Mayer Hawthorne is a man of distinction — he wears argyle sweaters, neckties and sunglasses five days out of seven, and subsists on breakfast foods two of three square meals a day. Banana pancakes, well-done hash browns with the peppers and onions, turkey sausage, Clancy’s Fancy hot sauce, coffee, OJ and so on. He takes pictures of every plate in front of him that inspires a beat, whips up a quick Sidekick™ boom bap and forwards the food/beat pairing to anyone within range of a text message.

To ask Mayer Hawthorne to choose between music and food is to ask him to choose a limb to amputate. This is a man who won’t divulge his sources for rare vinyl and who posts blog entries when Wendy’s™ is having a sale on Frosties™. So we combined his loves — I asked him to pick his favorite five Motown® joints that inspired his upcoming Mayer Hawthorne and the County album, A Strange Arrangement, and to put the song with a favorite food dish. Like the freshest wine and cheese pairing of your life…

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Smokey Robinson and The Miracles – “Once I Got To Know You”

“Best enjoyed with a Double Double and Animal Style Fries from In-N-Out. I wasn’t really feeling In-N-Out at first, but once I got to know it, I couldn’t help but love it.” Read the rest of this entry »

If this song were wine it would need to breathe for hours after you uncorked it. It would need time to settle on your eardrums and brainwaves before you could pick out the intricacies of its flavor. And oh does it ever have flavor.

Kings Go Forth is deeply rooted in the greats: overriding tones of Curtis, an earthy start with Isaac and a clean finish with Marvin. What’s the vintage? Oh, I’d say a 1970, ’71 California blend. Ah but no, we’re talking about Read the rest of this entry »