Category Archives: Rhythm and Blues

The Boss, The Band & Buddy Holly & The Strypes blitz Bo Diddley!

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Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

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A true message, a strong signal always gets through. People are waiting. People are always waiting for a true message. And, especially when you are in your teens you seem to spend your life waiting. Waiting for the person, the thing, the sound which will release you from the prison you seem to have been entombed in for so long.

Oh, you don’t know what it is you are waiting for, exactly. How could you? You just know as you stare for hours and hours at the walls of your bedroom that something, something big, something important, something meant just for you, is on its way.

Something, out there somewhere, is coming. And, you know, you just know, that when it comes you will recognise it and fall upon it like a hungry wolf. It is bound to take you somewhere you’ve never been before opening up a whole new life. A whole new world.

There is always a Promised Land to long for, to believe in with all your heart. Whatever sensible people, older, wiser people tell you, YOU know that the Promised Land is real and just over the horizon.

In 1950s America the musical message, the true musical message came through the ether on radio waves. Border radio stations with 50,000 watts of power sent the message to distant parts of the land. And, in distant parts of the land people were waiting. People were waiting.

Sitting in his car, late at night, in Lubbock Texas with his friend Sonny Curtis, Charles Hardin Holly always and forever after to be known as Buddy Holly, tuned in to stations playing Blues and Rhythm and Blues music and had an epiphany.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

‘Bo Diddley bought his babe a diamond ring …..’

And that was it! If a smart young musician who already knew his Hank Williams, Bob Wills and Louvin Brothers and who knew the young Elvis Presley could incorporate this thunderous rhythm into the songs he was writing (oh yes, this was a young man who was going to write and record his own songs and play the hell out of them on the Fender Stratocaster he had bought for the princely sum of $249.50) then surely the world beyond Lubbock would sit up and take notice.

So, when he got to Norman Petty’s Clovis, New Mexico studio in 1956,’Bo Diddley’ was one of the first songs he tried out with the ever faithful Jerry Allison on the drums.

That version didn’t see the light of day for many a year but Buddy now had THAT RHYTHM in his bones. And, so when he came up with a song called, ‘Not Fade Away’ it was pounded out to Bo’s immortal Rhythm.

Gathered, in Clovis, on May 27 1957, Buddy now a certified star, turned to the Rhythm and with Joe Maudlin on bass and Jerry Allison on cardboard box drums he laid down a record which was a great tribute to Bo and one which would perk up the waiting ears of Paul McCartney and John Lennon in Liverpool and in the outer reaches of London, Mick Jagger and Keith Richard (and we know what they then did!)

Listening to Buddy here you hear the sound of someone entirely present in their work. Present in the mixture of choppy propulsion and gleeful, aint it grand to be alive lyricism of his guitar work. Present in the distinctive alluring timbre of his vocal style.

Present in the easeful assurance of his lyric which characteristically combines assertiveness and romantic sweetness. Buddy Holly had one of the most vivacious sounds ever achieved in Rock n’ Roll and his blend of instrumental flow and aggression with tough yet tender songs set a template for generations of musicians that followed him. Few have ever caught up with Buddy.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Fast forward to 1963. Up in Canada, the big lonely, Arkansas native Ronnie Hawkins has found his niche purveying prime rockabilly and rock ‘n ‘ roll to the denizens of the toughest bars in Toronto and any other town where there’s an audience ready for a band filled with crack musicians led by a natural showman.

Ronnie Hawkins is a figure out of myth. A bear of a man, a larger than life hustler, a supreme tall tale teller some of whose juiciest takes may even be true no matter how outrageous they seem. Ronnie has been down all the blue highways and seen just about everything a man can see and not go blind.

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One thing about Ol’ Ronnie; he may not be even close to being a great musician himself but he sure as hell can spot one when he hears one. And, given that Ronnie helmed the hottest band in Canada which offered a young musician a full date book, the opportunity to hone their musical skills and the promise of unlimited carnal delights, there was no shortage of would be members of The Hawks.

Joining The Hawks was like a raw recruit being sent to the toughest possible military base for intensive training. If you survived there was no other band’s ass you couldn’t kick to kingdoms come.

And, by 1963 when Ronnie and the latest vintage went into the studio to record Bo’s classic, ‘Who Do You Love’ Ronnie had assembled the best band he would ever have. A band that had talent to burn, fire and finesse and the stamina to play all night long, night after night after night.

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On drums and vocals the only American in the troupe, Levon Helm (the eldest at 23). On rhythm guitar (soon to switch to bass) and vocals Rick Danko, on piano and vocals Richard Manuel and on guitar, a prodigy, Robbie Robertson. Completing the line up for this record was another stellar axeman, Roy Buchanan, here on bass.

Waiting in the wings was the greatest musician of them all the mighty Garth Hudson who was a revelatory master of the organ, the accordion and a bunch of saxophones. On that day in 1963 as they launched into, ‘Who Do You Love’ they brought all Bo’s ominous pealing thunder to the song while adding strike after strike of earth scorching lightning which lit an unquenchable match in the hearts of anyone who ever heard it.

This set of Hawks, as we know, would go on to collaborate with the greatest popular music artist of the 20th Century, Bob Dylan, accompanying him on epochal tours and making distinguished contributions to his recordings.

As, ‘The Band’ their first two albums would be certified masterpieces melding all the traditions of American music into a glorious seamless whole in songs of depth and fervour. The whole project of Americana music might be seen as trying to explore the territory opened by The Band.

But, in 1963 they were not Rock aristocrats – they were hot as hell sons of guns and their playing on, ‘Who Do You Love’ has rarely, if ever, been matched for incendiary passion. Robbie Robertson’s guitar playing here is simply astounding.

It’s as if Ronnie Hawkins had chained him up for a month, without his beloved guitar and then given it back saying, ‘You don’t get to keep it unless you set this studio ablaze!’

Robbie Robertson conjures more magic out of his guitar here in under three minutes than most guitarists manage in a lifetime. Out front Ronnie intones Bo’s lyric with lip smacking relish conscious that this record must be his finest hour.

 

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

The message certainly got through to a kid growing up in Freehold, New Jersey. The songs Bruce was drawn to, enraptured by, were songs filled with drama. Songs that swept you up and away with their passion. Songs that were emotional twisters. Bruce got Bo.

Bruce Springsteen has always understood that it’s essential power of rhythm that holds a song together. And as a writer and performer he has always understood, in a way that few others have, that a great artist performing on stage is invoking timeless ritual energies that have to have their being confirmed and released through rhythm now controlled, now unleashed, now controlled, now unleashed until the ritual is complete and artist and audience are elated, exhausted and free.

Bruce gets Bo. In particular he gets, the howling past the graveyard depths of ‘Mona’ which in some mysterious fashion called forth his own song, ‘She’s The One’. So often in concert he runs the two songs together doffing his cap to Bo and proving his devotion to tradition by adding to it not merely copying it.

The version I’m featuring here is from a spectacularly intense concert he and The E Street Band gave at LA’s Roxy in July 1978.

