Rex Garvin was born in Harlem and grew up in the Bronx, where his neighbor Zelma Sanders introduced him to the music business in his early teens. Having one of the coolest band names ever (even though mr. Raw Funky himself was kinda embarrased about it), he has released countless singles especially during the 60s that are undisputed classics today. I thought he would have lived a comfortable life once he decided to leave music business. Unfortunately, his story is another one of the countless of an era with bad contracts and the exploitation of black kids in particular (anyone remembers the episode in The Sopranos first season?). He ended up living his last years of his life as a janitor for fuck's sake!
[That's why I hate with passion capitalism and racism and I'm sharing thoughts and music. In most cases the artists never had a penny out of them.]
As a teen he wrote and arranged adjective hours of music (Rex’s inspiring intro to "Any Day Now" a song writren by the master of melodies Burt Bacharach that became a hit in 1962 - he got paid just for the session and with no credit even though our guy created it without having much time to plan or compose).
Garvin’s gritty sound of the early 60s evolved into soul and funk over time, before his recording career waned at the end of the decade. Unlike many fallen stars of its time, he never had any interest in a comeback and remained reclusive until his passing. So here's a gathering of all of his 60s sides and once again as far as I know there's no such compilation around (I really wanted to include the amazing black rock'n'roller "Oh Yeah" but it wasn't in the aforementioned era). To make a long story short what I have to offer is an astonishing output of the most driving raw soul dance party anthems of all time! Bless his beautiful black soul...
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