Shit You Might Not Know About . . .
Dorothy Ashby – Afro Harping
Dorothy Ashby was a jazz harp player, which alone makes her intriguing. After all, in the jazz world, the harp isn’t like the tenor sax. In fact, other than Alice Coltrane, even an ardent jazz fan would be hard pressed to name another jazz harpist. But, on this 1968 release, Ashby stepped a bit out of her comfort zone, borrowing from the soul music that was rippling through the Black community, and ending up with an album that is a sort of jazz-soul fusion with harp on top. The grooves are deep; the vision to combine all of those elements was even deeper.
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Charles Mingus – The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
It is hard to believe this album was released in 1963 because it is still lightyears beyond anything that has been made after it. The album is pure passion, instantly transfixing. It sounds like transmissions from an alien planet – one moment assaulting your ears with a cacophony of horns and fiendish drums, the next soothing you with impossibly beautiful melodies. In the liner notes, Mingus asked Edmund Pollock, a clinical psychologist, to review the music. Pollock was astonished, as he had no expertise in music. Mingus didn’t care. ”If you hear the music, you’ll understand,” he said. The amazing thing about this album is how it does what the great socially-conscious soul music of the 1970s did – namely, provide an outlet for the frustrations, hopes, fears, experiences of black Americans – except it does all of this with no words. Mingus knew how good the album was when it was done. In fact, he said, “Throw all other records of mine away except maybe one other.” And, in further explanation: ”I wrote the music for dancing and listening . . . It is my living epitaph from birth til the day I first heard of Bird and Diz. Now it is me again.” The man was a master, one of the greatest American composers to ever live. It’s all there on this album. Listen
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Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf – Muddy and the Wolf
This album gets a lot of shit because it isn’t actually a collaboration between Waters and Wolf and because it is composed of songs that were recorded for other sessions. However, getting past all that to the music, this is an oddity and a lost gem. The A side features six songs by Muddy Waters, with Otis Spann on piano, Paul Butterfield on harmonica and Duck Dunn (of Stax fame) on bass. If that lineup isn’t enough to make your mouth water, then you don’t like music. But, it gets better – if that’s possible – on the B side with seven Howlin’ Wolf songs featuring Eric Clapton on guitar, Steve Winwood on piano and organ, Bill Wyman on bass and Charlie Watts on drums. It is fascinating to hear the way the white youngsters play behind the legends who taught them everything they know. Lineups like that only happen in dreams.
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Gang Starr – Step in the Arena
It is hard to believe that this album came out in 1990. It is so advanced from the sparse beats and simple samples that dominated hip-hop in the ’80s that it feels generations removed. But, such is the genius of DJ Premiere. As Questlove said in his Thriller interview, Premiere is known for doing “something really radical,” and this hip-hop masterpiece proves the point. The samples and beats are so incredibly wide-ranging, mature and just plain amazing that when Guru starts to rap in his signature introspective monotone, it’s icing on the cake. Sadly, Guru died in 2010, but his voice will live forever through Gang Starr’s work. They might not have been as ubiquitous or commercially successful as artists like Dr. Dre or Notorious B.I.G., but they are every bit as influential and important.
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Os Mutantes – Os Mutantes
The cultural, social and musical upheaval of the 1960s hit Brazil particularly hard. There were some young turks playing a new thing called “tropicalia” that blended traditional Brazilian forms of music with the sex and sweat of rock & roll, and the government was terribly threatened by the new abomination. The Brazilian government cracked down on the young bohemians, coming down especially hard on musicians playing tropicalia – people like Caetano Veloso (check out his Thriller interview here), Gilberto Gil and a group called Os Mutantes. Os Mutantes – literally “The Mutants” – released their debut album in June, 1968, a mere six months before Veloso was arrested by the government, roughed up and exiled to Europe. Veloso and Gil wrote several of the songs on the album, but Os Mutantes took them to new heights. Through the band’s eyes, the songs were weird and hard to grasp and probably a little scary by the standards of the time. The album is a beautiful, haunting, schizophrenic trip that takes psychedelic rock from America, mixes it with the singular sounds of the Brazilian culture and forces it through the strainer of political danger and sexual freedom. From the strange opening of “Panis Et Circenses,” written by Veloso and Gil, it is clear that the listener is about to take a ride somewhere strange and new. Listen
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Marvin Gaye – Here, My Dear
No one has ever come closer to describing the agony of love, marriage and divorce. Before the album was written, Gaye’s first wife, Anna Gordy (sister of Motown founder Berry Gordy) filed for divorce because Gaye was having an affair with singer Janis Hunter, who was about to give birth to the couple’s second child. Low on money and addicted to cocaine, Gaye couldn’t pay alimony to Gordy, so his attorney suggested he give half the royalties he would earn from his next project to her. Gaye reportedly wanted to turn in a “lazy, bad” album, but as he began recording, the intensity of his emotions took over and he created an album that is bitter, tender, deep, spiritual, sexual, self-pitying and brutally honest. So, when he sings on the opening track, “This is what you wanted / Here, my dear, here it is,” the sweetness of his falsetto carries with it the bitterness of the words. A critical and commercial failure when it was released in 1978, the album has steadily risen in prestige since then, influencing everyone from D’Angelo to Nas.
