.::theVault::.

.::The Vault::.

I'll let the newer skool setup the old skool, my preference (so I start things off old skool as we know/remember. But regardless.. these are the best of my entire library of love songs! Try to follow my messages throughout this playlist, it's in the titles through the lyrics in the music.

I share with you some of my fondest memories and experiences all summed in some of the greatest songs. I'm sure a lot of ya'll will relate and share the musical experience.

Roll yourself a nice one for this, and let your mind revisit through some of the greatest gems hard to find and sadly forgotten! Ya'll that have some of these same songs... u' feel me! Other than that, these are just handpicked favorites of albums to come I'll be sharing with ya'll if you don't already have it.

What you think.. Here's a list of the tracks:

THESE are some of the greatest records, both new and old that all of you should have in your libraries. If not, stay tuned for the entire albums and more gems from the Vault. lol

You WILL enjoy!

mrMrcs

Kleeer - Winners (1979)

By far, one of my favourite funk bands. I had to put my grandfather on to this. Was shocked that he wasn't familiar with the name.

Not too long after the NY-based funk and disco group had changed their name from The Jam Band, then to Pipeline, and finally Kleeer, this album was finally released in '79.

Was strolling through the city one day and this came on the iPod randomly. I'd have to say it was bassist, Norman Durham, that caught my ears and had me acting a fool in public like the clip to my iPod case was the strings to my bass. If only i was a bassist, this album is damn fun to jam along with.

They got a couple of hott pieces on this album... check it out for yourself and let me know what you think.

Enjoy!

KRS-One & Buckshot - Robot

with the anticipation of Buckshot & KRS-One's coming album, Survival Skills, said to be released mid-September, I felt it was highly necessary to share with you their single release, Robot. With the way of our worlds these days, I glad they dropped this when they did. I'm TELLIN ya'll these words is the truth.

Who who better than Buckshot and Krs-One to cease the existence of Autotune. I'm sorry but, I still don't understand how two of our most successful emcees can talk the death of autotune after having used it on a few occasions.

The download link is of course in the title, click there. I've included the video below for you edu-tainment!

enjoy.

Jeffrey Daniel - The truth behind Michael Jackson's dance moves

One of the things that has always disappointed me is how and where cats get their information... I mean media-made lies... about where Michael Jackson really got his moves from. Sure MJ's dances were inspired by and included the likes of Bob Fosse, Fred Astaire, Bill Bailey, Sammy Davis, Jr. and others. I mean the man had framed photos of them all in his bedroom (if you really paid attention). But one name that was overlooked, even forgotten was the man who not only choreographed a lot of MJ's moves, but even so far as consulted MJ's production company, MJJ Productions. When you do the math, MJ was inspired by all of these dancers closer to his early 20's. At the end of the day, it was Jeffrey Daniel who received the paychecks to choreograph.

Jeffrey Daniel first came into the spotlight as a dancer on the US TV show Soul Train. From Soul Train evolved Shalamar - a band that sold 25 million albums world-wide with hit records such as "A Night to Remember", "Friends" and "There it is". With Shalamar he introduced West Coast Street Dance into Europe and started a huge dance craze - body popping, robotics, locking and whacking with his amazing skills as a dancer. After 7 years, millions of album sales and tours around the world, Shalamar performed at London's Wembley Arena and the original line-up then went their separate ways.

Jeffrey took on the role of 'Electra' in Andrew Lloyd Webber's new West End musical 'Starlight Express' and linked up with Michael Jackson to rack up some dance and choreography credits.

JD is the man that taught Michael Jackson the Moonwalk and later went on to choreograph "Bad" and co-choreograph "Smooth Criminal."

As a special added bonus, I've included the same Shalamar record that features a few versions of the hit song, A Night to Remember. Took a minute for me to recognize the tune but, then I remembered hearing this song alot when I was a little kid at family cookouts and roller-skating parks!

click the above title for dwnld. link. enjoy!

A.Spendacash(of Retrospek) Chill N Burn

for all my stoners on sunday, smoke one to this

::COMING TO THE STAGE:: What Hip-Hop Needs... a Divine Intervention

A Sunday Review

Every Sunday I'll be looking for powerful art(ists) and music to share with the world. As this is the debut of my blog, I'm happy to start off the series wit my little bro all the way from Ohio!

Hip-Hop is coming back... and stronger than ever! A musical masterpiece to enlighten the ignorant indeed, lyrically tailored to speak the many minds of our generation, and musically perfected to attract audiences of all genres|races|cultures. Perhaps all we needed all along was such an intervention. Ladies & Gentlemen, and infants, of hip-hop.. I present to you, live and all the way from Ohio...My mans Mike Amaddio and Jerrell Johnson, together forming a unique brand, otherwise known as Divine Minds!

