Lorraine Ellison - "Stay With Me (Baby)" W/ "I've Got My Baby Back" (Loma / Warners - 1966)

Did you ever caught yourself breaking down to pieces without a reason? Without absolutely NO reason?! And all this by just hearing a song accidentally... I'm running one of my best periods of my life, I'm married with the woman i dreamed and sure i don't have an expelled hidden.There's no fuckin' reason for my eyes to fill with tears and my back to crawl god dammit with a love song... Am i going to be a square linnet now? On my 30s? Pfff...
And i never really liked ballads... What tha fuck it's going on here?
I wonder how many songs in your life may touch you like this? By taking you without a warning from the neck and mangle your flesh without mercy? That's the very fuckin' meaning, explanation whatever you want anyway of the term "Deep Soul"! A full emotional moment that sadly comes VERY FEW times in your life. The absolute peak! A merciless fire, a stripped down version of your despair down on paper. Sometimes poetry is just as raw. And if the myth's proved right, this brilliance was because of Frankie who at the last minute canceled the session. The orchestra was  there, warmed and so was Lorraine Ellison. An unknown black beauty. What caught on tape it's Drama in its pure Wagner meets Spector vein! Avoid this post if you're recently heartbroken. You're not gonna make it. Lorraine's begging gonna burn you like hell and if after all these you're still with us, comes that "remember" with the orchestra tumbling down and a last refrain... That last refrain... How did she kept herself alive and breathing and...singing...? Three and a half minutes of what real SOUL music actually is!
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Stay With Me... 

Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers - "Natural Boogie" (Alligator, 1974)

I like to think of Hound Dog Taylor (Theodore Roosevelt Taylor his real name) as the punked up version of Elmore James or John Lee Hooker. I think he equally borrowed things from both. The slide from the first and the economical (at times minimal) boogie of the second. He was unique. Really now, not only in sound. He was six fingered but the extra bone never really utilized for guitar playing. But hey, that's fuckin' cool! He had very difficult child years and the six fingers was an added problem to all the others. And he picked up guitar first time at his twenties. What i go in for Hound Dog is that he had absolutely nothing in terms of musical skills. And that's what i dug always in real rock & roll. Somehow, the best, the rawest and highest in energy levels tracks produced by people who actually didn't know how to really play their instruments. Hound Dog knew this. He knew his advantages were his drawbacks. He used to say "When i die, they'll say i played like shit--but it sure sounded good!". And boy, he sure sounded GOOD!
The House Rockers were the perfect companion. Just another guitar and a drum set. No bass. Pure primitive rawness. Sloppy and drunken, at times in speed an sometimes kinda laid back, were the last of the Mohawks. The last true blues combo. Hound Dog Taylor had virtually nothing before the two CLASSICS he recorded for Alligator (there were more to come after death). A single for Bea & Baby ("Baby is Coming Home" / "Take five"),  another one for Firma ("Christine" / "Alley Music") and a  last for Checker ("Watch Out" / "Down Home" ).  Anyway, for a cool piece on Hound Dog Taylor check Hound's blog. 
What i have to offer it's his second Long Play, "Natural Boogie". As wild as the first, as primitive as few in the blues' history. I must do a t-shirt with his 6 fingered hand immediately... 
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 Roll Your Money Maker

Various Artists - "All Night Garage Service" (Waterfront Records, 1986)

I have searched for this comp over the years quite a lot but I sadly failed to succeed. It has a big “Garage Service” stamp on, but don’t wait sir to found in it paisley shirt mop top revivalists.
You know, I moaned a bit on some previous posts ‘bout the lot of the so-called ‘Garage Revivalists’ of the 80s. OK, there was a good percentage of them all that had one at least kick ass record in their arsenal but hey, paisley shirts never was punk. And sometimes (as the old slogan says) “Image is everything!”
Johnny Rotten used to refer onto ‘pub rock’ bands as “rubbish”... Of course I rate Pistols high, but I always thought of Wilko’s chunky Telecaster as punkier than Steve Jones Gibson. And there were much more groups in the UK that period of time that were more ‘garage’ or ‘punk’ than the ‘obvious’ press darlings (even though once again, many of them were totally great). 
And this compilation’s got plenty. You can actually hear Wilko Johnson doing Sam the Sham’s “Wooly Bully”, Eddie & the Hot Rods on a blistering live execution of their classic "Teenage Depression", Steve Hooker's excellent "Thunders meets the Cramps" Shakers, on "How Did You Know" (Mr. Hooker was the mastermind behind this release also) or the Len Bright Combo with members of Wreckless Eric's band and the Milkshakes! "Chunkchakanchunk - chunkchunck, chunk" Bo and Chuck rhythms and riffs for those who knows where the roots of garage punk are. 
This record not long time ago posted on TwilightZone! from the CD reissue with the bonus tracks.
If you wanna hear now how this sound through a needle's dive in the plastic, check once again brilliant  Jean Philippe's rip contribution exclusively for White Trash Soul!
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 All Night Garage Service!

