In lieu of today’s Breakbeat Tuesday jumpoff, I am heading out into the cold cold cold hard black earth that is Manhattan so a brother can get his head cut. Got to prep for this weekend, where I will be hitting up some shows in Canada (Thursday at Hi Fi in Calgary & Friday at Fortune Sound in Vancouver) and Seattle (Saturday at HG Lodge.) Peep the events page for more details. Anyway, you know how we do – got to stay fresh to death, No Delilah.
However to satisfy my loyal reader’s never ending thirst for useless knowledge and WMDs, and my never ending hunger to keep on talking, a brand new Cosmo’s Crates went up today over at the Fool’s Gold site. Big shout out to Carl Bean.
Last January the earth opened up and swallowed part of Port-au-Prince, Haiti and leaving a country and a people in dire straits. The good people over at Soulstrutdecided to hold a “Heatrocks For Haiti” campaign, where the members of the site would donate some of their most prized pieces of vinyl for auction, with all the proceeds going towards several different charitable foundations. We had done the same thing for our folks in New Orleans when Katrina hit, and both times we raised a massive amount of money, helped people, and shared our love of music and vinyl in the process.
We all went on a furious bidding war to grab records but there was one in particular that basically smacked me over the head and that I was determined to grab. I WANT IT NOW. And so I bid and I upped my bid and I upped it a little more. Once it got into the 3 figures price range I was pretty sure that I was coasting towards victory, but at the very last moment (as too often is the case) someone snuck by me and came out on the other side, victorious. Thwarted, I vowed that one day I would own that record. That record is the Karen Records version of Betty (Bettye) Lavette’s “Let Me Down Easy” B/W “Ticket To The Moon” – and to use some of the most apt (yet absurd) vernacular to describe this record, “shit is hard body as a motherfucker.” Especially the flipside, “Ticket…” just reeks of nastiness.
The Bettye Lavette story is quite interesting. Basically a detroit girl, she started her singing career very young, performing with a variety of artists including the James Brown review as well as a young up and coming soul singer from Georgie, Otis Redding. Having enjoyed a relatively healthy career touring and recording all throughout the 60s, it was during this time she recorded what many soul music aficionados refer to as “one of the greatest soul recordings of all time,” the original 1965 Calla Records version of “Let Me Down Easy.” I know at least one hip-hop producer agreed with how ill the song is, but I can’t remember who that was at the moment (feel free to chime in, folks.)
In the early 70s she signed with Atlantic / Atco and went down to Alabama to record an album (“Child Of The Seventies”) at the legendary Muscle Shoals. For reasons still unexplained, the project was cancelled and, other than 1 single, the album was shelved. Disillusioned, she continued on with her career releasing a few disco records and even singing on Broadway until 1999 when a French record collector found the master tapes for “Child Of The Seventies” and released it on his own imprint (under the new title “Souvenirs.”) This began an upsurge in her popularity and, coupled with a gang of newly recorded material over the past decade, Bettye is as popular than ever, having won awards and selling records like crazy. Don’t call it a comeback!
A couple months after I lost that bid for the record, I found another copy on eBay and was determined to get this one. Don’t ask me how much it cost but for sure it was a pretty penny. You know I was psyched when I got the 7″ package in my mailbox and opened it up, finally having this banger. One of the first things that I noticed when I looked at the label was the words “Arranged By Dale Warren.” Now I honestly do not know the back story on how all of this went down, as I’m not really as deep in the digging game as a lot of other dudes, but I figured it had to be the only other Dale Warren that I had heard about in the soul music scene at that time. Dale Warren was a musician and arranger for Motown in the 60s, and he’s the man behind the original arrangement of “Let Me Down Easy.” Being the classically trained violinist it makes sense, as the OG version’s pizzicato is so powerful. In the early 70s Warren moved over to the Stax label to join up with Isaac Hayes as the label’s in-house arranger. In 1973 he released a concept album dealing with the effects of American poverty. That album is “Ghetto: Misfortune’s Wealth” by 24 Carat Black, a magnum opus that, while it didn’t sell well at the time, is considered a masterpiece and touchstone in soul and funk music.
That album is dark and gritty and brooding… and booming. There’s really nothing quite like it. And listening to the 45 I had just got, one can hear that it was the direction that he was moving towards. Desperation funk. Combined with the unmatched intensity of Bettye’s voice and the longing and pain in it, it’s rawer than almost anything. That’s HARD BODY. For my money, when it comes to describing something as “hardcore” I will put this A and B side doubleshot up against any record by Slayer or M.O.P. It sounded like it was recorded somewhere in a cave in Hades. Unbelievably powerful and moving. And YES, both sides have drums, hence this record being a no-brainer for Breakbeat Tuesdays. I hope you enjoy it, as I have the A-Side as a Youtube clip so you can hear it, and the B-Side as the WMD. Peace!
