Fuad Hassan Ensemble - Music of the Bedouin Bandits

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FUAD HASSAN ENSEMBLE
Music of the Bedouin Bandit
1959

73.3 MB
256+ VBR LAME mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from RCA Victor LSP-1991


Here's another slice of RCA exotica with a lot of similarities to the Guy Warren album posted here on Soundological a couple months ago. For instance, both have excruciating exploitative covers with thinly disguised racist overtones (although at least the Guy Warren album had excellent liner notes) with no connection whatsoever to the artists, who were actually authentic masters of their particular ethnic folk genres which revolved around drums, rhythm and dance.

Since I don't read Arabic, there was very little info I could pick up on Fuad Hassan, who's much better known as Ahmed Fouad Hassan. He was Egyptian and, from what I can glean, was basically the Count Basie of North African belly dance, renowned as a composer and bandleader in the lucrative and fast-paced world of the nightclub scene in Cairo.

Most of the info I could find on him was derived from a handful of articles on his ex-wife, Nagua Fouad, who almost sounds like the Josephine Baker of modern belly dance. Now this is where there is some unintended accuracy in the joke liner notes. You see, he actually was a kind of bandit in a way. Some people would call Mr. Hassan a cradle-robber since just a few scant years after this album was released, he married Nagua while she was still a teenager and he was 17 years her senior. It seems to have been some kind of mutually-satisfactory Svengali situation that lasted for six years and during that period she was catapulted into Middle Eastern stardom.

Sensationalism aside, this is actually a superb recording by one of Cairo's best bands and it easily showcases Hassan's considerable skills at both composition and arrangement with its assortment of originals as well as adaptations of familiar tunes and even an early stab at East-West fusion with "Jazz Araby." The rhythms and percussion are forefront throughout as befitting a dance record and if you're a fan of desert sounds you will not be disappointed.


1 Whirling Sands
2 Bolero Ala Drums
3 Dubki
4 Egyptian Caravan
5 Caravina
6 Eb Si Olanda
7 Dance of the Djiens
8 Cocktails
9 Hali Men
10 Chifti No. 2
11 Jazz Araby
12 Kashlama


Belly up to the bar with the Bedouin Bandit and Soundological HERE. (updated 2012-07-27)

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Hungry for more? You can also hear Hassan and his group on these compilations:

Belly Dance - Music for An Oriental Dance (5 tracks) at Passionate-Music
The Best Belly Dance Album In The World (3 tracks) at We Love Music
The Rough Guide To Belly Dance (1 track) at NayNayNom

If that's more belly dance beats than you were bargaining for, Soundological plundered those posts to provide our readers with an extra disc's worth of the Bedouin Bandit's beats that you can find HERE. (updated 2012-07-27)

Various - Footstompers (Kent 017)

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VARIOUS ARTISTS
Kent Footstompers
1984

74.5 MB
256+ VBR LAME mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from Kent 017


Another highly sought-after comp from the kids at Kent and another request filled. This time the focus is on obscure singles from the MCA/Decca vaults of the 60s. It's a little more pop-oriented and has a higher blue-eyed-soul content than usual (almost 50/50) but so it was with certain pockets of the Northern Soul scene itself. Needless to say, the soul sound still abounds and more familiar artists like the ubiquitous Patti Austin, Whitney's mum Cissy Houston and Harlem Apollo prodigy Eddie Holman get the chance to shine with some lesser-known tunes from their catalogue.


01 Ritchie Adams - I Can't Escape From You
02 Jean Carter - Like One
03 Patti Austin - Take Away The Pain Stain
04 The Spindles - Ten Shades Of Blue
05 Eddie Regan - Playin' Hide & Seek
06 7th Avenue Aviators - You Should O' Held On
07 Sissie Houston - Bring Him Back
08 Johnny Caswell - You Don't Love Me Anymore
09 The Sons Of Moses - Soul Symphony
10 Lada Edmund Jr. - The La Rue
11 Len Barry - I'll Always Need You
12 Lee Roye - Tears (Nothing But Tears)
13 Danny White - Cracked Up Over You
14 Rubin - You've Been Away
15 August & Deneen - We Go Together
16 Eddie Holman - I Surrender


Ritchie Adams' roots in the music biz go quite deep but you have to dig a bit to follow the trail. He originally came from the 50s Detroit doo-wop group The Fireflies and is most famous for co-writing Bobby Lewis' monster hit "Tossin' and Turnin'" on the Manahattan-based label Beltone in 1961 with label head, Malou (Joe) Rene. After that, there's reference to Adams' work with composer Larry Kusik in 1965, uncle of Nuggets compiler and Patti Smith Group member Lenny Kaye (whose first recording in a Times Square studio was of a Kusik/Adams song). In fact, Adams' name also pops up in the Nuggets series as a writer for The Blues Magoos and Deep Purple at the same time he was penning pop songs for Lulu and Petula Clark. Next thing you know, he's got credits for cartoon pop bands The Banana Splits and The Archies at the tail end of the 60s.

Jean Carter is so low profile I can only find her name attached to the 7" from which this tune was taken. Granted, the name is pretty generic for a North American but it doesn't even appear in most of the regular resources used to research Soundological.

Eddie Regan's story seems to be lost to the sands of time as well. The 7" this is taken from appears to be the only thing he ever recorded but it, like most of the tracks here, was also released on ABC/Paramount at some point.

The 7th Avenue Aviators were also known as Frankie Karl & The Chevrons and had worked with the Doziers in Philly for a while. Although both are the same recording by the same group, the 7" version of this track under the Aviators name goes for about $750 and the one under the Chevrons fetches about $1,000.

Lee Roye is another obscure artist and if he's not the same cat as the one in Lee Roye & His Emeralds (one 7" on Red Bug Records from Dayton, Ohio) then this track is taken from his only single not only on MCA, but anywhere.

Rubin is a complete question mark. Outside of this song from the MCA196 single, that's all the info floating around out there. The only other Rubin I could connect to MCA around the same period was drummer Eddie Rubin but as for whether it might be the same person, that slim sliver of circumstantial evidence is far from convincing.


What is convincing is the infectious fun to be found on this fine Kent release! If you're happy and you know it, stomp your feet with Soundological HERE or HERE.

Various - Brainstormers (Kent 042)

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Kent Brainstormers
1985

79 MB
256+ VBR LAME mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from Kent 042


By special request, here's what many connaisseurs consider one of the best Kent Northern Soul compilations. I'm inclined to agree since it's definitely my favourite of the 30 or so I've heard and every track here is a keeper. However, some songs do clearly stand head and shoulders above the rest. First and foremost for me is the early Willie Hutch track which predates his 1969 debut LP Soul Portrait and is not on any of his albums or greatest hits packages. In fact, this is one of the only places you can find it on vinyl - unless you have $1,325 bucks for the original 7". Floorshakers (Kent 007) also has the flipside, "The Duck," but I don't have a copy of that one - yet.


01 Willie Hutch - Love Runs Out
02 Two People - Stop, Leave My Heart Alone
03 Little Eddie Taylor - I Had A Good Time
04 Bobby Bland - Getting Used To The Blues
05 Bud Harper - Wherever You Are
06 Little Charles & The Sidewinders - It's A Heartache
07 Freddy Butler - That's When I Need You
08 Garland Green - Ain't That Good Enough
09 The Patrick Bradley - Just One More Chance
10 Holly St. James - That's Not Love
11 Patti Austin - You're Too Much A Part Of Me
12 Bobby Hutton - Lend A Hand
13 Malibus - Gee Baby I Love You
14 Steinways - My Heart's Not In It Anymore
15 Betty Everett - Bye Bye Baby
16 Andre Brasseur - The Kid


Even with the passing of 25 years since Kent cobbled them together in one package, most of these tracks remain rare and unknown to almost everyone but Northern Soul fans willing to pay almost any price for an original 45 of their top tunes. Even in the early 80s collectors were looking at shelling out almost four figures if they were to purchase each of these songs individually in the 45 RPM format. Nowadays you'd be looking at $10-20K to scoop up the source material for this LP unless you were really lucky diggin' in the crates. Otherwise, you could just grab the music from Soundological HERE. (updated 2012-07-27)