A dance party mix, a podcast, and the third installment installment of my NY Night Train Soul Clap and Dance-Off Top 500 list! Numbers 441-460 from the original 45s for your dancing and listening pleasure!

More »

The third installment, numbers 441-460, of my Soul Clap and Dance-Off Top 500 list where I count down my favorite original 45s from the Soul Clap & Dance-Off party. This page is both a track list and supplement to my Soundcloud mix/podcast. Since the records are all pitched, cut, and yelled over the way I do it at my parties, this page and its YouTube playlist give you a chance to hear the original vinyl in its natural state and will hopefully also prove to be a solid resource for learning more about the records and the artists. I’ve also provided links to where you can get more in-depth in your soul journey. Thank you for listening!


441. Susan King “Building A Wall Around My Heart (Toy, 1965)


The ideal track for all those trying to be strong but making themselves emotionally unavailable in the process! Its hard to believe the fresh youthful contemporary voice doing the lead on this Girl Group-ish mod ‘60s track belongs to a 56-year-old singer from another era! Also a songwriter and bassist, Nora Lee King became known for singin’ the blues way back in the 1930s and cut a few jazzy Decca sides in 1941 – including a 78 with one of the earliest uses of the term “groovy” in popular recording, “Boy! It’s Solid Groovy.” She played with a number of notable artists and was also featured on a few Mary Lou Williams sides. She was married to legendary jazz guitarist Lawrence Lucie whose work you know from iconic recordings by a veritable who’s who of the pre-bebop jazz pantheon: Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Billy Holliday, and on and on and on. Artists whose faces appear on a U.S. postage stamps! And the cool contemporary guitarist rockin’ here with such authority, subtlety, steadiness, and fuzz is this very hero who was doing his thing since the era of the giants. King and Lucie started up NYC’s Toy Records in 1962 where she turned out ten solid sides as Susan King between 1963 and 1965. Later in life the couple also played beside other ‘20s and ‘30s jazz veterans in The Harlem Blues and Jazz Band.

More »

A party mix, a podcast, and the second installment installment of my NY Night Train Soul Clap and Dance-Off Top 500 list! Numbers 461-480 from the original 45s for your dancing and listening enjoyment!

More »

The second installment, numbers 461-480, of my Soul Clap and Dance-Off Top 500 list where I count down my favorite original 45s from the Soul Clap & Dance-Off party. This page is both a track list and supplement to my Soundcloud mix/podcast. Since the records are all pitched, cut, and yelled over there the way I do it at my parties, this page and its YouTube playlist give you a chance to hear the original vinyl in its natural state and learn more about the records and the artists. I’ve also provided links to where you can get more in-depth in your soul journey. Thank you for listening!


461. Willie Hamilton and the Counts “Cheer Up” (HRP, ?)


This relentless flash of lightning is the sole solo release by Los Angeles drummer Willie Hamilton with his own combo The Counts. And if the bounce, fire, and good vibrations of this longtime personal Los Angeles favorite doesn’t achieve its goal of making you feel glad all over, you have no pulse!. Hamilton’s daughter Renee got in touch because of a past post and informed me that her father recently passed away at 87. After this record he moved to Houston where he quit music, started a family, and in her words, “completely left his old life behind and started over.” Renee also sent me the below photos of him looking incredibly fly. Since the weather’s turning, COVID’s retreating, and we certainly have the right soundtrack, I’m ready to dive into this adventure with a message to you from Willie Hamilton and The Counts… “Cheer Up!”



More »

The City Parks Foundation/SummerStage is streaming Joel Henderson’s mini-documentary/concert film of SummerStage’s 2019 NY Night Train Soul Clap & Dance-Off Live Revue at Ford Amphitheater at Coney Island Boardwalk on SummerStageAnywhere.org THURSDAY, MARCH 25 at 7PM Eastern.

The stream features footage of live performances by legends like Irma Thomas, Archie Bell, Joe Bataan, Renaldo Domino, and Binky Griptite backed by the amazing 13-piece Brooklyn Rhythm Band.

Definitely check it out!

More »

In a feeble attempt to organize my records, I’ve digitized thousands of original 45s since COVID. One of my many quantifying and grouping tasks was painstakingly carving a list of my 500 favorite records from the New York Night Train Soul Clap and Dance-Off party out of this raw material (mostly difficult for the hundreds of my favorite spins I couldn’t fit on here but deserve to be included!). With the exception of a couple of second-label presses from the same year, these are all from the original 45s – beautiful authentic artifacts bursting with character and sonic distinction! I’ve ripped the vinyl, mastered the tracks, photographed the labels, and done my best to research and write about the records and the artists in hopes that this is just the beginning of y(our) journey into the records and these very deserving artists. I’m releasing the list in twenty-five segments of twenty as both a Soundcloud podcast that functions as a podcast and DJ mix and a YouTube playlist (scroll down for everything!) as a supplemental guide. Also, since I haven’t been able to have a dance party for a year and counting, these are made for you to cut a rug to at home until we get a chance to dance again….

NY NIGHT TRAIN SOUL CLAP & DANCE-OFF 500: 481-500

481. Nellie Rutherford “Laughing At Me” (Hickory, 1963)


More »

While this is the first year without a New York Night Train Haunted Hop since 2006 (this year we had Amyl and the Sniffers confirmed!), you can use this, my 11th annual Halloween mix, to pretend you’re at the party in the comfort of you own home! I hope you get a kick outta this odd and broad combination of punk, funk, country, garage, blues, what the heck, calypso, Halloween novelties, and the beyond.

You can stream the last 7 Halloween mixes continuously in my Soundcloud playlist and 11 hours of the old Halloween mixes here on my Mixcloud playlist… Here’re the original 45s you’re listening to…

More »