Blog: Diddy Wah

[Download] Elephants Memory - Band of Love Today's post represents a prime example of one of the things I love most about producing an mp3 blog. I hear about a band, source some of their music and love it. I then google them, only to discover that Carly Simon was once a member, some of their tracks were on the soundtrack to Midnight Cowboy and they made an album with John Lennon in 1972. I give you 'Elephants Memory'. Formed in New York in the late 60's by Stan Bronstein (who sang and [...]

[Download] Tom Jones - Looking Out My Window I first came across this hectic Tom Jones 1968 b-side (to A Minute Of Your Time) via DJ Andy Smith's all-killer-no-filler mix CD, 'The Document'. 'Looking Out My Window', what a track! Tom's urgent baritone combined with persistent fat-back drums, on-the-money horns, eery background vocals, psyche guitar, fuzz bass and the occasional handclap, make for a never-fail dancefloor tearer upperer. It even has a hip-hopilicious drum breakdown. The tight hip-swinging big-band Vegas production style featured on this tune drives me wild. It just builds and builds and [...]

[Download] Ella Fitzgerald - Sunshine Of Your Love Recorded in San Francisco in 1968, Ella gives Cream's 'Sunshine Of Your Love' the big-voice-backed-by-a-big-band big beat treatment. This is a tune I've been waiting to post for ages and I wish I could give it the write up it deserves but at the moment looking for work and a place to live in London, as well as going to too many great gigs, is taking up all of my time. Ella Fitzgerald homepage

[Download] Fred Wesley & The J.B.'s - Blow Your Head [Download] Public Enemy - Public Enemy No.1 The J.B.'s were James Brown backing group. Formed in 1970, Brown enticed back band members who'd previously split due to his autocratic nature. One of those was trombone player, Fred Wesley, who came back into the fold as bandleader of The J.B.s. In 1974, under the name Fred Wesley and the J.B.'s, they released their third album entitled, 'Damn Right I am Somebody', echoing one of Jesse Jackson's catch cries. From this album is today's [...]

[Download] Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - Diddy Wah Diddy Captain Beefheart, aka Don Vleit (middle name originally Glen and later Van), is one of the more mysterious figures in music. The best story I've heard is how, before making a career out of music, he was working as a travelling vacuum cleaner salesman in California and once sold a model to Aldous Huxley using the line "Sir, this sucks". He took his name from a movie written by school chum, Frank Zappa, called, 'Captain Beefheart vs The Grunt People'. In 1963 [...]

[Download] The Pentangle - Light Flight While I'm revisiting bands that have featured previously on Diddy Wah, I can't forget The Pentangle. I'm constantly amused by the idea of me being into this band. Maybe because celtic folk seems so diametrically different to most of the styles I get into. I vaguely remember getting the same sort of strange pleasures from enjoying Tori Amos's, 'Cornflake Girl', ten years ago. Today's track, 'Light Flight', from their 1969 LP, 'Basket of Light', was a minor hit and is probably my favorite Pentangle track [...]

[Download] Shocking Blue - The Butterfly And I [Download] Tom Jones - Venus Way back in the early days of Diddy Wah I did a Shocking Blue post and, since they are just so damn fine, I can't help but revisit them. From their debut 1969 LP, 'At Home', 'The Butterfly And I' spends about a minute and a half treating the listener to sublime sitar, fatback drums, and the deep and hypnotic vocals of Mariska Veres, before sliding into a psychedelic vortex of massive brassy horns that [...]

[Download] Karen Dalton - It Hurts Me Too Karen Dalton moved from Oklahoma to New York in 1960 and began playing in the thriving Greenwich Village folk scene. She was associated with Bob Dylan and Fred Neil (both pictured above), and was recently name checked by Dylan in his book, The Chronicles Volume 1, as one of the few folkies he had any time for. She came from Irish/Cherokee heritage and learnt to play the fiddle at a young age from her Grandmother. She progressed to a 12 string Gibson (heard on today's mp3) and [...]

[Download] Rotary Connection - Like A Rollin' Stone Allthough I'm a cover version freak, Dylan covers don't really do it for me, with some obvious exceptions. I once picked up two CDs that came with Uncut magazine full of respectable bands all doing covers of Dylan songs, and I hated them both. Tribute albums in general suck pretty bad. So I think it was the pure kookiness of this version of 'Like A Rolling Stone' from the Rotary Connection that drew me to it. Rotary Connection were an ensemble group put together [...]

[Download] Smith - You Don't Love Me (Yes I Know) From their second, and final album, Minus-Plus, is Smith's upbeat organ driven rock cover of 'You Don't Love Me', originally written by Arkansas bluesman, Willie Cobbs. I did a post on Smith a little while back and haven't been able to find out much more about them since. Minus-Plus was released on Dunhill records in 1970 and the band had swapped a couple of members but thankfully Gayle McCormick wailing vocals still feature on the majority of tunes. Interestingly the keyboard playing of [...]

