"When the Levee Breaks" (Led Zeppelin)

So here's the thing: I think "Stairway to Heaven" is overrated and overplayed.  It's a decent song, but it's also self-consciously grandiose in a way that suggests the band was trying to prove something.  And then there's all the brouhaha over whether or not Jimmy Page stole the opening guitar line/chord progression from the 1968 track "Taurus" by the band Spirit—a band that Led Zeppelin opened for on its 1969 US tour.  (Listen for yourself, and you make the call.)
The real epic on Zep's 1971 untitled fourth album is "When the Levee Breaks," a dramatic reworking of the 1929 Delta blues tune by "Kansas Joe" McCoy and his wife, "Memphis Minnie" Lawler, about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.
In fact, the only thing the band held onto from the original was the lyric.  (In this particular case, they had the good sense and decorum to acknowledge "Memphis Minnie" in the writing credits.)  Lawler's words paint a harrowing picture of the 1927 disaster: rising floodwaters and breached levees forcing throngs of people from their homes while others downriver awaited their fate and worried.
The lyrics are eerie enough on the original recording; but in Robert Plant's hands, they have a gravity that's downright apocalyptic and an electricity that's irresistible.
Granted, it doesn't hurt that he has John Bonham behind him, playing one of the most thunderous, resonating beats in all of rock (an effect that was achieved by Bonham playing his drum kit at the bottom of a stairwell and engineer Andy Johns recording him from two floors above).
More than anything, though, I love this song for the little melodic shifts and genius production touches (like the backward harmonica line) that help foster the sense of building tension.  Especially leading up to the final minute, when Page's guitar lines surface, pan across, and then get submerged—not unlike watching debris in floodwaters.

"Shadrach" (Beastie Boys)

Back in 1989 when the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique was released, no one really knew what to make of it.  See, there were two rumors circulating at the time: 1) Michael "Mike D." Diamond had died from some kind of overdose, and 2) the followup to the group's multi-platinum License to Ill (1986) was nothing more than snippets of unfinished tracks that had been remixed and rush-released to capitalize on Diamond's untimely demise.
But Mike D. wasn't dead.  And Paul's Boutique wasn't just some odds-n-ends pastiche of recycled rhymes about frat boy buffoonery culled from demo tapes, thoughtlessly slapped on top of random beats—despite what some music critics and gossip-mongers claimed.
It was a groundbreaking exploration of sound that took sampling to new heights.
One of the key tracks on the album is "Shadrach," a stanky chunk of funk, primarily built upon a sample from Sly & The Family Stone's 1974 single "Loose Booty," that features tag-team rhyming and mile-a-minute pop culture/autobiographical references.    
The title, "Shadrach," not only refers to the chant that Sly and Freddie Stone repeat, ad infinitum, in "Loose Booty" (Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego...), it's also an allusion to the three Biblical brothers (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) who were saved by an angel of God after being thrown in Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II's furnace for refusing to bow to an idol.
It's actually the latter that has the most to do with the Beasties' lyrics.
They were three guys who'd been vilified by the mainstream media across the globe for their (satirically) offensive rhymes and (comedically) loutish behavior.  At the same time, they had sold tons of records based on their "scream loud/drink beer/break shit" image—an image that Def Jam Records chief Russell Simmons wanted them to perpetuate to keep the cash wagon rolling.  Thing was, the Beasties were tired of playing drunken caricatures of themselves, so they broke their contract with Def Jam and Simmons's Rush Management, which led to years of legal wrangling.  Nevertheless, they gained artistic autonomy and started over in LA with producer Mario Caldato, Jr., and crate-diggers extraordinaire The Dust Brothers (John King and Mike Simpson) helping them chart a new course.
So they had been through the fire, and they had not only survived, but they'd also remained true to themselves.

"Flash Light" (Parliament)

While I was living in DC in the early 2000s, I started listening to as much Parliament as I could get my hands on.  It was a weird time to be living in the District.  And Parliament's space funk provided an upbeat respite from the confounding junk happening circa 2001-2.
But as I really started listening to the words of the songs, I began to realize that the alien scenarios and comic book-style characters, like Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk, Dr. Funkenstein, and Star Child, weren't just some crazy, meaningless crap that George Clinton's substance-addled brain had dreamed up to market a product.  They were all part of insightful social commentary about American consumerism, greed, and Puritanical repressive tendencies, where mindless/soulless entertainment, overindulgence (both legal and illegal), and acquisition of stuff served as substitutes for real fulfillment.
Thing is, Clinton and his cohorts were singing about this stuff in 1977.  Thirty-something years later, it feels even more relevant today (frighteningly).
Speaking of insight, that's what "Flash Light" is really all about: shining a light on the truth.
The song is the final track of the concept album Funkentelechy vs. The Placebo Syndrome (1977).  In it, cosmic "square" Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk, despite his repeated declarations throughout the album that "he'll never dance," finally loosens up and gives in to the funk after Star Child shines the Flash Light on him.  (In other words, he embraces the truth, and the truth sets him free.)
Putting aside the tao and mythology of Parliament for a sec, "Flash Light" is just a cold groove.
In a great 1994 interview with Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid for Vibe, Clinton states that the song started out as a track for Bootsy Collins's side project, Bootsy's Rubber Band, but Collins didn't want the tune.  So, using Collins's basic guitar and drum track, Clinton rebuilt the song from the ground up with the band's genius keyboardist, Bernie Worrell, who added its signature keyboard bassline.
There is just so much going on and so much to love on this track.  From all of the James Brown-on-Mars polyrhythms and intertwined guitar/keyboard lines to the singalong vocals (which include a Bar Mitzvah chant that Clinton incorporated as an homage to a childhood friend), it's a song that refuses to let wallflowers or fakers sit idly by.

