Imagine that you were talking with someone who’d been blind all his life.
How would you describe this guy’s act?
Wayne Cochran & the C.C. Riders, live (TV broadcast [The Jackie Gleason Show]), 1968
Unlike Aretha Franklin, she doesn’t have a big, commanding voice. But just as some actors are able to do as much (or more) with less, so, too, with singers. And when it comes to expressing heartache and vulnerability, a voice that’s smaller, less powerful isn’t necessarily a liability—it can be a strength.
Ann Peebles
“(You Keep Me) Hanging On” (1973 [album], 1974 [single])
*****
“I Feel Like Breaking Up Somebody’s Home” (1972)
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“I Can’t Stand The Rain” (1973)
(Yeah, I posted this last clip before, when Willie Mitchell passed away. [And the next day I posted a track that samples it.])
Sometimes you’re not in the mood for subtlety.
Or complexity.
Or anything else that’s got more than one syllable.
You want sweat.
Funk.
That clenched scream: “Uhowwwww!”
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Wilson Pickett, live, Germany, 1968
“Everybody Needs Someone To Love”
*****
“I’m In Love”
*****
“Ninety-Nine And A Half (Won’t Do)”
*****
“Mustang Sally”
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lagniappe
“We didn’t make enough money to press our suits,” Pickett reminisced when asked about the Violinaires, the gospel group he formed shortly after moving to Detroit from his native Alabama. “We would sing three programs a Sunday at different churches. We’d sing our hearts out, and so we done sweated up that suit three times — from the socks all the way up.
“The sisters would get up and they’d put a penny or a dime on the table and say ‘Ya’ll boys sho’ can sing.’ And we’d come in the back, and they got all the chicken baskets and pies and stuff to eat, and even occasionally one of the sisters would take you home.”
The young Pickett soon caught the eye not only of a sister or two, but also of the Falcons, a local R&B group with whom he later wrote and sang his first hit song, “I Found a Love,” in 1962.
“I was scared because these people says that if you leave God and go to the devil, you’re going to go to hell. You see, I wanted to sing gospel, but I wanted to make some money, too. So I said, ‘No I’ll never leave, I’ll never leave God.’ Until that evening that one of the Falcons came by and I was sitting on the back porch and I went down and tried it out. And from then on I told God, I looked up and I said, ‘I’m on my way this way — would You care to go with me? I’d really appreciate Your being with me. It’d make me feel better.’—Ken Emerson, “Wilson Pickett: Soul Man On Ice”
Presence, immediacy, feeling: the way his records sound, you’d swear they were nailed in just one take.
What higher compliment could you pay a record producer?
Willie Mitchell (March 23, 1928 – January 5, 2010)
*****
O.V. Wright, “A Nickel and A Nail” (1971)
*****
Ann Peebles, “I Can’t Stand the Rain” (1973)
*****
Syl Johnson, “Take Me To The River” (1975)
*****
Al Green, “Love and Happiness” (1977)
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lagniappe
Thank you so much, Richard. . . . Stay well and Happy New Year. Love, Sheila
(Sheila Jordan, 1/6/10, 9/28/09 [in response to an email letting her know she was being featured here])
Soul Music Festival/day 3 of 3
After following these guys onstage for several shows, Otis Redding said, “They’re making me work harder than I ever did in my life.”
After a few more shows: “I don’t ever want to see those two motherfuckers again.”
(quotes in Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music [1986])
Sam and Dave, “Hold On, I’m Coming,” live, Norway, 1966
Soul Music Festival/day 2 of 3
Buddy Holly, Patsy Cline, Stevie Ray Vaughan, this guy: if you could somehow revive all the folks who’ve died falling out of the sky, you’d have a hell of a band.
Otis Redding, “Try a Little Tenderness,” live, Norway, 1967
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give the drummer some/part 2
Listen to the double-time pattern Al Jackson begins playing at the start of the second verse (0:47): what a subtle, rippling urgency it creates.
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lagniappe
“[Otis would] keep pushing, and each time Al Jackson would go with him. He would enable the rest of the musicians to reach whatever Otis was trying for. Otis would record stripped to the waist. He put bath towels under his arms. He wanted those horn players live on the floor; he’d sing their parts to them and put that whole session together. Otis got a live feel that nobody else on that label [Stax] ever got.”—Jim Dickinson (in Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music [1986]; for more on Dickinson, see the 9/9/09 post)
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Bassist Duck Dunn (also in Guralnick’s book):
— “Otis would come in [the studio], and, boy, he’d just bring everybody up. ‘Cause you knew something was gonna be different. When Otis was there, it was just a revitalization of the whole thing. You wanted to play with Otis. He brought out the best in you. If there was a best, he brought it out. That was his secret.”
— “When you talked to him [Otis Redding], he was like you was. Then you see him on stage. Hey, there ain’t too many people wear the crown. Elvis wore it, and I guess Frank Sinatra wore it. And here he comes, and, boy, he wore it. He wore that halo. He knew it. He was a goddam star.”
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At Redding’s 1996 Whiskey A Go Go shows in Los Angeles, Bob Dylan “presented Redding with a prerelease copy of ‘Just Like A Woman,’ claiming his vocal approach had been Otis-inspired. ‘Otis’ appraisal of it,’ says [Phil] Walden, ‘was that it had too damn many words in it.'”—Carol Cooper
Soul Music Festival/day 1 of 3
“So there’s this black guy, see, and he walks onto the stage of a concert hall in Norway, and this guy starts singing, in this Norwegian concert hall, ‘Do you like good music, that sweet soul music,’ and . . .”
Arthur Conley, “Sweet Soul Music,” live, Norway, 1967
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give the drummer some
Listening to this performance, I’m reminded of what a terrific drummer Al Jackson was—how essential he was to the Memphis sound. Not only could he drive a band, hard, through the turnarounds (1:23-1:32, etc.); he could play with such lightness and buoyancy—just listen to what he does with the ride cymbal—that the groove floated (0:18-1:22, etc.).
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later note
One of the hazards of posting YouTube clips is that sometimes, as here, they disappear on you. But here (for the moment, anyway) is a shorter snippet from that same Arthur Conley performance (the times for the Al Jackson stuff referenced above are a little different here [the first turnaround, for instance, comes at 1:08-1:17]).
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lagniappe
“Memphis is an ugly place, but I love it. People who wouldn’t have stood a chance anywhere else were recorded here. And have traditionally been drawn here, because, I guess, it’s always been a center for crazy people.”—Jim Dickinson (in Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music [1986]; for more on Dickinson, see the 9/9/09 post)
music clip of the day 