Spring. Is there a better season? I doubt it. Nights are getting longer, skirts are getting shorter. And because spring in Holland also means rain, I put on Irma Thomas to sing those clouds away with a stunningly simple, but gorgeous song about rain and missing someone. I miss Martin Bril. He was a Dutch writer who sadly passed away a year ago. His short stories made me feel as if it was spring every day. So, without Martin around to make rainy days feel like spring, I will put on Irma one more time.
Sugar Pie Desanto was a tiny woman with a big talent. She could sing, she could write and, man, could she perform! Her performance was energetic, charismatic and acrobatic. Born as Umpeylia Marsema Balinton in Brooklyn in 1935, her family moved to the Fillmore area in San Francisco in the late thirties. This would turn out a pretty good move. The rhythm and blues that was played in the clubs of late fifties and early sixties San Francisco shaped Sugar Pie.
In the following years she was lucky to be in very talented company. She formed a group, The Creolettes, with Etta James. That was rechristened Etta James & The Peaches by Johnny Otis. Later she went on to perform on her own gaining a lot of experience as the opening act for the James Brown revue all over America. Along the way she was picked up by the Chess Brothers who released her songs on Chess and Checker records.
Soulful Dress is a great song to play at an insane volume as you are preparing to go out on a Saturday night. At one point Sugar Pie hollers: “If you wanna keep your man, you better get as sharp as you can...” and you know she means it. So ladies, look out and watch your fellow for Sugar Pie is out to steal your man!
Like we said, we're not adverse to hits over at this place. Polk Salad Annie is one of my favorite grooves with that steady plucking base and those punchy horns. Polk Salad Annie is a down home and country as Soul music could get. Especially with Southern Soul the racial lines were ofter more blurred than Rock mythology has it. Though Southern Soul is often seen as a more pure expression of African American culture, the reality learns that music was much more a shared experience in the South. Socially and politically all the communication lines were closed for the longest times. But in the great Stax and Fame studios they were wide open. Tony Joe White recorded this fine 45 with the same Muscle Shoals musicians as were used on the legendary recordings by Aretha Franklin and Percy Sledge, using a mixed band of Country and R&B musicians. I just picked it because after all these years it still sound so damn tasty! These days the song is best remembered in Elvis's version, but Tony Joe White was the real deal!
This is one of those records that I heard years ago and kept haunting me. I knew it was called the Snake, but I didn't know who sang the damn tune. These days the internet will get you a long way in trying to uncover those kinds of mysteries, but in those days I still had to rely on help from my local Dutch record store. Soul has never been a big thing in Holland, like it was in Britain, so for the longest time nobody knew what I was talking about. You really have to find out everything for yourself over in this country! Then I ran into a record by Oscar Brown jr, including a track called the Snake. Same song, different performer as it turned out to be. Though I have been told it was the original version of the songs and its jazzy feel has grown on me over time. Fast forward a few years, somebody slips me an old mix tape and there it was the Snake! Al Wilson was the cat I was looking for! On eBay the record kept eluding me after that, until I found this Belgian print nobody wanted. So after all these years its a delight to finally present to you the Snake!
And because I love you all so much, I'll throw in Oscar Brown Jr's version as well. If you ever come across one of his albums, pick it up, you won't be disappointed by his brand of cocktail Jazz. Oscar Brown Jr had this uneasy edge that simmers below the surface. Great stuff!
It is around this time of year that I really start to get the itch for spring. Somehow I kid myself every year into thinking that spring begins in February. Maybe it is all the crocuses springing up! I get a deep graving for Bar-B-Q even though it is cold and dark outside. My mouth starts to water when I think of Hot-Dogs and Hamburgers. Unfortunately spring is months away. Untill then we'll just have to make do with this great Wendy Rene record. It certainly feels like spring when she heats up the turn table!
Warning! This record is not cut for the dancefloor and certainly not for the faint of heart. I love a good heartbreak record. In times where I've got something good going they help me appreciate what I've got. During blue days, they are the best companion I can think off. Nothing helps more than a good Soul record to really let it all hang out.
Tommy Hunt's version of this great Burt Bacharach song is about as good as a heartbreak record gets. The feeling is, I think, universal. Everybody goes through this after they lost a love. You really do need to refind yourself, find ways to deal with yourself. Everybody has been there, but it is good to have big men like mister Hunt to remind you of that.
Land of 1000 Dances by the Wicked Picket is probably a too big a hit to surprise anybody with. I'm just posting it here so I can share this fantastic YouTube video with you. I'd say it is the best version of the song ever put on film! Although this one is a strong contender.
Our first 45 is actually the B-Side to the magnificent Deep Soul Ballad "I Need You." This here is a mighty fine stomper, guarenteed to get the floor moving. "I'm a Carpet" is one of the sides Little Archie recorded for the Dial label, home of the late Joe Tex. The songs holds between masochistic celebration and funky defiance.
The Upper Shelves are hottest DJ collective of the Netherlands. Or at least as hot as the wax they are spinning. Guaranteed all killer, no filler! In a country with more DJs than civil servants that's saying something!
The Upper Shelves come with one promise, we’ll burn up your dance floor with the power of the 45! Though we have been known to sneak in a vinyl LP once in a great while.
Garage, Soul, R&B and Rock & Roll is our degree, with the occasional curve ball thrown in for good measure. We’ll bring you all the great hits, including the ones you forgot.
This Blog will give you an impression of our greatness, or should I say the mind blowing power of the 45. To be honest, we just drop the needle on them.
This blog is intended primarily for promotional use. We feel this music deserves to be spread around and we encourage everybody visiting to go out and buy it. Preferably on 45, but we do not look down on the convenience of getting a CD. If in any way you feel we are violating your copy right by our posts, let us know, we’ll glad to oblige by taking the post in question down.
