Dig Deeper is a monthly 60's Soul Party in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn at (Southpaw). Hosted by Mr. Robinson and DJ Honky, generally on the fourth Saturday of the month, with the dancefloor primed with the finest funk and soul records anywhere in the world from their collections and a live performance each month at midnight from a legendary soul / funk artist that we particularly treasure. Past artists have included Don Gardner, Tami Lynn, Obie "Young" Jessie, Dean Parrish, Harvey Scales, Eula Cooper, the Mighty Hannibal, Garland Green, Delia "Dee Dee" Gartrell, Lee Fields, Renaldo Domino, Lenis Guess, Marva Whitney, the Green Berets, and at the Brooklyn Soul Festival that we put on with Eli "Paperboy" Reed, Hermon Hitson, Roscoe Robinson, Barbara Lynn, Maxine Brown, and Otis Clay.
We've come to the end of our 2009 Dig Deeper season - thank you to everyone who has helped make this year such a tremendous success - all of the artists, the bands, the tireless sound wizards, Marco on graphic design, our guest DJs, and of course - you - the audience, without whom this whole crazy undertaking would never be possible.
We will be taking the months of November (Honky is getting married!) and December off to begin booking our 2010 season - we've never had so many artists on our "to book" list, and in particular, after a year and a half of searching, we've finally gotten in touch with one of our heroes whom we've wanted to book from the very first day of Dig Deeper. More to come on that as soon as we have the dates booked.
In the meantime, have a wonderful holiday season, and we look forward to seeing you in January for our first Dig Deeper of the new year!
- DJ Honky and Mr. Robinson
We've never seen anything like it. On October 30, the Green Berets took Brooklyn's hearts, backed by the mighty Divine Soul Rhythm Band, blowing us all away with an electrifying show that we will all - audience and Berets alike - remember for the rest of our lives. From the opening notes of Life of tears, their very first record released as Walter and the Admeration's to their unreleased You and me, performed a capella, the incomparable Man oh man (what have I done), through to the closing notes of an encore version of Happy, released as the Velvet Hammer, the Berets harmonized and danced their way into Dig Deeper history. Person after person came up to us after the show telling us it was one of the best shows they have ever seen.
Don't take our word for it, though - we've uploaded a total of six songs from the show to the myspace player above. And even better - our friend Zak took video at the show (watch this space for more photos and video over the next couple of weeks - our friends Luke and Jacob were shooting as well). We hope you will enjoy this as much as we did, "Life of tears":
And one from our friend Luke Ratray, "Just an ugly rumor":
And one more from our friend Luke, the end of "Man oh man", with Brad busting a move:
At our September 26 Dig Deeper, Marva Whitney really tore it up with the Sweet Divines and the Divine Soul Rhythm Band, doing absolutely mind bending versions of her classics like "Unwind yourself", "It's my thing", and "What do I have to do to prove my love for you" - and we got to see her soulful side on a beautiful version of "Your love was good for me". Hopefully her "I sing soul" LP will finally get to see the light of day soon... It's just crazy that it had been 40 years since she'd played a full show in NYC. One part of the new venue that is particularly great is getting to hear each others' DJ sets since we don't have to work the door out of speaker range any longer, and guest DJ Pari spun a great one.
We've put up 4 recordings from the show up in the player above - hope you will enjoy! Our friend Jacob Blickenstaff once again shared some amazing photos from the show:
Please, Marva, don't keep us waiting until 2049 for the next show!
Two sold out nights, with over 1000 people through the doors across the weekend - and Baby Washington, Lenis Guess, and Dean Parrish in the audience. Words cannot even come close to describing what went down on August 28 & 29, 2009, what we can now officially say was the First Annual Brooklyn Soul Festival, featuring on night one Hermon Hitson, Roscoe Robinson, and Barbara Lynn - all backed by Eli "Paperboy" Reed and the True Loves, and on night two the Sweet Divines, Maxine Brown, and Otis Clay, all backed by the Divine Soul Rhythm Band.
Rather than have us describe it for you - hear for yourself...there is one live recording of each artist in the Myspace player above. As always, these recordings are for archival purposes only, and we cannot distribute them or allow them to be downloaded without the artists' consent.
Our friend Jacob Blickenstaff photographed the event - a couple other photos will follow from a few of our other friends who also photographed the event:
Our friend Luke Ratray, captured a nice video of the tail end of the finale of night two, with Hermon, Roscoe, Eli, and Otis singing "Bring it on home to me", backed by the Sweet Divines and the Divine Soul Rhythm Band.
