Sunday, August 31, 2008

The 1st Annual Benefit For the Congressional Black Caucus (1975)




'Wild and Peaceful' excerpt
more previews below

This album's been on the blogosphere before, but I wanted to get a full quality rip up here.

When Barack Obama gave his nomination speech the other day, much was made of the fact that it fell on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's famous Washington speech, and many were moved to think about the progress that had been made in the intervening years.

This album comes about a decade into that progress : In January 1969, newly elected African American representatives of the 77th U.S. Congress joined six incumbents to form the "Democratic Select Committee". In 1971 the Committee was renamed the Congressional Black Caucus.

In 1974 someone had the great idea of holding concerts and dinners featuring Kool and the Gang, Curtis Mayfield, Gladys Knight and The Pips, War, and Jimmy Witherspoon, to raise money for the caucus' activities, and this album features excerpts from those events in September ...

back cover detail

This is a great funky album, capturing everyone at the top of their game. After a series of crowd "Amen!"s for the artists, Kool and the Gang kick off with a thirteen minute version of the jazzy instrumental "Wild and Peaceful" , the title track from their 1973 album rhodes, flute and a sax solo that builds and sustains.


'Give Me Your Love' excerpt

Curtis Mayfield comes in with a version of "Give Me Your Love" from "Superfly". The announcer tells us he'd just released the album "Sweet Exorcist". It's great to hear Mayfield live in this mid-70s period - as good as his 1971 live album is, this 1974 band is tight.

Gladys Knight tells us that she and the Pips had just completed the soundtrack for the film "Claudine" with Mayfield, and they launch into a version of that albums's funkiest track "On and On", written by Mayfield.


'Gypsy Man' excerpt

War open side two with a pounding sixteen minute take on their latin-funk-rock hit "Gypsy Man", from their '73 album "Deliver The Word", which rises and falls with in its dynamic - the preview above is a low key section - hey, it's Sunday morning here ...
War members Howard Johnson and Lonnie Jordan produced this album along with Jerry Goldstein.

Bluesman Jimmy Witherspoon completes the proceedings with an intimate version of "Goin' Down Slow", with a sudden breakout guitar solo from Robben Ford.

So enjoy this album, and don't be fooled by "pro-life" hockey moms, support Obama in '08!



TRACKLIST

01. "Wild and Peaceful" -
Kool & The Gang (13:13)
Written by Ronald Dell - Kool and the Gang

02. "Give Me Your Love" -
Curtis Mayfield (6:20)
Written by Curtis Mayfield

03. "On and On" -
Gladys Knight And The Pips (3.40)
Written by Curtis Mayfield


04. "Gypsy Man" - War (16:10)
Written by S.Allan, H.R. Brown, M.Dickerson, L.Jordan, C.Miller, L.Oscar, H.Scott

05. "Goin' Down Slow" - Jimmy Witherspoon (6.25)
Written by J. Witherspoon.

Tracks 1, 2, 4 recorded at Capitol Centre, Largo, Maryland , September 25th, 1974
Tracks 3, 5 recorded at Black Caucus Dinner at Washington Hilton September 27, 1974


PRODUCTION DETAILS

Chess Records CH 60037

Produced by Howard Scott , Jerry Goldstein , Lonnie Jordan for Far Out Productions Inc. and GRT Corporation.
Manufactured by GRT Corporation
Remix Engineer - Ed Barton
Recording Engineer - Andrew Berliner
Executive Producer - Nate McCalla

MP3 or MP3
or 
WAV-1, WAV2, WAV3
or
WAV-1, WAV-2, WAV-3


64 comments:

Mr. Wone said...

NO YOU DIDN'T!!!!!!!!

SIMON!!! SIMON!!! SIMON!!!

You already know I've left a collection of comments on what you've posted previously.

On behalf of the leeching world with cinged fingertips who are unable to salute you but use those same digits to click the link with the mouse to put your time and work on their hard drive.......

THANK YOU!!

That's all for Mayfield's version of Gimme Your Love!!

Mr. Wone

Mr. Wone said...

As a matter of fact, this message is being sent to you from the after-life.......... I'm already in heaven.

And this band is playin' the hell out of Gimme Your Love.......

Lord, have mercy on us all.

SIMON SIMON SIMON!!!!

