THIS BLOG IS ABOUT 7" RECORDS ONLY. YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY. EVERY SONG IS CONVERTED TO MP3 FROM MY PERSONAL 45 COLLECTION, AND THERE'S NOT ONE THAT I WOULDN'T RECOMMEND YOU SEEKING OUT. ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDERS WHO DON'T WANT THEIR MUSIC HEARD HERE JUST LET ME KNOW, AND DOWN IT WILL COME. CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE.
Listen: Come And Play With Me In The Garden / John’s Children Come
True story: In the early 80′s, I did a weekly two radio hour show called Import/Export for the mainstream rock station in Rochester, WCMF. It was tucked away at midnight on Tuesdays, and in today’s market it’d be deemed as a specialty show, where all the bands/records that are left of center and on the way up get a weekly spin. It was loads of fun.
When the station decided to leave the building they’d been housed in since the 60′s to a much smaller location, their massive record library needed to be eliminated due to space restrictions. Oddly, instead of inviting the staff to help thin it out and take whatever you want, give it away to the needy, or super serve their listeners with a free for all, they instead chose to rent a dumpster and fill it daily until the massive library was eliminated over the course of a week.
On that particular Tuesday, I left the station somewhere around 3am, as I’d always stay awhile and visit with Roger McCall, who was my co-host and did the normal overnight shift that followed. I just couldn’t resist having a look into that dumpster. I must tell you, the area and parking lot were a touch daunting anyways. Being in a very quiet part of town, and not the nicest either, I always made a quick dash to the car.
In fact, I vividly remember getting in, starting it and just staring at the dumpster heaving with records. The junkie in me came out. But suddenly of equal concern was getting caught. Seriously. There was a security camera affixed to the entrance area to allow the dj’s a look at whoever rung the bell before buzzing them in and there’d been a stern directive that no one was to pilfer through the discarded records. Nonetheless, I got out of the car, approached the dumpster, opened the heavy lid, and the very top album, I swear, was ORGASM by John’s Children.
Now if you’re a collector, you are well aware that this is a very, very valuable record. In 1967, it was pressed up promotionally, a result of their one and only US single ‘Smashed Blocked’ becoming a hit on the west coast, even a Top 10 in LA, as well a Bubbling Under The Hot 100 BILLBOARD item (#102). Needless to say, the album title caused more resistance than it was worth and White Whale, the label, cancelled it’s release, hence it’s collectibility to this day.
I was purely convinced it was a set up but regardless of the ultimatum, I wasn’t leaving this record behind. By the time I arrived home, I was fairly comforted in realizing there probably wasn’t a person at the station, other than Roger, with much interest in something so obscure, and hence left my paranoia at the door.
A few years ago, Vicki Wickham rang and asked if I’d like to join her and Simon Napier-Bell, one time manager of John’s Children, and later Marc Bolan who was in the band’s lineup, for a lunch. Vicki is the best at these things, She’s fueled my record collecting habit for ages and is always looking out for me. It was a quite fun hour. In New York for a few days, he was happy to talk about his time with the band, providing I buy lunch, which I did. But sadly he informed me that when leaving the UK for Thailand, he tossed boxes of 7″ singles by John’s Children as well as Marc Bolan ‘A’ labels during his house clear out. It was a pretty sobering moment.
To think, in ’72, ‘I Am Woman’, a song about women’s rights, not only got airplay, but reached #1 on BILLBOARD’s Hot 100. With our US Presidential election only days away, a track like this might not get a chance to be heard for another four years if Romney wins. In fact, this blog might disappear for even saying that. Hopefully, you’ll all vote against such a threat.
Read about Helen Reddy on Wikipedia. Fascinating. Her first record deal in the US was with Fontana, but not until moving to Capitol did she get any traction. I recall Corinne and I being crazy about her around the time of ‘I Am Woman’, and standing for hours in the blazing sun to watch her up close at the New York State Fair summer ’74. Not only did we love the singles, but were knocked out by her words at the Grammy’s, whereby she concluded her acceptance speech famously thanking God “because She makes everything possible”.
Listen: Break On Through (To The Other Side) / The Doors Break
Summer nights in July bring back a handful of records I recall from ’67, when the AM Top 40′s in many major markets were feeling a change in the air and responded to it on the air. Albums were becoming youth culture’s most important statement. I guess the Viet Nam War and the tail end of Britain’s music/fashion invasion created a perfect storm. The 45′s role morphed into a vehicle for edited airplay, and the album became the premier sellable asset for bands.