After having this album on my iPod and damn near on repeat for about a week and a half now, I couldn't wait to share this with the world. Imagining myself being totally blind to how music has contributed to our cultures, Divine Intervention is a key gem in making it all crystal clear and putting things back into perspective!

Divine Minds is a hip-hop duo consisting of an MC and producer from Cleveland, OH. Black J, the MC, and Mike A, the producer, have been lifelong friends and lifelong music fanatics; however, it was not until after their graduation from Shaker Heights High School in 2004 that they joined forces to begin creating music of their own. Years later, with a great deal of recording and performing experience under their belts, Black J and Mike A are ready to take the world of music by storm with a divine sound and a heavy debut album, “Divine Intervention” (available to download at the following link). Keep an eye and an ear out for these gentlemen because there is plenty of great music to be heard from them for a long time to come.

I don't hesitate one bit in urging all of you to download the free copy of DM's debut album. In fact, I'm making it that much easier for you to download by simply clicking on the title above, which is a direct hyperlink to their download. Of course I'd say be sure to listen from beginning to end as it takes your mind on an intellectual adventure.. but maybe that was just my experience with cali bud! In all honesty, check out: Arms Reach, Quote This or That's Cool, which has been on repeat more.

If you can give me ONE good reason why this album is not hott or why it doesn't deserve the hype that it does, then I will take down the post and resign... SIKE... it aint happenin! Download it, hear it, love it, learn it and pass it!

click the above title for dwnld link. you WILL enjoy!

Barry White Presents: Danny Pearson

Danny Pearson is a Godsend! When I first heard this record, it really put into perspective what love really meant. often times it's hard to put the love you have for someone into words. Put on a Danny Pearson record, and he'll speak every word for you.

Discovered and produced by the great Barry White, Danny Pearson knows how to pierce straight through the soul and into the heart. His voice is absolutely amazing and the combination with Barry White's Love Unlimited Orchestra is without a doubt ingenious!

I highly recommend listening to the entire album from start to finish to enjoy the whole experience. But for you musicians out there that can appreciate the musicianship and craft that's demonstrated by Pearson, I highly recommend: Is It Really True Girl, or I'm So Glad I've Got You Baby!

Barry White produced teenager Danny Pearson's Top 20 R&B mid-tempo ballad single "What's Your Sign Girl." The Racine, WI, native was signed to White's Unlimited Gold label distributed through CBS Records. He moved to California in 1974 and was picked by White to be one of the artists to be released on his imprint. An album, Barry White Presents Mr. Danny Pearson, was issued. The first single, "What's Your Sign Girl" b/w "Is It Really True Girl" hit number 16 R&B, number 106 pop on Billboard's charts in late 1978. Though none of Pearson's other singles charted, his album was a good debut and is a favorite of soft soul fans. White utilized the same studio band he used on his own million-selling hits as well as the talents of his friend, arranger Gene Page. Page whose credits list Love Unlimited,Johnny Mathis, the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," various Motown hits, and Jeffree Perry's Jeffree album, among others, imbued Pearson's LP with the same kind of shimmering arrangements he'd used on other artists' releases. Besides the aforementioned tracks, other standouts were a cover of White's previous hit "Honey Please, Can't You See," "Say It Again," andDelfonics/Philly soul-tinged "There's No One for Me, but You." Alex Chilton covered "What's Your Sign Girl" on his 1995 Ardent album, A Man Called Destruction.

click the title above for dwnld link. enjoy!

Grandad says: Bloodstone - Riddle of The Sphinx

Call me selfish and greedy, even childish, for not wanting to share this at all at first! To ME its a gem, to some of ya'll it's just another great record.

Every now and then me and grandad will get together, have some drinks, and just listen to old vinyl and talk great music! This 1975 Bloodstone record, Riddle of The Sphinx, was one of the first records grandad put me on to. Without a doubt this is one of my favorites! Sometimes it aint even about the sampling and the chopping. Sometimes it's liberating to just sit back and enjoy a classic album that speaks right to the soul. Riddle of The Sphinx is THAT exact record!

