Some of us are living in a city that relies on mass transit, the subway and the bus (and for some of the Dolls, the Ferry). But those things are gone for those of us who don’t have to go riding, riding, riding.
So much is lost because of the pandemic and the way we respond to it.
I wonder if we’d be better off if we didn’t shut down, or we did as we did. I know my mother, in an assisted living facility is alive. For those in Sweden, which didn’t shut down, many more are dead.
So, do your best. Right?
For me, Little Richard, was a guy on late nite commercials. Great songs, like those of the Big Bopper. But familiarity meant we cared less, partly because all we got was the big songs.
But as I grew up, I found other stuff. I wrote about one of those here. Listen to this!
Not a rocker, exactly, but as great as a transitional blues-rock-soul cut as you can imagine. When Little Richard died today I went back to his first album, which finally was released after something like six big hit singles (it was a different world then, or come to think of it maybe it was the same world then with the different one sandwiched in between).
I won’t argue this was the best, but listening to it I’ll say rock hasn’t moved an inch.
Today I learned that the great Bill Withers died at the age of 81. His family released a statement that said it was due to heart complications. At least it wasn’t Coronavirus related! In his honor I’d like to repost a SotW that I wrote about him on December 22, 2012.
I’ve always loved the Bill Withers’ song “Hope She’ll Be Happier” that was on his first album Just as I Am. So without a lot of fanfare, here it is:
This album is
the one with “Ain’t No Sunshine” on it.
It’s really a very good record with some great musical accompaniment
from the Memphis boys down at Stax records and other top notch players like
Stephen Stills, Jim Keltner and Chris Ethridge.
The song is
very simple – a nice guitar figure is repeated over a passionate vocal
delivered in the style of a black spiritual.
The lyric is about a man who is in great pain over losing his woman. He can’t quite come to grips with the reason
she left but hopes she will ultimately be happier with the new guy.
This song
leaves me in the same emotional state I find myself in after hearing Leonard
Cohen’s “Halleluiah” – especially the wonderful Jeff Buckley version.
Now there’s one more thing I need to share and that’s the version Withers’ recorded in Africa when he visited with the James Brown headlined 3 day festival that came to be known as “The Rumble In the Jungle.” The 1974 concert is available on DVD under the title Soul Power. Withers’ performance of “Hope She’ll Be Happier” at this concert will take your breath away.
In this
version it’s just him, his guitar and his voice. But it’s powerful.
There is this place in Soho, in New York City, that has more than three million vinyl records for reference by researchers and movie studios and whatever. Really.
They’re being priced out because it’s valuable space and old records aren’t returning the $ per square foot that’s possible.
So, the Times wrote about this.
Good, interesting story. But here’s the deal. Why is this massive collection housed in NYC, where rents are big. That’s legacy thinking. My advice, send the albums to Pennsylvania somewhere, or the Catskills, and have a smaller public facing NYC exhibition space to draw folks in.
Everything worthwhile doesn’t have to be huge. It just needs enough support to sustain.
And since Mr. George built a little bit of his fortune on records, here’s a great one (though not rock):
The earliest history of Rock and Roll
covers the period when Alan Freed coined the term for the R&B records he
was playing for teenagers in Cleveland on WJW radio. And one of the most important R&B groups of
that era was the “5” Royales. The group
was led by songwriter/guitarist Lowman “Pete” Pauling, who penned songs that
would remain important for many decades, including:
Think – also recorded by James Brown and Mick Jagger
Dedicated to the One I Love – Shirelles and Mamas and Papas
Tell the Truth – Ray Charles and Ike
& Tina Turner
But besides being a great songwriter, Loman was a terrific early electric guitar player. I wanted to select a song that would highlight his playing, so I’ve chosen one of the group’s lesser known records, “Say It.”
“Say It” follows a predictable R&B
formula, with piano triplets leading the way.
But its fuzzed out licks probably influenced more than a few ‘60s garage
band guitarists. Check out the insane riffs
that open and end “Say It!”
Another, more popular “5” Royales track that features Lowman’s Les Paul is “The Slummer the Slum.”
Lowman’s guitar stabs are the prototype
for Steve Cropper’s approach on Booker T & the MGs’ “Green Onions.” Then at about 40 seconds, Lowman rips off a
wild solo and does it again at around 1:35.
If you haven’t had exposure to Pauling beyond this post, please read the excellent article by Lisa O’donnell from his hometown Winston-Salem Journal.
Here’s a link to a story about the woman who posed in the whipped cream. It’s a good story. Sweet!
Here’s a link to an album of folks covering Herb Alpert’s smash hit.
This song helped soften up America for punk. It was a juke box smash at Bumpers, a college bar I frequented in the late 70’s. It reached #47 on the American Billboard chart, higher maybe than any other punk single until the 1990’s. It almost became the actual hit it was in Britain (#8) and especially in the French-speaking countries. The Beach Boys meet Chuck Berry at a construction site.
I am the king of the divan.
One of my favorite, obscure albums is Asylum Choir II, by Leon Russell and
Marc Benno. The duo released their first
album, Look Inside the Asylum Choir,
in 1968. Russell and Benno played
essentially all the instruments on the songs.
That album was released on the Smash record label that didn’t have the
marketing heft to get it played or heard, despite decent reviews by rock
critics.
For Asylum
Choir II, Russell and Benno recruited added help from some great session
musicians – Jesse Ed Davis (guitars), Carl Radle (bass) and Donald “Duck” Dunn
(bass). II was recorded as an immediate follow up to Look Inside but didn’t see the light of day until 1971! This time the disc was released on Shelter Records,
another bad choice (though this time Leon could only blame himself since
Shelter was a company he co-founded with Denny Cordell).
My choice for SotW is “Trying to Stay Live.”
The lyrics may be a little dated; how’s
a guy supposed to make a living if he wants to be a musician “and keep his
sideburns too?”
Many of the other songs on the record
are period pieces. “Down on the Base”
and “Ballad of a Soldier” are anti-Viet Nam war songs and “Sweet Home Chicago”
refers to the riots there at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Another track, “Hello, Little Friend,” became
pretty well known in a version by Joe Cocker on his second album, Joe Cocker!. (That album also had Cocker’s outstanding
take on Russell’s “Delta Lady.”)
But don’t let the time capsule aspect of
Asylum Choir II steer you away from listening to the whole thing. The music and arrangements are tremendous!
