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Friday, April 11, 2008
MONEY (THAT'S WHAT I WANT)
Paul Revere and the Raiders
1964
Available on : Mojo Workout!
Sundazed : 2000
[Buy It]
I NEED SOME MONEY
John Lee Hooker
1960
Available on : Hooker
Shout Factory : 2006
[Buy It]
MONEY NEVER RUNS OUT
Cannon's Jug Stompers
1929
Available on : The Best Of Cannon's Jug Stompers
Yazoo : 2001
[Buy It]
DIRTY MONEY
Clipse
Hell Hath No Fury
Re-Up Gang : 2006
[Buy It]
MY BABY'S JUST LIKE MONEY
Lefty Frizzell
1951
Available on : Life's Like Poetry
Bear Family : 1994
[Buy It]
SHE TOOK ALL THE MONEY
Frank Black
Bluefinger
Cooking Vinyl : 2007
[Buy It]
LOVE OR MONEY
Prince
7" Single
Paisley Park : 1986
MUSIC FOR MONEY
Nick Lowe
Jesus of Cool
Demon : 1978
[Buy It]
This week has been all about money.
It's tax season, but it's more than that. I have a friend who came into some money. I have a friend who was seized by terror at the thought that she doesn't have enough money. I have a friend who lost money in a bad deal. I have a friend who found some money on the sidewalk. I spent most of a morning and part of an afternoon sitting in a gray chair in a bank lobby, conducting various transactions on behalf of myself and my money. These are just incidents, and they don't coalesce into a philosophy. Money thwarts philosophy, or rather it requires the simultaneous operation of many philosophies. Money is life. Money is death. Money is freedom. Money is a prison. Money is the root of all evil. Money can't buy you love. Money changes hands. Money changes everything.
This week, being all about money, is also about jokes about money. People have been telling them to me all the time. "Joke" might not be the right word. Grimly comic statements about money, let's say. "If I had a nickel for every time I've spent a nickel," one friend said, "I'd break even." Another friend tried to make a withdrawal from an ATM, only to find out that her card had been frozen. "Come out of there, you cowards," she said, pounding on the screen. I told them both one of my favorite jokes about money, which is a Johnny Carson joke. Abraham Lincoln goes to a nightclub. He hands the doorman a five-dollar bill. "You trying to bribe me?" the doorman says, offended.
"Bribe?" Lincoln says. "No, of course not. That's my ID."
There are profound things to say about money, but most of them have already been said in the songs above. Paul Revere and the Raiders say some of them in the mock-bitter spoken introduction to Berry Gordy's "Money." John Lee Hooker, who was performing a version of "I Need Some Money" before Gordy reinvented the song, says some of them in his reclaimed version. Cannon's Jug Stompers imagine a world where money flows like water. Clipse investigates the link between financial and sexual control. As does Lefty Frizzell. As does Black Francis. As does Prince. And Nick Lowe's just singing for his supper.
As thinking is free, please list any and all thoughts about money after listening to these free songs on this wonderful blog where writers write for free.Labels: ben, soul
posted by Ben
LINK |
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
HELP
John Lennon
The Complete Home Recordings
[Unreleased]
HELP ME
Ray Sharpe w/the King Curtis Orchestra feat. Jimi Hendrix
Atco : 1966
Available on: Blues & Soul Power
Atlantic : 2003
[Buy It]
HELP THE BEAR
Ted Taylor
Atco : 1966
Available on: Blues & Soul Power
Atlantic : 2003
[Buy It]
WATCH THE DOG
Sandy Gaye
Moonshot : c.1969
[Out of Print]
DO THE HAWG
Eddie Kirk
Volt : 1963
Available on: The Complete Stax-Volt Singles 1959-1968
Atlantic : 1991
[Buy It]
PASS THE HATCHET
Roger & The Gypsies
Sevem B : 1969
Available on: The Instant & Minit Story
Charly : 2005
[Buy It]
SKIN THE CAT
Jimmy Merchant
Bo-Mar : ?
Available on: Shakin' Fit
Candy : 1992
[Out of Print/Download it here]
SPILL THE WINE
 Live
Eric Burdon & War
Eric Burdon Declares "War"
MGM : 1970
[Buy It]
WRAP IT UP
Sam & Dave
Stax : 1968
Available on: The Complete Stax-Volt Singles 1959-1968
Atlantic : 1991
[Buy It]
PATCH MY HEART
The Mad Lads
Stax : 1966
Available on: The Complete Stax-Volt Singles 1959-1968
Atlantic : 1991
[Buy It]
CLOSE THE DOOR
The Holmes Brothers
State of Grace
Alligator : 2007
[Buy It]
. . . . . . . . . .
WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS
John & Sean Lennon
The Complete Home Recordings
[Unreleased]Labels: alex, soul, soul/garage-core
posted by Alex
LINK |
Friday, March 14, 2008
LOVE FOR SALE
Elvis Costello
1981
Available on : Trust (Expanded)
Rhino: 2003
[Buy It]
LOVE FOR SALE
Fine Young Cannibals
Available on : Red Hot + Blue
Capitol : 1990
[Buy It]
DAY TRIPPER
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
1967
Available on : BBC Sessions
Experience Hendrix : 1998
[Buy It]
SHE WORKS HARD FOR THE MONEY
Donna Summer
She Works Hard For the Money
Polygram : 1983
[Buy It]
I COULDN'T PAY FOR WHAT I GOT LAST NIGHT
Swamp Dogg
Gag a Maggot
Stone Dogg : 1973
[Out of Print]
THE MIND DOES THE DANCING WHILE THE BODY PULLS THE STRINGS
Swamp Dogg
Have You Heard This Story?