You’d think Bruce and the band would have needed to take an ice bath to recover after that! This is Bruce using every muscle and sinew to inhabit the spooked landscape of Bo’s song. Bruce shape shifts to become a shamanistic vessel for THE RHYTHM. Listening to this I would never quibble with his honorary title as, ‘The Boss’.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Over in Britain and Ireland in the 1950s and early 60s just knowing the name of Bo Diddley showed that you were one of the musical elect. He wasn’t exactly a household name and was very rarely played on the radio.

His records had to be tracked down in record shops like Dobells in London, NEMS in Liverpool or Belfast’s Atlantic Records who might stock or might order for you those precious 45s of Bo Diddley or Mona.

These singles issued on the black and silver London label and later on the yellow and red Pye label were fetishistic objects for a core group of fanatical rhythm and blues fans who included such future luminaries as Dick Taylor of The Pretty Things (named after a Bo Diddley song), Eric Burdon of The Animals and Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones. Being an R&B devotee was akin to joining a secret confraternity. Once you had heard Bo you were a changed being.

The hallmark of being an R&B band that really knew their stuff was that you could lock into THE RHYTHM you had learned from Bo and through ecstatic dance take your audience to a whole new level of consciousness. So, if you were in the know and danced at The Cavern, The Marquee, The Flamingo or Club A Go Go you wouldn’t go long without that Bo Diddley Rhythm starting to take you over.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Now, it’s undoubtedly the case that the 1960s represents the high water mark of the Blues Boom in Britain and Ireland. But, the signal, the Rhythm never went away. The signal continued to be sent and received.

In the 1970s out of the Thames Delta and the extraordinary landscape of Canvey Island came a cutthroat crew, Dr Feelgood, who committed themselves 100% to the rhythm every time they launched into their tempestuous version of Bo’s I Can Tell.

You haven’t lived until you’ve seen lead singer Lee Brilleaux’s eyeballs out attack on the song or stood open mouthed in amazement as Guitarist Wilko Johnson ricocheted across the stage strafing everyone with machine gun lead and rhythm licks.

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Dr Feelgood will get their own post here soon!

The signal still gets through.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

As the 20th Century came to a close far from hip metropolitan Dublin four boys were born in Cavan who destined to be nothing less than mojo men.

By 2012, while still schoolboys, Ross Farrelly (harmonica, vocals), Josh McClorey (lead guitar/vocals), Peter O’Hanlon (bass, vocals) and Evan Walsh (drums), bursting with energy, home recorded a debut EP which featured a series of R&B rave-ups on songs by Billy Boy Arnold and Slim Harpo.

The killer cut being their 100 miles an hour down a dead end street take on Bo’s, ‘You Can’t Judge A Book ..’

The Strypes get Bo.

You can see that as they strut their stuff on stage.

You can hear it in every note they play.

When you get down to it, when you really get down to it, Rhythm rules.

And you either get the rhythm or you don’t. You’ve either got it or you haven’t got it.

The Strypes have definitely got it!

If you get a chance to go and see them Go!

A true message, a strong signal always gets through. People are waiting. They will always be waiting. And, Bo Diddley’s message and signal will always be out there – waiting to be picked up.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Bomp-ba-domp-ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Hey, Bo Diddley!

P.S. If you havent read the previous post on Bo himself – what are you waiting for!

 

Bo Diddley : Who Do You Love, Mona .. Rhythm Rules!

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When you get down to it, when you really get down to it – rhythm rules.

Before you can utter a sound you can feel and respond to the rhythm of your mothers beating heart. And it’s your first and dearest tune; the lullaby a part of you will always live by. Rhythm rules.

You are then born suddenly into a world of seeming blooming and buzzing confusion where you must learn again to tune in to the essential rhythms of life. Heat and cold. Hunger and thirst. Night and day. Summer and Winter. Spring and Autumn. Rhythm rules.

Meanwhile the planets and the stars rotate in their ancient dance while the tides of the sea rise and fall, rise and fall, obedient to the imperial moon as they beat, beat, beat, rhythmically on the shores of the waiting land. Rhythm rules.

Rhythm rules. It always has and it always will. You don’t need to be able to read and write. You don’t need to speak a particular language. All you need is a beating heart.

And to demonstrate the utter primacy of the power of Rhythm there is only one man to turn to: he was born Ellas Otha Bates in McComb, Mississippi in the dying days of 1928. As a boy he became Ellas McDaniel but the world will always know him as The Originator, the one, the only Bo Diddley.

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In March 1955, as I rocked safely in my mother’s womb, Bo Diddley took his Guitar and went into Universal Studios in Chicago in the company of Otis Spann (piano), Jerome Green (maracas), Frank Kirkland (drums) and Lester Davenport (harmonica) and laid down two tracks, ‘Bo Diddley’ and ‘I’m A Man’ that would be issued as a 45 in April on the Chess Records subsidiary label Checker with the serial number 814. I will brook no argument that this is the greatest debut single of all time!

Listen here to Bo announcing himself to the world with the supreme confidence of a man who knows, absolutely knows, that he has found and can incarnate the rhythm which will sweep the globe and revolutionise popular music.

A primordial, irresistible Rhythm which will lift listeners out of the everyday world reconnecting them with their essential physicality and, as the beat pounds relentlessly on, a door to a buried collective unconscious is opened and bodies drenched in sweat discover a reinvigorated sense of their animal and numinous nature.

Now we can call up the musicologists (there’s usually a brace or two of them in a dusty corridor of your local university!) and learn that the, ‘Bo Diddley rhythm’ melds elements from Latin America, West Africa and the Southern States of America.

We can talk artfully about the influences of latin clave and body slapping, ‘hambone’ performers. We might refer to the beat as three stroke/rest/two stroke or say, ‘Shave and a hair cut (pause) two bits’ or bomp-ba-domp–ba-domp, ba-domp-domp.

Now, that’s all very well but what really counts is that unless you are being forcibly restrained by experts once you hear that Bo Diddley Beat you won’t have the inclination to think about any descriptive terms for the beat that you must get in sync with, must get down to. The beat that you feel in the soles of your feet, in your loins, in the pit of your stomach, in the very chambers of your heart.

A beat that is and was a musical earthquake and which continues to produce aftershocks in the work of those who listened hard to what Bo was laying down.

People like Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and Keith Richard, Pete Townshend, Eric Burdon, Jeff Beck, Bob Seeger, Van Morrison, Stevie Wonder, George Clinton and Bruce Springsteen all fell under Bo’s spell and wrote and recorded songs with Bo’s Rhythm flowing through every bar and every line. Look out in a few days time for a further post illustrating Bo’s astounding influence on popular music.

Now, though it’s time to return to the original source. Here’s Bo from April 1957 with the spooky, hypnotic mantra, ‘Mona’.

Well you sure can hear the field holler here. And, you can feel, have to feel, the sweet agony of the longing and the lust. Some say Bo wrote this in homage to an exotic dancer who piled her trade at the Flame Show Bar in Detroit. If true, she must have been some dancer!

Mona is music stripped down to the barest elements needed to carry its message; like a rope bridge strung over a chasm that somehow stays in place when it seems it must fall into the depths below.

