A Little Black and White Romance: Fire, Fine Wine, and a Footrub

So, I let it be overshadowed on the last post (about the death Teddy Pendergrass) that I had finally released another AMX mix.
Said Teddy Track is on said mix:
"AMX: Black Mask McGuffin".
Inspired by the smooth smoothness on the Pulp Fiction Soundtrack.

Oh man, Oh my: this mix is a real slow burnin' gem. A diamond: ice.
Fire and Ice.





Also on the mix is no not one, but 2! (two) Jerry Butler songs.



You know I love this man; I've posted already about him. So I will hold my tongue
(which is really difficult for me to do! Not my fault! The tongue is actually 16 different muscles, okay, so that makes it tough to restrain!)
for now on him, and turn to the broader description of the mix.

TRACK LISTING

1- When You're Alone )( Jerry Butler

---2 Someday )( Ricky Nelson

3- Don't Make Me Over )( Dionne Warwick

---4 Cathy's Clown )( The Everly Brothers

5- Sexy Mama )( The Moments

---6 Honky Tonk )( Duane Eddy

7- I'll Guess I'll Have To Cry Cry Cry )( James Brown

---8 Play It Fair )( DeeDee Sharp & Chubby Checker

9- If It Don't Turn You On (you oughta leave it alone) )( BT Express

---10 Maybe More )( The Carlisles

11- I'm Glad You're Mine )( Al Green

---12 My Heart is an Open Book )( Carl Dobkins

13- Be Real )( Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes

---14 Be Honest With Me )( Billy Brown

15- Oh, Pretty Woman )( Al Green

---16 Never Gonna Give You Up )( Jerry Butler

Download "AMX: Black Mask McGuffin" here

Basically
(although there is nothing basic about this mix: complex, like a fine wine),
this mix takes Al Green-esque classy, clean, clearly superior soulful R'n'B, and alternates that with honky-tonkin', hominy-eatin', hometown classic country. Trying to capture some of that slowed-down, down-home soul, from both sides.
As Chubby Checker says, "What a combination it would be!"
On both sides we have romantic tunes that 'be honest', 'be real'. They'll make you feel like 'a pretty woman', a 'sexy mama', 'when you're alone'.
So we have Mia and Marcel, mixing it up together, on this mix.
See how romantic and how sexy black and white can be?

AMX: Black Mask McGuffin--- Mia and Marcel Wallace, giving each other a little musical footrub.
Or is 'musical footrub' gross?

Teddy Pendergrass- To Know Him, is to Love Him

Teddy Pendergrass on Youtube; specifically, Teddy with Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes: "Be Real"

We lost one. Teddy Pendergrass passed yesterday. Rest In Power, Teddy P.
I heard about it on NPR, that trusted source for black entertainment news.

The track above is right thick in the middle of my last (official...) AMX Mix. This one apes the sound of the sounds on the Pulp Fiction sdtk (=soundtrack).
It is called Black Mask McGuffin (I'll explain, next post). Grab it here.
So it is some grownup, sexy, calm before the (quiet) storm business. You know that the Reverend Al Green is on there: just extrapolate, and you have half the mix.

You might know Teddy from R Kelly's "I'm A Flirt", where T Pain references him.
(to know him, is to love him)
T Pain calls himself "Teddy Bend-her-ass", which is vulgar, yes, but shows that Teddy P is known for being zexee.

You might also know Teddy (again, with his earlier group, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, hereafter HMBN) from the "Dead Presidents" soundtrack.
(to know him, is to love him)

Groups on the stellar Dead Prez sdtk include
Sly & The Family Stone, "Walk On By" (best version ever) by Isaac Hayes, HMBN, James Brown, Barry White, Curtis Mayfield, Aretha Franklin , Al Green , The O'Jays , Isaac Hayes , and weirdly, Danny Elfman on the score.

Heavy hitters to a one, am I wrong? And HMBN and Teddy hit just as hard as any of the rest.
(the heavy hitters on "AMX: Black Mask McGuffin" include Al Green, Jerry Butler, James Brown, and HMBN too; but I wasn't copying, swear!)
My buddy/pal/confidant Kyle burnt me this sdtk, a looooong while ago. This sdtk used to be about one of two CDs of soul/RnB that I owned, along with Al Green's great Greatest Hits.
(got a few more now)
The CD is so old that it clips in and out near the end. It doesn't skip- it is not scratched- but rather, the CD is reflecting less light than it needs to, so there is a rhythmic clicking/scuffing near the end of the CD. It makes it sound like a scratched record, but not good like that.
Supposedly, all burnt CDs will do this eventually.
(Armand Van Helden burnt CD- also about 10 years old- suffered the same fate.....)
When they all go kaput, it will basically be like the fucking Apocalypse.

