New Juke Box Hits is the fifth studio album by rock and roll pioneer Chuck Berry, released in March 1961 by Chess Records.

Review by William Ruhlmann

Chuck Berry's fifth Chess Records album, New Juke Box Hits, was recorded and released in the midst of the legal difficulties that would put him in jail the following year. That distraction seems to have kept him from composing top-flight material, while the attendant publicity adversely affected his record sales, such that the album contained no hits. The included single was "I'm Talking About You," later successfully recorded by the Rolling Stones, and the album also contained "The Thirteen Question Method" and "Don't You Lie to Me," worthy minor entries in the Berry canon...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAUsOn1uQHQ&list=RDbAUsOn1uQHQ&start_radio=1

#ChuckBerry #RockandRoll #ChessRecords #Music

Peace is a 1968 studio album by American psychedelic soul group Rotary Connection, released on Cadet Records

Editors at AllMusic rated this album 4 out of 5 stars, with critic Rodney Batdorf writing that this "is a terrific, soulful Christmas album" that "has all the hallmarks of a late-'60s pop-soul record".[2] In a review for retailers, Billboard recommended this release as "a holiday package filled with Christmas" with a "marketable style" - Wikipedia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hSumdkcOZw&list=OLAK5uy_nNC1AVbq-s001ifNpjD6Vm98JqqNmFVzU

#RotaryConnection #MinnieRiperton #CharlesStepney #PsychedelicSoul #Music #CadetRecords #ChessRecords

This week's #TuneTuesday theme is #MyFavouriteXmasSong. I first thought of Darlene Love's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)", but since it has received a lot of exposure over the years, I decided to go for a lesser-known - but equally great - recording:

The Meditation Singers: The Spirit of Christmas (1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW2uL2DOpMA

This is one of the three songs the Meditation Singers recorded for the 1968 Checker Records album "A Christmas Dedication". Even with a couple of somewhat disappointing Soul Stirrers tracks on it, it is definitely one of the better Christmas albums in my household.

"The Spirit of Christmas" was written by Sonny Thompson and Maurice Dollison, and produced by Ralph Bass, all music business veterans and Chess/Checker Records regulars at the time. The song was also issued as a single, with "Blue Christmas" - another excellent Sonny Thompson composition - on the flip side. This has been easily the most-played Christmas 45 in my collection for the last decade or so.

#music #meditationsingers #gospel #sonnythompson #mauricedollison #ralphbass #checkerrecords #chessrecords

Long Burn the Fire is the second studio album by the Detroit rock band, Black Merda..released by Chess Records subsidiary Janus in 1972.

Robert Christgau regarded [it] as a "follow-up" to.. There's a Riot Goin' On and went on to say:

"No more riots here than with Sly, or course [sic]—just self-hate, misogyny, desperate poverty, and senseless violence, as out-of-tune voices declaim strangely catchy tunes over loitering funk patterns and jagged guitar. 'Sometimes I wish I'd never been born,' they announce flatly, and they can really get flat. But the most surreal passage comes toward the close of 'My Mistake,' when 'I should have killed her instead' (author's note: of the friend he caught having sex with her), horrifying enough as a surprise endline, is transformed into a little piece of art-funk, repeated amid various instrumental configurations by an off-key chorale that sounds positively transported."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcBAMCY8xyI&list=PLTZAm8dpnYJ1EmXB51-T95mjMXbkL3K-K&index=1

#BlackMerda #Funk #Music #ChessRecords #Detroit

Archie Whitewater by Archie Whitewater, released on Cadet Concept (a subsidiary of Chess Records) in 1970.

Soul Strut wrote:

"Archie Whitewater was a band that never was. Forgotten by the failing Chess / Cadet Concept label their album languished in limbo and was released to little fanfare. The band was signed during the early 70s horn rock craze, but their sound was much more complex and seductive. Their 1970 debut fused jazz, soul, rock, funk, and psychedelic shrink wrapped with a warm aura. Panned by psych collectors as a pedestrian jazz rock record, interest in the record didn’t increase until the 90s as hip hop producers discovered the album’s warm jazzy sound (perfect any SP-100). After the first listen, though, you realize there is something special to this record. It's got a dreamy laid back vibe especially on the cult classic ”Cross Country"..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bORfB4Uh1oM&list=PLiTfUx1bmc-iI3hbmtjXhEOMs40xTpJxN&index=8

#ArchieWhitewater #ChessRecords #HornRock #Music #Hornsection #jazz #soul #funk

Howlin' Wolf // #HowlinWolf //

Down In The Bottom (live 1966)
[album Howlin' Wolf, 1962]

//via // #ChessRecords //

#buzzingroom #music #musicvideo #youtube #HowlinWolf #DownInTheBottom

link: https://youtu.be/kcGFdnpf7To