McFadden & Whitehead – Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now (12″ extended mix) b/w I Got The Love (1979)

McFadden & Whitehead – Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now b/w I Got The Love
Vinyl rip in 24-bit/192 kHz | FLAC  & mp3 |  300 dpi scans | Disco funk
515 MB  (24/192) + 280 MB (24/96) + 87 MB (16/44.1)  34 MB (320 kbs)
1979 Philadelphia International Records  – 2Z8 3675

It’s a Wednesday and everyone can use a little help to power through the rest of the week, so I thought I’d make a very short post here.  Featured here is a solid slab of funk-driven disco, a dance floor anthem, and a smash hit for McFadden & Whitehead.  It overflows with positivity and joy.  This extended mix brings an additional 3 minutes to its already prodigious length. The B side, “I Got The Love”, seems to be the same mix as the album version. This tune owes a lot to Otis Redding, in particular the chord changes of ‘Hard To Handle’ in the chorus.  It’s also a great tune, but “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” is what you came for.  A good friend of mine called it a perfect song the other day, and I’m inclined to agree.

Label/Cat#: Philadelphia International Records – 2Z8 3675
Country: US
Year: 1979
Genre: Funk, Soul
Style: Soul, Disco
Format: Vinyl, 12″, 33 ⅓ RPM, Single

Tracklist
A – Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now (10:45)
B – I Got The Love (03:32)

Total length: 14:17

More information: https://www.discogs.com/release/363828-McFadden-Whitehead-Aint-No-Stoppin-Us-Now

Transfer lineage:  Record cleaned on Music Hall WCS-3 machine with custom fluid; vinyl 1979 Philadelphia International 2ZB 3675; Pro-Ject RM-5SE with Audio Tecnica Signet TK7E cartridge; Pro-Ject Tube Box S2 preamp with Philips NOS ECC83 tubes powered by Accu-box battery PSU; Audioquest Black Mamba and Pangea Premier interconnect cables; RME Babyface Pro interface ; Adobe Audition at 32-bit float 192khz; Click Repair with output monitored in real time; further clicks and pops removed manually with Adobe Audition 3.0; resampled, dithered, converted to FLAC using iZotope RX Advanced. Tags done with Foobar 2000 and Tag and Rename.

 

 

Alain Goraguer – La Planète Sauvage Original Soundtrack (1973) (2020 RSD)

Alain Goraguer – La Planète Sauvage Original Soundtrack
Vinyl rip in 24-bit/192 kHz | FLAC |  300 dpi  | Jazz-funk, Psychedelic
2020 Superior Viaduct – SV058 translucent yellow vinyl
Original release 1973 on the Pathé label (France)

When I was a teenager, staying up late on the weekends, I used to see this film come on the TV.   I found it beguiling, unsettling, and trippy.  It seemed to combine everything my adolescent self was immersed in: science fiction, psychedelia, and groovy music.  Then I forgot about it for years and years until I ended up becoming friends with a guy from Toulouse who was also into records and vinyl and eventually this film and soundtrack came up.

Continue reading

Nat Turner Rebellion – Laugh To Keep From Crying (2021)

Nat Turner Rebellion – Laugh To Keep From Crying
Vinyl rip in 24-bit/192 kHz | |  Soul, funk
Philly Groove Records, Chrysalis – PGRV101

The Nat Turner Rebellion – the musical act, not the historical event – was a promising group from Philly that imploded before they ever really got off the ground, featuring vocalists Joe Jefferson, Major Harris, Ron Harper and Bill Spratley. With only a pair of singles issued while they were together, their planned debut record got shelved and sat collecting dust among the holdings of label Philly Groove Records before ending up in a stash of donated material at Drexel University, waiting almost half a century to finally be released. Continue reading

Joe Cuba Sextet – Bustin’ Out (1972, Venezuela pressing)

The Joe Cuba Sextet – Bustin’ Out
Vinyl rip in 24-bit/192 kHz | mp3 320 kbs & FLAC |  Web scans | Latin, Salsa, Soul
1972 Tico Records CLP-1300 || Venezuelan Pressing, Bob Ludwig laquer

Is “Put-Da-Din” the Latin American equivalent of “Je T’Aime Moi Non Plus”? Well, probably not, but maybe it could be. The big take-away here is that this is one of the best records Joe Cuba ever made, and I think it was the last to be credited to his Sextet.  The track “Can You Feel It?” also has an amazing soul vocal on it and a well thought-out dialog between the spoken narration, with romantic rememberances of “el barrio” that would make Lin-Manuel Miranda blush, immediately followed by the thoughts of somehow who “feels it, in a different way”. Brilliant stuff. And like always, no horns here, so that may help draw the reed- or brass-averse into this genre.

Continue reading