“I got a call from London about a month ago,” Edge began, his voice grainy as a dusty LP. “It was from a record collector I knew back when I was still an executive. The man would pay me two or three thousand dollars for acetates of records we’d released. It was, of course, against label policy, but dude was one of those passionate British soul music fans—the kind of guy who knew the order number of singles from the ’50s and who played second guitar on records made forty years ago in a Mississippi outhouse. So I hit him off every now and then and he warmed my pocket. I’d lost contact with him when I got downsized by Sony. Figured I’d never hear from him again. Thought he was downloading music from old-school sites in whatever cave he lived in in Liverpool or Leeds or one of them pale towns in England. Then he called me up at the center. Said he wanted my help finding the rarest soul record ever made.”
“And that would that be . . . ?”
“Well, I’d heard tell of it. I’m not sure it really happened, that it really existed,” Edge said. “Seemed like a tall tale told by two niggas in a bar. But niggas don’t always lie.”
“Sounds like a good story coming. If I had some bourbon I’d pour it, my man. But as you see, I’m all packed up including the complimentary booze.”
“You youngsters just don’t have any sense of hospitality,” Edge said, shaking his head. “Anyway, the record is called ‘Country Boy & City Girl.’ That was the A-side. On the B-side was an instrumental jam called ‘Detroit/Memphis.’”
“Who were the artists?”
“Country Boy and City Girl.”
“Country Boy and City Girl?”
“Otis Redding and Diana Ross.”
“What? That’s a crazy combo.”
“Yeah, so the story goes that in the summer of ’66, the Stax/Volt Revue played the Fox Theatre in downtown Detroit. Sam and Dave. Carla Thomas. Booker T. & the MGs. Otis was the headliner. So a lot of the Funk Brothers—”
“The Motown session cats?”
“Yes, James Jamerson, Earl Van Dyke, and all those guys who cut for Motown went to the Fox gig. Now, because the Stax guys were Memphis born and bred, the Detroit cats didn’t know them but had great admiration for their playing. The Detroit cats were mostly jazz trained. Very sophisticated players cause Detroit was a serious jazz town in the ’40s and ’50s. Black folks had jobs up there and supported that good music. The Memphis players, mostly youngsters, weren’t as musically versed as the Detroit guys, but them country niggers and crackers locked into a groove like a motherfucker.
“After the second show of the night, the Funk Brothers and the MGs hung out, cracked open some bottles, and traded stories. I mean the Detroiters were actually a little jealous of the Memphis musicians cause they got to have a band name—the MGs, the Bar-Kays, and what have you—and the Funk Brothers had no publicity, no press pictures, no photos. The only people who knew they were called the Funk Brothers were folks around Motown. Different companies, different dynamics—you know?
“First everyone went over to the Hotel Pontchartrain and hung at the bar there. Some other Detroit people came over. Marvin Gaye, who drummed some, really wanted to meet Al Jackson, the drummer of the MGs. And it was Marvin’s idea that everyone go over to Hitsville on West Grand and jam. Some of the Funk Brothers thought Berry Gordy and the management wouldn’t like that. Besides, that night they were supposed to be cutting tracks for Little Stevie Wonder. But Marvin knew Berry and the other higher-ups were in Hollywood negotiating a deal for a TV special, so the henhouse was unguarded.
“Once Marvin rolled off to Hitsville with Al Jackson and fine-ass Tammi Terrell, a convoy of cars followed them over. Harvey Fuqua was running the session and Stevie, who shouldn’t even have been up, was laying down harmonica when Marvin and Al barged in followed by the MGs and the Funk Brothers.
“Guitars got pulled from cases. A second trap drum was set up. Bourbon and Black Label got poured into paper cups. A local businessman provided reefer. Stevie’s session got hijacked. My British friend says it was Al Jackson and Benny Benjamin on drums, Jamerson on bass, Steve Cropper and a bunch of guys on guitars, Earl Van Dyke on piano, Booker T. on organ, Little Stevie on harp, Marvin, Tammi, and Otis wailing on vocals.”
“Whoa, that’s a damn soul all-star team,” D said.
