Allen was the drummer who shaped the Afrobeat sound with Fela. The two of them combined jazz and Nigerian pop and lots of political edge to create a music that drove the central government wild.
I once had tickets to see Fela in NY, but he was imprisioned in Nigeria and couldn’t travel.
I did see Tony Allen once, at the Knitting Factory when it was on Leonard Street in New York’s Tribeca. A joy, and the opening band was Antibalas, a Brooklyn based Afrobeat band. They didn’t cover Fela, they didn’t impersonate him, but they surely inhabited his vibe and made it work.
Antilbalas eventually became the house band when the musical about Fela and Tony Allen hit Broadway.
Tony Allen is drumming on this, maybe Fela and Afrika 70’s greatest song.
The first time I ever heard “Green Eyed Lady”, by Sugarloaf, was on AM radio in the summer of 1970. The song reached #3 on Billboard Hot 100, taking me, and the country by storm with its jazzy, prog rock.
There were three different single
versions. The first had almost no edits
but an early fade out to keep it below 6 minutes. That was deemed too long for ‘70s AM radio
airplay. The next version cut out all
the solos, and also cut out the track’s soul.
The final single version is the one most of us know. It runs about 3.5 minutes and contains an
abridged solo section. It attempted to
get a slice of the extended solo section from the nearly 7 minute album version
into a length that would be deemed “suitable” for radio.
But if you really want to enjoy this hit, you should immerse in the album cut with the Jimmy Smith inspired, Hammond B3 organ solo by Jimmy Corbetta.
How can you ignore the funky groove that
the band establishes from the very first notes?
And the keyboard and guitar solos kill it!
Many people put Sugarloaf’s “Green Eyed Lady”
into the “one-hit wonder” category. But
that’s not really the case. Sugarloaf
had another Top 10 hit with “Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You” in late ‘74/early ’75
– a track that was covered by Van Halen in concert, but never officially
released.
“Green Eyed Lady” is a popular chestnut,
and still brings enjoyment to me every time I hear it.
I’m still pissed off that I wasn’t able
to go back to New Orleans last week to enjoy another French Quarter Festival. My wife and friends had so much fun last year
that we couldn’t wait to go back. But it
was postponed until October because this damned COVID-19 has us locked down!
Locked down? Yeah, locked down.
“Locked
Down” is from Dr. John’s 2012 album of the same title. The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach produced the set
and added his own brew of dirty guitar riffs, vocals, and percussion. This was the next to last album the good Dr.
released before his passing last June.
So, thank you, Dr. John, for giving me a
little of that swampy Nola funk to help me get through this coronavirus shut
down.
I didn’t think
so. But you should know about him
because he had a very successful career in the music biz.
First of all, he
was the producer on Gene Clark’s best solo album (IMHO), No Other. If that was his only accomplishment, he would
be noteworthy. But there is so much
more!
In the late 50s,
while still a teenager, he hooked up with Scepter/Wand records. Through the early 60s there, he wrote and
produced material for The Shirelles and several notable soul artists. He also produced ? and the Mysterians;
possibly even on their big hit “96 Tears”, though that has been a subject of
debate.
In the 70s he
worked with Clark, produced “Dead Skunk” for Loudon Wainwright III, co-wrote
the Three Dog night hit “One Man Band”, and produced the Dr. John, Mike
Bloomfield, John Hammond Jr. super session called Triumvirate.
Of special
interest to me is his association with all of the cats at ABC/Dunhill records
that were producing (Gary Katz) and playing on Steely Dan records – including
Donald Fagen and Walter Becker.
This led Kaye to
release two solo albums in the early 70s that allowed him full access to those
great artists. The first eponymous disc
is almost a Steely Dan backed record.
Becker, Fagen, David Palmer, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter and, Victor Feldman all
make contributions, with Katz producing.
His second solo release, First Grade, even included two Becker/Fagen penned obscurities that they never recorded for Steely Dan. “American Lovers” is today’s SotW.
“American Lovers” was recorded around the time that Steely Dan was working on Pretzel Logic. While I wouldn’t claim that Becker and Fagen gave away their best song, it has the chord structure and lyrical intelligence we’ve come to expect from the boys.
