Nile Rodgers is one of the first people I interviewed when I started by music journalism career in the late ’70s at Billboard magazine. Throughout the years he’s been one of the more insightful artists I’ve spoken to. Not a surprise because he’s had a long, hit filled career as a producer/writer while developing one of most identifiable instrumental sounds in all of pop music. Starting with Chic in the late ’70s and continuing with Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” Nile has remained at the forefront of danceable pop music. These quotes are outtakes from my documentary FINDING THE FUNK, which…
#BLACKMUSICMONTH Memory
8 min ago
Otis Blackwell was born in Brooklyn, New York but much of his body of rock screams Southern rock & roll: “Don’t Be Cruel” and “Return to Sender” by Elvis Presley, “Great Balls of Fire” and “Breathless” by Jerry Lee Lewis. All are ’50s classics recorded by white sons of the American South. but this short, dark skinned didn’t just pen rock & roll. His “Handy Man,” originally cut by black crooner jimmy Jones, made the R&B charts and then was a major hit for James Taylor in 1977. Perhaps Blackwell’s most successful copyright is the…
For Black Music Month I’m digging in the archives for gems
D’Angelo became the symbol of the neo-soul movement in the mid-90s, as he and slew of young musicians and singers brought an organic sensibility to R&B, whose mainstream sounds had become digital and technologically driven. But, as his last album, the Grammy award winning Black Messiah made clear, this Richmond, Virginia native is passionate about progressive sounds in funk and rock. On his last tour with his band, the Vanguard, D spent more time playing guitar than keys, which suited material that was often politically edged and substituted abrasive haze for the warmth of his first two studio albums. …
When I was young I felt most creative at night, so I built my life around 11:30pm or Midnight to 3am. My West Coast friends got used to be calling around 10 or 11pm my time when I wanted to take a break or was written out. I was still wired. Couldn’t sleep. I think I had a bunch of long distance relationships with L.A. women just so I could have someone to call after working. There was a famous Jewish dinner named Junior’s in downtown Brooklyn which closed around midnight. …
On the anniversary of ‘What’s Going On’ I revisit early ’80s interviews with the soul music icon
I was raised by a soul music loving, finger snapping, Saturday night party-giving mother who had a particular affection for “love men” like Otis Redding, Al Green and that major deity Marvin Gaye. I would stand on my tippy toes to watch the yellow & brown Tamla 45s of “Hitch Hike,” “Stubborn Kinda Fella,” etc. spin on my mother’s Motorola High Fidelity record player. …
Last week, on May 7, was the 40th anniversary of the release of the James Brown ‘Star Time’ boxed. The package of seventy-two songs is the definitive collection of of the Godfather’s trailblazing music and band. Along with archivists Harry Weinger, ex-Brown aide Alan Leeds, critic Cliff White, and Brown himself, I contributed liner notes that won an Grammy award in 1992. I haven’t read them in years, but thought it would be fun to re-post them to celebrate the anniversary of the package’s release. No digital copy exist, so I had to go the source. Weinger lead the archival…
At various points in my life I aspired to be authors Richard Wright and Ernest Hemingway, critic/historian Greil Marcus, filmmaker Frances Ford Coppola, and playwright August Wilson and a few other powerhouse creators whose work I admired. Then, at a certain point, you realize that emulation only gets you so far and you have figure out who you are.
Part of that process was defining success for myself. Okay a Nobel Prize or Academy Award is not likely at this point. But I did win a Grammy for liner notes, which was very cool, and I’ve been nominated for some…
Recent deaths of hip-hop vets puts a focus what it means to be old in hip-hop
If hip-hop is a musical form, a cultural expression and an ever changing representation of the black working class experience in America (and it is all that and probably more), then the recent deaths of three middle aged MCs reflect a sad truth of black men and health care. DMX (Earl Simmons), Black Rob (Robert Ross) and Shock G (Gregory Jacobs), celebrated in their 20s, had thirty years later struggled, not simply to remain relevant in a young person’s game, but physically and mentally healthy in a society that gives lip service to elevating old heads, but in reality doesn’t…
Three men who helped shape my life died during the dark spring of 2020
Between April 25 and May 19, 2020 my father, one of my oldest friends, and my most important mentor all died. Nelson Elmer George from Covid-19 complications in April. Andre Oneal Harrell from a heart attack May 7. Robert ‘Rocky’ Ford May 19 from what his wife described as natural causes. They were black men aged 87, 58 and 70. My father had lived the life of minimum wage worker after serving in the Korean War, his last major gig was as an security guard at City College of New York. Andre had been an MC, president of the crucial…
Nelson George
Author and filmmaker. Current books: a novel, The Darkest Hearts (Akashic); music collection The Nelson George Mixtape (Pacific) www.pacificpacific.pub.
