Hello again! After I finished the Cannonball post yesterday, I remembered that I was saving this concert I cleaned up a few months back for none other than today, so here we are.
I hope you're ready to funk your Sunday into the P Zone, because today's special is that Extra Deep Shit from the heyday of the mayday.
These cats have been around for 45 years, making booties shake all over the world, and they still can occasionally be found out there on the boards decades after they hit.
The set I'm posting today is a complete performance that was taped in a truly classic 1970s venue, from which a whole slew of badass shows hail.
One of the most cleverly named ensembles of the last 50 years, their music was, is and will always be as funky as Scotsmen get. And Scotsmen get pretty damn funky up there in the Highlands, or so I am told.
This one here is just an hour-and-a-half-plus of endless groove. Several jams clock in at 15 minutes or more, and from the whole tone of the tape it's clear that these cats really enjoyed their very first visit to Pittsburgh 43 years ago today.
The audience is so into it they don't even have to be told to get down. I think LTD opened this show, so by the time the Average White boys came on, everyone in the Syria Mosque was lathered up and ready to heed the call to boogie.
There really isn't too much to say except this puppy is sourced from some tight pre-FM reels, and was optimized by me so it plays like an official live album that never was. These guys put out a live record later, but this is the pure, uncut AWB experience with no overdubs and no sweetening in the studio.
Really it's just pure Joy for all 98 minutes, with the band and the crowd funkin' each other into the stratosphere. Only a portion of this devastating set was ever broadcast, but this here is the whole bag for you to put in your pipe.
Average White Band
Syria Mosque
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
9.16.1975
01 introduction
02 Cut the Cake
03 School Boy Crush
04 If I Ever Lose This Heaven
05 Work to Do
06 Cloudy
07 TLC
08 Pick Up the Pieces
09 Person to Person
10 I Heard It Through the Grapevine
Total time: 1:37:58
disc break can go after Track 06 or 07
Alan Gorrie - vocals, bass, guitar
Hamish Stuart - vocals, guitar, bass
Onnie McIntyre - guitar, vocals
Steve Ferrone - drums
Molly Duncan - tenor saxophone
Roger Ball - alto saxophone
1st gen soundboard reel; could be from the raw, pre-broadcast WPEZ-FM reels, of which only half was ever broadcast
repaired by EN, May 2018
589 MB FLAC/September 2018 archive link
These guys are always a stone groove and perennially fun and intoxicatingly infectious, and this wild show is no sort of exception.
I shall return to fill up what remains of the summer with Thang, but for now I'd suggest pulling down this concert and letting it automate your hip sockets into perpetual motions!--J.
