DYKE AND THE BLAZERS - We Got More Soul - 2007 - Album review

DYKE AND THE BLAZERS – We Got More Soul – 2006 – Album review
HIGHLIGHTS: Basically all of it – but if pressed - Moon/ Funky Walk/ Bring It On Back/ Let A Woman Be A Woman, Let A Man Be A Man
SOUNDBITE: Sisters and my brothers – we got more soul!
RATING: 5/5
When he sings 'We Got More Soul' Dyke's not shitting you. Named after one of the tracks on it, it's a statement few will have laid claim to with as much reason as Dyke and The Blazers. After all, these guys were one of the first acts to play funk after James Brown; Funky Broadway was the first mainstream use of the word 'funky' in a song title (and was later covered more famously by Wilson Pickett) and Dyke's band was a group of session musicians who later became the core of Charles 'Express Yourself' Wright's Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band. Which I reckon puts him up there with artists like The Meters and JB himself. This collection brings together 18 (18!) super heavy funk tracks recorded between 1966 and 1971 - thirteen of them previously unreleased (!) – and the other five in versions which allow the listener access to the full funky drum breakdowns that were edited off the original 45s. It beggars belief that there are still gems like this kicking around waiting to see the light of day. The phrase 'slept-on classic' is so inadequate it's not even funny – someone's had a forty-year coma where these are concerned. Despite the criminal unavailability of many of these tracks some of the others have been hugely sampled in hip-hop - largely because of the giant phatness of the breaks - the most recent example I've heard was from the track We Got More Soul itself at the start of Dooley-O's last LP. Any worries you might have that the unreleased tracks are of a lesser quality you can put to bed – most of them are the better tracks. I'd cite reasons why - if reading those reasons didn't delay you from getting hold of this album. The sound quality here is excellent and while Dyke and The Blazers have very similar sonic ingredients to James Brown and the JB's – lots of horns, ridiculously heavy rhythm and percussion, chopped up funky wah-wah guitar and a singer with a raw voice, if anything they have an even rawer sound. Forget self-preservation and continuation of the species (unless they are necessary to completing what follows) - basically (if you like funk) your new raison d'etre is to purchase this album, play it to others and spread the word. Off you go.
Out now.
Listen to Dyke and The Blazers – We Got More Soul