Island : 1975
[Out of Print]
In 1930, Cole Porter and Herbert Fields wrote the musical "The New Yorkers," which told the story of a socialite who embarked on a fling with a bootlegger and began to investigate the city's underbelly: bootleggers, thieves, the demimonde. One of the songs in the production was Porter's "Love For Sale.":When the only sound in the empty street,
Is the heavy tread of the heavy feet
That belong to a lonesome cop
I open shop.
When the moon so long has been gazing down
On the wayward ways of this wayward town.
That her smile becomes a smirk,
I go to work.
Love for sale,
Appetising young love for sale.
Love that's fresh and still unspoiled,
Love that's only slightly soiled,
Love for sale.
Who will buy?
Who would like to sample my supply?
Who's prepared to pay the price,
For a trip to paradise? "Love for Sale" was a hit at the time for Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians; over the years, scores of performers have taken a crack at it, including Billie Holiday, Art Tatum, Elvis Costello (who kept the lyrics intact), and Fine Young Cannibals (who focussed on the chorus and filled the corners of the mix with actual fake street noise). In early 2008, the song was covered, of a fashion, by New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who was exposed as a customer of a high-priced escort service.
As a politician, Spitzer shot himself in the foot, and then the other foot, and then between his own legs. As a human being, though, he joined a long, storied, and highly equivocal tradition. The Beatles, who consorted with all kinds of ladies of all kinds of evenings in Hamburg, liked to joke that "Day Tripper," was about prostitution, as they did at an August 1966 press conference in Los Angeles:Q: I'd like to direct this question to messrs. Lennon and McCartney. In a recent article, Time magazine put down pop music. And they referred to "Day Tripper" as being about a prostitute...
PAUL: (nodding) Oh yeah.
Q: And "Norwegian Wood" as being about a lesbian.
PAUL: (nodding) Oh yeah.
Q: I just wanted to know what your intent was when you wrote it, and what your feeling is about the Time magazine criticism of the music that is being written today.
PAUL: We were just trying to write songs about prostitutes and lesbians, that's all.
(room erupts with laughter)
JOHN: "...quipped Ringo."
PAUL: (chuckles) Cut!!
JOHN: You can't use it on the air, that. Donna Summer was certainly not joking in "She Works Hard for the Money." The song's video, which you will no doubt remember from the nineteen-eighties, includes scenes of women working in sweatshops, as nurses, and as policewomen; the main character is a waitress in a diner (played by an actress, though it echoes the picture of Summer on the record sleeve). Beneath that, though, it is explicitly identified as a tribute to "the working woman," and it's hard to subtract prostitution from that equation:Twenty five years have
Come and gone
And she's seen a lot of tears
Of the ones who come in
They really seem to need her there
It's a sacrifice working day to day
For little money just tips for pay
But it's worth it all
Just to hear them say that they care Spitzer's escort-service patronage raises several issues about the sanctity of the marriage contract, particularly the function of married sex--which, as we know, is the kind you don't shell out $4300 for, even if it does involve unprotected assplay or drugs or whatever the unsafe practices hinted at actually were. I have sung the praises of Swamp Dogg repeatedly, but it's more efficient just to let him sing. In "I Couldn't Pay For What I Got Last Night," he tells his girlfriend or wife why she's the one for him:Last night you kissed me and my heart began to flutter
And I melted in your arms like good old country butter
You whispered sweet words honey in my ear
I knew it was the truth when you said "I love you"
You got a way of treating a man so right
If I had all the money in the whole wide world
I couldn't pay for what I got last night The girlfriend or wife will no doubt be thrilled to hear this, but also a little disconcerted. After all, who has introduced the concept of payment here? He has. A second before the song started, no one was thinking about paying anything. It's like "Can't Buy Me Love" turned to less reputable ends. And then there's the more philosophical, more funky, and more monumental "The Mind Does the Dancing While the Body Pulls The Strings," which goes halfway to explaining why men--in power or out of power, in marriages or out of them, in sickness or in health--don't always make the right decision in carnal matters:Every time you parade it never fails to rain
All experienced spectators advising you get it together
Oh, a meteorologist what's going to be the weather?
Your mind is playing tricks on you
It's got you so confused
You can't talk right all you do is stutter
You want to know why white milk makes yellow butter
Where do lights go when they go out
There's too many things you feel you gotta find out about
The mind does the dancing and the body keeps pulling the strings But the last word should belong to Michael Keaton--or rather Michael Keaton as Bill Blazejowski in Ron Howard's 1982 comedy "Night Shift," in which a pair of morgue workers (Keaton and Henry Winkler) decide to start an escort service. As the business gets underway, Bill assembles all the working girls, writes the word "Prostitution" on a chalkboard, and proceeds to deliver one of the finest motivational speeches in the history of the movies. I am quoting from a twenty-five year-old memory, so I may be a bit off:Prostitution--what does that mean really? The first thing you have to do to find out what a word means is break it up. "Pros." Doesn't mean anything. "Tit." We're all big boys and girls; I think we know what that means. "Tu." Well, there's two of them. "Shun"--that's from the Greek, meaning "I don't want it, I don't need it, push it away." I have no idea what the hell that's doing here. Labels: ben, jazz, soul, vocals
posted by Ben
LINK |
Thursday, February 28, 2008
YOU WON'T SEE ME
The Beatles
Rubber Soul
Capitol : 1965
[Buy It]
OFF THE HOOK
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones Now!
