Gettin' Funky: The Birth of New Orleans R&B [Box set, Import]

Getting' Funky: Birth of Ne (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 28, 2003)
• Original Release Date: 2001
• Number of Discs: 4
• Format: Box set, Import
• Note on Boxed Sets: During shipping, discs in boxed sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we'll refund or replace your purchase.
• Label: Proper Box UK
• ASIN: B00005QZF2
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #49,070 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #45 in Music > Blues > Regional Blues > New Orleans Blues
  • #69 in Music > Imports > Blues
  • #96 in Music > Blues > Jump Blues

Track Listings

1. Dupree Shake Dance - Champion Jack Dupree

2. Junker Blues - Champion Jack Dupree

3. Big Time Mama - Champion Jack Kupree

4. Byrds Blues - Professor Longhair

5. Her Mind Is Gone - Professor Longhair

6. Bald Head - Professor Longhair

7. Hey Now Baby - Professor Longhair

8. Oh Well - Professor Longhair

9. Hadacol Bounce - Professor Longhair

10. Longhair Stomp - Professor Longhair

11. Been Fooling Around - Professor Longhair

12. Between The Night And Day (In The Wee Wee Hours ) - Professo

13. Hey Now Baby - Professor Longhair

14. Mardi Gras In New Orleans - Professor Longhair

15. She Walks Right In - Professor Longhair

16. Hey Little Girl - Professor Longhair

17. Willie Mae - Professor Longhair

18. Walk Your Blues Away - Professor Longhair

19. Professor Longhair Blues - Professor Longhair

20. Boogie Woogie - Professor Longhair

See all 99 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

UK compilation, 'Getting Funky - The Birth Of New Orleans R&B'. Featuring the pioneers of this funky down home music. Four CDs, 107 tracks & a 56 page booklet make this a fabulous set. Artists include, Champion Jack Dupree, Professor Longhair, Archibald, Dave Bartholomew, Paul Gayten, Smiley Lewis, Roy Brown, Fats Domino & a host of others. Slipcase.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Many gems and discoveries, but often more archival, March 22, 2006

By 

Frank Camm (Northern Virginia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gettin' Funky: The Birth of New Orleans R&B (Audio CD)

Vol 1. 5 stars. Champion Jack Dupree, Professor Longhair, Archibald. Nice sampler of New Orleans (NO) piano styles that make it easy to understand where Fats Domino came from. Mainly piano, male vocal with drums distinctly in the back. Many include a sax or guitar as well. Styles draw heavily on boogie-woogie at the core and add distinctive syncopation and lilt that instantly signal NO. Mambos offer an extreme version of squinky NO rhythms. Several reach into cha-cha and ska territory. At the other end, blues and R&B provide the foundation. Professor Longhair's style is crisp, clean, creative, quintessential to NO. Archibald is simpler, more traditionally down-home R&B. Archibald has a fuller ensemble than Longhair or Dupree. [78:56]

Vol 2. Dave Bartholomew, Paul Gayten, Smiley Lewis. Fascinating mix of blues, traditional pop, Latin, swing, and boogie, with R&B all around the edges and interstices. The hidden link from swing to rock and roll clearly ran through this territory, but no jump blues here. Bartholomew evokes NO only through his use of small jazz combos that bring traditional jazz to mind as they play proto-R&B. He is the closest to traditional swing of the three. Gayten is the find here, the most ambitious, with the widest range of styles. He touches Ellington, second-line, traditional pop, and blues. He finds the combination of raw roots and traditional pop that opened the way to '50s R&B, doo wop, and ultimately soul. Lewis feels the closest to NO, perhaps because he uses the piano the most, because his vocalist is most like Fats Domino, or he captures the sui generis lilt more often than the others. That said, he is the bluesiest and rootsiest of the three. Stand-out: tr 13-Gayten: My rough and ready man (sexy torcher struts then scats through a swing blues) [70:44]

Vol. 3. Roy Brown, Fats Domino, Larry Darnell. Roy Brown is an integral part of the hidden link between swing and rock. He has an exceptionally mellow, velvety voice, but can shout 12-bar boogies and blues with the best of them. Fats Domino, as presented here, is mainly still finding his way to his signature style. His piano is getting there faster than he is, but hints pop up everywhere. Lilt I associate with NO is still in-progress here. Larry Darnell somehow embodies all the elements of the transition from swing to rock and roll with a strong voice and a tight, sophisticated, but low-key band. Standouts: tr 10-Brown: Please don't go (slow-tempered 12-bar blues with pleading piano, swaying charted horns, rough swing throughout). tr 21-Domino: Hey La Bas boogie (fast-rolling boogie; hot sax solo swings hard as Fats struts vocally in French). tr 24-Domino: Careless love (moderate pace, NO lilt, light and heavenly piano, standard song structure, and finally Fats's characteristic vocal style-he has arrived!) tr 27-Darnell: I'll get along somehow (effortlessly leaps from '30s swing singer to roots of R&B and doo-wop). [77:19]

