SoulTrackin’ – A Word To The Wise…
Filed under: BlackBlogs, Culture & Society, General/Misc, SoulTrackin'
Dr. Spence is looking for a little help: A Wall of Wisdom For My Eldest Daughter
Stop by and lend him a hand. (This is a great post, IHMO. I’m looking forward to the responses he gets)
BTW {smile}, I’m especially tagging Vanessa with this one. I just know you’ll have something good to add!
SoulTrackin’ – And The Walls Came Tumbling Down…
Found This via one of my new “Twittizen” friends. “Thanks”, KOA!:
Ripples In The Music Industry, Part 1
Piracy is not the major music labels’ main problem, according to analyst Mike Goodman. “The problem is that they have an inefficient business model. We’re undergoing a business correction, and there is not anything they’ll be able to do about this market correction. Revenues for the music industry are going to decline.” Meanwhile, musical artists are using the Internet to strike out on their own.
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SoulTrackin’ – Interesting Discussion…
…going on over at Smooth’s My Jazz World. A Must Read!
Some Thoughts About The Music Download Community
RIBS: Get Your ‘Ghoul’ On…
I know it’s not Thursday yet, but we have a new mix over on RIBS just in time for Halloween:
The Rhythms In Black Satin Halloween Mix 2007
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SoulTrackin’ – Divided We Fall
Found this on a relatively new blog, The Jena 6 Blog. Props to Yobachi for creating this!
Michael Baisden address so-called divisions amongst leadership and what was accomplished by the march, as he prepares for Un-equal Justice Fundraiser…
Read the full ‘Divided We Fall’ message post here.
SoulTrackin’ – Black Web 2.0
Just found this site, Black Web 2.0 via KillerStartups (an Internet startup web review site). Here is the info from their ‘About’ page:
What is Black Web 2.0?
Black Web 2.0 addresses emerging web trends and how they apply to web properties that target African-Americans or African-American culture. There has been a recent surge of websites that target this demographic, some of which were existing and redesigned to take advantage of new web 2.0 technologies while others are start-ups. In addition to website and application launches we will be covering relevant Internet industry news as well as mainstream Internet industry news from an African-American perspective. Here is a summary of some of the editorial content we plan to discuss:
Topics
- Social Networking
- Emerging Trends
- Development
- Strategy
- Design/Redesign
- Digital Media
- Web Content
Created by Angela Benton, the site also has contributions provided by Markus Robinson (”Technology Guru”) and Lynne d Johnson (”Hip-Hop 2.0 Columnist”). While I am not familiar with Ms. Benton and Mr. Markus, I am very familiar with Ms. Johnson, having followed her blog writings for some time now. All I can say is, if Lynne d Johnson is involved, you know that this is a quality production and a place to watch!
SoulTrackin’ – SOULcrates: “An Old Soul Affair”
Stop what you’re doing and head on over to SOULcrates and check out DJ GrantLove’s latest, “An Old Soul Affair”! As he says:
“It’s been a while since I posted a good old fashioned SOUL Ballads mix. You know the kind that makes you sit back and be thankful that you’re in love, or the kind that makes you wish you were in love. This is my getting back to basics so to speak.”
We’re talking Blue Magic
SoulTrackin’ – Racism Review Blog…
Found this via Dr. Lester K. Spence (always a great source of intelligent information and viewpoints), Racism Review.
From their “About Us” page:
- Contributors to RacismReview are scholars and researchers from sociology and a number of other social science disciplines and a variety of academic institutions across the U.S.
- RacismReview is intended to provide a credible and reliable source of information for journalists, students and members of the general public who are seeking solid evidence-based research and analysis of “race,” racism, ethnicity, and immigration issues, especially as they undergird and shape U.S. society within a global setting.We also provide substantive research and analysis on local, national, and global resistance to racial and ethnic oppression, including the many types of antiracist activism.
- Launched in 2007, RacismReview is produced and maintained by Joe R. Feagin, Texas A&M University and Jessie Daniels, CUNY- Hunter College.
SoulTrackin’ – Who’s That Girl?…
…can’t tell ya, cause I have no idea! Just found this new blog, Songs In The Key Of Life (started September, 2007), via SoulBounce.com (another place I’ve just been hipped to, BTW).
But it’s all interwoven around music (among other things), which makes it just the kind of site I pay attention to. My gut feeling is that this one is worth watching!