Listen to the eerie, I will not be denied vocal. Listen to the febrile, I just don’t know how much of this I can stand guitar, and tell me you are not shaken and stirred. Tell me that your heart is not going bumpety-bump! Mona, Oh Mona!

Bo was by no means a prisoner of his own Beat. He was a very fine songwriter with storytelling flair able to write lines that invoked the well known tropes of folk tales with wit and wisdom.

Musically he knew all about what Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry were doing in Chicago as well as the what was coming out of New Orleans from Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew. His youthful training as a violinist had given him a feeling for melody and harmony that he brought into play when needed.

In 1956 he had written a song, in a rockabilly style shuffle rhythm which was immediately recognised as a classic – ‘Who Do You Love?’

I remember laughing out loud with pleasure the first time I heard the opening lines:

‘I walk forty-seven miles of barbed wire, I use a cobra snake for a neck tie,
I got a brand new house on the roadside, made from rattlesnake hide,
I got a brand new chimney made on top, made out of a human skull,
Now come on baby let’s take a little walk, and tell me, ‘Who do you love?’

Indeed! Why wouldn’t Arlene go for a walk with Bo- given the entrancing, hucksterish, nature of his lyrical come-on and the scintillating excitement of the lead guitar played here by Jody Williams.

You’re sure to have a fine, fine, time with a man who just rode a lion to town using a rattlesnake whip. A man with a tombstone hand and a graveyard mind who’s just 22 but don’t mind dying. Sure, he will probably be gone in a puff of smoke tomorrow morning. But, today’s the only day that counts Arlene – Carpe Diem!

Bo must have had an ear cocked to the rippling rhythms emerging from the interplay of musicians in dance bands from New Orleans and Caribbean. You can hear this loud and clear in a lovely, slyly humour filled record he cut in December 1958 – ‘Crackin’ Up’

Bo’s marvellous reading of the phrase, ‘What’s buggin’ you?’ on its own would have me happily laying down my cash to buy this one! Add to that Bo’s pretty, shimmering, glitterball guitar and the virtually DooWop backing vocals and you have a perfect pop confection that hits the spot every time.

In 1962 the Eminence grise of Chess Records, Willie Dixon, presented Bo with a guaranteed hit with the charming cracker-barrel philosophy treatise, ‘You Can’t Judge a Book by the Cover’. Once Bo and the band lock in you are going nowhere till the song ends! Like Bo says … Come on in closer… Turn it up!

Bo Diddley was a radical innovator who respected the tradition he was heir to. He was a primitive artist and an avant garde artist. He was thoroughly modern and post modern before his time.

Imagine him here strapping on his square bodied guitar and sending everybody reeling with the so good you’re going to have to keep this one on repeat for an hour or so, ‘Mumblin’ Guitar’.

In any universe that I can imagine Bo Diddley will always be out in front of the pack. Bo Diddley is and was as cool as cool can be.

Notes:

‘The Story of Bo Diddley’ double CD on Chess/Universal should be a corner stone of any collection of the best of 20th Century music!

As stated above, my next post, due very soon will showcase the depth of Bo’s influence on the generations of musicians who followed him. Don’t you dare miss it!

Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin & Elvis all revered Joe South : Games People Play

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‘A need to hear and tell stories is essential to human beings, second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter,’ (Reynolds Price, Novelist of the American South)

‘In the South people talk in rhyme and clap on the offbeat’ (Robbie Robertson)

Growing up in the American South in the post World War Two era a boy with attentive ears and a curious mind would have had access to a rich, loamy diet of inspirational songs and stories. Tall tales, fables and folk tales at the kitchen table and the store. Gossip and rumour outside church and school.

The heavy air all around you was suffused with Hymns and Murder ballads, work songs, cheating songs, songs of exile and songs longing for home. Tuning the radio dial in Georgia you could hear scarifying Black Gospel, parlour songs, train songs, bluegrass breakdowns, bottleneck blues, honky tonk drinking songs, waltzes, polkas and whatever was top of the pop charts.

If you were musically inclined you could start practicing with the guitar your daddy gave at 11 and while still a teenager, if you had the will and the talent, you might find yourself co- writing a hit song with a rock n roll legend and go on to be a master session guitarist, Grammy winning songwriter and singer with a string of classic songs to your name and work with everyone from Bob Dylan to Aretha Franklin and Simon and Garfunkel. You might even have Elvis himself record and perform one of your songs.

You might grow up to be Joe South.

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And, if you were Joe South you would write and record in 1969, ‘Games People Play’ one of the most enduringly satisfying and effective songs of the 1960s.

Now that’s a song! An unstoppable hit from the majestic sitar intro and La – Da da da da da da vocalising even before the brilliant straight from the shoulder lyric skewers the phoniness and pretensions of the movers and shakers of the 60s generation (not to mention every generation before and since!).

There is a characteristic magnificent sinewy strength to Joe’s baritone vocal and his guitar/sitar playing. In Games People Play he has turned a great song through superb performance and production into a great record. ‘Games’ features a wonderfully integrated vocal, organ, strings and brass arrangement which swells the sound to anthemic proportions.

Joe South always sang like a man who knew what he was talking about and who wasn’t afraid to tell uncomfortable truths about himself and the world around him.

‘Talking about you and me and the games people play ….’

‘Oh we make one another cry, Break a heart then we say goodbye .. ‘

‘People walking up to you, Singing glory hallelujah, And they try to sock it to you in the name of the Lord…’

‘They’re gonna teach you how to meditate, Read your horoscope, cheat your fate… ‘

‘Look around tell me what you see, God grant me the serenity to remember who I am …’

‘Turned your back on humanity and you don’t give a da, da, da da , da …… ‘

It seems to me that, ‘Games People Play’ is as accurate a summary of life in 2016 as it was in 1969 and as it will be in 2069. Cue it up again!

Joe South was an Atlanta Georgia native. Once he discovered the guitar he became an obsessive practicing round the clock and even setting up his own mini radio station to broadcast his playing.

Through DJ Bill Lowery he got involved with Atlanta’s NRC Record Label and formed musical bonds with Jerry Reed, Pete Drake, Ray Stevens and Billy Joe Royal. In 1958 he co-wrote the novelty hit, ‘The Purple People Eater meets Witch Doctor’ with the larger than life Big Bopper of, ‘Chantilly Lace’ fame (who was to die in the plane crash that took Buddy Holly)

His prowess as a guitarist won him work in Atlanta, Nashville and Muscle Shoals. In 1962 he played the Buddy Holly style guitar on Tommy Roe’s Billboard Number One, ‘Sheila’.

In the same era he had his first mainstream hit with the charming, ‘Untie Me’ by the black vocal group The Tams – a favourite on the Myrtle Beach summer sand scene.

Joe South grew up in a strictly segregated South. But like Tony Joe White, Steve Cropper, Dan Penn and Eddie Hinton his musical taste was never segregated and the influence of Gospel, R&B and Soul music as well as Country is palpable in every note he sang and played.

