7 single/EP
Showing 1–24 of 69 results
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Lewis Margaret - Country Soul Of Margaret Lewis EP (7 single/EP)
€13,00Quick ViewThe latest in our series of 4-track EPs features Margaret Lewis’ RAM recordings. Country and Soul are never that far apart and in Margaret Lewis’s vocal delivery, underpinned by Grace Tennessee’s shimmering guitar, they meld seamlessly. As if to prove this, the opening cut, ’Reconsider Me’, was a hit for Johnny Adams in 1969. Margaret’s world-weary, almost resigned vocal tells a story that resonates across class and colour. The waltz time of the plaintive ’It’s Alright (You Can Go)’ exposes Margaret’s Louisiana roots, adding another dimension to the varied sounds of this EP. Opening Side 2 is an out-and-out soul groove that is setting the UK’s New Breed dance scene alight, ’Somethin’s Wrong Baby’. Although first issued in 1961 it presages the funkier sounds of later that decade, with a proto-James Brown style riff and great greasy sax all guaranteed to get the party started. The closing track opens with a sensuous guitar line from Grace Tennessee before Margaret’s bluesy vocal kicks in; a track that has been causing outbreaks of the stroll in dancehalls coast to coast. A limited edition of 1000 copies.
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Four Shades Of Rhythm - Bartender, Knock Me A Zombie Part 1 & Part 2 (7 single/EP)
€10,00Quick ViewRecorded in around 1949 by Bernie Besman for his Detroit-based Sensation label, this ode to the high-powered cocktail by the Four Shades Of Rhythm lay undisturbed in the vault until recently unearthed and given an airing on Cerys Matthews’ BBC Radio 6 show.
There was an immediate demand to make it available to the public at large and so the Ace team sprang into action and here it is in a part one and a part two, the first Sensation release since 1950.
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Lightnin´ Hopkins - Had A Gal Called Sal EP (7 single/EP)
€8,00Quick ViewTexan Sam Hopkins began performing with the legendary Blind Lemon Jefferson in the late 1920s, but had to wait for two decades before the Aladdin record business knocked at his door to record the duo of Thunder & Lightnin’. A supremely rhythmic guitar player with a whiskey-soaked voice, Lightnin’s recent waxings for New York’s Herald label have been well received by the rock ’n’ roll crowd.
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Little Walter - Evan’s Shuffle EP (7 single/EP)
€8,00Quick ViewLouisiana-born Marion ”Little Walter” Jacobs arrived in the Windy City in 1945 and swiftly made a name for himself as an innovator of the amplified harrmonica in order to compete with the electric blues guitar.
His allegiance with the Muddy Waters gang has now drawn him to the attention of the Chess brothers, who are impressed by his powerful singing voice as well as that devastating mouth harp!
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Little Johnny Jones - Hoy Hoy EP (7 single/EP)
€8,00Quick ViewBorn in Jackson, Mississipi, in 1924, Little Johnny relocated to Chicago twenty years later to take his place among the great blues piano players with the help of the well-known Tampa Red and his cousin, Otis Spann.
His spell with slide-master Tampa Red led him to team up with Elmore James’ combo in 1952 and it is Elmore and his musicians who accompany Johnny on his versions of these classics recorded for the Flair and Atlantic recording companies”
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Williams Andre - Don’t Touch EP (7 single/EP)
€10,00Quick ViewZephire “Andre” Williams was born in Bessmer, Alabama on November 1, 1936. He lost his mother when he was 6 and learned how to take care of himself at a very early age.
At 14 he enrolled in the US Navy using his older brother’s birth certificate. A year later he was busted and sent home with a dishonorable discharge. As Garth Cartwright wrote “Andre Williams is neither a great singer nor a great musician in the traditional sense, but he is undeniably a great character, an innovator with a smile on his face and a hard-on in his pants.
In a career spanning nearly six decades, Williams has worn all kinds of musical hats – songwriter, singer, producer, arranger, talent scout.” After his brief stint in the Navy, he moved to Detroit where he won a talent contest at the Warfield Theater. Williams said “There was a talent show going on there. I went there and I think I won four shows straight. If you won one week, you could come back next week. If you won first prize, it was $25 a week. I didn’t consider myself a singer. It was the $25! I didn’t know what I was really going to do. I’d just gotten out of the Navy and hadn’t made up my mind what I was going to do.” He caught the eye of Fortune Records, who signed him in 1955.
Fortune Records was a small family operated, independent label owned by Jack and Devora Brown. Fortune specialized in R&B, blues, soul and doo-wop music, but they also released pop, big band, hillbilly, gospel, rock and roll, and polka. Other artists on Fortune were John Lee Hooker, Doctor Ross, Nolan Strong & The Diablos and Nathaniel Mayer
Fortune’s studio was very primitive and even by the standards of the mid-1950s, but this only encouraged Williams to think in a more creative way. Williams recalls “We’d go out back of Fortune, smoke some reefer, drink a bottle of wine, and come up with a song. It took a genius to mix what we cut and Mrs. Brown, she did it!”
