I've always loved listening to instrumental funk and soul over the years. From the obvious bands like The Meters and Booker T & The MGs, to Funk, Inc., and The Bar-Kays, all those bands each have a few impressive albums in their catalog. I would have to put The Nite-Liters A-Nal-Y-Sis album up there as one of my favorite instrumental funk albums. Their cover of Donny Hathway's "Valdez in the Country" has always been one of my favorite funk songs. It's a real groover...
And of course, "Damn" is one of my favorite Nite-Liters songs as well...
The Nite-Liters only released five studio albums total as a band from the early to mid-70's (not counting albums by the band The New Birth, which many of its bandmates were members...but that's a whole other story). K-Jee is a great album from The Nite-Liters as well, but I highly recommend checking out A-Nal-Y-Sis first if you're interested in a little instrumental funk.
I really lucked out last week and bought a ton of used Reggae cd's that just recently came into my favorite record store in Seattle. I was especially excited to pick up a bunch of Heptones on cd, namely the most excited about picking up On Top, one of my favorite Reggae albums of all-time.
I was also psyched to find the later-period, Lee Scratch Perry produced Heptones album Party Time, which is really solid as well. Really, you can't go wrong with any Heptones album, period. One of the top vocal Reggae groups of all-time and always a staple of my summer jams.
