Music biz legend Joe "Mr. C" McEwen has a memoir on the way

 A&R exec, writer and music fan Joe McEwen's memoir Tastykakes, Soul Songs & Shining Stars is out April 28th via ZE Books.

Here's the scoop...

ZE Books has announced the release of Joe McEwen’s ‘Tastykakes, Soul Songs and Shining Stars’ on April 28, a labor of love - half a century in the making - from a respected music industry stalwart. A Philadelphia native and an A&R executive for Columbia, Sire/Warner Brothers, Verve, and Concord Music Group - McEwen gathers a lifetime’s worth of encounters, essays, and reveries into one radiant collection, a love letter to rhythm-and-blues and soul music. Its pages are bursting with vivid, compelling, up-front and personal profiles (predominantly written by McEwen while working as a music journalist in the 1970s) with a host of indelible figures: Pops and Mavis Staples, George Clinton, Allen Toussaint, Betty Wright, Michael Jackson, Gamble and Huff, Don Covay, and many more.

“This book is meant to be a fan’s notes with, as its heart and soul, a collection of profiles all written between 1973 and 1978,” reflects McEwen in the book’s introduction. “While rereading these during Covid down time, the vitality of the voices and the vivid memories reconnected me with feelings and emotions that had been long stored in my mental attic. I thought they deserved a second airing.”

Alongside these portraits of legends at the peak of their powers are heartfelt musings spanning the 1960s through the ’80s - illuminating the creative processes behind the songs that defined a generation. Interwoven throughout are reflections on basketball, memory, and movement — parallel sources of rhythm, improvisation, and joy. The book culminates in an extended 2024 conversation with esteemed music author and longtime confidant Peter Guralnick (Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke), a fitting finale to a collection that captures the soul of a lifetime in music.

“This is a tribute to some of the music and artists that have provided me with the building blocks, the sturdy foundation for a career and a never-ending journey of wonder,” McEwen summarizes as the book’s final chapter concludes. “I saw James Brown at the Arena in West Philadelphia in the fall of 1966. It was the first music performance I had ever attended. Somewhere inside remains the heart of a 16-year-old kid at the Arena, overcome by a sense of uncomprehending, incredulous amazement at the drama and spectacle unfolding before me.”

Praise for Tastykakes, Soul Songs & Shining Stars...

“Joe McEwen has long been one of our most incisive connoisseurs of Black music, a journalist with the rare gift of radical empathy. Among the hits collected here: the best profile of Michael Jackson ever written. Read the book, play some music-and rediscover the gospel truth of American soul music.” - JAMES MILLER, author of Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock & Roll 1947-1977 and original editor of The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll

“Joe McEwen’s collection is an essential text that captures the textures of pre-hip hop Black pop culture with a sensuous eye. The writing here is as soulful as the music it celebrates.” - NELSON GEORGE, author of The Death of Rhythm & Blues and City Life: A Writer’s Memoir of Ghetto Life and Post-Soul Success

“Joe McEwen’s essays on essential musicians and athletes are so heartfelt and deep that this collection has the emotional wallop of a searing memoir. Every piece here is sweeter than a Tastykake.” - STEVEN LEVY, author of Hackers, Insanely Great, and Facebook: The Inside Story

“Joe McEwen writes beautifully about the Soul greats that he encounters in this book. It’s as electrifying as hearing ‘Dancing in the Street’ for the first time. Each chapter sends you straight back to the music. American art at its finest.” - GEOFF TRAVIS, Founder and currently joint MD, Rough Trade Records

You can pre-order Joe McEwen’s ‘Tastykakes, Soul Songs & Shining Stars’ right here. Check out an interview with Joe McEwen conducted by Barney Hoskyns for the Rock's Back Pages podcast. 

 

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Bootsy's 1969 demo for James Brown "More Mess On My Thing" due Black Friday

The three-track More Mess On My Thing album is being issued by Now-Again for Black Friday (Record Store Day) on November 22. 

