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Monday, December 31, 2007
WHAT TIME IS IT?
The Jive Five
Beltone : 1962
Available on: Our True Story
Ace : 1991
[Buy It]
I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TIME IT WAS
Roland Kirk Quartet
Mercury : 1962
Available on: Rahsaan: The Complete Mercury Recordings
Polygram : 1990
[Buy It]
TIME FOR EVERYTHING
Ed Pauling & The Exciters
Federal : 1965
Available on: The "5" Royales : Catch That Teardrop : The Best of the Home of the Blues 1950-1954 Sessions (Plus the Complete Federal & Savoy Recordings of El Pauling & Royal Abbit)
Ace : 2007
[Buy It]
PLEASE SEND ME SOMEONE TO LOVE
Percy Mayfield
Specialty : 1950
Available on: Poet of The Blues
Specialty : 1990
[Buy It]
PLEASE SEND ME SOMEONE TO LOVE
James Booker
Keyboard King of New Orleans
c. 1976 (JSP Reissue : 2005)
[Buy It]
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE
The "5" Royales
Federal : 1960
Available on: Catch That Teardrop : The Best of the Home of the Blues 1950-1954 Sessions (Plus the Complete Federal & Savoy Recordings of El Pauling & Royal Abbit)
Ace : 2007
[Buy It]
I CRIED ALL NIGHT LONG
Harvey Sims
Art Rosenbaum Field Recording : 1991
The Art of Field Recording Vol. 1
Dust to Digital : 2007
[Buy It]
TO LOVE SOMEONE (WHO DON'T LOVE YOU)
The Kaldirons
Twinight : 1970
Available on: Eccentric Soul: Twinight's Midnight Rotation
Numero Group : 2007
[Buy It]
HAPPY NEW YEAR, BABY
The Johnny Otis Orchestra
Excelsior : 1947
[Buy It]
MEADOWLANDS
Nancy Jacobs & Her Sisters
Quality : 1955
Available on: The History of Township Music
Wrasse : 2001
[Buy It]
YOU'RE ALL I NEED TO GET BY (TAKE 2)
Aretha Franklin
Atlantic : 1970
Available on: Rare & Unreleased Recordings from The Golden Reign of The Queen of Soul
Atlantic : 2007
[Buy It]
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Lightnin' Hopkins
Decca : 1963
Available on: Blue Yule: Christmas Blues and R&B Classics
Rhino : 1991
[Buy It]
THIS TIME ANOTHER YEAR YOU MAY BE GONE
Rev. Edward Claybor
Vocalion : 1928
Available on: American Primitive vol. 1: Raw Pre-War Gospel (1926-36)
Revenant : 1997
[Buy It]
NOBODY'S BUSINESS
Joe Harris & Kid West
Available on: Field Recordings, vol. 5: Louisiana, Texas, Bahamas 1933-1940
Document : 1998
[Buy It]
The only way to spend New Year's Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears. ~W.H. Auden
NEW YEAR'S PARTY
Blowfly
Weird World 12" : 1980
Available on: The Worst of Blowfly
Hot : 1996
[Buy It]
Happy new year to you and yours, from Ben, Brian, James, Joanna, Alex, and the extended Moistworks family!
AULD LANG SYNE
Jimi Hendrix
Live @ The Fillmore : January 1, 1970
Courtesy of: WFMU's Beware of the Blog
[Unreleased]Labels: african, alex, blues, doo-wop, gospel, holidays, jazz, rhythm and blues, soul
posted by Alex
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Wednesday, June 20, 2007
STRANDED IN THE JUNGLE
The Cadets
1956
Available on: Doo Wop Box, Vol. 3: 101 More Vocal Group Gems from the Golden Age of Rock-N-Roll
Rhino : 2000
[Buy It]
STRANDED IN THE JUNGLE
The New York Dolls
Too Much Too Soon
Universal : 1974
[Buy It]
STRANDED IN THE JUNGLE (live)
The New York Dolls
From Paris with L-U-V
Sympathy for the Record Industry : 2002
[Buy It]
THOSE CONGA DRUMS
Jonathan Richman
Jonathan Sings!
Warner Bros. : 1983
[Buy It]
JUNGLE LION
The Upsetters
1973
Available on : I Am the Upsetter: The Story of Lee "Scratch" Perry: Golden Years
Trojan : 2005
[Buy It]
"Stranded in the Jungle," in its original version(s) -- it was written and recorded by the Jay Hawks in 1956 and quickly remade into a hit by the Cadets -- is a novelty single, a piece of comedy, like "Run, Red, Run" or "Alley Oop." Half of it is told by a man who has been captured by cannibals and whose girlfriend is still at home. In the other half, which takes place "back in the States," the romantic rival of the castaway comes on to his girlfriend. Your man's finished, he tells her, so you might as well choose me. The two halves of the song are played in entirely different styles -- the States is slick doo-wop, while the jungle is native-sounding drums, animal noises, and scary booga-booga cannibals. (As many people have pointed out, it's not exactly a Civil Rights anthem, though there's more than a little Fanon: "The zone where the natives live is not complementary to the zone inhabited by the settlers," etc.) It's a song about opposites that can't be reconciled, but it's also a song about reconciling them. Last time I wrote about the Bee Gees's "Gotta Get a Message to You," one of the Scriptural songs about mis- or non-communication. "Stranded in the Jungle" is another one.I crashed in the jungle
While tryin' to keep a date
With my little girl
Who was back in the States
I was stranded in the jungle
Afraid and alone
Tryin' to figure a way
To get a message back home The deeper and hotter the hot water gets, the more preposterous the idea of "getting a message back home" becomes. As long as the man is in the jungle, his girlfriend will hear nothing, and as long as she hears nothing, she's vulnerable to the advances of his rival. So he does what any man would do. He breaks loose from the cannibals, hitches a ride on a whale, makes it home, and reclaims his lover.Baby, baby, your man is no good
Baby, baby, you should've understood
You can trust me as long as can be
So come back pretty baby where you used to be
'Cause I love you, 'cause I love you
'Cause I love you, 'cause I love you
'Cause I love you It's a nice story. Who doesn't like a happy ending? It's also a solution to the whole "Gotta Get a Message to You" quandary. The only real message is the one you deliver yourself. If you want someone to talk to you (or love you, or trust you), talk to them. Simple. Imagine if the Bee Gees' song, which has a similarly dire circumstance (melodramatic, not comic, but still), ended this way, with the condemned man hightailing it away from Death Row. And then imagine that Death Row and the jungle are metaphors for romantic separation.
As for the song, the Jay Hawks’ version is hard to find (it's available on an Ace UK import called "The Golden Age of American Rock & Roll, Vol. 5") and fairly tame. The Cadets insta-cover is more assured and funnier. As fine as it is, it's blown clear out of the water by the New York Dolls' version. It might not be David Johansen's best performance. There is, after all, "Frankenstein," and there's "Pills." Oh, and "Bad Detective." But it's up there: the jungle is deeper and darker than the Cadets' jungle, and the States are hellishly bright. And the animal noises sound less like nature and more like the terrifying hoots and howls of uncivilized punks. Which, of course, they are.
I'm including as overgrowth Jonathan Richman's "Those Conga Drums" (which I've always thought of as a half-cover of "Stranded in the Jungle") and the Upsetters' "Jungle Lion" (which is an instrumental cover of Al Green's "Love and Happiness" and also has terrifying animal noises).Labels: ben, cannibals, doo-wop, punk
posted by Ben
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