The Funkiest Man in Bloomington, MN

This compilation gathers 18 of
Thomas
'
funk
-oriented songs from 1967-1975, though only a few '60s sides are here. His biggest
hit of all,
"Do the Funky Chicken,"
is not here, and though the liners point out that the song is available on other
Ace
compilations, why not put it on here anyway? In its favor, there's little overlap between this anthology and the
Stax
CD
Funky Chicken
, a reissue of his 1969 LP
Do the Funky Chicken
with seven bonus tracks from his 1968-1974 singles. This also has his three big follow-up hits to
"Do the Funky Chicken"
:
"(Do The) Push and Pull (Part 1),"
"Do the Funky Penguin (Part 1),"
and
"The Breakdown (Part 1)."
To its detriment, however, the
novelty
dance
grooves just get unimaginative, even monotonous, in such a concentrated dose, getting into spin-offs like
"Funky Robot (Part 1),"
"Do the Double Bump,"
"The Funky Bird,"
"Funky Mississippi,"
and so forth.
Rufus Thomas
is cool, but he's not
James Brown
(though the scratchy guitar and jerky rhythms of 1972's
"Itch and Scratch (Part 1)"
certainly owe a lot to
Brown
), nor are the backup musicians. When it stretches back as far as 1967 for
"Sophisticated Cissy,"
there's a refreshing injection of more
soul
-grounded chops, female backup vocals, and horns. Two of the songs,
"I'm Getting Better"
"Memphis Train '75,"
were previously unreleased. Incidentally, this British release is unavailable for sale in North America. ~ Richie Unterberger