I Brew U Brew

Mungo Jerry are one of rock's great one-hit successes. Outside of England, they're known for exactly one song, but that song, "In the Summertime," is a seasonal anthem known by listeners who weren't even born when it was released. Mungo Jerry was a solid blues outfit as well – in fact, one suspects they were the kind of blues band that purists Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies would have loved, had they ever intersected – and knew how to get the most out of their jug band sound, which helped them survive for decades.

Probably best known as a member of the Notting Hillbillies, Brendan Croker was also a well-respected singer/songwriter and session guitarist both before and after his involvement with that band. Drawing on strong folk, blues, and country roots, Yorkshireman Croker brought a strong, Woody Guthrie-ish lyrical outlook to his musical palette, and was equally at home with Van Morrison-style blues or American country music of any era. In fact, his deep knowledge of and affection for American roots music, coupled with his fine singing and guitar playing, at one point gave rise to Croker being hailed as "the British Ry Cooder".

After giving Clarke's fans a taste of some live tapes of the School Days band on I Wanna Play for You, Epic waited until 1991 to put another batch of them out, well after it would have been commercially feasible to do so. But no matter, for this CD captures one of Clarke's best electric bands – maybe his best band, period – in a number of gigs in the U.S. and U.K., mixing up the jazz, funk, and rock into a high-energy, musically literate brew. A lot of this album recycles then-existing material, but the live conditions add flashes of spontaneity and sometimes considerable interest to jazz fans.

Although Cream were only together for a little more than two years, their influence was immense, both during their late-'60s peak and in the years following their breakup.

So what is funk? It’s sometimes difficult to know. In the 1950s, the piano style of both Ray Charles and Horace Silver were described as funk, and the word itself has long associations with black music, going back even further into history. Clearly the success of James Brown at the tail end of the 1960s—say from “Cold Sweat” onwards—established the funk era, but the Godfather of super-heavy funk had already set out his stall with “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” and “I Got You (I Feel Good)” in 1965. At the same time a series of productions he recorded with Bobby Byrd, James Crawford, and others saw him slowly perfect his groove.