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Not being the subtlest of writers, you may have noticed that I’ve been dropping the occasional hint for a while now that blogging fatigue has been setting in. Real world demands and a general lack of posting inspiration have finally confirmed for me that it’s time to move on and let people with the passion take the site forward.

Whilst I’m looking forward to trying out some new things with a new site (hopefully the guys here will let me let you know when I know) I will be sad to leave the site that has given me so many great memories.

It’s been a fantastic five plus years doing this; I’ve got the chance to share and discuss my favourite music with you, been introduced to new music I’d never have discovered through the comments and even got in touch with some of my music heroes through posts on here (I’ll never forget quite how much my jaw dropped when I got the first email from James Mason).

Without going Gwyneth I’d also like to thank all the other posters who have contributed on the site up till now and of course highlight Maru for giving me a shout and getting me on here in the first place. I’m sure the site is only going to go from strength to strength with the writers we have now and any new blood who wants to step up.

As I didn’t have any music ready and didn’t want to do a classic posts thing I thought I’d throw up a little comp I did for a friend last year. It’s a mix of different stuff, some very common, some posted on here and some more rare stuff I never got round to sharing. Apart from the lack of rap I thought it was an appropriate mix of the kind of music this site was set up to appreciate so hope you enjoy (tracklist after the jump).

I’m going to take some time out now to review what I want to do next but hopefully catch up with some of you again soon on whatever the new project turns out to be. Trust that I won’t be able to stop blathering on the internet for very long.

Thanks, as always, for reading……..

Billy Stewart: Sitting In The Park and I Do Love You

Available on: I Do Love You [Chess, 1965]

Ok, no breaks here today, no outrageous fuzzy funk or wild and crazy rap, just some plain old sublime and gorgeous soul music for your ears. I’ve been meaning to post up something about Billy Stewart for what seems like forever but, as with so many things I plan with the best intentions, it’s sat collecting dust in the to do pile. I finally resolved to do something near the end of last year only to see Stewart’s Cross My Heart off the album I’m featuring today blow up absolutely everywhere due to Blaze’s great use of it in Exhibit C. I therefore thought I’d leave it a little while before revisiting but couldn’t resist any longer and here you go.

I seriously think Billy Stewart is an artist well in need of a proper reappraisal. He has all the ingredients for wider appreciation in that he was on fan favourite Chess Records, he wrote many of his own tracks, he did a original and great interpretation of Summertime and, most importantly, he has a gloriously unique and lovely singing voice. To be fair he only released two studio albums in his lifetime and he is in the Washington Area Music Association Hall of Fame but how many average joes will have heard of him? I’m not going to change that here today but hopefully I can introduce a few more people to the great talent that was cut tragically short at the age of 33.

I Do Love You, Stewart’s debut 1965 album, is a fantastic longplayer from beginning to end, featuring Cross My Heart along with many other aching pieces of soul music. In fact, part of the reason it’s taken me so long to post it up is that I couldn’t for the life of me choose just two tracks to feature. One I was always going to include though no matter what was Sitting In The Park. Slick Rick fans (I’m assuming there are still some out there?) will no doubt have their eyes light up from the moment the chorus kicks in but this is so much more than just the basis for a sample. A combination of Stewart’s vocals with a subtle echo filter over lilting instrumentation and mournful soprano backing vocals this is a fantastically understated slice of sweet soul that hits the mark every single time. I love the way it fades out in as unassuming fashion as it starts up, as if we’re stepping in and out again of a moment with Billy in that park.

I was torn about posting one of the upbeat tracks as well but couldn’t resist I Do Love You which is a glorious piece of soul music. Kicking off with a full on chorus line the track appears to be settling into a mid temp track with a lovely little piano line and Billy almost scatting his vocals over the top. Then something wonderful happens just after he hits the high note at 1.30, suddenly the orchestration kicks up a notch, everything seems to become twice as heavily layered and the track takes on an epic tone further reinstated in the last 30 seconds as the backing vocals repeat the title over and over and the music swells alongside the feeling in the voices.

I see the album is going for dirt cheap and the best offs aren’t much more so please pick it up and explore this man’s great output even more. Me? I’m off to go build that perpetual motion machine I’ve been playing around with.