Joe’s versatility is clear when you consider that in 1965 he was called in by Simon and Garfunkel’s producer Tom Wilson to add electric guitar punch to the ‘Sounds of Silence’ Album in the same year that he was writing and producing a country soul classic for his long time friend Billy Joe Royal with, ‘Down In The Boondocks’ a tale of the travails of love attempting to cross the tracks from the picket fenced lawns to tar papered shack poor side of town.

Apparently Joe had asked Billy to record Boondocks as a demo hoping to pitch it to Gene Pitney. However, the distinctive echoey sound and Billy’s urgent performance was recognised by a savvy someone at CBS and lo! A top 10 hit resulted.

Billy would go on to record several other Joe South songs including the lilting ballad, ‘I Knew You When’ and the irresistible, ‘Hush’ perhaps better known from the hit Deep Purple version.

In late November 1965 and through to March ’66 Joe became involved in the epochal sessions for Bob Dylan’s landmark masterpiece album, ‘Blonde on Blonde’ playing both guitar and bass. He plays bass on the sublime, Visions of Johanna’ which must be one of the defining Himalayan triumphs of Dylan’s career and of the whole rock era.

Joe was as comfortable recording with members of The Band and Nashville luminaries on Blonde on Blonde as he would later be when he played with signature brilliance along with Muscle Shoals finest on Aretha Franklin’s 1967 smash hit, ‘Chain of Fools’

That’s Joe with the E string tuned to a low C providing the spooky, something serious is gonna go down here, intro that sets things up for the majestic Aretha to slay us all. Throughout the song Joe meshes perfectly with Jimmy Johnson, Tommy Cogbill, Spooner Oldham and Roger Hawkins as they keep everything between simmer and boil following Aretha.

When it came to his own recording career Joe would never have as big a hit as, ‘Games’ but he would write and record biting songs that continue to hit home with their humanity, their moral force and their musical power.

My particular favourite is the you just can’t deny it’s true, ‘Walk A Mile In My Shoes’ which became a high point of Elvis Presley’s 1970 stage shows (and there isn’t a songwriter in the world who wouldn’t have whooped at top volume when learning that Elvis had done one of their songs!).

Do look up the King’s version but I have to feature Joe’s testifying version here today. What fantastic guitar too!

 

We all know, as surefire sinners, that we should keep the stone in our pocket rather than casting it at our neighbour for their sins. Or as Joe puts it with pithy force:

‘Walk a mile in my shoes, walk a mile in my shoes,
Hey before you abuse, criticise and accuse,
Walk a mile in my shoes’

There’s something very cheering about the way Joe South songs come at you so directly presenting a clear eyed, dare to say this isn’t so, critique of our personal and communal hypocrisies and failings .

And, in a way that never has the whiff of pious cant about them. Rather, these are songs filled with life and hard won wisdom which you just have to sing along to. It’s a rare gift to write songs filled with righteous anger that aren’t deadening rants that win allegiance only from those with closed minds and hard hearts.

In October 1970 a song that Joe had originally given to Billy Joe Royal and recorded himself in a lovely ruminative version became a world wide hit for Lynn Anderson.

‘I Never Promised You A Rose Garden’ is the kind of country record that sells to people who say they can’t stand country music.

The kind of pop song that is bought, listened to and remembered by eight year olds and eighty year olds. The kind of record that wins nodding heads of agreement from all us, bruised in Love, when it says, ‘You know what I’m talking about’. So smile for a while and let’s be jolly … Come along and share the good times while we can. While we can.

Joe South’s life and career took a marked turn for the worse in 1971 with the death by suicide of his beloved brother Tommy. That and the pressure he felt trying to match the success of, ‘Games People Play’ seems to have sent him into a spiralling depression (fuelled in part by drugs) which meant that his enormous gifts were in abeyance for many years.

Though he did make later albums which have their moments he was largely content, once he had ceased as he put it, ‘Kicking myself about’ to live a quiet life in his Georgia home. He died there in September 2012 having left a deep and indelible mark on the music of his era.

I’m going to leave you with an elegy he may have unknowingly written for himself. ‘Don’t It Make You Want To Go Home’ must surely have been played by the angels, singing him home to his final rest, as Joe rode in that last limousine. Hank Williams will surely want to swop Whippoorwill references.

Joe South’s songs were built to last and last they surely will.

The Rolling Stones & J Geils cover The Valentinos: (Looking For A Love/It’s All Over Now)

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William Goldman, the screenwriter of Hollywood boffo smashes such as, ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and, ‘All the President’s Men’ was a highly intelligent and perspicacious observer of the cultural scene.

It seems to me he was speaking the plain truth when he observed that when it comes to predicting success in any artistic enterprise, ‘Nobody knows anything … Not one person knows for a certainty what is going to work. Every time out it’s a guess and, if you’re lucky, an educated one’.

That certainly holds true for writing and recording hit songs; especially songs which endure not for five or ten or twenty-five years but for 50 years and more.

Nobody has a guaranteed formula for producing songs that can get up and walk on their own, songs with the mysteriously vitality and stickability which lodges them deep in our consciousness. Songs which manage to mark our personal and collective times.

But, if you write such songs you can be sure of one thing. People, other artists, will sit up and take notice and they will want to perform and record your songs because such songs are rare beasts.

Today on The Immortal Jukebox I’m going to celebrate two of those songs, written by the teenage Bobby Womack, which he recorded with his four brothers in their group, The Valentinos, in 1962 and 1964.

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‘Looking For A Love’ and, ‘It’s All Over Now’ were from the get go songs fizzing with life; songs that made you want to get up and dance, songs that made you smile whatever mood you were in before they came on, songs that you instantly fell in love with, songs that made you ring up your friends to say, ‘have you heard…’, songs that you sang under your breath invoking the warmth and light of the sun as you faced another grey school or work morning. That’ll do for me as the definition of a hit!

Everyone, especially when they’re young, is looking for a love, searching, looking here and there, looking for the love they know must be there, somewhere!

Let Bobby and The Valentinos remind you of those searching days!

Listening to The Valentinos here I feel as if I could jump a wall ten feet high! Lots of people agreed at the time as the song was a top 10 R&B hit as well as breaking into the Billboard Hot 100.

The Womack Brothers, in birth order, were : Friendly, Curtis, Bobby, Harry and Cecil. They were the sons of Friendly Senior, a pastor who had moved from the mines of West Virginia to Cleveland. Friendly Senior was a gospel singing pastor so it was little surprise that his sons followed in his footsteps performing in church.

In 1953 they got a big break when, in their home town, they opened up for the premier church-wrecking Gospel group of the day, The Soul Stirrers featuring the Immortal Sam Cooke. Sam was struck by the boys potential and noted that Bobby in particular, had something about him that presaged stardom.

Soon the brothers were working the Gospel circuit with luminaries like The Staple Singers and The Five Blind Boys Of Mississippi learning stagecraft. This would be redoubled after they went on the road with the ultimate stern taskmaster, James Brown!