“Hell yeah, but it gets better. The Supremes had just got in that night from a gig in Philly. Diana Ross had her driver stop by the studio to pick up lyric sheets for a session the next day. So La Ross sees Carla Thomas sipping a can of Coke on the Hitsville steps and chatting with Gladys Knight, so she knew something was up.
“She goes down into the studio and sees this incredible Motown-meets-Memphis scene, and at the center of it she sees Otis, a big, husky country boy. Not necessarily her type, but the man had sex appeal. Between Harvey, Marvin, and Otis, the idea for something like ‘Tramp’ is concocted and, after playing coy for a while, Ross agrees to participate. The combined band bashes it out a couple of times with Otis laughing his way through it and Diana enjoying it too.
“Now, Motown being Motown, somebody calls Berry Gordy out on the coast and drops a dime. Berry doesn’t make them stop the session, but orders the engineer to embargo the tapes. So after the fun is over, the Stax musicians head back to their hotel. They have a show at the Regal in Chicago the next night and need some sleep before hitting the road. But Otis and Cropper, who are savvy about songwriting and publishing, hang around cause they want a copy of the tapes.
“Harvey Fuqua is now in a tough spot. The engineer has told them Berry’s edict and he wants to follow orders. But he feels they should have a copy. So he calls Berry and Berry tells Harvey to put Otis on the phone.”
“Shit,” D said, “that must have been one interesting phone call.”
“Hell yeah. No one really knows what was said. Harvey told people later that Otis laughed a lot and wrote something on a piece of paper. After Otis hung up he pulled Cropper aside, whispered something, and they left.”
“I assume the tapes never surfaced?”
“Somehow ten copies got pressed up on the Soul label—Berry had been smart enough to actually copyright the word soul—so the copies were on that label,” Edge explained. “It was where Berry put out records like Shorty Long’s ‘Function at the Junction’ and shit that didn’t fit the Motown formula. Somebody with a sense of humor up in Detroit put the words Country Boy & City Girl on the label. So there was some conversation about putting the record out, but I guess the lawyers between the two labels couldn’t reach an agreement. Besides, end of the day, I’m sure the Motown people didn’t think it was the right fit for the Queen of Pop.”
“This was 1966? She hadn’t left the Supremes yet, huh?” D said.
“She broke out in 1970.”
“They had big plans for her.”
“Yup. And Otis didn’t have his pop hit until ‘Dock of the Bay’ after he died in a plane crash. So, inside Motown and the world of R&B, that record became a collector’s item, then a footnote, and then a rumor.”
“So you’re looking for a copy?” D asked.
“And now so are you.” Edge reached into his pinstriped suit and pulled out a stack of euros that he handed to D. “That’s the equivalent of $5,000 American dollars.”
“Why me?”
“Cause you know a lot of people and you were close to Dwayne Robinson, who knew the history. He actually mentions the record in his footnotes in The Relentless Beat.”
“Dwayne is dead,” D said softly, “and wrote that book a long time ago.”
“I’m told there’s another 10K in it for you.”
“Who is this guy?”
“Made money in the ’90s doing something with computers. R&B is his passion. He wants to complete his collection. I also think there’s some kind of competition involved, but I’m hazy on the details.”
“Okay. As you can see, I need the money. This millionaire British soul fan give you any clues? Also, does he have a name?”
“No name.
Cool?”
“Cool.”
“Some people say there might be a copy buried under the Apollo Theater.”
“Shit,” D said, “that would be a hell of a place to dig.”
End of Excerpt
More about The Lost Treasures of R&B.
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The Lost Treasures of R&B is available in paperback and e-book editions. Our print books are available from our website and in online and brick & mortar bookstores everywhere. The digital edition is available wherever e-books are sold.
D Hunter, bodyguard-turned-PI, is back, investigating a murder that lures him into the heart of rhythm-and-blues history.
A Library Journal Pick of the Month for August 2014!
