Now-Again Records

Lil’ Lavair and the Fabulous Jades

Screaming out of the sleepy city of San Bernadino, 60 miles to the northwest of Los Angeles, Lil’ Lavair and The Fabulous Jades were a monstrous, late 60s ensemble that confounded researchers and record collectors from the late 70s, when the A side of their solitary seven inch single first hit the UK’s Northern Soul scene. Thus, when the Godfather of Deep Funk, Keb Darge, started spinning their rarely heard B side – “Cold Heat” – in the late 90s at London’s legendary nightspot Madame JoJo’s, he only fanned the flames of a collecting fury that had been burning for quite some time. It wasn’t until we discovered the band – still alive and well (and, for the most part, completely removed from music) in 2004 that their story was told.

It’s nearly understandable why the two copies of the record that have turned up since Keb’s playlist translated to every deep-funk junkies want list have been sold by astute dealers for over $2000 – each! A vicious guitar lead groove, balanced out by bubbling organ, intricately arranged horns, two chunky breakdowns and Lil’ Lavair’s all-too-cool vocal call-and-response appeal to even the funkily naïve’s groove sensibility.

Carleen & The Groovers

Carleen and The Groovers are that rare phenomenon in the rare world of Deep Funk – a group of local hopefuls who not only possessed the desire to record themselves, but recorded multiple, original songs at the peak of America’s funk movement. Their four sides are superb examples of why the history of independently released funk music is so important within America’s musical tapestry. Carleen and The Groovers shouted positive, uplifting messages, gave the drummer a whole bunch, signified coded comedy and defined the syncopated funk groove. Their recorded output paints a picture of a band bursting at the seams, ready to explode out of the tight confines of Carleen Butler’s heavy drumming. This is funk at its combustible best.

WILLIE BOBO

Percussionist Willie Bobo’s latin-jazz is the stuff of rare-groove legend. Countless tracks that the maestro created or touched during his late 60s, early 70s heyday were hallmarks of that scene. And Bobo could funk with the best of them. His most sought after album, Willie Bobo and The Bogents’ Do What You Want To Do, released on the Sussex label, always held its weight with DJs, collectors and those conscious enough to realize its infectious grooves were worth the $100 price-of-admission.

Sad that Sussex never released the obvious seven inch single from the album – the superbly funky “Broasted or Fried” and the psychedelically inflected “Soul Foo Young.” Thirty years later, Now-Again Records stands ready to correct the historical books.

Willie Bobo’s son, Eric Bobo (known most commonly as a congero recording under his surname), is no stranger to funk – he’s toured and recorded with hip hop supergroup Cypress Hill since the early 90s. Sometime in the mid 90s he teamed up with producer Mario C. (most famous for his seminal work with the Beastie Boys) to sort through piles of his father’s reel to reel tapes. The result? Hours of unreleased recordings from Willie Bobo’s heyday – including alternate takes of “Broasted or Fried” and “Soul Foo Young.” These versions – recorded as Willie Bobo was sorting through demos for his Sussex LP in the early 70s – swing differently – perhaps heavier – than their previously released counterparts. The mix downs – tastefully blessed and mastered by Mario C. from the original multitrack tapes – hit harder, and present these tunes anew.

THE ARISTOCRATS ORGANIZATION FEAT. MS. Linda BLAKELY

The Aristocrats “Don’t Go,” a relatively recent discovery in the deep funk circle, has confounded researchers since NYC-based collector Jeff Silverman bought the only known copy of the record from dealer David Forman’s auction list in the late 90s for a pittance. Since then, the battle scarred piece of wax has changed hands only twice, and currently resides in the collection of notorious record-hawk Ian Wright’s expansive library. It is thanks, in part, to his compiling the record on BBE’s “Sister Funk,” that every wet-behind-the-ears funk junkie want lists this gorgeous slice of soul. Against reason, of course. In fact, archvists based in the record’s city of origin – Louisville, Kentucky – insist that the record doesn’t exist.

But exist it does, one of two vinyl discs credited to The Aristocrats on the prolific Rondo label, an imprint owned by Louisville entrepreneurs Ray Allen and Hardy Martin. Distributed locally by car salesman turned producer Mel Yarmuth, whose whereabouts are as obfuscated as his records, The Aristocrats recorded tales have waited patiently to be told.

No one recalls why – or when – the Organization recorded their four sides, but some information can be gleaned from circumstance. All four sides were recorded during the same session, in Fultz Studio. Rogers remembers the session occurring in the mid 70s, a notion backed by Bridges, who played bass at the session before he graduated high school in 1974. Blakely, born in 1955, would have been in her late teens, and would have recently swept the Louisville Defenders’ Exposition Beauty Contest. It is assumed the Yarmuth released “Don’t Go” as a follow up to The Aristocrats “Be My Lady,” which was somewhat of a local smash.

The SOUTH DALLAS POP FESTIVAL 1970

Introduced by the the Soul Seven’s Charles Hunt, who nicely sums up the last, lost thirty years by proclaiming how great – and underrated – South Dallas’s musical community was, the South Dallas Pop Festival 1970 is one of American soul and funk music’s crowning moments. From the Marchel Ivery Quintet’s funky stab at Cal Green’s rare-groove classic “Trippin” with festival promoter Roger Boykin on guitar, to the Soul Seven’s cover of “Kool and The Gang” to the heady psychedelia of the Black Maffia to the show-stopping Apollo Commanders’ rough, rugged James Brown medley of soul diva Marva Whitney’s “I Made A Mistake” and JB’s own, burly “Low Down Popcorn” – the Festival provides a glimpse into the late 60s and early 70s club nights that would have been the stuff of legend had archivists such as Boykin not chosen to document the proceedings. An incredible archival trawl.