Sam Cooke, ever prescient, decided that the Brothers future lay in secular pop rather than the Gospel world. So Bobby’s gospel song, ‘Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray’ was fine tuned by J W Alexander and Zelda Samuels for Sam’s record label SAR to become, ‘Looking For A Love’ and The Womack Brothers became The Valentinos. The rest as they say is history.

I’m sure the feeling of elation produced by, ‘Looking For A Love’ was also experienced by six super energetic white northern boys who came together as The J Geils Band in the mid 60s determined to blast white hot rhythm and blues at the citizens of Boston and Detroit.

The key figure here is singer Peter Wolf, a legendary DJ and record collector who on Boston station WBCN took late night calls from Van Morrison begging to hear some real rhythm and blues on the radio!

Peter was a song collector and he knew that an amped up, turbo charged version of, ‘Looking For A Love’ would be a show stopper for the band and prove that they could justifiably be called the Detroit Demolition!

Listen here to Peter on vocals, J Geils on guitar, Seth Justman on the organ, Danny Klein on bass, Stephen Bladd on drums and Magic Dick on the lickin’ stick as they demolish Detroit’s Cinderella Ballroom in 1972 with the force of a division of Panzers!

I confess I used to test the patience of the students in my residential block and the sturdiness of the window frames of my room as I played this version at stun volume over and over again in 1973 when I discovered it. Turn your dials up to 11 now!

Early in 1964 Bobby collaborated with sister in law, Shirley Womack, to write another slice of eternity shale, ‘It’s All Over Now’ a song which might be seen by the cynics among us as the inevitable second act to the youthful carefree optimism of, ‘Looking For A Love’.

I prefer to think of it as another example of Bobby Womack’s great gift for crafting a melodic story that we can all relate to wherever we are in love’s endless carousel. What Bobby Womack always had was the ability to write songs which had an irresistible rhythmic flow which defied you to sit still once they started.

Try as I might I couldn’t find an acceptable video clip of The Valentinos original of, ‘All Over Now’ but my search did uncover a glorious take on the song featuring Bobby performing with the redoubtable David Letterman Show House Band.

As you will see Bobby was a natural storyteller, a musician and performer to his fingertips and one cool dude!

As, ‘It’s All Over Now’ debuted on the American radio waves listening with keen interest were a heavy with attitude and talent bunch of Blues and R&B aficionados all the way from Britain, The Rolling Stones!

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Alerted to The Valentinos’ original by DJ Murray the K, self appointed US Ambassador to the British Invasion bands, The Stones decided that the song would be ideal material for them to record when they visited Chicago’s Chess Studios where so many of their idols like Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry had wrought the miraculous records they had played until they disintegrated.

Keith Richards recalls that on entering Chess it felt as if they had died and gone to heaven! Absorbing the magic ambience and benefitting from the well honed craft of the Chess engineers The Stones were inspired to produce a performance of, ‘It’s All Over Now’ which gave them their first substantial US hit and their first UK Number 1 record.

There’s no doubt that The Stones version is a wonderfully atmospheric and dramatic demonstration of their prowess as a rhythm and blues band. As always the peerless Charlie Watts drives them along at just the right tempo, not too fast, not too slow, while Bill Wyman keeps everything anchored. Brian Jones plays nice chiming lines leaving it to the inimitable Keith to provide a master class in surging guitar energy that sweeps all before it.

Some, notably John Lennon, thought that Keith’s guitar solo was something of an untutored mess. Well, I hear the unmistakeable sound of the never to be stilled beating heart of Rhythm and Blues from someone who had, in his bones, knowledge that no amount of tutoring can ever provide.

The torch was passed on as in Freehold, New Jersey the young Bruce Springsteen bruised and bloodied his fingers until he could say, ‘Yeh, I know how to play, ‘Its All Over Now’ on the guitar – listen up!’

‘It’s All Over Now’ whether learned from The Valentinos or The Rolling Stones became a staple in the repertoire of bands wanting to show they could sway and strut like the masters.

My favourite versions are by Ry Cooder (an elegant sashay), Rod Stewart and The Faces (a bacchanalian feast), Johnny Winters (Texas Twister style) and Nils Lofgren (Twangtastic!).

When you can write songs like Bobby Womack you’ll never go out of style. People are always out there looking for a love and often later reflecting that it really is all over now. And, if you can incarnate those eternal emotional states in songs that just beg to be played you’re one of the greats. As Bobby Womack surely was.

This post dedicated to the memory of the deceased Valentinos:

Bobby Womack (1944-2014), Harry Womack (1945-1974) and Cecil Womack (1947-2013).

Notes:

There’s a lovely, poignant version of, ‘ Looking For A Love’ recorded in 1974 by Bobby Womack with his brothers, just before Harry Womack’s death which is a wonderful swan-song for The Valentinos. Have a handkerchief handy.

Ace Records has issued an excellent 23 track Valentinos set called, ‘Looking For A Love’.

Barbara Lewis: The queen of sultry early 60s R&B – Baby I’m Yours!

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1963 was a vintage year for chart topping R&B singles.

Motown’s imperious domination of the chart was evidenced by Mary Wells’ lovely, ‘Two Lovers’ written by the great Smokey Robinson who hit the summit himself accompanied by The Miracles with the hypnotic, ‘You Really Got A Hold On Me’ which the admiring Beatles covered on their second album.

An absurdly precocious and energetic, ‘Little Stevie Wonder’ electrified everyone who heard him with, ‘Fingertips (Part 2) while Martha & The Vandellas filled dance floors all over the globe and sent thermometers soaring with the epochal, ‘Heatwave’.

The singular genius of Curtis Mayfield was represented by The Impressions prayerful, ‘It’s Alright’ and the nonpareil vocals of Sam Cooke took the witty, ‘Another Saturday Night’ to the chart summit.

Ruby & The Romantics and The Chiffons kept the Girl Group flag flying with the unforgettable, ‘Our Day Will Come’ and, ‘He’s So Fine’. Jackie Wilson worked us all up into a glorious sweat with, ‘Baby Work Out’ as Garnett Mimms with The Enchanters left us all elated and exhausted with the classic deep soul anguish of, ‘Cry Baby’.

I could (and probably will) write about all the wonderful songs above. But, the R&B chart topper from 1963 that won and retains first place in my heart is, ‘Hello Stranger’ – a sultry, slinky, uptown soul masterpiece written and performed with subtle flair by Barbara Lewis, a teenager from Salem, Michigan.

Now, don’t you feel blessed and enchanted!

Barbara recorded, ‘Hello Stranger’ at the famed Chess Studio in Chicago in January 1963. She had earlier been talent spotted by Ollie McLaughlin a music business mover and shaker who managed to combine being a DJ with Ann Arbour’s WHRV with managing Del Shannon and producing records. Olllie insightfully recognised that it was rare to find a poised young woman who could write and sing in such a distinctive fashion.

A sympathetic team of seasoned professionals supported Barbara on this classic recording. John Young coaxed a warm embracing sound from the Hammond Organ. Riley Hampton skilfully arranged Barbara’s romantic melody to ensure listeners and dancers would be spellbound throughout every second of its duration.