Vol. 4. Chubby Newsome, Alma Monday, George Miller, Little Joe Gaines, Hose Owne Craven, James Locks, Erline Harris, Johnson Brothers Combo, Tommy Ridgely, Jewel King, Joe August. Music where swing, jazz, blues, boogie, and rock and roll slosh together without making firm distinctions. They mix and match in different ways on different tracks. A 12-bar blues structure dominates. Chord changes slip easily from boogie to rock and roll. Bands are still generally as tight as those in swing and jazz and lyrics are typically more adult than rock and roll. Generally tasty; generally without great distinction. Jewel King is the big find. She is fully in command of a tight band that can groove on its own and back up when she sings out. Joe August is at the other end-what is this novelty slinger doing here? Stand-outs: tr 18-Johnson Brothers Combo: Mellow woman blues (very cool rolling blues swing with precision indigo-jazzy horn charts, stride po). tr 22-Jewel King: I'll get by (light, quick, tight, sassy boogie-woogie).

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great find! Proper Records has done it again!, April 24, 2010

By 

M. A. Casey (Las Vegas, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gettin' Funky: The Birth of New Orleans R&B (Audio CD)

Well, I could never write a review nearly as great as the other reviewer of this product, Frank Camm, could. But I'll give my two cents. I love this box set, it contains 107 tracks and a 56-page booklet. The booklet is excellent and well-researched, and the music is mostly great. It covers early New Orleans-style R&B from about 1941 (starting with Champion Jack Dupree) and ends about 1950. This style of music helped shape rock and roll and later, soul. Of course, we have the legends, like Professor Longhair and Fats Domino, but we also have the unjustly forgotten singers like Annie Laurie, Chubby Newsom, and Jewel King. I like the fact that most of the "hits" from the more well-known singers aren't here (like you can't find Blueberry Hill or I Hear You Knockin' on countless other compilations!).


My only complaints: three songs from Champion Jack Dupree is not enough! He was a great and overlooked piano thumper who undoubtedly influenced all others that followed. He deserved more than three songs here. And even though it is claimed that Professor Longhair's "Hey Now Baby" are just two different versions of the same song recorded years apart by different lineups, it sounds like the same song. As much as I love 'Fess, only one version should have been here, and I could have really done without the overplayed "Mardi Gras In New Orleans". Just so that Dupree could have had at least a couple of other songs here. There are eighteen songs by 'Fess and only three by Dupree, which I find lopsided. Also, Fats Domino's Korea Blues would be a much better song without that dang trumpet playing army songs. Also, Joe August's "I Cried" is laughable, with ridiculous fake crying throughout. Also, I have to skip over Larry Darnell's "I'll Get Along Somehow"...it's bad enough that the song itself is just sappy and overwrought, but when he gets to part two and starts reading letters from his ex, egad! No wonder she dumped him. A good breakup song should have one feeling sympathy for the dumpee, not leave one laughing at or feeling scornful toward them! That is exactly how I felt after hearing August's and Darnell's aforementioned pieces of drool.

But the other songs range from really good to great...I love that Roy Brown was obviously influenced by Wynonie Harris. If you like Harris then you'll like Roy Brown too. Brown himself was obviously a huge influence on early rock and roll. You'll find his original version of "Rockin' At Midnight" here (some might remember the poorly done cover by The Honeydrippers in the early 1980's), as well as the incredibly risque "Lolly Pop Mama" (how this one got past the censors I'll never know! This is one dirty song! And coming from me that's quite a statement). It was also funny to read in the booklet that Brown's biggest hero and influence was none other than Bing Crosby! I kid you not.

I loved almost all of the singers and musicians here, and I really loved hearing great music from the people I'd never heard before or only read about in passing. But one part of it made me sad, is that how many of them deserved more fame and didn't get it. For instance, Annie Laurie, Jewel King, Chubby Newsom, and Alma Mondy...fantastic female voices and whatever happened to them? Vanished into obscurity, tragically! Then there's the people who only few R&B fans know, like Archibald and Smiley Lewis (who is only remembered by way of "I Hear You Knockin"---some people do not even know Smiley's version, only that dreadful cover by Dave Edmunds). Performers who were completely overshadowed, underrated, and forgotten. Archibald should be as legendary as Professor Longhair, most people do not know that Lloyd Price's hit "Stagger Lee" is actually an EXTREMELY close cover of Arch's cover of the standard "Stack-O-Lee"! It made me feel bad to read about all the people who disappeared or died forgotten and broke, while inferior artists get hits and mansions. As I've said before, the business isn't fair.

Rock on! And happy listening!

5.0 out of 5 stars Love this compilation, January 9, 2012

By 

nicbudd "Nicki B" (Metairie, LA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Gettin' Funky: The Birth of New Orleans R&B (Audio CD)

This is a great compilation. I love New Orleans R&B, Jazz, and Blues and this touches on the roots of the modern music scene. If you like this, I also recommend New Orleans' public radio, available at [...] internet radio.