Decca : 1964
[Buy It]
TELL HIM I'M NOT HOME
Chuck Jackson
I Don't Want to Cry
Wand : 1965
Available on The Very Best of Chuck Jackson 1961-1967
Varese : 1997
[Buy It]
BIGGEST FOOL IN TOWN
Gorgeous George
Stax : 1965
Available on: The Complete Stax/Volt Singles: 1959-1968
Atlantic : 1991
[Buy It]
YOUR PHONE'S OFF THE HOOK, BUT YOU'RE NOT
X
Los Angeles
Slash : 1980
[Buy It]
HANGING ON THE TELEPHONE
The Nerves
Nerves EP
Bomp: 1976
Available on: D.i.Y. Come Out & Play : American Power Pop 1975-1978
Rhino : 1993
[Buy It]
ANSWERING MACHINE
The Replacements
Let It Be
Twin-Tone : 1984
[Buy It]
I hate the telephone. It's fine for taking care of business or making contact in a more personal mode than e-mail. I doubt that when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone he had any idea the type of misery it could create in personal matters. The telephone is an idiotic and torturous enemy to the lonely or obsessive. These songs all predate cell phones, e-mail and text messaging, which further complicate matters. I don't even have a land line anymore - just a cell phone. I'm always there, whether I want to be or not. Presence can be painful when you want to be absent, and even worse is absence when you want to be present.
Most of these songs deal with that dynamic in on one form or another. Paul McCartney wrote "You Won't See Me" after having his phone calls ignored by girlfriend Jane Asher. Her line is always "engaged" - the English really have a way with words. Mick Jagger, too, gets only "an engaged tone." He figures it's off the hook or maybe she's ill or sleeping, until he's heading off into paranoia. Why won't she talk to him? He's Mick Jagger for Chrissake! Even The Beatles and Stones are getting dissed.
Chuck Jackson's really got it bad. Every time he calls his girlfriend, someone else answers and he hears her in the background saying "Tell him I'm not home." The telephone has turned Gorgeous George into the biggest fool in town, and he's had enough. And from the sound of things, George doesn't seem like someone you'd wanna fuck with.
"You're Phone's Off The Hook, But You're Not" is a great title and a great line that I once used on a girlfriend when, after a terrible conversation in my apartment, she said the first part ('cause it was) and without missing a beat, I responded "But you're not!" "What did you say?" "Oh, nothing." Jack Lee from the Nerves is "in the phone booth - it's the one across the hall," but guess what? She won't answer and he's hanging on the telephone. He's gonna let it ring off the wall. He can't control himself. It's a common reaction to being ignored.
Finally, Paul Westerberg takes us to the eighties version of no reply: the answering machine. Remember those? No call waiting. No voicemail. A machine and a tape. "How do say goodnight to an answering machine" he asks.
How do you say I love you to an answering Machine?
-by Ted BarronLabels: indie, power-pop, rock, soul, ted barron
posted by James
LINK |
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
NORTH TO ALASKA
Johnny Horton
Columbia : 1960
Available on: Greatest Hits
Columbia : 1987
[Buy It]
WHEN IT'S SPRINGTIME IN ALASKA (IT'S 40 BELOW)
Johnny Cash
Personal File
Sony : 2006
[Buy It]
ROCKIN' LITTLE ESKIMO
Bobby Swanson
Igloo : 1959
Available on: Nashville Rockabilly
Stomper Tome : 2003
[Buy It]
THE MIGHTY QUINN
Solomon Burke
Bell : 1969 (Unreleased)
Available on: Proud Mary: The Bell Sessions
Sundazed : 2000
[Buy It]
STEPHANIE SAYS
The Velvet Underground
VU
Polydor : 1985
[Buy It]
THE MIGHTY QUINN
Hopeton Lewis, Henry Buckley & Dienne w/The Gaylettes
Available on: Trojan 60s Box Set
Sanctuary : 2004
[Buy It]
WHEN IT'S SPRINGTIME IN ALASKA (IT'S 40 BELOW)
Johnny Horton
Columbia : 1958
Available on: Greatest Hits
Columbia : 1987
[Buy It]
Readers of Moistworks!
On this, the twenty-third day of our millennium's eighth January it is cold as stone/ice/witch's teat/Kerouac's liver/someone who's digging for gold, and throwing away fortunes in feelings! But nowhere is it colder than in the United States Internets' 49th State of Alaska, which the following bullet points are intended to clear some pretty nasty preconceptions goings on about town about Alaska:
- People in Alaska arrive in Alaska by crossing over a land mass which covered the Bering Strait tens of thousands of years ago
- People in Alaska have a median income of 3.6
- People in Alaska are 5 years of age or older
- People in Alaska are not people in Alaska
- People in Alaska are polar bears
"My initial impression is that Alaska is very very big. And cold, too, sometimes." So writes a friend who's actually been to Alaska. But these, too, are misconceptions. In fact, visiting, or even reading or watching television about Alaska tells us very little about Alaska itself. For this, we must look to song.
The recording artist Jewel, who is from Alaska, and has never recorded a song about Alaska, but other, equally talented recording artists have. Our personal favorite? The Gaylette's "Quinn The Eskimo," which if this wasn't the theme song for Jamaica's bobsled team then, OMG/WTF/BFF/QWERTY/TGIF/UOK?
But, of course, "Quinn, The Eskimo" was written and recorded by Bob Dylan, who had this to say about it in his memoir:On the way back to the house I passed the local movie theater on Prytania Street, where "The Mighty Quinn" was showing. Years earlier I had written a song called "The Mighty Quinn" which was a hit in England, and I wondered what the movie was about. Eventually I'd sneak off and go there to see it. It was a mystery, suspense, thriller with Denzel Washington as the Mighty Xaveir Quinn a detective who solves crimes. Funny, that's just the way I imagined him when I wrote the song "The Mighty Quinn." And, of course, our other friend - let's call him Dan - has this to say about "The Mighty Quinn," the film, which he's actually seen, and which I saw him talking up just the other (equally cold) day, to yet another friend - let's call him Garnette - who is actually from Jamaica but not, to the best of my knowledge, a police detective or Eskimo:A-
Denzel Washington, the police chief Xavier Quinn, from The Mighty Quinn (1989). The general idea is mostly that he's chasing his childhood friend Maubee, who is accused of murder. Quinn considers his case with a lieutenant:
XAVIER: You think Maubee did it? Cut a man's head off?