"I Got What It Takes" (Koko Taylor)

Koko Taylor (born Cora Walton) got tired of sharecropping and breaking her back, picking cotton down South.  So she and her husband got the hell out of Memphis and went to Chicago in 1952 to find better jobs.  By the end of the decade, she was cleaning houses by day and singing in blues clubs by night.
It was a few years before she got her big break.  In 1962, she was attending a Howlin' Wolf performance, and the Wolf called her up on stage to sing a few numbers (so he could go backstage to get a drink of liquor).  After wrapping her set, she ran into prolific blues songwriter/bassist Willie Dixon, who also was at the show.  Dixon told her he liked her style and promptly helped her record her first single, a Mel Tillis tune called "Honky Tonky," for USA Records, a small blues label.  Soon after, Dixon convinced her to come audition for the head of Chess Records, Leonard Chess, who signed her immediately.  Ultimately, she'd stay with Chess Records from 1964-1972.
Her first single for Chess was the scorching "I Got What It Takes" (1964), written specifically for her by Dixon.  It's a 3-minute dissertation on why she is the baddest female around, delivered in manner that can only be described as foghorn-like.  (Not even Etta James at her most gritty and lowdown had the same atomic growl that Taylor had.)
And although Taylor is the star here, the backing band is no slouch.  Walter Horton's wailing harmonica and Buddy Guy's plucky lead guitar are the perfect foils for Taylor's vocal.  Then there's Jack Meyers on bass: he's playing at least a half step out of tune, yet it doesn't even matter.  There's something simultaneously immaculate and decadent about the bass being so in the pocket rhythmically yet in the wrong key chromatically.  It simply works in this context.
In short, her Chess debut proves why she earned the title "Queen of the Blues."

"Lust for Life" (Iggy Pop)

A few years back, some cruise line was using "Lust for Life" as the soundtrack for its commercials.  Who knows, maybe it still is.  I couldn't help but picture Iggy Pop, sitting somewhere (a red couch in a rented flat on the Champs-Élysées, a hash bar in Amsterdam, the bathroom of the Astor Place K-mart...), holding a royalties check, and laughing his ass off about some ad exec unwittingly (or quite knowingly) picking this paean to debauchery with its various sly references to William S. Burroughs to hawk voyages to tropical locales.
It was an especially odd choice, considering that the song had been used pretty appropriately in the drug-filled crime film Trainspotting (1996), which is where I (and countless others of my generation) first heard it.
The track from the 1977 album of the same name features the same group of musicians, led by David Bowie, that had crafted Pop's art-rock reinvention/comeback album, The Idiot, earlier the same year—most notably, rhythm weapons Hunt Sales (drums) and his brother Tony Sales (bass).  (Bar trivia fact: they're the sons of comedian Soupy Sales.)
Anyway, the Sales brothers are the culprits behind the thunderous rhythm section, which sounds kind of like the rhythm section of The Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love" (had The Funk Brothers done an 8-ball before the recording session, that is).
Even if the subject matter of "Lust for Life" doesn't exactly resonate, there's still something rousing about that shouted refrain Lust for life / I got a lust for life! that makes you want to go out and grab life by the lapels.

"I Can Hear You Calling" (Three Dog Night)

Three Dog Night doesn't really get its due in the world of 70s rock.  The main gripe of rock critics back in the day was that they didn't write their own material.  Thing was, they had a knack for picking hellaciously catchy songs by great songwriters (Hoyt Axton, Harry Nilsson, and John Hiatt, to name a few) and then (re)interpreting them perfectly.
A good example is "I Can Hear You Calling"—an album track from Naturally (1970) and also the B-side of their most famous single, "Joy To The World" (an Axton tune).  
The song was written and originally performed by the Canadian band Bush, a funk-influenced hard rock band that toured with Three Dog Night in 1970.
The original version by Bush is not bad, riding a catchy, bass-heavy groove.  It kind of feels like distant relative of "Funk #49" by The James Gang (which, oddly enough, Bush's lead guitarist, Domenic Troiano, joined in 1971 after Bush disbanded).
But Three Dog Night's version bests the original for three reasons: the soaring three-part harmonies of vocalists Danny Hutton, Chuck Negron, and Cory Wells; keyboardist Jimmy Greenspoon's skittering Hammond organ; and drummer Floyd Sneed's syncopated cowbell percussion.  
If you listen to no other part of this track, fast-forward to the 1:36 mark, and check out the drum break.  It's as simultaneously tight and loose as anything that Jabo Starks and Clyde Stubblefield played on James Brown's most famous records.
In all, the band had a wealth of talent and sold a wealth of records, even if the praise wasn't exactly forthcoming from the music press.