Mandingo: Black Rite and The Headhunter

Available on: The Sound Gallery, Vol. 1 [Scamp, 1996]

Most Brits around about my age and older will have encountered the sounds of Geoff Love at one time or another, even if they didn’t realise it at the time. A talented musician who had some minor success with his own work, Geoff and his Orchestra spent most of the 60s, 70s and beyond recording disco approximations of hits of the day for BBC records and other library style labels. My own childhood experience of Geoff was a compilation of disco covers of sci fi theme songs (Star Wars was taken to a galaxy that was very very far away) and, slightly later, his rather unique singalong session with the timeless Miss Mills.

At the time this was just a compilation I loved and thought no further but, as I went round friend’s houses and found similar styled LPs in their parents collections, I slowly realised that Love was a solid foundation of any record collection, no matter what your tastes were.

Getting older, the lure of Geoff slowly disappeared and I happily flicked past any thing featuring his name in the small print. Shame on me indeed for I’ve kindly been schooled on what I was missing through a generous gift (thanks Skel) of the really quite stunning Sound Gallery Vol 1 collection.

Widely credited with kicking off the 90’s reappraisal of “lounge” and library music, this compilation features all the recognised great UK names of the scene such as Hawkshaw and Mansfield. However, it was Love’s contributions under the Mandingo moniker which really blew me away.

A bit of background on the impressively tasteless name, in the early seventies the Afro Funk of artists like Fela Kuti and Manu Dibango were proving big hits so EMI commissioned Geoff to get in the studio with a collection of session musicians and churn out some African sounding funk music. What they got instead is a mix of African, funk and big band which is fantastically British in it’s bastardisation.

Anyway, taking all that into account, I defy you not to feel your jaw drop slightly when Black Rite kicks into full gear. Kicking off with a library style mixture of leading brass and big band drums the track appears to be a pleasant little mover but stick with it folks. At 1.15 it’s like the group suddenly remember their afrobeat instructions and the track turns into a fuzzed out, wah wahing, horn parping Bond In Africa. Building layer on layer this is just crazily good. Funnily enough as I just decided to post this on a whim, I think it makes a rather nice accompaniment to Kevin’s Stoned Guitar no?

The Headhunter couldn’t really be more of a pastiche of Dibango without them calling it Soul Makossa V2. However this doesn’t stop it being a great slice of funk with simmering organ, great percussion led melodies and that ever important fuzz and horn lines.

That’s it, I’m back in love with Geoff Love. Now to go raid those bargain bins for all the Orchestra Presents LPs I’ve yet to grab hold of…….

Tonio Rubio: Bass In Action No 2 and Dead Slow

From: Rhythms [Telemusic, 1973]

Apologies for the break in posting, the ever more unlikely circus that has been the UK elections has made me take my eye off the ball a bit with updating the site. Add to this a certain weariness that occasionally crops up over finding new ways to describe a funky break, jazzy loop or bowel moving bass line means that I’ve enjoyed taking a slight backseat to the great posts being put up by the other contributors. Six years into this, I’m actually starting to consider either passing on the site to someone with fresh ideas on where it could go or, at the very least, beginning a proper overhaul of what we have so any feedback on what you’d like to see now that we are slightly closer to web 2.0 or whatever it’s called now would be appreciated.

It’s also probably worth repeating that we’re always open to new contributors as well so if you feel like you’d like to become one of the big, occasionally happy, always opinionated, group that is the Ear Fuzz writers drop me a line.

Anyway, I still love my music and I still love the thrill of the vinyl so I’m mixing things up slightly today with a bit of Library sounds. Now I know some of you aren’t that keen on this genre and it’s undoubtedly true that many of the most gripped of these records are more of a delight for beat makers than for the passive listener but they’ve always been an irresistible draw to me for two reasons. 1. There’s actually a chance (however slim) of finding them in the field in the UK
2. You really never know what you’re going to get from track to track.

Sadly the first rule doesn’t apply to this Tonio Rubio release as at last check it’s now going for over 150 dollars but the second surely does. Aptly titled Rhythms, this does exactly what it says on the tin and varies from some wonderful slow and sultry instrumental tracks to what sounds to me like the backing tracks from a Jerry Lee Lewis b-side.

Unsurprisingly I’m focusing on the slow and sultry numbers and Bass In Action No 2 is, unsurprisingly, bass in action. Offering up a crisp and clean bass humm this kicks in with the beats a minute in and differs from Bass In Action No 1 by throwing in some great scat lines over the bass which complements the vibes magnificently. Deceptively simple but a great head nodder, I’m a big fan of these kind of timeless arrangements.
Dead Slow is even more sultry with a cascading bass and xylophone (?) line, flute and a blissful vocal harmonies drawing the package together. It’s kind of uplifting, sultry and slightly mournful all at once and in a strange way reminds me of the kind of experimental D&B being produced in the late nineties by guys like J Majik/Innervisions. Just my opinion anyway, feel free to disagree.