JUMP: That fucker, he does that! That's why he's like that!
XAVIER: Try and make sense when you talk, Jump.
Denzel gets to do a vague West Indian accent, wear a white suit, and sing.
XAVIER: I had the blues
I had the blues so bad
It put my face in a permanent frown
But I'm feeling so much better, I could cakewalk into town . . .
and
I woke up
One morning
Felt so good I got back into bed
Put that big leg over me mama
I might not feel this good again . . .
Watch me cakewalk, y'all.
The black people in the movie sing "Quinn the Eskimo" at him a lot, and drink beer, and go to work; the white people in the movie lurk around being racists, attempt and fail to sleep with Denzel, and try to overthrow governments. Some of the black people try to sleep with Denzel, too, but that's neither here nor there. Overall it's a pretty accurate picture of the universe. There is no actual cakewalking, which, as I understand it, was a dance that took as the source of its name competitions held by slaveholders, with slices of hoecake as prizes for the best dancers.
A couple hundred people singing in an island juke joint sound like this:
Come all without,
Come all, within
You aint seen nothing like the Mighty Quinn.
No, actually, that's not what they sound like. So: We sincerely hope that clears up whatever mis-and-preconceptions you might have had about Alaska, and goes some way towards freeing your doubting mind/melting your cold cold heartsLabels: alex, country, geography, reggae, rock and roll, rockabilly, soul
posted by Alex
LINK |
Thursday, January 10, 2008
CRYING FOR ATTENTION
Graham Parker
Another Grey Area
Arista : 1982
[Buy It]
IGNORE ME
The Gas
Single
Polydor : 1980
[Out Of Print]
LOVE AIN'T NO TOY
Yvonne Fair
The Bitch Is Black
Motown : 1975
[Out Of Print]
WHAT AM I WORTH
Dave Alvin
King of California
Hightone : 1994
[Buy It]
Over the holidays I was watching a show on cable and noticed that a character had the same name as a woman I used to know, and not just the same name but the same exact name: first, middle, last. That got me thinking about the woman, and the talks we used to have, and specifically one of the last talks we had, in which she told me that I didn't pay her enough attention.
That fateful conversation is one of the only things about her that I remember clearly. We were sitting in her apartment, which was just off the campus of the college she attended. Some friends of mine had been in town that night, and we had all gone to dinner. The wine she drank at dinner, and the glass or two she tacked on back at the apartment, had made her expansive, and over the course of the evening she navigated through all the things she liked to discuss: clothes, sex, art, whether all duty was unconditional, Guns 'N' Roses, Aeschylus. She was at once profoundly brainy and prodigiously trivial, and if it wasn't a calculated philosophy, it should have been. I thought we were headed for the bed, but she pulled up short and told me that I had hurt her feelings during dinner. "You ignored me," she said. "I need you to pay attention to me more than you do."
I laughed it off. She was being ridiculous and I said so. I was paying attention to her at dinner and if she couldn't see that, it was her fault. She said it was okay and that she wasn't upset and I, a fool, believed her. A few weeks after that, we weren't dating anymore -- did I mention that we were dating? -- and then a few months after that, we weren't friends anymore.
Her memory, or at least my memory of her, is inseparable from the music I played when I spent time with her. "Crying for Attention" has, like many Graham Parker songs, made itself known by degrees. Back then, it was just another decent track on a solid but unspectacular record--not Squeezing Out Sparks, not even Stick to Me. But every time the knottiness of unrequited love has tightened around me, I have come back to this particular song, and especially to the deceptive calm in the vocals and the midtempo arrangement:What's the matter?
Well there is no need to flatter
How do I get you to take notice?
Do I have to break and shatter?
When I feel that I am driven
Over the edge where it's all hidden
I hang my head and hit a table or a chair
I know my place--I just can't stay there
I'm not crying for attention baby
I'm not crying for attention baby
I'm not crying for attention
I'm screaming to be heard
Everybody's listening but you
It's your loving example I need to receive
I need more than a handful -- give it to me
Hey sometimes everybody has to be the center of attraction
But I never expect any satisfaction
And I'm not crying I'm not crying I'm not crying
Not crying for attention In my situation, it was a woman who wanted my attention, and who was brave enough to tell me so. In Parker's song, it's a man who wants the attention, and not just the sex he's getting (more than a handful). For me, the song turns on one line in particular: "I know my place--I just can't stay there." What's important is that the tendered offer isn't enough. Desire is by definition aspirational. If she had quoted that line to me, it might have done the trick. Instead, she was straightforward, and she suffered for it, and then I suffered.
What this brief autopsy excludes is an answer to the main question: Did I ignore her? Well, yes, probably. I had just come out of a relationship that meant more to me than she did, though she was more beautiful and more willing than the other woman. I was still a little ashamed that things with the woman I loved more hadn't worked out, and that hampered my ability to really try things with her. Strangely, I remember walking around with her feeling like I was the one being ignored, even though she was reaching for my hand. I felt like she was unable to sense something essential about me. I didn't know "Ignore Me," by the Gas, then, which is a shame, because it has an irresistible chorus that I could have shouted at her when we fought, which was often, as well as a perfectly inverted perspective that makes ignoring seem like an elevated form of paying attention. Instead, I told her the truth, which is that I didn't agree that there was a problem and that if there was I was sorry because I simply didn't think I could do any better.
