Car Boot Vinyl Diaries

Car Boot Vinyl Diaries

Wednesday 21 November 2012

Ants in my pants and I need to dance

I managed to hobble round last Sunday's boot sale on my crutches and picked up a couple of good records.  I haven't actually got round to cleaning them yet, let alone listening to them, so here's one from a few weeks ago, bought for £3:

Funkadelic - Uncle Jam Wants You (1979)

Released in 1979, Uncle Jam Wants You was Funkadelic's follow-up to their bestselling album One Nation Under A Groove from the year before, and their 11th release overall.

Subtitled Rescue Dance Music from the Blahs, Uncle Jam Wants You is a concept album whose loose theme is just that - Thrill Sergeant Dr. Funkenstein aka George Clinton's mission to revitalise dancefloors worldwide with his patented P-Funk.

The first two-thirds of the album is a mixture of funk, diso and rock.  Best is Freak of the Week; the story of a "disco lovin' mama" with some really funky guitar from "The Funkadelic Rescue Dance Band: Axe Force".  The 15-minute (not just) Knee Deep, famously sampled by De La Soul on Me Myself & I reprises Freak of the Week at the end.

Inner gatefold

Later comes Holly Wants to go to California; a forgettable gospel-ish ballad with background party chatter, then final track Foot Soldiers; a pseudo-militaristic dance drill (the main instruction being "move it") with a nursery-rhyme synth line.

Rear cover

Uncle Jam Wants You reached no.2 on the US R&B chart.  Here's Freak of the Week:




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