My friend Marty inherited several boxes of lps and a few hundred 45s from a friend who moved across the country. That friend bought most of the records from some old dude in Detroit. Marty's run out of storage, so he wants the records to be turned over to their fourth owners.
The records were lined up in fairly neat rows on his garage floor. He opened the box of 45s and I dug in for two hours straight, stopping only to rub the cold out of my hands and take swigs from the can of PBR Marty plied me with.
All told, I got a stack of lps (which I left at his house because lugging lps on a bike is obviously no simple feat) and 110 45s. I picked up some isopropyl alcohol on the way home and once back, set to cleaning the beasts.
The 45s are in pretty wretched condition. Lots of dust, some molded over with what looks like a thick layer of cocaine. I'm only a fraction of the way along, but I just played this one track - "Hitch it to the Horse" by Greenwood, South Carolina's Fantastic Johnny C and my ears are so scorched by its hotness that I had to stop to cool down and share it with you.
The record was released by the Phil-LA Of Soul label in 1968.
This is the kind of record that makes it seem worthwhile to endure the hassle of cleaning armloads of records that turn out so scratchy that they're largely unplayable. "Hitch" sounds pretty clean, and...shit, again, it just burns!
Download: Hitch It to the Horse (mp3)
Oh, and to read more about Fantastic Johnny C, head over to the always informative Funky16Corners blog.
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