Another pioneer of the rock’n’soul scene left us last week with the passing of Don Covay.
My first memory of Covay was when his hit Popeye Waddle was released in 1962, but his legacy and influence actually date half a decade earlier, and lasted a lot longer than the Waddle, which peaked at #75 on the Billboard charts.
Covay started his pop music career with the Rainbows, a singing group that also featured Marvin Gaye and Billy Stewart, and in 1957, joined Little Richard as both his driver and opening act. Richard also produced Covay’s first single, Bip Bop Bip.
Covay then formed the band The Goodtimers, and also began songwriting in the Brill Building, penning songs for Solomon Burke, Gladys Knight, and Aretha Franklin (Chain of Fools).
But, his best know song is probably Mercy Mercy, recorded with the Goodtimers, released in 1964, which peaked at #35, and was covered by a number of artists including the Stones (on Out of Our Heads) and which featured Jimi Hendrix.
Covay continued to work with some big names: Steve Cropper and Booker T., Paul Rodgers, and Ronnie Wood (who organized a tribute album for Covay) and others.
Similarly, his songs were recorded by a large and varied crowd, including The Small Faces, Gene Vincent, Wanda Jackson, Peter Wolf, Steppenwolf, and Connie Francis.
Covay died of a stroke last week, but he leaves some good stuff behind.
I can’t tell if Steve Moyer is in this picture, one of those choir boys could be Follow Fashion Monkeys, but I’m going to assume Steve admired Amy Linden at some point during this tour. She tells a fine story, by the way.
Yesterday’s Name That Tune turned on a simple peculiarity. The song, Rosalie, was from an obscure album by a soon-to-be famous songwriter, and was much better known when it was covered by Thin Lizzy a few years after the original.
Bob Seger’s album, Back in ’72, topped out at No. 188 on the US charts in 1972 and was never released on CD because Seger didn’t like the sound of his vocals. The album features the backing of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section on a few tracks, though a dispute over their pay rate (they wanted $1500 per “side,” which Seger took to mean $3000 for a two-sided album, while they meant the more traditional “side” to mean song) caused them to leave the sessions early because Seger couldn’t afford them.
The song, Rosalie, was about Rosalie Trombley, who was the program director of CKLW, a Top 40 radio station that was very influential in making midwestern hits and determining what songs were played on the radio across the nation.
Some say the song is angry and lampoons Trombley’s taste and expertise, though to my ear it is pretty even handed, so much so that it’s hard to see why this was a good subject for a tune. What is sure is that Trombley didn’t like the song and it was never played on CKLW.
The Perfect Sound Forever story is a first-person piece about growing up outside of St. Louis and being able to tap into the Tubeworks show, which seems to have broadcast over the phone lines (and through a converter box) on a regularly irregular basis. Read the story for the impressive list of performers and note that John Sinclair was a regular in studio guest. This was rock TV before cable.
Friday night, and as I was making dinner (this time cayenne fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy) this great song from To Have and To Have Not jumped the synapses.
Directed by the equally great Howard Hawks (Bringing Up Baby, The Big Sleep, Red River, and Ball of Fire to name a few), with a screenplay by Ernest Hemmingway, To Have and To Have Not is in fact based upon a Hemmingway short story. But, rumor has it, there is very little in the film that has anything to do with the story.
Which doesn’t mean the film isn’t just great. It was Lauren Bacall’s and Humphrey Bogart’s first film together (in fact this was Bacall’s firgst film, period, and she was 19 at the time) and the chemistry is undeniable.
This is the film where Bacall suggestively tells Bogart he knows how to whistle (“you just put your lips together, and blow”).
The film also features Walter Brennan as a tookothless rummy sidekick named Eddie, and a joke of mixed-up names, for Bogart’s name is Harry Morgan, but Bacall always calls him Steve, while Bacall’s name is Marie Browning, but Bogart calls her Slim.
Anyway, the equally wonderful Hoagy Carmichael (as Cricket) plays throughout (remember, this is a 40’s movie, and music and song were part of the equation), including this cool number where he starts solo, and where Slide m helps him finish up.
