Customer Reviews

Pure Cane Sugar

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
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Initially heard this one at a friends house and thought it was from the 1970's. When I learned it came out in 2002, I was amazed. Who is producing this fat, juicy kind of R&B/Soul these days? Sugarman 3 is. Tight bass an' drum section with hooky guitar riffs. Echo's of blaxplotation era soundtracks. Nice horn section an' that funky clavinet sound. Vocals by Lee Fields in the James Brown style.
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Pure Cane Sugar. Pure cane sweet it is. All tracks are strong. About half of these tracks carry the James Brown style of vocal, but the strength of this album lies in the instrumentals. You like that Hammond B3 organ sound, extended B3 jams paired with a super funky hot rythm section - this is a must have. This album even pulls off a flute with contagiousness on 10 (and that's almost unheard of in my book). My favorites of the album are 3 Pure Cane, and 10 Culebra - both instrumental, downtempo jams. Those two alone worth the purchase. And there are no skippers in here. Favorites to skip to as with everything, but nothing requiring the punch.

And for the love of God, see these guys live if you get the chance. Float by the Daptone web site for gig info. They seem to reside in the Chicago / NY area when not out and about. If they ever get out West, this is one group that will get the No Holds Barred treatment to get me there. Never heard them in person, granted, but some things are simple no-brainers.

Sugar has some other stuff out I am slowly acquiring. Some are not available (out of print) these days, so you may have to hunt the unusual pipelines to get them. But its worth it. Try "gemm" where Amazon has a void.

But this has RHYTHM. Been exploring the soul jazz/boogaloo genre for a while, and there are common threads...the hammond, the alto sax, the jazz, the jammin...but there are only a few albums out there that have the 'updated beat' like this album has, and it makes it so much funkier and cooler to listen too. The beat I'm talking about sounds like it belongs in a hip-hop song of the mid 90's..it's the beat that got me into music in the first place.

Modern, yet timeless! By far the best CD by the Sugarman 3, and one of the best recent funk albums of all (along with "Thunder Chicken" by the Mighty Imperials). I'm not crazy about some of their other CD's though. This is definitely the one to buy.

Holy Lord, what a great band. Some funky grooves and solid musicianship. If you miss out on this it is your loss. Buy the album.

I randomly stumbled across the guys and I'm ecstatic that I did. This album defines soul boogaloo music. Every musical aspect is great except the bass (but it does it's job and stays in the pocket). The hammond organ is great on this cd and even crazier on their other album Sweet Spot. So get this if you are into soul/boogaloo/jazz/funk because it definitely contains some aspect of all those genres. My suggestion is to maybe puff a lil cheeba and check out modern jive.