Get your 70’s Brit Groove on

I was given a disk called “Music De Wolf Vol 1.” the other day. It is fantastic. Basically, it is a collection of in house tunes recoded in the 1970’s for De Wolfe Sound Library in the 1970’s. The tracks are the kinds of tunes you hear in car-chase scenes, fights, and commercials. Funky beyond belief and just slightly generic and a little cheesy. Hard-Hitter, the 1st tune is a staple for Baltimore house DJ’s. Since damn near no one has heard this collection, or has access to it. I have made it available here as a rapidshare download. Enjoy.

Nina Remixed

I have been working my way thorugh the various volumes of the Verve Remixed albums.  The first of these albums was released in 2002, with follow ups in 2003, 2005 and this year.  Each of these albums essentially works the same way.  A bunch of old Verve material is provided to various DJ’s, remix masters, and electronic artists to do their best (or worst) with.  Overall these albums are spotty, some tracks work great, others are simply horrid.  However, I noticed two things while listening to these.  The first is a surpringly high proportion of tracks based around Nina Simone, and the second is that the track that works best is one of these Nina tunes (Mike Mangini’s mix of “Gimme Some”), and in fact most of the Simone tracks work.  So, to that end, I have collected those tracks here.  I have also included an extra Nina Simone remix, the version of “Ain’t got no, I got life” from the Very Best of Nina Simone.

Valerie

I suppose a sign of a good song is that it stands up to covers and versions. That is also probably a sign of a good arrangement. This Valerie is a good song for the Zutons, and was made great by Mark Ronson’s arrangement. It seems to stay great no matter who sings it. Here are four versions…three in video. The first is the Zutons’s original form 2006, than the video for Mark Ronson’s version (sung by Amy Winehouse who is not in the video), than a in studio acoustic version by Amy Winehouse. Finally I present Ronson from the BBC electric proms; this version is sung by Kyle Falconer from the British band “The View.”

YOUTUBE will not permit this to be embedded…so here is a link to the Zutons version.

Walkin

Since I posted a collection of struttin songs, I thought I would follow up with Walkin’ tunes. So here is the “Walking Collection.” This is a large collection of songs featuring some variation of the word “Walk” in the title. It spans country, blues, rock, R&B, Soul, Jazz and Gospel…so basically everything. Included artists are Johnny Cash (obviously), Rufus Thomas, Creedance Clearwater Revival, Aretha Franklin, Bruce Sprinsgteen, DIon Warwick, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Grant Green, Lou Reed (with and without the velvets), Jackie Mitoo and plenty more. Enjoy.

THE WALKIN COLLECTION