Some time back we posted about the Internet K Hole, a collection of photos from the 70s and 80s curated by a woman named Babs from time to time, featuring shots of rockers, skateboarders, bikers, the drunk, the sitting around, the naked and the dressed up, among other things. That post featured a shot of early Devo, while this Devo shot is of somewhat later, um, vintage, along with a few of the hundreds of kaptivating photos, in honor of the new Internet K-Hole Tumbler. Set aside some time and enjoy.
Another nugget that popped up for me while assembling Lindsay’s holiday disc was this absolute gem from Devo.
In fact, it is such a great cut, that I was sure someone (maybe even me?) had written about the band or song before, so I was surprised to see only indirect references to Devo within the Remnants archives.
I think history will prove Devo–particularly Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry (Gerald) Casale, the band’s driving forces–vastly underated, as a band, as songwriters, and as artists. For, what Devo did was much closer to rock and roll (I guess actually New Wave) theater than most bands. But, they were also very tight musically, as you shall see.
I found these two live versions of the ever intense Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy while looking for a good representation of the song, and they are both great, and interesting.
The first is from 1977, when the band was still pretty new on the forefront of Devolution. The film is rugged and jumpy, but the sound is ok, and the opening bass solo from Casale–who adds the great stage look of having a lefty player–is really great. You can see Mothersbaugh, as a singer/performer/front definitely has some chops.
But, check out how much tighter and polished the whole thing was three years later, after a serious cult following and a couple of discs and big time touring. By then Mothersbaugh was pretty well realized with this really mesmerizing performance.
So, I dug some more after last night’s post, and I found Silke Berlinn and her band, the Addictions.
I’d never heard of Silke, but her bio is a rampage of reference and namedropping, with confusing punctuation and a style that takes the long view. I’ve bolded one graf simply because it seems like the most honest and least self-aggrandizing, and is genuinely funny. Plus she admits hanging with GG Allin.
BIO
Silke Berlinn, a “proto-punk” vocalist renowned for her exceptional and broad-ranging vocal abilities with rhythm-and-blues feel. Silke, once called the female alter-ego of lead singer, Willie Borsey (with whom she once lived) of Mink deVille, is often compared to Amy Winehouse. Silke began singing in Catholic girls’ choirs at the age of 5, perfecting her style with the help of blues greats Charles “Blue Boy” Huff, one of Sam Cooke’s original Soul Stirrers, Oakland blues greats Hi-Tide Harris and Cool Pappa among others. Silke has studied voice from the time she was a child and her distinct vibratto-rich vocal style is at once reminiscent of great girl-group vocalists Ronnie Ronette & Mary Wells with the unleashed performance qualities of a Janis Joplin or Tina Turner and more recently, Amy Winehouse (with whom Addictions guitarist, Eric Zodik, was linked. Silke’s poetry has been compared to that of Patti Smith
Silke Berlinn began singing in San Francisco underground bands at the age of 15 when she left home in NYC to join the original members of Mink deVille, started by Robbie McKenzie was later known as Fast Floyd & The Famous Firebirds. Willie Borsey, lead singer of Mink deVille & childhood friend of McKenzie, left Connecticut for San Francisco at McKenzie’s importuning, urging Willie to join McKenzie (now known as “Floyd”), bassist Ruben Siguenza and Oakland drummer Manfred Jones in McKenzie’s newly-formed band which he called “Mink deVille.” Floyd did not want to move back to NYC permanently, leaving Mink deVille to form Fast Floyd & The Famous Firebirds with Silke in 1979.