"Honky Tonk Women" (The Rolling Stones)

If you're familiar with the Stones' 1969 album Let It Bleed, you probably know that the song "Honky Tonk Women" (released separately as a non-album single in 1969) started out as a jangly two-step called "Country Honk."  
Both songs pretty much share the same lyrics about booze and floozies.  Biggest difference is that "Country Honk" is set in Jackson, MS, whereas "Honky Tonk Women" is set in Memphis, TN.  
Musically, though, they're worlds apart.  The former is completely countrified.  Primitive-sounding, in fact.  Don't get me wrong; it's is not without its ragged, front porch n' white lightnin' charms, including audio verité moments of tires on gravel and a horn honking.  It also provides the perfect bridge from Robert Johnson's haunting "Love in Vain" to the raunchy, Motown-esque "Live With Me" on the album's first side (if we're talking vinyl).
But I prefer the Memphis-meets-East Texas funk-fire of the reimagined track.
For some reason, more than any other track by the band, "Honky Tonk Women" conjures for me the instant mental picture of Mick Jagger strutting around like a banty, pointing at the audience, shaking his hips, etc.  (Moves he largely cribbed from Tina Turner after she and Ike opened for The Stones on their 1966 tour of the United Kingdom.)  I think the answer lies somewhere between the snarling guitar licks and producer Jimmy Miller's clanking cowbell.

"Nutbush City Limits" (Ike & Tina Turner)

What comes to mind when you hear the names "Ike & Tina Turner"?  
Few other husband-wife duos in the world of music elicit such charged and mixed feelings.  It's nearly impossible to separate each groundbreaking performance from the ugly ghost of domestic abuse hanging over it.  At the same time, Tina's ultimate triumph over adversity and phoenix-like rise to solo stardom is part of the story, too.
In fact, let's be honest: no one gave half a damn about seeing Ike on stage.
It was all about Tina.
The track "Nutbush City Limits" (1973) is all about her, too.
Long before she was known as "Tina Turner" (a stage name Ike gave her in 1960 to lock down her identity and keep her from leaving his band), she was Anna Mae Bullock from Nutbush, TN.  
Yes, Nutbush is a real place, located on Tennessee Highway 19, just as she sings in the lyrics.
On the surface, it's just a song about a "one-horse town" with a badass, chunky guitar riff and a four on the floor beat.  But dig a bit deeper down, and it reveals itself to be a reclamation of her true identity.  
Anna Mae from Nutbush is who she really was.  
Writing this song and turning it into one of the duo's last hits revealed who she had the power to be.

"I Heard It Through the Grapevine" (Gladys Knight & The Pips)

Okay, I'll probably get hate mail for what I'm about to say.
I don't care for Marvin Gaye's version of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine."  It has less to do with Gaye's performance and more to do with the backing track.  The campy strings.  The cheesy background singers.  The tom-toms.  It's gimmicky, and it sounds dated.
But I love Gladys Knight & The Pips' version.
Funny thing is, writer/producer Norman Whitfield and writing partner Barrett Strong wrote the song with neither artist in mind; they wrote it for Smokey Robinson.
In fact, Robinson and The Miracles first recorded a version of the song in 1966.  But Motown head honcho Berry Gordy felt it was weak and refused to let it be released.  (They eventually cut a different version in 1968 for the album Special Occasion.)  
So Whitfield and Strong went back to the drawing board and came up with a new arrangement, which Whitfield recorded with Gaye in 1967—a session that almost ended with a fistfight, according to music journalist David Ritz's liner notes for The Best of Marvin Gaye anthology (1995), because Whitfield kept needling Gaye to sing in a register higher than he was comfortable. 
Anyway, at the time, Gordy rejected that rendition, too.  Didn't feel it was single-worthy.
So in mid-1967, Gordy was itching to put out a Motown single to rival Aretha Franklin's "Respect," which was burning up the soul and pop charts.  That September, Whitfield and Strong came back with a funkier, gospel-influenced arrangement of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and gave it to Knight.  Who promptly sang the hell out of it.
Her read of the song is completely different from Gaye's.  Whereas he sounds torn between love and anguish, she's a woman with a purpose: she's out to confront her man and give that cheating so-and-so a piece of her mind.  She's hurting, but she's going to make darn sure he leaves hurting, too.
The backing track is also superior in every way.  It ignites the moment you press "play" and doesn't let up for 3 minutes.  Funny thing is, the same musicians (Motown's "Funk Brothers") play on both renditions.  For instance, bassist James Jamerson's presence is felt in each instance, but his playing is so much more lively here.  Just listen to the leaps and runs that he plays on every chorus.  It's pure church.
In the end, Gaye's version became the bigger hit in October 1968 when it was released a few months after Knight's version.  It actually was Motown's biggest selling song to date.  
But she still did it best.

"Groove Me" (King Floyd)

It's not really fair to call New Orleans native King Floyd a one-hit-wonder.  He actually released a couple of singles that charted.  But none had the staying power of "Groove Me."
As music historian Rob Bowman recounts in the liner notes of the 1999 boxed set Malaco Records: The Last Soul Company, Floyd was living in LA in 1969.  He'd recently recorded an album that had flopped and was working in a factory to make ends meet. 
One day while working on the factory floor, a young co-worker caught his eye.  She smiled.  He smiled.  And on it went like that for some time.  
Despite the obvious mutual interest, he could never muster up the courage to talk to her.  So he put his feelings into a poem, which he intended to personally deliver to her at work.  Only hitch was, the day he finally finished the poem, she never returned to work at the factory.  The poem never got delivered to her in person.  But it became the basis for the lyrics of "Groove Me" (1970).
To be honest, though, the lyrics are kind of secondary.  The track succeeds because of Floyd's spirited scotch-and-soda delivery over that lowdown backing track.  Personally, my favorite touch is the subtle doubling of the bassline between the electric bass and organ; it's an element that's felt almost more than it's heard.

