Donny Hathaway - Jealous Guy

Before I heard this song, I guess I was technically living, but I’m not sure I would call it a life. Things just up and done changed, all at the hands of one Donald Edward Hathaway, a Chicago-born songwriter who penned many a classic and delivered many cover versions, including this John Lennon cover, that easily eclipsed the original.

I simply lack the adjectives to describe how great this version of this song is. The guitar tone could not be better and is the aural equivalent of a skilfully executed handjob. The way the piano is mic’d up is bang on. That snare sounds like a chubby stevedore slapping the side of a tent with a raw t-bone steak. Don’t even get me started on Donny’s vocals. Okay, get me started on them: he is barfing shined-up silk all over my eardrums and I don’t want him to stop. Ever. What the fuck, why aren’t people running screaming in the streets about this song? I don’t want to put to fine a point on it, but how good is this song? Rumor* tells that the gold record contained within the Voyager 1 spacecraft, to be played by any intelligent life that recovers the spacecraft as evidence of our refinement, sophistication and overall worth as a species, only contains this song, playing on a loop forevermore. 

‘Jealous Guy’ can be found on a Live album by Donny Hathaway, inexplicably titled ‘Donny Hathaway - Live’, which - I should mention - he is not. He jumped out of a window and then he died. Shortly before his death, Donny complained that his brain had been hooked up to a machine by white people who were using it to steal his music. Donny reportedly ALSO suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, so that’s really two good reasons to be bummed out, which he was, as he also battled bouts of deep depression. 

In an odd bit of trivia, Donny also wrote and performed the theme for the television series ‘Maude’, which rocketed Bea Arthur to national fame, and to the status of sex symbol in many of my midafternoon reveries.

Now, I’ve been accused of often speaking too delicately; of trafficking in riddles; beating around the bush even - so hopefully my meaning is clear when I say that I fully plan to put it to my old lady, real slow and meaningful like, on the floor, while listening to this whole record. 

*Patently false.

Yesterday, Bert Jansch skipped off into oblivion. The below was originally posted on April 12th, 2009. Re-posted as, well, you’re not going to find a better Bert Jansch song, and it seems appropriate. “That death itself is freedom for evermore.” RIP.

Bert Jansch - Needle of Death

Bert Jansch was a 60’s Scottish strum’n’croon type whose early adult life was pretty action-packed.  In his early twenties, he married a 16-year old acquaintance in order to allow her to travel with him, as her age prevented her from travelling alone.  They soon split, and Bert was forced to return to Glasgow after contracting dystentery in Tangiers, a small bit of foreshadowing of how shit-soaked the band Tangiers would become 40 years later.  If you ask me, dystentery could be what caused the breakup.  Dystentery is apparently a bit of a turn-off for the ladies.  Although it’s likely quite an uncomfortable condition that could be described to firing liquid through the eye of a needle and then dying, this song is not about dysentery, but rather about smack.  You know, junk.  Horse.  For my dollar twenty-five, this jerks a tear a lot more effectively than Neil Young’s ‘Needle and the Damage Done’. The picture below isn’t the cover of the album this song appeared on, but look at the puppy.  Cute right?  That puppy died tragically of a heroin overdose at the age of 27.

Blackrock - Yeah, Yeah

You’d better buckle the fucking chinstrap on your novelty afro, because your wig is about to get blown back. BLACKROCK (emphasis mine) were part of a movement that looked to capitalize on the commercial success of Jimi Hendrix with some pseudo-psychedelic (read: reverb and noodly, meandering guitar solos)  singles that still managed to remain firmly rooted in beat-based, soulful music. The end result is what you hear here - a barn burner of thundering piano and drums that makes me want to run and buy a bible so I can jump out my chair waving it and yell “Oooh lawd”. 

So, smack the play button, because as Ley often says to the ladies, you’re about to experience the best 4 seconds of your life - specifically, the break in this jam at 0:54 to 0:58, which you may recognize as the main hook in Black Milk’s ‘Deadly Medley’ (recommended listening as well). Goddamn, that break makes me want to punch a hole in the wall of the Apollo Theatre’s green room, MC Serch style.

Today’s gem, originally from a 45 that was b/w the equally fearsome ‘Bad Cloud Overhead’ was also featured on the compilation “Chains & Black Exhaust” which traffics solely in this type of pseudo-soul meets garage shit, so if this has you adjusting your dockers, you know where you can find more.