The Chequers: Get Up Stand Up and Check It Out

From: Check Us Out [Creole Records, 1975]

It’s been a miserable week indeed with the untimely passing of Guru and the subsequent fallout that looks like becoming ever more unpleasant. We’ve put a few tributes up to the legendary MC on the facebook page but, with so many of my esteemed colleagues putting together definitive posts on the subject, I thought we’d move the focus away from the subject today and instead focus solely on music. After all, it’s a glorious day outside, we’re getting closer to the weekend by the minute and summer is definitely contemplating announcing itself as finally here. With all these pluses on the table I thought it only appropriate to pick a happy record from the collection and one that fits the cruising and lounging desire currently rising up inside by the moment.

The Chequers were a UK soul group who released a number of great tracks in the seventies but, to listen to them, you’d never know they weren’t US born and bred. Perhaps the biggest clue that they were working outside the normal sphere is the number of influences you get on the album, there’s proto disco, some songs “in the style of” The Temptations and one of the most unexpectedly great Marley covers I think I’ve ever heard.

It seems no mystery that the rapidly changing style of the group probably cost them a reasonable amount of sales as they were constantly being recategorised with each new release that came out (though I saw a copy on ebay being advertised as AfroFunk which I think may be pushing it). However, in their single long player, Check Us Out, the various styles on offer actually make the album a fascinating play through from start to finish as it switches up.

So, the music then, well with an album this varied it was always going to be difficult pulling out just two songs but here you go. I know that I can’t be the only one who’s laid awake in bed at night wondering what Bob Marley would sound like produced by Norman Whitfield. Well rejoice! You need wonder no more. The Chequers Get Up Stand Up mixes a Papa Was A Rolling Stone bassline with the Marley original and throws in some synth lines in there for good effect. It should be a crazy mishmash of styles but turns out to be an absolutely cracking slice of funk that really should be way more widely known than it is.

Check It Out is a near instrumental dancefloor groover that, while it lacks Get Up Stand Up’s surprise factor, matches it on pure unadulterated funk. A combination of a great bass riff, wah wah guitar and some suitably funk lead playing the track achieves its mission to get your booty shacking with consummate ease. Jam bands take note, if you’re going to do a funky little number then you need to know how to pull the whole thing together into a coherent whole and could take a few lessons from the skill displayed here.

There you go, hopefully these cheer you up and you get the sunshine in your neck of the woods to play them to.

Jerry Peters: White Shutters and If You Leave Me Now

From: Blueprint For Discovery [Mercury, 1972]

Grown up soul jazz moves for you today with some rare solo output from one of the great soul arrangers, Jerry Peters. Most famous for his string work, Peters was also no slouch on the percussion side of things and was the arranger behind many favourites from the Sylvers (both group and Foster) on Pride before taking his skills to Blue Note focusing on the more jazzy side of things with production for artists such as Gene Harris.
In the middle of this transition Peters released what I believe to be his one and only solo album, Blueprint For Discovery, on Mercury. It’s an odd beast indeed and pretty much captures the many different interests and influences that Peters had in his arrangements as it varies from long drawn out lush Hayes style epic ballads to jazzfunk noodlings. What holds it all together is Jerry’s exquisite ear for the layers of instrumentation and the keen attention to every single detail of the nine tracks. It also helps that, what with it being Jerry Peters, there’s an impressive list of session artists on here including long time collaborator Harvey Mason on drums.

White Shutters is just a blissfully lovely bit of music, Peters doesn’t have the strongest vocals in the game but his soft voice works beautifully with the harpsichord led arrangement that kicks off the track. As with so many of the songs on here, the music takes its considered time to get into the swing of things but as the strings build over an unexpected but delightful mouth organ line the sound wraps you in a blanket of warmth and sunlight. Really recommended to be played loud either in a nicely set up room or on the best pair of headphones you can get your hands on. It’s only really on reflection that it occurred to me that there’s not really any standard song structure to this, it’s just a slow build to a climax but I’m happy with that.

If You Leave Me Now is more superior lounge stylings. Elevated from smooth soul status by the complex arrangements and the various factors that swarm in and out of the mix (an organ line here, a bong beat there), this is again almost more interested in the compositional arrangement than what would be considered a standard soul song. It really does display the imagination and intelligence of the arrangements as everything but the kitchen sink is thrown at the tracks and it still all harmonises beautifully.