"Soul Power" (James Brown)

"Soul Power" was cut in early 1971 in Washington, DC, with "The Original J.B.'s," i.e. the very first line-up of Brown's backing band, which included future Parliament/Funkadelic members William "Bootsy" Collins (on bass) and his brother Phelps "Catfish" Collins (on guitar).  
Although the Collins Brothers were with The J.B.'s for only a brief time (11 months to be exact), their influence is all over Brown's records from 1970-71, including "Soul Power."  They brought to the equation a gritty sense of rhythm that pushed the Godfather's music deeper into raw funk and further from the polished R&B of Brown's early career.
Just listen to Bootsy's bassline on the song: he's very thrifty with the notes he plays.  In fact, he sticks pretty closely to the tonic the whole time.  Rhythmically, though, he's doing some insanely syncopated 16th notes, playing off his brother's ascending/descending staccato guitar riff and the horn line, which is perpetually moving in the opposite direction of Catfish's riff.
The result is a track that is complex and multi-layered, even though its individual parts seem deceptively simple.

"Think (About It)" (Lyn Collins)

"Think (About It)" by Lyn Collins.  People almost never recognize this song when I mention it by name.  
(Blank stares and crickets chirping, every time.)
But play it for people once and dawn-breaking recognition spreads across their faces. 
Homework assignment: go to whosampled.com, and do a search on how many times "Think (About It)" has been sliced and diced by the hip-hop and R&B worlds.  (The current count on the site: 930 times!)  The most famous and immediately recognizable instance is Rob Base & DJ EZ-Rock's "It Takes Two" (1988), which is built entirely upon the song's break.
So who was Lyn Collins?
She was an Abilene, TX-based singer whose concert promoter husband helped her slip James Brown a demo tape.  Brown liked what he heard and, in 1971, asked her to join his road show, the James Brown Revue—a massive, circus-like touring company of dancers, singers, and musicians.  
City by city, her reputation grew for being able to hold her own, belting out songs alongside Brown.  It even earned her the nickname "The Female Preacher."
So it's no coincidence that the Brown-penned "Think (About It)" (1972) opens with Collins singing a Sunday morning-style homily on unreliable, two-timing men before she dives headlong into some raw, booty-shakin' funk.  
There's just so much going on on this track: the ascending sax riff; the syncopated organ and bass; the churchy, jangling tambourine; the "on-the-one" polyrhythms; and then there's Brown, hollering out changes to the band and/or just plain hollering in the background while Collins is doing her thing out front.
But what makes this song truly classic is the break.  Actually, the two breaks.
They come out of nowhere, are in a completely different key from the rest of the track, and don't seem to have much to do with anything else, lyrically.  The moment Brown screams Yeah! / Woo! and Collins sings It takes two to make a thing go right..., you feel like you've stumbled into another song.  And then, just as quickly, you're back again.
It takes moxie to jump to an entirely different key for twenty seconds and then slip back to the original groove again like it's no thing.  
But, then again, that was Brown.

"Tyrone" (Erykah Badu)

My freshman year of college, I remember seeing Erykah Badu on MTV for the first time.  Only word to describe the experience: smitten.
She didn't look like anyone else in the music world at the time.  She rocked these funky headwraps like some kind of Egyptian princess and sang about stuff like reincarnation, apple trees, and sipping tea.  She was a breath of fresh air in the over-produced, bling-drenched world of late 90s R&B.
I had just purchased a copy of her debut album Baduizm (1997) when her second album, Live (aptly named, since it was recorded live in New York in 1997), came out of nowhere.  On it, there was a song that erased any minuscule doubts I had about her authenticity or staying power.
"Tyrone."
On this brief track, Badu croons her frank, off-the-cuff indictment of less-than-mature men over a simmering, jazzy stew of Fender rhodes, electric bass, and drums.  The feel is kind of like the second coming of Nina Simone, infused with a shot of hip-hop attitude.
By the second chorus, she has the entire audience in the palm of her hand, singing along like they've known the song for years (even though it was maybe the second time ever she'd performed it live).
And by the end of the song, when she suddenly stops the band and intones You better call Tyrone / But you can't use my phone, the audience reaction confirms that she'd crafted a bonafide soul classic.

"I Never Loved A Man" (Aretha Franklin)

