Jackie Lee – The Chicken on the Uni 45

I’m hoping that the Workin’ and Movin’ Mix from early this week held you over until today’s post. I’m trying to work on a better method of hosting my mixes, as they can be quite large in size. I’ve shifted to ZShare for my larger mixes, and am doing some research on embedded players, as the DivShare embedded player has not been successful for me so far. At any rate, enough of the technical stuff (but if anyone has any suggestions in regards to this matter, I’m all ears.) I’d like to shout out TMO for hepping me to the cats over at WeFunk Radio (what’s up Professor Groove and DJ Static?) spreading the word about FMF. Good looking out. I’ve been a fan of WeFunk for a minute and think that they do radio right. If there is an opening in Montreal for some rare grooves, hit me up guys.

I’m gonna travel to sunny Los Angeles this time and visit with Mr. Earl Nelson aka Chip Nelson, aka Earl Cosby aka Jay Dee and his famous recording alias, Jackie Lee. Starting out in Doo Wop and making the natural progression towards the new R & B sound, Earl scored a hit in “Harlem Shufffle” with his duo Bob and Earl on Marc Records., featuring a young Barry White on piano. I finally picked up a copy of this, and if you don’t have it, I definitely advise you to cop this piece of vinyl. That particular song has been covered numerous times, most notably by the Rolling Stones. Who can forget the House of Pain’s use of the beginning horns? That review will be for another day. The song I’m speaking about this time, is “The Chicken” on Uni Records. He was on this label with groups like The Strawberry Alarm Clock, Hugh Masekela, Neil Diamond, and The Coz aka Mr. Bill Cosby. However, every time I’m digging and see a Uni label, I’m looking for Desmond Dekker, Marvin Holmes & the Uptights (If any one has “OOh OOh the Dragon hit me up), or anything unusual. From the first needle drop on the old Fisher Price, I knew this was unusual indeed. Even though Lee’s biggest hit was 1965’s “The Duck” , which spawned dances galore, for me it’s all about “The Chicken”. This chicken of a song is fried hard and shit (insert Fugees skit there, because that’s where I stole it from).

Ok it’s Southern fried hard baby, so get on the dance floor and do that Chicken children. For some reason, this cat had a string of hits and they all had a particular dance. Lucky for us it this particular dance stayed in 1970, but the record ended up in Hazelt N.J. for me in 2007. From the opening guitar lick Lee struts to this funky beat and just doesn’t quit until you’ve got the moves down. It teeters on the verge of Disco, but there are too many Funk elements in it for me to fully commit and label it all Disco. Uni had a few (and few is being generous) Soul and Funk artists, and Jackie Lee is definitely one you can look for. This of course wasn’t his strongest record, but one of those that makes you glad it isn’t, because not all artists strongest records are your favorite. I’ll be back at the end of the week with another funky jewel. Until then, Keep Diggin’!