Here's the scoop...
Rumored no more: More Mess On My Thing, the demo Bootsy Collins and his band recorded for James Brown in 1969 that won them the title “The J.B.’s” – and changed the course of popular music. Also included is the complete version of “When You Feel It, Grunt If You Can,” presenting two never-issued songs in a 22-minute medley, and the unreleased instrumental “The Wedge.”

This is the companion piece to Now-Again’s first-ever issue of the lost J.B.’s album These Are The J.B.’s. All tracks mixed by Mario Caldato, directly from the original multi-track masters. Overseen by Egon and Universal Music Group’s in-house Brown expert Harry Weinger.

Contains extensive booklet with full annotation, liner notes by James Brown historian Alan Leeds and never-before-published photos. Coming out on Black Friday Record Store Day November 22!

The J.B.'s - More Mess On My Thing
A1 More Mess On My Thing
A2 The Wedge
B1 When You Feel It Grunt If You Can (Complete Take)

Tweeted Bootsy:

James Brown's 1969 homecoming concert in Augusta to be issued in October

Marking the 50th anniversary of James Brown's explosive 1969 show, the Live At Home With His Bad Self 2LP set is out October 25th. 

James Brown: Live at Home with His Bad Self (2LP vinyl)
Side 1
1. Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud
2. James Brown Thanks and Introduction to “World”*
3. World*
4. Stage Dialogue*
Side 2
1. Lowdown Popcorn*
2. Spinning Wheel*
3. If I Ruled The World
4. Kansas City*
Side 3
1. Introduction to Startime
2. I Don’t Want Nobody To Give Me Nothing (Open Up the Door I’ll Get It Myself)
3. I Got The Feelin’*/Licking Stick-Licking Stick
4. Try Me*
5. There Was A Time **
Side 4
1. Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose*
2. It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World
3. Please, Please, Please
4. I Can’t Stand Myself (When You Touch Me)
5. Mother Popcorn **

* Previously Unreleased / All other performances, though previously issued in some form, are presented in new mixes, including: ** Extended from track’s original release

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Unissued & unheard 1970 album by The JBs with Bootsy Collins due November 28

The "lost" album by James Brown's JBs backing group featuring Bootsy Collins is being issued by Now Again.

In 1970 James Brown perfectly captured a definitive moment in modern music when he called Bootsy Collins into the studio to record the tracks that would be These Are The J.B.’s, a title given to a King Records test-press LP that was never released, and only rumored to exist.

This album is the epitome of funk music, Brown’s innovation that influenced everything that came after it, from Afro-beat to disco to hip-hop. And if there is any funk ensemble as influential as Brown’s in the post-“Cold Sweat” musical landscape, it’s the Bootsy Collins/Parliament/Funkadelic contingent. Those two streams, as Grammy-winning James Brown historian Alan Leeds details in this album’s liner notes, converged for the first time here, making this a Rosetta Stone of funk’s dominant idioms.

This link between Brown’s funk and all that followed features Bootsy and his young band running through twelve-minute instrumental take of Marva Whitney’s “It’s My Thing,” replete with blues chord changes, alongside interpretations of the Meters, Kool and the Gang and none other than Jimi Hendrix. This is a young band’s James Brown-turned-on-his-head style of funk that they nail in a one-minute vamp that embodies the essence of the psychedelic-flavored music that would propel them into the orbit of George Clinton’s mothership.

This is the first commercial issue of this 4-song album, overseen by Now Again’s Eothen “Egon” Alapatt alongside Leeds and Universal Music Group’s resident James Brown expert Harry Weinger. It was mastered specifically for vinyl by Elysian Master’s Dave Cooley, from the original two-track stereo master that James Brown and his engineer Ron Lenhoff delivered to production forty-four years ago. It’s packaged in a thick, “tip-on” jacket, with a booklet with liner notes by Leeds and Alapatt and unpublished photographs.

These Are The J.B.'s, the previously unreleased and unheard 1970 album by James Brown’s backing band the JB’s featuring Bootsy Collins will be released on November 28, 2014. 

Limited to 3000 pieces – VINYL ONLY.  Pre-order your copy right here.

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RIP Marva Whitney, 1944 - 2012