It's Thursday! AKA Thunor's Day, the day between Wednesday and Friday, the fourth day of the week, and that means only one thing.... it's time for another edition of everybody's favourite segment "Throwback Thursday". For this weeks edition (#7 for those playing at home) I have chosen a track that is a perfect example of what a Throwback song should be, in this case a lost funk gem! The track that I am speaking of is "Brothers On The Slide" by funk group Cymande (Cymande is derived from the Calypso word for Dove, hence last week's cryptic clue). I must admit, I only heard this song a few weeks ago myself so I wasn't familiar with it or Cyamnde and I'm betting most of you haven't heard of the group or the song before either. However the first time I heard that unmistakable bass line kick in I knew that this was going to be something special. Cymande were pretty big back in the 70's and were comprised of Guyanan expats living in London. Brothers On The Slide is one of their standout tracks, it has that unmistakable groove that you just can't resist. The bass-line, the bongo's, the horns and the smooth vocal harmonies make this a truly great song. It is classic funk at it's best and I challenge any man, woman or child to listen to this track and not dig it. Anyway check out Brothers On The Slide below with stream/download of the track, and lots of other bonus content after the jump.
DOWNLOAD: Cymande - Brothers On The Slide
Brothers On The Slide appeared on Cymande's third studio album, "Promised Heights". If you like the sound of this track you're sure to love the rest of the album, as it's full of classic dub-style funk. I highly reccommend picking up Promised Heights or Renegades of Funk (a compilation of their greatest songs) if you can get you hands on either of them. Click the image of link below to go through to Amazon to try and score yourself a copy of the Promised Heights LP.
BUY: Cymande - Promised Heights
BUY: Cymande - Renegades of Funk (Compilation)
I'm always one to support artists, and that's why I urge you to buy Cymande's Renegades of Funk album, but as the Promised Heights LP is out of print and quite hard to get hold of I thought I'd provide a free Mediafire download link. So if you can't get yourself an original version of the LP, click below to download and enjoy the sweet sounds of Cymande - Promised Heights.
DOWNLOAD: Cymande - Promised Heights (1974)
Now what would an edition of Throwback Thursday be without a little video surprise? Well this week I've got an awesome live video of a reformed Cymande performing Brothers On The Slide at the 2010 "Vintage at Goodwood" festival. The track performed live sounds just as funky as the original recording, so make sure you check it out below.
Finally because I know you guys love surprises I thought I'd throw in this little ditty. One of my favourite hip-hop artists of all time, MF DOOM (now known only as "DOOM") also sampled Brothers On The Slide for the track "Cedar" which appeared on his Special Herbs instrumental album series. Check out Cedar below -
DOWNLOAD: MF DOOM - Cedar
Well that brings us to the end of another Throwback Thursday, but fear not it will return next week. As has become the tradition I should really give all you readers out there a few clues on who or what will be featured in next weeks edition. Next weeks is another tricky one as it's a rare groove which I'm betting not many of you will have heard, so here goes. This soul/funk group's only album was released in 1978 and was recorded as a tribute to Hare Krishna. The song from the album that I am choosing was also sampled by rapper Common for a song on his debut album, Can I Borrow a Dollar. If you do a bit of research that should be enough to figure out the artist, album and song. Again if you think you know who it is, post your answer in the comments section below. Otherwise I'll see you same day, same time, same place for another Throwback!
No comments:
Post a Comment