“This is a fine mystery and [protagonist] D Hunter is as world weary, yet steadfast, as Philip Marlowe, Spenser, Dave Robicheaux, or Easy Rawlins. A definite yes to purchase for both mystery and African American collections.” —Library Journal (Starred Review, Pick of the Month)
“George covers a lot of ground with style: the rhythm-and-blues music scene past and present, the sometimes startling evolution of Brooklyn and its environs, and the multitude of hangers-on, wannabes, and grifters who want a piece of the action.”—Pulbishers Weekly
"George is a well-known, respected hip-hop chronicler . . . Now he adds crime fiction to his resume with a carefully plotted crime novel peopled by believable characters and real-life hip-hop personalities."—Booklist
“Real relationships and real talk frame the mashup of mysteries in George’s street-framed series.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Nelson George’s security expert and bodyguard to the hip-hop stars, D Hunter, takes you on a New York joyride, from rapper beefs to R&B vinyl stores, weaving the history of the city and the music biz through a tale of gunfire, deceit, police corruption, and the sacred code of the streets. The Lost Treasures of R&B is a modern noir thriller, doused in killer beats and Brooklyn cool.”—Shawn Ryan, creator of The Shield
Professional bodyguard D Hunter takes a gig protecting rapper Asya Roc at an underground fight club in poverty-stricken Brownsville, Brooklyn. Unknown to D, the rapper has arranged to purchase illegal guns at the event. An acquaintance of D from the streets (and from the novel The Plot Against Hip Hop) named Ice turns out to be the courier.
During the exchange a robbery is attempted. Ice is wounded. D gets Asya Roc to safety but is then chased by two gunmen because he has the bag containing the guns. This lethal chase ends under the elevated subway where D and the two gunmen run into a corrupt detective named Rivera. A bloody shootout ensues.
D, who has just moved back to Brooklyn after decades in Manhattan, finds himself involved in multiple mysteries. Who were the gunmen? Why were they after the guns? Who was being set up—Asya Roc or Ice? Meanwhile, he gets a much-needed paying assignment to track down the rarest soul music single ever recorded.
With gentrifying Brooklyn as the backdrop, D works to unravel various mysteries—both criminal and musical—while coming to terms with the failure of his security company and the ghosts of his childhood in “old Brooklyn.” Like its predecessors The Accidental Hunter and The Plot Against Hip Hop, The Lost Treasures of R&B uses pop music as the backdrop for a noir-flavored big-city tale.
Also Available in the D Hunter Mystery Series
and Available from Akashic Books:
The Plot Against Hip Hop.
___________________
The Plot Against Hip Hop is available in paperback and e-book editions. Our print books are available from our website and in online and brick & mortar bookstores everywhere. The digital edition is available wherever e-books are sold.
A bad-ass noir novel set in hip hop culture, by best-selling and critically-acclaimed author Nelson George.
Finalist for the 2012 NAACP Image Award in Literature
George is an ace at interlacing the real dramas of the world . . . the book’s slim length and flyweight depth could make it an artifact of this particular zeitgeist in American history. Playas and haters and celebrity cameos fuel a novel that is wickedly entertaining while being frozen in time. —Kirkus Reviews
"This hard-boiled tale is jazzed up with authentic street slang and name-dropping (Biggie, Mary J. Blige, Lil Wayne, and Chuck D) . . . George’s tightly packaged mystery pivots on a believable conspiracy . . . and his street cred shines in his descriptions of Harlem and Brownsville’s mean streets."—Library Journal
"George is a well-known, respected hip-hop chronicler . . . Now he adds crime fiction to his resume with a carefully plotted crime novel peopled by believable characters and real-life hip-hop personalities."—Booklist
"George’s prose sparkles with an effortless humanity, bringing his characters to life in a way that seems true and beautiful. The story—and the conspiracy behind it—is one we all need to hear as consumers and creators in the post-hardcore hip-hop world."—Shelf Awareness
"Part procedural murder mystery, part conspiracy-theory manifesto, Nelson George’s The Plot Against Hip Hop reads like the PTSD fever dream of a renegade who’s done several tours of duty in the trenches . . . Plot‘s combination of record-biz knowledge and ghetto fabulosity could have been written only by venerable music journalist Nelson George, who knows his hip-hop history . . . The writing is as New York as ‘Empire State of Mind,’ and D is a detective compelling enough to anchor a series."—Time Out New York