Formed in 1962 in Kansas City, Missouri, the group was originally a high school doo-wop group named the Sinceres. The members renamed themselves Bloodstone, learned to play instruments, started a funk band, and eventually moved to Los Angeles, California. Their eponymous first album, Bloodstone, introduced the songs, "That's The Way We Make Our Music", and "Natural High" which reached the R&B Top Ten, with "Natural High" reaching number 10 on the Pop chart. Bloodstone became known for their funk/soul tracks that blended Jimi Hendrix-styledrock music with doo-wop and gospel music undertones. The groups other hits include, "Never Let You Go", "Outside Woman" and "My Little Lady". Bloodstone was instrumental in the "black rock" and funk movement of the 1970s, and even had a hand in the brown-eyed soulmovement with some Latin music-tinged hits. Bloodstone performed with Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Elton John, and The Impressions.

They achieved a moderate comeback in the early 1980s with their album We Go a Long Way Back (1982), whose title track reached the R&B chart top five. The follow-up single "Go On and Cry" reached number 18. The group continued to record into the mid 1980s. Bloodstone also starred in and wrote all the music for a film entitled Train Ride To Hollywood (1975). Founding member Willis Draffen died on February 8, 2002at the age of 56.

click the title above for the dwnld link, enjoy!

Retrospek-So Cold(Produced By Rah Intelligence)

click title to download.

The Gamble....

a new side project. the members of Bad Rabbits and Retrospek have put together a live band called the Gamble. this is footage from their second jam.....enjoy and stay tuned.

Johnnie Taylor - Your Love Is Rated X

Johnnie Harrison Taylor (born May 5, 1937, Crawfordsville, Arkansas; died May 31, 2000, Dallas, Texas) was an American vocalist in a wide variety of genres, from gospel, blues and soul to pop, doo-wop and disco.

Taylor had one release, “Somewhere to Lay My Head”, on Chicago’s Chance Records in the 1950s, as part of the doo-wop group Five Echoes.Taylor was also part of the gospel group,The Highway QC’s also,replacing Sam Cooke,who had become the lead singer of the Soul Stirrers in 1951.Then,after Cooke left the Soul Stirrers in 1957,Taylor was hired to take Cooke’s place as lead singer.

A few years later, after Cooke had established his independent SAR Records, Taylor signed on and recorded “Rome Wasn’t Built In A Day” in 1962. However, SAR Records quickly became defunct after Cooke’s death in 1964.

In 1966, Taylor moved to Stax Records in Memphis, where he was dubbed “The Philosopher of Soul”. While there he recorded with the label’s house band, Booker T. & the MGs. His hits included “I Had a Dream”, “I’ve Got to Love Somebody’s Baby” (both written by the team of Isaac Hayes and David Porter) and most notably “Who’s Making Love?”, which reached No. 5 on the Billboard Top 40 and No. 1 on the R&B charts in 1968. During his tenure at Stax, he became an R&B star, with over a dozen chart successes, such as “Cheaper to Keep Her” (Mack Rice) and producer Don Davis’s “I Believe in You (You Believe in Me)”.

After Stax folded in the mid 1970s, Taylor switched to Columbia Records, where he made his best-known hit, “Disco Lady”, in 1976. “Disco Lady” was the first certified platinum single. Columbia pigeonholed Taylor as a disco artist, however, and neglected his wide-ranging talent. Not surprisingly, his record sales slipped.

After a brief stint at Beverly Glen Records, Taylor signed with Malaco Records after the label’s founder Tommy Couch and producing partner Wolf Stephenson heard him sing at blues singer Z.Z. Hill’s funeral in the spring of 1984. Backed by members of The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section as well as in-house veterans like former Stax keyboardist Carson Whitsett, Malaco gave Taylor the type of recording freedom that Stax had given him in the late 1960s and early 1970s, enabling him to record ten albums for the Malaco label in his sixteen year stint. Taylor’s record sales were good but not enough for the singer to receive the measure of stardom he once had.

In 1996, Taylor’s eighth album for Malaco, Good Love!, made it to Number One on Billboard’s Blues chart (#15 R&B), the biggest record in Malaco’s history.
Malaco recorded a live video of Taylor at the Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas, Texas in the summer of 1997.

Johnnie Taylor’s 1999 album, “Gotta Get the Groove Back”, also reached the # 1 Position on the Billboard Blues Charts. This album which featured veteran songwriter, Lamar Thmas (Woman don’t be Afraid) was also a Grammy Nominated album during the same year that Johnnie passed.

Taylor was given a Pioneer Award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation in 1999. He died in Dallas at the age of 63.

In what would turn out to be a sad foreshadowing, Taylor’s final song was “Soul Heaven”, in which he dreamed of being at a concert featuring deceased Soul music icons Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, and MGs drummer Al Jackson, among others. In one verse, Taylor sang, “I didn’t want to wake up/I was havin’ such a good time”.