"I Never Loved A Man" (1967).  
This song is soul.
Story goes, Jerry Wexler (A&R man extraordinaire for Atlantic Records) decided that his newest artist Aretha Franklin needed to record at Rick Hall's Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
Franklin had recorded a number of easy listening singles (can you imagine The Queen of Soul doing anything easy listening?) with Columbia Records, and the records simply didn't sell.  So, Wexler reasoned that putting her in a funkier, bluesier setting with Hall's house band, "The Swampers," would help her tap into her gospel roots.  The hope was she'd strike the same kind of gold that Wilson Pickett had at Fame.
Wexler's hunch was right.  
But the process wasn't easy.
Franklin was understandably apprehensive about heading into the heart of racially-charged 1960s Alabama to record.  In Greg "Freddy" Camalier's 2013 documentary Muscle Shoals, musician/songwriter Dan Penn, who was hanging out during the session and also helped write the single's B-side "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man," recounts the sense of tension and awkwardness in the studio, with Franklin and the band trying (and failing) to "find the groove."  
Says Penn about the session, "There was all of these gears working, but it suddenly came to a (halt).  And it was really quiet.  They had a song, they had an artist, but nobody knew what to do."
(I mean, picture being Franklin and walking into a studio in the middle of rural Alabama.  There are a bunch of young, white dudes sitting around who are supposed to be the key to your new funkier sound, not to mention your second—maybe last—chance at a recording career, and nothing is gelling.  She had to have wondered what the hell she was doing there.)
Out of the blue, keyboardist Spooner Oldham came up with the Wurlitzer keyboard riff that opens the track, and everything else suddenly fell into place: Roger Hawkins's slinky 9/8 drum groove, Tommy Cogbill's greasy bassline, Franklin's churchy piano...
"Aretha jumped right on it.  (The single) was cut within 15 or 20 minutes."
It was her first #1 R&B hit.

"Your Precious Love" (Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell)

"Your Precious Love," penned by famed songwriting team Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, is simply one of the sweetest, sultriest love songs ever recorded.  It was made for pulling someone in real close and swaying in time till the rest of the world fades away.
Everything about this track works: the finger clicks, Joe Messina's lead guitar doubling James Jamerson's slick bassline, the smooth doo-wop style backing vocals, and—obviously—Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's perfectly blended vocals.
Even though Gaye and Terrell weren't romantically involved, you kind of wouldn't know it, listening to this song.  They sound like two people who are deeply in love.
Which is pretty heartbreaking if you know anything about Terrell's life.  
Born Thomasina "Tommie" Montgomery in Philadelphia in 1945, she weathered a difficult childhood.  On top of dealing with her mother's bouts of clinical depression and fallout from shock therapy treatments, she herself suffered from debilitating headaches, which foreshadowed her death at the young age of 29 from a malignant brain tumor.
She also was raped by several neighborhood boys as a pre-teen.  As the TV One documentary Unsung: Tammi Terrell notes, in the wake of the incident, she decided she no longer wanted to be called Tommie and changed her name to Tammi.  She even recorded a few songs under the name "Tammi Montgomery" before landing a contract with Motown.
Sadly, the traumatic event set the tone for her rocky relationships with men for the rest of her life.  
In her late teens, she toured with and also dated James Brown for a time.  Until he hit her.  Repeatedly.
Then, after she signed to Motown Records (where founder Berry Gordy changed her name to "Tammi Terrell," simply because he thought it looked better than "Tammi Montgomery" on the label of a 45 single), she fell for the already-married David Ruffin of The Temptations.  Unfortunately, Ruffin also physically abused her.  Although, this time around, she hit back.
In truth, Gaye was one of the only men in her life who treated her with respect.
And when you hear the emotion come through in her voice on "Your Precious Love," it's clear that the relationship she's singing about is exactly the kind of unconditional, transcendent love that she desired.

"I'm Going Down" (Rose Royce)

After flying the coop at Motown Records in 1973, famed (and infamously difficult) producer Norman Whitfield set out to create his own label, Whitfield Records.  (Subtle, huh?)  
Thing was, he needed acts to record for his new label.
So after nabbing the Sly & The Family Stone-facsimile group The Undisputed Truth from Motown, Whitfield set his sights on Rose Royce, a struggling but talented instrumental funk band out of South Central LA.  Whitfield spent time grooming the band—teaching them about stage presence, picking out their clothes, etc., with the intention of turning them into the cornerstone act on his label.  He also unilaterally decided that the band needed a charismatic female lead singer (think: Chaka Khan & Rufus), and brought in vocalist Gwen Dickey from Miami and promptly renamed her "Rose Norwalt."
As you might guess, Whitfield's interjection of Dickey created tension in the long-established band.  Eventually, Dickey left the band (or was fired, depending upon what source you want to believe on the Interwebs).  But not before recording some of the sweetest R&B ballads, rawest vocal funk, and one of the best original soundtrack albums ever in any musical genre.
Speaking of, the song "I'm Going Down" from the Car Wash soundtrack (1976) is the topic at hand.  
Like most of the band's hits, "I'm Going Down" is a Whitfield composition, through and through.  It works the same kind of minimalistic groove as songs like "Papa Was A Rollin' Stone" and "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" (the Marvin Gaye rendition, specifically).  At first blush, it seems kind of repetitive and simplistic: two chords and two notes, played over and over on the Fender rhodes, with some wailing guitar and occasional bass.  But the moment you realize it's a song about a young woman who is counting the minutes until her estranged lover returns, its brilliance reveals itself.  The backing track is ingeniously repetitive to give Dickey the opportunity to unravel her story of love and loss before she comes unraveled on each explosive chorus.
I'll admit, Mary J. Blige did a fantastic and true cover of the song on her 1994 album My Life.  But there's just something so singular and raw about Dickey's read of the song that I have to go with the original in this case.

