Shotgun Express
Listen/Download – Shotgun Express – Curtains
Greetings all.
Before we get started this week …
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Make sure you check out my weekly show for WFMU’s Give the Drummer Radio, Testify! . If you dig Funky16Corners and/or Iron Leg I think you’ll dig it. I’ll be on the air every Wednesday night from 10-12, live, so tune in when you get a chance!
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I come to you today with one of the grooviest mod Hammond 45s ever pressed into polyvinylplasticwhatever.
The Shotgun Express were a short lived sort-of-supergroup, featuring Rod Stewart, Beryl Marsden, Peter Bardens, John Mooreshead and Phil Sawyer (Bardens, Mooreshead and Sawyer all having made their way through the UK beat and beyond scenes).
The group only ever waxed two 45s (gathered in Europe on a single EP), only one of which was released here in the US, all in 1966.
Today’s selection is the flipside of the first Shotgun Express 45 (the topside of which was featured in the space previously).
‘Curtains’ is a hard charging, dance floor ready feature for organist Bardens, as well as some absolutely pounding bass and drums that muscle their way through the mix like a truck speeding down the street.
It is a superbly played and produced side, that manages to blend R&B and jazz expertly with enough verve to get the kids in the bespoke suits off their scooters and on to the floor grooving.
Big thanks go out – as always – to my man Mr Luther who first fed this one into my ears via mixtape decades ago.
I was lucky enough to finally score a copy of my own (the UK issue, with the US 45 on Uptown being even rarer) a few years ago, and it holds a place of honor in my crates.
I hope you dig it as much as I do, and I’ll see you all next week.
Peace
Larry
