wattstax '72: how can you just sit there?

do the funky chicken...not like you've seen it done before! in 1965 the city of watts, ca was torn apart due to some racial profiling (shocked? yea right, "try reading a book sometime")which caused a citywide riot.cops verses citizens. im still trying to figure out who won that one. seven years later the stax record company wanted to "give back" to the socially & economically broken community by hosting an all day music festival and called it "wattstax". this event would dubbed by some as the "black woodstock". and so just for $1 a ticket, attendees had the opportunity watch some of stax records hottest acts perform. the line up included the label's all star artists. pardon me while i mention a few: the staples singers, the emotions, rufus thomas, the bar-kays, and the headliner, black moses himself (or my dads twin depending who you are) isaac hayes. throughout the flick, richard pryor (also a signed artist to the stax label) makes a few cameo interviews and discusses the protypical issues such as soul music or the lack there of in american media, which leads to the ever-so-popular; racial issues / tensions, oppression, and the current living conditions in the ghettos. you can just imagine how fascinating that is.

the thing that gets my mojo working about this flim is the energy of the people. i watch clips of the crowd dancing on the field of the coliseum, and wonder what happened. when did people stop dancing at shows? todays concerts are such a bore compared to what i expericened while watching this documentary (made me get up & start dancing on my bed). which prompts my infamous question "how can you just sit there?" where are my fellow dancers, moving and shakin and gyrating to the live music. are people just discover that they are intimidated by the rhythm of the beat? i dont think so. did they entirely forget how to dance? i dont know, hope not. i have always associated dancing with rejoice & celebration. are people just not as happy & carefree anymore? that would be a shame. cause if the people of watts, with all of their pain & suffering, can dance it out with no regard, then what are we missing? where is our spirit, where are our souls? where is the laughter, where is the rejoicing? not dancing, thats for sure. love-joy

"do you feel pretty?"

is it just me or do you have that one song that makes you feel like sexiest woman on the earth, i mean stripper sexy? if you dont think some strippers are sexy, well this post isnt for you. this is what i mean, you how sometimes you catch yourself privately doing a sexy dance routine in your mind to the point where youre exhausted by the end of the song without ever leaving your seat? shiiiiiit, i do this all time..little squiggles in my chair, swinging my head from side to side, gettin it. it does help that this song plays during the strip club scene in my favorite movie of all time "beverly hills cop", the visuals are amazing, puts me the perfect frame of mind. oh, i love you axel. however, if i were ever to be observed doing this faux lapdance, im sure it would look like i have some kind bladder control problem, which would not be too far from the truth.

vanity 6 - prince had this thing for he's girl groups where he added a "6" at the end of their group name. rumor is that it symbolized the number of breasts to gaze upon while being entertained by the ladies. awesome. love-joy

iloveyouiloveiloveyouiloveyouiloveyouiloveyouiloveyou

i love you, for sentimental reasons. sweet sam cooke (or cookie as my mom would refer to him). i was always fascinated with sam since i was a grom. my mama would play his cassette over & over & over again, ukiah style. she had this book called "too young to die". the book covered stories of young hollywood actors and musicians taken form this world way too young. i would have to sneak and hide to read it, but i would sit for hours zoning out at the pictures for (2) reason; to look at the playboy layout of marylin monroe and....and i was intrigued by ritchie valens' dead corpse laying in the snow covered fields of iowa. i would eventually learn how to read & started learning about the lives of some these promising stars.
with such a dazzling future ahead of him, no one expected sam cooke to be shot dead at the age of 33 by a, im just gonna say it, a crazy motel manager & a hooker, there i said it. there is this entire conspiracy that he was trying to attack the manager & she shot in the stomach & beat him to his death with a broom. breakdown: it had to do with this young hooker & sam trying to get his fix (whatever that means, ha), she got naked, he got naked, she got scared (dont know what happend there), ran out of the room taking his clothes by "accident", went to the motel manager's office, said she was being attacked & about to be raped, sam ran after her looking for his clothes, asked the manager where the girl was, the manager felt like she was under attack & shot him in self defense. when the police found him, he wearing a blazer and shoes (keepin it classy). his body was beaten to a pulp. etta james recalls at the funeral seeing, "cooke as having been so badly beaten that his head was nearly separated from his shoulders, his hands were broken and crushed, and his nose mangled." self defense doesnt cause that much damage to a body. neither one of the women were convicted since they passed lie detector tests along with the tests that proved that sam has alcohol in his system at the time of his death which explained he's abnormal behavior of being practically nude. this whole thing stinks to high heaven! how can he be blessed with so many angelic gifts and have those horrible demons follow him to his death? rude, i say.