[Download] Rufus Thomas - Sixty Minute Man When I was twelve a friend made me a tape, one side Ice-T's 'Power' and the other side Eazy E's 'Eazy Duz It'. I listened to it so much (and it's had many a resurgence over the years) I'd be surprised if it still played. About five years later when I started getting into funk music I realised that I'd been listening to funk, as sampled by hip hoppers, since primary school. I still love digging up sample sources and so when I recently picked up Rufus Thomas's [...]

[Download] T-Model Ford - Take A Ride With Me I thought I saw a lot of music in Cuba, but one week in New Orleans and my head is bursting from all the spectacular shows I've taken in. Some stellar names, like Link Wray, Betty Harris, BB King, Ike Turner, Robert Lockwood Jr, Isaac Hayes, Barbara Lynn, Archie Bell, Eddie Bo, Dr John, George Clinton, Dr Lonnie Smith, Dale Hawkins, Blowfly, Nathaniel Mayer, Little Freddie King, Lady Bo, and Zigaboo Modeliste from The Meters, and that ain't even half of 'em. As you can imagine [...]

[Download] Oscar Brown Jr - Work Song Recorded in New York in 1960, today's mp3 is the first track on the Sin side of Oscar Brown Jr's debut LP, 'Sin & Soul'. 'Work Song', in accordance with its title, is about breaking rocks on a chain gang, but far from sounding like the raw field recordings made by Lomax and the like, this is a classy jazzy composition. Oscar's vocals and lyrics have a theatrical feel that foreshadowed his forays into playwriting and acting. Oscar Brown Jr is truly one of the underrated [...]

[Download] Jimmi Y Sus Raices - El Silencio Del Sol After a week in Cuba, one of the most different, fascinating and amazing places I've ever visited, I thought I'd give y'all a taste of some of the sounds I've been indulging in. Music is a big part of Cuban life and, during a Mojito haze, my girl and I caught lots of it. I haven't had a chance to digest all the CDs purchased yet but am enjoying today's selection from eight peice group, Jimmi Y Sus Raices, called 'El Silencio [...]

[Download] Eddie Floyd - Big Bird Today's track is related to my current situation. It's about air travel, which I'm doing a lot of. Regular visitors to Diddy Wah will have noticed a recent drop in the frequency of posts, and unfortunately this will continue as I gallivant around the world for the next month or so. However, given the opportunity... Former member of the Falcons, Eddie Floyd, recorded 'Big Bird' for Stax in 1968, after the tragic death by plane crash of the much loved Otis Redding. It's as much rock as [...]

[Download] Donovan - Get Thy Bearings In 1968 Donovan (Leitch) released 'The Hurdy Gurdy Man'. It was the follow up to 1966's 'Sunshine Superman', the first Donovan album that had him leaving behind folk music for the much greener pastures of psychedelic pop. On the title track the members of Led Zeppelin (not including Robert Plant) played together for the very first time. This was the album's biggest hit and its best known track. Whereas 'Hurdy Gurdy Man' is on a rock tip, 'Get Thy Bearings' takes its cue from the world of Jazz. [...]

[Download] Pepe Deluxe - Flaming Barbeque When the Pepe Deluxe CD, 'Beatitude', turned up a couple of years ago as one of the few promo discs I got from doing a radio show on a Melbourne independent station, I had no idea that it was their song being used on the "Twisted" Levi's adverts. I'd never heard of them and I was taken aback by today's track because it shared the same pyschedelic surf sound as a lot of the tunes I was getting into at the time (though they were all recorded at least [...]

[Download] The Coasters - Down Home Girl In 1967, producers, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, dusted off 'Down Home Girl' for The Coasters, a track that Jerry had previously penned with Artie Butler and recorded in 1964 with New Orleans soul artist, Alvin 'Shine' Robinson. The Rolling Stones, who weren't adverse to mining the super fertile New Orleans ground for suitable material, even gave the song a try for their 1965 album 'Now!'. Robinson's version, although certainly the definitive one that gave the song its loping New Orleans beat, wasn't a hit. The lyrics, which [...]

[Download] Koichi Oki - Light My Fire I really can't find out much information about 'Koichi Oki' or this LP, 'Yamaha Superstar', at all. Unfortunately last week, due to my upcoming move (from Canada to the UK), I had to send a bunch of records back home to Australia to join the rest of my collection. This was one of those records so I can't even read the liner notes. I've always thought of this record as a demonstration of Yamaha's latest super organ (circa 1972), the Electone EX-42. The demonstration is done by a [...]

Grandmaster Flash - Scorpio The group known as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five released this vocoder infused slice of electro funk as a single in 1982. Apparently it had some success, exposing the group to a new audience by receiving airplay on "rock" radio stations. Flash, born in Barbados but raised in the Bronx, rose to prominence as a pioneering DJ who -- along with Kool Herc and Africa Bambaatta -- is credited with inventing hip hop. Inventing hip hop, ponder that for a moment. As the role of the MC rose to the forefront of Hip [...]