Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Today was a Day for "Midwest Funk -- Funk 45s From Tornado Alley" by Various Artists



Incredible 2004 Jazzman/Now Again Records compilation of 1960s and 1970s singles that were released from the heartland on 45s. Midwest Funk -- Funk 45s From Tornado Alley can be found on CD at amazon.com and at various places online. I'll let the official album introductory notes do my work for me:

This time collector Malcolm Catto and I drove 1000s of miles across the endless cornfields of the American Midwest, a vast expanse of farm land that covers the region between the Rockies in the West and the Appalachians in the East. Summer is typically stifling hot and winter extremely harsh - Tornado Alley also runs through the entire region. We worked hard but were lucky too - not only did we avoid the tornadoes, but we also found some incredibly rare 45s and some amazing unreleased master tapes! And we've presented the best of them here in this CD/double LP.

It was great to be the first people to meet and hang out with the often-bootlegged Soul Toranodoes, guzzle whiskey in Henry Peters’ basement, and chill out in one of Jessie Wallace's vintage white Cadillacs. We chatted about their wild gigs and gruelling recording sessions in the ‘60s & ‘70s, they gave us amazing photos, told us fascinating stories and shared priceless anecdotes filled with their inspirations and their failures. Their life story in music was often captured on one solitary, but brilliant, 45, and that musical story is told here.



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