Also, let's have an adult moment, since this is some adult music here.
I'll be honest with you: some of these tracks, some not all, are a bit on the scratchy side.
It stands as indirect proof of the greatness of these particular records. These records were so well-loved (by previous owners) that they got played again and again,
and again,
and eventually picked up a li'l scuff here and there.
But you can handle it, right, you can hang tough? I hope so. Even if you cannot, you will only notice the scuff on the tracks right in the beginning; once those strings/basslines/harmonies/etc drop, there will be enough volume to cover li'l scuff. So nuh be afeared, man.

Even if you don't like the sound of the vinyl, it could be worse.

You could be dead.

Epic Delights: Essential Finds

Next List!
Musical Delights this time!



The O'Jays in Philadelphia

(the above is the lead-off song from this album)

Jonathan Richman : Not to be Loved, So Much as to Love
(awwww.... what a romantic...)

Patsy Cline

Prince and the Revolution: PURPLE RAIN !!!
I already have this on vinyl, of course, but got it for cheap on CD too. The record comes with the epic poster at top of pic below



Some more Harry Belafonte

[ 1) Read the blurbs on that magazine cover
2) Doesn't Harry Belafonte look like Devon there? ]
On record and CD- the CDs are, embarrassing enough, the Reader's Digest Edition. So some grandparent died, left these to their unwitting offspring, who unloaded them on the GoodWill, much to the GoodLuck of myself.

Ghostface Killah: Fishscale
(which I already owned- bought even, which adds insult to the injury of losing it: so I rebought it, rebooted it)

Jackie Wilson

A vinyl compliation called Super Girls! Three slabs of vinyl with all sorts of girl bands on them... epically delightful!


(Notice that there are 3 of Triplicate Girl in this SuperGirl comeek...)

More Brook Benton

Teddy Pendergrass (Rest In Power: Jan 14 2010)
He is ALSO Philadelphia-based like The O'Jays, although I got this in Oregon. So maybe Philly is not the only place to get that hott Phillee Sound...

The Essential (F'ing) Davidson! - KAPOW

Kimmie (AKA DKB) made me look this up many weeks ago.



Pretty good, right?
Because he is wearing a tuxedo, and it is night, and he is not crying, it reminds me of this song:

Download: Tuxedomoon- No Tears

(b/c its chorus says "No Tears for the Creatures of the Night: No Tears!")



I got this song on a mix CD that AKA Music put out years ago.
(Just last night, a secret meeting of philosophers convened at Oscar's, and we decided that this was, for all of us, the only record store in Philadelphia that we really liked.)

Most of the band's songs don't sound like this, I'm told. This is antsy-dancey post-punk. A really fast keyboard line cranks out of it; mucho post-macho guitars. So, while it is a tough little number, you don't have to be, or even want to be, a tuff-guy to appreciate it.

It would sound great on the soundtrack to a remake of Fritz Lang's M, about which I just watched a videoblurb on NYTimes.com.
M is one of my favorite movies ever; I am bad at putting together lists of things (top, worst, year-end) but I can always remember that this movie would go on the list.

But here comes a list: things I bought/got for Xmas.
(CHRIStmas is not my birthday; don't worry, you are not the only one who gets confused about this.)
I'm only going to list media: you are hopefully none too concerned with the colors, brands, and number of socks that I received
(black and browns; Gold-Toe and Dockers; five thousand-ish, FYI)
because I asked for precisely such sundry necessaries.

[Partial list: more to come...]

Books

The Essential Davidson (!!!!!!!!!!!) by Donald(oh...) Davidson
(Famous!)
Man of Reason by Genevieve Lloyd
(Feminist!)
A Collected Marquise de Sade
(Fisting!)
The Big Bento Box of Unuseless Japanese Inventions by Kenji Kawakami
(Funny!)
Therapy of Desire by Martha Nussbaum
(Fundamentals on Freedom From disturbance!)
Origins of Greek Thought by Pierre Vernant
(Foucault's Friend!)
The Odd One in: On Comedy by Alenka Zupančič
(Freedom = Funny!)
Introduction to Kant's Anthropology (Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents) by Michel Foucault
(Foucault!)

Next List: CDs/records that I scored...