Any Major 60s Soul Vol. 2
June 5th, 2009
5 comments
Here is the second volume of ’60s soul tracks. Some of these songs are pretty well-known, but many others are hidden or forgotten gem. Eddie Holland’s track is as much a gem as it is a historical curiosity; it’s one of the few records he released on Motown before Berry Gordy decided that Eddie, with Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier, should work exclusively as one of the label’s in-house writer/producer teams, in particular for the Supremes and the Four Tops . Read more…
Categories: 60s soul, Mix CD-Rs Arthur Conley, Baby Washington, Bobby Tayor and the Vancouvers, Booker T and the MGs, Carla Thomas, Clarence Carter, Dee Dee Sharp, Don Covay, Eddie Holland, Fantastic Four, Gladys Knight, Irma Thomas, Isley Brothers, Kim Tolliver, King Curtis, Marlena Shaw, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Mitty Collier, OV Wright, Rita Wright, Sam Cooke, Shorty Long, Solomon Burke, Temptations, Wilson Pickett
It was a huge hit for the unlikeliest pop star ever to emerge from Johannesburg (yeah, I know, Mr Lubowitz’s stage name applied to the whole band). But a year before that, in 1963, it was recorded, minus a diddy, by a soul girl group which never enjoyed as much success as it deserved. The Exciters are remembered mainly for their single big hit, the Bert Berns composition Tell Him.
In Motown’s happy family it was common that the same songs would be recorded by different artists. Sometimes, that custom would result in two chart-toppers within a year, as in the case of I Heard It Through The Grapevine 
While the Temptations scored with the Undisputed Truth’s song, Edwin Starr had a hit with a Temps song, War. The anti-Vietnam protest song appeared originally on the Temptations 1970 Psychedelic Shack album. By popular request, Motown decided to release it as a single, but not by the Temptations, because the label did not want to associate its big stars with political causes. Indeed, the Temptations themselves were apprehensive about offending some of their fans (though exactly why anybody who would dig the drug-friendly psychedelic grooves of early-’70s Temptations might be offended by an anti-war sentiment is a mystery). So Motown gave the song to a relative unknown who two years earlier had enjoyed his solitary hit. Edwin Starr’s anthemic, fist-raising version was far more fierce and furious than that of Temptations. Catching the zeitgeist, Starr’s War was a US #1 hit. And guess who appears on the backing track? The Undisputed Truth.
Few noises in mainstream pop history have been as disturbing as Joe Cocker’s croaked note at the end of that staple of soppy love songs, You Are So Beautiful. Some people might regard the song best crooned by Homer Simpson, but they are probably not familiar with Billy Preston’s rather good original. The song was written by Preston and his songwriting partner Bruce Fisher, with Beach Boy Dennis Wilson’s uncredited lyrical contribution (Wilson would sing the song as an encore at Beach Boys gigs in the late ’70s and early ’80s). Preston’s version was recorded shortly before Cocker’s slower version in 1974. The former remained an album track, while Cocker’s version reached the US #5 in 1975 (but didn’t chart at all Britain).
Of course, this is not so much the story of an orignal and its cover as the unhappy tale of a sample and greed — all revolving around a loop in the Verve song that was lifted from Andrew Look Oldham’s 1966 instrumental adaptation of the Rolling Stones’ The Last Time. Oldham was not only a musician, but also the manager of the Stones in their early pomp. He sold his contract to Allen Klein – has there ever been a more lawyerly name in rock? – in 1966. By 1997, when the Verve’s Urban Hymns album came out, Klein controlled the Stones’ 1960s back catalogue.
It can be argued that Jagger and Richards didn’t even write the song from which Ashcroft didn’t sample; The Last Time was based on a 1950s recording by the Staple Singers of a traditional song. It’s a shame the Staple Singers didn’t think to sue… And just to turn this sorry tale into a real farce, when Bitter Sweet Symphony was nominated for two Grammys, the credit went to Jagger and Richards as writers and the Andrew Oldham Orchestra as artists.
“Sunshine, blue skies, please go away. My girl has found another and gone away. With her went my future, my life is filled with gloom, so day after day I stayed locked up in my room. I know to you it might sound strange, but I wish it would rain.” Motown lyrics are pure poetry. “Day in, day out, my tear-stained face pressed against the window pane. My eyes search the skies desperately for rain, ’cause raindrops will hide my teardrops, and no one will ever know that I’m cryin’. When I go outside to the world outside, my tears I refuse to explain. Oh, I wish it would rain.” Promise me you will punch them.
The unaccountably obscure Tibault in his song from 2000 acknowledges that he was dumped for being a bit of an ass (“And everything about me drags her down”), and he now pretends, Smokey-like, not to be affected by the break-up. But he really still loves her (“She moves around me like the air I breathe, gets inside of me and she never leaves”) and wants her back: “Someday I’ll find my way back in; somehow I’ll cross that bridge again. And then I won’t have to pretend to be unbroken.”
A very jaunty number for so sad a lament wrapped up in nautical metaphors. Since she “sailed away” there are no lights in the harbour and ships lost at sea all because Don is crying so much, he is “on this sea of tears – sea of heartbreak”. He tried to woo her back with another maritime call: “Oh, what I’d give to sail back to shore, back to your arms once more.” Poor Don, chances are that another man has put down his anchor in the good ship ex-girlfriend.
You know what it’s like when a song comes on that reminds you of an ex-partner (or, worse, of the break-up itself)? In this rather quirky tune, Sugar Ray bemoan not only the loss of a girlfriend, but also the diminishing delight in the things they used to enjoy together: “All the songs she used to sing, all the favourite TV shows have gone out the window.” It’s worse than that. Not only does he no longer enjoy re-runs of Friends or whatever, but when he does catch one, the old feelings for her return. Which calls to mind Hal David’s lyrics for Always Something There To Remind Me: “I passed a small café where we would dance at night, and I can’t help recalling how it felt to kiss and hold you tight. Oh, how can I forget you, when there is always something there to remind me…” The version posted here is a 1982 cover by the English synth-pop duo Naked Eyes, featuring the late Rob Fisher, later of Climie Fisher. Burt Bacharach once said their version was his favourite…
The Bee Gees asked for pointers in mending broken hearts. One way of doing so is to enter into a loving relationship with somebody new who will take care of you. In this song, Amy Rigby found such a man, one who’d do anything for her. But sometimes even that doesn’t work, when there remains so much residual anger that the contemptible ex still dominates emotions. In this instance, the new man in Amy’s life wrecklessly* offers to “shoot the dude who screwed me up”. Amy responds that she is “trying so hard to forgive”. With that in mind, “Here’s his address, here’s his picture, here’s the make and model of his car. He works until 4:30, then he hangs out at the topless bar with a girl on each arm.” Amy reminds the new paramour: “Remember how he cheated and he lied to me. You told me that it makes you lose your head… I don’t believe you’d do those things you said.” And did she mention they’re pouring concrete on Route 33? But if he does the things he said he’d do (and here’s the address and a photo), he must not tell her, but keep it to himself. Then Amy sighs: “I like the way that you take care of me. I like the way you that you’ll take care of things.” Hell hath no fury etc. (* google it)
Recent Comments