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Thursday, November 29, 2007
WHO LOVES THE SUN
The Velvet Underground
Loaded
Warner : 1970
[Buy It]
WHO WAS THAT MASKED MAN
Van Morrison
Veedon Fleece
Polydor : 1974
[Buy It]
WHO WOULD YOU FUCK
Ghostface Killah
Supreme Clientele
Sony : 2000
[Buy It]
WHO TOOK THE MERRY OUT OF CHRISTMAS
Staple Singers
1970
Available on : The Complete Stax-Volt Soul Singles, Vol. 2: 1968-1971
Stax : 1993
[Buy It]
WHO SLAPPED JOHN
Gene Vincent
1956
Available on : The Road Is Rocky: Complete Studio Masters 1956-1971
Bear Family : 2005
[Buy It]
WHO SHOT SAM
George Jones
1959
Available on : Cup of Loneliness: The Classic Mercury Years
Polygram : 1994
[Buy It]
WHO DONE IT?
Harry Nilsson
Nilsson
BMG : 1977
[Buy It]
WHO THREW THE WHISKEY IN THE WELL
Wynonie Harris
1944
Available on : Big Band, Blues & Boogie: Roots Of Rock 'N' Roll, Vol. 1
President : 2003
[Buy It]
I KNOW WHO THREW THE WHISKEY IN THE WELL
Bull Moose Jackson
1946
Available on : Greatest Hits: My Big Ten Inch
King : 1994
[Buy It]
I had guests over at my house this week, including some I didn't know very well, and I had to decide where to set my level of curiosity. Pitch it too low and people feel neglected. Pitch it too high and they feel scrutinized. I think I worked it out, but it's a struggle for me and always has been, not because I find it hard to ask questions, but I find it hard to stop once I've started. Maybe it's curiosity, or a mix of curiosity and boredom, but it's always been that way. As a kid, I dressed up as Sherlock Holmes for Halloween, and that authorized me to look at things closely, squint, and then ask a number of inappropriate questions. (Some years, when the nearby adults got lazy or my dad didn't have a spare pipe, I was a cat burglar, and I imagined that I was committing crimes that Sherlock Holmes would have to solve the following year.)
For these reasons, I've always been drawn to question songs. There are all kinds of inquiries, from "Where did our love go?" to "When will I be loved?" but I prefer who songs. Not Who songs, but "who" songs, though "Who are you?" is both. Who made who? Who do you love? Who says a funk band can't play rock? Who knows where the time goes? Some of those who songs are the jumping-off point for broader inquiries. The Velvet Underground's "Who Loves the Sun," which is a kind of pessimistic response to "Here Comes the Sun," features what might be Doug Yule's best lead vocal, which isn't saying much. But "Who Was That Masked Man" features what might be Van Morrison's best lead vocal, which is saying much:Oh ain't it lonely
When you're livin' with a gun
Well you can't slow down and you can't turn 'round
And you can't trust anyone The title comes from the Long Ranger and possibly from Lenny Bruce, but the song comes from somewhere far stranger. It's on Veedon Fleece, Morrison's strangest and most elemental album, which was written and recorded (quickly) after his divorce from Janet Planet. Morrison uses a mournful falsetto, which is a vocal approach that he didn't employ often in his earliest records and almost certainly can't employ anymore. It's eerily effective here, where Morrison contemplates the value of stardom, not to mention identity itself, and comes down on the fence:When the ghost comes round at midnight
Well you both can have some fun
He can drive you mad, he can make you sad
He can keep you from the sun
When they take him down, he'll be both safe and sound
And the hand does fit the glove
And no matter what they tell you,
There's good and evil in everyone Question songs don't have to be ontological. Some are specific challenges, like Bill Withers' "Who is He (And What is He To You)," in which romantic doubt hardens into jealous certainty. (The song, complete with its unforgettable central eight-note clusters--four up, four down--later received a lesbian makeover from Me'Shell Ndegéocello.) Some are games, like the overlong Ghostface skit that rates potential bedmates: Lil' Kim or Foxxy Brown? Lady of Rage or Rah Digga? Janet or Chrissy? And still others are polemics: The Staple Singers' "Who Took The Merry Out of Christmas," which is a kind of unholy holy cross between "Inner City Blues" and "Be With Me Jesus."
Then there are the who songs that pose true mysteries. The first one takes us all the way back to 1956. Gene Vincent was already well along the road to rockabilly immortality, thanks in no small part to the guitar of Cliff Gallup, when he recorded "Who Slapped John." In the song, there's a party. There's a question of relations. And then there's a crime, sort of:Well I heard John say, "Man, she's my gal"
I heard another say, "Man, she my pal"
Well John jumped up, then he screamed
"Well, she's my gal, man, and that I mean"
Well, who-who, who slapped John?
Who-who, who slapped John?
Baby, who slapped John when the lights went low-oh?
Who-who, who slapped John? Three years after the lights went low-oh, George Jones co-wrote and recorded "Who Shot Sam." It's an echo of and possibly even an answer record to "Who Slapped John," but it's also connected to the folk tradition of complex story-songs that would later reach its apogee/nadir with Bob Dylan's "Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts"--the Jones song counts among its characters Sammy Samson, Silly Milly, Flirty Mirty, the police chief, the judge, and the narrator. There's also a lyric that might be cryptically filthy:We met Silly Milly, everything was all right
Her eyes started rollin', we shoulda went a-bowlin'
Wham-bam, who shot Sam, my-my "Who Shot Sam" is mentioned in the opening line of Elvis Costello's "Motel Matches," in 1979. Within two years Costello would be covering and performing with Jones.
"Who Slapped John" and "Who Shot Sam" remain unsolved. And in the end, they're minor crimes, mere party (or roadhouse) mayhem. Neither has the production values or the narrative drive of Harry Nilsson's "Who Done It?" Nilsson had already recorded a murder mystery, of sorts, with "Ten Little Indians," and "Who Done It?" revives the calypso stylings of "Coconut" for a closed-door manor-house case that's straight out of Agatha Christie. The song is from the underrated album "Knnillssonn," whose double-exposure cover image doubles its doubled typography, and it's pushed along by a lovely, confusing string part that sounds like a sample in a hip-hop song. Nilsson's vocals are not as angelic as they once were; rupturing his vocals cords while making "Pussy Cats" with John Lennon had taken care of that. But it's a committed performance, if you mean commitment to irony. There are Smythes, Sloans, Chopin (a snatch of the Piano Sonata No. 2, "pray for the dead and the dead will pray for you"), and a superb alibi from Nilsson's narrator ("I was in Colorado, having breakfast, with a nun!") In the end, like much of Nilsson's best work, it's a high-level novelty record, and all the more personal for its impersonality.
We close with the saddest mystery of all. "Who Threw The Whiskey In the Well?" is credited to Wynonie Harris, though in fact the song was originally released by Lucky Millinder and his Orchestra, with Harris as a vocalist. The song became a big R&B hit, and Harris, who was not restricted by Millinder's recording contract, went off to seek his fortune as a solo artist. In addition to producing that solo career (which yielded such immortal hits as "Mr. Blues Jumped The Rabbit," "Bloodshot Eyes," and "Good Rockin' Tonight"), the song produced an answer record by Bull Moose Jackson, who had replaced Harris in Millinder's orchestra. So who did throw the whiskey in the well? Find out yourself. No need to ruin a good mystery.Labels: ben, rock, soul
posted by Ben
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