Download or Listen to Nolan – I Like What You Give from the Lizard Records 45

Greeting to all the Flea Market Funk Family and to many of you new comers who just joined the FMF this week. Welcome aboard! I had to share this record with you, and I wanted to thank a guy I don’t even know for turning me on to it. I was digging up research for another record and I ended up on this guy’s page. At first I was skeptical because the guy was dancing all crazy in his videos. As I started to watch more and more, well I realized that this Northeast transplant from Florida had a great knowledge of music and DJing, and his enthusiasm about records was just like mine. So I say thanks to DJ Funktual for turning me on to this next choon. It’s none other than Nolan Porter and “I Like What You Give” on Lizard Records.

There is not a tremendous amount of information on Nolan Porter out there. From what I can gather, his earliest years were in the Los Angeles, CA area, where he ended up on Gabriel Mekkler’s Lizard Record Label. I’ve spotlighted some Lizard stuff, particularly Paul Humphrey and His Cool Aid Chemists “Funky LA”. A track coincidentally written by Nolan Porter. This track is funky as hell, so you know where his head was at, collaborating with one of the best drummers EVER. He would contribute to some writing for Steppenwolf, and continue to make music. Porter, or Nolan Porter, or NF Porter, or just plain Nolan was known in the Northern Soul circuits as well. He released records such as “If I Could Only Be Sure” and “Keep On Keeping On”, both widely accepted by Northern Soul enthusiasts, one being a Wigan Casino anthem. Porter would jam with the Mothers of Invention and Jimmy Carl Black, Lowell George and Roy Estrada, an early incarnation of Little Feat. He was a well rounded musician, writer, and producer. Besides releasing sides on Lizard, he put out a full length, Nolan on ABC, as well as sides on Kent. In later life, Porter would collaborate with Candy Zappa.

To me, this Nolan Porter tune is really a Summer anthem. It starts of slow and smooth, with Nolan crooning his way over some nice percussion, a sweet bass line and some low key guitar. The kicker is when his falsetto “fiiii-hine” finishes and a few bars later a killer B-Boy drum break comes out. All instruments pick up and all bets are off for about 20 seconds or more. Then Nolan goes back to getting his groove. It’s killer, and I just couldn’t hold back any longer. I had to get this out. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I’ll see you Friday with some more goodness. Keep Diggin’!