---

Definitely one of those voices that just pierce right down to the soul. As soon as the needle drops... ya feel me? get a copy and let me know what you think.

click the above link for dwnld. enjoy!

Fred Wesley & The Horny Horns

Born in Mobile, Ala., Fred Wesley began his professional career as a teenage trombonist with Ike and Tina Turner. He was music director, arranger, trombonist and a primary composer for James Brown from 1968-1975, then arranged and played for Parliament-Funkadelic and Bootsy’s Rubber Band.

He has played with and arranged for a wide variety of other artists including Ray Charles, Pancho Sanchez, New York Voices, Slide Hampton, Van Morrison, the SOS Band and Cameo, to name a few. Scores of other artists including Janet Jackson and Nas have sampled his work.

Since his stint with the Count Basie Orchestra, he has maintained a focus on jazz – playing, recording, writing and promoting it. His solo jazz recordings include “To Someone,” “Amalgamation,” “Comme Ci Comme Ca,” “Full Circle” and “Wuda Cuda Shuda."

Absolutely one of my favorite cats when it comes to the funk! If you don't know, don't say I didn't put you on...

Click the above title for dwnld. enjoy!

Ann Peebles - Part Time Love

The title track was a masterpiece, and everything else on this dynamic early '70s soul session is a jewel. Ann Peebles may have been the most overlooked great soul singer, male or female, who emerged in the '70s. Hi couldn't strike crossover goldtwice, and Al Green was becoming a superstar. But Peebles deserved a better fate than obscurity, as this collection of soul wailers and weepers proves.

Click the above title for dwnld. enjoy!

TMNT 1990 - Funny Moments

Still one of the greatest movies or my early 90's! I was only 5 years old when this came out. I've managed to somehow still have this on VHS! C'mon.. who's wit me on this one?

enjoy.

Drake - Sooner or Later

Aight, I'll admit... at first I was hating hard on this cat because my 13yr old cousin has identified him as being a main character the teenie-bopper drama series, Degrassi! But after listening to a few more tracks from his latest mixtapes, I've grown to appreciate his craft as a musician.

Drake's Sooner or Later, demonstrates his abilities best to me. While I can't particularly get wit dude's "rapping", I commend Drake for his singing abilities, the way he approaches his melodies, I can appreciate.

At the end of the day, I give dude the benefit of doubt, Sooner or Later may grow on you too as it did on me.

Click on blog title for dwnld link. Enjoy!

Erin Daneele = America's next Gospel Dream!

Okay so.... who cares that it's another television-based competition, much like that of American Idol, or Nashville Star! Sure, the title is a bit cliche. But I'd even go so far as to say it's an understatement, at least in the case of Erin Daneele - who's a Gospel Dream and a star regardless! It amazes me how quickly she rizing above familiar talents already in the Gospel industry. The girl's got a voice people, don't sleep! Be sure to check her out on Gospel Music Channel's Gospel Dream, every Wednesday from 10/9c.

Click on the title link above to check out her myspace and show some love!

Fran-P "Humming Bird" Music Video

Another job well done by Fran-P. I had to post it mainly cuz homegirl in the video is beautiful, but also cuz this is one of my favorites by Fran-P. I'm TELLING you.. Don't sleep on Fran-P ya'll!

Music Video: Fran-p "What They Want"

Released just a year ago, this talented young cat from Boston is definitely on the come-up! Featuring the music of the beatmaster himself, Rah Intelligence, this hiphop truth is what some of ya'll NEED! Trust me... this aint the last time you'll hear from Fran-P. My boy will forever stay making moves and giving 'em What They Want!

Enjoy!

Stevie Ray Vaughan - Texas Flood

More like a National Flood if you understand the expression played by THE man Stevie Ray Vaughn. What better way than to kick off this blog than with a little bit of Blues. Afterall, with the current state of the economy, we all got the Blues!

Some say he's over-rated... I say he often over-looked when it comes to Blues guitarists who know how to play with sould an emotion.

---

Long version of Texas Flood by stevie ray vaughn ! Texas Flood is an electric blues album by blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan and his band Double Trouble, released in 1983.

Although "Texas Flood" has three verses of lyrics, the song is more of a prolonged guitar solo, allowing Vaughan to show off his characteristic electric blues style. During live shows, he would often play portions of this song behind his back, arousing an enthusiastic crowd response. Stylistically, "Texas Flood" is structured around the common three chord blues progression. Written and performed in the key of G (sounding F# because of Vaughan's tuning), it is in 12/8 time, or compound time[1], which gives it a "slow burning" feel that is common in Texas blues.

enjoy.