Wildflower Drum Song: Hank Crawford 90

Hank Crawford - I'll Move You No Mountain

As promised I am here to fill up the weekend and beyond with three in five days, starting with this heavyweight champion of the alto saxophone.

He first appeared in the early 1950s, backing B.B. King on a single that also had Ike Turner in the band.

Then he went to college to study music theory and composition, where his friends started calling him "Hank" because he looked like another horn player that had been at the school whose name was that.

At some point during his attendance at Tennessee State he met the then up-and-coming Ray Charles, who spirited him away from the classroom to become his musical director.

In the four years he was with Ray, Ray as we know took over the known universe and parts of other, alternate dimensions, becoming as popular and beloved (and as widely imitated) a performer as has ever existed in American music.

He stepped out on his own for a solo career in 1963, leaving Ray Charles at the pinnacle of his popularity, settling with the same label (Atlantic) and churning out hit albums for the next decade for them.

He later migrated to the CTI label and made a bunch of their best selling LPs, including his magnum opus Wildflower, which contains several songs sampled so heavily by hip-hop artists that he must be a ringtone somewhere on Earth.

Then he moved on to the Milestone imprint and waxed a whole slew of bluesy and groove-laden, classic records with organmeister Jimmy McGriff. All told, he played on or fronted dozens upon dozens of recording sessions before he passed, from a stroke, in 2009 at 74.

The only ROIOs that feature him only have him as part of a larger ensemble, but there is this pretty phat 2CD mixtape of all his 1970s Funk conjunctions that's been in my phone for awhile, and is great at parties to get the guests all sweaty and moving...

Hank Crawford

Sho Is Funky

1968-1984

CD1

01 Ham

02 Canadian Sunset

03 All In Love Is Fair

04 Dirt Dobbler

05 Funky Pigeon

06 I Don't Know

07 It's a Funky Thing to Do

08 Tico Rico

09 I Can't See Myself Leaving You

10 Glue Fingers

11 Wildflower

12 You've Got It Bad Girl

13 Sugar Free

14 Down On the Deuce

15 I Had a Dream (w. Calvin Newborn)

CD2

16 Funky Rooster

17 Corazón

18 Hang It On the Ceiling

19 Betcha By Golly Wow

20 Lady Soul

21 Jazz Bridge

22 Help Me Make it Through the Night

23 Kingsize Man

24 We've Got a Good Thing Going

25 Baby, I Love You

26 Madison (Spirit, the Power)

27 Baby This Love I Have

28 Someday (You'll Want Me to Want You)

29 I'll Move You No Mountain

30 Sho Is Funky

Total time: 2:37:23

compilation of many of Hank Crawford's most influential and funkasized jams

assembled and made to play all at the same volume by EN, some time ago
944 MB FLAC/direct link

If I had to describe the music on this tape, I'd just say it matches Hank's hat in the picture immediately above this paragraph almost perfectly.

That is to say, two hours and thirty-seven minutes of 1970s prime Cop Show soundtrack, in search of a Starsky to Hutch up to, and all in honor of what would have been Hank's 90th birthday today.

I'm right back 'atcha in a few hours with the best cab ride ever hailed, and after that I have some Christmas music designed to melt the chrome off your bumpers. There's even a 50th anniversary New Year's Eve party planned, because as someone once said, You Got To Funkafize.

This couple of hours ought to get that pelvic motion in motion just fine, so as you Electric Slide greasily across the dancefloor, be sure to tribute Hank Crawford, one of the serious Soul Jazz titans and also born this very day in 1934!--J.

12.21.1934 - 1.29.2009