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Monday, September 11, 2006
IF LOVING YOU IS WRONG
THE RAP
IF LOVING YOU IS WRONG (REPRISE)
Millie Jackson
Caught Up
Spring Records : 1974
Reissued: Hip-O : 1999
[Buy It]
Not that many white folks involve themselves in Millie Jackson music....Blacks buy my records and they are, in general, the lower class blacks. You could call me "the Poor People's Queen" if you like, because my ideas relate to that section of the people.
-Millie Jackson, 1975 Growing up, I hated R&B, which I called "love-me-down music." I didn't hear it as the overproduced remnant of the great soul tradition. It was some guys in matching outfits singing falsetto with this oily chatter in the middle of the song, like "Girl, I never meant to hurt you" or "I wanna love you, like a man's supposed to " or "Baby, let's forget about that fight." And while the singer is breaking it down, there's the guy on the high-hat (chish) and some pianissimo bass backing him up: duh-DUH-duh (chish); duh-DUH-duh (chish). Eventually the king of lovers gets excited and spluges out, Girl! Oooooooo, giiiiiirrrrrl! and it's supposed to be good for you too.
Sasha Frere-Jones would call me a racist: broadly speaking, I am not a fan of urban contemporary music. But this epic performance by Millie Jackson is pure pleasure. If I were technically savvier, I'd have combined the three tracks, in the perfect union that Millie intended for them. It's textbook R&B, down to the rap in the middle of the song and the freaking duh-DUH-duh breakdown. But she's backed by the Muscle Shoals swampers and the woman can SING. And the rap! "Lonesome as a mickey-frickey?" So much information packed into one pert little simile. Respect, Millie. And that crack about the funky drawers? How many Steve Harveys, how many Jackees were spawned by that line? Oh, Ms. Jackson, so much to answer for.
Caught Up was a concept album about a love triangle. It sounds cooler than it is. There's an especially egregious song about a summertime deflowering, for instance. But there's also the part where Millie, as the other woman, confronts the wife, "since I been going with your husband for the last past year and a half, that would sort of like make us wives-in-law." Kitsch-mongers will dig the album, but really, all you need is right here. And how often can you say that to someone and not be lying?
Welcome back to Monday, people.Labels: megan, soul
posted by Megan
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