254 plays
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)
377 plays
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
289 plays
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.
251 plays
Ohio Players - Funky Worm
I assumed Funky Worm was some sort of post-coital condition but as it turns out, the Ohio Players were referring to a literal worm that plays guitar ‘without any hands (pretty good I might add!)’. That’s not a misprint. ‘Funky Worm’ is a song about a worm that lives underground, is a musician, and is managed by an old woman only identified as ‘Granny’ who provides backing vocals on the song to boot. Finally, this story has been told! I can only imagine how much fucking blow was going around the studio while this idea was being cooked up. This song is notable for its use of the squiggly synthesizer lead that has resurfaced in both the many, many songs that have sampled it directly (N.W.A.’s ‘Dopeman’, Xzibit’s ‘Pussy Pop’ (!), Dr. Dre’s intro to ‘The Chronic’, to name a few) but also the many that have emulated its sound - it’s hard not to picture a caddy bouncing on hydraulics when that first synth lead kicks in, and I just poured out a sip of coffee for my dead homies.
Speaking of death, there was a popular rumour floating around about the Ohio Players that their song ‘Love Rollercoaster’, which uses rollercoasters as a metaphor for love - love has a long lineup, seats 20, makes you barf - contained the scream of a woman as she was being murdered. The band themselves willfully did not deny the rumour as it helped them sell records. It says a lot about the confusion of 1975 America that the idea of a song about how exciting love is that possibly contained a hidden recording of a woman’s murder was appealing to the masses. Again, blow. Lots of it.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment with Dr. Dre to get some sort of ointment for my chronic case of funky worm.
