KING CURTIS & THE KINGPINS

King Curtis was an American tenor, alto, and soprano saxophonist and session musician who played rhythm and blues, soul, Rock and roll, and soul jazz. He was also a Musical Director and Record Producer. He is best known for his distinctive sax riffs and solos on such hits as The Coasters' "Yakety Yak" and his own "Memphis Soul Stew".

Curtis was born in Fort Worth, Texas. During the 1950s and early to mid 1960s he both worked as a session player on such records as "Yakety Yak" and recorded his own singles. He played on the Buddy Holly song "Reminiscing," after Buddy himself personally hired him to do some studio work. His best known singles from this period are "Soul Twist" (Enjoy Records) and "Soul Serenade" (Capitol Records). In 1965 he moved to Atlantic Records, where his most successful singles were "Memphis Soul Stew" and "Ode to Billie Joe". He led Aretha Franklin's backup band, The Kingpins, and produced records, at first with Jerry Wexler and then by himself. He also recorded for Groove Records.

One of his last releases was the critically acclaimed Live At Fillmore West which boasted heavyweight live versions of "Memphis Soul Stew" and Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" and Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered". Musicians Billy Preston (organ), Jerry Jemmott (bass), Cornell Dupree (guitar; Curtis had a long standing relationship with Dupree), Pancho Morales (percussion), Bernard Purdie (drums) and The Memphis Horns backed up Curtis. The album's live version of Procol Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale was used as the title music in the seminal 1980s British comedy film Withnail & I. Curtis also played a rousing sax solo on "It's So Hard", a song featured on John Lennon's Imagine album, which was released just weeks after his death.  (wikipedia)

Soul Twist  (1965)

Memphis Soul Stew

Soul Serenade

Ridin' Thumb

with Champion Jack Dupree  (1971)

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

Sweet Soul Soul Music  (1988)

Bo, You Don't Know Diddley

BO DIDDLEY

1928 - 2008

He only had a few hits in the 1950s and early '60s, but as Bo Diddley sang, "You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover." You can't judge an artist by his chart success, either, and Diddley produced greater and more influential music than all but a handful of the best early rockers. The Bo Diddley beat -- bomp, ba-bomp-bomp, bomp-bomp -- is one of rock & roll's bedrock rhythms, showing up in the work of Buddy Holly, the Rolling Stones, and even pop-garage knock-offs like the Strangeloves' 1965 hit "I Want Candy." Diddley's hypnotic rhythmic attack and declamatory, boasting vocals stretched back as far as Africa for their roots, and looked as far into the future as rap. His trademark otherworldly vibrating, fuzzy guitar style did much to expand the instrument's power and range. But even more important, Bo's bounce was fun and irresistibly rocking, with a wisecracking, jiving tone that epitomized rock & roll at its most humorously outlandish and freewheeling.

As a live performer, Diddley was galvanizing, using his trademark square guitars and distorted amplification to produce new sounds that anticipated the innovations of '60s guitarists like Jimi Hendrix. In Great Britain, he was revered as a giant on the order of Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters. The Rolling Stones in particular borrowed a lot from Bo's rhythms and attitude in their early days, although they only officially covered a couple of his tunes, "Mona" and "I'm Alright." Other British R&B groups like the Yardbirds, Animals, and Pretty Things also covered Diddley standards in their early days. Buddy Holly covered "Bo Diddley" and used a modified Bo Diddley beat on "Not Fade Away"; when the Stones gave the song the full-on Bo treatment (complete with shaking maracas), the result was their first big British hit.

The British Invasion helped increase the public's awareness of Diddley's importance, and ever since then he's been a popular live act. Sadly, though, his career as a recording artist -- in commercial and artistic terms -- was over by the time the Beatles and Stones hit America. He'd record with ongoing and declining frequency, but after 1963, he'd never write or record any original material on par with his early classics. Whether he'd spent his muse, or just felt he could coast on his laurels, is hard to say. But he remains a vital part of the collective rock & roll consciousness, occasionally reaching wider visibility via a 1979 tour with the Clash, a cameo role in the film Trading Places, a late-'80s tour with Ronnie Wood, and a 1989 television commercial for sports shoes with star athlete Bo Jackson. (allmusic.com)

Hey Bo Diddley / Bo Diddley   (1966)

Road Runner

Let The Kid Dance  (1965)

Road Runner / Mona  (1972)

GENERAL JOHNSON AND THE CHAIRMEN OF THE BOARD

Chairmen of the Board is a Detroit, Michigan based soul music group active mostly in the 1970s, that is still touring today. General Norman Johnson (born 23 May 1943, Norfolk, Virginia) had a hit as the lead singer of The Showmen in the early 1960s, with the New Orleans rock and roll anthem "It Will Stand" and Carolina Beach Classic "39-21-46".
When Holland/Dozier/Holland left Motown in 1967 to establish their own Invictus/Hot Wax group of record labels, they teamed Johnson up with Eddie Custis, Danny Woods and Canadian born Harrison Kennedy as the new company's flagship act, under the appropriate name "Chairmen of the Board". Custis left the group after their second album.
Though they all had a turn at lead vocals, it was Johnson's quirky hiccup-laden style and his songwriting which became increasingly showcased, with the group selling a million plus copies of their single, "Give Me Just a Little More Time". Chairmen of the Board also scored with "You've Got Me Dangling On A String", "Pay To the Piper", "Everything's Tuesday", "Working On A Building Of Love", "Elmo James", "Finders Keepers", and the original version of "Patches", a memorable Grammy Award winning ballad when later covered with great success by Clarence Carter.
Kennedy, Woods and Johnson all went on to cut solo albums of varying quality, whilst Johnson wrote and produced (with Greg Perry) for other Invictus/Hot Wax acts, notably Honey Cone. Harrison having left, Johnson and Woods toured the UK in 1976 with six musicians as "Chairmen of the Board", but were not as successful as before. The act was broken up immediately afterwards, Johnson having signed for Arista Records as a solo artist.
In 1978, Johnson reformed the Chairmen of the Board. In 1980, the new Chairmen founded Surfside Records, for which the group still records. (wikipedia)

You've Got Me Dangling On A String  (1970)

Give Me Just A Little More Time

CAMEO

An outlandish, in-your-face stage presence, a strange sense of humor, and a hard-driving funk sound that criss-crossed a few musical boundaries earned Cameo countless comparisons to Parliament/Funkadelic in their early days. However, Cameo eventually wore off accusations of being derivative by transcending their influences and outlasting almost every single one of them. Throughout the '70s and '80s, the group remained up with the times and occasionally crept ahead of them, such that they became influences themselves upon younger generations of R&B and hip-hop acts. By the time the group's popularity started to fizzle in the late '80s, a series of R&B chart hits -- ranging from greasy funk workouts to synthesized funk swingers to dripping ballads -- was left in their wake. Further separating Cameo from their forebears, they didn't have a diaper-clad guitarist. Instead, they had a codpiece-wearing lead vocalist.  (allmusic.com)

Word Up  (1986)

Candy

Be Yourself  (1982)

Flirt  (1982)

Alligator Woman  (1982)

Shake Your Pants

On The Line  (1980)

I Just Want To Be  (1980)

Cameosis  (1980)

On The One  (1980)

We're Going Out Tonight  (1980)

She's Strange / Single Life

Attack Me With Your Love / Candy

CADBURY GORILLA VS CAMEO