Track Listing

1. The Thing/Carleen & The Groovers
2. Free Your Mind/Amnesty
3. The Stretch (edit)/Detroit Sex Machines
4. Loaded To The Gills (edit)/Michael Liggins & The Supersouls
5. Go For Your Self (edit)/Kenny Smith & The Loveliters
6. Slipping Into Darkness/Dayton Sidewinders
7. James Brown Medley (I Made A Mistake/Lowdown Popcorn edit)/The Apollo Commanders
8. Cold Heat/Lil' Lavair and The Fabulous Jades
9. The Cissys Thang/The Soul Seven
10. Color (original 7" version)/L.A. Carnival
11. Don't Go/The Aristocrats
12. Drugs Ain't Cool (instrumental)/Ebony Rhythm Band
13. Mr. Chicken ---- (alternate take)/The Soul Seven
14. Street Scene/Leon Mitchison
15. Scorpio/Kashmere Stage Band
16. The Sad Chicken/Leroy & the Drivers

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42335 in Music
• Released on: 2005-03-22
• Number of discs: 1

Album Description
Compiler Egon's follow up to the definitve Deep Funk compilation The Funky 16 Corners (Stones Throw, 2001).

Contains rare and never-before-heard tracks by many artists featured on The Funky 16 Corners including Carleen and The Groovers, Kashmere Stage Band, Soul Seven and Ebony Rhythm Band.

Another expertly assembled survey into America's late 60s and early 70s funk scenes of restored and remastered from rare 45s and master tapes for near perfect sound quality.

Nearly 80 minutes of both classic and unreleased funk and soul music by some of the movement's unsung heros-packaged with 28 page archival booklet, complete with bonus, CD only tracks.

Vibe Magazine
"When (Egon's)...reissue label goes crate-digging, it gets low like Jacques Cousteau and raises rare, '70s funk gold."

Customer Reviews

Sometimes they are rarities for a reason
Lately I've started to look for early funk recordings that I had never heard of. Cold Heat seemed like a great collection.

On first listen though, this wasn't as groovin' as I had hoped for. It could be that the lo-budget production quality of the tracks got in the way or maybe the material itself was off. It's useful to hear the influences of the day. Psychedelic rock meets soul blues and early funk. And I did like that it was mostly instrumental. It seems like this stuff was best experienced live, and didn't translate that well in the studio.

Too Funky...Even For Me!
When I popped this Cold Heat: Heavy Funk Rarities CD in my stereo, I thought "I bet this will be weak"..I love all kinds of music and 70's funk ranks up there with Joy Division in my book. WOW! was I surprised,this CD blew my head off! These are some of the tightest arrangements I have ever heard in my life... "Drugs Ain't Cool" is by far the best 2:45 funk instrumental I have heard. This entire CD is great.I can't say anymore,except just buy it!

Neurotic Attempts to be Queens of the Universe
Many eons ago, hard funk troupes roamed the land, supplying supertight musicianship and sinister grooves to underfunkdafied peoples. These are the cats you can totally imagine getting on up while opening local shows for James Brown or playing in seedy clubs with the early Funkadelic. Many record companies and producers are now collecting mega-rare singles by these forgotten funkateers. This particular compilation is not the definitive overview of rare underground funk from the golden age, but it's definitely a worthy sampler that could turn the knowledgeable funk fan into a serious crate-digging collector. It's surely just the tip of the iceberg, but the nasty funk herein offers a bootyshakin' taste of what was once an unheralded but oozing scene.

There are a few glimpses of real ambition and innovation here, particularly from Amnesty and Kashmere Stage Band (if their track "Scorpio" wasn't the theme song to a righteous blaxploitation flick, it should've been). Many of the acts here clearly embody, and sometimes outright imitate, the key influences on the early heavy funk -Lil' Javier & the Fabulous Jades aren't even trying to NOT sound like JB, L.A. Carnival try way too hard to sing like the Temptations, and Leon Mitchison supplies Superfly's twin brother in "Street Scene." But otherwise, like the best of no-nonsense early fongk, most of the tracks here deliver insistent grooves with no messing around. Faves include "The Stretch" by Detroit Sex MacHines and "Slipping into Darkness" by Dayton Sidewinders (in both these cases, the song titles and band names couldn't be more accurate). And there is a real collector's find in the Aristocrats, the members of whom should be tracked down and convinced to deliver that righteous groove once again (but sadly, slammin' foxy singer Linda Blakely is no longer with us). The rare hard funk collected here is surely outrageous, but you'll soon ask yourself how much is still out there and ready for worship. [~doomsdayer520~]