Aretha Franklin - Cry Like A Baby

As reported all over the place, Nick Ashford of songwriting duo Ashford and Simpson went on to his reward on Monday. My stance on Ashford and Simpson may not be a popular one - I much prefer them as songwriters than performers, but whether you agree or not, you can’t deny they wrote an imperial pantload of great songs, a metric fuckton of halfway decent songs, and well, a lot of other songs too. The list of songs they penned that you undoubtedly know is endless; but a couple that jump out - ‘Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing’ (recorded by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell), ‘California Soul’ (originally recorded by the 5th Dimension but perhaps best known lately for the Marlena Shaw version), ‘You’re All I Need to Get By’, which just fucking slays by the way - the list goes on. 

Ashford and Simpson were a husband/wife duo as well, which is a fantasy entertained by just about any male musician that hasn’t actually experienced it. Not that you ever take my advice anyway, but I strongly recommend against, how can I put this delicately, fucking anyone you work with. You would be better served to tongue kiss the next homeless person you see. What are my credentials to offer such prescriptive advice, you ask? The tracks of my muhfuggin tears, y’all.

Anyhow, one of my favorite bits of Ashford trivia is that beyond barfing out countless kilohectares of songs of varying quality, he also reportedly played tambourine on ‘hundreds’ of Motown and other sessions. I just love that visual; I mean look at the picture below, and think of this well manicured, luxuriously-maned swarthy fella loitering in the studio, forcing his tambourine work onto anything being recorded in there. “Who’s that?”, one studio tech might ask. “We’re not sure, but he won’t leave, and he just keeps playing that fucking tambourine and yelling ‘Keep rolling’. There isn’t even any tape in the machine.” Sort of a proto Rick James, really. Cocaine. It’s a helluva drug. 

This little raw nugget of soulful goodness, penned by Ashford and Simpson for Aretha Franklin and released in 1966 (actually her last single for Columbia) is a well written song with a clever inversion of the song’s title in the last chorus, with a bit of a non-traditional chord progression that definitely perked up my ears. The production on this is also effin’ great. This is the 2010 remaster (don’t hate) but they really did a great job on it. RIP Ashford, you cowardly lion-lookin’, songwritin’ motherfucker.

Fig 1.1: Disco karate (artist’s rendering)

Los Rondels - La La, Te Amo

Oh, hey girl. You look so healthy with that late summer sunkissed look. What’s that? A picnic? Well, I don’t see why not. And how about a little reinterpreted Philly Soul in your earhole on this shimmering summer afternoon? Sound good? SSShhhhh, baby. Of course it sounds good. 

Today’s offering is a spanished-up cover of the Delfonics original, both released in 1968. I highly recommend you listen to the original (here) as well. It’s friggin’ fantastic, this one just has that extra little bit of.. of.. is that cilantro perhaps?.. to it. This version was released on a 7” by Mexican supergroup (well, group) ‘Los Rondels’,  which if my Spanish isn’t too rusty, I believe translates roughly to ‘The Rondels’, not to be confused with the 3 other groups named ‘The Rondels’ (or ‘Rondells’) between the 50’s and 60’s. Seriously, it was a popular name for some reason.

The song’s title and subject matter stretch the limits of credulity, though. The chorus. In my experience, sayin’ “La-La” isn’t typically accepted as a substitute for saying “I love you”; at best it’s a passable stall tactic - but I suppose it’s possible the narrator in the song is suffering from mild aphasia, perhaps due to a stroke. As the listener, we’re left to read between the lines quite a bit, to be honest. 

One of the many bands named The Rondels. 

S.E. Rogie - Please Go Easy With Me

Before the lovely lilting lullabies of S.E. Rogie entered my life, wine and palms only evoked images of lonely, drunken self-abuse - or as I call it, Lonely Drunken Self-Abuse Fridays. However, ‘palm wine music’ is actually a whole genre of ambling, vaguely Trinadadian-by way of-West Africa music, named after booze made from the sap of palm trees - palm wine. A delightful-sounding tincture I’ve never had the personal pleasure of trying as I value my eyesight and have higher standards (THUNDERBIRD OR GTFO), palm wine was often imbibed at gatherings where fellas would ululate and fiddle with acoustic guitars. So now, when I think of palm wine, I think of drunk folks and palm trees, which just makes me think of Nick Nolte and the smell of wet terrycloth. Just thought I’d pop the cap on my brains and let you have a look around. 

