In a week of sad deaths, I have no personal stake in the death of Sharon Jones.
I’m not heartless, I just mean that despite her gifts as a singer, and the obvious talents of the Dap Kings, I found much of their music more a simulation of other music than something organic. Music of nostalghia rather than experience.
I always put Sharon Jones in the same basket of imponderables that I put Gillian Welch, an Appalachian archivist who mimicked old styles more than create her own.
That said, Sharon Jones had a great soulful voice, as Gillian Welch did fine Appalachian holler, and with the Dap Kings made sounds that were totally derived from the old music, but live in real time. I think that means they made me think I was living in those days, though I won’t testify to that.
In any case, she has died, and left a funky body of work behind.
I grew up in the town where the great jazz pianist lived. That would be Smithtown, New York. The reason we knew who Mose Allison was, however, was this blistering recording of his song Young Man Blues.
Allison lived in a development house next to the high school I went to, and we sometimes stood in the schoolyard looking at his house (or what someone said was his house) and imagine the Who stopping by for sandwiches and a jam session.
I later saw him in shows at jazz clubs and the Bottom Line in New York City, and there are special times when his music is awfully good to go to. Casual, bluesy, often funny, it’s cool jazz and warm blues. Maybe you’d call it amiable. Maybe I already did.
I don’t remember whether I first heard Leon Russell on Mad Dogs and Englishmen, or the Concert for Bangladesh or his excellent solo albums. What I remember is that he was off the radar until he was on it, and when we found out about him we loved his songs and his piano, we loved his Stones covers and we loved Youngblood. But what I remember most distinctly was learning that he’d been a session player on Frank Sinatra sides!
But when someone dies you learn other things. Such that Russell co-wrote (with Bonnie Bramlett) Superstar, the great weird Carpenters song.
And then there is the session work, like this early Stones demo featuring Russell, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney, of a song that grew up to become Shine A Light.
Three years ago my friend Richard died. He and I had been occasional tennis partners, often shared dinners with mutual friends, and enjoyed talking about music.
He was English by birth, but had lived in the US for many years. I bring that up because he had a love for Englishy art rock and subgenres of dance music that I found somewhat bewildering. But each New Years Eve, at the party we would inevitably be attending together, he would pass out CDs with his favorite songs from the previous year and it was a treat to hear the world through his ears. Richard loved sharing the tunes he liked, and was always looking for new sounds.
At his memorial I learned that back in the early 80s Richard had played the synthesizer in a band.
After his death his wife, Monica, shared a big folder of songs of his, which is another window into his world. We’ve long talked about posting some of these songs somewhere as a tribute, and may still do that on Facebook.
But while thinking about Richard this memorial week, I thought a post of a handful of the tunes I’ve discovered from his collection would serve as a memorial, a tribute to someone who is missed by many.
We could write tributes to those who have passed nearly every day. Today it is for Bonny Rice, whose biggest hit was released as Sir Mack Rice, who was a member of the Falcons in Detroit (with Wilson Pickett, Eddie Floyd, and Joe Stubbs), but who is best known for writing Wilson Pickett’s hit, Mustang Sally, and cowriting the Staple Singers’ Respect Yourself (with Luther Ingram).
The best anecdote from the NY Times’s obituary today: The song was originally called Mustang Mama, but Aretha Franklin, who played piano on the demo, convinced him to change the name.
Here’s the Wilson Pickett version, which was an R&B and pop hit. After the song there are some details about the writing of the song.
If there is an ur-moment of the birth of rock ‘n’ roll I would name the Sun Sessions with Elvis Presley. This is Elvis at his greatest, with a band that cranks it up.
If asked about the birth of rock I would chatter about Joe Turner and Little Richard. These are the giant creators of rock ‘n’ roll. And there was more going on at Sun than just Elvis in 1954.
But there are two records I put on when I want to hear the original stuff. The Sun Sessions with Elvis Presley and whatever compilation of Buddy Holly tunes I can find at hand.
Scotty Moore had jazz ambitions, but he gladly took the session backing Elvis. And you can hear in the finger picking that he inserts along with his rhythm part that his ambitions are greater than simply sideman.
Moore’s guitar is essential to Mystery Train.
What surprised me reading about this legend’s career was that his footprint wasn’t large. He made a deep impression early, and had influence forever, but there is not a big body of work out there that is Scotty Moore’s.
Still, this grab from Wikipedia explains his importance and his reticent impact:
“Moore is given credit as a pioneer rock ‘n’ roll lead guitarist, though he characteristically downplayed his own innovative role in the development of the style. “It had been there for quite a while”, recalled Moore. “Carl Perkins was doing basically the same sort of thing up around Jackson, and I know for a fact Jerry Lee Lewis had been playing that kind of music ever since he was ten years old.”[7] Paul Friedlander describes the defining elements of rockabilly, which he similarly characterizes as “essentially … an Elvis Presley construction”: “the raw, emotive, and slurred vocal style and emphasis on rhythmic feeling [of] the blues with the string band and strummed rhythm guitar [of] country”.[8] In “That’s All Right”, the Presley trio’s first record, Scotty Moore’s guitar solo, “a combination of Merle Travis–style country finger-picking, double-stop slides from acoustic boogie, and blues-based bent-note, single-string work, is a microcosm of this fusion.”[9]“
Bernie Worrell, the influential keyboard player first for Parliment/Funkadelic, and then the Talking Heads and various cool bands who were clear just how killer Worrell’s playing was, has passed away at age 72.
I was not only lucky enough to catch the Heads on the “Big Suit” tour when Worrell toured with the band, but I also actually saw Parliment at a Lollapalooza in 1994. And, they were unquestionably the best live band I ever saw.
Mind you, I have seen a lot of bands, and as a result a lot of killer sets and performances, but note for note, player for player, no band was as tight and energetic with such a full and powerful sound as George Clinton and his mates.
Period.
Check the band out doing Rumpofsteelskin with Bernie on keys, and let by Clinton and Bootsy. Peace out Brother Bernie…
Chip Moman was a guitarist who got his start at Stax, then founded his own studio (American Sound Studio), and wrote, produced and/or played on an impressive body of work. You can read the NY Times obit here.
Moman wrote The Dark End of the Street with Dan Penn, and produced James Carr’s recording of it.
An English guitarist of great taste, who spent a lot of time around Paul McCartney and Wings, but also played the guitar solos at Woodstock for Joe Cocker when he turned With A Little Help From My Friends into a monster smash.
McCullough’s solo in this bit of MOR elevates it. I’m a fan of McCartney’s stuff, and I’m always happy to hear this, but less happy today that McCullough is gone.
I once (a long time ago, in the 70s) worked as the sound guy on a film shoot at the Apollo Theater, yes, that Apollo Theater (James Brown!), for a benefit for a Harlem-based bicycle-racing club trying to make the Olympic team.
I was positioned in the aisle, crouched on the floor, doing my work on the Nagra, about 30 feet from the stage. When Ali, a supporter of the club, a sponsor/supporter of the event, was announced, he strode down the aisle right by me. Within inches. Fortunately he didn’t spill over my cables.
When I think about charisma and magic, I think of that moment. I didn’t meet Ali, I didn’t shake his hand, but his charisma filled the (big) room. It washed over me and all of us. His passing by me rained magic down on me. He was a hero, to me already, but his presence in that room was something else. It was the Greatest.
Tonight, he left the room, but he will surely endure.