JTF said...

I did not even know about this, but a live "Wild and Peaceful" at 13 minutes! THANK YOU!!!

Art Simon said...

This is a fun album. Let's all send that hockey mom back to Alaska with a warm DC vibration. : )

Q said...

Man Simon666 I must say you have like the best blog on the net. This is deep music that you post. Stuff for your mind, Keep it up!

Funkback said...

I'm in complete awe of the generosity of this. It's beautiful music from first note to the last. Big love from Blaxploitationpride!

AMM said...

MANY THANKS SIMON FOR A SUPERB POSTING-PART OF BLACK MUSIC HISTORY!

soulbrotha said...

I have been looking for this one! Damn you! And I mean that in a good way! ;)

thecorrector said...

First Mark II, now this. Great stuff, Simon. Thanks for both.

Messiah of Soul Power Music Group said...

Thank you my man.....i can't wait to check this out.....appreciate the effort and hard work....Peace


Messiah

W said...

Very cool. I'd never heard of this, but am excited to hear it. Thanks.

oui said...

yo simon

you remember my problem for opening Leon Ware - Rockin' You Eternally with sound editors (sound forge), converters (music converter) and burners (nero), right? of course i gave up on Leon Ware, but strangely the wav files for Mark Murphy II were nicely working, while Shamek Farrah - First Impressions are doing exactly the same fuss, refusing to be opened with anything else than players (winamp). hopefully your investigations drove you to the solution because i'm totally desperate that i can't take advantages from these wav files :(
i'm crossing fingers for this one...

katonah said...

another fuckin' banger ...
thanks simon

djandpete said...

thanks nice album

E-mile said...

Simon, you spoil me and everybody out there who visits here :-)
being a huge Curtis fan and early War too btw, I must say I'm thrilled to have a chance to hear these versions...I expect that "Wattstax" kinda vibe, I guess.
Thanks as big as the world and everything on it! -you had any chance of listening to that Kiruna yet?
(I know you're a busy man :-)
peace, E-mile

Simon666 said...

Thanks for the nice comments guys.

Emile : Still have to get into work to download (slowed here another three days), will be onto it soon!

Oui :

The Shamek Farrah files come from CD, like the Ware files, and thus are aiff files - all the vinyl rips (like this one) have been created as wav files.

As noted before, I didn't specifically add the .aiff extension on those two CD rips, so this may need to be done.

* Could someone recommend for Oui a PC program that reads/converts aiff files to WAV ?

el goog said...

Hi Simon
Always thank you sooo much.

And Oui
Try this one. TWE Wave Editor v2.31
This YAMAHA'S freeware is able to convert from Aiff to Wav, from Wav to Aiff.
I wish your problem to be a solution by this.

Peace
el goog

taro nombei said...

back from a long vacation away from the Net and what do I find but numerous massive posts -- including this gem.
Salivating about this one already -- I know it's going to be a killer...
TN

slsmithsr said...

Props for this. Thanks so much.

El Slick

Gianni aka Cesare Barbetta said...

great as always, simon.
top quality music.

cheeba said...

Thanks again, Simon. After hearing it at a mate's some years back, I've been keeping my eye out for this one. Love the play-by-play review.

I've noticed recently that a lot of .aiff files made w/ iTunes or Garage Band can not be converted to .wav w/o those same software apps. Never had a problem with the format until the emergence of iPods. I'll try El Goog's solution but so far I've just had to steer clear of .aiff files altogether.

Simon666 said...

Thanks again for comments guys.

Cheeba, Re the AIFF problem - I didn't use those apps - for the two problem albums (Leon Ware's "Rocking You Eternally" and Shamek Farrah's "First Impressions") I just dragged the tracks off CDs, and they come up marked as AIFF on my comp.

I've re-labelled them "AIFF" and when I get a chance will actually convert to those two to WAV and re-up. All the other albums marked as "WAV" here are recorded from vinyl into Protools as WAVs, so should be fine ...

nuri said...

great. thanks!

Shkval1 said...

Many thx. This Is so great.

Davide Calabrese said...

Wonderfull. Thank You Very Much!!!

TN

Mr. OK Jazz said...

Seriously..Thank You!!

ish said...

