Some songs aren't world-beaters, but they bring back good memories. I always associate this song with the pick-up basketball games I'd play as a kid with other friends at my friend Tim's house across the way. On hot Summer days like the ones many feel in the USA right now we used to play there because his family had a backboard and net set-up. It was a pretty busy avenue; if other kids were passing by, we'd try to get as many as we could into the game. 
It seemed looking back like this song was always playing on the radio he had plugged into the garage as we traded shots.
Playing with Tim's older brothers made me a slightly better basketballer than I could have been, but the truth I was born to be a baseball player in those days and my team was always releived when I passed the ball then when I tried a jumpshot.
Ideally, despite practice, I would have been a better referee. :-)
This is one of the first Caribbean songs I remember from back then as well.
From Wikipedia: The Beginning of the End was a funk group from Nassau, Bahamas. The group consisted of three brothers and a fourth member on bass. They released an album entitled Funky Nassau in 1971 on Alston Records (a subsidiary of Atlantic Records), and the track "Funky Nassau - Part I" became a hit single in the U.S., peaking at #15 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and #7 on the Billboard Black Singles chart. The same track reached #31 in the UK Singles Chart in March 1974.
Ray Munnings - organ
Roy Munnings - guitar
Frank Munnings - drums
Fred Henfield - bass
I absolutely love this tune. Just sayin'.
ReplyDelete(In the same vein, Eddy Grant's "Electric Avenue" is a fave....)
Me too, Will. I know that have a hurricane in that area now so hopefully this will send some good vibes to push that bad boy further out into the Atlantic and away from the Bahamas and miss its apparent next landfall near Cape Hatteras.
ReplyDeleteYeah, "Electric Avenue" is a great combo for this song!
I'm sure I must have heard it sometime but it has left no impression on me. 1971 and I was 14 and at boarding school, not much chance to get into this sort of groove.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard this particular funky jive Doug, reminds me of films from that era... a very tie-dye afro hairdo type tune of the sort I'd hear at the midnight movies in Birmingham circa 1971.....good times.
ReplyDeleteI will have to say this is new to me I am not sure what I think at them moment. I will have to give a second listen. It definitely has a 70's beat
ReplyDeleteIt's funny how a song just suddenly jumps into mind after years, Jim, it beings back memories. Like yourself, there are others I'm sure I listened to which had little effect.
ReplyDeleteI imagine boarding schools as something one looks back on as an experience one is glad to have in the past tense of one's life. Rather like extended Summer Camp is the only way I can relate to it.
Glad it struck a positive chord with you, AA. I've listened to some music that makes me harken back and I know I never heard it at the time. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, I find it odd this song showed up on the British charts as a hit THREE years after its was released in the States.
That it does Fred. Some songs don't click for me on the first take.
ReplyDeleteOr sometimes the fortieth.
Yes it is better looking back on it than it was at the time. And no, it's very definitely not like summer camp, more POW camp I'd say.
ReplyDeleteYes, that's what I've heard Jim.
ReplyDelete