Nobody likes to hear this. Yvonne Fair was a singer with James Brown who recorded the original version of what would one day be "I Got You (I Feel Good)," and in the seventies became a rising solo artist for a time. Her most important solo recording, "The Bitch Is Black," was a collaboration with Norman Whitfield and, from a distance of three decades, stands as one of the best funk diva albums of the time, far better than similar albums from Claudia Lennear or Marie "Queenie" Lyons. "Love Ain't No Toy" is one of the best of a set of consistently strong songs, and it plays like vintage Betty Davis, as reconceived by a woman who can actually sing:I don't know what your friends call you
When you're out in the street
Romeo or Casanova
To me you ain't nothing but a low-down cheat This is a song about cheating, not ignoring. Maybe Yvonne Fair thinks ignoring would have been better. I don't. I have said that the conversation about how I ignored her--the woman I was dating, not Yvonne Fair--was one of the last. That's somewhat misleading. It had happened before that, many times, and it happened even after we broke up: she would call me and say that she was thinking of me but that she couldn't understand exactly what went wrong. Had she been too needy? Had I been conflicted? I couldn't answer, not then. Even after a few years, after a few more tries with a few more women, I had no real idea. Eventually, though, it came to me. The problem wasn't that I was ignoring her. The problem was that I was capable of ignoring her. If she had been the right person -- or even one of the right people -- I would not have and could not have made her feel alienated. I could have made her feel angry or sad or given her a (metaphorical) whack across the face with a (metaphorical) rolled-up newspaper of recrimination. But ignoring someone and making them feel needy in the process -- as if the very attempt to connect is monstrous -- is the one emotional sin that is irreconcilable with love, not even big-L Love, but anything close. The way I feel, looking backwards, is that I may have been a jackass for making her feel needy, and also that I was blameless. There was nothing I could do because I was not correctly positioned.
There was no song that I knew that could explain that to me, not well. Then, years later, I bought Dave Alvin's King of California. Alvin, of course, was the songwriter behind the Blasters, who I never liked quite as much as I thought I should have. When he became a solo artist, his vocals waterlogged him further. But on King of California, which is filled with stripped-down, shuffling versions of old and new songs, he evolved from artlessness to a style that was wise, warm, and colloquial. Best of all, in two cases he set his nearly voice against beautiful female counterpoint. The duet with Syd Straw on George Jones's "What Am I Worth" was, and is, my favorite. Both singers articulate the desire to be valued by the other, with the result being perfect romantic equipoise. But it's not just desire -- it's ontological desperation:I don't know why you're making me cry
Honey, won't you give me a clue
What am I worth on God's great earth
If I don't mean nothing to you
I might get sent to be president
I'm sure I could do it for you
They would feature my face all over the place
For all the good thing I do
I might get my name in the hall of fame
Or even in the book of Who's Who
But what am I worth on God's great earth
If I don't mean nothin' to you
What am I worth here on earth
Darling, if I can't have you
I just can't find no peace of mind
With anything that I do That's how it should be -- how it has to be. Attention is the only currency in active relationships. It should be asked for, even demanded, without a second's uncertainty. If you don't feel good about asking for someone else's attention, then you're not standing in the right stream. People who say that they have lots of space between them must only mean that they have translated hands-on (or eyes-on) attention to a different kind of attendance. If there's no real presence, then there's real absence, which is why this woman and I broke up, and why I don't remember very much about her other than what I have related here, and why there is a greater chance of my seeing the TV show with the woman with the same name than there is of my talking to the real woman with the real name again.Labels: ben, rock, soul
posted by Ben
LINK |
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
LINK |
Thursday, December 13, 2007
PRANCIN'
Icky Renrut
1959
Available on : Ike's Instrumentals
Ace UK : 2000
[Buy It]
THE NEW BREED (PT. 2)
Ike Turner & His Kings Of Rhythm
1965
Available on : Ike's Instrumentals
Ace UK : 2000
[Buy It]
BOLD SOUL SISTER
Ike & Tina Turner
1969
Available on : Bold Soul Sister - The Best of the Blue Thumb Recordings
Hip-O : 1997
[Buy It]
GETTING NASTY
Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm
A Black Man's Soul
Pompeii : 1969
[Buy It]
MONEY
Ike Turner
1970
Available on : His Woman, Her Man
Night Train Int'l : 2004
[Buy It]
BI POLAR
Ike Turner
Risin' With the Blues
Zoho : 2006
[Buy It]
INTERVIEW WITH WBLJ FM
Ike Turner
2007
Ike Turner's death this week at the age of 76 is a highly equivocal event. Every obituary acknowledged his role as a musical innovator, but every obituary also lamented how that legacy came to be eclipsed by his personal demons and reprehensible behavior. Even in his final moments in the light, the shadow he cast was the most prominent part of his image.
The shadow in question is Ike's abusive behavior toward the women in his life, and particularly toward Anna Mae Bullock, who achieved some fame under the name Tina Turner. The obituaries all mentioned that Ike bullied Tina, got high around her, threw shoes at her, and jellied her nose. How could they not? It's a wonderful story, in the sense that it's a compelling and horrible one with a clear villain, a clear victim, and lots of light at the end of the tunnel. Tina left Ike behind and went on to have a massively successful solo career: Remember? What's love but a second-hand emotion?
