Review

Kashmere Stage Band

Texas Thunder Soul 1968-1974

Now Again • 2011

By now, every Funk-enthusiast should have heard of the Kashmere Stage Band. Before 2001, the band-project’s records were treated as valuable collectibles, affordable only to a few hard-boiled natures. The thriving force behind the High-School-band from Houston, Texas, was the music teacher Johnson, who, according to the legend, was inspired by an Otis-Redding-gig to make his band become a professionalization-ground for talented musicians.
There are mostly instrumental up-tempo tracks, impressively illustrating the actual meaning of »funk«, as well as convincing cover-versions of classics like Burning Spear, Super Bad or Shaft. Ain’t No Sunshine, Do Your Thing and Kash Register prove that the band is well capable of grooving soulfully within the range of a moderate tempo, whereas the general impression is still that of a somewhat raw and pressing sound. The new »Deluxe Version« includes the complete re-issue of 2006 with an additional 14 tracks of either unpublished tracks or alternative versions. All those have their valid right to exist because the tracks were recorded with different line-ups, all interpreting the original in their very own way. On the bonus-dvd, there are two interesting documentations, giving us additional and interesting information about the phenomenon of the Kashmere Stage Band.