S.E. Rogie, born Sooliman Ernest Rogers, found quite a bit of notoriety outside of his native Sierra Leone, and as Leo DiCaprio might quip while squinting, he achieved heightened status and the accompanying ‘bling bling’ despite coming from a background steeped in ‘bling bang’. Rogie moved from Africa to the San Francisco Bay area in 1973, and during that time he was the recipient of numerous awards - including recognition from the United States Congress & Senate for his ‘contributions to the American way of life’. 1970’s America, history’s ill-remembered, puke-soaked societal urinal, briefly abandoned apple pie and baseball as the embodiment of American values and embraced ‘portuguese guitars’, ‘fermented palm tree oil’ and ‘Nick Nolte / wet terrycloth’ as their new cultural sigils, sort of like the time you were Buddhist for a bit after you came back from Thailand, Ward.

Rogie’s last album, ‘Dead Men Don’t Smoke Marijuana’ was released shortly before his death; cementing in the western lexicon the use of the term ‘Rogie’ as a colloquialism for ‘marijiuana cigarette’. At least by me. Hey, please go easy with me man - I just hit this fat S.E. Rogie and I’m totally bling bangin’. 

S.E. Rogie (right). Portuguese guitar, also named S.E. Rogie (left)

Leland - I’ve Got Some Happiness

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Japanese and insane, it’s Leland Yoshitsu, perhaps better known simply as ‘Leland’. Leland’s penchant for capes, tights, and black nail polish (providing style cues for Nuno Bettencourt, obvs.) might lead many to wonder if he were a Japanese superhero able to boil ramen with exceedingly narrow lasers emitted from his eyes, or perhaps dispense dirty pairs of panties to businessmen with heretofore unknown levels of efficiency, but no - he was just a regular dude, wandering the 1970’s Bay Area streets and taking weekly ads out in BAM! Magazine.

“I’ve Got Some Happiness”, taken from the album This Is My World (1976) features a somewhat jumpy, femme-tacular Leland playing all the instruments save for the drums, and includes a jangly, shred-tastic guitar solo. This is arguably the most tuneful offering from This Is My World, and would go on to be re discovered by a new generation of dickheads who read Pitchfork when it was covered by the notable band of ovary-havin’ menstruatin’ minstrels, Puro Instinct. They’re a girl group, is what I’m trying to say. I gave their version a listen for the purposes of science. Pitchfork labels it Dream Pop, which I take to mean that it sounds like they’re playing this in their fucking sleep. That’s a confirmed burn, FYI - but really it’s brutal. I’m not too familiar with their ouevre per se (that’s foreign; twice!) but I can say however that after reviewing some of their press stills that I would like to hug them while lying down; the singer in particular.

Leland is still pumping out quirky, fuzzy jams and even has a MySpace page, so perhaps he does indeed have superpowers and has travelled here from the year 2003. Check it out here. 

Fig 1.1: HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII YA!!! *guitar solo*

Ken Boothe - Down By The River

While it doesn’t have its own parade, its members are legion and its influence pervasive. Yep, like it or not, misogyny is an alternative lifestyle all of its own. We here at the ol’ Deadly Deaths Underwater Megaplex don’t subscribe to this worldview personally, mind you - women are to be cherished, to be thanked for their delicious sandwiches, to have their hair surreptitiously sniffed in the elevator, names written and encircled in hearts on the outside of Trapper Keepers. Women Appreciatin’ is central to our platform, as you’re likely aware if you’ve read the pamphlets we’ve been pamphleteering with.

So with that proviso, I humbly submit for your Saturday afternoon consideration, a jaunty little roots reggae number about shooting your old lady. In or around the face, possibly. With a gun. In close proximity to a tributary.

Originally performed by everybody’s favorite disheveled smelly uncle Neil Young, who apparently wrote it while feverish in bed, ‘Down By The River’ is one of many takes on the age old trope of a guy killing a girl due to infidelity. Oh, those mischievous, XX-chromosome havin’, cheatin’ wimmins!  Studio One stalwart Ken “Mr. Rocksteady” Boothe made quite a career of reggae-fying popular tracks by other musicians, and turns in a fuzzed-out version of this classic, which kinda rules if you ask me. Great music to fly into a jealous rage and make life-altering mistakes to.

Boothe pictured shortly before shooting his baby.

Sven Libaek - Misty Canyon

What is it about library music that’s so fascinating? Its obscurity, the fact that so much of it was written to evoke specific emotions  - in this case, ‘Horny Danger’ - ? The endless parade of unsung and forgotten heroes it has left behind? I dunno, but deep thoughts like this are worth considering while edging up the volume on this little piece of aural pantyhose from Sven Libaek. Let me fix you an old fashioned, and let’s discuss. You good?

