Tuwa's Shanty and The Roots Canal

Monday, June 19, 2006:

Bob and Earl -- Harlem Shuffle

Bob and Earl -- Harlem Shuffle
I've been tinkering with Pandora lately, starting with various artists and songs and seeing what results from it. It's very good for finding new music, except when it's very bad at it (I loved one station starting with simply "Lee Dorsey," hated another starting with simply "J.J. Cale").

Among the finds was this one, a pop-soul postcard from Heaven that was a modest hit in the U.S. in 1963 and a much bigger hit across the pond in 1969, inpsiring covers by Vigon, the "James Brown francaise" and, later, by The Rolling Stones. I'm no Stones fan, so it's perhaps no surprise that I consider the remake a distinct disimprovement; but even Vigon's version has it wrong: his vocals are like sawdust on a sundae. Bob and Earl get it right the first time, delivering a smooth, suave performance that's hard to match.

Pandora tells me that I like this song because it features "classic soul qualities, mixed acoustic and electric instrumentation, a busy horn section, and a vocal-centric aesthetic." Which might all be true, except all I noticed at first was "ooh, this is nice" followed by "I wonder who that was and what else they did." Unfortunately, not much. A handful of tracks released with "Harlem Shuffle" on an EP in 1966, and a later album which allmusic.com dismisses as "serviceable," without saying which of the three Bobs it is that were in the group this time, and which is long out of print.
[Groove 'N' Grind: 50s & 60s Dance Hits]
[Let's do the Harlem Shuffle]

Labels: RnB

posted by Tuwa @ 00:11 | permalink |