Nothing could have made me happier. All the drug riddled groups, whose names alone appealed to me greatly, still required a 7″ for radio exposure, often promo only. Miracle.
Let’s be serious, every one of them secretly wanted a hit. Generally, their first few singles became loss leaders, and were therefore scarce even when current. The Doors ‘Break On Through (To The Other Side)’ being a prime example. Originally released on January 1, 1967, the record got zero airplay initially. But by early summer, it was one of several I flew around the AM dial in search of nightly during the very late hours, after TV had basically shut down.
In small town upstate New York, you hardly ever heard a car driving by past midnight. Every hour on the hour, a New York Central freight train would sub woofer shake our village, but otherwise, silence. Sorry, silence and crickets. All in all a romantic contrast to the pulse of far away metropolises spilling from my transistor radio, which lay permanently buried beneath the pillow. Yes, those AM Top 40′s by day leaned very underground by night, spinning the records which had begun to crawl onto BILLBOARD’s Bubbling Under The Hot 100 chart.
It must be why I associate The Doors with the night. That and Hunter Thompson’s FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS. I read that high on acid while The Doors’ WAITING FOR THE SUN played repeatedly, meaning the spindle arm on my automatic changer was left in the upright position, allowing one’s last selection to track endlessly.
To be accurate, WBZ Boston gave me my first exposure to The Doors. When the deejay front sold ‘Break On Through (To The Other Side)’ my heart nearly stopped. I’d waited six months to hear this record, desperately craved the picture sleeve, and just wanted badly to love The Doors. Good instincts as they turned out.
I never did get that sleeve, well not for seventeen more years. Fast forward to ’84, and I’m working at Elektra in New York. Mark Cohn, our resident runner, tips his head into my office one afternoon, announcing a storage closet full of 45′s had been unearthed and needed clearing. Did I want them?
Turns out the cupboard’s contents were a deep library of every Elektra single, both US and UK, starting with the very first release and continuing through to ’74. Praise be the Lord. Jah Live. Etc.
Roger Armstrong played me ‘Ham Bone’ in ’07. I’d never heard the version prior, but hunted for it ever since. Let me tell you, this was one hard record to find. Forget about price, it was all about a copy turning up at all. Subsequently I’d been searching unsuccessfully for ages, but just prior to our London trip last week, the first pressing to list on eBay in years appeared. Not about to lose it, I put in a crazy high bid, and luck was on my side.
Funny enough, the auction closed while I was in the UK, sitting in Camden’s Spreadeagle pub with Roger himself. No lie. What a nice email alert to get anywhere, but nicely full circle in this case.
Having turned professional in ’52 at thirty years old, a very late bloomer even then, this full time car washer’s apparent first stroke of genius was to name his band Washboard Willie & The Super Suds Of Rhythm. Now who wouldn’t want every record they made on name alone?
Originally playing only his washboard from work, his second stroke, by ’55 he added a bass and snare drum, his third. Listen to Washboard Willie’s performance on ‘Ham Bone’, from ’64, and you’ll hear how he mastered a most primal idea, thereby achieving for himself a permanent slot in music history.
He was one fascinating guy with a fascinating discography as well.
The lack of airplay ‘All Or Nothing’ was afforded upon release in the US goes down as one of the great crimes in our country’s history. It was shocking at the time.
BILLBOARD’s 9/17/66 issue featured the full page RCA industry ad above, not only promoting the single, but also the label’s signing of The Small Faces. Their previous releases had been issued by London Records’ imprint, Press. Of the three, only ‘Sha La La La Lee’ managed a smattering of play, primarily Sacramento (KXOA), San Bernardino (KFXM) and Miami (WFUN) of all, seemingly unsuspecting, places.
A big indicator of RCA’s commitment was reflected in the custom picture sleeve which accompanied ‘All Or Nothing’, also profiled in the aforementioned print ad. I can still feel the jolt my body took upon opening to that page during a Friday evening at Smith’s Records in Oneida, NY, a weekly stop to pour over the store’s current issue.
Unbeknown to us all, Mrs. Smith contributed incredibly toward my formative years of becoming an avid music fan and record collector. Not only did she allow me to monopolize the magazine at the counter, she gave me her expired copies and most patiently wrote down my weekly special order choices as I’d scour the Singles Review page of the magazine.
