REWIND: New Birth Inc. - "I Can Understand It"

Love this performance of New Birth, Inc from the TV series, 'Soul!', with Gerry Bledsoe as host. 

New Birth are important because of their ability to recreate the total studio sound on stage, vocally  and instrumentally. Their energetic performance only illustrates how authentic they were as a soul ensemble. Nothing is left to the imagination, it's all there to see... and hear, which is an important aspect of Soul music before and up to that time. Immense talent was a must have.

Their classic records"I Can Understand It", "Dream Merchant", "Wildflower" and "It's Been A Long Time" were popular because of the the excellent musical arrangements laid down by the band. The Wilson Brothers(Leslie and Melvin) and Londee Loren were able to apply variations of intonation, phonation and near perfect pitch. They used vocal inflection to move between major and minor scales, all while dancing their butts off to the groove(watch the above video for example).

This is not a biography, or a review, it's simply a fan, a musician and a lover of classic African-American music explaining what makes New Birth, Inc. so great to watch and listen to.

Enjoy!

View the entire Soul! performance here (the crowd appears angry in the beginning)...

REWIND: Renee and Angela - "You Don't Have To Cry"

From the 1985 platinum album Street Called Desire, the album produced multiple number records with "You Don't Have To Cry" making it to #2. The album reached #5 on the R&B album charts, #64 Pop.

Although the album was quite successful, it would be the Renee & Angela's last, due to tensions and disagreements.

REWIND: The Intruders - "I'll Always Love My Momma" (Extended Version)

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers. Your sacrifices, big and small are recognized, you influences forever remain.

This is the extended version of The Intruders' "I'll Always Love My Momma". Because it's extended if you want to jump to the vocals, do yourself a solid and jump to the 3:23 mark. 

Little Sonny always has one of the most unique voices and he created many classic records with it. This song will forever be one of them. It's in the books.

Thank you Gamble and Huff, John Whitehead and Victor Carstarphen.

Soulutionn's Cover Art for "Burning Bridges" Album

After releasing Journey: The Beginning in 2011, eclectic soul/rap ensemble Soulutionn looks to release Burning Bridges as its follow-up in the coming months.

One of my favorites from their Journey set is "Southern Soul":

REWIND: Ohio Players - "Alone" (Live)

The multi-faceted, multi-talented and so soulful Ohio Players performing the classic "Alone" on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert circa 1977.

A combination of jazz, soul, funk and blues made the once Ohio Jazz Players unique and informed their sound across hit albums.

"Alone" is on the Honey album which was released January of 1975. "Love Roller Coaster" and "Sweet Sticky Thing" are also on the same album.

Video: The Bamboos ft Tim Rogers - "I Got Burned"

From the forthcoming album, Medicine Man in stores June 4th.

Solid retro-groove, replete with stratocaster,stat solo, horns and falsetto lead. 

The drums and drum fills on this are so dope.

Video: Jill Scott - "Blessed"

Jill Scott directed the new video for her track "Blessed" off of the album The Light of the Sun, in stores.

Video: Lee Fields - "You're The Kind Of Girl"

Lee Fields and The Expressions(TruthandSoul Records) put in work on this upbeat, early 70's inspired soul groove. 

"You're The Kind Of Girl" finds Lee Fields "gettin' in where he's fits in", instead of singing over the top of the instrumentation or fighting against it, he fall right into the spaces meant for him to express himself. When it comes to his performance here, Fields uses space and timing as much as his raspy, experienced voice to get his point across.

I'm really happy to see Lee Fields out there doing soul music for the masses and you should too.

I dig the Jeff Bierman directed video, it makes the song that much more enjoyable.

REWIND: Blackstreet - "I Can't Get You Out Of My Mind"

The alternate version of the Blackstreet song, "I Can't Get You Out Of My Mind" from the Christopher Scott Cherot film 'Hav Plenty'.

REWIND: Cameo - "Attack Me With Your Love"

The 1985 music video for "Attack Me With Your Love" is set in New York City and included appearances by Debbi Morgan, Spike Lee, Savion Glover, Maurice Hines, and Laurence Fishburne.

From the album Single Life(No. 2 Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums), the second of three albums(Strange being the first and Word Up the third)that would set the stage for the success of their 1986 Word Up(No. 1 Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums) album which solidified Cameo's place in contemporary music history as legends because of it's inventiveness and consistency.

Word Up resulted in the hits singles, "Word Up", "Back and Forth" and "Candy".

The Single Life album generated the hits "Attack Me With Your Love" and "Single Life".

REWIND: Buddy Miles - "Take It Off Him and Put It On Me" - LIVE

The super talented Buddy Miles was not only a friend of Jimi Hendrix's since their teens, but was an accomplished musician and bandleader in his own right - he sang, played lead and rhythm guitar and was an excellent drummer, he was the drummer in Band of Gypsies. Carlos Santana was often asked Buddy to play and sing for him.

Read more about Buddy Miles... also check out "Them Changes" below.

The audio is out of sync but the performance is close to the original from Hugh Hefner's "Playboy After Dark" 1971.

Stevie Wonder -1976 Listening Party - Songs In The Key Of Life

When Stevie Wonder released the now classic double disc set Songs In The Key Of Life, it was important that he accomplish two things: 1. keep the album unheard until its release 2. increase the demand for the album in the media. Wonder had just come off of extensive touring and hadn't released product for three years. 

When it was time to bring the press in for a listening party, he and his team found a way to maintain a restricted and exclusive environment, yet one that would provide comfort for the members of the press - watch the video to learn about it.

This documentary was released to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the release of Songs In The Key Of Life and the uniquely upscale listening party that introduced it to the world.

Click to read more ...

REWIND: The New Birth Inc. - "I Can Understand It"

Video: Kem - "You're On My Mind"m

When you think of Detroit a few things come to mind: Motown Records, J Dilla, The Pistons, GM, Eminem, T-Baby and her song "It's So Cold In The D". Okay, maybe you don't think of T-Baby before you think of Anita Baker, but you get my point. Detroit is a town that creates strong artists and produces great products. One product of Detroit who also happens to be a great artist is Kem.

REWIND: Rell ft. Jay-Z - "Love For Free"

From '98 when everything was good with "The Roc" or at least appeared to be.

Great opening lyrics:

Baby why are you chasing that man/ Knowing that he can't love you like I can

I guess you'd rather chase, instead of feeling what's real inside/I got to thinking and I hope you realize...

The melody, the rhythm, the message and rhyme pattern are solid. Simple yet effective.