|
Emerging New Music: Songs with that Southern Soul groove are
popping up all over as we celebrate yet another new year of musical possibilities. Some that were released late in 2015 are
making quite a splash as well. Long time veteran OB Buchana's Swing On has been one of the hottest of the recent tracks - It is from his latest album, Mississippi Folks....... You don't hear Lady Audrey's name mentioned
that often, but we first noticed her singing lead with The Superior Band roughly 10 years ago. She has had some charting hits,
including Prescription For My Love Addition
and Big Girl Love. Her latest single,
Let's Get It Started, definitely has
#1 potential........Speaking of The Superior Band, a single just dropped from them fronted by Miss Rebekah entitled There Goes My Baby. We were able to slide 2015's Rebekah hit Dancing With
My Baby over to Beach music where it finished in the Top 45 for the year...........Arkansas native Rob Hewz had a
strong album, Life After The 9-5, released
in 2010. We discovered it a little late here but charted the single Rock It Baby. Just dropped February 1 is a cool new Rob Hewz track entitled Little Bit........
Theodis Ealey has been getting it done for years. He collaborates with Bruce Billups
on the latest jump Blues charting hit, Mississippi
Delta..........I seem to recall that the late Mel Waiters introduced us to Choppa Law a few years back. Choppa has
a noisemaker right now with I Fell In Love
Wit Yo Cuzzin'!! Naw, hold up, that's yo cuzzin' not my cuzzin'!............ CDS Records VP and producer extraordinaire
Carl Marshall has a unique style all his own. In addition to a big hit last year with Cheating Town, Carl has a couple of new tracks rumbling right now with You Gotta Let It Go featuring Gary Brown and first time single Leave That Man's Wife Alone. Did you know that Carl had an album release
way back in 1976 under the name Soul Dog?? LOL, wait a minute, isn't that me??.........
Speaking of producers, Cincinati's finest, Bigg Robb, has had recent success with
the Good Love (Remix) featuring Mz.
Jackson. His brand new track is a syncopated slow jam called I Love You. Robb is also the producer of new sensation Toia Jones' charter (You Can) Get It. Toia was a recent contestant on The Voice............ Veteran chanteuse Karen Wolfe has a hit on her hands with Don't Nothing Here Belong To You from last year's No Regrets album...........Cornbread And Greens by Cupid with Pokey is kicking up major dust......Newcomer
Tony Tatum has already hit the charts with the soulful strains of I Need A Woman. Isn't Tony a lead on the group Till 1, who have two working hits right now, Tonight's The Night and Ohh Baby (which is charting here at the Corner)??....Lomax's newest, The Knock Down Inn has made big strides over the last two months.....
More fresh music outta tha gate - Front and center guys Mr. David with 2 Step Slide, Patrick Green on I Just Wanna Love You and Vick Allen gets a little frisky with Be My Shawty On The Side.............
Smooth sounding newbie Solomon
Thompson creates a celebration of the yearly festival with his latest, Mardi Gras...........Memphis based diva (love her music) Sweet Angel had her first album drop on Ecko in 2007.
She currently has an outstanding new single with Steps
To Love..........Young gun Tucka's Greatest
Hits album remains on the Top 30 Southern Soul/R&B Albums chart even though it was released in October of 2014.
I'm lovin' his brand new single, When She Said
Goodbye....... Former '70's/'80's Jones Girls member Shirley Jones has
given us at least one album and some singles in Southern Soul over the past five years. Her latest single drop is My Time To Shine.......... Frank Lucas was/is the Good Thing Man from back in 1977. His new dance groove is called The Lucas Funky Swing.........The nephew
J. Red is shaking it up - he just recently produced a dynamite track for newcomer Shay Denise on A Man's World, what a jam!! His Step Out groove was hot last year and he is currently in the middle of two more
new ones, Forever And Ever and Drop That Thang........
|
Catrese West aka Miss Mini
I am diggin' Catrese West aka Miss Mini, on her latest single Ole School Style, currently #8 on the Corner's Top 45. She also had
a rockin' Christmas single this past December, Corn
Whiskey In The Egg Nog, my kind of party!! Catrese hails from Rocky Mount, NC, just up the road a piece from me -
you go girl!!!.............The Original Klass Band Brotherhood, which is without Nelson Curry,
have several new tracks out there, including Dancin' and Shake It. Nelson
is doing OK as well, his collaboration with Jerome Da Entertainer, We Jukin', is currently sitting at #1 here at the Corner. His newest single, Girl With The Coke Bottle Frame, was scheduled to drop this week............CoCo
Wade is known as a Soul/R&B sensation in her home base of New Orleans. She has a nice groove breaking out in Southern
Soul entitled Get Loose........
