genre: funk, blues
state: us
format: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans)
time: 1:10'20" size: 387 mb
Fuzz Acid & Flowers :
A short-lived outfit which operated out of Mississippi. The 45 is taken from their debut album, which is strongly influenced by the blues. As one would expect Cynthy-Ruth is the most commercial cut, but its better moments include Over And Over a bluesy instrumental; Reality, a laid back effort with some nice bluesy guitar work and Windsong, a slow instrumental, very similar to Fleetwood Mac's Albatross. The band were latterly known as Mer-da. (Vernon Joynson/Stephane Rebeschini/Max Waller)
yet:
Soon afterward the Soul Agents adopted a decidedly Hendrixian fashion sense: towering Afros and flamboyant attire-Veasey claims they were doing "the freaked-out thing" when Funkadelic was still wearing matching suits. Dubbing their sonic style "black rock," adding Hawkins' younger brother Charles on second guitar and christening themselves Black Merda (after a brief stint as the somewhat inflammatory "Black Murder"), the group quickly notched a local reputation as a take-no-prisoners live act. Motown producer Norman Whitfield and the Temptations' Eddie Kendricks courted the quartet, but Merda resisted such overtures, stubbornly taking the attitude that, as Veasey puts it, "the 'old Motown thing' was passe." In 1969, at the urging of songwriter Ellington "Fugi" Jordan (who penned Etta James' hit "I'd Rather Go Blind"), producer and Chess label boss Marshall Chess came to town to check out Black Merda. Thrilled to sign with the same label that had recently unleashed Muddy Waters' rock side on Electric Mud, Merda soon began work on its debut, additionally backing up Fugi on a proposed solo album for Chess.1970's Black Merda was a heady melange of psychedelic funk, hard rock and dirty-ass chain-gang blues-Funkadelic meets MC5. Yet lost in the translation from microphone to mixdown was the group's big, visceral live sound. "With the album we wanted that," Veasey says. "But [the producer] toned it down. He took all the dynamics out of it."Disheartened and unwilling to tour behind an inferior product, Merda decamped to California with Fugi, who had West Coast contacts and was now playing congas in the band. They soon became friendly with the members of L.A.'s War and entertained an offer to sign with the group's production company. Chess, however, wanted a second album, and Merda soon returned home. 1972's resulting Long Burn the Fire, with its mix of rockers and strings-laden ballads, wasn't as edgy as its predecessor, but it could've been a contender if not for two missteps: Confusingly, the group changed its name, to just "Mer-Da," and Chess, having recently been sold, shifted the project to low-priority status and issued the LP on its Janus subsidiary. With no label support and-with disco on the horizon-consumers' tastes changing, the Merda flame gradually flickered and dimmed."We just kind of stopped because we felt there was no place for us and the kind of music we were doing," Veasey explains. "[But] Black Merda had some magic going. We'd proven ourselves."By the mid-'90s both Merda LPs were eBay-certified collectors' items-celebrity fans include Julian Cope and DJ Z-Trip-leading the Tuff City label to create vinyl reissues. 2002 saw the inclusion of a Merda track on an infamous compilation of '70s black rock, Chains & Black Exhaust. And in 2004, news of Tuff City's forthcoming repackaging of the two albums on CD prompted journalists to start inquiring about the band. Intrigued concert promoters began making their own inquiries, resulting in Veasey, the Hawkinses and Fugi, plus a keyboardist and a drummer (Hite, sadly, passed away from cancer in 2004), regrouping as Black Merda in January to play a Detroit music festival.Since then the band has been recording fresh material, including what Veasey describes as a "Merda-ized version" of the Beatles' "A Day in the Life," with an eye toward making a new album. He's mindful, however, that comebacks sometimes serve only to kill the legend, saying, "You don't throw something together just to jump on some bandwagon." "But," he adds, chuckling, "I think the future is promising. [At shows] people have really been responding-they say to us, 'Y'all still got it, man!' So I guess the music still makes a connection."
Black Merda - 1970 - Black Merda:
01. Prophet 2:54
02. Think Of Me 2:33
03. Cynthy-Ruth 3:06
04. Over And Over 5:31
05. Ashamed 3:52
06. Reality 2:01
07. Windsong 4:14
08. Good Luck 3:47
09. That's The Way It Goes 3:17
10. I Don't Want To Die 3:53
11. Set Me Free 0:31
ANTHONY HAWKINS gtr
CHARLES HAWKINS gtr
TYRONE HYTE drms
Mer-da - 1972 - Long Burn the Fire:
12. For You 4:41
13. The Folks From Mother's Mixer 4:14
14. My Mistake 5:28
15. Lying 4:28
16. Long Burn The Fire 3:24
17. Sometimes I Wish 3:47
18. I Got A Woman 4:57
19. We Made Up 3:41
ANTHONY HAWKINS gtr
CHARLES HAWKINS gtr
TYRONE HYTE drms
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