J.J. Barnes – You Owe It To Yourself (Parts 1 & 2)
J.J. Barnes – Wishful Thinking
J.J. Barnes – No If's, And's, Or But's
With the last minute but fantastic appearance of DJ Spinna on my show this week I wanted to take a look at a recent addition to my collection that I wouldn’t have if Spinna hadn’t put me onto it. One of the best compilations of 2012 is BBE’s Best of Perception & Today Records, compiled by Spinna. I’d been up on a number of the releases on Perception, especially Dizzy Gillespie’s “Matrix,” Larry Young’s “Larry of Newark” (which unfortunately is not on the collection though it should be) but I was surprised and shocked at how much music I had missed from these two labels. Of all the 30 tracks, nothing stood out to me as much as J.J. Barnes’ “You Owe It To Yourself.” For a period of a couple of months this summer, this song was my theme song, ala I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, just because of the heavy groove. It just sounds like a song to strut down city streets to.
After obsessing over that track for a couple of months, I had to track down the LP and was lucky enough to do so around my birthday back in August. While nothing hits you quite like “Owe It” there’s some real fantastic production work through out from David Jordan and Patrick Adams. “Wishful Thinking” and “No If’s, And’s, Or But’s” give you a taste of the deep heavy soul from Mr. Barnes (who incidentially does not appear to be a relation, but you never know). Big thanks to DJ Spinna for putting together the BBE compilation and for spreading the word about fantastic music like this.
Cheers,
Michael