BILLBOARD broke down most newly issued records into their editorially predicted sections: Top 20, Top 60 or the kiss of death Chart categories. Not surprisingly, many of music history’s classic releases began their painful cult status wallowing in that lonely Chart section, records tipped to scrape into the Hot 100′s lower reaches at best.
In the very same issue, and despite the lucrative ad buy, BILLBOARD drove a nail through the record’s heart with a Chart verdict, surprising given the label’s full page print buy. Mind you, this section was highly influential at the time.
More importantly, did the person or persons responsible for this damnation even listen to it? How on earth do you toss aside Steve Marriott’s unsurpassable vocal? Not only acknowledged as possibly the 60′s greatest white soul singer, his collaborative first division songwriting with Ronnie Lane stamped ‘All Or Nothing’ as one of the undeniably legendary singles from the period. How could a BILLBOARD employee, or more frighteningly their staff, not spot this?
Mrs. Smith never did get my special order for the record fulfilled, and as a result, I innocently passed up the only copy I ever saw when current at my other haunt, Walt’s Records in Syracuse. For true, it was a hard and painful moment that. With only one dollar in my pocket, the default purchase choice became ‘I’m A Boy’ by The Who, fingers crossed firmly my special order for ‘All Or Nothing’ was on it’s way. Wrong.
But all things happen for a reason. During the 70′s, the search for records pre-Ebay was via GOLDMINE’s classifieds. Religiously I would scour the magazine upon arrival. Literally, all things would stop. The process took hot line style priority status. So finally, a copy of ‘All Or Nothing’ in the sleeve was listed by a Texas dealer. I called him immediately, usurped the auction and closed the sale early. To my extreme luck, and possibly as karmic blessing, a sheet of the below factory jukebox tabs was inside the sleeve:
“Oh great joy”, to quote a line from OGDEN’S NUT GONE FLAKE.
Luscious Jackson never did manage to spin their wheels beyond the college market for very long.
Oh yes, the good old college market as it was once known. You don’t hear that tag being sold much these days, which clearly coincides with college radio’s withered presence. The format was always an interesting free for all when it came to musical selection, but the consistent requirement to allow untrained students airtime meant ultimately, those amateur deliveries put most listeners off. Only the die hards could withstand the dead air and weak back sells in exchange for hearing something different.
‘Naked Eye’ became Luscious Jackson’s temporary out of jail free card, gaining enough play to reach #36 on BILLBOARD’s Top 100. Despite name producers and an old school record label, their homemade, amateur sound was never lost. In fact, as with ‘Naked Eye’, they didn’t really sounded like a group were playing together at all. Despite their attempts at rap coming closer to a suburban high school band than some street toughs from New York’s Lower East Side, their squeaky clean middle class take on Prince basically boiled down to reheated Waitresses, but it kinda worked, and I always found myself fond of their singles.
Recorded and produced by Norman Petty in his Clovis, New Mexico studio, ‘Sugartime’ became Charlie Phillips’ debut release as Coral 61908, on the original B side, to be precise. The record’s origins are fascinating, especially the bit about turning up to find Buddy Holly & The Crickets had been booked as the backing band. Themselves newly successful to the charts, the guys were still earning fees playing on Norman Petty’s many studio sessions in ’56, when this was recorded. Norman Petty’s list of credits, as well the studio’s, are stunning.
Soon after ‘Sugartime’ scaled the US Country charts, Petty suggested Coral get the song covered, then release it to the pop audience. The label’s Bob Thiele brought in The McGuire Sisters, whose version (Coral 61924) was issued in short order, immediately entering BILLBOARD’s Hot 100, within weeks hitting #1 during Spring ’57.
This original, with an authentic hillbilly delivery as it was called, has the eerie ability to embody my fantasy of how AM rockabilly radio sounded in rural Texas during the mid-50′s. If only we had the means to time travel back and dig through piles of disc jockey records jammed into the cupboards of any audition studio at just one of those long gone broadcast buildings.
