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

[jeanvaljean]

Loving the horns and the bass on this one. And her voice never sounded better.
She really deserved a comeback with that Epic album, but alas...

[Abe]

Well... I think that my come back to comics won't last that much... I kinda feel the need to give some money to disc stores anew, jean.

The LTD track is good, but that Mary Wells song is epic - no pun intended. And Zulema is absolutely incredible!!! I need those LPs!

[jeanvaljean]

Pretty much everything with Zulema's name on it is awesome. Her first album was very introspective and high-brow ("American Fruit with African Roots" the haunting stand-out track). Her RCA albums were very much slick funk products, but Zulema played a lively piano and had those great vocals... After that, it got a little more disco, but she had a knack for epic arrangements still. She then formed a duo called Zalmac which also pot on one great album.

[Abe]

Pretty much everything with Zulema's name on it is awesome. Her first album was very introspective and high-brow ("American Fruit with African Roots" the haunting stand-out track). Her RCA albums were very much slick funk products, but Zulema played a lively piano and had those great vocals... After that, it got a little more disco, but she had a knack for epic arrangements still. She then formed a duo called Zalmac which also pot on one great album.

Thanks, jean! There are two great disc stores between my train station and my bus stop : I'll check if they have those gems when I'll get back from work tomorrow...

(Falling asleep... need to wake up very early... The words I put in put in bold in your post resonate in my numb brain, so I'll end the day feeling, according to them, like if I'm...)

[Abe]

Just realized today that Janelle Monae was in both movies Moonlight and Hidden Figures - don't go to the movies that much these day, and don't follow the news either...

To celebrate her talent, her most cinematographic song... Probably my favorite...

[Abe]

Some jazz in the house! (House is allowed here?)

[Abe]

Let's say it's allowed...

(samples from a rare Prince interview in Detroit in the early 80s in the first part of the track - the second part (around 7:00) is sumptuous )

[Abe]

Moodymann and Norma Jean Bell's sax reworking Carl Craig's cover of the Stylistics (a two-parts track once more)

[Abe]

The original in all its glory.

[Abe]

And the version by the proto-Earth Wind & Fire...

[Abe]

That band...

[Rob Allen]

So true, Ed!

The footage of the 1976 Houston concert is well-known for such a long time and it deserves to be seen in its entirety - the calling for the mothership still thrills me... each time... Glenn Goins so inspired... - but this extract is just so good :

Unexpected coincidence dept.:

I went to high school with Glenn Goins.

Only for one year though - it was a three-year high school and he was a senior in my first year. His brother Kevin was in my class.

I wasn't familiar with his music then or now; I was listening to Top 40 pop then and nowadays it's mostly jazz and the Grateful Dead & friends, but I was aware that he was a local celebrity, and I remember the big writeup in the local paper after he died.

[Mormel]

Love this man's voice. So classy!

[jeanvaljean]

Loving that Stylistics remix!
To me, every Stylistics album produced by Thom Bell is genius, while all the ones produced by Hugo & Luigi I cannot even listen to.

I always imagine that Thom gave Russell Thompkins Jr. the speech Whoopi Goldberg gave Cathy Najimi in "Sister Act" - that's a powerful instrument you have there, let's reign it in a bit. While H&L loved it and put him front and center.

[jeanvaljean]

Here's a funky thing by a lady who never let herself be pigeon-holed: