Sheldon Taylor's Souls of Black Notes

  In a scene from the 1975 cinema classic Cooley High,  basketball prodigy Cochise (played by Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs) and his crew bum-rush a quarter party nestled deep in a rough-and-tumble section of Chicago's Near North Side. Peeling off his varsity jacket, 'Chise makes a beeline for the record player as teen-aged girls squeal with joy and jockey for his attention.  Lumdi, lumdi la........lumdi, lumdi la....  Smokey Robinson and the Miracles' "Mickey's Monkey" moves the crowd like pieces on a chessboard. In a split second----Cochise ends their joyful romp.  Wallflowers and dancers groan with frustration. Their groove has just been disturbed.  Strains of Smokey's "Ooh Baby, Baby" now fill the room. Cochise barks out an order: just turn off the lights!  From dimly lit basements, cellars, and rec-rooms, sexy slow drags sweet harmonies, and love affirmations of R&B vocal groups transported couples to a romantic oasis that was a world away from...

  Dig deep in rap’s archival history and you'll unearth many watershed moments. One of them is undoubtedly the release of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s 1982 single  The Message   forty years ago this month. Painting panoramic scenes of urban blight and decay,  The Message pushed  rap beyond typical party-hearty themes that  resonated  with listeners.  I was 13 years old when the record dropped. In my mind's eye, I can still see Furious Five lead emcee Melle Mell on Soul Train  menacingly wielding a baseball bat. His depiction of dopefiends with larceny in their cold hearts was chilling:  Junkies in the alley with the baseball bat...... Reveling in its vividness I committed the song to memory. It was next-level freshness. Young rap fans like me loved it.  Older listeners weaned on Gil Scott-Heron or The Last Poets' would connect the dots and lavish praise.  Rap records were arriving at a dizzying pace. While the E...

  Let’s go back. Way back. Back into time. A sea of young’ns groove to percussive drum sounds that go on forever. Chants and call-and-response pepper the air like gunshots. Rapid-fire handclaps and sexy gyrations keep time to the beat.  It's a vibe and a syncopated ride that feels instinctively familiar. In my mind’s eye, I see women in Santeria white and pristine Sunday best catching the spirit in sweaty ciphers and church revivals. Now I’m toiling in southern cotton and tobacco fields where people endure hard times during the day and exhale in steamy juke joints at night.  The music transports me to a world of lilting tropical rhythms and Trinidadian pan drums, delectable sights of winding beauties in Jamaican dancehalls. I soak up the excitement of packed Bronx park jams or Brooklyn block parties.  Now I’m in Atlanta or NOLA bouncing to hypnotic beats. Back to life. Back to reality: it's ‘87 and I’m at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland and DC's Celebrity Ha...

  "Everybody can't jump on Prince's thing. People need romance. It's like a pendulum swing. After the bam-bam-bam, the love songs will always be there.” Prolific songwriter Linda Creed's 1985 declaration  in Billboard  wasn't a jab at Prince's sexual shock-and-awe or an attempt to rain on his purple parade. It was a well-refined modus operandi.  During the 70s Creed penned many of the Philly Soul songbook's most durable hits.  Two of them ("You Make Me Feel Brand New" and "People Make The World Go Around") would spawn over 100 remakes across multiple music categories. Before she was thirty, Creed earned over 20 gold and platinum records and a half-million dollars in royalties.    SEE: THE GREATEST LOVE OF ALL: A STORY OF CANCER, COURAGE AND COLLABORATION Now the jewel of her catalog was primed for a makeover.  1977's "The Greatest Love of All" would be revived for Whitney Houston's debut album.    A year later, Cree...

                                                                                                                                                                                                       ...