Do you remember when Rue Davis broke out on the music scene? An outstanding writer,
producer and performer for many years, his first big hit came in 1995 with the single
I'm In Love With The Girl Next Door,
which remained on the Beach music charts for months. His latest album release is Big Hip Woman, of which the title track is solidly entrenched on the charts..........I
think most would agree that Ms. Jody is the number one female performing artist in Southern Soul. Unlike past album releases,
her April 2015 Talkin' Bout My Good Thang album
on Ecko had no clear cut stand out track on it but several solid ones. Here at the Corner we have charted You Got Your Hooks In Me, Don't Say I Love You and Double Dealer, the Daddy B. Nice pick was If He Knew What I Was Thinking and The Boogie Report's Top 20 had I Ain't Gonna Lie This Time sitting at
#2 in their recent Countdown. She's still the one!!......
|
|
|
Passings in the Soul music world: on January 8th we lost the legendary Otis Clay, whose
career started in Gospel music in the mid-'50's, moved to Chicago Soul in the '60's, to Memphis based Hi Records in the '70's,
to international fame with performances in Europe and Japan, recording on various Blues and Soul labels throughout the remainder
of his career. This Time For Real from
2015, pictured above featuring Billy Price, was the last of many albums from the great Otis Clay...............From Chicago,
they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. The Dells, who have been making soulful music across 7 decades,
have a new single entitled My Heart Can't Stand
Another Breakup. Also in the works is a short documentary The Dells - 60 Years Of Musical
Magic..........Another legendary group, founded in the late '60's, The Winstons have been turning out singles over the
last few years - they have a new one entitled (She's
A) Gold Digga, found on their November 2015 Southern Soul & More EP............
|
Back in the July 2015 edition of the Corner, we discussed that fact that the very talented
Chuck Roberson's career may be suffering from the standpoint of almost total lack of distribution of his most recent albums.
Over In The Woods was finally officially
released in December on the Cruise On label. Twelve tracks of that distinctive Roberson sound for a hard working artist who
has been at it for well over 40 years. It is currently sitting at #9 on the Top 30 Southern Soul/R&B Albums chart. There
are a few more new album releases out from Avail Hollywood, TK Soul, Charles Wilson, Luster Baker and Jo Jo Murry that we
will be reviewing in the coming months. Hopefully, some of the ladies will be dropping albums soon as well.
|
|
|
|
|
As an independent label pioneer of Soul music, Jackson, MS native Senator Jones
was a leading promoter in the New Orleans area for well over 50 years. He sang and recorded some as well, particularly in
the early years of the '50's/'60's. He was born to be a producer and promoter, however, creating several labels over the years
before settling on Hep' Me Records in the early '70's. Jones eventually struck a deal with Marshall Sehorn. In return for
access to the Sea-Saint recording studio owned by Sehorn and Allen Toussaint, Jones turned over a percentage of his profits
to Sehorn and gave him the rights to license his material. Charles Brimmer was the first of the well known Big Easy artists
produced by Jones at that time.
Over the coming years, he would work with
and record such New Orleans treasures as Johnny Adams, Barbara George, Bobby Powell, Chris Kenner, Walter Washington and Tommy
Ridgley. He also put in quite a bit of time and effort into lesser known and unfortunately under compensated artists like
Eddie Lang, The Barons, Clem Easterling, The Prolifics, Bobby Lecour, Ray J, Norma Jean, Chuck Simmons, Willie Garland and
Tody Tucker. As R&B evolved into Southern Soul, Jones became more of a talent scout, discovering artists such as Sir Charles
Jones and The Love Doctor, later directing them to the New Orleans based Mardi Gras Records label. Senator Jones, who still
maintained a home in Mississippi, passed away there in his sleep in November of 2008. Between October 2014 and August 2015,
the Mardi Gras label has re-released in 8 volumes the early Hep' Me singles (a few previously unreleased as well) that were produced by Senator Jones, most recorded between the years of 1970 and 1985. Soul music worth
the price for sure!!
Debbie Taylor - Then and Now
When we go back and take a look at many
of the forerunners of today's
Soul music, what we often find are artists
that tried and tried but eventually gave up on making it big. One particular artist that had the voice to be a superstar was
known by her stage name of Debbie Taylor. I first discovered her music while digging through a bin of bargain 45 RPM's in
a record store sometime in the early '70's. She had recorded in 1969 with a group known as the Hesitations a song entitled
No Brag Just Fact backed with Mama Look Sharp. I did buy the 45, not exactly the polished Soul I
was looking for at the time but always remembered her soaring vocal ability on the tunes.
