Name: Ghetto Funk Sessions
Brand: Sessions Records
SKU: 727592
Price: 37.38 USD
Availability: InStock

Ghetto Funk Sessions

Rating

Album: Ghetto Funk Sessions
#	Song Title	Time
1)	You Make a New Man Out of Me - Johnny Adams
2)	Making Nassau Fruit Drink - African Music Machine
3)	Night Glider - Richard "Groove" Holmes
4)	Expressway to Your Heart - The Soul Survivors
5)	Blow Your Mind - Sound Experience
6)	Stump Juice - Jimmy McGriff
7)	Got to Getcha - Maceo & All the King's Men
8)	Men Are Gettin' Scarce - Joe Tex
9)	Lover & A Friend - Eddie Bo/Inez Cheatham
10)	Out on the Coast - Larry Willis

Album: Ghetto Funk Sessions
#	Song Title	Time
1)	You Make a New Man Out of Me - Johnny Adams
2)	Making Nassau Fruit Drink - African Music Machine
3)	Night Glider - Richard "Groove" Holmes
4)	Expressway to Your Heart - The Soul Survivors
5)	Blow Your Mind - Sound Experience
6)	Stump Juice - Jimmy McGriff
7)	Got to Getcha - Maceo & All the King's Men
8)	Men Are Gettin' Scarce - Joe Tex
9)	Lover & A Friend - Eddie Bo/Inez Cheatham
10)	Out on the Coast - Larry Willis

Performer Notes

While this double CD of various shades of funk from the late '60s to the late '70s isn't a match for the best funk of the era, it's fine if you're looking for a scoop of some fairly interesting secondary stuff in the style. There's not a single obvious, familiar hit among the 30 tracks, with the exception of the Soul Survivors' "Expressway to Your Heart" (which is more soul than funk, but what's the big deal) and, to a lesser extent, Joe Tex's "Men Are Gettin' Scarce." There are certainly some stars here -- James Brown, the Isley Brothers, Curtis Mayfield, Kool & the Gang, Earth, Wind & Fire, Sly & the Family Stone, the Ohio Players, and the Meters -- but they're all represented by fairly underexposed tracks that might not be their very best work, yet are refreshing to hear in the context of an anthology where you're consciously going for out of the way stuff. A lot of the tracks are more enjoyable genre examples than remarkable obscure gems, but there's good variety and the occasional cut that'll make you sit up and take some notice, though that'll likely vary according to your individual taste. Among the better items worth noting are Sound Experience's instrumental "Blow Your Mind," with its searing fuzz guitar; Eddie Bo & the Soul Finders' enjoyable James Brown cop, "Check Your Bucket"; an instrumental by the Commodores, "Rise Up," that was actually released under the name the Mystics back in the '60s and produced by Swamp Dogg; Jesse Anderson's interpretation of Curtis Mayfield's "Readings in Astrology"; Mary Jane Hooper's 1968 single "I've Got What You Need," which has great drumming that sounds like James Brown rhythms speeded up from 33 rpm to 45 rpm; Untouchable Machine Shop's groovin' instrumental "Machine Shop (Part 2)"; and Marva Whitney's "answer" record to the Isley Brothers' "It's Your Thing," "It's My Thing (You Can't Tell Me Who to Sock It To)." ~ Richie Unterberger