Filling out the sound with characteristic excellence were one of the greatest and most durable of all vocal groups – The Dells. The Rhythm Section maintained a swooning tempo underneath Barbara’s astounding mature – you won’t be able to resist falling desperately in love with me right now vocal.

Listen to the effortless precision of her diction and the way she seems to almost hugging the song to herself. Singing it like a thrilled lover devoutly recalling the intoxicating pleasures of young love. I think the word Luscious can be properly invoked here!

The sharp eared Atlantic Records team knew a hit when they heard one and issued, ‘Hello Stranger’ as Atlantic 2184 which became a No 3 pop hit as well as an R&B No 1. To which signal achievements we can now add the accolade of a hallowed place as:

A 14 on The Immortal Jukebox!

Over the next six years at Atlantic Barbara issues a further 16 singles every one of which showcased some aspect of her gloriously distinctive artistic persona. Through the Atlantic connection she also got to collaborate with some of the finest record industry talents of the era such as Bert Berns, Jerry Wexler, Carol King and Gerry Goffin and Van McCoy.

While I could hymn every one of the Atlantic singles I have chosen three to feature on The Jukebox to persuade you (if any is needed after hearing, ‘Hello Stranger’) of how essential her recordings are for anyone seeking the very best of the frequently neglected gems of the early sixties.

Let’s turn first to a record that will have even the flintiest hearted curmudgeon swaying misty-eyed in a romantic reverie. From 1965 the Van McCoy penned classic, ‘Baby I’m Yours’.

‘Baby’ was recorded in New York and benefited from the pooled talents of Bert Berns, Van McCoy(something of a secret hero of 60s pop), the backing vocals of The Sweet Inspirations featuring Cissie Houston and a well schooled string section.

The silky come hither charm of Barbara’s vocal here has rarely been matched and will surely be so until the stars fall from the sky and the poets run out of rhyme. In other words until the end of time.

Next a change of tempo with a song much beloved by my veteran friends of the, ‘Northern Soul’ scene. I can just imagine the delighted reaction of those tireless fanatical dancers as the first strains of Sharon McMahon’s, ‘Someday Were Gonna Love Again’ rang out at the Wigan Casino or Manchester’s, ‘Twisted Wheel’ club.

While I would have tried in my lumbering way to respond to the call of the beat I would undoubtedly have been lost in admirations as Barbara and the driving musicians behind the record inspired the serious dancers to ever greater heights of virtuosity as they glided and pirouetted across the dance floor.

Nights spent dancing to such music are stored forever as treasure in the soul.

I’m going to conclude with another example of Barbara’s ability to cradle a song in her imagination before slaying us all with the irresistible slow burning power of her recorded vocal.

The way she sings, ‘Come on, come on, make me your baby’ here could make even a dead man rise like Lazarus!

I can’t imagine there’s ever been a man alive who wouldn’t feel ten foot taller if Barbara sang, ‘Make Me Your Baby’ to him. I know it works for me!

Barbara Lewis essentially retired from the music business after a last hurrah with Stax records as the sixties concluded (look for the marvellous side ‘The Stars’).

But, in her 60s heyday she recorded a series of records, highly potent quiet storms, that will resonate forever in the hearts of those lucky enough to have heard them.

I find Barbara Lewis’ records to be endlessly alluring and captivating. I have remained in thrall to their spell since my teenage years.

So, here’s a tip – if I’m ever forty floors up, stranded on the ledge and threatening to jump, its Barbara’s voice that I want talking me down!

Note:

I whole heartedly recommend, ‘The Complete Atlantic Singles’ on Real Gone Music and the more selective, ‘Hello Stranger’ on Rhino Records.

Van Morrison – It’s All in The Game

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‘… This is a song from the 50s .. It’s been recorded by hundreds of people … But not like this!’

(Van Morrison’s introduction to It’s All In The Game before performing it at The Albert Hall in 2014)

Van Morrison is a dweller on the threshold.

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An artist who delights in the sensual world of earthly love and light and linear time while understanding in the very core of his being that we are also citizens of co-existing realms beating to the rhythms of a different eternal drum.

In his art he seeks to demonstrate that there are no walls between these realms but rather permeable membranes we can pass through if we would but release the flickering fires of our imaginative and spiritual nature.

So, when Van heard the song, ‘It’s All In The Game’; bizarrely written in posthumous collaboration by a Noble prize winning Vice President of The United States (Charles Dawes) and a savvy professional songwriter (Carl Sigman) he recognised that this slight, sentimental ballad from the 50s was ripe for transformation into a kaleidoscopic revelation of the simultaneously transitory and eternal landscape where the travails of all of us as winners and losers in the dance of the love are truly all in the game.

Van’s performance here as a singer, arranger and bandleader is proof of his genius as an artist. Surely, listening to such a searching performance, each of us will find our own history stirred and evoked; often in surprising, potentially disturbing ways.

One of the great gifts true artists can offer us is the opportunity, through encounters with their art, to come to terms with our unresolved subconscious struggles to find integration and wholeness.

Each of us in our own unique way will discover that we know what they’re writing about and what Van is singing about!

Van recorded, ‘It’s All In The Game’ on his magisterial 1979 record, ‘Into The Music’ which is lit with incandescent grace throughout.

Characteristically he assembled a superb team of musicians who had the technical chops and the imaginative reach to follow where his arrangements and inspirations led.

Herbie Armstrong (rhythm guitar), David Hayes (bass) and Mark Jordan (piano) were Van veterans and in Peter Van Hooke (drums), Toni Marcus (violin) and Katie Kissoon (backing vocals) he found rhapsodically empathetic partners.

The extravagantly talented Mark Isham and Pee Wee Ellis on the horns added enveloping depth and colour to the sound.

Of course, as with every great Van Morrison record, it’s Van’s heart-stirring, heart-stopping vocals which cast the spell we have to surrender to.

Here, Van in a vocal tour de force seems to hold the song up to a series of shades of illumination and heat so that, ‘Your heart will fly away’ can move magically as the song progresses from barely perceptible, deeply tender, softly shimmering candle light to searing, inescapable white hot conflagration.

And, this is not achieved through dramatic changes of tempo but through the vocal and imaginative engagement which Van brings to individual syllables, words and phrases as he utters them – teasing them, testing them, for artistic, spiritual and emotional weight.

Van makes intuitive raids upon the hoard of popular song for the mysterious values bound up in the sheer sound of the words as well as their overt meaning.

Of course, Van knows that words can only take you so far. Sometimes it’s the silences between the words and the accents of their placement which are most revealing.

Van added his own coda to, ‘Its All In The Game’ with its segue into his own, ‘You Know What They’re Writing About’ where he brings it all back home to the landscapes of his Belfast youth which will always haunt his every hour.

To my mind it is a mark of Van’s spiritual, not to say mystic insight, that he knows that there is no need to travel to distant valleys or Himalayan hideaways to find illumination.

Sometimes there’s no more words to say but its all right there in front of you. Right in front of you, wherever you are – down by the river, down by the pylons, down by the pylons, down by the pylons …..

