Southern Soul Corner

       With The Soul Dog 

Corner Talk: As we head into another new year, the top song on the Soul and Blues Report’s Top 25 is I’m Coming Home by a veteran of more than forty years of performing and recording – Mr. Marvin Sease. Forty plus year vet Willie Clayton has yet another single climbing the charts entitled I Can’t Stand the Rain. Both of these outstanding entertainers currently record on the Malaco label. You can check out the entire Southern Soul Top 25 chart at www.soulandbluesreport.com..........

A Southern Soul tune from a few years ago that has recently popped up on the Endless Summer Network’s Beach Music Top 40 is Shoo Da Wop by Mr. David featuring Sir Charles Jones. The 2004 release featured both an original and a remix version on the album entitled Jody Is Back. Mr. David has a current Top 25 Southern Soul hit with his rousing Fatback and Collard Greens………

1970’s Funkmaster Lee Fields was so much a follower of James Brown back in the day that he was aptly nicknamed ‘Little J.B.’. Although he never hit it big then, he was somewhat re-incarnated in the Southern Soul market in the ‘90’s, recording albums on the Ace and Avanti labels. Songs such as Hot and Lonely,  Meet Me Tonight, Dreaming Big Time, Coming to Tear the Roof Down and his rendition of Trying to Live My Life Without You received notable recognition. Meanwhile in the late ‘90’s, he had become the recognized leader of revitalized Funk music, recording new Funk tunes on the Desco and Daptone labels in recent years, while his early 45’s have become prized collectors items. His most recent single, At the End of the Day, made it into the Southern Soul Top 25 recently………

It is heart warming to note that two almost overlooked and forgotten Soul balladeers of the late ‘50’s and ‘60’s issued outstanding new album releases in late 2008. The two I’m referring to are Garnett Mimms and Howard Tate, who knew each other and sang together in the early ‘60’s. They were both in a Gospel group (perhaps at different times, Mimms is four years older than Tate) called Evening Star and later performed together as members of a Philadelphia Doo Wop quintet known as the Gainors. Both went on to solo careers before deep Soul music went by the wayside in the ‘70’s. Garnett Mimms will forever be known by Beach music fans for his “Johnny Dollar” song, A Quiet Place, but far and away his biggest hit was Cry Baby, which went to #1 on Billboard’s R&B chart in 1963. Howard Tate made the R&B Top 20 three times in the ‘60’s, but he may be best known as the original voice of Get It While You Can, which later became a signature song for Janis Joplin.

Mimms’ new album, Is Anybody Out There on the Evidence label, contains fifteen cuts deeply rooted in Southern Soul, Blues and gospel. Tate’s latest effort entitled Blue Day was also released on Evidence and likewise has fifteen tracks that will take you back to the sounds of the heyday of Soul music……..………...

Spotlight On…..Wilson Meadows

One of the strongest voices in Southern Soul today belongs to Wilson Meadows, who currently has two songs (It Is What It Is and I Wanna Git Witcha, Baby) in the Top 25. His singing resonates across ‘60’s retro and neo-Soul with a little Pop and just a hint of Country from his Southern upbringing. Wilson has been going strong for over forty years, although he is still relatively unknown on a national scale.

Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1944 into a musical family, Wilson grew up in the church singing Gospel music. He migrated north and joined a Doo Wop group, The Zircons, in the ‘60’s. The group recorded several singles on the Relic label, including renditions of Blue Moon, Unchained Melody and Silver Bells. Wilson later reunited with family and formed a group called The Meadows Brothers, who recorded a couple of minor hit singles in the ‘70’s. Meadows toiled in pretty much obscurity in the music business until 1997, when he was fifty three years old!

Wilson Meadows big break came with the release of his first solo album, Memories, in 1997 on Atlanta’s Ichiban label. Several tracks on the hard edged R&B album received heavy radio airplay over the next two years, including Let’s Cut Out the Game, I Promise, Just Can’t Do Without You and one of my all time favorite Southern Soul cuts, That’s Still My Love. He followed up the initial release with Dealing Real in 2000, Choices in 2002 and Back to Basics in 2004, all on the BGR label. Hits and highlight tunes from these albums included Explain It, Something’s Got to Give, Big Catch, If You Can’t Hold Your Love, Go On and Cry, Shake and Finders Keepers. Ninety five percent of what Meadows records is self-penned material.

Meadows kept it rolling in 2006 with his release of Love Bomb, with charting hits Dedicated to the One I Love and I Got the Right One as well as the title track.  Also included on this album was a great duet cover with Oscar Toney Jr. of Eddie Floyd’s California Girl. Wilson’s latest effort, Transformation was released in September, 2008, containing the two charters as mentioned above in the current Top 25. Expect many more hits from Wilson Meadows in the coming years as he continues to make his mark in Southern Soul!

Southern Soul has just simply exploded over the last decade with outstanding new artists and songs constantly emerging, and 2008 was no exception. Here are my picks (just my opinion) for the Top 15 Southern Soul songs from 2008.

 Soul Dog’s Top 15 for 2008

       I Like This Place – Carl Sims

       Groove U Baby – Mose Stovall

       I’m Going Back Home – O.B. Buchana

       Older Woman – Mz. Pat Cooley

       Fire -  Lebrado

       Pay Before You Pump – Denise LaSalle

       Lacee’s Groove – Lacee

       When You Pack Your Bags – Vick Allen

       It Is What It Is – Wilson Meadows

       Stuck – Rhythm All Stars

       If I Had My Way – Donnie Ray

       I’m Coming Home – Marvin Sease

       Country Woman – Lee Shot Williams

       Lock My Door – Jeff Floyd

       My Life – Omar Cunningham 

We have  a brand new 2009 Southern Soul stream currently playing right here on the BeachMusic45 Radio Network. Thanks for your support!!