"School Boy Crush" (Average White Band)

Although "Pick Up the Pieces" is the band's signature song, "School Boy Crush" from the album Cut the Cake (1975) is actually my favorite Average White Band track.  The song's laid back funk, with its big gulps of bass, strategically placed clavinet, bizarre sleigh bell percussion, and strutting jazz guitar riff—provided by founding member Alan Gorrie, is just too sweet and lowdown to deny.
As I've mentioned before, I happened to catch one of AWB's shows while I was in California years ago.  I was at House of Blues with a group of coworkers, including several who shared my love of ol' skool funk.  
When Gorrie launched into the song's signature riff and those sleigh bells jangled through the PA system, I about lost my friggin' mind.  (Spilled my $12 Grey Goose and soda and everything.)
Funny thing was: no one else seemed to know the song!
I thought for sure, for as many times as Gorrie's guitar lick and drummer Steve Ferrone's in-the-pocket groove have been sampled/reinterpreted by the hip-hop/R&B world (see: Nas, Eric B. & Rakim, Too Short, Bobby Brown, TLC), that everyone in that venue would have known the song right away.
But I underestimated just how deep a cut "School Boy Crush" is.
(It's okay, though, because yours truly got everyone in my office dancing and crushing on this groove before it was through.)

"I'll Take You There" (The Staple Singers)

"I'll Take You There" from the 1972 album Be Altitude by The Staple Singers is the definitive answer to the question, "Can gospel get funky?"

Al Bell, the executive vice president of Stax Records throughout the early 70s and the band's producer, wrote the song in 1971 as a cathartic exercise after experiencing a number of tragedies in his life.  He not only had weathered the plane crash death of Stax artist Otis Redding in 1967, but he also had three younger brothers die in quick succession.

In footage from a 2012 event held by The University of Arkansas, titled "An Evening with Al Bell," Bell comments that he had struggled with grief and trying to understand death following the 1971 murder of his brother, Louis.  It was at Louis's wake, while spending a quiet moment alone in his father's backyard, that Bell suddenly had the words of the song come to him:

I know a place

Ain't nobody crying

Ain't nobody worried

Ain't no smiling faces

Lying to the races.

I'll take you there.

Days later, the words stuck with him, and he knew the Staples were the ones to deliver to the world this message of spirituality and hope, which had seemed to come from beyond.

Backing the family on the track are members of the one-and-only Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, a.k.a. "The Swampers": Barry Beckett (keyboards), Roger Hawkins (drums), Jimmy Johnson (guitar), Eddie Hinton (guitar), and—the man behind that famous bassline—David Hood (bass), whom Mavis Staples name checks during the song's breakdown.

(As a side note: the song's subtle, soulful horn section actually was arranged and recorded separately in Detroit by notable R&B arranger Johnny Allen, who also worked with a number of other Stax/Volt artists.)

Interestingly enough, although the song is credited solely to Bell, it is largely based on the ska/reggae song "The Liquidator" (1969) by UK-based record producer Harry Johnson (better known as "Harry J") and his recording studio's house band, The Harry J All-stars.  In fact, the intro of "I'll Take You There" is a note-for-note replaying of "The Liquidator."

According to David Hood in a 2014 interview with No Treble magazine, Bell actually brought The Swampers a copy of "The Liquidator" during the recording sessions for Be Altitude, telling the musicians that he wanted something with the same feel.  

So it's no coincidence that the songs sound alike.

Nevertheless, I wouldn't trade Mavis Staples's moving invitation to the Promised Land atop that funk-reggae groove for anything.

"Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get" (The Dramatics)

Originally hailing from Detroit, The Dramatics had been around since 1964 but didn't see any real success until they signed with Memphis-based Stax/Volt Records.  It was there that they were paired with writer/producer and fellow Detroiter, Tony Hester, who helped them craft their very first hit, "Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get" from the 1971 album of the same name.
Now, considering what else was going on in the world of R&B/soul at the time—Marvin Gaye getting political, Curtis Mayfield delving deeper into social ills, Stevie Wonder gaining artistic autonomy from the Motown machine, Sly Stone crafting a whole new brand of black pride-influenced hard funk, etc.—"Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get" seems kind of lightweight by comparison.
But just because it doesn't deliver a punch when it comes to social/political commentary, that doesn't mean it isn't a great song; it just means the song is less about the "message" and more about pure groove.
Actually, there are a number of reasons why this is a 70s R&B classic.  
For one, it's Hester's songwriting/Johnny Allen's arrangement—the smooth blend of Latin-tinged polyrhythms, sweet orchestral strings, and bright horn blasts.  
It's also the group's impassioned tag-team vocals on the verses and note-perfect, five-part harmonies on the choruses.  
But, most of all, it's that fuzz-tone lead guitar, pile driving that four-note riff into your head for nearly four soulful minutes.  

"Unsquare Dance" (Dave Brubeck Quartet)

In 1959, the Dave Brubeck Quartet released the hugely successful Time Out—an album that proved it was feasible to play jazz in time signatures other than 3/4 and 4/4 and still retain the genre's heart and soul.  
In 1961, the band released the follow up, Time Further Out, which again explored tricky time signatures.  Like 7/4—the time signature of the track "Unsquare Dance."  
The title is an obvious play on "square dance," which if you attended a physical education class in the past 50 years, you no doubt were forced to perform under duress by a whistle-toting Johnny Unitas look-alike.
Just like the traditional music played at a square dance (or hoedown, if you will), "Unsquare Dance" has a folksy, two-step feel that seems readymade for do-si-do'ing and promenading.  Until you start to count it out, that is.  The twist is that extra beat at the end of each measure: 1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3.
What starts out kind of hokey sounding ("square" in beatnik-speak), reveals itself to be a wildly inventive, funky exploration of rhythm, with bassist Eugene Wright playing a skeletal bassline over handclaps, and Joe Morello playing syncopated percussion on the rim of his snare drum.  
Even when Brubeck returns at the end of the song to do his little "shave-and-a-haircut" ending, it's with a knowing wink.