Van Morrison is undoubtedly the living custodian of the hallowed tradition of blues based singing. He has spent a lifetime listening to and learning from those he inherited this tradition from.

So, when Van takes on a, ‘Big ballad’ he draws upon and invokes the shades of Ray Charles, Jimmy Witherspoon and Bobby Blue Bland with their ability to command a band, caress a lyric and move with fluent dynamism within a song from whisper to scream.

Van brings all this lore to his live performances of, ‘It’s All In The Game’ – each time setting forth on a new pilgrimage invoking the muse to descend.

It is possible to spend many days losing yourself while listening to epic performances by Van of this song (believe me I’ve done it!).

 

From the treasure trove I’ve chosen a performance from Dublin in 2015 where if you can’t see the muses of fire above his head you can certainly feel their presence.

What Van Morrison adds to the grand tradition he inherited is the product of his own unique Celtic soul: his gift for being at the dead centre of a song while being absolutely outside it at the same time.

So he is both hot and cool.

A relentless seeker and a still contemplative.

A dweller on the threshold.

Denny Laine (Moody Blues) & Bessie Banks – ‘Go Now!’

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Almost all of us have faced that moment. That moment. The moment when you finally realise that it really is over. That no longer are you one of two. That the gilded future you were walking so confidently into is now a bomb strewn wasteland.

And, it’s all you can do not to break down right there. Not to scream and scream again – Why! Why! Who! Who! Oh you’d better get ready for; the blind denial, the lacerating anger, the shameless, shameful pleading, the empty bottle of Gin, cant lift your head above the pillow depression and, eventually, eventually, the bruised, well, ‘that’s that then’ weary acceptance.

Of course, there’s a song for every one of these stations of the romantic cross. No Jukebox would be complete without a slew of drive you to tears, (sitting in the bar you’ve already been driven to drink!) rip your heart apart ballads. I’ll leave it to you to count how many stations/stages you are returned to listening here today.

As Christmas Cracker 2 The Jukebox is featuring a superlative break up song from 1964, ‘Go Now’ in stellar versions by Bessie Banks and The Moody Blues, the latter featuring one of the most under appreciated singers of the era, Denny Laine. [Day 2 from last year’s Christmas Cornucopia featuring Eartha Kitt’s seriously sexy ‘Santa Baby’ and a deliriously enjoyable cajun version of, ‘Silent Night’ can be found here http://wp.me/p4pE0N-50%5D

First up Bessie Banks tremendous original as issued by Leiber&Stoller’s Tiger/Blue Cat labels. The song was written (with Milton Bennett) by Bessie’s then husband, Larry Banks, a Brooklyn born veteran of the Rhythm and Blues vocal group scene (checkout his classic with the Four Fellows, ‘Soldier Boy’ from 1955).

I love the bruised dignity with which Bessie sings, ‘Go Now’ especially her defiant, let’s face the facts, A cappella introduction to the song. I love Gary Sherman’s beautifully measured arrangement which incorporates gospel piano, mournful horns and emotion swelling backup vocals led by the always excellent Cissy Houston.

I love the way the record and Bessie’s vocal grows and grows in emotional power without ever collapsing into hysteria. ‘Go Now’ is all the more effective as a heart-breaker becauseof its heroic restraint and illustration of how shattering it is to know that you are still in love even as you have to say Go Now!’

Only when your lover has closed the door can you let those tears you’ve been holding back flow and flow and flow.Bessie’s version of, ‘Go Now’ was released in January 1964 and was a top 40 hit on the R&B charts. However, it became a much more substantial hit through the cover by The Moody Blues which was issued in November that same year.

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The Moody’s take on the song hit the Number One spot in the UK while making the Top Ten in America. In the early 60s a constant flow of great American records came across the Atlantic in the cases of keen eared collectors before being pounced upon by groups seeking songs they really sink their musical teeth into.

It was Denny Laine, at that time the lead guitarist and main singer with The Moody Blues who knew immediately on hearing, ‘Go Now’ that it would suit his glorious plaintive vocal style and that the band: Clint Warwick (bass), Mike Pinder (piano), Ray Thomas (Woodwinds/percussion) and Graham Edge (drums) could come up with a distinctive arrangement which would prove an irresistible pop hit.

 

This is a much more assertive, damn and blast your eyes, version of the song benefitting from the spooky unintentionally distorted piano (of course in the history of popular music many a great record is born of unintended distortions!) and a very English layered vocal chorale sound.

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Most of all this version wins you through the magnificence of Denny Laine’s lead vocal which brilliantly evokes the bewilderment, outrage and exhaustion of the spurned lover. Denny barely seems to take a breath as his vocal flows magisterially through the song sweeping us away until we are left beached and emotionally wrung out as the last notes fade away.

I hope you all spend Christmas fast in the love of your loved ones and that you do not find yourself forced to summon up ‘Go Now’ to describe your situation ever again.

Notes:

Larry Banks – in addition to his work with The Four Fellows became beloved of Deep Soul aficionados through his work as writer and producer with The Cavaliers, The Geminis, TheExciters and with his second wife Jaibi (Joan Bates).

You can explore his work through Ace Records’ ‘Larry Banks’ Family Soul Allbum’

The Moody Blues – I highly recommend their debut, ‘The Magnificent Moodies’ when they were still an R&B beat group evolving into a kaleidoscopic pop outfit. Throughout the album Denny Laine’s vocals are breathtaking. One listen to his soaring coda to, ‘From The Bottom Of My Heart’ should make you a sworn devotee!

Denny Laine – after leaving The Moody’s and before joining Paul McCartney’s Wings Denny recorded a series of singles with his own, ‘Electric String Band’ featuring string players from the Royal Academy Music School.

I have great affection for their second single, ‘Catherine’s Wheel/Too Much In Love’ but their debut single, ‘Say You Don’t Mind/Ask The People’ is to my mind one of the great,’lost classics’ of the 1960s.

Some may know, ‘Say …’ through the early 70s hit version by Colin Blunstone. But, trust me, do yourself a favour and seek out the wondrous original featuring yet another great Denny Laine vocal.

Mickey & Sylvia, Everything but the Girl : ‘Love Is Strange’

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‘Love’s not Time’s fool, through rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom’.

(William Shakespeare)

‘In Spain, the best upper sets do it
Lithuanians and Letts do it
Let’s do it, let’s fall in love’

(Cole Porter)

‘And in the end, the love you take
Is equal to the love you make’

(Lennon/MacCartney)

Love, despite the wisdom enshrined in The Beatles, ‘All You Need Is Love’ is not ALL you need – shelter, good health and enough food to feed your family are also necessary components of the life we would all wish to lead.

That said nothing is more necessary for life to flourish than the experience of love which acts as a kind of spiritual and emotional battery affording you the resilience to face the daily vicissitudes of life.

The song I have chosen to feature on the Jukebox today is the pop/rhythm and blues classic, ‘Love is Strange’.

It was in November 1956 that Mickey (Baker) and Sylvia (Vanderpool) had their incandescent take on the song issued as a 45 on Bob Rolontz’s Groove label.