“Misty Canyon” appeared on the 1970’s “My Thing”, on Peer International, who were a pretty interesting label historically. Founded by Ralph Peer, Peer International trafficked in oddities at first, and in addition to selling your grandparents the soundtracks to many of their highballs-and-pall-malls soirees, they also had a hefty catalogue of library music; music sold generally in bulk as background fill, for use in television and radio as moodsetters or to fill space beneath a spoken track. You’re right, poindexter - library music is a pretty fascinating relic from the heady days of ‘music as physical property’, which we’ve written about a few times here.

There’s a lot to like about Misty Canyon, not to be confused with Foggy Gulch, a venereal disease peculiar to those inhabiting New Zealand’s highlands. The snare! The sweet, sweet divebombing horn arrangement. That snare again! That bassline basically left me walking funny and I think I’m pregnant. This song starts off smooth and harmless, but before you know what happened, you’re covered in goat’s blood in a remote warehouse, if you know what I mean.

Sven Libaek saw renewed interest in his body of work beginning in 2006 as Australia’s Votary Records re-released several 45s and retrospectives, but for every Sven Libaek there are literally thousands of musicians who plied their trade providing backdrops to everything from radio ads to The Price Is Right whose names and memories are lost, like… tears in rain.

Gregory Isaacs - Front Door

Earlier this year, reggae legend and possessor of the best nickname ever, Gregory “The Cool Ruler” Isaacs passed away, and it’s only now that I can write about it without tearing up, and definitely not that I just didn’t get around to posting one of his many amazing songs. Throughout his multi-decade career, Gregory Isaacs dropped more gems than a jeweler with Parkinson’s. In true DD:LD fashion though, he wasn’t just a prolific and relatively unsung reggae hero, he was also a world-class badass, possessing both well-documented ‘struggles’ with cocaine and crack, and a penchant for illegal firearms, which all told netted him a toothless mouth and 27 arrests, and contributed to his early passing at 49 this October. Don’t take this the wrong way, Jamaica, but to be a notable drug user in Kingston is like being the smelliest guy in Brooklyn. It’s an award nobody wants, but is impressive nonetheless. Jamaica is often portrayed as a sort of seemingly idyllic paradise with an inescapable, menacing undercurrent of violence where illicit substances are ubiquitous. That’s because it is. It rules there, you should check it out.

‘Front Door’, from 1981’s ‘More Gregory’ is Gregory’s take on the musical monomyth of the unpleasant breakup. It’s a story close to my heart; packing everything you own into a shopping bag and moving out of your old lady’s house because your relationship sucks, and maybe settling for the next thing that crosses your path rather than being lonely. Now that’s what I call romance! So much of what made the music of Gregory Isaacs notable is here on display in this classic - almost uncomfortably lascivious moaning, a dozy, dawdling backbeat, awesome little synthy burbles, and the dulcet tones of the Lonely Lover, Mr. Gregory Isaacs.

I’m not trying to suggest that I’m more fabulous than you (I am, check out this scarf!), but I’ve been to Jamaica a few times and one thing that always strikes me is the ratio of their creative output to their size. They’re to music what Sweden is to cellphones. There are dozens of bonafide international stars that call this relatively tiny island home, and just driving down the road you’ll see sign after sign for small events featuring talent like John Holt, Marcia Griffiths, etc. It was at one of these small shows that I was lucky enough to see Gregory Isaacs in 2009. I couldn’t feel my face at the time but he really kicked my lilly-white ass. True story: I was sitting having lunch in Negril the next day and Gregory Isaacs walked in with the largest Jamaican I have ever seen and sat down. I nearly shit my pants, but that was really more a factor of my diet at the time. I was excited too, though.

Gregory Isaacs, The Amish Statesman of Reggae

Ogyatanaa Show Band - Disco Africa

What can I tell you about these guys? Sampled by Madlib, remixed by Quantic, the original was a pretty rare print that first appeared this side of the pond of the “Ghana Soundz 2” compilation. The leads me to believe that they’re from Ghana. There’s often a shameful lack of information out of the ‘tubes about African music, which frankly, is racist, and if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Attica!

As the title suggests, you’re getting a hodgepodge, a gumbo even, a West African peanut soup if you will, of Afrobeat and Disco served up here. That bassline is so fucking primal it makes me want to slaughter mammoths and eat placentas, yet the congas make me want to have a hoity-toity dinner party and swap wives. I’m conflicted, but either way I’d like this song played during the consummation of my next marriage. WHO ELSE IS HUNGRY?

