Funky 45's — All Formats  

A sweet summertime groove from Magic In Threes – a cut that feels like some lost weird funk track from the 70s – slightly offbeat, but in a great way! There's a nice thin little groove with guitar riffing along with snapping drums – and a keyboard tipples in with nice short steps – creating a strut that's plenty summertime! "Magic Mark In Tha Summer" is equally cool – kind of a wah wah sort of groove, but really laidback – almost at "Summer Madness" speed – with great spacey keyboards to match!

Gritty funk from central Tennessee – the first single on a hip little indie! "Tennessee Strut" is a slow-stepping number with some rattling drums at the core – a snapping groove that lives up to the strut promised in the title – with a great bassline alongside the kid, which steps out a bit on its own in the middle of the tune! Other instrumentation includes sax and a bit of guitar – the latter of which shines nicely on "Fancy Roll" with these great chromatic tones.

Dennis Coffey and Mayer Hawthorne – a pairing we never could have imagined years back, but who come together here beautifully on a cover of the old Parliament number! "All Your Goodies Are Gone" sounds even more soulful here than on the original – and Coffey's guitar is nice and sharp, yet nicely bows to the background a bit to let Hawthorne push his vocals! Speaking of vocals, Kings Go Forth make a great appearance on the flipside – making us wonder when they'll be serving us up a new album!

A pair of classic Chicago soul tracks from Barbara Acklin! "Am I The Same Girl" is great great track with a totally catchy hook, and great lyrics by Barbara – and oddly enough, the exact track was stripped of its vocals, given a piano solo, and re-released by Brunswick as "Soulful Strut" by Young-Holt Unlimited! "Love Makes A Woman" is Barbara's other great track from the Brunswick years – a beautiful tune that's raw and sweet at the same time!

A great garagey groove from Juicebox – full to the top with fuzzy guitar and heady Hammond – instrumentation that's perfect for the mod feel of the tune! Lead lyrics are by a male singer, and nice and raspy – and strut along strongly with the tune's heady rhythms – and "Heart N Soul" has lots more great organ, no vocals at all, and some great guitar lines over the snapping drums!

Classic funky soul from The Meters! "Sophisticated Cissy" was a follow-up to "Cissy Strut", and it's got the same tight grooves as that one – and some great Meters guitar! "Sehorns Farms" is another Meters classic – and the single's the kind of double-header that keeps you buying funky 45s!

Stormin Philly soul from The Orlons – a stepping groover that's got some great interplay between the female lead and the harmony vocals! There's a proud strut that makes the tune one of the Orlons' standout numbers – and "No Love But Your Love" has these great vibes that jingle around underneath the vocals!

Ramsey hits the Hayes/Porter hit, and gives it his usual soul instrumental twist. "Struttin' Lightly" is an early track written by Cleveland Eaton, and played by Ramsey's trio with Eaton and Maurice White.

A killer clubby groove from Steve Marshall – the kind that reminds us of the best indie singles from the late 70s disco years! Steve plays alto sax here over a strutting, high-stepping rhythm that's got plenty of warm touches – really glowing with a sense of soul that's great, and touched by some female chorus vocals that are very much in a Philly mode! "Creative Happiness" has Steve switching to flute, but still sounding plenty soulful – gliding warmly over a great groove that has bass and vibes dancing together in a sweet midtempo rhythm!

Take it from us, a record with "chicken" in the title is always worth checking out – because it usually means a nicely strutting groove! That's definitely the case with "Chicken Grabber" – a cool cut with mambo percussion, vamping sax, and some great chicken calls in the middle! And "Chicken Rock" is mighty nice too – with a really nasty bassline and snapping drums, called on a member of the group to set the scene for a sweet tenor solo in the middle!

A really unique funky gem – and a near-legendary single from Scorpio & His People! "Unforgiven" has a brilliant blend of deep funk and falsetto vocals – stepping slowly over the top with a surprising amount of power, while the band turns, dips, and chugs along heavily at the bottom – all with a bad-strutting groove that's heavy on the bassy end of the spectrum – which makes for a great contast to the lyrics! "Theme From Movietown Sound" has a similar blend, but a different groove too – thanks to these heavy piano lines that roll back and forth with the rhythms!

A really cool little tune – a northern soul killer at the heart, and served up with soaring vocals from Candy & The Kisses – a group who seem to have almost the full power of a choir, given the richness of the arrangement here! "Bok To Bach" is spelled weirdly here, and has an equally quirky sound too – electric harpsichord strutting away over a "Bend Me Shape Me" sort of groove – soul instrumental, but with a catchy pop twist, too!

Two takes on "The Whip" – both pretty darn groovy! The Originals' version begins with this vamping, strutting horn part – then the whole thing hits a "whip" sound effect that really punctuates the whole tune – moving it from "Tequila"-like instrumental territory into something even nastier! And if that's not enough, there's even more whip sound effects on the flipside – snapping The Frantics' version into a real frenzy!

Acoustic guitar vamps strongly along with the groove – setting up a mighty hip rhythm for the vocals and harmonica of Sonny Boy Williamson! "Polly" is one of those numbers that perfectly shows Sonny's influence on 60s rockers – especially in the UK – and the "Mellow Chick" flipside has a similar bad-strutting groove!

Super-dope, super-slow funk from The Expressions – a really great change from the usual deep funk groove! "These Moments" slinks along like some 70s mellow soul instrumental b-side – still plenty funky, but moving at a pace that's never too over the top, with instrumentation that slowly grooves instead of rips along in quick riffs. There's a nicely breaking guitar over the track's stepping bass – and rhythm that hangs there perfectly in mid-air! "Money Is King" is slightly faster, but still quite laidback – guitar strutting out wonderfully next to a bit of strings – almost making the whole thing sound like some badass soundtrack theme!

One of the best singles so far on Kenny Dope's funky Kay-Dee label – presented here in a great pic sleeve package! "Organize" is a righteous bit of ensemble funk – hard-hitting on the bottom, with a soaring lyric that has a bit of Earth Wind & Fire horns on the top – all edited here by Kenny with a groove that's probably even funkier than the original – even though we've never heard it! "Space Travel" is full-on and funky too – strutting along with guitar lines sewed up inside the horns – all at a quickly grooving pace that almost sounds like a precursor to early BT Express!

Tremendous! "Boss Lady" struts and vamps like some lost JBs number – and Coko's vocals are right up there with the best work from Lyn Collins or Marva Whitney – a sound that blows away even the best of today's funky singers! Plus, the production is totally rock-solid – even more on the money for a funky 45 groove than most other labels – and just right for the flipside too!

Storming soul from Maurice Williams – two smoking tracks that feature production from Marshall Seehorn and Allen Toussaint! "Being Without You" has Williams sounding a lot more Northern Soul than you might expect – really pushed forward strongly with stomping rhythms – and soaring with these amazing vocals over the top! "Return" is from a few years before, and has a strutting groove that's a bit more R&B – nice tenor in the mix alongside the vocals, and a great punch that really gets the midtempo rhythms going!