Here's one of Keb Darge's favourite hard-to-find rockabilly gems."Little Bit Lonesome" cut by Charles Ross on Clay-Ro Records.
Writes Keb Darge...
"My only real claim to fame on the rockabilly scene and the main reason I sold some nice garage punk recently. Just over thirty years ago I was chatting with Lew Stanley from North Carolina about some soul and funk records I was buying off him when he said “Oh Keb, you like rockabilly don’t you ? I’ve found one that nobody seems to know”. He then played this to me and just after the opening bars I said yes I’ll have it please. I then played it to all the rockabilly collecting elite back in London and right enough none of them had heard of it before. I played it out for about a year, but sadly rockabilly did not go down well at the nights I was doing back then, so when Barney Koumis offered me a handsome four figure sum for it I accepted. Been kicking myself ever since, but now it’s back home, Hoooorah !!!"
Keb Darge talks about how he got into 60s garage punk and 50s rockabilly after decades of spinning northern soul and funk.
Here's the scoop...
The Ace Records Podcast features interviews conducted by journalist, record collector and broadcaster Pete Paphides with guests from many branches of the extended Ace family, detailing their own careers, the artists that have influenced their lives and the records that they love, all enjoyably explored with your host, over two microphones and plenty of cups of tea.
Episode 32 – Keb Darge
The latest episode of the Ace podcast welcomes an in-house superstar, Keb Darge aka "Tarzan." With five decades on the Northern Soul scene, 18 years at Madame Jojos playing Deep Funk before latterly segueing into 60s garage punk and 50s rockabilly, his enthusiasm knows no bounds – although he does draw the line at New Romantics. This TaeKwonDo and disco dancing champion is a DJ who doesn't consider himself a collector. In fact, such a good DJ, he used to set records up for Paul Weller under the decks where no one could see him.
Keb has many and varied stories including his unique approach to cover-ups as a Northern Soul DJ in Wigan, how he deals with punters with requests, selling off his entire collection of rare Northern soul records after a divorce in 1987, getting paid surprisingly well for spinning rare groove in Tokyo, scrounging through record warehouses in the U.S. for three weeks with John Manship back in the 90s, dancing in a Blow Monkeys video and helping the people of the Philippines after a tsunami and oddly finding rare 45s strewn all over a 50-mile stretch of coastline. Versatile is the word. Have a listen to Kebbo's freewheeling hour-long chat with Pete right here.
Popular club DJ Keb Darge – who knows dusty garages and rare records – turns up some cool cuts on this intro to 60s teen punk.
Here's the scoop...
After the success of Keb Darge’s 2023 Ace Rockabilly compilation (CHD 1637) the legend returns with another collection of music close to his heart.
On “Keb Darge Presents The Best Of Ace Sixties Garage Punk” the smooth-headed maestro pulls open his curtains to reveal a selection of US garage stompers from the 60s. “Though there are a couple of “never before on vinyl” tunes here for serious collectors, this compilation is aimed at those folk who are just getting into it,” states Keb “I have picked a selection of my favourites from the nice cheap and easy to find stuff up to the four figure and bloody hard to find stuff.” Artists like the Hooterville Trolley, the Litter, the Music Machine, the Venturie 5, The Lyrics and the Nightcrawers reflect back light towards British invasion bands like the Who, the Kinks and the Rolling Stones, home-grown garage flowers and the dark end of the psychedelic street. Laced with fuzzed guitar, enthusiasm, a driving beat and an attitude that was proto-punk this music remains fresh and is already being embraced by a new generation.
With liner notes from Keb and housed in a sleeve by Robin Banks −who also did the artwork for Keb’s Rockabilly compilation − this is an essential purchase. Get a copy directly from Ace UK right here here. Check out a few tracks below.
Ace/Kent's seven 7" box of highly sought-after Shrine Records material "Rare Soul Sides" is due out May 31.
Shrine Records - Rare Soul Sides: Washington DC 1965-1967
Set up by Eddie Singleton with Berry Gordy’s ex-wife and co-founder of Motown, Raynoma (Miss Ray) in 1964, the Shrine label, based in Washington DC, has been a buzzword for collectors for over fifty years. Shrine had no hits; in fact very few sales at all. What it did have was musical talent and a business plan that ended in glorious failure - inadvertently making the twenty singles that were pressed highly sought after by collectors.
Interest was first stirred when a few of the uptempo numbers were played on the Northern Soul scene of the 70s, notably Eddie Daye’s pounding ‘Guess Who Loves You’ spun by DJ Richard Searling at Wigan Casino. Then young Turk DJs like Keb Darge and Guy Hennigan at Stafford’s Top Of The World all-nighters in the 80s really took up Shrine’s cause and the search for the hidden gems was on. “People were buying the known records on Shrine, but no-one was buying the unknowns,” recalls Darge. Soon, copies of singles by the Cautions, Cairos and Les Chansonettes went “massive” on the scene - J.D. Bryant’s big ballad ‘I Won’t Be Coming Back’ sold for a fortune.