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Ice Cube – AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted
Almost immediately after leaving one of hip-hop’s first supergroups – N.W.A. – Ice Cube began working on his first solo album. Released in 1990, it would be a hallmark album for hip-hop and would be a template for some of the biggest rappers of the decade, including Notorious B.I.G. and Nas. The album was produced by the Bomb Squad, which handled Public Enemy’s records. Importantly, Cube traveled to New York to record much of the album, and the result is a perfect mix of his West coast style with the ascendant East coast gangsta style that would come to dominate hip-hop. The album is full of righteous anger and disenfranchisement as told from one of the great voices in hip-hop. As Cube said, “Rap is the blues, especially gangsta rap, because you’re hearing our pain, whether you agree with it or like it or not.”
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Harpo Marx – Harp by Harpo
One thing about vaudeville performers – they had to be multitalented. And, while many became famous for a particular talent, most had other talents that were as good, if not better. Case in point, the Marx Brothers. Famous for their madcap antics on screen and on stage, two of the brothers were also accomplished musicians. And, music was always a big part of their movies. Every Marx Brothers’ movie has a scene with Chico playing the piano in his inimitable way, and most have a scene with Harpo giving a virtuosic harp performance. In 1952, he recorded an EP of old-timey standards for RCA. Listening to it drives home the point – great comedians can understand music; legendary comedians can play it.
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The Soul Stirrers Featuring Sam Cooke The Soul Stirrers have a long and fascinating history in Gospel music, stretching back to 1926 (Read about it here). And, for a brief period, they had two of the greatest singers of a generation trading lead parts – Sam Cooke and Johnnie Taylor. This album, recorded in 1959 is proof of the talents of both, but Cooke really shines on songs like “Wonderful,” and “Be With Me Jesus.” Much has been written about Gospel’s influence on soul, R&B and rock ‘n’ roll, but this album makes that influence clear in a way words simply cannot. When you hear Cooke’s gritty growl, you understand where every great soul singer came from. It is transcendent. And, by the time they get through “Feel Like My Time Ain’t Long,” you can hear Gospel stretching back even further through old slave field songs and spirituals. In short, this is the raw shit – the kind you can’t fake.
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Aretha Franklin – Live at the Fillmore West Without a hint of exaggeration, we put this album in the running for best live album ever recorded. Here’s why. First, there’s the band – Billy Preston on keyboards, a legend in his own right who also played on two Beatles albums; Willie Mitchell on tenor sax, who played on most of Al Green’s best work; and King Curtis and the Kingpins as the rhythm section, King Curtis being a large player in the early days of rock ‘n’ roll. Then, there are the tunes – classics like “Respect” and “Dr. Feelgood” almost pale in comparison to her interpretations of Steven Stills’ “Love the One You’re With” and Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” The rhythm section puts so much funk into “Love the One You’re With,” it’s like being shot in the face by funk bullets made of James Brown’s sweat. Not for the faint of pelvis. And Franklin soars through “Bridge,” giving it so much soul it reportedly took the poof out of Art Garfunkel’s hair. Finally, there is the surprise – just before the end of the concert, Franklin invites Ray Charles on stage to sing and play organ on “Spirit in the Dark.” That’s kind of like if you saw Moses hanging out with Abraham Lincoln.