Funnily enough, particularly as it doesn’t seem to pop up very often, I don’t think this currently goes for that big money. Maybe it’s that the smooth sound is now=t what people are currently in the market for? Who knows. Anyway, needless to say, cop it if you see it.

The Exciters: Movin’ Too Slow and Give It All

From: Caviar And Chitlins [RCA, 1969]

Northern Soul is a strange old thing. I tend to reach saturation point with it on a relatively regular basis and decide that, a few bangers apart, I can live without much of the output. It doesn’t help that I haven’t really moved on from albums to 45s which means that a lot of the tracks I do have are only being played back on digital format which loses quite a bit of the raw edge that the best of Northern Soul offers up. However, as soon as I decide I’m basically done with that genre I always end up digging out a favourite or two and then, wham, I’m back with the program. This time round the honour of reawakening my urge to dance like a loon goes to the Exciters Caviar and Chitlins LP.

Sounding fresh as a daisy it was a surprise to me to discover that the band had actually been around almost ten years by the time they dropped this end to end gem. For starters I didn’t link the group with the classic and game changing 1962 single Tell Him and was even less aware that the band had been quietly releasing intense and powerful soul singles throughout the decade and continued well into the seventies switching up their sound as the years progressed.

Anyway, Exciters by name, exciting by nature (sorry). Movin’ Too Slow is an absolute stormer of a track and features one of the great opening dismissals with the line “Whisky bottles all over the floor, you left your insides outside the door”, from there you’re left in no doubt that this song is not a tribute to true love and the band move through the gears as the drunken ass in a corner is told in plain and simple terms that he’s going to be seeing a clean pair of heels shortly. Less than three minutes long and not a moment wasted, this is damn fine music.

I was tempted to post another Northern banger but couldn’t resist sharing the fantastic slice of sultry, brassy, soul that is Give It All. Full of longing vocals touched with that tinge of pain that most great soul desire songs boast and some great trumpet lines this is two and a half minutes of hook that snares deeply and doesn’t let go. I’d love to break the rules and post the whole album on here, especially as the tracks never dip in quality, but it’s not our way and I’m sure a quick search of Google would bring up the goods were you that way inclined.

On a side note, I have no idea whether the album title’s suggested food combination would be a mouthwatering treat so if anyone has tried it or, even better, wants to sponsor me for the experience, holler.

Detroit Emeralds: I’ll Never Sail The Seas Again and Take My Love

From: You Want It You Got It [Westbound, 1971]

You know, as much as I like to flaunt the rarity of many of the songs posted here, I’m as much a sucker for a well known hummable soul song as anyone else and Detroit Emerald’s Baby Let Me Take You In My Arms falls firmly in that category, I seem to recall even posting up about it back in my Evigan Funk days a good four or so years ago. However, despite my love for this song and the sample, it took me a long time to actually get round to checking out the album it came from, their 1971 release You Want It You Got It. Using the broadest and most dismissive brush I could find I assumed that, since I wasn’t particularly familiar with any of the other tracks on there, it would be full of filler. How wrong I was. Shame. On. Me.

Probably best known these days among funk fans for the reasonably sampled Baby Let Me Take You In My Arms and the heavily sampled and, oh my gosh what a drum break, You’re Getting A Little Too Smart, the band crafted a decent handful of long players for Westbound in the early seventies before, as is so often the case, suffering internal friction and splitting before the end of the decade.

I’ll Never Sail The Seas Again is worth the price of the album alone (though it’s worth noting that it’s also available as the b side to Baby Let me Take You In My Arms) as it’s an absolutely glorious, beautiful, mournful slice of slow sweet soul. Cannily sampled by Exile on his and Blu’s Cold Hearted, the track is little more than a guitar line, gorgeous vocals and a chorus of mellow trumpets and heart breaking harmonies repeating “I’ll Never” over and over. This is the way to craft a perfect slice of seventies soul. Probably my most repeated song of the last month or so.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that Willie Mitchell had a hand on this record and, if so, that would certainly explain the horns present on Take My Love. In fact, for a band most well known for their upbeat dance floor tracks I have to say that the slower tracks are definitely the winners for me on this album (Baby Let Me Take You.. excluded obviously). With a suitably overstated orchestral horn bridge to the track this could easily be a forgotten track off an early seventies Hi Records release and is none the worse for that.