When the label went out of business in 1966, Singleton left the remaining stock in the office, before locking the door for the last time. Years later, after being introduced to Kent Records’ Ady Croasdell by Ian Levine, Eddie retrieved the original masters from the studio. These tapes revealed unissued gems from the Prophets (later to emerge as a 7”), Tippie & the Wisemen, Traci, Jimmy Armstrong and others.
Those first tape reissues came out on the short-lived Horace’s label and later Ace more comprehensively issued them on CD. Other labels intervened but now Shrine is back in its rightful home. To celebrate this, we issued “Shrine Northern - The 60s Rarest Dance Label” Kent LP, KENT 526 last year. We have looked at the tapes again, in greater depth, and found another 14 sides worthy of single releases.
Barbara Long’s great, but elusive, Shrine recording - issued on sister-label Jet Set - deservedly leads off the package and is coupled with the previously CD-only ‘Take It From Me’ by the mysterious Traci – an early tape find. Like Barbara Long, the Epsilons ‘Mind In A Bind’ was issued just after the label folded and sneaked out on Washington’s Hem imprint. It is re-released for the first time as a 7” with their ‘Mad At The World’ debuting as a UK 45. The same scenario applies to the Cautions’ marvellous mid-tempo single ‘Watch Your Step’. We have coupled it with their ever-in-demand ‘No Other Way’; long deleted from its 2009 repress.
Despite Shrine’s reputation for dance tracks, one of the labels most-revered recordings is the beautiful Tippie & The Wisemen ballad ‘Wait Til I Get There’. That previously unissued number came out on the first Horace’s LP in 1990. A decade later Ady Croasdell found the tape of their ‘I Wouldn’t Mind Crying’ in the Universal Studios vaults in Hollywood. This pleased the song’s writer Eddie Singleton who hadn’t heard this particular favourite of his since the recording date. Sidney Hall (of the Enjoyables) cut the impassioned beat ballad ‘I’m A Lover’ as a solo act; it has its first UK 45 release here. We have coupled it with the catchy, raucous groove of the incredibly rare Cavaliers Shrine 45 ‘Do What I Want’. this has improved audio from its previous releases.
The Prophets gorgeous harmony ballad ‘Huh Baby’ gets its first 45 re-release too and we have put a slightly alternate version, found in the tapes, of ‘If I Had One Gold Piece’, the original B side. Finally, another Shrine-recorded Jet Set 45 by Jimmy Armstrong ‘I Won’t Believe It Till I See It’ makes its Kent debut, along with his killer blues ballad ‘It’s Gonna Take Time’ which has never been released before.
Seven new Shrine 45s, complete with an attractively packaged box containing rarely seen photos; soul heaven! – Ady Croasdell
Besides being among the most heartwarming films you'll see at Hot Docs 2010 (which runs through May 9), Thunder Soul: The True Story Of Conrad Johnson & The Kashmere Stage Band will also have one of the very best soundtracks. Of course there's some stiff competition from some of the festival's other entries like Blank City, A Drummer's Dream, 1991 The Year Punk Broke, Complaints Choir and We Don't Care About Music Anyway but then again, those exceptional high school students from the Kashmere Gardens neighborhood on Houston's nasty northside were never afraid of a little friendly competition.
During the the late 60s and early 70s, the Kashmere Stage Band won nearly every single high school stage band showdown they entered – an astounding 42 out of 46 contests. As you'll discover from Mark Landsman's informative and inspirational Thunder Soul documentary, Kashmere's phenomenal decade of dominance on the stage band festival circuit actually had less to do with the 1973 group's super-tight rhythm section of drummer Craig Green (see interview in links below) and bassist Gerald Calhoun or the various stunning teen soloists who came and went than the wisdom and guidance of the program's indefatigable music director who built the KSB into an unstoppable stage band force year after year. Conrad Johnson, affectionately known as "Prof," wasn't satisfied with merely having the most ferociously funky high school stage band in Texas, he wouldn't settle for anything less than the very best high school band – ever.
The Kashmere Stage Band's amazing recorded legacy, neatly compiled on the Texas Thunder Soul 1968-74 (Now Again/Stones Throw) 2 CD archival set, provides hard evidence that they achieved Johnson's lofty goal. Certainly you won't hear a word of disagreement from credible deep funk authorities like Keb Darge (considered to be the first to spin a KSB record in a club setting) and DJ Shadow who helped touch off the schoolhouse funk craze with his KSB-inspired compilation series of the same name and also sampled their signature tune Kashmere for the Handsome Boy Modeling School track Holy Calamity.
What set the Kashmere Stage Band apart from the thousands of other school bands across North America is the way Johnson looked beyond the conventional big band jazz charts to embrace the contemporary funk idiom as a viable music form all the while encouraging his students to compose their own songs, perform them and record them. Of course, there's much more to the Kashmere story than a few badass tunes and Landsman puts it all into proper perspective with Thunder Soul which screens as part of the Small Acts series at the Cumberland 3 on Friday (May 7) at 9 pm, Bloor Cinema on Saturday (May 8) at 6 pm and again at The ROM Theatre on Sunday (May 9) at 1:45 pm. For tickets see link below.
