Herbie Mann - Memphis Underground (Atlantic 2621)

Memphis Underground

By Popular request, here's the smokin' A side of the 45 we featured over on the other side way back in January of 2007, as part of our post about Herbie Mann and Tom Dowd. Cut at American in August of 1968, it was Herbie's idea for Dowd to produce an album on him with the Memphis musicians he had heard so much about. Reggie Young, Tommy Cogbill and the rest of the 'Boys' more than held their own when Mann brought jazzbos like Roy Ayers and Larry Coryell down to work with them on the album.

This big fat mono single, great 'driving music' that it is, scored equally well on both the R&B and Pop charts, just missing the top forty on both of them during the summer of 1969 - blaring from car radios on both sides of the street as men walked on the moon.