Sadly Abe Tilmon, the man behind both the songs and much of the production passed away at the extremely young age of 37 in the early eighties but he certainly left us some great great music.

Mary McCreary: Soothe Me and Singing The Blues (Reggae)

From: Jezebel [Shelter, 1974]

Some outstanding seventies soul singer action for you today with a couple of tracks from Mary McCreary’s second solo album, the 1974 release, Jezebel. As far as pedigrees go, McCreary has it in spades. Starting at the extremely tender age of 10, McCreary’s vocal talents were featured on the 1961 album Through Children’s Eye’s and by her early teens she was recording songs with the Heavenly Tones. By the end of the sixties and still only in her teens Mary was part of the Sly Stone produced Little Sister whose couple of outstanding seven inch recordings are an absolute must have for anyone who’s a fan of the late sixties spaced out drum machine sound (at least one of them is featured on the incredible What It Is! compilation).

All the above meant that, going solo around the age of twenty, McCreary already had more industry experience than most artists twice her age and put it to good use with a couple of great slices of soulful funk on the eclectic Shelter label. It’s also wroth noting that McCreary wrote and played piano onthe album which, considering the various styles on offer, is no mean feat in itself. Sadly, unlike her first album Butterflies In Heaven, Jezebel doesn’t have the midas touch of D.J. Rogers in the production booth but there’s enough fire in Mary’s vocals and arrangements to carry the album home.

Soothe Me is just, pure and simple, an outstanding example of how to build a track. Starting with an acoustic guitar riff, Mary comes in over nothing more than a piano line and strings and you’re just hoping, praying, that the song doesn’t fall apart when the epic build up finally kicks into overdrive. Strings, a distorted bass, piano and McCreary’s voice all create a whirling vortex of sonic emotion as José Feliciano joins into the mix creating something not unlike a long lost Wonder song from the period (Seriously, I can’t compliment a song much more than that). Throw in a choir for the final part of the song and we have an absolutely stunning final product. Epic, epic, epic.

I was going to post up another funky cut from the album but I’ve always had a major soft spot for the slightly random reggae version of Singing The Blues that starts the album off and, what with it definitely being Spring now, this seemed more appropriate. Somewhat of a unexpected addition to the McCreary catalogue, it works far better than I would have ever expected it to as Mary floats over the backing track, her voice overlaid with a slightly alternate take to create a burst of sunshine that never really goes anywhere as such but is such a pleasant journey you don’t really care about the destination.

Extra bit of good news, Mary is still recording today under the name Mary Rand and is due to release a new album shortly, you can find out more at her MySpace.

The Blackfoot: Second Time and This Is My Time

From: The Footsteps [Zambia, 197?]

It’s been a little while since we picked up on some more Zambian rock on the site but rest assured that I’ve still been hunting these beauties down in an effort to recreate the jaw drop that I got from Tembo and Amanaz. The good news is that I’ve found another very worth addition to the ranks with The Blackfoot’s seventies release The Footsteps. Even my exemplary google search skills have turned up absolutely nothing about this release beyond confirmation that it is from the seventies and it is from Zambia so we’ll have to go on that for now then.

What I can confirm for you is that we have some absolutely fantastic fuzzed out rock to brighten up your Wednesday that features the winning combination of riffs and heavy organ accompaniment that so caught the ear of the previous releases from this period with that so necessary rough and ready edge.

More steadfastly rock than Tembo and Amanaz, the tracks mainly find a groove and work it for its all worth which is just fine with me. Second Time is relentlessly forward moving and, in a strange way, possibly down to the raw vocals, actually reminds me somewhat of late sixties Stones. I’ve kind of given up categorising this stuff though and am just happy to leave it up to the music to do the talking.

This Is My Time is a fine example of the unique sound that seemed to be coming out of Zambia at the time, with that strange mixture of late sixties organ riffs and the more progressive vocal track roughly layered over the top. Throw in a fuzzed guitar solo and we’re in a very happy place.

What captures my imagination more than anything with these albums is the almost mesmerising mix of passionate vocals and the hypnotic, fuzzed out, music accompanying it. I suspect that a nicely cleaned up version of these records would actually reduce my appreciation but I feel it is my duty to once again request that some kind of reissue of this takes place – more people need this in their lives.

Now, I’ve posted Amanaz and Tembo, am well aware of Witch and Peace and have checked out some Blo. What am I missing to add fuel to this obsession? Please help an addict out.