Coffee Breaks, pt. 6

I've said this one before but I'll say it again. Leroy Hutson should be out there among the likes of Stevie, Marvin and Curtis but he rarely gets the credit he deserves. Besides having one of the smoothest voices in soul, he was an excellent multi-instrumentalist, writer and producer.

No Love (produced by Robert Bradford) appears on Badu's debut album Baduizm. The tune samples Hutson's Lucky Fellow that appears on Hutson, his second LP cut for Curtom Records.

Leroy Hutson - Lucky Fellow [320 kbps]

Erykah Badu - No Love [320 kbps]

Stevie Wonder - Superstition (Todd Terje Edit)

Klas asked me via email whether I could re-up Todd Terje's edit of Superstition that I posted back in September since the link is broken. The answer is hell yeah. This is such a superb tune that I'm happy to share it again. Enjoy!

Stevie Wonder - Superstition (Todd Terje Edit) [320 kbps]

Lee McDonald - I'll Do Anything For You (Red Astaire - Philly Mix)

Freddie Cruger aka Red Astaire has done it again. This time it's Lee McDonald's amazing tune I'll Do Anything For You from his ultra rare album Sweet Magic that gets a special treatment from Red Astaire. I've not yet heard a bad remix from him though I'm familiar with most of his work. The Philly Mix is super smooth and soulful and the long outro makes the tune dj friendly. Like the name suggest, the mix takes the tune from New Jersey to Philadelphia's soul scene of the 70s and gives it a magic touch of Gamble & Huff. This really sounds like a hidden gem found from the vaults of PIR.

The philly soul remix can be found from this 12" by Favorite Recordings or from the 5th issue of Soul Shaker -compilation. Favorite Recordings has released lots of good remixes and covers lately. Among others there's a bunch of other nice remixes of I'll Do Anything For You and some good remakes of We've Only Just Begun. Sound clips and more info for example from Beatjoint.

Lee McDonald - I'll Do Anything For You (Red Astaire - Philly Mix) [320 kbps]

Lee McDonald - I'll Do Anything For You (original album version) [320 kbps]

Joe Bataan - Call My Name

The father of salsoul, Joe Bataan, took a brief break of twentysomething years and made a grand comeback in 2005 with his album Call My Name. I wish all comeback projects would be done as properly as this one. Since I'm feeling lazy today I'll just quote the good folks at Dusty Groove because they've written a decent review about the album.

Joe Bataan is alive and well -- and to our ears, the king of Latin Soul is sounding better than he has in decades! This tasty little set really takes us back to Joe's classic work for Fania -- but it's also got a slightly different twist -- one that shows a new younger appreciation of the funk side of Joe's work that wasn't always able to come to the forefront in earlier years. Joe recorded the album at the Daptone Studios in New York -- so the sound of the set is spot-on all the way through -- perfectly recorded to bring out the soul in Joe's music, and handled with some great touches that make the instrumentation as wonderful as Joe's classic-styled vocals! And even more than that, there's also a heck of great new songs on the set -- tunes that follow very strongly in the spirit of Joe's older classics, but which have a freshness that makes the album a totally essential part of Joe's catalog.

The finest moment of Call My Name is its title track. Apparently Commonfolk Records shared my opinion since they recently released a 12" that features Call My Name (vocal version and instrumental) and a nice percussion driven instrumental tune I'm A Fool.

Joe Bataan - Call My Name [320 kbps]

Off-topic: I'm sure you know that the cyberspace is full of broken links thanks to Zshare. Zshare wet the bed but that wasn't enough. Today I noticed that all the direct download links on the blog are broken as well. WTF is it with these services....RIAA, UFOs. Anyways, I'll re-up the tunes (at least the recently posted ones) during weekend. If there's something in the older posts that you need really bad, drop me a line and I'll take care of it.

EDIT: I did some serious uploading today and now all the mp3's on the blog since mid-October are again available for download. Enjoy!

Ray Terrace - Home Of Boogaloo

Originally I bought Home Of Boogaloo because I had heard the killer latin groover, You've Been Talking 'Bout Me Baby, on a couple of compilations. Pretty soon I realized that all the tracks on the album are really tight, the cover versions as well as the originals. The songs are arranged by Marty Sheller and played by a tight little latin combo lead by Ray Terrace. It's a shame that the album cover or the linear notes don't mention the other members of the combo. The band plays really well combining latin, soul and rock with a sound that was fresh and new at the time but the star of the album is the vocalist Willie Torres. The best example of his soft and soulful voice is the opening track of side 2, Listen To Me. This is definitely one of the sweetest latin soul tunes I know. The original pressing of this album is very in demand but the vinyl reissue is a good quality pressing and can be easily found for a decent price.

Ray Terrace - You've Been Talking 'Bout Me Baby [320 kbps]

Ray Terrace - Listen To Me [320 kbps]