I have nothing against the movie of Tina's life, except that Angela Bassett's arms were so spectacular that it seems implausible. Wouldn't a Tina who was ripped like that just have hauled off and knocked Ike cold? But there's also a movie in Ike's life that goes beyond the charismatic black-hearted prince that Laurence Fishburne potrayed. Turner's birth name was either Izear Luster Turner, Jr., or Ike Wister Turner -- in either case, a superb name for a future R&B star -- and when he was a child, growing up in Clarksdale, Mississippi in the nineteen-thirties, he watched as his father was beaten by a white mob who objected to Izear, Sr.'s dalliances with white women. His father was refused admission to the local hospital -- no blacks -- deteriorated in a makeshift tent hospital in the back yard, and died. Stepfathers beat Ike, who learned to hit back. He also applied himself to music, studied piano with Pinetop Perkins, and became a local bandleader by the time he was a teenager.
The group he assembled, the Kings of Rhythm, traveled to Memphis to record for Sam Phillips at Sun in 1951. That's the prehistoric ages in rock terms, and in fact the record that Ike and his band cut there, "Rocket 88," is considered by many to be the first rock and roll record. I didn't post it here, because it's well-known. Instead, here's "Prancin'," from later in the decade, and it features an astonishing guitar solo from Ike. People like to talk about Lowman Pauling's solo in the 5 Royales' "The Slummer the Slum," and it's fantastic, of course, but this is better. Ike's playing not only blows the doors off the place, but sets it on fire on the way out. Take just the first fifteen seconds, in which he lauches an all-out assault, bending notes, sliding up and down strings, detonating the ends of phrases. (The fury and focus he demonstrates is equivocal, of course, in that it produced both blistering R&B and actual human bruising.) In general, the instrumentals from this period tend to be superior to the vocal records, as the talent Ike backed wasn't always stellar.
In the late fifties, he found a stellar singer, the aforementioned Anna Mae Bullock, transformed her into Tina Turner, and promptly recorded "A Fool In Love," which became a huge hit at the close of the decade. It remains a phenomenal record almost fifty years later, mostly for the brute physicality of Tina's vocals, but it's also too well-known to post. With and without Tina, Ike recorded heavily though the early and mid-sixties. "The New Breed" recorded for Sue records in 1965, is another intense instrumental, this time updated with soul horns, and it makes it clear that Ike's guitar technique hadn't been staling in the intervening years. It's so jagged and unconventional that it sounds like Ike is playing a broken car antenna. Like "Prancin'," it's available only on the Ace import "Ike's Instrumentals." (The Ike Turner catalog, spread out over so many labels and so many years, is in more disarray than that of any R&B star of comparable stature.)
Much of Ike and Tina's reputation through the sixties stemmed from the duo's frenzied live shows and a few big singles, including "Proud Mary" and Phil Spector's controversial "River Deep - Mountain High," but Ike was continuing to evolve in the studio. "Bold Soul Sister," from 1969, shows how far toward full-out funk Ike and Tina went when the wind was blowing that way. With a melody borrowed from Sly and the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song" and lyrics that would surface a few years later on Funkadelic's "Stuffs and Things," the song sounds like a blueprint for Betty Davis's career. "A Black Man's Soul," an instrumental album from the same year, has become a favorite with DJs, largely for the breakbeat standout "Funky Mule." Billy Preston plays piano on the sunny, communal "Getting Nasty." And the cover of "Money" that went unreleased at the time may feature Tina on vocals, but it's distinguished by Ike's highly contemporary arrangement and guitar.
When Tina left him, it set Ike back, not just because he lost his creative partner and muse, but because he was suddenly perceived as Abusive Husband Number One, a role that he didn't relish. He began a comeback in 2001, when he released "Here and Now," a record that earned him a Grammy nomination in Best Traditional Blues and found him still fighting for his reputation -- his rewrite of the bad-marriage lament "Five Long Years" is titled "Eighteen Long Years" as a (metaphorical) slap in the face to Tina. "Risin' With the Blues," released last year, was not only nominated but won, and "Bi Polar," the last song on the album, is another in a long line of fine Ike Turner instrumentals.
The last piece of audio comes from just a few months ago. Ike, then 75, went on with the morning DJs at the Detroit FM station WJLB to talk about his career resurgence and a reality show that he planned to undertake with one of his many ex-wives (fourteen, according to the legend and the man himself, though official records only show four or five). The DJs -- Coco, Foolish, and Mr. Chase -- prod him repeatedly about his checkered past, but Ike insists that he's done with drink and drugs, if not younger women. For the most part, he sounds focused and relaxed in this interview, very much like an elder statesman trying to make sense of the new generation. Viagra comes up, and senior sex, and one of them asks, "Do you see yourself getting with somebody like I Love New York?" Ike obviously doesn't know what they're talking about, and instead says something about an upcoming collaboration with a man. "Well, that would mean that would be homosexual if you're doing it with a dude," one of the hosts says. "What are you talking about?"
"What's wrong with homosexual?" Ike says.
"Are you gay, Ike?"
"Do I sound like I'm gay with fourteen wives?" Ike says. He gets his back up a little bit, but there's not much sign of the temper that used to terrify journalists, producers, wives, and children. Did he mellow later in life? Did he clean up his life enough to redeem himself? Is there any fair way to balance his artistic achievements against the damage he did to those close to him? It's impossible to say on the strength of a lone radio appearance, but Ike proceeds through the rest of the largely undignified interview -- an R&B legend plumping for a reality TV project on Morning Buffoon radio -- with something approaching reserve. He seemed at peace, almost, and now he can rest in it forever.Labels: ben, soul
posted by Ben
LINK |
Thursday, December 06, 2007
CAN U KEEP A SECRET
De La Soul
3 Feet High and Rising
Tommy Boy : 1989
[Buy It]
I HAVE A SECRET
Half Japanese
Sing No Evil
Drag City : 1984
[Buy It]
SECRET LOVE
Billy Stewart
1967
Available on : 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection
MCA : 2000
[Buy It]
YOUR SECRET'S SAFE WITH ME
Robert Cray Band
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
Mercury : 1988
[Buy It]
THE SECRET
Slapp Happy
1973
Acnalbasac Noom
Recommended : 1980
[Buy It]
MY DIRTY SECRET IS A DIVINE DILEMMA
Banner Barbados
2005
Demo
Years ago, I was dating a woman in another city west of here. One day, we woke up, got dressed, and went to get coffee. She had her head down in the coffee steam, more so than usual. Then she raised her gaze to meet mine. "I have to tell you something," she said.
