Awakening The Funk

The Pharaohs: Freedom Road and Tracks Of My Tears
From: Awakening [Atlantic, 1971]

Forgive the brevity of the post today but I'm suffering from a post birthday hangover and sleep deprivation which has heightened my sensitivity to the point where the mere tapping of the keyboard is like goblins whacking the most sensitive areas of my cell depleted brain.

However, taking time out from my studious work I thought I'd offer up some great funk from late sixties/early seventies Chicago group The Pharaohs.

A reasonably successful group in their own right, the band paved the way for may of the so called "world music" bands that followed, offering up a mixture of African influenced jazz and funk. However, shortly after the release of their album, Awakening, members of the band were drawn into to work on a new project for a group called Earth, Wind & Fire and that was that for The Pharaohs. You can read more about them on the ever great Ubiquity Records page to mark the reissue of the album here.

Freedom Road is just a great great track, full of high energy and deep bass. As mentioned above the band were at the forefront of popularising the world music style and this track's combination of drumming, horn section and singing create a dance floor banger designed to be played at high volume.

When I first heard The Pharaohs' version of Tracks Of My Tears I was admittedly gutted that the brilliantly tense opening didn't lead on to all out madness, instead settling for a more chilled out approach. However, on further listening the cover version's charms have revealed themselves to me, particularly the repeated horn blasts at the end of the track. The original is one of my favourite songs off all time so credit to the band for pulling off a very decent cover indeed.