Getting Along With Chuck Cornish

"Blue Eye Brother And Soul Get Along (Part 1)" (Charles H. Cornish)
Chuck Cornish, SSS International 793, c. 1969

Hope it worked

Here’s the A-side of a 1969 two-part dance-inducer I uncovered in Memphis last year. I know very little about Chuck Cornish or this record, other than it comes from an era when he and several other New Orleans-related artists (Danny White, Betty Harris and Robert Parker) had one-off, funkified releases on Shelby Singleton’s Nashville-based SSS International Records. The label also issued nearly a dozen singles by Johnny Adams during it’s run. In my search for some background on “Blue Eye Brother And Soul Get Along” (even the title is syncopated), I’ve come up pretty much empty handed. I don’t know where it was recorded, who produced it, or who played on it. So, any help you can give will be appreciated.

I sure like the song though, upbeat in rhythm and theme as it is. I mean, who can argue with it’s “make this world a happy home” sentiment addressed to the both sides of the racial divide? The drums give the track a strong start and add a tasty dash of funk flavor throughout. You can also get a hint of Chuck’s hometown in the way he pronounces the first word in the phrase "burnin'and lootin’” as "boynin'".

Prior to my finding this 45, Chuck Cornish was familiar to me mainly from a cool cut of his, “Ali Funky Thing” (which lives up to its title), on the first Funky Delicacies/Tuff City Funky Funky New Orleans CD compilation. That song, the top side of another two-parter, originally came out on Wand 11272 in the early 1970’s, and, as far as I can tell, was the singer’s last release. His first (and only other) seems to have been “Let’s Go Steady” b/w “A Tribute To Mohammed Ali”, on Cosimo Matassa’s White Cliffs label (#258) out of New Orleans around 1967. Obviously, Chuck had a few things he needed to say about the former Cassius Clay.

Other than his three singles, I find that, in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, Cornish co-wrote a number of tunes with standout collaborators on the Crescent City scene, such as Dave Bartholomew, Adolph Smith and Pearl King. But I have yet to track down who recorded them. Since he also composed the songs on his solo releases, I think it’s safe to say that Chuck Cornish, if not prolific, was a well-qualified songwriter, who adapted to the times, turning out some good groovers certainly worth remembering in the funky stack o’ tracks that emanated from the Home of the Groove at the start of the Seventies.