viz
liner notes purloined via archaeological-sharity blog Holland Tunnel Dive
"Working up that groove!!
What a belter! This is one groovy, hipshaking mother of an album. These are gritty, honest records. Dripping in Brut 33, bad shirt and ties, dodgy beer stained carpets and boozy Friday nights 'down the club'. Very funky. Great for a party and a laugh...see you there!!!
"Working Man's Soul" celebrates the forgotten world of cabaret performers from the 1960s and 70s and selects the cream of the funky club cuts unearthed from records only previously available on private pressings. Manufactured by the artists themselves in miniscule quantities, these records were sold only at live performances in socila clubs, miner's welfare clubs and working men's clubs across the UK. The compilation covers everything from soul, funk and jazz to rock and easy listening. Jazz standards given a bit of extra pep sit next to funky filmic big band numbers, while Hammond players show off their chops, guitarists give their plank a spank, vocalists belt it out good and proper and even the drummer gets a chance for a solo. The common theme here is a strong groove designed to keep a busy dancefloor moving: After all, this is music written to be performed down the Social to celebrate the good times and the end of the working week!
The records from which these tracks are taken have been unearthed by Licorice Soul over many years of persistent (and usually fruitless) searching at flea markets, car boot sales, charity shops, and even the odd proper second hand record shop.
The majority of these tracks are here made commercially available for the very first time, each brings with it its own story of success, failure, or years of simply hoping, and in its own unique way, evokes the golden age of the British club circuit.
With a track listing including superb covers of classics like Funky Nassau, Watermelon Man, Work Song, Time Is Tight and Memphis Underground, this is one killer compilation that should be on any music fan's wish list.
Privately pressed recordings
If you thumb through the various price guides or encyclopaedic discographies available in the murky netherworld of serious record collecting, you may notice that occasional rarities in the realms of folk or progressive music are not to be found on any recognisable record label, but instead are listed as Private Pressings.
Today it is common for artists of all styles to manufacture their own product, from strict-tempo organists to young bands selling their own songs on-line. It's now easy to assemble a home studio and burn a CD, but thirty years ago not everyone had a vinyl pressing plant at the bottom of the garden. The solution for some artists without a label was manufacturing a small run of records from tapes laid down at the local recording studio.
Not to be confused with major label-produced acetates or test pressings (manufactured to review a day's work in the studio or to test the qualities of a mix down) a private pressing, or road album, offered artists an opportunity to commit their talent to vinyl, make a little cash and work around the stranglehold that major labels had on record sales at that time. The majors had their own selected approved stockists and controlled the distribution channels up until the late 1970s, whereas private pressings were usually sold directly to audiences at gigs. Discovering Working Man's Soul
With the end of the cabaret circuit and the simultaneous demise of the vinyl record as a mainstream music format, the 80s and 90s saw the majority of the artists featured here move on to pastures new. Their records have languished forgotten in dusty attics since their heyday. Given such circumstances, rediscovering these recordings has been no mean feat. This selection of tracks has been painstakingly unearthed by years of (usually fruitless) searching at flea markets, car boot sales, charity shops, and even the odd proper second hand record shop.
The records presented here are not found in price guides or even usually given space in the shelves of second hand record shops, and more often than not, when discovered they can be bought for pence rather than pounds. These items are found more by persistence than purchasing power, chiefly because it takes a brave listener to gamble on the music that a privately pressed record may deliver. More often than not the sounds to be had upon dropping the needle are not altogether pleasant - but sometimes real gems are to be found, as is revealed on this album.
With this collection we aim to celebrate the era of the cabaret band with a selection of tracks originally available only as private pressings. These recordings cover many genres, including soul, funk, jazz, rock and easy listening. In some cases our chosen artists mix all of these styles within the same track. Jazz standards given a bit of pep mix it with funky big band numbers, Hammond players show off their chops, vocalists belt it out good and proper and even the drummer gets a solo. Their common theme is a strong groove designed to keep a busy dance floor moving. After all, this was music performed to celebrate the good times and the end of the working week.
There are many sub-genres within the world of privately pressed recordings. We have chosen to confine this first selection to artists operating on the cabaret and club circuit - appearing at Social Clubs, Miners Welfare Clubs and Working Man's Clubs across the United Kingdom - so we have termed this first edition Working Man's Soul.
Artists include Plimsoll Sandwich (with "Memphis Underground"), The Peter Coe Big Band, John O'Hara & The Famous O'Hara's Playboys (with "Funky Nassau"), The Northern Jazz Orchestra (with "Hip Flask"), Brian Sharp (with "Light My Fire"), Bob Bernard Quartet, and Maxwell Plumm (with "Flyin' Hi")...
Would you believe there is actually a second volume of Working Man Soul available? Featuring golden cruddets like Russ Abbot's first cabaret band, "unlikely funky versions of tracks by The Doobie Bros, Uriah Heep and Deep Purple", and 'Sax Bap' by the Wigan Youth Jazz Orchestra, The Vince Earl Attraction's "solid and brisk" rendition of Barry White's 'Can't Get Enough of Your Love' and the Brass Foundry's take on Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition'....
Of course before the spread of the discotheque in the early 70s, you had to have a live band playing Top 40 and contemporary standards if you wanted to have a dancing (and drinking) audience... and clearly for a good while the appetite for dancing to live music rather than records continued, particularly with the older crowd
"Working Man Soul" fits as a tag not just because of the audience and the circuit for this music but because most musicians in the country were working men (and occasional working woman, usually singing) ... making a solid living... with little aspirations to write their own material or achieve fame beyond establishing a local following... the motivation to put out these micro-releases must surely have been to create a small extra sideline of income or solidify the loyalty of their local clientele, rather than as a calling card to the industry
Some of the bands on these compilations were treading the boards a decade earlier during the real heyday for local live entertainment action
And some are still treading the boards
Darn it! I have semi-convinced myself of the "historical value" of these compilations
Can feel an insidious creeping fascination for this brown-ale Britfunk, this other Northern soul, coming on..
And this offering is quite outre what with its overdone phasing / flanging on the drumms
All this reminds me of the term "chicken in a basket" - something bandied about in music papers since time immemorial, as a short-hand for middle-aged middle-of-road / living-death-of-cabaret-career-twilight .... I quickly assimilated this code and grasped what it vaguely referred to (always pejorative)... without ever actually knowing what a chicken in a basket actually is, what it would look like as served..
A real shame there's no vocal on this
Shit, I'm becoming a digger myself - this isn't on either comp - but look, look, this has some kind of tie-in with Benson & Hedges!
They are Australian, though
Sampled by DJ Shadow apparently!
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