat Man" in 1949, and going on to record with...
...Little Richard, Frank Sinatra, Phil Spector, Ricky Nelson, Bobby Vee, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Eddie Cochran, Ritchie Valens, Bobby Day, Don and Dewey, Dick Dale, Jan and Dean, the Beach Boys, Larry Williams, Gene McDaniels, Bobby Darin, Ike & Tina Turner, the Righteous Brothers, Neil Young, B. Bumble and the Stingers, Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Bostic, Count Basie, B.B. King, Taj Mahal, Randy Newman, Tom Waits, Bonnie Raitt, Tim Buckley, Little Feat and Elvis Costello - among many others. He somehow managed to fit in one or two of his own recordings, including this excellent version of the standard "One Mint Julep", from his 1961 album, Drumsville!:
"Pintor" by the Pharos is a lively, Mexican-flavoured 1963 release from a Puente, California band:
Ramsey Lewis with "Function at the Junction" (1967) - cool as a cucumber:
"High Tension" is a no-frills 1962 instrumental rocker from Ohio band, The Renegades:
"The Green Monkey" by Garnell Cooper and the Kinfolks, complete with wailing saxophone, was produced by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller in 1963:
"Slow Walk" by Bill Doggett was his ultra-cool 1956 follow up to the follow up to "Honky Tonk Pts. 1 & 2):
"Caldonia" by Portsmouth, Virginia band, The Rondels came out in 1961:
Memphis fatback all the way - "Planation Inn" (1966) by the Mar-Keys who were the Stax house-band. The line-up changed a lot, but usually included Steve Cropper and Donald "Duck" Dunn:
"Feeling in the Mood" is a slice of sleazy-sounding Exotica on the B-side of a release from South London group, The Thunderbolts, in 1962:
This next one sounds like a Duane Eddy classic - not surprising, as it was produced by the Twangmeister's producer, Lee Hazelwood, and the guitarist is Al Casey, whose superb "Ramrod" was released under Duane Eddy's name (yes, I know this is contentious, and I'm a huge Duane Eddy fan - "Peter Gunn" is my all-time favourite instrumental - but I reckon this video is convincing) :
I'll end with Swinging Soul Machine's delightfully loose "Spooky's Day Off" from 1969:
Thanks for introducing me to the Swinging Soul Machine. I missed them the first time round. I must have been somewhere between Chicago II and Music from Big Pink at the time. More encouragingly, I saw Hamish Stuart and Molly Duncan from the old Average White Band at the 606 in Chelsea earlier this year with a bunch of ageing sessioneers behind them and I can assure you that the spirit of the Markeys lives on.
Thanks for introducing me to the Swinging Soul Machine. I missed them the first time round. I must have been somewhere between Chicago II and Music from Big Pink at the time. More encouragingly, I saw Hamish Stuart and Molly Duncan from the old Average White Band at the 606 in Chelsea earlier this year with a bunch of ageing sessioneers behind them and I can assure you that the spirit of the Markeys lives on.
ReplyDelete