Taylor was born Maddie Bell Galvin in Norfork,
VA in the late 40's. She grew up singing in her father's church, so well that she toured nationally with a gospel group while
still a teenager. Later performing in clubs in and around her hometown with her father insisting that she use a stage name,
the passion in which she sang with was discovered by Joe Medlin, a regional talent scout for Decca Records. Her mother signed
the contract that allowed Maddie to record under the name of Debbie Taylor. Her
first singles on the label were produced at Willie Mitchell's Royal Studio in Memphis in 1968. Debbie's song, Check Yourself, made it to #37 on Billboard's R&B chart that same
year.
The next year, Debbie moved to record with
New York's newly formed GWP label, founded by Gerald Purcell, helping launch their business with her first single there, Never Gonna Let Him Know, hitting #18
on the R&B charts. Over the next 7 years, Debbie would record many songs on the GWP, Today, Polydor and Arista labels,
but the fame was fleeting, with only one more charting hit, I Don't Want To Leave You, peaking at #32 on the R&B chart in 1976. Shortly thereafter, somewhat disillusioned
with the music business and not willing to sign an exclusive contract with Arista, she pretty much retired from recording
and performing for roughly 20 years.
Briefly married and moving to Stamford,
Connecticut, Debbie re-emerged in the '90's as Maydie Myles, recording on a few
dance tracks, performing in local clubs and doing some radio and ad jingle work over the next several years. She later released
a Jazz album under this name but at the same time also revealed her earlier career. All this time though Northern Soul collectors
in the UK still knew her legacy - through her killer singles such as No Deposit No Return, Just Don't Pay, Romance Without Finance, I Have
Learned To Do Without You and Don't Nobody Mess With My Baby. The fact that she re-emerged created a renewed interest
in the music of Debbie Taylor. After contract negotiations fell through on a 2011 UK Festival (she was actually there but
could not perform) she played to a sold out audience in Castleford, England in November of 2013, once again rekindling the
soulful vibes of Ms. Debbie Taylor!
The new
#1 song on the chart is found on this compilation
Soul Dog’s Smokin' Top 45 Southern Soul
Hits
January/February
2016
# - new entry
1. We Jukin'
- Nelson Curry & Jerone Da Entertainer
2. Double Dealer
- Ms. Jody
3. Satisfy My
Woman - Entertainers
4. Baby Come
Back Home - Mr. X
5. What A Girl
Needs - Robin Moet with Katrenia Jefferson
6. Knock Down
Inn - Lomax
7. Here We Go
- Jaye Hammer
8. Ole School
Style - Miss Mini
9. Dance Tonight
- Blackwater R&B Band
10. True Love - Carolina Soul Band
11. Do You Wanta Party - Steve
Perry
12. Swing On - OB Buchana
13. He Put A Rockin' Chair On Me
- LeAundra Lively
14. Let Me See You Back It Up -
Charles Wilson
15. Give My Love 2 U - Ms Yanni
16. A Man Who Understands - Clayton
Knight
17. Your Man Is Home Tonight -
Willie Clayton
18. I Want Me A Country Girl -
Terry Wright
19. Cornbread & Greens - Cupid
w/ Pokey
20. You Can Get It - Toia Jones
#
21. My Main Squeeze - Ghetto Cowboy
22. Love Don't Owe Me Nothing -
Lady Di
23. Let's Get It Started - Lady
Audrey
#
24. II Step - Patrick Green
25. Big Hip Woman - Rue Davis
#
26. Juke Joint Party - Val McKnight
27. Ohhh Baby - Till 1
#
28. She Made A Freak Out Of Me
- Willie B
29. Sugar Daddy - Veronica Ra'elle
30. Mr Right On Time Dr. Feelgood
- Jim Bennett
31. A New Pair Of Shoes - Angel
Faye Russell
32. Ain't No Big Deal On You - Zac Harmon
33. Mississippi Delta - Theodis
Ealey
34. I'm Gonna Keep The Man I Got
- T. Honey Brown
35. Get Loose - CoCo Wade #
36. Angel - Ricky White
37. Junk In The Trunk - Sonja Moree
38. Cancel Him - LaRose Jackson
#
39. Zydeco With Me - Jeter Jones
#
40. I Had To Tell Somebody - LJ
Echols
#
41. Blues And BBQ - Bigg Robb w/
Denise LaSalle
42. Right Kind Of Woman - Andre'
Lee
#
43. Blues Party - Dee
44. You Gotta Let It Go - Carl
Marshall w/ Gary Brown #
45.
Candy Lover - Mys. Niki
|
