Axe the Ages: David Axelrod 95

David Axelrod - Freedom

Happy Friday, also a milestone birthday for an artist I've always wanted to put on here.

He's a tough one, because he was less of a live performer and more of an arranger and producer, who made albums of his own and shaped those of others, leaving a mark on music that will always endure.

I'm trying to remember when I first became aware of the music and methods of David Axelrod, but I'm coming up as empty as the officials' heads who are walking around explaining why Armageddon is justified by quoting verses from Pulp Fiction they think are somehow in the Bible.

It's fitting that Maestro Axelrod did a fair share of TV and film work, as it's clear some folks in very high positions must think the guy wearing the costume in the Batman movie goes home and continues to be Batman.

But back to the music.

I guess I'm a sucker for that sumptuous orchestral funk made famous by people such as Jean-Claude Vannier and Isaac Hayes, because when the music of David Axelrod gets loping along in that skittering thing it does, with the strings blasting in and out like Muhammad Ali jabs, I just go to pieces.

He arrived on the scene in the mid 1960s, and once he got into a studio and got some Wrecking Crew musicians around him, it was off to the races.

Come on, look at that mustache. His mustache almost illustrates something vital about what his music is all about, halfway between Lounge Sophistication and porno soundtrack as it is.

Most of his stuff is reissued, and there are a whole bunch of compilations that cover his output, which is venerated among hip-hop beatmakers and Funkseeking cratediggers alike -- OK, those two demographics likely overlap a bit -- and for good reason.

A couple of his key 1970s LPs are not reissued at all, with 1972's mind-blowing, slavery-themed The Auction somehow never seeing the laser light of the digital age.

Since he rarely, if ever, performed in a concert setting, when I was sitting here plotting what to do I settled upon doing a mixtape of his Seventies stuff in the vein of all those other ones I mentioned, like this one. Or this one. Or even this one. Those mostly focus on his 1965-1970 Capitol era anyway.

I made up my mind not to do the sad, lazy move and cannibalize any of those early-2000s compilations -- which all overlap a bunch of tracks anyway -- in making my thing here.

So the intention is that this couple of hours of music -- which features a good few vinyl-sourced gems still in that Unfortunately Unreissued category -- be a supplement, to accompany those other comps. Collect 'em all, as we used to say back in the antediluvian days when even the crappy music was good.

Various Artists

Axel Grease

David Axelrod Funks the '70s

01 David Axelrod & Pride - Proud Sorrow (1970)

02 Funk, Inc. - Message from the Meters (1973)

03 David Axelrod - Freedom (1972)

04 Joe Williams - Sad Song (1973)

05 David Axelrod - Hallelujah (1971)

06 Hampton Hawes - Tune Axle Grease (1974)

07 David Axelrod - The Lost Lament (1972)

08 Lou Rawls - All God's Children (1970)

09 David Axelrod - Wandering Star (1980)

10 Sod - House Rules (1972)

11 David Axelrod - One (1975)

12 Betty Everett - Sweet Dan (1974)

13 David Axelrod - The Signs (pt. 1) (instrumental) (1970)

14 Willie Tee - Walk Tall (Baby, That's What I Need) (1970)

15 David Axelrod - Overture (pt. 2) (1971)

16 Merl Saunders - Aunt Monk (1974)

17 David Axelrod - Mrs. O. J. A. (1977)

18 Gene Ammons - Rozzie (1974)

19 David Axelrod - Dr. T. (1980)

20 Cannonball Adderley - Snakin' the Grass (1973)

21 David Axelrod - It Ain't for You (1974)

22 Miriam Makeba - We Got to Make It (1974)

23 David Axelrod - Theme from "Gumshoe" (Finally) (1972)

24 Nat Adderley - Amani (edit) (1972)

25 David Axelrod - Be Proud-My Race (1972)

26 Tennessee Ernie Ford - Rainy Night In Georgia (1976)

27 David Axelrod & Pride - Death of Juan Diaz (1970)

28 David Axelrod - Jahil (1980)

Total time: 2:12:41

disc break goes after Track 14

compendium of 1970s funk bangers from the multiverse of David Axelrod

selected, assembled & remastered by EN, April 2026
829 MB FLAC/direct link

Someday all of his tremendous, instantly identifiable work will be in one, giant box set -- remastered with meticulous, reverent attention -- and this dodgy, occasionally less-than-hifi attempt at what should already have existed in the world for decades will be, thankfully, obsolete.

You can join me in not holding our collective breath on that, and understanding as we do that the likelihood is now that full-on nuclear annihilation seems more probable than David Axelrod's pelvically-kineticizing 1980 LP Marchin' ever seeing a reasonable reissue from the master tapes.

Oh well, I guess we can dream of the day when the proper preservation of the great artistic achievements of our species will outweigh our need to self-exterminate in the service of insanely primitive, trivially tribal narratives of negative nonsense.

And as we're dreaming -- whilst trying to keep the mushrooms out of the skies and in the risotto where they belong -- we can celebrate transcendent and highly influential cats like David Axelrod.

No, not the schlumpy political propaganda participant.... part of our problem is that that guy comes up in searches before the real David Axelrod! The one IMO way more accolade-deserving -- and who's sadly gone now -- but was born on this day, way back in 1931.--J.

4.17.1931 - 2.5.2017