The Flow Hop – Episode 4
Filed under: Podcasts, Soul/R&B, SoulSites, SoulTrackin'
New music from J RoQ, W. Ellington Felton, Columbo Black, H.I.S.D., T-Bob f/ D.T., Planet Asia, O-Solo and more…
Keep Believing, Keep Pushing: The Story Of Lou Pride
Filed under: Podcasts, Soul/R&B, SoulSites, SoulTrackin'
The story of George Lou Pride begins in Chicago’s North Side on 24th May 1950, when he was born. He performed a solo at grade school and became hooked on music! Along with his family, support came from local pastors Reverend Charles L Fairchild, and Reverend Edward J. Cole of the First Baptist Church. Father of singer Nat King Cole, Reverend Cole gave Lou advice about music as well as spiritual advice, and encouraged him to sing in the choir, directed by his wife Perlina. Lou recalls meeting Nat many times and greeting him in the street, and spent many days at the Cole house playing marbles with Natalie Cole, but it was BB King who was his biggest influence.
In the late 60s, Lou was drafted into the US Army, and spent two years on bases in Germany, where he joined a group called The Karls. After leaving the army, he returned to Chicago, and formed a Sam & Dave style duet with a friend called LC, called LC & Lou (some sources claim that Lou was singing with and married to a woman known as ‘JLC’, but in Drew Vergis’s interview Lou clearly states otherwise). After LC left the group to get married, Lou’s manager Jim Dorman persuaded Lou to start a solo career. He decided to move to a new life in El Paso, Texas, where they thought they could get a deal with some friends.
Lou met a friend of Jim’s, Kenny Smith, in an El Paso restuarant. Kenny was sure from the start that Lou was going to make fantastic music: “Lou Pride is one of the best people I have ever dealt with over the many years I have been involved in the music business.” He decided to sign Lou to Suemi Records (their publicity tag-line read: “If you don’t like it, sue me!”), which he co-owned with Bill ‘Sparks’ Taylor, and which had recorded a variety of country and rockabilly artists, and had some success with Bobby Fuller. When Lou arrived at their Tasmit Studio, Kenny was impressed and excited:
“He showed up to our studios wanting to put out a record of his band “The Funky Bunch” and I was glad to have a different type band play in the studio. They had horns and I had never dealt with horns before.”
The Funky Bunch were a group of Lou’s aquaintances from the nearby Fort Bliss army base. While he was astounded by their musicianship, Kenny wasn’t so impressed with their name, and began searching for a better one. He thought wrongly that Lou billed himself as ‘The Groove Merchant’, so when it came to naming the band for the 45, The Groove Merchants was printed on the label.
Just 500 copies were pressed, and most were sold just in the local area. While the single never broke nationally, it was played frequently by Johnny “T” Thompson, a DJ at the time (who himself recorded songs such as So Much Going For You on Chess Records, the Top 20 hit Main Squeeze and Given Up On Love on New Miss Records, and more recently performed with the late Bill Pinkney in the Original Drifters). It provided Lou with regular bookings on the chittin’ circuit across Texas. Lou explained to Drew Vergis how “the old hard-time crusty promoters” in Texas helped him hone his stage performance: “Percy told me one day, ‘Boy, you’re pretty good son, but you stay on stage too long! Get off the stage , son!’” That of course, led him to spend more and more nights away from his family home on the road. Despite this, Kenny describes Lou thus: “Lou was and still is one of those people that never complains and is always in a positive mood.”
For the next Lou Pride session, Bill Taylor used his contacts through his uncle, who owned the distributor Hot Line Music Journal in Memphis and owned some stock in Hi Records, to arrange studio time at Willie Mitchell’s Royal Studio. It is here that Lou recorded his funky, uptempo version of It’s A Man’s Mans World, backed by the Hodges Brothers and Howard Grimes. Sadly, it would be a short interlude, as Lou’s family commitments life made extended trips away increasingly difficult.
Lou would continue to record for Suemi for another year, back in El Paso. I told some of the story of Lou’s classic Northern Soul hit I’m Com’un Home In The Morn’un last year in another post. It highlighted the difficulties Lou was facing in trying to recording in El Paso, for Suemi, tour and gig to make money, and still make visits to his new girlfriend and to his family and children living up in Chicago. According to Kenny Smith, just 500 copies again were pressed. Ironically, had half of the thousands of UK bootlegs been genuine, Lou Pride would have been able to put his financial worries behind him, but Suemi Records had no idea that anyone in England had even heard of it. Instead, Lou, now a single father raising his young children, devoted himself to supporting them by keeping up his touring and live performances at jazz and blues festivals. As Lou describes it in an interview with Drew Vergis; “I was doing good on the road, then my mother got sick, and then things just fell apart!” In the late 70s, he returned to Chicago to visit his sick mother. She told him to go visit the Reverend Fairchild, in the church not 25 yards from his front door:
“My pastor Reverend Fairchild, Curtis [Mayfield], Marvin [Yancy], Kevin Yancy, Natalie [Cole], my mom, all of them grew up together, and I said to my parents “Man I need a record deal!” He [Reverend Fairchild] said , “Well come on, come on, go to Atlanta with me.” He said, “You’ll need some hotel money”, so I went down there, and he fed me and took good care of me , and he said, “Go to your room , I’ll call you when I need you.” I didn’t know what was goin’ on, and he called the room the next day and said, “Come downstairs, someone wanna meet you”, and Curtis Mayfield’s sitting in the room! You know how your mouth just drops? There’s nothing to say but “How you doin’, Curtis, I love you and admire you.” By them being friends the Rev erend just says, “Curtis – the man needs a record deal”, so Curtis says,”Can you sing?” “Yeah, sure, he sang in my choir!” So Curtis says I’ll give him a record deal!”
