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Did You Heard Me?/Crown Prince Of Dance

$3.99 ... CD List Price: 14.98 (€2.94 || £2.52 || ¥375) (approx.)

2 of the best Rufus Thomas funky albums for Stax – back to back on a single CD! First up is Did You Heard Me – recorded in the early 70s with backing by The Movement and The Bar Kays, and with a good raw Stax sound on most cuts! Rufus is certainly in the "funky ___" mode here – doing a formulaic approach to funk that has him taking a theme for a song, and pushing it to the max by shouting and grooving it over and over again. Fortunately, the style still works well here – without the cliches of later albums, probably thanks in part to the album's tight funky backgrounds. The record features three tasty two-part single tracks – "The Breakdown (parts 1 & 2)", "Do The Push & Pull (parts 1 & 2)", and "Do The Funky Penguin (parts 1 & 2)" – all of which stand as some of Rufus' most-collected funky singles. Also features the groovy soul track "6 3 8", plus "Love Trap" and "The World Is Round". Crown Prince is a crowning achievement for Rufus Thomas – a set that bubbles over with funky intensity, and one of the last great albums he ever recorded for Stax! The funky Rufus mode is still in full full swing here – with loads of tunes that have the word "funky" in the title – basically jamming numbers that seem to let Thomas loose on vocals – coming up with whatever sort of catchy lyrics he can over the romping grooves underneath. Titles include two of his best funky tracks "Funky Robot" and "Funky Bird" – plus "I Wanna Sang", "Steal A Little", "I'm Still In Love With You", "Baby It's Real", "Steal A Little", and "Git On Up & Do It".  © 1996-2013, Dusty Groove, Inc.