"A breakbeat detective story . . . George invents as much as he curates, as outlandish conspiracy theories clash with real-life figures. But what makes the book such a fascinating read is its simultaneous strict adherence to hip-hop’s archetypes and tropes while candidly acknowledging the absurdity of the music’s current big-business era. There’s a late-capitalism logic at work here. If this book had been written in the early ’90s, it would have been about the insurgent artistry of hip-hop musicians and the social-justice strides the genre was effecting. Today, it’s a procedural about the death of principles." —Time Out Chicago
"The Plot Against Hip Hop is a quick-moving murder mystery that educates its audience on Hip Hop’s pioneer generation along the way . . . it is a nostalgic look at a magical and manic moment in time."—New York Journal of Books
THE PLOT AGAINST HIP HOP is a noir novel set in the world of hip hop culture. The stabbing murder of esteemed music critic Dwayne Robinson in a Soho office building is dismissed by the NYPD as a gang initiation. But his old friend, bodyguard/security expert D Hunter, suspects there’s much more to his death. An old cassette tape, the theft of a manuscript Robinson was working on, and some veiled threats suggest there are larger forces at work.
D Hunter’s investigation into his mentor’s murder leads into a parallel history of hip hop, a place where renegade government agents, behind-the-scenes power brokers, and paranoid journalists know a truth that only a few hardcore fans suspect. This rewrite of hip hop history mixes real-life figures including Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Russell Simmons with characters pulled from the culture’s hidden world, such as the Illuminati, FBI agents, and West Coast gangstas that roam the hard streets D Hunter walks down.
D Hunter is a tough, black-clad product of crime-ridden Brownsville, Brooklyn, a man whose family has been devastated by violence and who has dedicated himself to protecting people in an age of insecurity. Hunter has his own secrets, his own vulnerabilities, which he fights to overcome as he becomes a reluctant private eye. After reading The Plot Against Hip Hop, you’ll never hear the music the same way.
Also Available in the D Hunter Mystery Series
and Available from Akashic Books:
The Accidental Hunter.
___________________
The Accidental Hunter is available in paperback and e-book editions. Our print books are available from our website and in online and brick & mortar bookstores everywhere. The digital edition is available wherever e-books are sold.
"Great reading for the criminal-minded." —Vibe
“The most accomplis
hed black music critic of his generation.” —Washington Post Book World
"“Nelson George’s smooth security-guard-turned-detective, a.k.a. D, scours a demimonde as glamorous as Chandler’s Los Angeles . . . D Hunter definitely needs an encore—he’s destined to become a classic.” —Mary Karr, author of The Liars’ Club
“There are few people who can put the past seventy years of urban reality into the perspective of the most recent hip minute like Nelson George. He braids actual facts and fictional characters flawlessly.” —Chuck D, Public Enemy
"“George is an ace at interlacing the real dramas of the world . . .” —Time Out New York
“George is a well-known, respected hip-hop chronicler . . . Now he adds crime fiction to his resume.” —Booklist
"“Nelson George is one of my greatest influences as a writer . . . He inspired me in many ways, and he continues to inspire.” —Talib Kweli, multi-platinum rapper
The Accidental Hunter marks the debut of D Hunter, Nelson George’s unforgettable bodyguard-turned-PI whom Library Journal calls “ . . . as world weary, yet steadfast, as Philip Marlowe.” A security specialist who thrives off of Manhattan’s nightlife, D Hunter is the man people turn to when they need help without drawing the attention of the NYPD.
When a rising R&B star is kidnapped, music manager Ivy Greenwich hires D for an unusual assignment. Things go well, and D thinks he’s done. But Greenwich has other plans: he wants D to escort mega–pop star Bridgette Haze around New York City’s top hip hop clubs to give her an edgier, more urban image. Hunter reluctantly agrees, and he soon finds himself both falling for Haze and in urgent pursuit of a mysterious kidnapper, all while battling his own thirst for revenge.
To Funk and Die in LA Page 24
