ANDY SMITH - DIGGIN IN THE BGP VAULTS – 2008 – Album review

ANDY SMITH - DIGGIN IN THE BGP VAULTS – 2008 – Album review
HIGHLIGHTS: It’s all good!
SOUNDBITE: "It's my thing, tell you what I'm gonna do/ I'm gonna sock it, right straight to you"
RATING: 5/5
Like a former Soviet Republic, Diggin… has got more bombs than it knows what to do with - demonstrating in the process that Andy Smith’s groove selection mojo has returned with a mighty vengeance. Having said that - if you're a vinyl junkie you'll know that at least three of these bombs have actually already been major funk-reissue singles in the last twelve months – Dyke & The Blazers’ vintage funk Let A Woman Be A Woman – Let A Man Be A Man was put out as a 7” by BGP itself and both Ann Alford’s wah-wah strut Got To Get Me A Job and Spanky Wilson’s Sunshine Of Your Love appeared on Funky 45s 10” re-releases. In fact, funk nerds will know that the Ann Alford track actually appeared on the CD version of Let’s Boogaloo 4 (compiled by – er – Andy Smith) though inexplicably not on the vinyl. Still, the name of the game is ‘What does BGP have in its vaults?’ and if the answer includes (unsurprisingly) ‘some well-known classics’, it also includes ‘some dope obscurities’ too. Betty Moorer’s soul sister cut It’s My Thing brings the funky slink while Ripple’s breaks-beast I Don’t Know What It Is But It Sure Is Funky (and they ain’t lying) features an ’Oh la, oh la, yeahhh that may be familiar to long-time fans of G Love & Special Sauce. Booker T & The MGs cover of Sly Stone’s Sing A Simple Song proves once again that this song is impossible to fuck up - not that you’d expect Booker T to put a foot wrong anyway, then there's gravel-voiced funk-soul brother Billy Garner who features twice on this collection. And though he is again an artist Smith picked for Let’s Boogaloo 4, neither of the songs selected here appeared on that compilation – although both I Got Some Pt 1 and Brand New Girl are quality cuts of raw funk. As a compilation this’ll definitely rival New Orleans Funk 2 for funk compilation of the year (you mark my words!) and in common with that record it covers a range of sub-genres that runs from that rude early shit to more polished seventies grooves. I would go on but I think you should probably just buy this treat for both DJs and casual listeners alike right now.
Out now on BGP.
LINKS
Listen to Andy Smith – Diggin In The BGP Vaults
DJ Andy Smith - Myspace
SEARCH MONKEYBOXING EMPIRE REVIEWS
MONKEYBOXING.COM