News & Updates — soul!

Good news! Dave Noonan's new island-jazz ensemble is playing their third ever concert this Saturday at The Root Cellar, our Greenfield MA home base venue. We had the group for their debut concert as part of our Peace & Rhythm Presents weekly series last summer/fall and the results, musically and crowd-wise, have been quite pleasing for the first two shows. This group is a collection of some of the finest musicians in the region and their blend of Ernest Ranglin-inspired jazz, Marvin Gaye-inspired soul and roots reggae is quite a flavorful recipe. This time out they present a special Bob...

Houston-born Johnny "Guitar" Watson was a solid blues guitarist in the '50s and '60s before he re-invented himself as the funk god that George Clinton surely studied the style of. Early on he played with Albert Collins, Amos Milburn, Johnny Otis and others. Around '67 he made a very hip record with his friend Larry Williams and the US psych band The Kaleidoscope! ("Nobody"). He recorded with Frank Zappa and then David Axelrod in the mid 70s before his huge funk hits "Ain't That A Bitch" and "A Real Mother For Ya". The Gangster of Love also recorded with Dr...

One of the funkiest was Rick James, the wild funk-rock genius of "Super Freak". Buffalo-born, he escaped to Canada as a draft-dodger and played in the Mynah Birds with Neil Young and Bruce Palmer until he was busted and thrown in the clink. He played on the amazing psych record by Bruce Palmer (The Cycle Is Complete) as Rick Matthews, before transforming into the larger-than-life funk god. And the rest is dirty history. From 1981's Street Songs:

James Jamerson was a key player in the Motown sound and their Funk Brothers backing band, playing bass on nearly every record from 1959 into the 70s. Like the other Funk Brothers, he was never credited on the sessions (until 1971) and was severely underpaid for a lot of his time at the company. His playing contributed melodic advancements, as a jazz player would. Perhaps you could say he was more of a jazz bassist than a pop one. A Gullah from the Georgia Sea Islands, he appeared on more #1 records than anyone (and most of them are great...

Often sited as one of the corniest, cheesiest, gayist, or even worst pop music video ever made in the MTV era, it is certainly hard to watch David Bowie & Mick Jagger's video without laughing. The tune is a cover of "Dancing In The Street", the Motown classic best with perhaps the definitive version being by Martha Reeves & the Vandellas. Well, now, in a new version, animator William Osbourne has made a new Lego version! It was released just last week, check it out: Lego David Bowie & Mick Jagger - Dancing In The Street from William Osborne on...