Listen: (The Lights Went Out In) Massachusetts / The Bee Gees (The
Recalling the first time The Bee Gees got played locally, the disc jockeys at WNDR were promoting the record’s 7PM unveiling for a solid day or two prior. The implication being a new double sided single from The Beatles. Instead, we got The Bee Gees US debut: ‘New York Mining Disaster 1941 (Have You Seen My Wife, Mr. Jones)’ / ‘I Can’t See Nobody’. In the end, a much better result.
Other than an unfair comparison to The Beatles, from that US premier until taking a dreadful left turn into disco during the mid 70′s, the band had a nice run of British sounding hits, despite growing up and starting their musical career in Australia. Nothing wrong with that by the way, but given they were originally the UK, it was clearly in their water.
During the late 80′s, while working at Island, I often tried to convince Marianne Faithfull to cover ‘(The Lights Went Out In) Massachusetts’. The song just seemed made for her timbre. At the time, she was living in Boston, but despite using that logic as ammo, she never did get round to it.
‘(The Lights Went Out In) Massachusetts’ is neck in neck with their UK only single, ‘World’, also from ’67, as my favorite. A slight embarrassment, this one only reaching #11 on BILLBOARD’s Hot 100, while achieving #1 pretty much around the world. Both a big accomplishment and a contributor to their astonishing, career spanning sales of 220 million records worldwide.
One of the obscure RnB singles that got Top 40 play on WOLF, the miracle pumping AM radio anomaly transmitting 24/7 in upstate New York from ’64 – ’67. The station is referenced many times on this blog, and introduced endless English bands, as well American RnB acts to it’s teenage listenership. Myself included. Bless whoever was in charge.
‘Good Lovin’ rocked my little red transistor, and always sounded way dirtier being broadcast via a compressed AM signal than off my vinyl pressing at home. The single stalled at #81 nationally, like so many others did when from the wrong side of the tracks. Ironically, these records never seemed to get the BILLBOARD chart moves local airplay implied they should. As a result, The Olympics ‘Good Lovin’ disappeared off the airwaves rather fast and temporarily felt like an anthem never to be.
I picked up my copy in the 39¢ bin at W.T. Grants only weeks after initially hearing it.
Within a year though, the more established Atlantic Records issued The Young Rascals version, a result of band member Gene Cornish allegedly hearing The Olympics’ original and suggesting his band cover it live. Without question, they documented a livelier performance onto vinyl, added some garage rock, and went to #1 on the Hot 100.
Despite The Young Rascals having recorded the wilder, many I say better, version doesn’t take away from The Olympics tempered and understated cool. Both are lifers in this collection, convenient necessities for different occasions.
‘Whenever You’re Ready’, one of three non-hit followups to ‘Tell Her No’ in ’65, helped fuel a three year downward spiral for The Zombies, reaching only #110 on BILLBOARD’s Bubbling Under The Hot 100 chart. I wonder what might have happened if it’s flip, the Valentine’s Day staple, ‘I Love You’, had been issued as the A side instead. Considering the song’s strength, and ultimate success when covered by People, providing the one hit wonders with a massive Top 40 placement, #14 during an eighteen week chart run in ’68, must bug the hell out of The Zombies to this day. Who wouldn’t have preferred they had taken home that prize instead?
Nothing has ever challenged Colin Blunstone’s voice. By ’69, The Zombies ODESSEY AND ORACLE, now rightfully regarded as one of the most important albums of all time, was the ultimate spotlight for his vocal power and thankfully gave them the multi platinum achievement they deserved. Justice for a change.
Seemingly undaunted by failure, Ike & Tina Turner churned out singles at a hectic, continuous pace for more than a decade.
Come ’75, the number declined, as opposed to say their ’64 – ’68 run. By this point, the tradeoff was certainly more album releases than just about any other act. No doubt encouraged by the United Artists funded, but Ike & Tina Turner owned Bolic Sound in the Inglewood section of Los Angeles, they flooded the market with an endless stream of jam based, second rate songs. Or so it seemed at the time.
Their live draw was at a peak, and in concert, much of what sounded pedestrian on vinyl surely exploded on the stage. Playing so many of those releases, as I often do, their once current but generic, assembly line weakness quite honestly has gotten more and more appealing as both time and distance increase. As do the once unappealing covers.
What some might still consider a careless, bland or demo-like snare sound now stamp a period date smack onto each record. A true hidden charm being the clarity and precision of Ike’s studio technique.
‘Baby – Get It On’ easily exemplifies the above claim, and was to be their last BILLBOARD Top 100 entry, peaking at #88 in ’75.