I would like to freeze that moment. It was the dead of winter in the Midwest. Freezing the moment's easy. She was about to tell me a secret. I had a number of thoughts, all at once. First, I was excited. It seemed like a step forward for us. Then I was curious whether I could guess her secret in the few seconds before she revealed it to me. I think that I preferred that I be able to do so, both to soften the blow and to prevent our relationship from being exposed as the kind of relationship that needed a boost in intimacy. Then I foresuffered a feeling of anticlimax. She would tell me whatever it was and I would receive it and process it and then what? We'd finish our coffee? We'd go back home? I'd worry about what other secrets lay beneath the surface? A black curtain would fall down over the world?
She told me the secret. I won't say what it was. It belonged to the class of things that young people early in a relationship believe they should tell their partners. Maybe it was that she had slept with someone else. Maybe it was that her father was an alcoholic. Maybe it was that she had a strange habit of taking the hair that collected in the shower drain and putting it into her mouth. Maybe it was that she once masturbated on a train. Maybe it was that she stole money from a roommate at camp and blamed the theft on another girl. Like I said, I won't say. What I will say is my reaction to her secret exactly echoed the thoughts I had just before she revealed it. I was excited, then I was comforted that my internal guess had been roughly accurate, then I was disappointed. She had told me something about herself that wasn't exactly interesting, except in the sense that I hadn't known it a minute earlier. Now what?
This is not the only kind of secret, obviously. There are secrets you can tell about others without their consent. In the late eighties and early nineties, there was a boomlet of stories outing gay celebrities. I was in college then, and at least a few friends (whether straight, gay, or getting there) had strong opinions about the propriety of exposing someone else's innermost secrets. De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising, which was released the same year that Michelangelo Signorile founded Out magazine, stages a trivial version of that same process:Paul has dandruff
Posdnuos has a lot of dandruff
Mase has big fat dandruff
Trugoy has dandruff
Everybody in the world, you have dandruff Homosexuality has a sizeable soial charge. Dandruff, less so. The most common secret in pop music, is the one that directly precedes a relationship: secret love. There's Ron Sexsmith's "Secret Heart," The Miracles' "I Love You Secretly," and Half Japanese's "I Have a Secret," in which Jad Fair's yowls out his heart's deepest desires:Someone sent you roses, Karen.
Yeah that's twice this week, isn't it, Karen?
You're a lucky girl, Karen.
To have someone who cares about you so much, Karen.
Karen has a secret admirer. And I have a secret.
Karen has a secret admirer. And I have a secret too.
And my secret is you. We can all agree that this is a noble and even majestic secret: just listen to Billy Stewart's "Secret Love," a remake of an earlier Doris Day hit, and just as exuberant and idiosyncratic as Stewart's cover of George and Ira Gershwin's "Summertime." The kind of secret under consideration here, the kind that can emerge with a frisson early in a relationship, is different. Think of something minor, shameful, purely personal. At the beginning of the piece, when I listed the possible secrets revealed by my girlfriend in another city, I included chewing on hair from the shower drain grate. Those are the kids of secrets I mean -- bad habits and fetishes, the revelation of which might temporarily make a new lover feel closer. Think of them as dandruff on the inside. What reason is there to share those things? None, I think. They should not be served up. No one wants to eat that dish.
Sometimes secrets are presented, and sometimes they are extracted. Here's a secret: the story I told at the beginning of the piece, about my girlfriend in a city west of here, isn't exactly true. Everything in the story--the way she lowered her face into the coffee steam, the way she raised her head to meet my gaze--happened, but something else happened before that. I pushed a half of a muffin across my plate, sighed heavily, and said, "Tell me a secret." I was pushed into this decision by sex and high spirits, and by the fear that followed immediately upon those high spirits. I thought I might lose this woman if I didn't seal the seams of our very new relationship. So I asked her for a secret.
Six months later, we weren't dating any more. The secret she told me didn't seal our fate, but the impulse that led me to ask for it may have. Asking for a secret in such a flagrant manner appears to be a gesture of intimacy, when in fact it is nothing of the sort. A secret that is requested or presented plainly is a form of currency. It appears to carry the value stamped on its face when in fact it's worth far less. It's a bond that hasn't matured.
When you have a secret, what do you do with it? You either tell it all over town or you keep it safe, like a seed inside of your heart. But dark seeds flower into dark blossoms. In Robert Cray's "Your Secret's Safe With Me," a man who has been coveting a woman across the way watches in horror as she betrays her boyfriend with a new lover. Though the production is slicker than on Cray's breakthrough, Strong Persuader, the song plants both feet firmly in the Memphis soul that has increasingly become his calling card:Baby you should keep your bedroom shades pulled down
I can see right in; I've seen you in that black nightgown
I've seen you with your lover when your man is out of town
But don't worry, babe, your secret's safe with me
I'm very very jealous, weeks of wanting you
I never made a move. I never dreamed you'd be untrue.
