#rhythm n blues

[randomvarious]

Today’s compilation:

Oldies But Goodies, Vol. 2 1971 Doo Wop / R&B

OK, so, there's this record label based in LA called Original Sound that was founded in the early 50s by a beloved local radio DJ named Art Laboe. And something Original Sound became especially known for at some point was its landmark series, Oldies But Goodies, which was actually one of the first series to ever reissue older pop, rock, and R&B hits in a various artist compilation format. And that's just kind of a wild thing to think about, isn't it? We kind of just take this idea of reselling and repackaging old hits for granted, right? Like, there's so many of these cheap retrospective comps out there now, that you kind of just assumed that labels have pretty much been doing this ever since we found a way to invent the LP. But, actually, no!

The original Oldies But Goodies series started in 1959 and sold like gangbusters upon its groundbreaking arrival. Volume 1 peaked at #12 on Billboard's album chart and remained on that chart for a total of *183 weeks*. And some other volumes made that chart too.

But is this series that's extremely important  to the history of music commerce actually any good? Do these forgotten 50s tunes manage to still hold up today, six-plus decades later? That's what I'm trying to figure out here. And if the second volume of this series is any indication, then I'd have to conclude that, unfortunately, mostly no 😔. It appears that Original Sound had something of a penchant for the slow ballad type of doo wop rather than the far more interesting and more vocally dynamic uptempo fare. And because of that choice, the large majority of these tunes sound pretty similar and none of them really happen to stick out all that much.

Except for one of the only non-doo wop offerings on this LP: Faye Adams’ gospel-sounding, slow, early 50s R&B burner, "Shake a Hand," which earned her her first of three #1 placements on the R&B chart, all of which took place between '53 and '54. What a uniquely soulful voice she possessed! Adams had retired from the music biz by the early 60s and no one can seem to figure out if she's even alive anymore. Crazy.

There's also an excellent mid-80s cover of "Shake a Hand" by Ike & Tina Turner that I don't think is too well known. It features this darling primitive keyboard that really lets loose for a solo in the middle 🤩.

Hoping for better installments from this series than this particular one though. We'll see.

Let's go Mets!

Highlights:

Faye Adams - "Shake a Hand"

[gazonade]

(Gazonade)

[canmking]

Q u i n c y J o n e s

[ongawdclub]

Q u i n c y J o n e s

[mistressofthemacabresworld]

[arafergirl-artdump]

Update: i animated it.

アップデート：それをアニメーションした。

(Lazy and i didn't wanna make it agressive, but... Yeah)

（怠惰に作れて乱暴にしたくなかったんけど…うん）

[puppys-rhythm-heaven]

dog ninja and frog hop being right after one another in ds is really funny cuz of their game select icons.

i don't think i need to elaborate honestly-

[watashime-ciel]

my personal Rhythm Heaven headcanons

•at the moment i started typing this i had no electricity (12/4/2023 15:29) but ok lol

-DJ Yellow is very good at practically all subjects at school, except for math. he sleeps most of the year, so he has to intensify his grades in 2 weeks before the school year ends, and math is a pain. so while he studies, he asks Blue for help with "Whatever an ecuation is..." (still learning stuff from high school because he never intensified his math grades that much)

-J.J and Cecil live together in an apartment in Tokyo, while DJ Yellow and Blue live together in another apartment somewhere 40 minutes away from Tokyo. this makes both DJs wake up earlier to catch the train to get to school, which is a hard task for Yellow. this man either goes to sleep at 6am or doesn't sleeps at all. how do you want him to be at the train station at 6:10am to catch the train, travel for 40 minutes, get to Tokyo at 6:50am and walk to school to get there at 7:15am? think again mister, that's not a possible action on this dude. better wait until the update comes. /lh

-DJ Yellow dresses up with whatever he wants. this includes skirts, dresses, all kinds of feminine clothes. because why not? it's his gender expression, let him be, brother. don't be surprised if he shows up at a convention dressed up as Rui Kamishiro and in day 2 he is cosplaying Hatsune Miku NT. while he's happy then it's okay, isn't it?

-important headcanon: the school everyone in Rhythm Heaven +my RH ocs go to is an all-in-one school. from primary school to college, university, everything. so yeah, they're technically adults, young adults, that even if they have a job they go to school to learn basics such as math, history, etc, BUT with rhythm. there's an interesting story about this school that is located in, SURPRISE, Tokyo (not really. all fictional), but today is not the day or time to talk about it (my 4g data is limited and so is my battery- plz electricity come back quick)

-DJ Yellow's favourite music artists, groups and bands are: More!More!Jump!, Wonderlands x Showtime, Steampianist, Hello, Happy World!; RAISE A SUILEN, Raychell, Skrillex, Mitchie M, Pastel*Palettes, Nightcord at 25:00, MARETU, DECO*27, Eve, Vivid BAD Squad, Alan Walker, all of the D4DJ groups but specially Happy Around!, all of the Heathers Musical songs, Kawaii Sprite, GHOST And Pals, Banshee, RudyWade, Goreshit and, most importantly, an 80% of remixes of the Monster song (you look up Monster remix and you tell me when you know what i'm talking about)

-Blue's favourites: Cuarteto de Nos, GHOST And Pals, Daisuke-P, Omoi, Kikuo, Jakeneutron, KairikiBear, Roselia, Steampianist, Nayutailen, TOPHAMHAT-KYO, Lemon Demon, FAKE TYPE., girl in red and The Living Tombstone

-J.J and Cecil have similar taste in music, such as last note., wowaka, Wind Rose, Lemon Demon, Afterglow, Roselia, Leo/Need, The GazettE, GOLDEN BOMBER, HACHI... but Cecil is a bit different on his playlists, since he has Bluey music added such as Keepy Uppy and Lollipop Yum Yum Yum, and maybe some Imagination Movers music

