S/D: Joe Tex

It appears this is the very first Joe Tex thread on here (!!!). Been listening to a greatest-hits collection which has one great cut after another. Where should I go next to explore further? What studio albums are worth checking out?

buying a book. everyone needs that album. and from the roots came the rapper. hell, i'd buy any joe tex album that i saw. you got nothing to lose.

that's kinda crazy that there is no thread until now. i wouldn't have guessed that.

lots of area to cover too. 50's, 60's, 70's. but its really fun to cover!

Well there was this thread, but I don't think that counts.

I'm just starting to get into him (no idea what took me so long), but I've absolutely loved the three LPs I've picked up so far, which are:

The Love You Save (Atlantic 1966)
Bumps & Bruises (Epic 1977)
Rub Down (Epic 1978)

So yeah, obviously I've still got numerous eras to explore, and I plan to follow Scott's advice and pick up every Joe Tex LP I see in a dollar bin from now on. That's how much I love these. Bumps & Bruises, especially, is insanely great -- as deep-soul-funked a disco album as I can think of (maybe the Trammps or James Brown's disco moves came close, but I wouldn't swear on that), and completely hilarious --"Ain't Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman)" (who keeps knocking Joe down so he tells her to go get a big fat man), "Be Cool (Willie Is Dancing With A Sissy)" (his "Lola," basically -- Willie's about to pull out his razor but Joe suggests otherwise); "I Mess Up Everything I Get My Hands On" (so he requests that somebody chop them off), "Jump Bad" (basically a proto-rap song, partly about a granny who gets mugged by a purse-snatcher after a grocery trip, so she chucks a sauerkraut can at his head.) Awesome LP cover with Joe getting down in disco clothes, too.

Don't know how you could have missed Ain't Gonna Bump No More. Went to #12 in 1977 & was awesome from the moment it dropped.

Not sure Xhuxk said he missed it, just that he did not have a copy of that lp. I love that song but for some reason never had that album either.

Or maybe I should just let him explain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmdaNeltltc

xp Nah, of course I'd heard the song before (though I'm not sure how much -- I wasn't listening to the radio much in '77, I never really hear it on oldies stations, and I don't think it's ever showed up on any compilation I have, which seems odd.) Just never took the time to explore Joe Tex further. Which is shameful, sure, but what can I say -- some things just fall between the cracks. All the more fun to explore him now.

I'm also curious to learn to what extent Tex crossed over to country, and even to country audiences, especially in Texas. "Half A Mind" from 1968 is included on Warners' 1998 From Where I Stand: The Black Experience In Country, and "Trying To Win Your Love" on Trikont's More Dirty Laundry: The Soul Of Black Country, and they're both really good. (My father-in-law, from Houston and mainly a country fan, said he thought Joe Tex was great; I was surprised he even knew him.)

But weirdly, who the jokes-amid-talked-funk aesthetic of those late '70s LPs kind of reminds me of (not saying they sound alike so much as seem to think alike) is Jimmy Castor, who'd also been around for a long while by then (and who I am on record as loving.)

joe's soul country album is, um, country soul. or soul + country. country covers.

i love joe's cover of "skip a rope". that's a pop country song i've always liked.

chuck, this is really informative:

http://www.roctober.com/roctober/joetex.html

wasn't there some Sly Stone connection with this guy...? or am I thinking of Joe Hicks...

All of the funky, funny stuff is classic, obviously, but "Hold On To What You Got" is one of my alltime favorite southern soul ballads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzHK5VApBbU

Oh yeah!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afRAK_MPbgc

Actually, "Get Back Leroy" on Rub Down does kinda sound like a Jimmy Castor song (and not just because Castor was also known for doing return-of-Leroy songs, though that's part of it, and probably what gave me the idea to compare them.) I get the idea Joe is being influenced by him here, even though in his song Leroy's more like Johnny Taylor's Jodee, the guy out to steal his woman. So Joe tells Leroy to get back to his own big fat woman, and says this: "My woman ain't no brickhouse, she's a little teepee/But Leroy let me tell ya, she belongs to me."

Also that album starts with more super gritty funk-disco where Joe says he's getting too old for discoteques 'cause if you're not careful you'll get a broken neck and to dance these days you better know kung-fu (after which there are asian carl douglas sounds) so how about you just go home and give him a back rub instead (might've had more luck if he'd offered to give her one instead). Then comes a cut where he comments on guys on airplanes and songs on the radio that promise women the moon and say they'll swim the seven seas when no way would any man actually do that what with all those dangerous sharks and octopuses and alligators out there. Last song on Side One says: Be good to old people!

Three specific things he says you shouldn't do to old people: (1) Make fun of them; (2) Put 'em in an old folks home; (3) Make 'em wear a wig to hide their grey hair, especially if you live in Texas. Also loving whenever he goes into preacher-sermon mode, both when provicing life lessons about, say, why you shouldn't cheat on your spouse because they'll return the favor -- see the cryptically titled "You Might Be Digging The Garden (But Somebody's Picking Your Plums)" -- and when he goes into a voice-raising talk mode that actually sounds sermon-like.

Scott, I will check out that link for sure; thanks!

(...providing life lessons...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xzglQ3T9ZJk

i brought a smile to my cousin's face when i posted this on my FB wall ... we used to sing this when we were little kids!

http://youtu.be/xzglQ3T9ZJk

Is "I Gotcha" from 1971 the first-ever rap hit?

That's what some say but not others!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rvK22SB-GU