...If you remember when the acid jazz scene got rolling back in the 90s, you'll recall the mad dash DJs and audiophiles began to really raid the vinyl stacks in record stores all over the place and then suddenly, outside of ordering from catalogues, you'd be hard-pressed to find what became known as rare groove platters in even the best hidden bins of wherever you dug around on the regular...As lovers of music, we all find ourselves going through phases wherein we'll listen to a lot of one genre every chance we get and right about now, I'm riding high atop the crest of an early funk wave that just won't go away...my weapon of choice comes from the vaults of Atlantic, Atco & Warner Bros. Records, hidden between the grooves of "What It Is! Funky Soul and Rare Grooves (1967 - 1977)":http://www.rhino.com/store/ProductDetail.lasso?Number=77635...you'll find your innner afro-puffs on cuts like "Soul Finger" by the Bar-Kays* or "Live Right Now" by Eddie Harris. There's polyester-tight instrumentals like "Keep on Dancing" and "It's Your Thing" (the Commodores and Cold Grits) and a definite must is Cyril Neville's "Gossip" (it's funky, funky, funky!) as is "Somebody in the World for You" by The Mighty Hannibal; "Bad Tune"by Earth Wind & Fire, "Hard Times" by Baby Huey & the Babysitters, "Headless Heroes"-- Eugene McDaniels and "Ridin' Thumb" by King Curtis...King Curtis, kid!...if you weren't yet a carbon-based life form during the late 60s or early 70s, you can take umbrage in figuring out where a lot of popular tunes from the 90s onward snaked some of their signature licks and samples (the Beastie Boys scooped that sample "get it together and see what's happening" for that tune "Get it Together and there's a lot of others on here too...Hell, there's even a crunked-up alternative mix of Aretha Franklin's "Rock Steady"-- the boom-baps just keep on comin' at ya, son...Malo's "Suavecito" got my fingers (and neck) poppin' as soon as those la-la-las oozed into my earholes......I was in a record store recently and, while I waited in line, a budding turntablist on the make came up to the counter and asked for a recommendation of a funk album filled to the brim with breakbeats and grooves, fighting an urge to admonish him for breaking one of the fundamental rules of album-mining (panning for yourself makes the discovery all the better), I told him What It Is! would put the jam in his jelly donut...I'll re-iterate that sentiment here; if you're into some of that uncut funk from back when they didn't have a name for it yet, you'll be all over What It Is!...No, my brother, you must get your own: you can put this joint on at a party and step away without a looking back but be careful, compilations like this have been known to just get up and go, especially after a shindig's been thrown...for a quick pass, "click here and check it, kid.":http://www.rhino.com/store/ProductDetail.lasso?Number=77635 it's all killer and no filler...
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