Taurus Tunes

A dozen bull-centric jams for my astrological brothers and sisters

Ferdinand the Bull (Walt Disney, 1938)

I have friends who believe whole-heartedly in astrology, and I have friends who are convinced that it’s absolute bunk. I have always tended to lean towards the former camp, all the more so since learning the uncanny fact that Rip Taylor and Charles Nelson Reilly were both born on January 13, 1931. (I mean, what further proof could you possibly need that astrology is real?)

But there’s also the fact that a significantly high percentage of my close friends, dear family and favorite colleagues were, like me, all born under the sign of Taurus. To this day, whenever I really connect with a person I’ve just met, it more often than not turns out that they’re also a Taurus — my wonderful and unexpected friendship with my CROSSED CHANNELS podcast partner Tony Fletcher (belated happy birthday, Tony!) being just the latest example of how we bulls seem to gravitate towards each other.

And while I haven’t done the comparative research to prove it, it seems like both the Taurus zodiac sign and its representative symbol (The Bull) have been unusually well-represented in popular music. So in honor of all my fellow Taureans (and those who love us despite our stubborn ways), here’s a playlist of a dozen bull-centric tracks to celebrate our current season in the astrological spotlight…

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Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass — The Lonely Bull

Given my profound and oft-stated love for all things TJB, it should come as no surprise that I’m kicking off this dozen with a hit of Herb. Though this atmospheric foray to musical lands “South of the Border” was actually recorded several blocks north of L.A.’s Beverly Boulevard, “The Lonely Bull” nevertheless launched the good Mr. Alpert into stardom and put A&M Records (the label he formed in 1962 with Jerry Moss) on the map. And that’s no bull!

Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs — Wooly Bully

Sure, these Memphis-by-way-of-Dallas loonies also released “El Toro De Goro (The Peace Loving Bull),” but how could I not include their biggest hit here? Not only can the Tex-Mex garage stomper “Wooly Bully” instantly transform a serious frown into a goofy grin, but this wonderfully ridiculous video — in which the be-turbaned Domingo “Sam” Samudio and his Pharaohs pay musical tribute to a creature with “Two big horns and a wooly jaw” while rocking out in an ersatz Nile oasis — will surely cure your L-seven-ness or whatever else ails ya.

Dyke & The Blazers — Funky Bull

One of the greatest (and yet still sorely underrated) soul-funk combos of the late sixties and early seventies, Dyke & The Blazers had moderate hits with “Funky Broadway” and “Funky Walk,” but sadly missed the charts entirely with their 1968 salute to an equally funky adult male of the Bos taurus species. Originally released as a two-part single, the full uncut jam was finally released in 1999, and can be heard here…

Spirit — Taurus

As I’ve mentioned here before, L.A. jazz-psych hippies Spirit are one of those much-lauded bands that I’ve just never been able to get into, despite numerous attempts over the years. Still, I can’t deny the icy beauty of “Taurus,” a stately instrumental written by guitarist Randy California and recorded for the band’s self-titled 1968 debut. I also can’t deny its obvious similarities to a certain classic-rock monolith from a few years later, even if various subsequent lawsuit somehow failed to prove them in court…

Morton & The Uptights — Taurus

I know little about this short-lived combo, other than that it was led by American keyboardist Scott Bradford, and featured musicians from his regular gig with Belgian soul duo Jess & James, along with Belgian jazz guitar great Philippe Catherine. But I absolutely love how their jam “Taurus” — released on the flip side of a now impossibly rare 1970 single — blends jazz, funk, soul and ska to a delightfully hash-hazy effect.

Charles Mingus — Taurus in the Arena of Life

Another fellow Taurus (April 22), jazz legend Charles Mingus recorded this ambitiously polyphonic (and quite possibly self-referential) piece for his 1972 masterpiece Let My Children Hear Music, though it was left off the album at the time. “We didn't think of it as a definitive version," recalled arranger Sy Johnson, when the track was finally added to the album’s 1992 CD reissue. “but 20 years later, in context on the album, it sounds more complete; there are some nice textures going on.”