Ages ago I mentioned another live date with an odd combination of acts and a terrific live version of War's "Gypsy Man." I was finally going to put it up on my blog when I discovered it's already up elsewhere. Anyway, the album is an odd hodgepodge but don't miss the Willie Bobo and the awesome Gypsy Man.

http://blog-o-blog-douglass.blogspot.com/2007/11/various-artists-1973-live-at-watts-jazz.html

ish said...

Hmmm. Not only is the "Live at Watts" version as good as the one Simon's offering here, I believe it's exactly the same! So which album is lying? Watts 1973 or Maryland 1974? Other opinions?

Jazzsoulman said...

Thanks for sharing, can't wait to give it a try. BTW: Mediafire link 1 seems to be down.

Madjik Man said...

I know this is a long shot here, but is there anyway to re-up the links? I used to have this LP on vinyl, lost it along the way somehow and thought I'd never see it ever again. But low and behold, your awesome blog had it at one point. Thanks in advance.

Simon666 said...

I'm getting a little afraid that my blog is under attack. Someone's deleted the uploads for my latest post, and now this one. I will upload at some stage, but am too busy right now. Leave a comment with a blogger account to be informed.

Madjik Man said...

Thanks Simon. I'll login with a blogger account to see what's up.

Cheers.

madjik_man said...

Again, I thank you. I'm logged in with a blogger account (I believe). Just wondering what's up?

Simon666 said...

Hi Madjik,
Nothing's up for now, it's just that if you leave a message here from a blogger account (like you have now) , you'll get an email when I post here that I've re-upped the files (which coud be more than a week .. )

madjik_man said...

Cool. Thanks man.

Michelle said...

Patiently waiting for the re-ups. Many thanks. ;-)

Anonymous said...

yes, i'll be waiting...many thanks

Fletchesus said...

Same here - would love to see this.
Thanks

TheloniousDre said...

hey simon could u send me an email too? thanx alot

Southern Gentleman said...

Oh, this would be so nice to have - can you reup please? Thanks! Love your blog.

Yannick Hiwat said...

Pff if it would be possible to re-upload this, that would be marvellous!!

bwana said...

Yes, Simon! Please re-up sometime... Best regards for your incredible offers - bwana

Simon666 said...

Hi guys, new links in the post.

Franco said...

Hey Simon thanks for the time and effort put into presenting this great LP !!!

Unknown said...

Thanks this was everything

Simon666 said...

Thanks for comments, Franco and Ghostra Nostra :)

Anonymous said...

Mannnn your amazing! !! Thankz Simon!

richsoul said...

My fingers just got unhinged. Thank you and totally agree. it only takes a little bit of time and you get so much more. thank you

Anonymous said...

Thank you very much! Never knew this existed. How great that the track listing consists of interesting and not so obvious choices.

Bill said...

Thanks for this, I remember the album back in the day, but for some reason I didn`t like live albums at the time. I now regret that and you`ve given me a chance to redeem myself. Thank you!

J-P said...

I own this vinyl - and join in thanks with the others for your upload of this stellar rip. Don't mean just to leech, the quality on this is awesome to behold. Again, thanks!

Anonymous said...

What a great album. Thanks so much!

Southern Gentleman said...

YES! I was one of the requesters earlier of a re-up, and hadn't checked back here lately so I'm so glad I did! I too have this on vinyl, but can't wait to hear it on iPod and in high quality. THANK YOU for this, Simon!

Anonymous said...

Nothing short of amazing . . A sentence or two doesn't seem to do it justice to you . Thanks for letting us all enjoy.. Mom will be pleased :->

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for this collection. Incredible music & good quality uploads.

Priceless

Anonymous said...

Thank you very much for sharing!

Peace,
Don Julian

rambert said...

Wonderful share. Thanks!

Muff Diver said...



Thank you Simon!

Simon666 said...

Thanks Richsoul, anonymous x 6, Bill, J-P, Southern Gentleman, apf, rochus & Muff Diver for your comments, happy that people are still enjoying this :)

Unknown said...

Thank you for your wonderful work, from South Africa.

Shirkophobe said...

Wow. Never knew this existed until now. Thanks so much for sharing!

Unknown said...

jost copped this in 2018--- album banger!

Meem said...

Just discovered - Thank you!

lburger69 said...

I really hope you know how happy you make people. thanks