Welcome back to a brand new week and another dose of ‘The Good Stuff’

A big thanks to Jamie Coughlan for having me back as a guest DJ at his monthly night, Bump & Hustle at The Elbow Room. It was another highly enjoyable night and the 150+ crowd that turned up were great, as well as very receptive to the 45s that we both dropped. A fantastic time was, as they say, had by all and I look forward to hopefully another call up next month……

While I’m on the subject of London based nights, I’d like to give a shout out to the guys who run Juke Box Jam over in East London. I headed down there on Friday night and thoroughly enjoyed myself. They have a great venue at The George Tavern on Commercial Road. Friday night featured Liam Large, Gabriel and Michael Jemmeson who all played an awesome selection of R&B, Jump Blues and Ska. The night also always has a live band. On Friday it was The Coalminers who knocked out some brilliant New Orleans R&B. Definitely well worth a visit if you’re in the area!

On to the business in hand and I’ve got not one but two slices of soul music for you. Something old and something new!

First up is Lee Dorsey with ‘Get Out Of My Life Woman’ released in 1965 on Stateside Records (It was also given an outing on his Amy album as well as on Bell Records). Written by the formidable Allen Toussaint, who went on to release his own version a few years later on Bell Records, this has to be one of Lee Dorsey’s most recognizable hits. It’s been heavily covered by everyone from Jimi Hendrix through to The Doors and secondly it’s a corner stone sample that has been used by everyone worth their salt in Hip Hop History!

The 45 kicks off with the much emulated and used drum beat, those that look a little further will discover another whole bunch of goodness with some fantastic rolling piano licks and punchy horns rounding up an awesome cut. After listening to this cut it should be plainly obvious to anyone just why he earned himself the nickname Mr T’n'T!!

Which brings us to the second of today’s 45’s. Mayer Hawthorne & The County give us this new Stones Throw release from earlier this year. This is a track which admittedly I was a little late onto. However not that late, as I luckily managed to snap up one of the very last copies from the good people at Jazzman Records.

With only a 1000 copies pressed up it has become collectable from the get go. A quick swing by Ebay shows the track has started to bottom out in price now at around £30, whereas just over a month ago I’d heard about three figure sums being mentioned along side its name!?!?!! It’s the A-side of this heart shaped 7”/10” which gets the run out today. Mayer Hawthorne hails from Ann Arbor near Motor City and is responsible for every part of this cut, from the instruments through to the backing vocals!

Press play and hey! Guess what? There’s that fantastic drum break from ‘Get Out Of My Life Woman’! The track has a very bare bones feel but I love it (I guess it wouldn’t be here on these pages if I didn’t!) and it’s definitely been on repeat play here at Hook and Sling HQ. A mixed reception has been given on this one, it seems to be fairly similar to marmite in the respect you’ll either love it or hate it. Either way, I for one am looking forward to his next output with baited breath, as this IMHO is a pretty tough cookie to follow!

Enjoy the two tracks today and I’ll be back here soon with some more heat for you.