It made an immediate mark on its time ascending to Number 1 in the R&B charts and just missing the national top 10 of the pop charts.

The song has been included in the Grammy Hall Of Fame and has featured in numerous films – most famously in, ‘Dirty Dancing’.

What a record!

As soon as the stylus hits the vinyl this is a guaranteed massive hit as Mickey Baker’s brilliant guitar intro explodes from the radio or Jukebox speakers brooking no inattention (guitar players all over the globe were instantly sent reeling and bound to a course of finger busting hours attempting to match Mickey here).

Love Is Strange prominently features Mickey’s razor sharp, irresistibly insistent, shining silver blues licks which continue to flash and gleam throughout the duration of the record.

Mickey was a technically accomplished player who had no problem melding bolero and calypso rhythms here to make the song glide and flow so beautifully.

The duet vocal is charming and unabashedly erotic with Sylvia’s imploring youthful female tones being matched with Mickey’s masculine forcefulness.

Perhaps, as so often happens in life, it is the hunter who gets captured by the game!

Neither Mickey nor Sylvia were great singers but that only adds to the allure of their performance. It’s clear that they are in the grip of a force stronger and stranger than themselves.

Love, as they embody in their performance here, is something you never want to lose once you’ve had it.

You never want to quit though time may toll that you may have just put yourself in the way of an awful fix. You are in this fix once you realise that love is indeed more important than money in the hand and though it can give you the thrills of a roller-coaster it is far too important to classed merely as a game.

Apart from Mickey’s stellar guitar work the most memorable passage in the record is the flirtatious conversation between Mickey and Sylvia about how you should most effectively call your lover to your side.

Sylvia’s vocal here with its witty mixture of urgent command and come-hither mellifluousness would surely have any errant swain frantically scrambling towards her at top speed!

As Mickey takes the record on home with his final guitar flourishes you sense that the couple will now deliriously continue their mating dance long into the night.

Mickey and Sylvia’s record has inspired scores of cover version in many musical genres in the decades since it was issued.

Today here on the Jukebox I want to draw your attention to a characteristically gorgeous version from 1992 by the English duo of Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn known collectively as, ‘Everything But The Girl’.

The flawless marriage of guitar, strings and voices on this track provides the listener with seamless pleasure.

I hear this version evoking a drowsy, warm English summer meadow atmosphere. As the trees bend in the light breeze you can almost hear the distant call of the Thrush, the Blackbird and the Nightingale.

Somewhere, off to the side, the mayflies harmonise as they too seek to engage in the strange mysteries of love.

Everything But The Girl are distinguished as writers and performers by a rare combination of musical and emotional intelligence.

With their take on, ‘Love Is Strange’ they simultaneously suggest an edenic innocence and a reflective, almost rueful, over-the-shoulder look back at that former paradise from the vantage point of a later maturity.

Tracey Thorn has a heart-winning voice that convinces by its modesty of expression.

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As she sings you feel you have been privileged to eavesdrop as she spins out silken threads of song. She is adept at gently inviting the listener to ponder the stories and range of emotions contained in her songs so that you may be surprised at how deeply they have entered your consciousness.

Ben Watt quiet excellence as a musician, songwriter and harmonist gives their work together a longevity and depth of field that will repay close attention.

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Poets, Princes, Paupers and regular folks like you and me will always dream about, sing about and gaze wonderingly into the night sky pondering the eternal mystery of love. All I can do in conclusion is to echo Bob Dylan and say:

‘Love is all there is, it makes the world go around
Love and only love it can’t be denied
No matter what you think about it
You just won’t be able to do without it …’

Notes:

Who wrote, ‘Love Is Strange’?

As the saying goes, ‘Where there’s a hit there’s a writ!’

Most authorities agree that the glistening guitar riff threaded through the song owes a lot to the work of the flamboyantly talented blues guitarist Jody Williams especially on the record, ‘Billy’s Blues’ by Billy Stewart.

Jody was a protege of the great Bo Diddley who is generally credited with authorship of, ‘Love Is Strange’ (though under the name of his wife Ethel Smith for tangled business reasons!).

Bo did in fact record the song first – some 5 months before Mickey&Sylvia though they claim to be responsible for the lyrics!

Also Bo’s version was not released until the 21st century.

So record label students may see everybody (except poor Jody) credited at one time or another. Since the record has sold millions of copies this matters!

Other Versions:

I listened to too many versions of this song before writing this post!

Only two would enter my personal pantheon of greatness.

The first is the magnificently sung version by the Everly Brothers which shows them yet again to be untouchably the greatest duet singers of all time.

The second is a an unutterably poignant, fragmentary solo version lasting less than two minutes, sung by Buddy Holly in his New York City apartment in the last months before his untimely death in early 1959.

It would take a stony heart not to be moved to tears by this performance.

Mickey Baker (McHouston Baker):

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Mickey was certainly one of the most gifted and adaptable guitarists of his era. To take just two examples of his enduring musical impact consider his timeless work on the Coasters, ‘I’m A Hog For You Baby’ and Big Joe Turner’s, ‘Shake, Rattle And Roll’.

Mickey spent many years in France where his fluent musicianship was much appreciated.

In addition to his impressive track record as a guitarist for hire, often with the Atlantic and Savoy labels, he also produced intriguing LP’s with fellow European residents Champion Jack Dupree and Memphis Slim. Mickey Baker was a class act.

Sylvia Robinson (nee Vanderpool)

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Sylvia (1936-2011) was a very sharp woman who had success as a writer, performer, producer and label boss in over half a century of involvement in the music business.

In addition to fostering the careers of The Moments (Sexy Mama, Look At Me I’m In Love’) and Shirley and Company (the wondrous dance floor filler, ‘Shame, Shame, Shame’) she had a great fat hit of her own with, ‘Pillow Talk’ which won worldwide sales in 1972/73.

As if that was not enough she founded and was the early driving force behind the Sugar Hill label which can fairly claim to have introduced the rap genre to the world with the records of The Sugar Hill Gang, ‘Rapper’s Delight’ and Grandmaster Flash with the still potent, ‘The Message’.

Everything But The Girl:

EBTG functioned as a band between 1982 and the end of the century after which both Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn have pursued intriguing solo projects (though remaining together as a couple in their private life).

The EBGT catalogue, reissued by Demon/Edsel in the UK, contains many treasures I urge you to explore.

Equally their solo work has yielded impressive results.

I am especially taken with Tracey’s CDs, the deeply felt, ‘Love and It’s Opposite’ and her idiosyncratic Christmas record, ‘Tinsel and Lights’. Ben’s solo record, ‘Hendra’ the first he has issued for three decades has a corpus of affecting and beautifully crafted songs which linger long in the mind.

Both Ben and Tracey are accomplished writers of memoir.

Tracey’s, ‘Bedsit Disco Queen’ is wonderfully alive, witty and keenly intelligent. Ben’s, ‘Patient’ is a clear eyed, thoughtful and moving examinations of his own period of serious ill-health (which he is now happily recovered from).

His latest book, ‘Romany and Tom’ is a moving, emotionally searching, history of the lives of his parents which does them great honour.