Welcome to the Cosmo Baker Top Ten List Version 2.0! In the past I’ve always had a monthly list of ten records that I wanted to “chart” and share with my folks. These kind of run the line from older stuff that I’ve discovered to brand new stuff that I feel needs to get some shine. It’s usually a mix of different sounds that encapsulate where I’m coming from as a DJ. I profile a lot of music on my site, but these ten records are the “official” joints pretty much.
It used to be that I listed the records and then had them downloadable as individual MP3s. But after being inspired by my homeboy DJ Fashen, I decided that I was going to start to present the Top Ten in a monthly mix that could be downloadable in it’s entirety. Couple different reasons – first of which being that it switches the emphasis and brings me as a DJ into the equation. I don’t plan on making these mixes super involved or anything, just a solid presentation of the songs. The second was that I get a lot of early and exclusive shit and in the format of a mix, I’m actually able to share this with you guys.
So here it is – Cosmo Baker’s Top Ten Mix for January 2011. It starts off with the late great Lady T and then goes into overdrive of just some joints that I’m really feeling, both new and old. Hope you enjoy it!
*Edit: My cousin who is don dada of all this web shit is in Paris right now for the holliday, so when he gets back we’ll sort out a way to bring together the sidebar Top Ten jawn with this. Excelsior!
So far I have survived the holiday season and the blizzard. It took us nearly 4 hours to drive back to Manhattan from Philly yesterday, and we stopped counting car accidents that we saw on the road after we reached 30. Now I am comfortably nestled in my birds nest overlooking a city blanketed by haze and white. I don’t think cabin fever has set in yet but nonetheless this is a good enough time to write. I was going to post this yesterday but it was preempted by the news of Teena Marie passing. You can check my thoughts on that here.
Anyway, it was a successful and fun time with my family this weekend, all of whom I love very much. I went over to my big sister and her partner’s house with wifey, mom, my little sister and brother (who recently returned “back to the world” after spending 7 years in Japan) for our Annual Jewish Lesbian Anarchist X-Mas Brunch. Great times, great food, boardgames (and yo, I still say “ET” is completely playable in Scrabble) and the like. We never go overboard on giving gifts, but I always like to make a custom mix CD for each member of my family. On one of the CDs that I made this year (I think it was for my little sister) I put on the PHENOMENAL Maurice Fulton remix of “Love Endeavor” by Alice Smith AKA one of the greatest songs of all time.
I’m absolutely in love with Ms. Smith. Aside from her being my secret crush, she’s one of the most amazing vocalists I’ve heard in the past several years. She’s got an incredible vocal range and control. Her album “For Lovers, Dreamers & Me” is fantastic, and not just because of the not so subtle Muppets reference (although that doesn’t hurt!) Her material kind of falls in the chanteuse Norah Jones / Corinne Bailey Rae category of Starbucks music, except that it’s really good – edgy and not innocuous like a lot of the artists that share that world with her. It’s very much a “modern New York” soundtrack to me I guess.
When BBE picked House music legend Maurice Fulton to remix this record, I don’t think they realized what they were out for. We’re they going to get the guy who helped create Crystal Water’s “100% Pure Love?” Were they going to get the guy who was empbraced by the hipster world and returned that love in kind with his scorching remix of The Rapture’s “House Of Jealous Lovers?”
The genius of dude kind of never allows him to stay restricted to any written set of rules when constructing a song. And nowhere is that more evident to me than his re-imagining of Love Endeavor. I’ve tried to classify this song in my iTunes for so long now – I have it as “House” now but that’s just so I don’t get any more confused. At 112 BPM it surely isn’t house. It’s more like some sort of modern space astral traveling whimsy-boogie. Whatever the hell it is, it moves me both inside and out like not many other songs I’ve heard in my life. This shit just moves, and sends my mind on a fucking trip. I can listen to this song on constant repeat for the rest of my life. Like Ron Isley said, “A good combination…”
So if you do feel the way that I feel about you,
C’mon and share this crush with me,
Oh baby this love endeavor,
Don’t have to last forever,
C’mon and share whatever you want with me…
Tuesday November 5 – Joy To The Polls – Philadelphia, PA 
