Goin' Back To Miami - Wayne Cochran

This week: a pair of strange-looking, outre-coiffured, rockin' boogaloo-style, second-string soul men.

First up is blue-eyed shouter Wayne Cochran and his CC Riders. Wayne, with his astounding Elvis Presley-meets-Santa Claus hair-do, was the white James Brown. Ignore the oddball looks. Wayne and the boys were perfectly capable of shakin' it on down, kicking it loose one more time and hitching a ride on the night train, Y'all.

That's the night train of soul music lore. The night train that runs from Detroit to Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The night train with reserved seating and a buffet car after 7am that serves cans of lager and soul food fare like chitterlings, hog maws and sea salt, cracked black pepper and lime kettle chips.

"Can I get a witness, Y'all?"

"Why?"

"There are some youths on the track in hooded sweatshirts. They're throwing breeze blocks at the cross-tie sleepers.

> Download this (3.4 MB)

Mighty Mighty (Live) - Baby Huey and the Babysitters

More shouty boogaloo soul. More 'Lord, have mercy's', more 'good-God almightys' and other soul gibberish. This time it comes from James 'Baby Huey' Ramey and his Babysitters.

Baby Huey was named after a large cartoon duck. Baby Huey was a big man. Baby Huey was a soul man; 350 pounds of soul to be precise. It was down to a glandular condition.

No one knew about trans-fatty acids in 1969.

In 1970, shortly after he signed a recording contract, the Babysitters went all psychedelic and donned dashikis whilst Baby Huey acquired a heroin problem. His weight ballooned and he died not long after. Shame.

Mighty Mighty is a live soul record in the style of many live soul records from the late sixties and early seventies. That is to say that It wasn't recorded at an actual gig - it was a studio record with some hand-clapping, street slang ad-libs and band-audience banter, out of synch call-and-response shouting and a chitling-sized helping of 'Lord have mercys'.

> Download this (3.2 MB)

Manifesto & Book News

If it's ever been on K-Tel or Ronco, it's in. If it features hand claps, cow bells, syrupy orchestration, walls of sound, wrecking crews, sha-la-las, toothy teen idols, candy-based metaphors for carnal acts or lyrics about hugging, squeezing and rocking all night long, it's in.

Bloody show-off



> Martin Lampen (latest book news, contact details and other stuff)

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