After recording “Bizarre” with the assistance of Bill Graham Presents, Silke & Floyd had a falling out (he began stalking her with a gun when she left him for Addictions guitarist Spike Mayfield (n. Keith M Dailidenas, aka Keeth Paul, Keeth Mayfield, seminal member of the entourages of David Bowie, New York Dolls, & Teen-Age Lust)
Silke fled Los Angeles for New York City, followed shortly thereafter by guitarist Keeth “Spike” Paul and other members of The Addictions, which, over the years, came to include Brendan Earley (The Mutants); Steve Berman (The Victims); Jerry Nolan (New York Dolls, The Heartbreakers, Richie Scarlett, Teen-Age Lust); Frankie Infante (Blondie); Clement Burke (Blondie); Johnnie Opat (Etta James); Clarence Clemmons (E Street Band); The Hooters; drummer, Richie Spinoza; Luigi Scorcia, avatar of NYC’s 90s Swing Scene (Johnny Thunders, The Casualties, Lords of the New Church, Phreddy Vomit, Them Bowery Bums); Steve McKay (Iggy Pop); The Dangerous Birds; Andy Paley; Billy Bacon; Billy Balls; Ruben Siguenza (Mink deVille); and saxophonist, Manhattan Rob Walsh. Silke had a three-record contract with Columbia Records negotiated with former Blondie manager, Gino Riccardi, which she failed to fulfill after a nervous breakdown in the late eighties.
She has been linked romantically with Cheetah Chrome (Dead Boys); DeeDee Ramone (Ramones); Jerry Nolan (New York Dolls, Heartbreakers, Teen Age Lust); Fast Floyd (Mink deVille, Fast Floyd, Offs); & Addictions’ guitarist, Keith Dailidenas (David Bowie, Richie Scarlett, New York Dolls, Teen Age Lust.) Silke in known to caution those with a potential romantic interest: “I only get involved with guitarists and most of the guitarists I get involved with die.”
Silke has co-written, recorded, played, and/or toured with most of the above-mentioned artists.
Her memoir, “Queen of the Underground,” one of three she has written, chronicles her life as a notable figure of the “heroin chic” in the late 80s New York underground scene is being currently serialized in the music publication, Teenage News. At age 26, Silke’s first volume of poetry, “Palace of Perversion” was published by a prominent university press.
She currently seeks a major publisher for her three memoirs. We include a passage from “Queen of the Underground”:
Cheetah Chrome: “What’s this?”
Silke Berlinn: “It’s my wrist after the other love of my life (Keeth) slashed it with a straight-edge razor & i went to the hospital & got 60 stitches because when she got home that night, Vicki Schrott said i was bleeding to death because i went to bed after Keeth slashed my wrist, it was just a little love bite anyway, & Keeth & I played in bands together for the next 5 years anyway… but it is true, the slashing did end any thoughts I had of a guitar-playing career, which was a good thing anyway, because it never even started so I wouldn’t have to sit around practicing guitar chords anymore trying to be a hardcore Patti Smith, it was a relief—-i always fall in love with the weirdest people.”
Over the years, Silke has collaborated extensively with guitarist, Luigi Scorcia, impresario of the New York underground as a photographer, videographer and musician having played, recorded and/or toured with Johnny Thunders, Cheetah Chrome, Stiv Bators, Steve Jones and Chris Spedding among others. He is a co-writer of Asphalt Punk, Silke Berlinn’s much-anticipated third album with The Addictions.
Among the band’s ecumenical influences are the Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop, Tommy James and The Shondells, The Mamas and The Papas, Thunderclap Newman, any and all things Motown or Phil Spector, Sixties garage bands, Mink deVille, Bush, John Murry, Biggie Smalls, Cypress Hill, GG Allin, The Flamin’ Groovies, Mary Wells, Tina Turner, Janis Joplin, Social Distortion, The Dead Boys and The Ramones, among others.
The music? I like Candy better, but I bet they would be fun live.
Danny Fields holding a book with a photo of Nico he took.
Danny Fields was the manager of the Ramones, but he also signed Iggy and the Stooges and the MC5 to Elektra records (on the same day), and published the story in which John Lennon said the Beatles were bigger than Jesus, which caused a ruckus. A story in the New York Times visits Fields as he packs his trove of recordings and papers (and maybe some home made porn) for the Beinecke Library at Yale, which has acquired it.
One highlight is a clip from one of Fields’ audio cassettes of Lou Reed after first hearing a recording of the Ramones (even though he is bleeped).
Another pioneer of the rock’n’soul scene left us last week with the passing of Don Covay.