Curtis was impressed with Lou, and they were working on an album for Curtom Records , writing half of the songs each, up until Curtis Mayfield’s accident in 1985. Several of those songs appeared later on CDs, as Lou continued to work with colleagues of Curtis with his support. “I never ever saw him with sadness on his face” recalls Lou. It seems to be a temperament they have had in common.
And Lou is still recording, now with Severn Records with labelmates such as Johnny Jones, formerly of the King Kasuals, and still touring. Speaking of his first tour in England in 2003: “When I got there it was an amazing sight for me, people just wanted to touch me and take pictures of me,and oh god, it was just beautiful man!”
Back to the beginning of the story, in El Paso with those ‘Groove Merchants’, and then the b-side to Lou’s funky It’s A Man’s Man’s World:
The Groove Merchants (Lou Pride & The Funky Bunch) – There’s Got To Be Someone For Me (Suemi 4557)
Lou Pride – Your Love Is Fading (Suemi 4571 B)
Buy CDs of Lou Pride’s recordings from Severn Records. Jazzman Records also sell a vinyl special edition containing three reissue singles. A recorded interview with Lou Pride from 2004, by Drew Vergis, can be heard at DirtyDj.com. Quotes by Kenny Smith come from the Suemi Records website. Further information about Lou Pride comes from liner notes to Lou Pride: The Suemi Sessions, written by Kym Fuller and ‘Jazzman’ Gerald Short. Check out Vincent’s FuFu Stew at the moment for a fabulous link to Natalie Cole Live. Unverified ‘JLC’ story credited to Andrew Hamilton of the All Music Guide…
SoulTrackin’ – Monk & Latin Jazz…
Great post celebrating what would have been Thelonious Monk’s 90th birthday (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) over on the very excellent Latin Jazz Corner hosted by Chip Boaz:
Remembering Monk Through Latin Jazz
SoulTrackin’ for 2007-10-11
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The civil rights unit of the Maryland attorney general’s office is investigating the sentencing of an African-American man with no previous criminal convictions to 30 years in prison for writing bad checks.
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PALMDALE, CA — Parents and students at Knight High School in Palmdale, California are upset over an incident in which three teenagers and a mother were arrested last Thursday after a melee with security guards, prompting an investigation into the guards’ behavior.
Jena 6: A White Person’s Meditation on the Jena 6 Students…
Gotta give props where they are due. I found this article via a post on the blog of Dr. Lester K. Spence. Very interesting, very thought provoking. A MUST READ.
A White Person’s Meditation on the Jena 6 Students
I am a white woman. This article is my perspective on the Jena 6 Students and their plight.
In one of the progressive organizations that I belong to, we have been having heated discussions about the Jena 6 Students. Our first press release, and the majority reaction, includes agreement in our organization to join the chorus of voices demanding that all the charges against the students be dropped entirely. Though, there are a few people in our organization–a few white people–who have questioned that stance. And, I have stumbled across some progressive writers who have also questioned the correctness of asking that all charges be dropped against these 6 black students who beat up a fellow student.
About Dr. Spence
I am currently an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. My specialties are racial politics, urban politics, black politics and public opinion. I am currently working on a book examining the relationship between hip-hop consumption, production, and politics. More information about me and my work can be found here. I can be reached at UNBOWED AT GMAIL.COM
SoulTrackin’ – New Online Magazine For Black Teens…
Press release from BlackNews.com…
KB & ASSOCIATES ANNOUNCES THE LAUNCH OF NEW MAGAZINE
“Mahogany Visions” Magazine Targets African American Youth and Provides Valuable Informative Information
National (BlackNews.com) – KB & Associates, Event Planning and Management is proud to announce the launch of Mahogany Visions. Mahogany Visions is a new online publication geared towards African American teens between the ages of 13-18. Features will include current events, education, business, health and fitness, college news, and teen lifestyles. The Magazine was created to uplift and motivate the young African American community.