"See-Line Woman" (Nina Simone)

It's hard not to love Nina Simone.  Uncompromising, inventive, intelligent.  No one else sounded like her.
She was born Eunice Waymon in Tryon, NC, in 1933 and grew up playing piano by ear in her mother's church (her mother, Mary Kate, was a strict Methodist preacher).  As a pre-teen, she studied classical piano, developing a love for the music of J.S. Bach.  Seeing that she had true, budding talent, the townspeople of Tryon raised enough money for her to attend the Allen School, a private high school for African American girls located in Asheville.  
While in Asheville, she continued her music studies and dreamt of becoming America's first famed black concert pianist.  However, that dream didn't come to pass after Philadelphia's prestigious Curtis Institute of Music rejected her bid for admission—an incident that she felt was motivated by racial prejudice, which cut her deeply.  
To make a living, she began teaching music by day and performing in jazz clubs by night.  And because no preacher's daughter would be caught dead singing in a nightclub, she adopted the stage name "Nina Simone" (the "Nina" came from a pet name given to her by a boyfriend; the "Simone" came from the name of French actress, Simone Signoret).
One of her best known songs is her rendition of "See-Line Woman" from the 1965 album Broadway-Blues-Ballads.
The song (which sometimes is printed as "Sea Lion Woman," or "C-line Woman," or "See Lyin' Woman") is actually an old folk song, often sung by children to keep rhythm while jumping rope.  The first taped performance of the song dates to 1939, when Library of Congress field researcher Herbert Halpert recorded two sisters, Christine and Katherine Shipp, singing the song at their home in rural Mississippi.  But the song itself probably dates back to the 19th century.
So, what is a "see-line woman?"
There's no definitive answer.  As with any folk song like this, it gets passed down, and each person/locality/generation puts its own stank and spin on it.  Including Simone.
According to KCRW Public Radio DJ Tom Schnabel, Simone's take is decidedly adult: it's about women of the night, waiting for sailors to come into port.  Which I think is feasible (considering lyrics like for $1000 she'll wail and she'll moan...).  
Whatever its meaning, and however old the song really is, Simone's track sounds like it could have been recorded yesterday.  I still have a hard time believing it was cut in 1965 because it sounds so far ahead of its time.
Her drummer, Bobby Hamilton, puts down an unfaltering pattern on the hi-hat and kick drum that would put a Roland 808 to shame, setting the foundation for the (nearly) a cappella funk that Simone churns out.  In fact, the only real instrumentation is the soulful flute line that weaves in and out of Simone's husky vocals and the hypnotic, near-chanted see-line backing vocals.
The whole track is just under three minutes in length.  But it's three minutes that will make you want to seek out everything this brilliant woman ever put to tape.

"Bra" (Cymande)

Cymande, which means "dove of peace" in West Indian patois, is a London-based band consisting of Caribbean-born musicians.  During its original run from 1971-74 (the band recently reformed in 2014), Cymande set itself apart from its contemporaries by blending elements of jazz, hard rock, and Afro-Caribbean music into its special brand of funk.
Its self-titled debut album from 1972 is a sweaty, 40-minute workout from beginning to end, featuring songs built around spare, but deep, grooves and intricate polyrhythms.  (Picture if the band War had come from Kingston, Jamaica, instead of Southern California, and that's the vibe of this album.)
One of the standout tracks on the album is the song "Bra" (as in "brother," not the undergarment).  It's exactly 5 minutes of churning, bubbling soul, featuring rippling congas, all manners of percussion (including mouth clicks), and a supremely funky, serpentine back beat.  Those familiar with the De La Soul track "Change in Speak" from 3 Feet High and Rising (1989) and/or Spike Lee's 1994 film Crooklyn no doubt will recognize the song's distinctive bassline and horn riff right away.
At its heart, it's a song of encouragement.  The lyrics express that, no matter what challenges you've faced or are currently facing, it's going to be okay; you are going to succeed.  
It's the kind of positive message and uplifting groove that we all need from time to time.

"Late in the Evening" (Paul Simon)

I'm an unequivocal fan of Paul Simon.  He's simply America's poet laureate of modern popular music (alongside Bob Dylan).  From the days when he was writing tunes for himself and Art Garfunkel to his newest solo stuff today, the man has always had a knack for crafting words and melodies that resonate deeply and universally.
(To hell with critics who've picked apart his lyrics over the years or derided him for dipping into the well of world music for inspiration.  Let's see them compose anything half as good as what's on Graceland, and then we'll talk.)
When I was a little kid, my favorite Simon song—apart from the nursery rhyming "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover"—was "Late in the Evening" from the soundtrack for the film One Trick Pony (1980).  
What grabbed me about this particular song?  
First of all, secret-rhythm-weapon Steve Gadd's superlative drumming sets the stage for the track's sweltering Latin funk, which seduces every molecule from your waist down to move.  
Secondly, there's pure joy and celebration in every note of that melody, especially when the brass section arrives.  But it really was Simon's lyrics that did it for me: that image of a young kid lying on his bed, hearing music seeping through the wall from the radio in the next room—it was exactly how I experienced this song for the first time (that is, blasting from the radio in the living room while my mom was doing housework and dancing).  
And what cinched it was that vivid description of him walking down the street, watching guys shooting pool, hearing a cappella groups harmonizing, and seeing girls hanging out on their front stoops.  Even if that distinctly post-WWII New York tableau wasn't in my frame of reference, Simon instantly transported me to that exact place and time.  
Some novelists can't even do that in 300 pages, and he does it in four lines.

