Song Of The Day 12/6/2015: South Funk Blvd. Band – “I Want You Back In My Arms”

Song Of The Day Outtakes 2015 – This desperate, stone-hard piece of Southern soul was cut from Crazy Cajun Records Week -- and if that doesn't ring a bell, that may be because the theme week itself was cut. In April, I stumbled upon a series of compilation albums under the Crazy Cajun banner on Spotify. Quite plainly thrown together with as little effort as possible, the ten albums nevertheless had a higher-than-usual share of thrilling music with little heed to genres. There were some very recognizable names on the lineup -- Freddy Fender, Doug Sahm, Willie Nelson, Jean Knight, Doug Kershaw -- but the albums were dominated by lesser-known names. Still I'd heard enough in my first 15 minutes of listening or so that I scrapped together a Spotify playlist with all the comps on it for easy reference. It's tremendous music. So I started culling songs together for a theme week a la the Pye Records theme I did earlier in the year and conducted some initial research maneuvers. That's where I got stopped dead cold. I got that Crazy Cajun was started by Huey P. Meaux in Houston, and even found what amounts to a tribute website, but virtually no information whatsoever on the bands I wanted to feature. Including the South Funk Blvd. Band, who are alternately listed as the South Funk Blvd. Blues Band, the South Funk Boulevard Band, Allison & the South Funk Blvd. Band... the punch-label nightmare goes on. Soul-pop doesn't get much grittier than this. I did manage to feature some tracks from the Crazy Cajun stable by Willie Nelson and Preacher George Jessup in the summer as well, and said a whole lot of nothing in those write-ups too. I'll bet the Crazy Cajun story's fascinating, if only someone would tell it.