-everyone speaks japanese and english, buuuuuut: Yellow speaks spanish (Spanish, Mexican, Colombian, neutral, Chilenian and Argentine accent), he's learning French and is interested in Hawaiian. Blue speaks Indonesian more fluently than Japanese or English, since he was born and raised his first 7 years of life in Indonesia. J.J speaks Italian, which is his 'original' language (?). and Cecil knows a bit of French and Hawaiian. super convenient for Yellow, but he's not talking with "one of those guys". yeaaaah the Rockers vs DJs conflict has been going on for a while now

thats all i can share as for now. i really wish my electricity comes back soon, i cannot live with 4g and less than 80% of battery for a week. remember all of these are headcanons and theres NO NEED to attack or negatively criticize them if you don't like em. tenkius :P

[krillking]

rlly funky how different the rhythm gang looks compared to like. What we got in the end they’re just some goofy silly guys here i love it

[therollingstonesmusic]

[randomvarious]

Today’s compilation:

Cruisin' Years 1988 Rock & Roll / Pop-Rock / Pop / R&B / Doo Wop / Garage Rock / Proto-Punk

Long before we started caring (or not caring at all) about what a carbon footprint was, and back when it cost somewhere around a buck to fill up your tank, a favorite hobby among many teens across America was cruisin' around town in their cars while listening to local rock & roll AM radio. And this comp, which is conceptually like nothing I've ever actually listened to before, tries to re-create that cruisin' experience by simulating a radio dial that's locked into stations across the nation from the mid-50s to late 60s.

See, radio was, and still is, more than just a presentation of songs. It's got DJs who introduce those songs, news and sports headlines, station jingles, advertisements, gimmicky contest announcements, weather reports, and more. And all of those things, including a sweet mix of all-time hits and forgotten rock & roll gold, from The Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" and Chuck Berry's "Maybellene" to The Cadets' "Stranded in the Jungle" and Larry Williams' "Bony Moronie," are on here.

But it's really not as authentic of an experience as it may seem, because every single song is intro'd by a locally famous DJ who helped to shape those cruisin' years. And every one of those DJs had their own ~30 second intro song for their own show back then. And every single one of those intro songs gets played before each hit on this CD. And that's just not how radio has ever worked. Those intros really start to wear down on you rather quickly. I mean, it's really cool that they clipped snippets from actual radio broadcasts and re-purposed them here for this CD, but it's just way too much. Had they let a few songs play in a row without any interruption this CD could've really uniquely captured the cruisin' experience that was taking place coast to coast throughout the 50s and 60s.

But I still really appreciate the effort that went into producing this novelty because, aside from those annoying intro songs, there's also a bunch of jolts of ephemeral fun, like a sports report from Detroit about game 4 of the 1956 Stanley Cup finals between the Canadiens and Red Wings, ads with cringey jingles for Pabst Blue Ribbon and L&M Cigarettes, and also an ad from one of the stations announcing their own daily ESP contest, in which the DJ pulls out a card from a deck of cards and the caller on the other line has to guess which card it is. Plus, the DJs, who are all men, by the way, are all total goofballs, armed with dumb, endearing jokes and super gimmicky cadences.

And there's also a weather report where the weatherman reads the forecast while one of his backup singers—a girl who just called in to the show—has to repeatedly sing the "yeah, yeah, yeah" part from The Beatles' "She Loves You" while he delivers the weather. And if she decides to stop singing, he pauses his report until he can convince her to start singing again 😂.

So, in conclusion, this CD is phenomenal as a concept. It has a great selection of songs and some of the radio bits are simply great, but there's an interruption between every song and it ultimately makes this an album that you revisit maybe once a year at most rather than once every few months.

I really wish there was some kind of good 90s version of this album though. Don’t even really care what genre it would be 🥺.

Highlights:

Chuck Berry - "Maybellene" The Cadets - "Stranded in the Jungle" Larry Williams - "Bony Moronie" The Crests - "Sixteen Candles" Bobby Lewis - "Tossin' and Turnin'" Gene Chandler - "Duke of Earl" The Kingsmen - "Louie, Louie" Bob & Earl - "Harlem Shuffle" The Turtles - "It Ain't Me Babe" The Count Five - "Psychotic Reaction" The Seeds - "Pushin' Too Hard" John Fred & His Playboy Band - "Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)"

[sableprince]

me n a friend have been playing SoL together, i decided to sketch my concept of our jazz agent Jazzmine Rithmenbluz, a woman cursed by nominative determinism (and then some).

definitely gotten super attached to her, and i definitely want to draw her more :)

[naoqkidoodah]

12月29日金曜夕方5時から

BLUES JAM at Club CACTUS!

飛び入り自由！

御自身の楽器をお持ち下さい(ドラムとアンプは有ります)

[bopinion]

Doppelganger

Elias Otha Bates, better known as Bo Diddley, is considered a pioneer of rock'n'roll, wrote countless blues anthems and liked to tinker his own guitars. He added a self-made tremolo device to his first Gibson in 1947 with parts from a clock and a used car. He produced his music himself and invented the typical rhythm "Bo Diddley Beat". He was less creative with his album titles: Bo Diddley, Go Bo Diddley, Bo Diddley's a Twister, Big Bad Bo, Hey! Bo Diddley, Bo knows Bo, Bo-Jam, Bo Diddley is crazy etc. I don't care, he put a lot of Bo in the charts.

[darkbelieverdeer]

Jimi Hendrix lighting his guitar on fire at Monterey Pop Festival, in Monterey, California (1967).