Description
The Mississippi- born, Memphis- based blues singer, harmonica player and
songwriter Junior Parker (aka Little Junior Parker) had a stellar career in music.
Since the early 1950s he released records on labels such as Duke, Mercury,
United Artists Records and more. Sadly though, Parker died at the young age of
39 during surgery on November 18, 1971.
Originally released under the alternate title a year before his untimely death, Love
Ain’t Nothin’ But a Business Goin’ On is drenched in Parker’s trademark buttery
vocals and soulful grooves, swaggering between smokey blues, raw funk outings
and orchestrated soul ballads (with sublime arrangements by Horace Ott).
The album also features three Beatles cover versions in the form of ‘Taxman’,
‘Lady Madonna’ and ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. For ‘Taxman’, Parker completely
reinterprets the song taking into a New Orleans funk realm, a sample of which
was used as the main hook line on Cypress Hill’s classic ‘I Wanna Get High’.
Elsewhere, ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ is flipped into a tripped- out, psychedelic
soul-swamp blues ballad, whilst ‘Lady Madonna’ is given a funky blues makeover.
As shown with Cypress Hill’s use of ‘Taxman’, since the ’70s Parker’s legacy has
been immortalised for future generations through the deep well of samples that
his music has become a source of. Tracks from Love Ain’t Nothin’ But a Business
Goin’ On have been sampled by some of the biggest names out there, such as A
Tribe Called Quest, DJ Shadow and De La Soul.
A seriously smooth album oozing with soul and emotion from a Blues Hall of
Fame inductee, Junior Parker’s Love Ain’t Nothin’ But A Business Goin’ On is a
superb example of the early ’70s crossover funk/soul sound.
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