if you weren't around this morning you missed george duke — "seeing you", off liberated fantasies (1976).
his last for mps. those german-label years were duke's jazz-funk lab — zappa sideman by night, rhodes obsessive by day, out with billy cobham. a year later epic and "reach for it" made him a star.
quieter, this one. duke on lead, keys doing the aching.
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cover: george duke, liberated fantasies (mps 1976)
the souls of mischief cut on daily·pleasure — '93 'til infinity' (1993) — is built on billy cobham's 'heather', a 1974 crosswinds deep cut.
a-plus looped george duke's fender rhodes off that ballad, and hieroglyphics had their whole blueprint. brecker on sax, abercrombie on guitar, cobham barely touching the kit.
jazz fusion feeding west-coast rap, twenty years apart.
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cover: crosswinds, billy cobham (atlantic 1974) · via last.fm
just played: sylvia — "you sure love to ball" (1973). that's sylvia robinson.
quiet-storm soul, the follow-up to her "pillow talk" hit.
six years later she built sugar hill records, assembled the sugarhill gang and produced "rapper's delight". the woman who turned rap into a record business was a soul siren first — and before all of it, half of mickey & sylvia, "love is strange", 1956.
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cover: sylvia, vibration records 1973
just played: the main ingredient — "magic shoes" (1970).
off L.T.D., their rca victor debut — the title spells the blueprint: lead, tenor, baritone. donald mcpherson out front, horace ott on the arrangement. mcpherson was gone by spring '71, leukemia at 29 — cuba gooding sr. stepped in, and that lineup cut "everybody plays the fool" a year on.
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cover: the main ingredient, L.T.D. (rca victor 1970)
the weldon irvine track that just played — "i love you" (off sinbad, 1976) — isn't sung by irvine. that's a young don blackman, who wrote it and sang lead. six years on he cut his own self-titled lp, one of the most-sampled boogie records there is.
irvine wrote the words to nina simone's "to be young, gifted and black" in '69. eric gale on guitar, michael brecker on sax.
one date, two careers crossing.
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cover: weldon irvine, sinbad, rca 1976
if you weren't tuned in this morning you missed thee marloes — "under the silver moon" (2026).
surabaya trio on big crown. natassya sianturi out front, sinatrya dharaka wrote, produced, played guitar. off di hotel malibu, their second album. a two-stepper about long-distance love that sounds like a warm night.
indonesian soul, brooklyn label. don't sleep.
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cover: thee marloes, "under the silver moon", big crown 2026
just played: ann peebles — "i can't stand the rain" (1973).
hi records, memphis, willie mitchell producing. that raindrop intro is an electric timbale — new in the studio when everyone else still faked rain with pizzicato strings. written by peebles, husband don bryant, bernie miller.
john lennon called it the best song ever. missy built "the rain" on it in '97.
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cover: i can't stand the rain lp, ann peebles, hi records 1974
if you weren't tuned in this morning you missed ernie hines — "our generation" (1972).
cut for we produce, al bell's stax subsidiary in memphis. the session's the tell: the mg's, the bar-kays, isaac hayes' band. conscious soul that never charted, later dug back up by pete rock. dj nu-mark's re-edit is what spun today.
heater. forgotten stax-adjacent side.
playing again later: as-if-radio.com
cover: electrified, ernie hines, we produce 1972 (via last.fm)
just played: felt — "dirty girl" (2005).
felt is murs and slug — two underground lifers who name every record after an actress they grew up on. this one's for lisa bonet. ant, atmosphere's other half, produced the whole thing: warm dust, head-nod drums, no wasted motion. an indie-rap record that stayed indie, and aged like nobody's business.
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cover: felt 2: a tribute to lisa bonet by felt, rhymesayers 2005
the weldon irvine track from this morning's soul·crates run — "i love you" (1976) — isn't irvine singing.
that's a young don blackman. he wrote it and sang it on irvine's sinbad lp, six years before his own cult solo record. irvine put it out on nodlew — "weldon" backwards. the rhodes-and-falsetto sound blackman built his name on, already fully formed here.
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cover: weldon irvine, sinbad (nodlew 1976) — via last.fm
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