R.I.P. Tura Satana (1938 - 2011)

The most dangerous females are the busty ones. And Tura was the wickedest and the most venomous! If Link Wray was a woman should have been Tura Satana. Ask Poison Ivy for more...

Sam Cooke with the Soul Stirrers - "Specialty Profiles" (Specialty, 2006)

My “thing” with the gospels and the artists that served the genre started because of people like Rev. Julius Cheeks, Rev. Charlie Jackson or Bunker Hill. It was the screams and the filth in their voice of people like the aforementioned that made me “turn my head to God”…
However, there was a quartet that took genre into other places, more popular and (why not) sexier? The Soul Stirrers got my attention because they had in their potential, Sam Cooke (they had also for a moon, Julius Cheeks, but he left picture as quickly as he entered). Their origins go back to 1920’s but that’s not our subject here. Our subject basically is Sam. You know, screamers are my main diet but Sam was something special. The funny thing’s that I discovered Cooke through Rod Stewart. I must was 16 or 17 at the time and I was chasing records in a big basement. Suddenly I’m hearing an amazing worm voice coming out of the speakers. I turned then to the owner with a self trust that brakes bones and say “Rod the Mod” right? Ouch… I still remember how he turned me down, moved his head right and left with negativity only to quip, “No, Sam Cooke”… I know, he should have add “you moron”…
That day was a good lesson for me, for both my arrogance and my knowledge. I should have thanked him then but I left just chattering insults. Now’s time to correct things, so thanks a lot Mr. bald headed smart ass!
With Sam Cooke, the Soul Stirrers hit big. The ladies of course found in him not something spiritual but sexual. The Sam Cooke fronted Stirrers often said was the forerunner for doo wop and soul. I kinda agree. That’s a cool compilation (and the only thing anyway I got by them) on sides they cut for Specialty. 
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Stirring your Soul 

Eskew Reeder - "Green Door" W/ "I Waited Too Long" (7inch single, Minit - 1962)

The subsequent Capitol years found Steven Quincy Reeder Jr. changing many cities, many labels and many names. Of course we are talking about Mondo Bizarro's answer to Little Richard, the mighty Esquerita. I still remember clearly the first time I stared at his WILD image-trademark on Norton Recs website.

From then (and that’s quite a lot ago…) a never-ending hunting on things related to him have haunted me in a daily basis. I mean, Voola was indeed Rock & Roll's answer to "Plan 9 from Outter Space"! And fuck, there are still things by him that’s never been re-issued. And I never really understand why to this day someone failed to gather S.Q.'s complete output in a box or a comp...?

Anyway, the key figure here was no other but the great Allen Toussaint. In 1962 Esquerita traveled with Joe Turner to New Orleans. The wild voodoo city of the South. The place where Little Richard cut thee best of his screamers. Quite quickly made the right connections there and have started gigging on the immortal now Dew Drop Inn. Joe Banashak of Minit Records heard about him, caught him in the act and signed him in a hurry. On March 2 of the same year, Voola entered the studio accompanied by a gang that included Toussaint's studio regulars, Allen himself and ....the goddess Irma Thomas! 

Don't know how much songs SQ cut at that session, i know for sure that one of his best works after leaving Capitol (and sadly manic rock & roll) recorded that same day and pressed on vinyl under the code Minit 45-648. What's on the two sides of this 45 spin are "Green Door" and "I Waited Too Long". The first's an insane re-assessment of a silly 1956 No.1 hit by Jim Lowe. The Second's a slow soul stringed ballad featuring on backing vocals no other than...Irma! Sure, Esquerita never again reached the heights of the Capitol era... But he had the unique talent to put the pomp on whatever his hands wanted to touch!  

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 Green Door