Dennis Coffey — Taurus

Motown guitar legend Dennis Coffey hit the Top 10 in 1971 with his funky instro jam “Scorpio,” so it made perfect sense to go back to the zodiac bag for this 1972 single. If it wasn’t quite as successful as its predecessor, “Taurus” still made the Top 20 on both the pop and R&B charts, and Coffey’s fuzz-caked guitar tone remained fearsome enough to stop a charging bull — or make it dance — at 20 paces.

The Subterraneans featuring Carleen Anderson — Taurus Woman

The Subterraneans (or just “Subterraneans”) were a short-lived early-nineties project featuring British musicians with ties to Acid Jazz-related groups like Young Disciples and Brand New Heavies. While a lot of stuff on the Acid Jazz label left me cold back in the day, there was no denying the funky groove of this Meters reworking, or the soulful pipes of Carleen Anderson — who also happens to be the daughter of soul singer Vicki Anderson, and the goddaughter of the mighty James Brown.

Sonic Youth — Bull in the Heather

Taurus woman Kim Gordon (April 28) takes center stage — though she’s joined by Bikini Kill’s irrepressible Kathleen Hanna in the Tamra Davis-directed video — on this single from Sonic Youth’s 1994 album Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star. A meditation on opting out of male-dominated culture, “Bull in the Heather” remains one of my favorite Sonic Youth songs; it’s prime example of their uncanny ability to create poppy and oddly soothing music out a disparate array of really noisy elements.

All Them Witches — Bulls

One of my favorite bands of the last decade, Nashville’s ATW have a marvelous knack for combining hard rock, roots music and spaced-out psychedelia into something original, emotionally affecting, and sonically delicious. The opening track of their 2017 album Sleeping Through the War, “Bulls” pretty much sums up everything I love about them. (And hey, it mentions bulls!)

Nat Adderley Sextet — Taurus

The late sixties and early seventies saw the release of a wide array of albums offering musical interpretations of the zodiac. Many of them were fairly cheesy and/or forgettable, but there were still a few genuine gems like Soul Zodiac, a freaky 1972 collaboration between the Nat Adderley Sextet and legendary LA jazz disc jockey Rick Holmes. The two-LP set, which was produced by David Axelrod and Nat’s brother Cannonball Adderley (who also appears on a couple of cuts), features Holmes’ narration over 12 tracks that range from mellow soul-jazz to full-on psychedelic firestorms. In the latter camp resides the set-ending “Taurus,” a nearly 14-minute epic highlighted by some seriously fuzzed-out fretwork from Mike Deasy, a veteran L.A. session cat who had previously played with everyone from The Beach Boys to Frank Zappa (and who had recovered somewhat at this point from a three-day 1969 LSD misadventure with the Manson Family). Holmes’ litany of Taurus characteristics seems mostly on the mark to me, though the whole “loves money with a passion” aspect apparently went missing whenever my own Taurean attributes were handed out. (Loves Eddie Money with a passion, more like…)

Blowfly — Taurus

Of course, if I had to pick just one zodiac concept album, it would be Zodiac Blowfly, the 1975 tour de farts from the late soul singer and songwriter Clarence Reid’s masked (and decidedly NSFW) alter-ego. I can’t begin to count the number of times that my Lava Sutra bandmates laughed til we cried while spinning this LP back in the early nineties; likewise, I can’t begin to count the amount of times I played it for folks who were far more horrified than amused by Blowfly’s deeply foul-mouthed song parodies. So if you’re at all sensitive to the sort of language that would make a dockworker blush, I would highly recommend skipping this next track, which features (among other things) a rather creative rewording of Roberta Flack’s big Ewan MacColl-penned love ballad. And as for Blowfly’s rundown of the sort of things that Tauruses like and do, well, I’d like to plead the Fifth on that one.

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