Friday, May 06, 2005

Funky Friday - Uncle Louie and Snoop

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us Image Hosted by ImageShack.us


I've got a couple of groovy disco tunes for you today. First up is a T.K.Records gem from 1979, Uncle Louie's Full Tilt Boogie. This arrived in my email inbox this week courtesy of Jockohomo (he has a classic John Foxx era Ultravox tune up for you to grab - go now!). He had just gotten it off a disco news group and thought I might enjoy it. He was right. Despite the somewhat dodgy band name, it's a fun tune. Uncle Louie's is an alias of Walter Murphy, best known for the monster '76 hit A Fifth Of Beethoven - you know, Beethoven's biggest riff over a disco beat. He also released records with his Big Apple Band, which included Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards who of course went on to form Chic. Full Tilt Boogie has got a great springy bass line, some killer wacka wacka guitars, big horns and the "do it, do it, do it's" in the chorus are fab - all in all a very tasty little number.

I was watching VH1Jams or VH1Soul last week when they aired the latest Snoop Dogg video for the tune Signs. It has an uptempo disco backing track that instantly had me grooving - it's pure Neptunes gold. It's embellished with Justin Timberlake's blue-eyed soul falsetto (oops, there goes my "street cred"), and also features the great, gruff vocals of one Charlie Wilson, of The Gap Band fame. When he appeared in the video I jumped - he's singing lyrics from Early In The Morning over the bumping Snoop track! That was the last straw. After having dug the previous singles from the record, I knew it was time to buy the album. Of course it's a lot of fun, though due to it's somewhat edgy lyrical content I definitely can't play it around my kids.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

your recent selection was a real treat... Thank you for the music!
T.

thebeathunters said...

geez, got the same instant funk feeling when i watched this one-and the guilty pleasure too( frankly, justin's senorita vid is one of the baddest ever orwhat?). it reminded me i have the snoop album somewhere and should give it a try...

Anonymous said...

Heh, I've thought that much of Justified is destined to be a 'hate to love' classic since the first time I heard it (quite inebriated) and declared "wow. I don't hate this." Guilty pleasure to be sure, but definitely fun.

My theory is that while sketching out the album, the Neptunes were sitting in a room (possibly also inebriated), listening to Innervisions and Thriller and said "why doesn't anybody make shit like this anymore." They couldn't figure out why not, so they made this album.

HOO said...

I saw this video on VH1 a while back and the song has been on heavy rotation on my computer ever since. I have yet to hear it on the radio...and I live in LA, the biggest market there is. That's a pity and a shame, because this is a joint i'm never gonna tire of.