The Soul Clan - That’s How It Feels

There’s sure to be a lot of Solomon Burke standards adrift out there in the ether over the last couple of days since his sudden death, on an airplane in the Netherlands, no less. It’s both suitably classy and fitting that he would die while being lifted so closely to the heavens - throughout his life, Burke skirted the line between the glitter and glamour of showbusiness while staying true to his faith and serving his community. He also reportedly knocked out 21 kids while doing all this. He also had a really rad cape. If even one of these facts was part of my eulogy, I’d be pleased as punch.

We wrote a bit about Solomon here but left a few notable elements out - he was a successful child preacher in Phildelphia, even hosting his own radio show at the tender age of 12, worked as an embalmer, and ultimately gave up the glamour of psalmin’ and embalmin’ to record some landmark songs bridging the worlds of soul, rock and pop in the 60’s.

This gem was the output of a soul ‘supergroup’, The Soul Clan, which included Ben E. King, Arthur Conley, Joe Tex, Burke and Don Covay. The idea was Covay’s, and the idea was to channel their starpower into a way to help their communities, build up black-owned businesses, and generally do a little bit more for the world than spend their royalty checks on gold chains and diamond-crusted spinners. Kind of awesome and audacious that an all-black group with designs on power for their people would named their group a ‘clan’. Hoods hats off to that, fellas!

RIP Solomon. I like your chances at the gates, pal. Especially in that cape.

This song doesn’t come from the 1971 ‘Electronic Magnetism’ release, but man, tell me there’s a better file photo than this.

Glen Campbell - By The Time I Get To Phoenix

I could stand here (my computer chair was stolen by gypsys) and talk about Glen Campbell; touring member of the 60’s Beach Boys (even recorded on Pet Sounds, filling in for the pudgy and paranoid BWillz), session musician in Phil Spector’s revolving stable, his torrid romance with Tanya Tucker, his arrests, his love of cocaine, his tragic yet beautiful fall from grace and continuing claw back upwards, but fuck all that. Jimmy Webb, the songwriter behind this among countless other gems, is playing in a 200-seat establishment, in my port of call, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, tomorrow night - so you’ll forgive me if I use way more commas than is generally considered correct, as I just shat your pants.

For the uninitiated, Jimmy Webb is Western civilization’s preeminent songwriter. Usually, one would qualify this with modifiers such as ‘in my opinion’ or ‘among the’. Anyhow, fuck those poindexters. Good songwriting is about evoking whole worlds within the listener’s imagination while using as few words as possible, and repeating these words 3 times, and cocaine. What took Joseph Conrad 10,000 words to say, Jimmy Webb can vomit forth in 200.

Jimmy Webb has seen a lot of love here, and “Phoenix” isn’t the best song he’s written, by a stretch - that honour belongs to “Requiem 820 Latham”, the best song anybody’s ever written about anything. That said, this guy has so many aural arrows in his quiver that we could easily spin this off into another blog, a 227 to Deadly Death’s Jeffersons, The Worldwide Jimmy Webb. Okay, forgive me. I’m excited.

Jimmy Webb. Not pictured: holy fuck.

Giannis Spanos - Iliovasilema

Iliovasilema, Greek for ‘bass guitar lessons’* tells the story of 4 Greco-Roman wrestlers, who meet as children in a charming fishing village, and over carafes of white wine and olives forge a bond, swearing to save the village’s rec center from this really mean land developer by competing against each other in the only arena they know: the arena. Honor binds them together - but will defending it tear them apart? Find out when I do some actual research!

As it turns out, “Iliovasilema” is from Spanos’ score to the 1971 film “Ekeino to kalokairi”, which according to the handy Greek-To-English guide written on this stolen placemat from Mr. Souvlaki’s Family Pork Hut translates to “Ekeino to kaolkairi”. My best guess is that Ekeino is a person, and it seems that kaolkairi is a place, and this movie is about a person going to a place. Hey, what am I, a treasure-hunting university professor specializing in dead languages?

Moving on - for the completist, here’s a clip from the film. In this scene, a presumably drowned woman is massaged sensually, (SPOLER ALERT) while a girl builds sand castles. Greco-necro then puts on his sunglasses, and cut to dramatic voiceover. I think YouTube commenter purplevoxeater said it best when they quipped “Να ήταν κακός οιωνός η ταινία; Κάπως έτσι έμελλε να φύγει από την ζωή η Έλενα”. Amen, purplevoxeater.

*Actually Greek for sunset, but man, whoever this unibrowed chap is plucking the ol’ 4 string, he’s amazing.