Vinyl Wednesday: The Brides Of Funkenstein - Never Buy Texas From A Cowboy
This is the second album from 1979. I previously wrote an item on their first album "Funk Or Walk". Further reading on Wikipedia brings to surface that "The Brides" were so succesful in 1979 that they were even beating out The Pointer Sisters, Sister Sledge at the Cashbox Rhythm & Blues award for best new female artist. When you look at the back cover of the album it's not specified per track who plays which instruments. People would think that it's Bootsy on bass and drums. Fact is that Bootsy is a great bass player and drummer. Looking it up on Dscogs also delivers the same result. This happened on many George Clinton records and it's a pity because don't get the credits they deserve. At least on the title track I found the information that it's Bruce Nazarian on bass and Jerry Jones (aka "Le Foot") on drums. More credits on Discogs; including horn arrangements by Fred Wesley. Rather unsatisfying not to know exactly who played what where! The music is so tight and inspiring, contrary to the way it's archived. Hopefully, when the right time comes, people will acknowledge the importance of this music and archive precisely who, when and how..
This is the title track called Dark Horse. Just as in the album version it features sax and piano solos. It's a pretty wild performance, matching today's start of the Chinese New Year: THE YEAR OF THE FIRE HORSE!Live at Bimhuis, we added a drum solo. Afterwards, I decided to seperate it from the song and post it as an extra video below. Why not in one video?Because the video would become very very long and experience shows that people will not stick around for longer that 6-7 minutes. Yoràn's free drum solo is actually really great and in this seperate video, the true drum lovers can watch and learn from his drum story telling. Sometimes people ask me; What are drummers doing in their solos? To give you an idea of what Yoràn is doing in his solo: He starts with a pattern, an idea. He keeps the pattern going and plays variations over it. Then he combines it with soloing over it with call and reponse phrases and slides in new patterns. Technically it's interesting because he demonstrates a lot of independence and speed, as well as dynamics and sound colours, while telling a story, which means in musical context that the solo has certain elements which can be recognized by the (trained) listener. Many people in the Western part of the world miss the melodic and harmonic context during a free drum solo. It's fair to say a free drum solo without any accompaniment is like an abstract painting. Within the given context you can hear and see what you can manage, depending on your own frame of reference and expectations. In the end, it's about: does it resonate with you? Because both, the painting and the free drum solo, they lack a clear subject (no lyrics, no recognizable image), both forms are highly subjective and open to the interpretation of the audience. They function as a conversation between the artist's feeling and the viewer's/listener's perception.But you also can listen to it with a pure analytical drum ear and try to follow the patterns and phrases. As a musician and human I (try to) do both :-) Enjoy!More info:Susanne Alt: sax, Matthijs Geerts and Ike van Bergen: keys, Thomas Pol: bass, Yoràn Vroom: drums, Helene Jank: percussion Performed at 16th of January 2026 at Bimhuis, Amsterdam, Recorded by Onno Prillwitz Filmed by Robert Glass and Albert Nooij. - This is the second album from 1979. I previously wrote an item on their first album Funk Or Walk.Further reading on Wikipedia brings to surface that The Brides were so succesful in 1979 that they were even beating out The Pointer Sisters, Sister Sledge at the Cashbox Rhythm & Blues award for best new female artist.When you look at the back cover of the album it's not specified per track who plays which instruments. People would think that it's Bootsy on bass and drums. Fact is that Bootsy is a great bass player and drummer. Looking it up on Dscogs also delivers the same result. This happened on many George Clinton records and it's a pity because don't get the credits they deserve. At least on the title track I found the information that it's Bruce Nazarian on bass and Jerry Jones (aka Le Foot) on drums. More credits on Discogs; including horn arrangements by Fred Wesley. Rather unsatisfying not to know exactly who played what where! The music is so tight and inspiring, contrary to the way it's archived. Hopefully, when the right time comes, people will acknowledge the importance of this music and archive precisely who, when and how..More Fred Wesley horn arrangements:
