Music Reviews: The Coasters, Valerie June

The Coasters

The Coasters were a 50s era black rock-n-roll/doo-wop singing group who had a wonderful mix of tenor, baritone and bass voices. Musicians who were associated with The Coasters included people like later saxophone R&B god, King Curtis and guitarist Adolph Jacobs. Although they were not strictly speaking band members, it is impossible to discuss or appreciate The Coasters without giving tremendous credit to their primary songwriters and producers, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Similar to Greek-American R&B/blues musician Johnny Otis, who assimilated into black culture and black music so thoroughly that he married a black woman, described himself as black and lived on the black side of the segregation line, Leiber and Stoller had a keen appreciation of the popular black music and culture of their time. Some people, even members of The Coasters themselves, were surprised that the duo had such a pulse on black humor and musical stylings. Perhaps this is because to a lesser extent Jewish Americans were also cultural outsiders and had their own rich tradition of using sardonic humor to mask social commentary. In any event The Coasters' voices and instrumentation were a perfect fit for Leiber's and Stoller's lyrics and music. Stoller often composed at the piano. He played piano on some recordings. The band name came from the fact that the members were all from the Los Angeles area but did not achieve success until they signed with New York based Atlantic records. Some of the early Coasters' music was actually recorded by the group The Robins, two of whose members became founding members of the Coasters. Leiber and Stoller wrote for the Robins as well. They also wrote Hound Dog and quite a few other pop, rock, and soul songs.

As mentioned, much of The Coasters' music could be understood as fun uptempo dance music. Much of it had hidden meanings. If you happen to be fond of deep male voices this could be the best group you haven't heard of as The Coasters had very prominent bass and baritone parts sung by such band members as Dub Jones, Billy Guy and Bobby Nunn. I'm talking DEEP. Even the group's primary lead/tenor singer Carl Gardner, had a very resonant voice the likes of which is a little bit harder to find today. The song Riot in Cell Block #9 has bass vocalist Bobby Nunn singing lead. It lifted the sound effects from the radio show "Gangbusters". It also swiped the then popular blues stop time riff from Willie Dixon's Hoochie Coochie Man to paint a picture of a prison riot. Although the song is somewhat humorous and does not explicitly mention race, most people in 1950s segregated America probably didn't miss the overtones of a racial uprising or slave revolt. This could be why when white singer Wanda Jackson did a cover of it, she changed the POV so that the song was glorifying the brave (and presumably white) prison guards instead of the (obviously black) prisoners who were telling their friends to "pass the dynamite cause the fuse is lit". Go figure.
Hearing Down in Mexico now always makes me visualize Jessica Alba or Salma Hayek in some low rent dangerous desperado domicile doing a down and dirty dance. I first heard the song as a kid and only recently as an adult realized that the song's subject matter was really about a trip to a south of the border house of ill repute, a subject matter that later bands like ZZ Top would return to frequently. Leiber and Stoller were inspired to give a musical "latin" tinge to the story, in part by living around the Los Angeles Latino population. 

The songs Run Red Run and What about Us are semi-explicit social commentary about class and racial inequities. Leiber and Stoller had been reading about Nat Turner, among other things. I like the harmony on Run Red Run. Along Came Jones reimagines a black hero for television shows. Framed, which strictly speaking was a Robins song, is another piece about an unfair justice system. Smokey Joe's Cafe details the problems involved in trying to flirt with someone else's lady. It's similar to what Lynyrd Skynryd would do a few decades later with Gimme Three Steps. Little Egypt finds the hero making an honest woman out of a stripper. Searchin, Yakety Yak and Charlie Brown are fun slice of life songs aimed squarely at the teen market. The narrator may be a leering lech in Youngblood but it's all in good fun, mostly. Poison Ivy is I suppose what you might call a safe sex warning song. The rap group The Jungle Brothers later used the bass riff from Shopping for Clothes. I LOVE this song. Everyone should occasionally take the time to "stand in the mirror and dig yourself". Shopping for Clothes is just the song you need if you're cruising down the main strip in your lead sled. I really like The Coasters sound and production. It amazes me that music recorded back in the 50s and 60s sounds so good today. It's not too loud. It has more bass response in the vocals than is currently popular. Of course I don't listen to much modern music so if there is anyone out there like that today chances are I wouldn't know of them. My take on much of modern R&B is that the women all sing like they're in a competition to see who can put the most vowels in any given word while the men generally sound as if someone has grabbed or crushed two of their most critical body parts. Anyway, my sonic prejudices aside I always liked The Coasters and hope you do as well.






Valerie June

It's funny how things work out. I meant to mention this singer and musician quite some time ago. Her debut major label release "Pushin' Against a Stone" came out in 2013. I purchased the CD back then but just like with books sometimes it takes me a while to get around to things. So it goes. I was reminded of her from reading about her experiences and receptions at some tour or another. So I dug out the cd and gave it a listen. 

I am fascinated by accents, especially those of women (heh-heh) and with the first note she sings it is very obvious that June is from the South. I like that she is not trying to sound as if she's from anywhere else. Actually I don't think she could. Her very strong accent reminds me of relatives I haven't seen in decades and of some I'll never see again. Accent aside she has a reedy, quirky, somewhat nasally voice that may not be to everyone's taste. It took me a while to get used to it but now I think it's something really special. Her intonation and vocal choices are miles apart from most modern R&B singers, though like the best of them she also comes out of the church tradition. I don't say she's better, just different. She's not overusing melisma. I can't really compare June to many other people. I will have to go back and listen some more. The only musicians who immediately come to mind are women like Dionne Farris, Rhiannon Giddens, Dolly Parton, Macy Gray, or Lauryn Hill. June describes her sound as "organic roots moonshine music". I guess that says it all. Labels don't really apply. She seamlessly mixes and crosses such genres as soul, R&B, gospel, country, blues, black string band music, folk, bluegrass and more. She's also a guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. You can hear her instrumental skills a bit more easily on the solo or acoustic cuts.

The cd is recorded well. There's clarity without too much volume or treble. Such heavy hitters as keyboardist Booker T. of Stax fame and guitarist Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys guest on this release. There might be a tad too much Auerbach as he also gets songwriting and production credits and apparently takes a few solos but again overall this is a solid piece of musical work. I will have to go back and find June's self-produced cd's but the way it usually goes is either they won't be in stock or will only be available for insane amounts of money. Although the cd may put you in mind of everything from 60s beehive bedecked girl soul revues to Appalachian front porch singing groups and more I found that the different styles all fit together: primarily because of June's truly distinctive voice. If you're open to music that's a bit off the beaten path you could do worse than to give this a listen. It's nice to see someone make a successful debut singing in their own voice and not letting their image become overly sexualized. For my money Somebody to Love and You Can't Be Told are the cd standouts! Somebody to Love could be an answer song to King Floyd's Handle with Care. I am looking forward to hearing what June does next.

Somebody to Love   Wanna Be On Your Mind Pushin Against A Stone 
You Can't Be Told  On My Way  Tennessee Time (Live)  
Working Woman Blues (Live)  The Hour

Music Reviews: Ruth Copeland

Ruth Copeland

Ruth Copeland is a British singer/songwriter who for a time was married to an Invictus producer. Invictus, as you probably know, was the Detroit based record label that grew out of Motown after a dispute between Berry Gordy and three of his most important songwriters (H-D-H) For a brief time in the late sixties and early seventies Invictus was a semi-successful rival to Motown, going after some of the same local talent as well as venturing into more rock based as well as experimental or low down funk music that Motown initially avoided. This latter group of music very much included P-Funk. Copeland wrote or shared writing credits on a fair number of songs on Parliament's first Invictus release, Osmium. I was surprised to learn that she had co-written "Come in out of the Rain" which must rank among the funkiest and most soulful songs which P-Funk performed. The lyrics still apply today, sadly. Copeland also sang backup on that cut, I think. Actually there are a surprising number of early seventies Invictus songs which were written or co-written by Copeland. Repaying her favor with one of their own Parliament (well most of it) backed up Copeland on her two Invictus albums and resulting tours when she decided to become the label's first "blue eyed funkateer". The songs are well written and I love P-Funk so I like most of the two releases. However Copeland possessed a clear and piercing soprano that was nothing at all like the voices of contemporaneous soul performers like Aretha Franklin or Lyn Collins. Copeland's voice was much much closer to a singer like Freda Payne. So in my view there's a few times that Copeland tries to be a belter of songs rather than a crooner and generally misses. Her voice is not built for such things. She doesn't have a lot of resonance. She can get histrionic pretty quickly. 

All the same I like her voice. Nobody was going to mistake her for Dusty Springfield but then again we all have to find our own way in this world. If you were ever curious as to what P-Funk would have sounded like backing an Englishwoman with her own take on the funk well the record exists for you to peruse.

Her song "Crying Has Made Me Stronger" is a modernized blues  f*** you lament but told from the woman's point of view instead of the man's. It's almost an answer song to BB King's "Ain't Nobody Home". "Hare Krishna" is a very positive song which seems like it should have been a bigger hit. I believe that Copeland sings both lead and backup choir on that piece. She adds serious menace to a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Play With Fire". I enjoy the call and response with guitarist Eddie Hazel. Copeland gets nasty on the Clinton written "Don't you wish you had what you had (when you had it)" which I think is a sonic textbook on exactly how to play and sing ever so slightly behind the beat and make everything as funky as can be. "I got a thing for you Daddy" opens up with Hendrix inspired backwards feedback before going into a funky breakdown that sounded like something you would have heard in Detroit area strip clubs circa 1974. Or so I've been told anyway. "Your Love Been So Good To Me" finds Copeland in full coquettish sex kitten mode. "Thanks for the Birthday Card" is a more introspective song that wouldn't have sounded too out of place on a Neil Young or Carole King album. "The Music Box" is probably one of the least funkiest and most melodramatic releases P-Funk ever recorded. The lyrics are sad. There's a children's choir and crying added in for effect. YMMV on this. Copeland goes back to the Rolling Stones' catalog for her cover of "Gimme Shelter" which is most noticeable for making the song danceable. It also has a guitar solo which never stops. Again I like such things but I know other people can take it or leave it. "The Medal" is a slightly overwrought anti-war anthem.

If you are curious about blue eyed soul singers before Adele, Teena Marie or Amy Winehouse or just are a P-Funk completist and want to have everything they recorded then you will want to look for the Copeland albums Self-Portrait and I Am What I Am.

The Medal  Crying Has Made Me Stronger Hare Krishna Play With Fire Don't You Wish You Had What You Had (When You Had It) I got a thing for you Daddy Your Love Been So Good To Me Thanks for the Birthday Card The Music Box Gimme Shelter

Music Reviews: Hot Chocolate, Funkadelic: Maggotbrain

Hot Chocolate

Hot Chocolate was a racially integrated though mostly black British band that walked in the interstices between light funk, pop, calypso, disco, rock, soul and reggae. So they had a variety of different sounds but all of their different styles were held together by the insistent warbling tenor of bald Jamaican born primary songwriter and lead singer/front man Errol Brown. I think in the US they're probably best known for the song "You Sexy Thing", which charted as high as number 3. I don't think they ever had wild mass success in the US but they certainly did ok in the UK and Europe. Throughout the 70s and 80s they had many hits. Hot Chocolate was a band which consistently delivered the goods and got a fair amount of radio play if not critical recognition. They weren't really disco but were disco enough for some to write them off completely. Oh well you know that old Liberace line about crying all the way to the bank. I was motivated to write on them because I recently heard their hit "Everyone's a winner" on satellite radio. I hadn't heard that song for decades. It brought back some pleasant memories of times long past. "Everyone's a winner" was quite typical of much of Hot Chocolate's best work, what with the very heavy dominant bass line, low pitched drums, slightly distorted guitar (in this case a guitar synth) and triumphant group vocals. Hot Chocolate was not deep funk in the mode of James Brown or P-Funk but was reminiscent of bands like later EWF, Kool and the Gang or Tower of Power. 

Hot Chocolate wrote good songs with nice melodies and danceable rhythms. Their discography may not have any lost masterpieces that will make you rethink popular music but how many groups can really claim otherwise? 

Sometimes I wish the soloists in the group, particularly the guitarist, had been given a little more room to stretch out but apparently it wasn't that kind of band. You hear a little bit of what could have been guitar wise in the song "You Could Have Been a Lady". I LOVE that song. Groove was what Hot Chocolate brought to the table. Hot Chocolate was all about fun. I didn't know that they wrote the anti-racist song "Brother Louie". I had only heard the version by the group Stories and had no idea it was a cover. The version by Hot Chocolate makes it clear (thanks to the competing spoken word sections)  that they are condemning all forms of bigotry in all communities while the Stories version chickens out and is imo a little more self-interested. When I heard the Stories version I thought it was a just a ripoff/shout out to the Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar". The song is also used in Louis C.K's show as intro/theme. Go figure. I like the updated blues song "Emma" and enjoy the rueful broken hearted lament of "So you win again". Brown eventually left the group to embark on a solo career which didn't do too well because (1) most people didn't know who he was outside of the group and (2) he had already mostly spent his creative muse writing for the group. It happens I guess. None or at least very few of us have limitless potential. I guess it would kind of stink to finally go out on your own and realize that you had already done your best work with people whom by that point had started to work your nerves. But that's what life is sometimes. Jorah Mormont would approve the track "Sometimes it hurts to be a friend".

Everyone's a Winner  You Sexy Thing  Brother Louie  Emma  I'll Put You Together Again
It started with a kiss  Girl Crazy  So You Win Again  Making Music
Man to Man  Rumours You Could Have Been a Lady Confetti Day
Sometimes it hurts to be a friend Heaven's In The Backseat of My Cadillac






Maggotbrain
by Funkadelic

Okay. Funkadelic is the greatest rock group of all time. Bar none. Story. End of. Some people will talk about The Rolling Stones, others will bleat about Led Zeppelin or The Ramones or blah, blah blah. Balderdash. Funkadelic did everything those groups did, did it first and did it better. And there were very few groups who could do what Funkadelic did musically. Nobody had the musical range and energy they did. Because of racist ideas about what is considered "rock" and who gets to listen to or perform "rock" music, at its creative peak Funkadelic was usually ignored by mainstream (white) rock critics or only referenced in passing when a white musician mentioned them as an influence. This has started to change somewhat in the past few decades but back in the day few people outside of a small dedicated cadre of fans in the black community or alternative rock community knew about them. Of course I am somewhat biased as Funkadelic was a Detroit group. To reduce Funkadelic to its simplest components one would have to imagine a group born from a simultaneous mind meld of Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, Blue Cheer, MC5, James Brown, John Lee Hooker, Hendrix, The Isley Brothers, Sly Stone and Cream with a little DNA of J.S. Bach, Jimmy Smith and Black Sabbath added in for taste.

Maggotbrain is the third Funkadelic album and the last with complete contributions by the original group. Unfortunately Funkadelic's business practices could be as anarchic as some of its music. After this album, much of the original band departed, fed up with lack of proper monetary or composer recognition, damaged by substance abuse issues, or just because they had other serious personal or musical issues with front man and bandleader, George Clinton. Well it happens. I always say whatever was going on behind the scenes is, certain criminal behaviors aside, rarely as important as the finished product. I judge musicians by their music. I usually don't care about their personal lives.

Maggotbrain is the definitive Funkadelic album. It combined all of their influences into a well produced release that is both wide ranging and tightly focused. This is guitar/bass/piano based funk. No horns. The title cut is, similar to what "Machine Gun",  "Eruption" or "Stairway to Heaven" would be for other musicians, a coming out party for Eddie Hazel and a redefinition of what could be done on the electric guitar. George Clinton told guitarist Eddie Hazel to play as if he had learned that his mother had died. Well that's a grim request but in "Maggotbrain" Hazel did just that, making a ten minute guitar journey that leads the listener through all the stages of grief to come out the other side. There are other uglier rumours about how the title was conceived. I think it had to do with copious consumption of LSD. Hazel's work on "Maggotbrain" shows how the greatest musicians can talk to us through their instruments. There were accompanying musicians on the track but recognizing greatness when he heard it, Clinton either cut them out completely or mixed them at very low levels. Some may argue for a Hendrix influence here but Hazel sounded like this even before Hendrix. I think it was parallel development. If you want to talk about greatest guitar solos of all time "Maggotbrain" must be on the short list.  Maggotbrain

"Can You Get To That" is a gospelly acoustic folk-song that owes a lot to both the Beatles and Sly Stone. I love singing along to this piece. A long time ago my cousins and uncles and I used to have friendly competitions as to who could sing along with the bass vocals on this song. I like singing in the low register though sadly my voice is only a modest baritone and not a real bass. I think that was Gary Shider holding down the low notes. The lyrics are suitably sardonic. "When you base your love on credit and your loving days are done/Checks you sign with love and kisses later come back signed insufficient funds.." I could really see someone like a Richard Thompson or Richie Havens doing a cover version of this. Well it's too late for Havens...  Can You Get To That
"Hit It and Quit It" is very simple lyrically as the singer details his desire for his girlfriend to shake it to the east, shake it to the west and move it all around. Quite understandable no? It's the drummer Tiki Fulwood and vocalist/keyboardist extraordinaire Bernie Worrell who really get a chance to shine here. Again this song has a lot of gospel and soul influences. If you don't shake your tailfeather upon hearing this music you might want to check what you're sitting on because it's obviously broken. Hit It and Quit It

"You and Your Folks" could be construed as a sequel to "Hit it and Quit It". If the previous song is an ode to sexual unity, "You and Your Folks" is a plea for racial/class unity. This song features the bass player, Billy "Bass" Nelson, on lead vocals. Production wise it appears that both the bass and the bass drum have been mixed a little higher than normal. Or perhaps Fulwood was just hitting the drums that hard. In any event this is a slow nasty funk song that will sonically invade your eardrums and leave funky larvae therein. Nelson is known to have very strong feelings about the proper role of bass (dominant) in funk and the proper tempo (slow) for funk. This song is an excellent example of that. If you simply just can't get enough fat bottom end in your life, this is the song for you. Hazel's reverbed guitar solo never really stops but it is mixed far below the vocals, bass and drums. You and Your Folks
"Super Stupid" provides a platform for guitarists Eddie Hazel and Tawl Ross to go off. Lyrically the song is about a drug addict who makes the mistake of snorting what he thinks is cocaine but is actually heroin. The lyrics aren't important. They are just building blocks to the glorious guitar meltdowns. This song is a little less danceable than others though for some strange reason I always imagine Godzilla doing the Charleston to this song. It's just a funky riff. Super Stupid

"Back in our Minds" and especially "Wars of Armageddon" are both freak out tracks that sound like things Zappa would later do. There's a lot going on the tracks musically but "Wars of Armageddon" is a free form jam I think might be more of interest to other musicians than us listeners. It's also a look into Clinton's id, which is not really something you necessarily want to see unfiltered. Back in Our Minds  Wars of Armageddon
I really enjoyed the mix of the various masculine (tenor, baritone, bass) and feminine (soprano, alto) voices. This is what updated soul, blues, rock, and funk sounded like in 1971. If you are at all any sort of fan of the music of that time, you already have this release. If you don't have it, I wonder why. This funk experience will leave you somber, exhilarated, exhausted, in a cold sweat begging for more.

Music Reviews: Little Richard, King Floyd

Little Richard

Little Richard (born Richard Penniman) likes to refer to himself as "The Architect" of rock-n-roll. He certainly is one of the founding fathers. He was and is a flamboyant larger than life personality who had massive influence on a wide range of disparate peer and subsequent musicians such as Otis Redding (who worked in his band), Elton John, Bon Scott and Brian Johnson of AC/DC, Prince, Tina Turner, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix (who also briefly worked in his band), Jerry Lee Lewis, Queen, David Bowie, James Brown, Bruno Mars, Wilson Pickett (who copied and extended his hard screaming style of singing), Bob Seger, Billy Preston and many many more. Like fellow 50s stars Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Ike Turner, Little Richard transformed up tempo blues and R&B shuffles into rock-n-roll. For his part Little Richard was himself heavily and primarily influenced by gospel performers such as Marion Williams, Mahalia Jackson and Rosetta Tharpe (who gave the teenaged Little Richard his first big break in show business) and also pop or blues performers such as drag queen pianist and singer Esquerita and jump blues singer Billy Wright. More than any of his contemporaries, Little Richard brought an expressive performance style to his live shows, something that would and did drive both men and women to frenzies. He may have been among the first performers to inspire women to throw their underwear at him. As he was often performing in the segregated south this wasn't always the safest thing to have happen. 

Where Elvis Presley might swivel his hips and Chuck Berry would do his trademark duckwalk (originally designed to hide a problem with one of his pants legs) Little Richard raised the bar exponentially on what people could expect to see at a rock-n-roll show. Along with his EXTREMELY loud tenor voice, Little Richard also would play the piano with a foot on top, hump and bang the piano, jump on top of the piano, scream (in key of course), strip off his top and occasionally more, use light shows, and just generally put on a physically demanding show that would always leave him totally exhausted and the audience begging for more. He would do all this in heels, sequins and capes, a six inch pompadour, plucked eyebrows and caked on makeup. 

Although Little Richard's shows in the South started out segregated by the end of the show often blacks and whites would be dancing in the same place or worse yet, together, something which scandalized the authorities. The famous powerhouse New Orleans based session drummer Earl Palmer, who played on most of Little Richard's 50s hits, said that he helped invent rock and roll just by dropping shuffle rhythms and moving to straight-eighths out of desperation to try to keep up with Little Richard's frantic right hand. Little Richard was quite capable of playing various slow blues and gospel shuffles but it's on the fast numbers that he really shines. His voice is so loud I almost imagine it making the speakers and microphones jump in the studio. It's often overlooked as to how much rock-n-roll grew out of New Orleans music. You can hear a little of what Palmer was talking about by listening to "Directly From my Heart" and "Lucille". "Lucille" is a sped up rewritten version of the first song. As you might notice some of Little Richard's 50s hits sound quite similar to each other. From Earl Palmer's pov this is because rock-n-roll was nothing more than really fast blues. He's said that much of Little Richard's music was quite simple but extremely exciting.

Little Richard rarely spoke publicly about his sexuality, maybe in part because it was so obvious to everyone who knew him. His band members were mostly straight and occasionally joked about flying under the radar with groupies who wrongly assumed they were all like Little Richard in terms of their preferences before discovering that they weren't. Little Richard has also said an effeminate image also helped him become something of a crossover success with white audiences. So although his style was not entirely an act it's certainly something that he may have deliberately exaggerated. There were few quicker ways for a black man in the 1950s South to get in serious, criminal or even deadly trouble than to be seen as interested in a white woman. Little Richard avoided that by confounding people who didn't know what to make of him. Ironically though, songs like "Miss Ann" appear to be about a romantic dalliance with a white woman. Although his biographies, a few of his statements, and stories by some of the aforementioned band members tell of Little Richard's same sex interests and escapades, he was also married for a short time and allegedly also had relations with women. Perhaps definitions just don't apply to Little Richard. In his first big hit "Tutti-Frutti" , he had written these lyrics:

"Tutti Frutti, good booty / If it don't fit, don't force it / You can grease it, make it easy"

Unsurprisingly the record company determined those lyrics might be a bit hard to sell in segregated decidedly gay-unfriendly 50s America. Another writer was bought in to help Little Richard reshape and rework the song. Because Little Richard is strongly religious, like many other similar gospel and pop performers down through the years he has occasionally struggled with what he saw as his sinful secular lifestyle and has repeatedly withdrawn from and returned to performance, at times even becoming a preacher.  Check out "The Rill Thing", "The King of Rock-n-Roll", "Freedom Blues" and "The Midnight Special" for examples of his seventies sound. He made three albums on Reprise that were of a piece with then current rock, soul and funk stylings. Little Richard has made various comebacks over the years but of course now age and health concerns have strictly limited his public appearances and performances. Still, if you don't know Little Richard, you don't know rock-n-roll. Not really. He's one of the last people still alive who actually started rock-n-roll. WOOOOOOOOOOOOO! SHUT UP!!!

Good Golly Miss Molly  Jenny Jenny Tutti Frutti Keep a knockin  Directly from my heart
Lucille Long Tall Sally I don't know what you've got (w/Jimi Hendrix) Rip it Up
Send Me Some Loving Slipping and Sliding  Miss Ann  Ooh My Soul  Wondering
The King of Rock-n-Roll  The Midnight Special  Freedom Blues Heeby-Jeebies
Shake a Hand  Ready Teddy  She's Got It  The Rill Thing By The Light of The SIlvery Moon






King Floyd

King Floyd was a New Orleans funk/soul singer who attained some brief fame in the early to mid seventies. His first hit , "Groove Me" became a hit by accident. No one wanted to distribute his first single so Floyd and his record company were reduced to trying to break it themselves by handing out free copies to DJ's or other trend setters. "Groove Me" was the B-Side with "What Our Love Needs" as the A-Side. Floyd and his management thought that "What Our Love Needs" would be the hit. One radio DJ who received the record played the A-Side for about a month with not much interest coming in from listeners. A different DJ took the single to a party where as it turned out everyone wanted to hear "Groove Me" for the entire duration of the party. That's how the song broke in New Orleans. It soon rose to national prominence. It stayed on the R&B charts for 20 weeks. It reached as high as #6. Floyd's next release was the lyrically innocent but sonically downright naaasssty "Baby Let Me Kiss You". The way Floyd groaned and moaned the song it sounded to some people as if "to kiss" wasn't the only transitive verb that Floyd intended to perform upon the young lady. The song was pulled from some radio stations for being risque but perhaps because of the controversy it did even better than "Groove Me", reaching #5 on the R&B charts. Even today that song is still less profane and more erotic than a million modern songs full of profanities.

King Floyd had a very down home New Orleans/southern sound to his music which made sense as his early hits were overseen by New Orleans legend Wardell Quezergue, a pianist, arranger, producer and bandleader who was one of the godfathers of the New Orleans music scene. Quezergue had worked with everyone from Fats Domino to Jean Knight and Dave Bartholomew among others. King Floyd also recorded with the Memphis Horns and the Muscle Shoals group.

King Floyd was not a great singer or one who was going to blow people off the stage with volume. But I liked his work. He was smooth without being syrupy. Check out his ode to monogamy "So True". On most of his early work the bass is VERY prominent, and often even carries the melody, something you hear often in some funk music. There's also a fair amount of space in the arrangements. I LOVE LOVE LOVE his song "Handle With Care". It's so simple and yet so intense. "Think about it" is an Otis Redding song which Floyd sings in Redding's style. "Don't Leave Me Lonely" is a string laden tearjerker ballad. I like the guitar fills but find the song a bit saccharine. But everyone has different tastes, no?
All good things come to an end. As happened with many soul or funk musicians of Floyd's generation the advent of disco brought a swift and premature end to his commercial music career. Floyd tried to adapt by recording the disco tune "Body English" but after that he found himself without a record company and never again had any sort of hit. He passed away in 2006.  His work was consistent. If you are curious about early seventies funk or simply are tired of overproduced simplistic modern R&B you could do worse than to listen to some of Floyd's work. Music like this is why I love live bands.

Groove Me  What Our Love Needs  So True I Feel Like Dynamite  Handle With Care
Baby Let Me Kiss You  Hard to Handle Body English  Think about it  Can't Give It Up
Don't Leave Me Lonely Woman Don't Go Astray

Are Rap Music Lyrics Criminal Confessions?

Did you know that there is an increasingly frequent prosecutorial tactic of using rap music lyrics, or at least rap music lyrics written by black musicians, as evidence of criminal activity or conspiracy or as crimes in and of themselves? It's something that doesn't make a lot of sense to me but there are a lot of things in this world that don't make a lot of sense to me. In order to make these kinds of arguments you would think that prosecutors would have to do violence to all sorts of standards of evidence as well as the first amendment and basic logic but I'm not a prosecutor. I thought that you might have some sort of right to free speech and the ability to create fiction, even disturbing fiction, without having it be seized upon as a criminal confession but apparently I was wrong.

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — The case had gone cold. Four years after the 2007 murders of Christopher Horton, 16, and Brian Dean, 20, detectives here had little to go on. No suspects. No sign of the gun used to shoot the men. No witnesses to the shooting outside a house where officers found Mr. Horton sprawled next to a trash can and Mr. Dean on the front porch.  But in 2011, the case was reassigned to a detective who later came across what he considered a compelling piece of evidence: a YouTube video of Antwain Steward, a local rapper with the stage name Twain Gotti, performing his song “Ride Out.” “But nobody saw when I [expletive] smoked him,” Mr. Steward sang on the video. “Roped him, sharpened up the shank, then I poked him, 357 Smith & Wesson beam scoped him.” Mr. Steward denies any role in the killings, but the authorities took the lyrics to be a boast that he was responsible and, based largely on the song, charged him last July with the crimes. 

Today, his case is one of more than three dozen prosecutions in the past two years in which rap lyrics have played prominent roles. The proliferation of cases has alarmed many scholars and defense lawyers, who say that independent of a defendant’s guilt or innocence, the lyrics are being unfairly used to prejudice judges and juries who have little understanding that, for all its glorification of violence, gangsta rappers are often people who have assumed over-the-top and fictional personas. In some of the cases, the police say the lyrics represent confessions. More often, the lyrics are used to paint an unsavory picture of a defendant to help establish motive and intent. And, increasingly, the act of writing the lyrics themselves is being prosecuted — not because they are viewed as corroborating an incident, but because prosecutors contend that the words themselves amount to a criminal threat.

LINK
I'm not a big rap music fan and haven't really been since the early to mid nineties or so. The music no longer speaks to me. That said, in today's pop music and certainly among the past there have been all sorts of lyrics that may or may not be disturbing, challenging, stupid, boastful, sexist, racist, simple, complex and every other adjective good or bad that applies to art that human beings created. These lyrics are usually understood by most people who do not exclusively breathe through their mouth as not to be taken literally. For example, consider the following:

Dangerous song lyrics that were really criminal confessions.

Well I stand up next to a mountain and chop it down with the edge of my hand
Voodoo Child (Slight Return)- Jimi Hendrix

I'm your doctor when in need/Want some coke have some weed
You know me I'm your friend/Your main boy, thick and thin
I'm your pusherman
Pusherman- Curtis Mayfield

I hear the click clack on your feet on the stairs/I know you're no scare eyed honey
There'll be a feast if you just come upstairs/But it's no hanging matter/it's no capital crime
I can see that you're just fifteen years old/No I don't want your id
Stray Cat Blues- The Rolling Stones

Freedom came my way one day/And I started out of town
All of a sudden I saw sheriff John Brown
Aiming to shoot me down
So I shot -- I shot --- I shot him down and I say:
If I am guilty I will pay
I Shot the Sheriff- Bob Marley

You let me violate you/You let me desecrate you
You let me penetrate you/You let me complicate you
Help me I broke apart my insides/Help me I've got no soul to sell
Help me the only thing that works for me/Help me get away from myself
I want to f*** you like an animal
Closer- Nine Inch Nails

Your world was made for you by someone above
But you chose evil ways instead of love
You made me master of the world where you exist
The soul I took from you was not even missed
Lord of This World- Black Sabbath

I've got something to say/I raped your mother today
And it doesn't matter much to me/As long as she spread
Last Caress- The Misfits                                                                                                           

If this logic put forth in the NYT story holds then someone should have arrested Jimi Hendrix for EPA violations, arrested Curtis Mayfield for racketeering, narcotics trafficking and conspiracy charges, arrested Keith Richards and Mick Jagger for pandering and statutory rape, arrested Bob Marley for first degree murder, arrested both Trent Reznor and The Misfits for rape, and arrested Ozzy Osborne and Geezer Butler for being the Devil.
Seriously.
To me this is very simple. If a prosecutor has serious evidence that someone committed a crime then of course they should pursue a case against that person. But using a piece of music as such evidence and actually convicting a person of charges based on nothing else than their music is ridiculous, unless you also believe that Robert DeNiro is a dangerous hit man/mob boss/serial killer; The Shining really was Stephen King's confession of child abuse; or that based on his characters' descriptions and internal thoughts in A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin is a man with an unhealthy interest in teen girls who should be locked up before he harms one. I mean how stupid is this? Using a rap video as evidence in a criminal trial of a rapper seems like using the infamous eyeball scene in Casino to prove that Joe Pesci is really a dangerous killer for the Chicago Outfit.  

This appears like nothing so much as (1) a way for lazy prosecutors to avoid doing serious work of finding real evidence of criminal behavior and (2) for authoritarian types to shut down black identified music that they don't like. It's the same of story of assuming that whatever black people are doing, in this case rap music, is pathological. And race aside, I think the actions of these police and prosecutors show a serious and quite problematic hostility to free speech. But I could be wrong of course...

Thoughts?

Music Reviews: Howlin' Wolf, Tuvan Throat Singing

Howlin' Wolf
The men don't know but the little girls understand

If I had to pick one bluesman who was the quintessential blues deity that man would be Howling Wolf, or as the IRS knew him, Chester Arthur Burnett. He was named after the President. I don't remember the first time I heard him but he impressed me. He impressed many people with his stentorian gravelly baritone-bass voice that sounded like crushed glass and radiated unrestrained masculinity. Producer Sam Phillips said that Howling Wolf was the literal soul of man who never died while fan and musician Bonnie Raitt talked of the sudden impact that just seeing and hearing Wolf had (from afar) on her lady parts. Howling Wolf stood 6-6 and weighed over 300lbs in his glory days. He received his nickname not just for his unusual howling vocal abilities but because as a child he was quite taken with the Little Red Riding Hood stories he heard. He reminded me of my maternal grandfather. Although it was Howling Wolf's surprisingly expressive, deep and oft sinister voice that most people noticed, he was also a fairly talented harmonica player and decent guitarist. Wolf's voice was such that I imagined that he woke up every morning and gargled with road salt and nitroglycerin. 

