African Music Machine

A compilation of every 45 the African Music Machine cut for the Soul Power label between 1972 and 1974, gathered together for the first time on this LP. The band — an eight-piece New Orleans funk outfit led by bassist and songwriter Louis Villery — were the in-house players behind sessions for Fontella Bass, Little Johnny Taylor, Ted Taylor, Tommie Young, and producer Bobby Patterson, all on the Jewel/Paula label axis. When Patterson started his own Soul Power subsidiary, he turned the house band loose to cut their own singles under the African Music Machine name.

These sides were recorded at Sound City Studios in Shreveport, Louisiana, with Villery handling the writing, arrangement, and production. The original 45s — "Black Water Gold," "Tropical," "The Dapp" — became deep-funk holy grails fetching collector prices well into the hundreds before this comp made them accessible again.

Cool stuff:

• The original 45s of "Black Water Gold," "Tropical," and "The Dapp" are some of the most expensive deep-funk 7-inches on the collector market, regularly clearing several hundred dollars when they surface
• The band were the house rhythm section for Bobby Patterson's productions at Jewel/Paula — they're the players behind a stack of obscure early-'70s soul sides on those labels
• Bandleader Louis Villery played bass and wrote, arranged, and produced everything they cut — a complete-package bandleader in the JB's mold
• Recorded at Sound City Studios in Shreveport, LA — a different Sound City than the famous LA one; this one was the regional studio for the Jewel/Paula operation
• Their sound runs in the heavy James Brown vein with occasional Creole/New Orleans flavoring — straight-ahead funk from a band who barely existed outside the studio they worked in

Spin it for: unimpeachable deep-funk 45s in one place, the kind of breaks that hip-hop producers have been chasing for thirty years.

Standouts: "Black Water Gold" · "Tropical" · "The Dapp" · "Camel Walk"

Sources: Discogs · Dusty Groove · Jazzman Records · Soul Jazz Records · Funk My Soul