Reggae Gospel: How Great Thou Art, Ollie & The Nightingales, CCR's Hey Tonight and Gospel Disco with The Mighty Clouds of Joy!
This is the first edition of the Songs Recovered newsletter in 2020 and, as you will read below, I'm still listening to a lot of gospel soul (something I don't see changing anytime soon). Over the holidays I purchased 1,000 45s from a lady on Facebook market which means I might be finding a lot of random stuff to post about as I sort through those. I've already alphabetized and boxed up all of the 45s and got them off the living room floor where they sat for a couple of weeks (I have a wonderfully patient wife). I've also gone through and pulled out all of the ones I want to keep which were mostly soul 45s on Stax and other labels. There weren't any holy grail northern soul 45s or anything rare, but I did find a lot of great stuff I can use in future DJ sets. There's something about sorting, cleaning and filing away 45s that I enjoy. Most people dislike 45s but I have a great stereo set up at home that lets me listen to them easily. Let's just say I have plenty of 45s to sell as we enter 2020 but I paid $50 for the set of 1,000 and have already sold some so I'll make my money back quickly and get to keep a bunch of stuff I love. Win/win.
On top of record collecting, I'm also catching up on vintage audio repair projects that have been sitting around and trying to read more. I'll include updates on those after the songs in case your interested in knowing more.
Here are five songs I thought were interesting this week...
1) I Got A Sure Thing - Ollie & The Nightingales
Last weekend I found a copy of Ollie & The Nightgales' 45 featuring the songs, I Got A Sure Thing b/w Girl, You Got My Heart Singing. I usually pick up Stax singles when I find them and since it was half day off at the thrift store, I figured .25 cents was a reasonable investment. It turns out that Ollie & The Nightingales are the secular version of the Dixie Nightingales, a gospel soul group I've also been listening to. I wasn't aware of this when I bought the 45! Stax Records convinced the gospel group to "go secular" and they recorded this single in 1968 which turned out to be their biggest hit. I find it amusing that I've been living in a gospel soul rabbit hole these past few weeks and when I find a 45 from a regular soul group, it turns out they were previously a gospel soul group!
2) Hey Tonight - Creedence Clearwater Revival
I don't know exactly where to fit CCR in the chronicles of rock music history but growing up in Alabama and spending a lot of time with family in Louisiana meant I heard my share of Fogerty and company. I remember buying their Chronicle CD in a WalMart well before I could drive, but they aren't exactly a band that's stuck with me. Having said that, I think they have some great songs that are rarely played on the radio (hello Long As I See the Light) and Hey Tonight is one of them. I found this 45 over the weekend and picked it up just because I mostly dig the Fantasy label and it was going to cost me a quarter so...why not? This 45 single was actually released as a double A side single with Have You Ever Seen the Rain? in 1971. I love the noisy angular guitar at the beginning of the song that sounds to me like it's right out of a Built to Spill or Pavement song. It's two and half minutes of listening to the sun while Jody finds religion. What more do you need? Maybe songs like this is what drew in D. Boon and Mike Watt all those years ago and helped them pick up the guitar and bass and start jamming econo. CAUTION: There is a peak 90's moment where the Spin Doctors covered Have You Ever Seen the Rain?. I'm not suggesting you look it up but if you do, have another song ready to play shortly after.
3) Mighty Clouds of Joy - The Mighty Clouds of Joy
How could I pass up an album cover jam packed with smiling gentlemen like this? Released in 1974, the LP It's Time, by the The Mighty Clouds of Joy, actually "crossed over" into the mainstream market and it's all thanks to this great track which features the same name as the group! What I love most about this song is it has that early Philly disco sound to it, with the nice long dance-able intro featuring those huge lush string arrangements. Considering some of the more R&B/soul influenced gospel music I've bought recently, this was a breath of fresh air that got my foot tapping along in no time.
4) Is There Any Love - Trevor Dandy
Whoa. I stumbled on this song while driving to work one morning thanks for the great Numero Group compilation, Good God! A Gospel Funk Hymnal. According to Numero's website, the song was initially a flop and the label threw away the unsold copies of the original 45. Today, the song has been resurrected through the sampling of artists like Kid Cudi, Ghostface Killah, Monsters of Folk and Common. What I enjoyed most was playing this song for my teenage sons who looked up all of the hip hop artists they like (Kid Cudi, Common, etc.) and then listening to how each one used the sample in their tracks. It was a great way to bridge that parent/teenage gap through music.
5) How Great Thou Art - Joseph Niles & The Consolers
My dad was a pastor which meant we spent a lot of time going to church and singing a lot of hymns. One of the classics is How Great Thou Art, a song I've heard hundreds of times. While shopping on Discogs over the holiday break, I found a copy of Joseph Niles & the Consolers' Royal Telephone for a great price and decided to buy it to feed my gospel soul habit. Well, I was completely surprised when I heard their laid back reggae style of How Great Thou Art while listening to the LP and had to note it here. It's funny how you can hear a song performed the same way for years and then stumble on a version with a totally different vibe and fall back in love it all over again. If you like a twist of reggae in your gospel soul music, listen to the full Royal Telephone album, you won't be disappointed. * 1. YouTube 2. Apple Music 3. Spotify
Here are links to the Songs Recovered playlists on Apple and Spotify!
GEAR PROJECTS
Marantz 2230:
I'm currently rebuilding a Marantz 2230 that I bought from a friend in October of last year. He sold the unit to me at a discount explaining that once it fired up, it would start making odd noises. Once I got it home, it stopped powering up at all and started blowing fuses. Thanks to AudioKarma forums, I was able to trace the issue to a bad bridge rectifier and replaced it (my first!). That brought her back to life and while I had the unit I opened I decided to go ahead and rebuild the left and right amp boards, the phono board, the power supply and the preamp board. So far I've rebuilt three boards: the left and right amps and the phono board. I'm hoping to knock out the preamp and power supply boards during this long weekend. Photo below of the unit!
Sansui 2000x:
I rebuilt a Sansui 2000x receiver last year and have been listening to it for a few months and noticing some distortion coming from the right channel. I believe there are two tantalum capacitors on the phono board that I missed the first time that need replacing and hopefully the issue will be resolved. I have the parts in to replace but cannot do until the Marantz above is finished.
READING
I just finished David Epstein's Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. The premise of the book challenges Malcolm Gladwell's advice to practice 10,000 hours and become a specialist in something and rather branch out and have interests in a lot of things, what we call being a polymath. As you can probably deduce by reading this newsletter, I'm a polymath. I'm proud to be a polymath. I think my wide range of interests allows me to look at problems in a different way, especially in the corporate world and come up with ideas others might not think of. Also, this is the PERFECT book for parenting kids. It's a great reminder for me not to be pushing my teenage sons into one career or another too soon, but instead give them the ability to test a lot of different types of work to find what they like best. Highly recommended.
I'm also enjoying the light hearted reading of High Fidelity by Nick Hornby before falling asleep at night.
I think that does it for this week. Thanks for reading and subscribing to this newsletter. You can find more of my writing at my website: aaronhartley.me.
Also, check out the Aaron Calling podcast where I call one of my best friends, Aaron Ford, to talk about music, records and more. Listen on Apple or Spotify!
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