BURIED TREASURE
Noblesse Funk
This month’s scorching rediscovery: a forgotten Detroit gem from the R&B cut-out bins.
Top ranking: The Fabulous Counts (clockwise from top left) Jim White, Mose Davis, Demetrius Cates, Raoul Keith Mangrum, Leroy Emmanuel, Andrew Gibson.
The Fabulous Counts
Jan Jan
COTILLION, 1969
IN JANUARY 1969, young Detroit six-piece The Fabulous Counts gawped in disbelief when their maddeningly funky debut 45 Jan Jan crashed into the US R&B Top 50.
“It just took off like a rocket,” laughs the band’s former guitarist Leroy Emmanuel, now 76, recalling how the hypnotic instrumental, with its stabbing horns, blues guitar licks and jazzy organ, opened their account for producer Ollie McLaughlin’s indie label Moira. Sounding like Booker T & The M.G.’s cranked up on steroids, Jan Jan enjoyed a chart run that caught both group and label by surprise. It also attracted the attention of Atlantic Records, who signed the band to its Cotillion subsidiary and sent them back to the studio to record an album post-haste.