Pass the Salt and Butter Dept.

You ever have somebody ask you what record you'd pick if you could only have one? You know, if you were stranded on an island, what record would you want with you? ( Of course all of these hypothetical islands have record players and power sources.) I can not ever come up with one. I can't even do it if you gave me ten to pick from. The list would change on a daily basis. I will say though, that if I was to find myself in such a dire predicament, and  if I had a copy of Follow Me To The Pop Corn (from Jazzman Records) I would at least be able to feel like things are pretty all right. Swell even. This collection of smoldering old and obscure Soul and R'n'B tunes flows across your brain like a molten lava cocktail. Cuts from Litttle Jimmy Ray, Plas Johnson, Dinah Shore (Yep, that's right.), Shorty Long, and plenty of others sure set the mood for drinking some stiff Bourbon drinks  in some weird club like you might catch on the late, late, late show back in the good old days of the TV wasteland. Belly up to the bar of the El Tangier Club and start knockin' back the cocktails as the smooth, and smokey sounds slide you down the chute, for one pleasant, long, dark, night of the soul.

How this stuff, or maybe rather, how this scene got the moniker of popcorn I really don't know. In the late 60s and early 70s some of the DJ's at clubs in Belgium started playing these records. It caught on, people started turning up, dancing their asses off, it became a rage, and thus a scene was born. But still, why Popcorn? Why not Liquor infused Honoluchee Bundt Cake? Or Brandi drizzled Pineapple Flips?  Those may or may not really be great, but they seem to get a little closer to the overall ambiance of the place in my mind this music takes me, but it really doesn't matter. That's the name it's got and why should I complain? It's enough that this style, or genre, or whatever, exists and has it's adherents. Thus allowing me  to stumble on to this, (Thanks WFMU) and now you can too. This would be great for your next gathering of friends, or even when your about to sleep off that whiskey drunk. Slap this on while you start sinking into your alcoholic dream world and turn the trip into some kind of cryptic, subconscious joy ride filled with all sorts of deep and profound symbolic messages containing concepts of life altering importance; and then forget it all but a few disconnected images and scenes by the time you wake up and wrestle with that obscene, Bukowskiesque hangover. At least you can play the record again, so it's all good.