Andre recorded for the label a string of singles both solo and with a vocal group called the 5 Dollars- also billed as ‘The Don Juans’ on some of his singles. His hit Bacon Fat was a solo effort. The song reached # 9 on the R&B chart in 1957. Other personal fave songs are Jail Bait and Pass The Biscuits, Please but to be honest everything Andre recorded for Fortune. This material is largely available, so we decided to focus on four lesser-known songs here. The Latin-flavored Goin Down To Tia Juana (Fortune 824) was released in 1955. The following year he recorded Just Want A Little Lovin’ (Fortune 827) and Don’t Touch (Fortune 839) in 1957. The rockin’ Hey Country Girl ( Fortune 842) was released in 1958. Andre said “I knew I wasn’t a singer but I knew I could put words together It was just coming up with the stories and putting the stories to some music…You’re either a singer or a performer. I’m a performer.“
Williams recorded for Fortune until 1961, before becoming more and more involved with production and started to work with Motown. He worked with a young Stevie Wonder, Ike & Tina Turner and dozens of legendary artists. He kept on recording very cool records himself in the 60’s and the 70’s that are regarded as early rap. Sadly by the end of the 1970s, his alcohol and drug addiction turned him into a homeless beggar. In the 1980s, he kicked his addictions began to tour and on the alternative rock circuit. Idolized by bands as The Cramps, Andre Williams was taken on tour by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and started recording with Spencer, The Dirtbombs, and other alt-rock bands, enjoying a new career.
-Little Victor (a.k.a DJ ”Mojo” Man)
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Tex Joe - Cuttin` With EP (7 single/EP)
€10,00Quick ViewJoe Tex from was born Joseph Arrington Jr. in Rogers, Texas on August 8th, 1935 but he grew up in Baytown. While he was still a little schoolboy, he worked as a paperboy, a shoeshine and he would always sing and dance for the customers. He also sang in the school choir and the church choir. In high school, he played tenor saxophone and started to sing at talent contests.
In his junior year of high school, Tex won a talent show in Houston $300 a trip to New York and a week’s stay at the Hotel Teresa in Harlem. He performed at the Apollo Theater (in the amateur section) and he won the Amateur Night competition four times. Talent scout Arthur Prysock introduced Tex to Henry Glover, an A&R man at King Records, who offered him a contract with King. Glover had recently discovered and signed another southern singer very similar to Joe, named James Brown. Joe still had to graduate from high school, so he had to wait for a whole year, not to disappoint his mother. So shortly after graduation day, he recorded his debut single for King Records Come In This House / Davy, You Upset My Home (King 4840) released in October 1955. Tex who wrote both songs and discovered a certain talent for songwriting.
His famous rivalry with James Brown started around that time. According to many, Brown simply stole from Joe Tex a lot of his dance moves and the microphone stand tricks that made him famous, not to mention the “rapping” over the music that he got from Tex too.
After recording three more singles for King that sold very little and made no impact in the charts, Joe signed with Ace Records. His first single on the label Cut It Out / Just For You And Me was released in January 1958 as ‘JOE TEX The Rock an Roll Cowboy’. Later that year he cut You Little Baby Face Thing (Ace 550) and before that he recorded Open The Door (Ace 547) with young New Orleans piano genius LITTLE BOOKER (a.k.a. James Booker). Joe Tex is the uncredited vocalist on this record. I reckon both songs have a strong New Orleans flavor and were recorded shortly after Little Richard “disappeared” from secular music to focus on Bible studies -probably trying to do just as good as Richard.
Unfortunately, none of these great records sold anything or made it to the charts. In spite of having thirty great singles under his belt and many of his songs becoming big hits for other artists, Joe Tex sadly had to wait until 1964 to have his first hit. After that success didn’t stop. he had hit after hit, but that’s a different story!
-Little Victor (a.k.a DJ ”Mojo” Man)
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Watson Johnny Guitar - For Gangsters And Lovers (7 single/EP)
€10,00Quick ViewTexas-born John Watson Jr. (Houston, Feb. 3rd, 1935) started to play the piano at the age of 8 and guitar at the age of 11 after his grandfather, a guitar-playing preacher, bought him his first guitar.
Johnny was a big fan of T-Bone Walker and Clarance ‘Gatemouth’ Brown. At 15 he moved to Los Angeles with his mother where he started his career as a piano player. He toured on the road with sax-ace Chuck Higgins and piano man Amos Milburn. Johnny made his first records as ‘Young Johnny Watson’ for Federal in 1952.
After releasing a few singles as a pianist, he switched to guitar and changed his stage name to Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson in 1954 after he saw the Joan Crawford movie ‘Johnny Guitar’. He recorded his trademark song Gangster Of Love many times in his career. Here you can hear the one he cut for King Records in 1962 (King 57774) plus The Bear, a song he recorded for Class in 1959 (Class 2092) and two numbers he did earlier in his career for RPM Records Hot Little Mama (RPM 423) and She Moves Me (RPM 3066), first released in 1955 and 1956.
This EP ‘For Gangster And Lovers’ contains some of the coolest of the many cool tracks our ‘Gangster Of Love’ ever recorded… Dig it!
-Little Victor (a.k.a DJ ”Mojo” Man)
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Everett Betty - Killer Diller EP (33rpm) (7 single/EP)
€8,00Quick ViewBetty Everett was better known for her Soul recordings in the 1960’s, including some successful songs on Vee Jay, most famously The Shoop Shoop song, You’re no Good and Getting Mighty Crowded.
Her iconic and oft covered Soul tunes have somewhat obscured her earlier recordings, which are compiled here for your listening pleasure.
