Eugene McDaniels (RIP)

dang, sux to start a thread just to talk about his passing, but i love this man so much. Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse and Outlaw are 2 of the best funk/soul/folk albums. and he sang vocals on one of my all time favorite jazz albums ever, Bobby Hutcherson's "Now!"

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

damn, headless heroes is one of my faves. i came to it for miroslav, but i stuck around for the insistence that 'no amount of dancing will make us free'

even if it makes us a little bit free, it doesn't really do us a damn thing

and i thank him for that

he also wrote 'compared to what' and 'feel like makin love' (the roberta flack song)

what!!!!

this dude pretty much got me started on sample spotting. beasties, tribe, beatnuts, quasimoto

Dayum...'Jagger The Dagger' what a tune!!...Seemed like a really nice chilled guy in this video...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC6LdIcmDQs

been getting into this guy recently, was surprised to learn that he wrote compared to what and feel like makin love and that I hadn't previously heard of him.

This is a cool tune:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmfTZs0zoKE

he does a neat little eddie harris reference on the vocal break (quoting Freedom Jazz Dance)

RIP big guy

Thats a jam, hurting. What a weird/awesome hook! I have had his song Susan Jane on rotation for the last year or so
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0e2mHlgFqo
I'm always looking for drums like this

for reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ11cArknek

(strangely can't find the eddie harris original on youtube -- it's way groovier)

and yeah, the hook lyric is crazy -- I love psyched out soul stuff like that "the green and black elevator bringin me down to the basement on the 13th floor" kind of lol but mostly aws.

"Compared To What" by Roberta Flack is my jam.

funny, just before I noticed this thread I saw one on Glen Campbell : Outlaw and thought they had the wrong person cos it's either Willie & johnny or this guy who cut the lp of the title.

HAd either not known he'd died or forgotten. Found his learning to not sing quite odd, since I think he was around as a singer in th eearly 60s/late 50s doing some form of r'n'b which would require conventional even powerful singing and he seems to have a pretty loose relationship with proper notes on Headless Horsemen

Feel Like Makin' Love is such a brilliant song. It should be put in the space capsule we use to try to convince aliens that humans are worth keeping alive.

In a fit of nostalgia in the immediate aftermath of my last break up three years ago, I bought the CD reissues of Outlaw and Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse. Listened to them a couple times and filed them away. When I first them in the early 2000s, I remember thinking they were "overrated" and never really gave them a chance. However, the scope and profundity of those two albums is pretty damned admirable when you take a step back. And, obviously, the music is just top gear the whole way. Really should get them back out.

Is there a story behind him becoming more freely associative with notes. he seems to go from being a semi operatic singer as late as Outlaw to being somebody who sees notes as associative archetypes to freely associate with on Headless Horsemen of The Apocalypse.
I just checked out a track from each after having had Headless Horsemen for years and knowing that he had been a soul type singer at one point. Not sure why I never got Outlaw.
Is this the hippie dream or anarchism or something that is making his relationship with tune wayward? Or is it something natural that you go from being a strong singer to doing your own thing? Puzzled.

Don't know about the lineage, Stevo. I always took it as: he was the Left Rev McD and that was his preacher voice.

Just been hipped to a Eugene McDaniels-produced album from 1975 that I'm very much enjoying. Cast of studio heroes in the band and some numbers that are much more of a gritty funk rock sound than I expected. Super great country soul jam right in the middle of the album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDAx3LNTkwY

{Merry Clayton — "Room 205" (1975)}

ICYMI: https://thoughtcatalog.com/franklin-bruno/2010/08/the-left-rev-mcd-the-strange-career-of-geneeugene-mcdaniels/