LET'S BOOGALOO VOL. 4 - Various - 2007 - (Vinyl) Album review

LET’S BOOGALOO VOL.4 - Various – 2007 – (Vinyl) Album review
HIGHLIGHTS: The New Mastersounds (Thirty Three) – Baby Charles (No Controlling Me) – Osaka Monaurail (Down And Out)/ Billy Garner (You’re Wasting My Time)
SOUNDBITE: “You’re wasting my time…”
RATING: 3/5 (on vinyl – see below) 4/5 on CD
The Let’s Boogaloo series continues apace and this time around the Record Kicks boys invite DJ Andy Smith to dig up the “Deep Funk, Soul, Latin, Dancefloor Jazz, alltime stompers and future classics” that are the compilations’ calling card. A word of warning though - if you particularly like funk and you buy the vinyl version you get stitched up like a kipper as three (3!) funk tracks are left off. Not bothering to include the Sweet Vandals’ cover of Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag I can live with, but the omission of two classic sister soul cuts - Ann Alford’s fat slice of wah-wah funk Got To Get Me A Job and Little Ann’s breakbeat soul gem One Way Street is criminal. Thanks very much, Record Kicks. If there wasn’t enough space on a single record – here’s a thought - double fucking vinyl! And to make matters worse - what is left contains a heavy preponderance of Latin and Northern Soul. I don’t mind the Latin stuff so much – as summer draws closer I like to sit on my patio, sip a Mojito and pretend I’m in Cuba as much as the next man even if this record includes usual compilation suspects such as Ralph Robles’ Taking Over which I last caught on Latin comp. Brown Sugar back in ‘02. However, as far as I’m concerned (apart from a couple of tolerable numbers by Eddie Palmieri and The Harvey Averne Dozen) you can pretty much completely ignore the second half of the album unless you actually like Northern Soul songs which all sound like The Supremes’ I Can’t Help Myself (infamously re-written for an ancient Kellogs cereal advert) - in which case leave this site immediately. And so we return to the first half of the album or ‘Side A’ for vinyl heads. The New Mastersounds kick us off with an upbeat funky instrumental that’s definitely worth a second listen, Brighton’s Baby Charles deliver a hefty slice of fast JB’s style funk and singer Dionne Charles delivers a not un-Mary-Jane Hooper-like vocal. Osaka Monaurail’s Down And Out is a itchy little dancefloor teaser but the best track, certainly on the vinyl, has to be Billy Garner’s dirty, raucous, raw-voiced 1971 funk track You’re Wasting My Time with a killer organ hook. The Ann Alford and Little Ann tracks would certainly give this one a run for it’s money but there’s no accounting for bizarre decisions regarding tracklists and formats is there? From a vinyl perspective - very disappointing. Record Kicks could at least do the decent thing and release the Ann Alford and Little Ann tracks as a double A-sided 45…
Out now.
Listen to Let's Boogaloo Vol.4