Becker plays
bass on this number and Jim Gordon pounds the traps. Backing vocals are provided by Dusty
Springfield, Clydie King and Shirley Matthews!
Kaye died in
1994 in Warwick, NY, just a few miles from my hometown of Newburgh.
So the next time
someone asks if you’ve ever heard of Thomas Jefferson Kaye you’ll say – “Hell
yes!”
Today’s SotW is another guest spot by Michael
Paquette, who made his first contribution on February 1st. His passion for music is evident in this
salute to a soul obscurity by Percy Sledge.
Percy Sledge had a massive hit with the
first song he ever recorded in the southern soul studio, Muscle Shoals in
1966. “When A Man Loves A Woman” was a huge hit both here in America and
internationally and received even more recognition in the movies The Big
Chill (1983), Platoon (1987) and The Crying Game (1992). It originally reached #4 on the British
charts and upon re-release in 1988 hit #2.
He never had another US top 10 chart hit
but he did manage to have years of success with lesser known songs on the R&B
charts such as “Take Time to Know Her,” “Warm and Tender Love” and “It Tears Me
Up.”
But “Out of Left Field” may have been his finest work. It was released in the spring of 1967 about a year after “When A Man Loves A Woman.” It is a tender love song about that first moment of suddenly found love. “Out of Left Field” is a great representation of Percy Sledge’s range and the strength of his voice to move listeners. It is a soulful song that could almost come off as a country tune.
The lyrics, written by Spooner Oldham
and Dan Penn who did so much work for Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, The Box
Tops and Bobby Purify, leave an indelible mark on the Muscle Shoals sound through
their simplicity and genuineness.
Sugar
and peaches in a paradise land,
Good
love and sweetness have taken their stand
She
made a mountain of love
From
a little grain of sand.
Suddenly,
out of left field
Came
a lover and a friend
These are definitely lines that anyone
can relate to and words that could fit into nearly any genre of music.
This song remains a favorite of mine and it is another masterpiece from a seriously
underappreciated artist.
“Out of Left Field” was covered by Gregg
Allman, Al Kooper and John Fred & His Playboy Band (of “Judy In Disguise”
fame)!
Although many of Sledge’s songs weren’t
nearly as famous as his first hit, he was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame in 2005 and was fittingly inducted by another soulful artist with a famous
voice — Rod Stewart.
Perhaps my all-time favorite Leonard Cohen song, among so many worthy possibilities, is “Famous Blue Raincoat.”
The lyric is written in the form of a
letter; where the letter writer confronts another guy (a friend?) about his
affair with the writer’s wife.
It’s four in the morning, the end
of December
I’m writing you now just to see if you’re better
New York is cold, but I like where I’m living
There’s music on Clinton Street all through the evening
And you treated my woman to a
flake of your life
And when she came back she was nobody’s wife
What can I tell you my brother,
my killer
What can I possibly say?
I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you
I’m glad you stood in my way
To make the lyrics all the more
interesting, Cohen sings many of the lines using the rhythmic pattern called amphibrach. Amphibrach is where one long syllable is
placed between two shorts syllables.
Listen closely and you will pick up on it very quickly.
“Famous Blue Raincoat” is another
wonderful song on which string arranger Paul Buckmaster – most well-known for
his work with Elton John — lent his talents.
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.
This “extra” Song of the Week is to
recognize the passing of Adam Schlesinger, of the US power pop band Fountains
of Wayne, due to COVID-19 complications.
He was 52.
Schlesinger co-wrote and played bass on the band’s biggest hit – “Stacy’s Mom” (2003).
“Stacy’s Mom” was accompanied by a
terrific video starring model Rachel Hunter, which depicts a young boy’s lust
for his girlfriend’s mother. It’s not as
sophisticated as “Mrs. Robinson”, but it is a lot more innocent and fun. It’s a power-pop classic!
Schlesinger also wrote the Oscar
nominated title track for the 1997 Tom Hanks film That Thing You Do!. Interesting, then, that Hanks also tested
positive for Coronavirus, although he has recovered.
One the lockdown started I started playing a decidedly retro playlist of tunes by singer songwriters of a long time ago.
John Prine, who has Covid-19, was one of them.
This song is like a movie.
