More than just a straight cover, Speedometer have married Eddie Bo & Inez Cheatham’s classic track to an arrangement of “I Got The Feelin’” by James Brown with great results. With a new album “The Shakedown” to be released on Freestyle Records on 27th September, judging by this track alone it looks like the album is going to be hot too.

A remarkable compilation from James Brown of unstoppable heavy funk classics and unreleased gems. Originally released in 1986 to capture the ears of the sampling generation, this compliation has now been nicely expanded making it even more essential than ever. Covering a period from late ’69 to the early 70′s, it is JB at the height of his considerable funk powers – suddenly the godfather grew from a diminutive 5’6″ to seemingly become a kind of colossus funk godzilla, stamping his grooves over cities and leaving an indelible influence in his wake.

He was able to capitalise on the formation of a new band, the J.B.’s, consisting of both young and experienced musicians. For perhaps the first time in his career, JB took influence from the young members led by a 19 year old Bootsy Collins on bass and his brother, the recently departed Phelps Collins (R.I.P.), on guitar. Their enthusiasm and excitement at having been picked to play in the band was clear and infectious. On the other side, the mature band members who had stuck with JB through thick and thin were now showing the benefit of experience – notably seasoned drummer Clyde Stubblefield who cut the Funky Drummer for JB in late ’69, a track that is considered to be the most sampled piece of music in history. Indeed the mix of this old and new proved at times explosive as the re-edit of Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose proves with its break heavy interplay between Bootsy and Clyde – surely one of the best examples of funk out there. The “re-edit” simply takes out the crowd overdubs and tightens up the break, rather than mess with anything it shouldn’t. Whilst Talkin Loud And Saying Nothing can be seen as a militant strike against Vietnam War era politicians, elsewhere the celebrations of I Got To Move, Hot Pants and Soul Power are enough to charge anyone’s batteries. Add to this the previously unreleased and rhythmically stunning full version of Blind Man Can See It which leads me to wonder what else may be lying unreleased in the vaults. It is true that no one else had more releases than JB with a new single pretty much every week and an average of five or six album releases a year, some of the good stuff was going to get left behind.

These songs are an explosive and dynamic expression of the human condition in the inimitable style James Brown and only James Brown could have achieved. At times militant and revolutionary; whilst also celebratory, innovative and down right funky, funky, funky. This serves either as a fantastic introduction to James Brown or essential collection for any funk fan.

“Clap your hands and stomp your feet…”

Wow! If you made it down to the last Funkalicious, you probably witnessed Randa Khamis perform an incredible vocal set of songs from her funky album “Randa & The Soul Kingdom” on Freestyle Records to a crowd of smiling faces. Well just in case you did miss it or, better still, you want more, we asked Randa back to do another set as it went down so well. It will also be the last chance to catch Randa perform for now as she will be returning to her native Australia in September. Call it “The Last Funky Hurrah” if you will! + DJs Philster & Popcorn spinning funk & soul – all for FREE!!

http://www.myspace.com/randaandthesoulkingdom

Randa & The Soul Kingdom at Freestyle Records

Friday 3rd September
9pm-3am
The White Horse
94, Brixton Hill
Brixton SW2 1QN
FREE

www.whitehorsebrixton.com

How to get there

Randa Khamis at Funkalicious

Randa Khamis at Funkalicious

Randa Khamis at Funkalicious