Wednesday, March 21, 2012

CD Review: “Hoods & Shades” by Andre Williams

hoods aand Shades

Hoods & Shades

You may not recognize this artist, but I guarantee you’ve danced to his music. He is the man who wrote “Shake A Tail Feather” which was an R&B cross over hit in the ‘60s and figured as one of the major dance scenes in The Blues Brothers movie. And, lest you think he’s a one trick pony, sang proto-punk cult classics like
"Bacon Fat" (covered by the Cramps), "Greasy Chicken," and the epitome of songs about underage girls, "Jail Bait." He paid his dues and honed his unique musical outlook at seminal labels such as Motown, Chess, and Fortune. He wrote and produced for folks Ike Turner, Parliament/Funkadelic, Edwin Starr and Stevie Wonder.

He retired way back when, but as the legend goes, it did not agree with the man. You retire from a job, not from music. Andre stormed back in the late '90s with a record of smutty garage punk called Silky, recorded with members of the Demolition Doll Rods and the Dirtbombs.

 

“A Good Day To Feel Bad” by Andre Williams

Here, he presents an album of what we used to call “beat poetry”…sort of . back in the ‘50s, Beat Poets would go into coffee houses that usually played folk music and read poetry to a band playing kind of hip background music. The album is full of full of that kind of ‘talkin’ cool (what we called rap before that title was taken for hip-hop music)  song poems; more poems of warning, kind of psychedelic folk. It’s a soulful croon and hustler's groove laid down with his long-time contributors Matt Smith Outrageous Cherry, Nathaniel Mayer, Volebeats), Funk Brother Dennis Coffey on guitar, Jim White (Dirty Three, Cat Power), Greasy Carlisi (Robert Gordon, Chris Spedding), Jim Diamond (Dirtbombs), and Grammy-award winning producer Don Was. For Hoods and Shades Andre ventures into a folk/psychedelic/R&B zone, in what he has dubbed "the Andre Williams folk album."

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And it’s a lot of fun. Check it out. Just clickity-click on the links. Hoods & Shades

 

The Dirty Lowdown

Copyright © 2012 Robert Carraher All Rights Reserved

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