mixing it up

aalon - cream city lp

so this boy i went to college with made me this mixed cd. i consider myself to be THE mixed tape master. you can say its my "thang". of course that is according to "the wife", which is the one person i seem to agree with on most subjects (how dare i make this our 1st argument). so when i got this gift i was overjoyed. this boy that i was really kinda was diggin on gave me a gift. first of all, the gift of music...then GOOD music to top it off. we would spend a few moments in the car before class together sharing opinions, hitting the hooter, and being nostalgic by discussing our favorite motown songs and artists as if it were actually 1964. we agreed on how there would not have been a motown if it werent for smokey robinson, who had written over 35 top 40 hits for the motorcity record label.

ahhh my college day husband was so dreamy. so dreamy that he wasnt real. he had a girlfriend, in fact, and although it was very hard, we behaved ourselves. we kept it strictly verbal, strictly music, which is the same thing to me as foreplay. that was good enough for me, i'll take it!! digress...the introduction to some the of old tunes that was on my "mixed tape" masterpiece was refreshing. it created these pseudo memories for me, backyard family bbq style circa 1978. surprisingly all of my favorite songs were NOT motown songs, which we bonded over, but random tracks. very random, which made my crush on him that much more intense. show me the world baby. im ready to take that ride!!! i love boys when they bring fresh experiences to the table to feast on. thanks for the memories j.w. love-joy.

ike & tina part i: the cover band

if anyone knows anything about me, they know that ike & tina are the epitome of rock gods according to my mind. on another subject if you were to ask me who my favorite cover band is (that would be a random question, but anyhow), the answer would be the same. this dynamic duo demolishes the simple tunes written by some if the greatest songwriters of this lifetime.when it comes to ike & tina..they do it & do it HARD. this what my friend & i call the "ouch" factor. by adding layers of sound...and putting a little "stank" on it, only like anna mae bullock can, makes me ponder "is that what poor paul was trying to accomplish?" i go back to listen to the original song and i just think...oh what a shame (shaking my head like my mom would when she saw young girls wearing too much wet n' wild lip liner). "thats cute baby, keep on tryin.". i know its not too difficult to add flavor to beatles songs and the arrangements arent much different, but i bet you havent heard them quite like this before. here are a few of my favorites. see if im crazy...or just have too much soul. i'll take a little bit of both, it makes for a nice cocktail! love-joy

down and out without jb

oh come on, really? you dont feel hard listening to this? then you aint got no soul...(double negative) this song just gives you the right to walk down the street and get ready to whoop someones ass. taking names? or not & thats ok too.

in 1973 james brown wrote the score for the movie "Black Caesar" starring, the ever so fine, mr. fred williamson (praaaaaaise him!!!). commerically, the music score business was at the highest plateau for musical artists during this time. it served a purpose, aggressively. you already had shaft (1971) written by isaac hayes (shut yo mouth); mega hit for MGM. that was followed up by curtis mayfield's masterpiece (who's in my alley?)for superfly (1972). but by far, JB turns-out all of the competition with the "Black Caesar" soundtrack. no one was more soulful or a better storyteller than the GF. JB suprises us with spoonfuls of blues licks in the more mellow songs, which is quite refreshing from the hard bass lines we're used to bumpin & thumpin to. with tunes like the somber "mama's dead" to the funky jam "make it good to yourself" JB creates this physical rollercoaster that gets the soul crying & dancing.... on & off like "the clapper". most of that has to do with the movie's story line, but who's givin credit to leonard cohen? not me! ha!

im gonna be honest, all (ok...settle-down) most of the soundtracks from the blaxploitation flick period were digustingly amazing, but this one holds a permanant place in my heart...next to that bullet from that midnite special. j/k...i hate guns. like JB says "aint nothin wrong".