Don’t care, sounds better than ever to me. Combining Ike’s cliched lyrics, Tina’s ever inspired, dutiful call/response delivery, that drum sound and a clear stereo mix easily allows the sum to become greater than the parts.
What I, and most likely, we all used to pass up at garage and house sales have become eyebrow raisers nowadays. Yes, trust me, Ike & Tina Turner’s mid 70′s United Artists singles are worth grabbing.
The UK promo above came from Vicki Wickham’s collection, which she so generously donated my way. Let me tell you one of many things about Vicki, she’s a saint. Who else rings up, finding boxes of forgotten, valuable records, and just offers them to a friend? Not many, maybe no one. Well that’s Vicki.
The way I put it back on her was, there’ll always be yours, and here if you ever need them. She was happy, me too.
Nothing I can tell you about ‘In The Midnight Hour’ that the readers of this blog don’t already know, so hopefully giving it a play now will at least bring you back to when you first heard it. Dare I proclaim, that moment has to be impossible to forget.
Listen: Everybody Needs Somebody To Love / Wilson Pickett Everybody
It was ‘Everybody Needs Somebody To Love’, another one from her lot, that really brought me back, not only to Solomon Burke, but The Rolling Stones. Yeah, as a little white kid growing up in the no black folks allowed sticks, it made a very deep imprint on my life, opening side one of THE ROLLING STONES, NOW!. An all time favorite album, the origins of that memory are chronicled elsewhere on this blog.
The real flashback though is them opening both their ’65 and ’66 Syracuse shows with it, Mick Jagger pointing in every possible direction around the arena, while singing the lines “I need you, you, you”. Each of those finger points resulting in even louder shrieks from that section than the rest of the venue, all losing their gear uncontrollably regardless.
Not that Wilson Pickett doesn’t reel this in on his own. Man, these guys could sing the phone book and it would be a hit. Released in early ’67, a track from his then brand new THE BEST OF WILSON PICKETT collection, ‘Everybody Needs Somebody To Love’ still found a path to #29 Pop / #19 RnB. The power of greatness.
Always loved this band’s name. It pre-dated tags given to electronic music acts by about thirty years or so. As it turned out, their acoustic guitar style had a Flamenco thing about it, I guess. It was a thread pretty common to the majority of Unit 4 + 2′s records, even though as a kid, the wilder, trashier, bluesy guitar stuff appealed the most, especially when maracas were involved.
Anything from Decca UK, and released via their London Records Group in America was moved to the top of my pile though. Even the MOR productions of Tom Jones and The Fortunes were fine by me.
‘Concrete And Clay’ would’ve gone Top 10 here, no doubt, if another competing copy cat version by Eddie Rambeau hadn’t been grabbing airplay and sales simultaneously. So instead of reaching a placing near it’s UK #1 slot, the record topped out at #28 on BILLBOARD, victim to a wank American singer who hadn’t moved on fashion wise since Fabian from about five years earlier.
Nice intro as well, ironically similar to but predating label mates, The Rolling Stones’ ‘Honky Tonk Women’ by about three years.
Listen: (You’ve) Never Been In Love Like This Before / Unit 4 + 2 Unit4+2NeverBeen.mp3
Even more appealing was the followup. ‘(You’ve) Never Been In Love Like This Before’, complete with my favorite, an unnecessary bracket within the title, continued their pattern of re-writing the previous single, as ‘Concrete And Clay’ had done with it’s predecessor, ‘Sorrow And Pain’. This can double as either developing a sound, or becoming a perfect target for hater journalists. Both outcomes are common.
Basically, a stiff, it hovered around the lower reaches of the Top 100 for several weeks, eventually topping out at #93. I can still see that unsold chunk in a W.T. Grants record rack, back when vast areas of department store walls were lined with rows and rows of the latest 45′s. There they sat for weeks, until one day, gone. Well, all but the copy pictured above.
Bob Gallo’s name, like Ben E. King’s, always draws me in. The two have written together for decades. As well, Bob has produced a bulk of recordings, not only for Ben E. King, but also Atlantic Records, including The Young Rascals’ ‘Groovin’. This guy has basically worked on every kind of music from James Brown & The Famous Flames’ ‘It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World’ to ? & The Mysterians’ ’96 Tears’.
