Mayfield should be most famous as the writer of the massive Ray Charles hit song, “Hit the Road Jack,” but that song isn’t on Poet of the Blues. Charles signed him to Tangerine Records, where he wrote other hits for Ray, and this song, which was made a hit by Elvis Presley in 1970, on his Back in Memphis elpee.
I didn’t know about this song until today, since it also is not on Poet of the Blues, and I have to say that if I’d only heard the Presley version I would probably wouldn’t have wondered about who wrote the song. It sounds like one of those big star blues jams, fun and all, but without a signature.
But signature is what Percy Mayfield had, always, and especially when he sang. Here’s his version of Stranger in My Own Home Town, which is deeply satisfying, but makes me want to hear Jerry Lee Lewis’s version, too.
This was a big week for deaths. David Bowie, of course, but also baseball great Monte Irvin, terrific actor Alan Rickman, and scroogie throwing Luis Arroyo, whose best season was the year I totally fell in love with baseball. Which is, I think, why I said, oh no, when he showed up in the obits.
Giorgio Gomelsky was in those same pages today, and you can read William Grimes’ excellent obit for him here. I bring nothing to this except the desire to highlight a few facts and link to a few of the many odd bands that Gomelsky worked with over the years.
The biggest ones were the Rolling Stones. He gave them their first paying gig at the Crawdaddy Club. They each took home almost a buck, which is better than many bands today. Jagger’s School of Economics savvy kicks in for sure.
But he lost the Stones to the droogie Andrew Loog Oldham, so he signed up the Yardbirds. Well done!
One of the cool details from Giorgio’s life is that he was born on a boat going from Odessa, Ukraine, to Genoa, Italy.
Google maps does not offer a boat option for transportation, but this is not an easy trip.
The most surprising fact in Giorgio’s obit is that he gave Eric Clapton the Slowhand nickname.
I had always assumed that it was because Clapton is so dexterous that he made fast playing look slow. That’s what I thought. But no!
Here’s the real story, from Grimes’ obit:
“Mr. Gomelsky also gave Eric Clapton, the group’s original lead guitarist, his nickname. Mr. Clapton told The Daily Mail in 2013: “I used light-gauge strings, with a very thin first string, which made it easier to bend the notes, and it was not uncommon, during frenetic bits of playing, for me to break at least one string, While I was changing my strings, the audience would often break into a slow hand clap, inspiring Giorgio to dream up the nickname of Slowhand Clapton.””
Incredible, no? To me, yes.
But Giorgio went on to better things. I’m sorry that I had no idea about his Tonka Wonka Mondays at Tramps. Brave mix ups of rock and jazz musicians willing to jam should have been a natural for me, but I missed it. This was the bar/club that gave Buster Poindexter a regular showcase, and where I got to see Big Joe Turner live, huger in some ways than seeing the Stones in ’73 at the Garden.
But I digress. The cool thing about Gomelsky, at least according to his own words in his obit, is that he had no eye on a music career, but merely wanted to make things right. I like that impulse.
Here’s a few clips from folks he worked with. But read the obit. I wish more lives like his were memorialized.
This clip is really great. I’m posting more Magma soon. Wow.
Fred Frith’s band, Henry Cow, covers a Phil Ochs song.
Mali was the home of the great blues guitarist, Ali Farka Toure, who channelled John Lee Hooker from across the water and brought him back home to the deserts near Timbuktu.
Songhoy Blues were formed by north-Mali musicians exiled to Bamako in the south by jihadists who banned western music in their appropriated shariahland up north. There’s a movie out about the exile of the musicians of Mali, called They Will Have To Kill Us First, which features Songhoy Blues.
I started watching this tune because of the colorful and appealing video, but I’m a sucker for Africans from all over the continent playing electric guitars, so I share this guitar music here.
Their first single was produced by one of the guys from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and the video seems to have been recorded in a Soho loft in New York City. This is a rockier tune.
I went with some friends to see Pierre Kwenders at a small room off Broadway called the David Rubenstein Atrium last night. They regularly program free shows in the atrium, and this was the first I’ve gone to.
Kwenders is from Kinshasa, Congo, and now lives in Montreal. His band, three young Quebecois, play guitar and keyboards, various drums, and dj. It’s this last that was a little problematic. Being able to fire samples of strings and horns and chants distorts the small band vibe. Not that this world music wasn’t lush and gorgeous, it was, but when all that recording came to fore things started to sound more like a Peter Gabriel record than a four-piece band on a small stage playing for a couple hundred people. Live became qualified.
The best songs were popping and angular, with a little space between beats. Kwenders is a crooked and crafty dancer, a strong vocal presence in three languages (French, English and, maybe, Lingala–the predominant Kinshasa language), and a charming host. This was his first show ever in the US, and he got the decidedly mixed crowd (all ages, all colors, many nationalities) on their feet and singing and clapping along. The song that got us to the show was Mardi Gras, on record a Francophone hip hop hipster melange, but lacking the rap parts live seemed more a cajun lament.
Another good one was a raucous reggea-ish tribute to the Rumble in the Jungle called Ali Bomaye! This is a much sparer version than what the band played last night, but in a way the spareness is a tonic, an open window into Kwender’s lovely voice and lyrical songwriting.
More than 13M views have accrued to this clip, so it is hardly rare. But it’s new to me. And it’s fantastic. (What is also new to me is that bands other than the Beatles made videos (or whatever) this way in the 60s. Very cool. h/t to Angela.
Blackstar, David Bowie’s latest album, came out last week. I’d read the warm, enthusiastic reviews but only sampled small pieces before word came this morning that he’d passed on. I was waiting until I found the whole album, Google Music didn’t have it, but it turns out YouTube did. We’ve written about many Bowie songs and projects here over the years. This cut is a worthy piece of ambitious and pleasurable music suffused with the mythmaking heart found in everything David Bowie created. A look backward into a dark future without him (but with his art) that starts today.
There was amazing music being made in the early 70s.
Bands were finding ways to synthesize (or touch on) the blues, popular 60s rock, the progressive scene, plus all the soul and r and b that everyone actually loved.
Plus acid. And Lemmy started Motorhead with guys from Pink Fairies, after he was kicked out of Hawkwind.
Pink Fairies were never hitmakers, but they were consummate synthesizers. They made 12 minute prog rock songs and helped invent punk. I admire them hugely. Every song isn’t boss, but every sound is in the groove. Here’s a good one:
Oh, and happy new year! I hope it’s a good one for us all.
Plus, rock bonus: This is the sound that the Pretenders used for Tattooed Love Boys and Boots of Chinese Plastic. Are there others?
I came to EBTG backwards. Tracy Thorn is a fantastic lyrics writer, and her collaboration in Everything But the Girl, a band with her husband, hinges on a louche sound and her fine songs.
This sort of English soul music has some seriously specific cultural touchpoints, which I don’t know, but it sounds good, especially when the lyrics aren’t stupid (or, as the English say, duff).
A lot of this stuff sounds the same, they work the same dance music rhythms, but this is one of the tunes EBTG made that sounds first rate to me. Meaning I walk around singing, Wherever you go, I will follow you.