Mahogany Visions provides resources, information and stories that concern the African American community. Readers will have the opportunity to submit their own poetry for publication and inspiring writers will be encouraged to become freelance writers for the magazine to begin building their portfolio.
An interactive message board will be offered to allow members to create dialog among their peers to discuss the issues of today.
Kimberly Brown, founder of KB & Associates and Mahogany Visions feels that African American youth are held in such a negative light through the media. “I think this will be a great way for our teens to express themselves and learn some valuable information along the way. With so much pressure going on in the world, they need encouragement. I wanted to create something positive and let them know that not all things about our culture are bad,” said Brown.
Although Mahogany Visions is a monthly online publication, current news, blogs and the message board will be updated regularly.
About Mahogany Visions
Mahogany Visions is an online magazine designed for African American youth between the ages of 13-18. It offers information in the areas of current events, health and fitness, career and everyday issues that affect the African American community. (www.mahoganyvisions.com)
CONTACT:
Kimberly Brown
Public Relations Specialist
1-888-861-7077
kim@kbandassoc.com
Jena 6: Jena Mayor: “Mellencamp Song Inflammatory”
From the “They Just Don’t Get It, Do They” Department:
Jena Mayor Murphy R. McMillin doesn’t like John Mellencamp’s new anti-racism song “Jena” saying:
“The town of Jena has for months been mischaracterized in the media and portrayed as the epicenter of hatred, racism and a place where justice is denied.”
OK, everybody all together now… “Awwwwwwwwww”.
To Mayor McMillin, the Jena School Board, that (insert appropriate adjective here) DA Reed Walters, and everybody else in the Jena (what passes for) justice system, we say:
“If the shoe fits, looks like you gotta wear it!”
Technorati Tags: jena, jena 6, jena six, jena6, jenasix, mayor, mellencamp
RIBS: “Bonus Hours”…
We’re doing something called “Bonus Hours” with the new RIBS Triple Play Thurs-Day mix this week as we take a look at the new releases from Chaka Khan (Funk This), Jill Scott (The Real Thing) and Queen Latifah (Trav’lin’ Light).
SoulTrackin’ for 2007-10-03
Here a new site I just found that looks interesting:
And here’s the information from their “About Us” page:
The Backroads of American Music project links forgotten music history with active off-the-beaten-path venues for the Blues, Bluegrass, Country and Western, Gospel, and Soul. We open doors to juke joints, honky-tonks, and hoedowns, and share the sights, sounds, and stories of working people who make music, and the places they’ve made it in.
Well-meaning and sometimes well-done travel books that cover this type of material date as soon as they go to press. Musicians die, venues close down, and money runs out. But the opposite is also true. New venues open up all of the time. New musicians are learning to play and taking their acts out. The process remains dynamic. Backroads reflects the truth that roots music is alive and well across the country.
We constantly add new people and places to the site, and report on the inevitable passings, so check back often to stay in the know.
Become a Contributor!
Do you have a “Backroads” site in your town? Join our site and submit your write-ups, photos, and updates. We’re building a national network of correspondents to cover “Backroads” people and places.
All That Jazz: In Celebration of Jazz Appreciation Month
I don’t talk about my love for jazz enough on this blog so I figure jazz appreciation month is the perfect time to do so. I have to admit that my knowledge is lacking. Mama Vivrant Thang was never really into jazz so it wasn’t played much around the house. She did love Kenny G though and [...]
The “Boys” Are Back In Town…
Remember the Four Brothers Beats blog? Well, the boys are back! BUT... not quite in the way you may have been expecting. It's, how shall we say, "the same, but different!"
Vendors, Authors and Artists– Sell Your Items in This Year’s Capital Hip Hop Soul Fest
Last year's Capital Hip Hop Soul Fest was a musical celebration while vendors sold their products to eager to buyers. Book authors, including Felicia Pride-- writer of The Message and activist author Devin Walker were among some of the top authors who sold their books. The 2009 Capital Hip Hop Soul Fest will be held this year on Sat., July 25 in Marvin Gaye Park in Washington DC. While the musical acts are still being selected, vendors are able to reserve their tables now to receive our Early Bird Discount. For more info, email us at CapitalHipHopSoulFest@gmail.com
Fusion: Where Music, Technology, and Artist Creativity Intersect
Hello readers and listeners. I trust all is well today. This post is a follow-up to the previous post about the subject of an upcoming podcast I hope to resurrect entitled Fusion. The concept of this podcast came to me via an off the cuff discussion I had a few years ago with a fellow podcaster/recording artist/graphic designer. Both of us, being musicians in our own right, began discussing our backgrounds and influences in making music, which invariably talking about how technology (past and present) played a role taking the music from inner to outer. I began to see the different paths ...
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Cupid’s Hunt: 2009
Translator
By N2H