‘What Is Soul’ was oddly a non hit at pop when released in ’66. Despite being the B side to ‘They Don’t Give Medals to Yesterday’s Heroes’, ‘What Is Soul’ suddenly got play in Detroit, New York and Washington DC, so Atco repressed it, changing the label copy to indicate ‘What Is Soul’ as the plug side. It’s under performance from RnB radio’s listeners, entering Billboard’s Soul chart for a mere two weeks, and peaking at #38, discouraged the label to attempt spreading the record Top 40. A very pop leaning song structure may have been the culprit to the hardcore, but I still think, what a missed opportunity every time I play it.
Buster Brown, at 48 years old, had his first BILLBOARD chart hit with ‘Fannie Mae’, scaling #1 on the RnB charts, and #38 Pop in December ’59.
Christmas in that decade meant loads of Lionel train sets under the trees, and plenty of heart attack inducing home baked cookies left out for Santa on Christmas Eve. Plus it must have been a great time to be on Fire Records. Just imagine going into the office, cupboards bulging with records, office staff in that truly giving holiday spirit and inviting you to have a pick through. Honestly, I get shivers at the thought.
A few years later, he basically rewrote the song lyrically, becoming the brilliant ‘Don’t Dog Your Woman’. Everything about this, especially the harmonica, soon after identified with many of the songs on the first few Rolling Stones albums. I never recall them name checking him, though Roger reminded me that they may have recorded ‘Fannie Mae’ very early on.
I wonder if Buster Brown ever heard The Rolling Stones original composition ‘The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man’ and if so, what he thought of it?
The musical chairs surrounding the often interchanging members of The Contours will have your head spinning if you let it. Some of the guys still perform today, and a family tree type timeline is readily available on Wikipedia. But be forewarned, it’s for the clear headed only and I do commend whoever got all those details together.
‘Shake Sherry’, one of the many lyrically intentional dance songs the group recorded, followed up their only Top 10, ‘Do You Love Me’. As with the majority of their other 60′s Gordy label releases, it peaked mid chart (#43). Seemingly in the shadow of The Temptations and The Four Tops, apparently The Contours were the act whose wild live performances on those Motown Revue package tours would truly tear the house down.
Even despite being written by Berry Gordy himself, and getting a top vocal drill by Billy Gordon, the record just didn’t get the muscle at radio from the Motown machine. Who the hell let that happen?
The Contours ended up benefitting from numerous Northern Soul dj’s bringing many of their records justice years later. And in fact, when ‘Do You Love Me’ was used in 1987′s DIRTY DANCING, the re-released single found it’s way back into the US BILLBOARD chart, peaking at #11. As we all know, a very uncommon result in America.
Edwin Starr had some surprising US pop hits quite early on in his career curve. Surprising given they were precursors to Northern Soul, and usually those titles didn’t chart. That was the whole point. But ‘Agent Double-O-Soul’ (#21, ’65), ‘S.O.S. (Stop Her On Sight)’ (#48, ’66) and ’25 Miles’ (#6, ’69) all did well and even at the time, they had that magnetic something special.
By 1970, he switched up labels, leaving Ric Tic Records for Motown. Simultaneously trading in his soul stylings for the intense Vietnam protest diatribe ‘War’, he transformed a Temptations album track into a #1 chart story. But his US success was short lived.
Europe and the UK proved more loyal, and given the nature of his earlier hits, Edwin Starr relocated to England in ’73. Ironically, during ’74, he recorded a very American ‘Ain’t It Hell Up In Harlem’, main title of the HELL UP IN HARLEM film, itself an official sequel to BLACK CAESAR.
Despite a slightly cluttered arrangement, the track perfectly snapshots the sound of Blaxploitation, a near official genre, briefly prevalent at that time and very much synonymous with grainy, washed out color cinema.
It’s strange how time has diminished the apparent power and originality once associated with Jackie Wilson.
Read Doug Carter’s THE BLACK ELVIS: JACKIE WILSON. You won’t be able to put it down, nor will you understand why he didn’t reach legendary status like those who credited him with their inspiration: Michael Jackson, James Brown and Elvis Presley for starters.
