Alvin "Shine" Robinson had a career as a New Orleans session musician, and then had a few hit singles himself, cut for the Red Bird label. But what intrigues me most are the tracks cut in 1969, half of which didn't get released until years later on various soul comps in the U.K.. From what I could piece together, the majority of those tracks were co-written with Mac Rebennack, aka Dr. John, along with either Jessie Hill or King Floyd, and all of those tracks, nine to be exact, smoke. Two were released on the Pulsar label, but I could find little info on the rest.
Coming in at a little over 22 minutes of recorded music, Robinson's output of 1969, is to my ears, lightning in a bottle.
What makes this stuff so appealing to me is that it’s not just novelty. We all fall into the trap of finding the most ridiculous low rent garage rock or garage soul 45s. The more obscure and harsh sounding, the better. These tracks are not that. Here we have New Orleans' legends creating magic that somehow fell through the cracks, as far as I could tell.
Check out the two videos, and if you feel like I do, you can unzip all of them below.
1969 TRACKLIST
Better Be Cool
I've Never Been In Love
We Got Love
Cry, Cry, Cry
Empty Talk
Soulful Woman
Sho 'Bout To Drive Me Wild
Tuned In, Turned On
Serpent Woman
13 comments:
None of these are in my collection, so thanks for not only highlighting, but compiling!
And I don't know if there's some kinda synchronicity going on here, but that first AR number's syncopated riff hook sounds awfully like that from 'Hitch Hike' (which undoubtedly influenced it) and the VU's 'There She Goes Again' (which 'borrowed' it from 'Hitch Hike').....whose title, in turn, reminds me of the La's classic, found on....The Best Thing (You) Listened To Yesterday.
C in California
All Robinson's output is all very well worth exploring - including some great stuff pre-Red Bird for Imperial in 1961/62 - though unfortunately not to be found all in one place (and a lot of still unreleased tracks allegedly).
Thanks Sal. More wonders from the 60s!
Alvin Robinson is very underrated, thanks for the tunes!
Captain Al
This is tremendous. Happy Monday!! Thanks.
to track you posted Great. Certainly gonna check out the rest . Thanks
And may I just say and for the record (as it were) that "You Angel You" is one of my fave obscure Dylan songs and I was less than thrilled with that Manfred Mann cover? Thank you. 😎
He only released about 34 singles. Sadly, he was considered a Ray Charles imitator, at the time when Ray was still consistently on the charts. Here's a link to a long discarded website that gives a good overiew of Alvin. Sadly, the link to the compilation is dead. I have a copy of it and if wanted, I can send it to Sal for him to post. https://deepsouthernsoul.blogspot.com/2017/08/alvin-robinson-complete-shine.html#comment-form
34 singles. Wow. That's a lot more than I thought. A few years back I bought a compilation that had all periods. It was at a record meet. The guy that sold it to me had a lot of "bootleg" collections by relatively obscure artists. He had a lot of "airchecks" too. I thought the Robinson set was pretty comprehensive. But if he cut 68 sides then I guess it's nowhere near complete. If.
Robinson's "Something You Got," received a lot of airplay on my local radio station during the height of Beatlemania, I remember buying it and Bobby Bland's "Ain't Nothing You Can Do," on the same trip to Gillette's that I got "The Beatles' Second Album." Boss Sound All Around.
Not EVEN a Ray Charles imitator. Robinson is a beast.
VR
Just noticed the new cover tune posted. The Butt and crew do an energetic version of Clampdown. Quite frankly, it kicks ass. I got nothing against people approaching a billion dollars net worth. But when they charge 400 dollars a seat for the privilege of watching them sing anti-capitalist rants, it is the height of hypocrisy
VR
Thank you Sal for posting this .The Tracks you posted sound great.Love that old soul stuff!!
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