Classic R+B, Soul, Hip-Hop, etc

[ed2962]

[ed2962]

Tevin Campbell. I'm not sure hoe old he is here...14 or 15?

[ed2962]

Joni Mitchell of all people covering Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man"

[Surf]

[Surf]

[PaulBullion]

Still looking for this album:

[Surf]

Some, people...

[PaulBullion]

For Black History month, I'll go into an often forgotten aspect of r&b music: Somewhat silly songs. They can be overly dramatic to the point of parody, or have thatrical aspects, or just be tongue in cheek.

Quite a few songs that make me giggle come from a guy who could also make you cry with this songs, Chuck Jackson. Here he is with the fellow New Yorker, Doris Troy.

[PaulBullion]

It gets sillier when he switches duet partners to the incomparable Maxine Brown - "the girl society."

[PaulBullion]

Soul music's first interracial man/woman duet act sometimes broke the tension with a cutely silly song like this:

[PaulBullion]

A very young Patti Austin sounded less polished than later in her career, which kind of reminds me of Mary J Blige, oddly.
This is a song about interracial dating, a very serious topic at the time, lightened up by some of the most incredibly silly rhymes ever put on vinyl.

[PaulBullion]

A very cool Isaac Hayes production for this former beauty queen gets very close to a novelty song by the inclusion of shooting sounds. Maybe not as funny in the age of mass shootings, but still a groovy and slightly silly song.

[PaulBullion]

Going back to the very roots of R&B, there was a time when Queen Dina Washington sang a lot of silly songs.... and they were mostly about sex, whether they were about her dentist or her new TV, back in 1953:


(Parental guidance: implicit lyrics)

[PaulBullion]

Dionne Warwick is sharing her sense of humor on twitter a lot, but just why she would cover Nat King Cole's classic L-O-V-E in a baby voice with a silly trumpet in the backgound is anyone's guess.



(this was quite hard to find on youtube. Dionne recorded about a gazillion songs with the word LOVE in the title)

[PaulBullion]

Not off-brand Road Runner! Beep, beep!