Nothin' the matter with your head Baby find it, come on and find it

70's Pick of the Week

“Come and Get Your Love” by Redbone (1973)

Redbone was influential on the East L.A. music in the '60's and that would follow. Brothers Patrick and Lolly Vasquez, originally from Fresno, California moved to Los Angeles in 1969 to form a band. They were of ‘mixed’ blood (they were N.A. aboriginal and Mexican) and used the Cajun term ‘redbone’ to jokingly refer to their ancestry. Tribal, Cajun, R&B and rock music is intermingled in their music.

Peter DePoe (a Cheyenne drummer) and Tony Bellamy (a Yaqui lead guitarist) joined the Vasquez brothers who sang for the band on their debut album “Redbone” in 1970. This would not prove to be a commercial success and they kept at it with great results.

Their 1972 “Potlatch” album spawned the hit “Maggie”. Followed by two others: “The Witch Queen of New Orleans” (#21 on the charts) and “Come and Get Your Love” (only went to #5 on the chart). “Witch Queen” has always been my favourite Redbone song with its quirky intro and native beats and the extensive pioneering use of the Leslie rotating speaker effect on Lolly’s guitar amp set-up.

“Come and Get Your Love” was written by Lolly and Pat, and went to gold status by 1974. Although it only went to number 5 on the charts, it spent 18 weeks on the charts, so you for sure heard it, if you were alive in '74. It ended up being the fourth most popular song of 1974. Drummer Pete DePoe’s style of drummer known as “King Kong” featured a sharp counterpoint between the bass and snare drums and is somewhat similar to funk in its sound.

Also in 1973 the politically oriented “We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee” went to number one in the Netherlands but really did not chart in North America where it ended up getting banned from several radio stations.