Funk Friday - January 27th 2012

1. Funk Power - Creative Funk

In 1971 a group of friends between the ages of 17 to 21 from Queens, NYC got together to start their own DIY record label and release some tunes in their neighbourhood, grassroots style. The A-side of their first record "Ready Made Family" sold over 25,000 units in the NYC area. This track is the B-side of the same record, a hard-grooving funky bomb called "Funk Power".

2. Eddie Simpson - Big Black Funky Slave

A very rare track most famously sampled by DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist on their also rare album, "Product Placement". I wasn't able to dig up much about Simpson, other than he was a little-known artist on Duke Records out of Houston. Duke was one of many southern R&B/Soul labels that proliferated in the 60s and 70s, cranking out funky EPs that were mildly popular at the time, eventually fading into obscurity until discovered by today's crate-digging DJ crowd.

3. Motherlode - When I Die

 Coming straight out of London, Ontario, Motherlode are generally known as one-hit-wonders with the pop-soul track "When I Die." With a huge smooth hook and tight rhythm section, the song made it to #18 on the U.S Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1969 but the band was never able to stay in the pop charts, only releasing one subsequent album after their 1970 debut LP. The song was resurrected in the popular consciousness by the late, great Hip-Hop producer J-Dilla, who sampled the track on the intro to his LP "Donuts."