"Went Out Last Night" (Keith Frank)

I was doing the touristy thing, walking through the French Market in New Orleans many years ago.  There was this one market stall where this little lady was selling everything under the sun (spice mixes, t-shirts, jujus, hot sauces, bumper stickers, voodoo dolls, etc), and she had this infectious party song, with this guy singing about going clubbing, meeting girls, and falling in love, just blasting from a little boombox behind her cash register.  It wasn't quite traditional Cajun music, even though it featured accordion and washboard percussion.  And it had too much R&B and soul to be straight up Zydeco.

I asked her who the artist was, and she handed me a CD called Rockin' Zydeco Party—a compilation of music from a regional label called Maison de Soul, based in Ville Platte, LA.  She pointed to track #5: "Went Out Last Night" by artist Keith Frank.

"Keith Frank.  That's my jam."

I wore out the batteries on my Discman (if that gives you any idea of how long ago this was) listening to this song, over and over, on the plane ride back to North Carolina.
It is one helluva feel-good jam.

Keith Frank is part of the movement known as "nouveau Zydeco."  The Soileau, LA-born singer/accordion player made a name for himself back in the 90s by taking the traditional Zydeco of artists like Clifton Chenier and Buckwheat Zydeco and mixing it with elements of James Brown- and Meters-influenced funk and even hip-hop, bringing the music of rural Acadiana into the city.  Traditionalists (including fans of his Zydeco musician father, Preston Frank) balked at the mix of old and new.  Nevertheless, it introduced Zydeco to a whole new generation.

And anytime a musical tradition can be kept alive, that's a good thing in my book.

"Zodico Stomp" (Clifton Chenier)

Opelousas, LA-born Clifton Chenier was one of the originators of what came to be known as Zydeco music.  Actually, depending upon whom you ask in southern Louisiana, they'll say the flamboyant, cape-wearing performer invented it outright and also coined the term, making him the undisputed "King of Zydeco."  
Most music historians out there seem to contend that Zydeco (the term) comes from the Cajun French pronunciation of the phrase, "Les haricots sont pas sales," which translates to: "The snap beans aren't salty."  Taken literally, it means one is too poor to afford salt to season their beans; idiomatically, it means one doesn't have juicy gossip to share.
Zydeco (the music) is a blend of traditional Cajun music (think: accordions and washboards), blues, and R&B, and it is tailor made for dancing.
Chenier got his start playing music in the late 40s, gigging around with his brother by night while working as a truck driver for the oil and gas industry by day.  After recording a couple of singles for a small regional label, he landed a deal with Specialty Records in 1955 and cut several sides with the producer who brought Little Richard to fame, Robert "Bumps" Blackwell.  Chenier scored an R&B hit with his rendition of the Professor Longhair song "Eh, Petite Fille (Hey, Little Girl)," but Blackwell couldn't help him strike gold twice.  Although Chenier gained nationwide recognition after documentary filmmaker Les Blank made a film about him, called Hot Pepper (1973), he largely remained a celebrity in his home state until his death in 1987.
And while "Eh, Petite Fille" is a great song, I prefer the track "Zodico Stomp"—an instrumental that was recorded for Specialty around the same time.
"Zodico Stomp" feels so off the cuff, my guess would be that Chenier and his band just started jamming while tapes were rolling, and this unhinged, rock & roll-flavored number was the result.  
Everything on this track swings like crazy—especially those drums and Chenier's accordion.  (Who would've thought that an instrument associated with polkas and French art films could rock this hard?)  
It's everything that came to be known as Zydeco, distilled into 2 fiery minutes.

"Cissy Strut" (The Meters)

"Cissy Strut" (1969) is the kind of song that bar bands love to cover but never get quite right.  They just never find "the pocket."  And this song is all about that pocket.
That's why I have to go right to discussing Zigaboo Modeliste's drumming.  Everything he's doing on this track is straight from New Orleans second lines.  He's essentially playing all of the parts that four separate drummers would be playing, using all four limbs to keep time, kick the downbeat, and squeeze the funk out of all of those syncopated 16th notes in between.  He's his own damn marching band.
But, then again, every element of this song—Modeliste's drums, Art Neville's organ, Leo Nocentelli's guitar, and George Porter, Jr.'s smooth-as-Crisco bass—shows that The Meters were not only funk pioneers but also consummate musicians in the New Orleans tradition.  By that, I mean these dudes knew how to listen to each other.  Everyone is doing his own rhythmically complex thing, yet there's this sense of movement as a single unit.  Even when somebody steps into the spotlight to riff or solo, he inherently knows how and when to fall back in step.  (It's that second line sensibility again.)
It's little wonder why famed New Orleans producer Allen Toussaint plucked The Meters out of The Ivanhoe Club in the French Quarter in 1968 and made them the official backing band of his production company, placing them behind artists like Lee Dorsey and Betty Harris before launching them into stardom with this influential track.