The Vinyl Crusade
dberman on Nov 17th 2009
I recently had the great pleasure of acquiring a vinyl edition of Southern Comfort by The Crusaders, which has grown quickly into one of my favorite albums. While I was lucky to get a pretty clean record, the minimal scratching doesn’t really hurt the funky tunes that blast out from this masterpiece. Among the many hits on the record are Greasy Spoon, Super Stuff, and Southern Comfort, each encapsulating its own soulful mood and production.
What I enjoy is the jazziness of the production, as well as the band’s employment of trombone and tenor sax in their front line, which gives that extra glitter and punch to the composition. This fusion of funk, hard bop, and soul is highly under the radar, so if you haven’t heard this group, I’d encourage you to get any of their many albums.
I’ve been producing music for nearly 3 years, much of which has been created through the art of remixing, which involves the “sampling” and resequencing/arrangement of the material into a new song. The Crusaders album, with its tight production and blistering drum breaks, offers the opportunity for a lot of creative interpretation, and I’ll definitely reincorporate their awesome drum sounds and gutterfunk bass/guitar grooves in the future.
The Crusaders - Southern Comfort
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9 Responses to “The Vinyl Crusade”
I am wondering about the legality of re-mixing previously recorded and produced music. Aren’t there copyright issues involved?
I’d like to hear some of your mixes one time 🙂
This is an excellent review. Great title and follow up review. Also, don’t forget that vinyl’s produce the best sound!
I love a good mix. Do you ever listen to Girl Talk? It’s more hip-hop-ish, I guess, but I love the mixes he does.
I never realized how many people still love and respect vinyl! This is pretty cool for me, because back on Long Island, people give you the strangest looks for even mentioning vinyl, let alone collecting it. It’s really interesting how you produce and remix vinyl as well, I never thought to do that.
Mary, in response to your comment, Girl Talk is positively brilliant. Everyone should definitely check him out if they haven’t yet.
YES! I am not alone.
I am totally deprived. The only records I ever listened to were square dancing music records in my high school gym classes, and the quality was terrible! Where can I go to learn more and listen?
i wonder if they have billie holiday on vinyl?…
There’s definitely Billie Holiday on vinyl. Most likely, you can find vinyl for just about any artist you can name, assuming they haven’t sprung out of the last ten years.
Re: Girl Talk, it’s awesome. Didn’t they do a great set of Madonna remixes?
Also, in response to Professor’s question regarding copyright issues, I don’t believe there’s anything legally wrong with remixing unless 1) you submit a track without acknowledging the sample or 2)you somehow make money off of the song without sample clearance.
There are experts out there who can probably identify a split-second drum roll as the grand opening on Richard Simmons’s Twist and Shout workout vinyl, and these guys could bust you if you use unauthorized material and they found out.
But many remixes are esoteric in that they’ve been so rearranged that it doesn’t sound like the original song at all. The pitch, panning, tempo and processing of audio can be warped indefinitely. In this sense, it’s difficult to come to an even ground between industry executives and music producers. While I think it’s creative and ‘hip hop’ of me to create a rap beat by combining Sesame Street and Bob Dylan, for instance, you’ve got people who don’t appreciate it at all.