On stage, his knee drops, splits, spins, one footed across-the-floor slides became the blueprint from which they, and many others, lifted, crowning him Mr. Excitement. As a result of the book, I found myself trolling through a surprisingly large section of about thirty Jackie Wilson singles, involuntarily amassed through the years, sure that one day, I’d need them. Well that day arrived even before the book’s halfway mark. Didn’t take much to pull out and spin the pristine pressing, on original orange labelled Brunswick, of ‘Baby Workout’, a huge record in ’63 (#5 Pop). Workout being the giveaway word, this title held great potential. No let down there.
House producer Dick Jacobs, ann under appreciated band leader and executive, took responsibility for A&Ring many of Jackie Wilson’s records during the period. His clean, safe backing vocals and big orchestral arrangements, often dismissed and unfairly overlooked, actually helped to bring out the grit in both Jackie Wilson’s voice and songwriting. According to many, the combination of these two talents led to some of the earliest soul recordings, many becoming mainstream hits, like ‘Baby Workout’.
The post Dick Jacobs era resulted in Carl Davis being tasked the Jackie Wilson production responsibilities. One of their first works together, ‘Soul Galore’, got no traction upon release, somehow failing to pick up much airplay, even on the RnB stations. But by the early 70′s, it qualified as one of Jackie Wilson’s biggest Northern Soul successes, thereby being reissued, via the pressing pictured above.
Luckily, a very typical trait of Carl Davis’ was to consistently incorporate pumped up, brass arrangements into swinging soul songs, thereby helping give Jackie Wilson one of his biggest and ultimately final mainstream hits with ‘(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher’ a year or so later in ’67.
Listen: Nice Girls Don’t Stay For Breakfast / Julie London Nice
You can listen to Julie London for the rest of your life if you want, and probably find it hard to get intimately familiar with her entire recorded output: 32 albums. She’s so good, I say give it a try.
She was signed to Liberty Records from ’55 – ’69, yet had only one single that made the BILLBOARD Top 100. Now that’s a commitment to the artist. But what a worthy choice.
Julie London, wife of DRAGNET’s Jack Webb, issued endless suggestive song titles and double entendres, some hysterical now, in the 21st century. Surely at their time of release, they turned many a lonely guy on.
Knowing her own vocal weakness, or strength in my book, she’s qouted as follows: “It’s only a thimbleful of a voice, and I have to use it close to the microphone. But it is a kind of oversmoked voice, and it automatically sounds intimate.” Now there’s a recording technique tip if I’ve ever heard one.
Wonderfully out of place in the ’67 musical landscape, ‘Nice Girls Don’t Stay For Breakfast’ was even, in it’s day, a 50′s throwback to an era when, I guess, it was not talked about that even nice girls did stay for breakfast.
Never mentioned as one of her greats, and she has many, many greats, this single is most elusive. Yes, it’s the title of one of her final albums, but as for the 7″, seldom seen.
Robert Parker began his recording career playing with Professor Longhair on ‘Mardi Gras In New Orleans’ in ’49. Over the next decade, this guy worked with just about every New Orleans musician, including Fats Domino, Irma Thomas, and Huey ‘Piano’ Smith. You name it. Hitting his stride in ’66, after signing to the small Nola Records, he and the label delivered a Top 10 (#7) BILLBOARD hit with ‘Barefootin’.
As it turns out, the single was a classic double A side, as ‘Let’s Go Baby (Where The Action Is)’ became a huge Mod club hit in the UK. It’s cemented his popularity in Europe till this day, where he still can make the occasional appearances and get some royal treatment.
Despite lack of national radio and chart success, his musical success never stopped. Released in ’74 ‘Get Ta Steppin’ eventually became known as a southern funk template, determined not only by those in the know but more importantly, via endless sampling.
Almost as though lightning struck twice, not unlike the ‘Barefootin’ / ‘Let’s Go Baby (Where The Action Is)’ coupling, ‘Get Ta Steppin’ / ‘Get Right On Down’ proved to be another double side, basically must have in any respectable soul collection, 7″ single.
Despite not issuing albums during the 70′s (his only LP is BAREFOOTIN’ from ’66), Robert Parker just proceeded to make a seemingly essential single each year or so, right up through ’76.
Listen: A Little Bit Of Something (Is Better Than A Whole Lot Of Nothing) / Robert Parker A
As with his 60′s output, career long musical arranger, producer and collaborator Wardell Quezergue was part of ‘A Little Bit Of Something (Is Better Than A Whole Lot of Nothing)’, his final single prior to recording retirement and one I just never see around.