Imagine my surprise when I see you loving someone new
Don't worry, babe, your secret's safe with me. The cases where shared secrets lead to happiness are surprisingly rare and often precious. Slapp Happy's "The Secret," a Peter Blegvad/Anthony Moore composition sung prettily by Dagmar Krause, is a strange little gem of a pop song about the intimacy that's forged by holding onto something for someone else:Strike a light
He's making my days into night
Mercury man does everything he can
And my only plan is to keep his secret secret Banner Barbados, a band from Seattle that made a splash online a few years ago with a Velvet Undergroundish song called "Since You Caught My Eye," had a second standout single that speeds through a Stonesy riff into jangly, organ-driven mayhem that conflates theological and romantic revelation. It's an appropriate place to conclude, because the song gives away the real secret: that God is in the details. About a year ago, a friend of mine was dating two men. One of them screwed his courage up and, over drinks, asked her for a secret. I think she complied with the hair-chewing thing. The other one never raised the issue of secrets. He put in his time, made lots of small talk, noticed things about her, and eventually knew her well enough that the secrets were superfluous. The goal is not to deliver or receive secrets on demand, but to get them as part of a steady flow, to know another person rather than another person's secrets.Labels: ben, rock, soul
posted by Ben
LINK |
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
LINK |
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
THANKSGIVING
Loudon Wainwright III
Career Moves
Virgin : 1993
[Buy It]
THANKSGIVING DAY
Ray Davies
Other People's Lives
V2 : 2006
[Buy It]
ALMOST THANKSGIVING DAY
Graham Parker
Your Country
Bloodshot : 2004
[Buy It]
BE THANKFUL FOR WHAT YOU GOT
Massive Attack
Blue Lines
Virgin : 1991
[Buy It]
THANK YOU LORD
Horace Andy
1973
Available on : Feel Good All Over: Anthology
Sanctuary Trojan : 2002
[Buy It]
STUFFY TURKEY
Thelonious Monk
It's Monk's Time
CBS : 1964
[Buy It]
COLD TURKEY
The Godfathers
Hit By Hit
Link : 1986
[Buy It]
Sometimes, there's a long table. Sometimes, there's a large table. Sometimes, there's a small table. Three old men sit around it, eating. Someone prefers the white meat. Someone else prefers the dark meat. Someone else waits for the wishbone. All three carve.
The room is warm. Someone cracks a window to let the air in. There's a song coming from a car out on the street. There's a young man in the car bobbing his head back and forth. There's a young woman in the front seat next to him. The young man and the young woman kiss.
"Diamond in the back," someone says.
"This isn't the original," someone else says. "The singer's different."
They listen. It isn't the original. The singer's different. The car pulls away. Someone closes the window. Someone else begins to hum the song, and then to hum another song. Someone else taps out a beat on a glass with a spoon. The tapping stops. It is dark outside the window. The room is white with silence.
Someone leaves the room to make a call. Someone else can hear him making the call. The call is as warm as the room. "Thanks for coming by the other day," someone says. "I was very happy to see you. I don't always remember to tell you how great you are."
Someone comes back into the room. Someone else leaves to make a call. The call is as cold as the air that came into the room. "Thanks a lot," someone says. "I can't say that I'm surprised. Listen, I need to go."
Someone comes back into the room. Someone else leaves to make a call. "You don't have to thank me," someone says. "Being kind to you isn't a burden. Eventually you'll see what you mean to me."
Someone comes back into the room. Someone sits. Someone else sits. Someone stands up and opens the window again. Someone else thinks he hears another song. Someone else can't hear a thing. The window is closed again. Someone slides back from the table. Someone else angles his chair to the side. Someone else stretches and sighs. All three leave.Labels: ben, rock, soul
posted by Ben
LINK |
Thursday, November 08, 2007
WORDS DISOBEY ME
The Pop Group
Y
WEA Int'l : 1979
[Buy It]
IN OTHER WORDS (DEMO)
Sly & The Family Stone
1982
Available on : Who in the Funk Do You Think You Are: The Warner Bros. Recordings
Rhino Handmade : 2001
[Buy It]
LANGUAGE IS A VIRUS
Laurie Anderson
Home of the Brave
Warner Bros. : 1986
[Buy It]
WHEN THE WORDS FROM YOUR HEART GET CAUGHT UP IN YOUR THROAT
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
1968
Available on : Complete Motown Singles 8: 1968
Hip-O-Select : 2007
[Buy It]
THE LOVE I SAW IN YOU WAS JUST A MIRAGE
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
1967
Available on : The Ultimate Collection
Motown : 1998
[Buy It]
FLY ME TO THE MOON (IN OTHER WORDS)
Smokey Robinson
Timeless Love
New Door : 2006
[Buy It]
Last time I wrote about the limits of language, the way that our most complex (and, in different ways, our simplest) feelings are betrayed by the words we use to try to express them. People wrote in to agree or disagree, using language. Some extended the argument. Some distended it. Others still upended it, claiming that the issue isn't that language fails, but that it succeeds at diversion and obfuscation, which are the only true roles of language. In the comments section, Yuval Taylor posted one of the epigraphs from Stendhal's The Red and the Black, which is credited to R.P. Malagrida: "Speech was given man in order to hide his thoughts." Plenty of people have agreed with Stendhal. Mark Stewart, of the Bristol post-punkers Pop Group, concurred a century and a half later:Truth is a feeling
But it's not a sound
Truth is a feeling
But it's not a sound
We don't need words
Throw them away The point's made again in "In Other Words," a surprisingly guitar-heavy Sly and the Family Stone demo from the early eighties:When I hear you talking and I feel what you say
It sounds a little funny cause the wor |
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