NY Night Train just started a record of the day playlist on YouTube – the NYNT Daily Party Platter Hit up NYNT YouTube channel every day to see what’s cookin’…

Finally a Motown record up here! Of all of The Contours amazing records, my favorite is their first – “Whole Lotta Woman.” If you were to stick your index finger in the air and proclaim this the best record of all time I probably wouldn’t argue with you. The version you are hearing is actually the second version – recorded for national release. Because the first version, only released regionally, looks exactly the same and was released on the same catalog number, you don’t really know what you’re gonna get until you put the needle down. In fact I thought this version only existed in a 1980s repro until a few years ago. While I’m typically a fan of the rawer version of anything, I prefer this “smoother” national version (which is still hella raw! seriously nothing not rough and tough about this one from the performance to the recording!). While a majority of 45 aficionados would disagree with my take on this, the national version is just more fluid and powerful, has a more interesting arrangement, and the relationship between the rhythmic elements (i.e. the groove) is tighter and has a lot more force – and this all makes for a more danceable song – which is most important to a party DJ like me. Listen to their killer guitarist Huey Davis locking in with those Funk Brothers! The original version (which i should dig up in my stacks and put online sometime but find it here for now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFFMbSLxhWQ), while vocally more intense is musically more repetitive and has a more rigid rhythm thats harder to grind your way into. If it were up to me I’d Frankenstein the vocals from the first one onto the instrumentation of the second one… That being said either version is better than any song you’ve ever heard and captures that wild Contours energy as never before or since. This record is action-packed and is one of the few that has never escaped my party box…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Contours
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Lotta’_Woman
http://motownjunkies.co.uk/2009/10/18/61/

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