Author: zachary.hoskins@gmail.com
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Dystopian Book Club Podcast, Jheri Curl June Edition: The Memoirs of Rick James
It didn’t take a stroke of genius to come up with the idea for this year’s Jheri Curl June podcast. Rick James may be the most important architect of the genre we call Jheri Curl Music who we hadn’t already commemorated with a long-term feature. He also has a hell of a story: one he…
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Jheri Curl June: Kool & The Gang’s “Fresh”
Kool & The Gang is yet another ’70s funk band that sustained themselves through the changing landscape of ’80s R&B with their ability to adapt to the times. I mean, just listen to anything off 1973’s Wild and Peaceful, and then consider that “Ladies’ Night” (which, by the way, will always be THE fucking jam) came…
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Jheri Curl June: Eddie Murphy’s “Party All the Time”
This Friday, we’ll be posting a special Jheri Curl June edition of our podcast series-within-a-series, Dystopian Book Club, on the memoirs of Mr. Rick James. It’s a fun conversation–after a year and a half, we’re finally hitting our stride as podcasters!–and I’m excited to unleash it upon an unsuspecting (/indifferent) Internet. But I also wanted to…
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Jheri Curl June: Junie Morrison’s “Show Me Yours”
Back in May when we did our Memorial Day podcast, I was sorely unaware of Junie Morrison’s music. Sure, I had heard the Ohio Players’ albums from the early ’70s, of which Junie played a seminal part; I had heard Funkadelic’s late ’70s music, particularly “(Not Just) Knee Deep” (I mean obviously, I’ve watched Good…
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Jheri Curl June: Stevie Wonder’s “Love Light in Flight”
It’s a well-known fact that most white music critics don’t “get” ’80s Stevie Wonder. And for a long time, I was no exception: I took as gospel the truism that it was all downhill for Stevie after Hotter Than July, and I levied what I considered to be the appropriate amount of scorn on his material from…
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Jheri Curl June: Kashif’s “Ooh Love”
Last month, we recorded our annual Memorial Day podcast, a budding tradition in which we commemorate (and lightly mock) many of the important musical artists we’ve lost since the previous May. And this time, one of those artists was especially bittersweet: former B.T. Express keyboardist, producer, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and dope-moustache-haver Kashif. As I said on…
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Jheri Curl June: Kleeer’s “Tonight”
Kleeer had a rocky road to Jheri Curldom. Originally conceived in 1972 as the Jam Band, the backing band for the Choice Four, they later became their own entity, changed their name to Pipeline, and recorded the hard rock infused “Gypsy Rider.” After the single tanked, Pipeline transformed into the Universal Robot Group, under which they recorded and toured for…
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Jheri Curl June: O’Bryan’s “Lovelite”
I stumbled upon O’Bryan sometime last year, in one of my annual trawls through the underbelly of the Internet looking for fresh Jheri Curl Music. Born O’Bryan McCoy Burnette II, he cut his teeth in the 1970s Philadelphia soul and disco scene, before a fortuitous meeting with Soul Train creator Don Cornelius resulted in his being signed to Capitol Records.…
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Jheri Curl June: Slave’s “Turn You Out (In & Out)”
We’ve featured Slave before for Jheri Curl June, but their 1983 album Bad Enuff is the group at their most activated. By 1983, the sound of ’80s R&B had fully transitioned from leftover disco to what we all know and love as Jheri Curl Music, thanks to Prince’s Minneapolis sound taking off. Slave followed suit, though…