You'll never get a ring in my nose...

I don't do memorials anymore. As the subheading on the blog says: our mother kills us, our father eats us, we are not in our casket, we are not in the cemetery.

Just in case the quote's not entirely obvious, I meant it as a metaphor for the situation of many lesser known artists. In short, the offended "bones" continue to sing even after death [literal and figurative]...don't they?

Anyway, this tune goes out to Benny Spellman. By all accounts, a good man.

[That's Mr. Spellman doing his well-known basso-profondo bit on this cut]

Respect is due....

Keep it if you find it....

Oddly enough, this 45 doesn't show up on any Benny Spellman discography I can find, but I think it's his last record, probably issued in 1967 or '68. Just check out the rip off of the "Soul Finger" horn charts. There doesn't seem to be a Mor Soul discography available either, so I can't check.

Mor Soul was owned and operated by Traci Borges out the basement of a house in Metairie, just down the street from where he later established Knight Studios. I've never seen anything written about Borges, but I have seen a picture of him from around this time and was very surprised to see how young and cute he looked. It's not until recently that I found out he recorded a couple [?] of teen-pop records under his own name. I forget which label they were on.

The odd thing about Borges is that it doesn't appear he had any experience running a studio or a label before he set up Mor Soul. And if I wasn't clear before, Borges was running a studio out of that basement. As far as know, that's where all the Mor Soul sides were cut.

Hope ya'll enjoy....

The game is over.....

One of my favorite Allen Toussaint penned tunes......

Hope ya'll enjoy....

Went to a fortune teller...

Here's another one which owes it's groove to Cuban music.

I realize this is included on a million comps and is in virtually constant rotation on classic oldies stations, but the truth is that it wasn't a huge hit at the time. The 45 is sometimes hard to get, often selling for more than you might think....mainly because everyone seems to want a copy.

The flipside, Lipstick Traces, went to no. 28 on the R&B charts in 1962, but only managed to reach no. 80 on the Hot 100 pop chart. Fortune Teller never charted. It wasn't until various British invasion groups covered the song that it began it's rise to modern day 'classic' status.

Hope ya enjoy...

Dumb...luck

This is what a record looks like after it's been very gently cleaned of what you might call, generalized ambient mold.....mold born of 'generalized flooding'.

In other words, it's a Katrina record which never suffered direct contact with water, but still looked like a forgotten three week old pizza after the water receded.

In case you can't read the label, the record is The Word Game, by Benny Spellman, on Alon Records....written and produced by Allen Toussaint.

Good thing water doesn't affect vinyl.

Enjoy