Professor Eddy

In the Netherlands it has never been as dry in springtime as this year, which is a disaster for farmers. Just like my grandfather who was a farmer, I like some heavy rain after a sunny day! Rain, rainbows and the lack of sunshine are the themes of these soul songs. Some are classics, others are relatively unknown. A rare one is the song from Marv Johnson. He recorded the first single on Tamla from Berry Gordy, called 'Come to me', in 1959. He had some success in the early 60s and stopped recording for Motown in 1968, but continued working for them in sales. He recorded ‘Save my love for a rainy day’ (a big Northern Soul tune for The Van Dykes later on and also recorded by Undisputed Truth) in October 1967. For some mysterious reasons it stayed on the shelves until 2002 when it was included on ‘A cellarful of Motown’. In 1993 Marv Johnson died of a stroke at the age of only 54. ‘Ain’t no sunshine’ is performed by the Emotions ('Boogie wonderland', 'Best of my love...

Will I ever get over disco? Again some tracks from the disco era and beyond. There’s a brilliant ‘best of Scritti Politti’ out now (without my ‘Absolute’ edit that is…), called ‘Absolute’ with their biggest hits, but without any tracks of their latest album ‘White bread, black beer’, which is a pity. Listen to founder and main man Green Gartside of Scritti Politti about his panic attacks and his mental breakdown on Mixcloud . ‘Gonna get along without you’ was a disco hit by Viola Wills in 1979, but it was originally sung by Teresa Brewer in 1952. By the way, Patricia Paay is the ex-wife of American MTV vj and selfproclaimed inventor of the podcast, Adam Curry. Picture by Calico Courtney Brooke . Enjoy! Tracklist: The Sonnets – Blue Train (Despotz/2010) Breakwater – Work It Out (Arista/1978) Area Code – Duke’s Train (Friends & Co/1979) Sister Sledge – You Fooled Around (Cotillion/1980) Princess – I’ll Keep On Loving You (Supreme/1986) Keyshia Cole – What You Do To Me...

This is a soulful tribute to Burt Bacharah. The guy celebrated his 83rd (!) birthday on the 12th of May. His melodies and arrangements are always wonderful. The poetic and sometimes very deep lyrics of Hal David and Carol Bayer Sager (his ex-wife) make the picture complete. Bacharach and David delivered probably their best work with Dionne Warwick, but there are many artists who have made beautiful interpretations of Burt's classics. This mixtape is a proof of that. Celebrate with him and enjoy his magic sounds with those incredible trumpets. My tribute starts with the original version of 'Always something there to remind me'. It was covered by Sandie Shaw and a few years later by Dionne Warwick. There's an interesting new wave/electro version of it by Naked Eyes (led by Rob Fischer who became one half of Climie Fisher later on). 'Arthur's theme' has been recently covered by Fitz and the Tantrums for the remake of the movie ' Arthur '. And Boyzone...

The song that marked the beginning of the disco era is most of all ‘Rock your baby’ from George McCrae. Written by the guys from KC & the Sunshine for George’s wife Gwen, but she couldn’t come over to the studio in time. So they passed it over to husband George and the rest is history. The song became a number one smash all over the world. Jesse Green borrowed a little bit of the rhythm from George for his smooth sounding ‘Nice And Slow’ (and the sexy dancer makes the song a joy to watch on YouTube !). Roundtree was mixed by Tony Bongiovi. Doesn’t that name sound familiar? Yes, he’s the uncle of rock singer Jon Bon Jovi! And yes, I put in the Jazmine Sullivan song after seeing the movie ‘ The King’s Speech ’... ;-) Ntjam Rosie was a guest on the Gilles Peterson show on BBC Radio 1 last Wednesday. And if you like this mix, check out part 1 and part 2 as well! Tracklist: St. Tropez – I Want To Do Something Freaky To You (1982) Sylvia – The Lollipop Man (1977) Roundtree – ...