Here's my Christmas card to you. Selected YouTube videos of some of the best tunes I've posted to my Facebook page this year. You'll see rare live performances and hear some rare grooves. Plenty of r&b, funk, and soul, as well as some rock, Latin, and what all else. Now seems just the time to share some deeply meaningful song lyrics, so here goes, courtesy of the Motor City Mad Lad, Iggy Pop. "I've got a hard-ass pair of shoulders. I've got a love you can't imagine. And what I've got I double. I swear I'm keepin' out of trouble. I'm lookin' for one new value. I'm lookin' for one new value. But nothin' comes my way." So, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah (belated) and best wishes for the new year, from our family's corner of Seattle. (This takes a minute to load).

Let's get this party started with a rare live TV performance featuring Tony Joe White, doing an alternate take of his big hit, "Polk Salad Annie."

Tina Turner at her sassiest, in '70, live with Ike and the Ikettes: "Bold Soul Sister." Who's that short white boy in the horn section, anyway?

Nina Simone's daughter, the singer Simone leads the Chicago jazz-funk-soul group Liquid Soul through this bracing live performance on CBS-TV.

The queen of reggae, with a great rock-steady tune from the 60s....

Rufus and Chaka Khan, live on NBC, early-mid 70s.

Speaking of ladies who kick it......

Not to mention these ladies, settin' Soul Train in motion....

A favorite funky female folkie.....

From N'Awlins, The Meters wrote the book on 60s r&b melded with funk. Art Neville - keyboards; George Porter - bass; Zigaboo Modeliste - drums; Leo Nocentelli - guitar.

Chuck Carbo's 1970 classic, also from the Crescent City.

From the "Bay Area Funk" compilation.

In my book, Memphis-based Stax Records was THE primo soul label. This Isaac Hayes cut: a gem.

The Godfather Of Soul, and his totally BadAss band on Soul Train in '73 - "Get On The Good Foot."

Klezmer funk, really. Modern-day Yiddish music folklorist and clarinetist David Krakauer hooks up with James Brown trombonist Fred Wesley and a bunch of others in this live in-studio performance. (Some of the camera work gets a bit dizzying.)

Straight outta Caracas in '94 these guys escaped mad Hugo's clutch. Don't chu wanna red jumpsuit like that?

The late Pakistani kawwali master. What a majestic voice, and what slammin'beats. Here with dance-floor production by Bollywood's own Bally Sagoo.

Motown dons a Lunar Dashiki thanks to great producer-artist Norman Whitfield.

From the classic '70 Chicago blues recording. Released in '72, produced by Clapton.

This instrumental classic by Freddie King has been covered widely. Including by a band known as the Bluesbreakers, with a young Eric Clapton. In this live TV performance, I love the way Freddie's band is moving & grooving. Not to mention the white-booted go-go dancers.

Electric slide gee-tar? Here's a real piece o' the rock, from J.B. Hutto, on a mid-60s Chicago blues compilation from the Vanguard "folk" label. His nephew Lil' Ed, of Lil' Ed & The Blues Imperials (Alligator Records), carries the torch today.

Chester Burnett, or Howlin' Wolf, was a blues great. Here's a rare filmed performance. Guitarist Hubert Sumlin adds some spice.

A Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame moment live on British TV. Fleetwood Mac, from their Time Of Testosterone. Peter Green singing, playing signature riff of song on his Gibson Les Paul. Floppy-haired turtle-necked Danny Kirwan with wrenching leads. Mick Fleetwood on drums, John McVie, bass. Love it, coz this just don't happen no more.

His real name was Ellis McDaniel and in '56 he sang: "I walked 47 miles of barbed wire; I use a cobra snake for a neck tie; I got a brand new house on the roadside made from rattlesnake hide; now come on take a little walk with me Arlene; tell me who do you love?"

Deep Latin soul of 60s vintage from percussionist and vocalist Willie Bobo.

Latin bandleader and pianist Joe Cuba gets kinda frenetic. Try not to bop to this.

El Timbalero! Modern-day salsa standard-bearer. Never misses.

You were just waiting for some Icelandic lounge jazz, right? Bjork, live on Rekjavik TV in '90.

Brother Jack McDuff on the Hammond B-3, breezin' in from Pittsburgh with some greeezy rare groove.

More rare groove - a blues-jazz kind of instrumental thing - from a fine Seattle band on a SF label, '93.

Toots & The Maytals, Bootsy Collins and The Roots, updating an old classic.

Fat Boy Slim w Lindy Layton. Just listen to this woman sing. And to the quavery trombone at end.

"Ain't nothin worse than some fool lying on a 3rd World beach wearing spandex psychedelic trousers, smokin' damn dope, pretendin' he gettin' consciousness expansion. I want consciousness expansion, I go to my local tabernacle and I SING, with the brothers and sisters."

The King of Okinawan pop-folk-rock, with Ry Cooder.

Boston's Remains were legendary one-hit wonders. "Don't Look Back" was featured on the noted "Nuggets" compilation of 60s punk rock and psychedelic oddities assembled by Patti Smith Group guitarist and rock historian Lenny Kaye.

Very groovy yet bone-crunching psychedelic hard rock tune from a San Antonio group, here enjoying their 15 minutes of fame. I remember this from AM radio in Chicago, back in the day, on "Ron Britain's Subterranean Circus," WCFL-AM.

The peerless country rock of the Flying Burrito Brothers with Gram Parsons; this song is also known as "Devil in Disguise."

A mello outro. The classic Charles Mingus tune, re-interpreted by one of my generation's great guitarists, here unplugged and fully Guru'd.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at December 24, 2009 12:20 PM

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