I was able to find this on a Russian website: The Pasadenas "I'm Doin' Fine Now"
https://rutube.ru/video/42f820cdd664...d924033c9ccf3/
Neneh Cherry - I've Got You Under My Skin
Another British R&B singer that got a lot of play in the mid 80s........Joyce Sims!
Still another one.......Princess - Say I'm Your Number One - 1985
Then there was this one.............
Oh Jerry, that's it, the loss of horns!!! I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and have come to appreciate the horn section much more. I love it when it's there, and sorely miss it when it's not. I think, to me, the horn section plays a significant part in making soul music soul music if you know what I mean. Hell I even love Chicago, Phil Collins and Lou Bega for their horn sections. Lol
I mean, take The Fatback Band, even, horns galore in 1975... by 1985, not a horn in earshot. Oh why? And as for today's R&B, I think I judge it most the time on whether it's real-sounding, and whether it has horns!!
Well I guess I have come across as slightly obsessed with horns here... heehee
I have to say I do like this one Jerry. Great funk-rock-soul sound. I actually saw Andrew Roachford at a concert recently, and he was excellent. He rocked out "Cuddly Toy" and did the “if I told you once, I told you three times” bit up to twenty-seven or something similarly ridiculous. It was great.
We are clearly kindred souls. One of the greatest disappointments of the '80s was when Cameo was forced by the record label to go from an 11-man band to a three-man outfit. Larry Blackmon and Co. still kept it 100 but the best horn section in R&B was disbanded. Some might like the Phoenix Horns or Seawind better, but Cameo had a horn section that was tighter than any other. Con Funk Shun had a great horn section as well.
The advent of the synth sounded the death knell of the horn section, IMHO.
I agree. I also think that the introduction of synths, drum machines and samplers morphed R&B into something that was initially interesting to me but ultimately became boring. At one point, artists began making music that was designed to cross over charts. That's when somebody stole [[a lot of) the soul.
One of our members, soulster, knows much more about it than I do and he said that the label didn't want to foot the bill for a large ensemble. It changed the sound of the band but to be honest, the new sound was still funkier and more soulful than most of the other music at the time. One of my favorite songs, "Skin I'm In", had horns but they weren't as prominent as those in the earlier records.
Here is a Cameo song that has their horns on full display. I used to wonder if they manipulated the sound in production to make them this tight but when I saw them in concert, it sounded close to the record.
[VIDEO]One of our members, soulster, knows much more about it than I do but he said that the label didn't want to foot the bill for a large ensemble. It changed the sound of the band but to be honest, the new sound was still funkier and more soulful than most of the other music at the time. One of my favorite songs, "Skin I'm In", had horns but they weren't as prominent as those in the earlier records.
You ain’t never lied. Case in point: P-Funk. Funkadelic = horns, Parliament = synths. That prototype was genius...then Funkadelic kind of faded away. [[Maybe not the best example, as Parliament was still funky as all hell, but still a case study in the changes brewing.)
A friend of mine reminded me of this lost gem the other day. Angela Bofill - "Something About You" from 1981
More from 1981. Detroit Neo-Soul classic by Was Not Was and "Out Comes the Freaks"!
Marv, I can't think of Angela Bofill without "I Try" playing in my head on an endless loop. Love this record.
Here's some Soul from up North in Quebec, Canada......Gino Vannelli and "I Just Want to Stop"
Now some Bossa Nova Soul from wayyyyy down South! Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66 - "Mas que nada"
Evelyn Champagne King - Shame - [[1978)
This song is simply a classic. Rick James broke with "Mary Jane" and "You and I" and they're still my favorite of all his records. If I had to do a soundtrack for the essential songs in my life, both of them would be on it.
And this one. The scene in "Car Wash" where Fly is trying to get the girl at Otis Sistrunk's restaurant to go out with him has it in the background and it is the only scene in the movie that I really like.
Not too many people heard this one, but the Dazz Band covered Smokey's "Bad Girl" and it was a very well done and respectful rendition.
Speaking of excellent Smokey covers, A Taste Of Honey did a great job with "I'll Try Something New". Love this record.
And they also covered "Sukiyaki" wonderfully. The minimal instrumentation on this song lets her voice carry it very well.
Strange story behind this one. It came out my Junior year in college. My cousin Debbie and her husband had just moved to Colorado Springs and I was in Denver. They came up one weekend and we happen to hear this on the radio. I had not remembered ,but Debbie did that it was a remake from when we were very young kids.......
From 1963 Kyu Sakamoto - Sukiyaki
I can't even think of Rose Royce without thinking of this jam:
My folks actually had that on 45. I wonder how close A Taste Of Honey's translation is to the original song. I know that Richie Valens' version of "La Bamba" and Bobby Darin's version of "La Mer" were not literal translations of the songs that inspired them. Hmm... Now I'm wondering if there are any other foreign-language songs that became charting hits in American cover versions?
One song that comes to mind is French singer, Jacques Brel's "Ne Me Quitte Pas" which was converted to English by Rod McKuen to "If You Go Away" and just about every established singer has covered it it seems. Here is the original. Warning..............This is VERY heavy:
Last edited by marv2; 03-19-2018 at 03:55 PM.
Here is Shirley Bassey with an intro by Rod McKuen with the English version "If You Go Away"
Roshell Anderson - Know What You're Doing When You Leave
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I never heard that one before Mikew-UK. Thanks.
This was my favorite Teena Marie song. I'll bet a movie about her would be fascinating.
In the mid-80s, I remember listening to a cable radio station that was run by a DJ who had been my favorite local jock before quitting. I heard a few songs that were not played on the radio but became immediate faves of mine. I heard this one and was shocked to find it at a campus resale shop.
I bought so many records by unknown artists at that shop that I'd guess only me and my friends used to jam to. I found this one for a couple bucks and it is fantastic.
I learned to trust buying some of those records based on who the producers were. I used to like Reggie Andrews/Leon "Ndugu" Chancler bands a lot. So I took a chance on Skwares, seeing that they produced them. This song is from that first album. Unfortunately, their second record was produced by the Gap Band and although it was not a bad record, they sounded more like the Gap Band than the group represented on the first album.
They also produced this record by Kiddo. They were Donnie Sterling's band and they had more of a Minneapolis sound than a P-Funk sound. I about wore out a needle playing some of these.
My favorite band is probably Heatwave. Very close to them would be Fishbone. I'd buy Fishbone albums and on every album there would be funk songs, ska songs, hardcore rock songs, ska songs and once even a great blues song. The band had Norwood Fisher on bass and he's in my top 5 bassists, which is saying a lot because my list of favorite bassists is very very long. This song was on their second album and I always thought it was super funky. I got away with playing it at a party one night and they danced to it without anybody giving me a dirty look for playing an unknown record. Fishbone is the greatest relatively unknown band in America. An album with just their funk songs would be my favorite funk record.
This is Norwood Fisher going nuts on a record. His greatness is not solely because he can funk it up with the best of them. He's damned near technically perfect on most of their songs, even those where the bass is used mostly just as bottom.
Another hunch on production credits led me to buy this album. Marcus Miller produced some tracks and Nick Martinelli did some, so I took a chance. This one was done by Deodato and it's another example of a group who had songs that I thought could do well but never made it to radio.
Another fantastic R&B song in the time when urban music was transitioning to something else was Miles Jaye's "Let's Start Over". This is a really nice track.
I may have put this one earlier, but this is one of the best songs to play loud that I own. The lyrics should strike fear in the heart of any man, though. She's a straight up stalker.
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