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The Zombies – Odessey and Oracle Odessey and Oracle has all the things I look for in a classic album. It has thoughtful songwriting, both in the narrative and abstract sense. It has tons of replay value. And it has depth. The album opens with one of the most joyous songs on the entire record, “Care of Cell 44”, a story about two lovers reuniting after a prison stint. There are also songs like “Hung Up On A Dream,” psychedelic masterpiece with a beautiful piano intro, cascading strings, emotive tom fills and virtually no structure. It’s the most ambitious song on the album, a virtuous leap into Rod Argent’s stream of consciousness. “Butchers Tale” is a grim story similar to Creedance Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son,” made even more haunting by Argent’s 1896 pump organ. The Zombies give the listener a multi-dimensional palette of songs that waiver between strong and brilliant. But more than great songs, this album has the distinct and familiar feel of the ’60s, which gives it plenty of nostalgic value for those who grew up in that decade, but a sublime, retro sound for those infatuated with that era. You can hear the influence of the Beatles and the Beach Boys vocally, but the Zombies still manage to sing in their own, very English way. They were fearless in creating this album, using jazz and psychedelia as a background for wildly interesting chord structures that probably kept many of these songs off the charts. The songs were inaccessible and often too dark in their subject matter to be embraced by the masses, and although it was never a commercial success, music lovers around the world know that Odessey and Oracle is a gem of a record. – Dante Lima
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The Flaming Lips – Zaireeka Everyone knows the Flaming Lips, and many have heard of their four-disc masterpiece, Zaireeka, but few have actually gathered a group of friends, found four stereos, and experienced the album, which is why it makes the list. Put simply, Zaireeka is a spiritual experience. The album can only be heard by putting each disc in a separate stereo and playing all four stereos at the same time. The result will explode your concept of what music can be. First, it adds a third dimension – space – to the two we’re used to (sound and time). This will make it impossible to listen to regular, 2-D music for at least a few weeks after hearing it. Second, it makes music a communal experience. In order to hear Zaireeka, you have to sit in the same room with some friends for forty-five minutes while the album plays. Third, you can never hear the album the same way twice, because you’ll never get all four discs to line up in exactly the same way. Thus, each listen is its own entity – different from the last listen and different from the next listen. As phenomenal as the album is, the story of its creation is just as amazing. Read all about it here.
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Clifton Chenier – King of the Bayous “Standin’ on the shoulders of Clifton Chenier and King of the Bayous.” Those words, from the song “That Was Your Mother” on Paul Simon’s Graceland, introduced me to Zydeco king, Clifton Chenier. Many years later, I happened to find a copy of King of the Bayous in Sharpe’s Records in Gainesville, Florida. As soon as I put it on the turntable, I was hooked. The album contains a mixture of styles that could only have come from Louisiana – the percussion (provided by drums and a washboard), the accordion, and the way that Chenier distills American blues music through his Creole roots. Released in 1970 (on Arhoolie, which also put out some great Hawaiian music), King of the Bayous is Chenier’s best work. It is especially interesting to listen to the track, “Zodico Two-Step” next to Paul Simon’s “That Was Your Mother,” because Simon took Chenier’s rhythm track as the basis for his song. Zydeco itself is fascinating because, listening to it, you can tease out the different influences. The result is like a musical history of slavery and colonization – going from Africa through colonial France to America, picking up parts along the way and ending up as something that comes from all three but belongs to none. And, as King of the Bayous shows, no one did Zydeco better than Clifton Chenier. – T.A.
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Television – Marquee Moon
Every hipster wishes he lived in New York City in the ’70s. Television not only lived there, they helped define it. Back then, the new wave/punk/post-punk scene was broiling and for a while it really seemed like Television might end up being kings of the whole thing. With their debut, Marquee Moon, Television threw down a gauntlet. But, for whatever reason, they lacked the staying power of contemporaries like the Ramones and Talking Heads and never quite fulfilled the expectations MM set. Still, the album ranks among the best works to come out of New York City in the ’70s. The centerpiece of the album is the way Tom Verlaine’s guitar intertwines with Richard Lloyd’s to create minimalist guitar symphonies on nearly every track. Today, the band is more influential than famous, but as Nels Cline’s testimony shows, Marquee Moon still matters.
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Hugh Masekela and the Union of South Africa 
Recorded in 1971, this is a masterpiece that defies classification. From the swamp jazz of “Going to New Orleans” to the frenetic rhythm of “Ade” to the head-bobbing joy of “Johannesburg Hi-Lite Jive,” each track encompasses jazz, world music and African rhythms, mixes it with a heavy dose of American soul and comes out with something entirely new. The result is phenomenal. ”Union” was originally released on Masekela’s own Chisa record label and has become one of the lost gems that should be lost no more.