Has it really been a year since we started Dig Deeper? It was such a treat to host Lenis Guess at our anniversary party for his first show in over 20 years in his current hometown of NYC, backed by the truly Solid Set (who coincidentally backed Don Gardner at our very first Dig Deeper - nice how things came full circle!).
Lenis blazed through some of his classics like "Working for my baby" and "Just ask me", and performed for the first time ever in a live venue "For all you've been" and "Why, why, why'd she leave me?" (why this isn't known is beyond us - surely a funk classic in the making...track one down before the price goes up!).
Lenis is a true gentleman and a performer bar none - at soundcheck, he held the band in the palm of his hand, listening to his every word, and at the live show, he kept the audience enraptured. The world may never see his like again - all of us who caught this show got to witness something truly special. Another Dig Deeper exclusive.
Also, helping us keep the dancefloor jumping until the club closed at 4am were the Scorpio Brothers who spun a fantastic set of mostly Virginia soul and funk 45s. Keep checking the blog above - hopefully they'll be sending us their setlist soon! Thanks very much Marty and Troy - we had a great night!
Thanks very much to our friend Jacob Blickenstaff for these great photos from the night!
Hearing person after person come up to Renaldo Domino after his set to tell him that the show they had just witnessed was the best live show they had ever seen was such a thrill. On May 23, 2009, Renaldo absolutely tore up the Five Spot with a massively expanded 12 piece version of the Sweet DivinesDivine Soul Rhythm Band, complete with 4 piece brass artillery, conga, and strings. Hear for yourself - the first four tracks above were recorded live that night.
Hard to believe that this was only Renaldo's second show in 39 years, and first ever in NYC. It was a real treat to be the first people in the world to hear some of Renaldo's classic Mercury tracks which he had never before performed live - like "Don't go away" and "You don't love me no more". Renaldo, don't keep us waiting 39 more years to come back.
Thank you again to the Numero Group for all of their hard work on the truly phenomenal "Eccentric Soul: Twinight's Lunar Rotation" compilation, including rediscovering Renaldo. If you don't already have it, you should - it really is essential...and unless you have a turntable, it's the easiest way to hear some of Renaldo's classic 45s.
Once again, our friend Luke Ratray was at the show, camera in hand to capture images of that incredible night...hopefully some video will follow, too:
We literally had to stop by the Five Spot the day after our April Dig Deeper to make sure it was still standing following Lee Fields's absolute blowout performance to a full capacity crowd, his first solo show in the NYC area in roughly 5 years.
From the first note, he had the audience enraptured, absolutely nailing songs like "Tell her that I love her" from his very first 45, to the first live performance in over a decade of his classic "Take me back", to some of his contemporary house hits cut with French producer Martin Solveig, including the astounding, garage-influenced "Everybody" - all backed by the stellar Sweet Divines and the Divine Soul Rhythm Band who again made it known why they are one of the finest soul bands in the city.
Guest DJ Dave Griffiths (of Bumpshop and New York Soul Recordings fame) kept the dancefloor jumping with us until the wee hours - it was great to welcome him back to the Five Spot...home of one of his very first regular DJ spots many years ago! We hope to be posting all of our setlists (can't wait to see Dave's!) in our blog shortly.
Here are some fantastic photos and a video from our friend Luke Ratray - thank you again, Luke!
Also, here are a couple of videos from Rik at Rikomatic - first, a bit of "Take me back" (don't forget to stop the myspace player above first):
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And a bit of "Everybody" from the main set (the encore version is above in the myspace player):
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Thank you to everyone who joined us for a phenomenal night with Delia "Dee Dee" Gartrell on March 28, 2009 (from as far away as San Diego and Norway!), her first show in the NYC area in 25 years. There were so many great moments - the vocal break in "Fight fire with fire" was spine-tingling, her version of "See what you done done (Hymn no. 9)" was maybe even more heartbreaking than the record, and "Second hand love" and "If you got what it takes (they can't take what you got)" just plain smoked. As usual, the Sweet Divines and the Divine Soul Rhythm Band nailed it - it sounded like they'd been performing with Delia for years...
If you missed the show, or just want to reminisce, the first three songs on the myspace player at the top of the page were recorded at the show. You will have to stop the other yellow player in order to hear them. Photos from the night by our friend Jacob Blickenstaff:
If you would like to purchase Delia's new CD compiling most of her singles, you can do so by going here - she gets the proceeds of these sales, unlike what happened with her original 45s...
To help speed up our site, we've taken the first few slideshows down off our front page. Don't worry - the photos are still there in the myspace photo album, just not on this front page...
Well, you dug real deep on Saturday. Marva was marvy! I hope I can return the favor and blast soul music for you on Saturday when I host Soul A G0-G0 at Huckleberry Bar in Brooklyn...