Howling Wolf's primary vocal influences were people like Charley Patton, Son House, Tommy Johnson and Jimmie Rogers. Elmore James and Wolf also had similar vocal styles. Wolf toured with Robert Johnson and learned harmonica from his brother-in-law, blues giant Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller). So Wolf was literally a blues Founding Father. Wolf's yelps, howls and vocalizations were unique. As Wolf said "I couldn't yodel but I could howl. And I been doing just fine."

Howling Wolf was an extremely demanding bandleader who did not suffer fools or glory hounds lightly. Wolf once stopped a show to berate guitarist Hubert Sumlin for mistakes and pedestrian playing. He kicked Sumlin off his stage. Wolf sent Sumlin home, warning him not to return until he could play. Sumlin, who later became Wolf's primary foil and soloist, credited that incident with forcing him to improve. Wolf had no problem putting hands on people if he thought they did him wrong. He once knocked Sumlin's teeth out. There was one incident when he and fellow giant (literally and figuratively) bluesman Albert King fought. There were rumors about people that Wolf had badly hurt or worse, down south. Because he grew up in horrible poverty and segregation and often worked around people who were drunk, violent or armed, we shouldn't be surprised that Howling Wolf could be a suspicious martinet. It didn't help his outlook on life that his mother had essentially abandoned him after her divorce from Wolf's father. Wolf grew up with a great-uncle who could have been charitably described as violently abusive. Wolf finally ran away to rejoin his father and siblings. But the maternal rejection left lifelong scars. As adults, mother and son had a conflicted relationship.Wolf's mother, a spirituals singer, thought that blues was the devil's music and that her son was going to hell. 

Wolf was unafraid to tell people, black or white, what he thought. As Vaan Shaw, a blues guitarist whose father worked in Wolf's band said, "He was not necessarily a likable person. If you told him "good morning" he might answer with something like "'Well I don't know how good it is. Let's wait and see"". Working with younger avant garde blues/funk musicians in the late sixties, Wolf told future Miles Davis' guitarist Pete Cosey that "(Cosey) should take all of his pedals and wah-wahs and throw them in Lake Michigan on his way to get his hair cut". Cosey, who had a massive afro, remembered the incident with fondness. Wolf later bluntly described the album he did with Cosey as "dogs***". Generally, musicians who worked with him didn't have problems if they did their job and didn't get on the oft moody Wolf's nerves. Buddy Guy said he never had a cross word with Wolf.

Howling Wolf took his music and life seriously. He despised drunks. He was contemptuous of musicians who allowed alcohol to control them. Even his mentors and heroes like Son House could come in for caustic criticism from Wolf for this reason. Although when Wolf left home he was illiterate, he ultimately remedied that condition. He even briefly went to school to study guitar theory and learn how to arrange horn parts for his band. Wolf was one of the first bandleaders to start withholding Social Security and unemployment insurance from his band employees' salaries, guaranteeing them at least some money in retirement or in unemployment. Wolf was a stickler for paying his employees on time and in full. As Wolf was always fond of reminding people, especially fellow label mate, blues legend and close "frenemy" Muddy Waters, he was already a star before arriving in Chicago. Unlike Muddy Waters Wolf tried to keep the Chess Brothers at arms' distance. He refused to be paid in Cadillacs. He wanted his money. Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf were the premier Chicago post war bluesmen. They did not mind stealing each other's gigs, musicians or occasionally songs. They occasionally assisted each other as well.

Wolf's early Memphis music featured musicians like Willie Johnson, Pat Hare, and Ike Turner(who also played piano), all of whom were fond of a raw distorted guitar sound. The Memphis sides are the beginnings of rock-n-roll.  "House Rocking Boogie" and "Just My Kind", with Willie Johnson on guitar, show this. The early work is not necessarily what we might consider today to be well recorded but occasionally that works better I think. What is a true aural performance? Today we have multi-track recordings, the ability to easily fix vocal or instrumental mistakes in the mix, multiple channels and microphones dedicated to each instrument and other modern advances that make the producer more important. But sometimes it's good to put one microphone in front of the singer and have one or two room microphones for everyone else. That might be closer to what we'd really hear in a concert. Much of Wolf's music swings and swings hard. Although Wolf was not a jazz musician, there's little difference between some of Wolf's more relaxed cuts and some bluesy jazz from the forties and fifties. In other cases Wolf was playing funk music before it was called that. He influenced the next generation. For example Funkadelic's "Music For My Mother" has Howling Wolf's fingerprints all over it, right down to a (false) harmonica solo and a not so humorous reference to a town named "Keep Running, Mississippi".

Much of Wolf's late fifties and early sixties output was overseen, produced and occasionally written by blues bassist, songwriter and  producer extraordinaire Willie Dixon. This wasn't necessarily Wolf's idea. Dixon and Wolf weren't the best of friends. Wolf would occasionally opine that Dixon's lyrics and music were too simplistic, too personally identifiable with Dixon, and too sexual while Dixon often said the best way to get Wolf to do a song was to claim that Muddy Waters was thinking of recording it. Wolf thought that some Dixon written "big man" songs like "Built for Comfort" were silly. Wolf was also suspicious that Dixon was too close to the label owners, the Chess Brothers. Listen to Wolf and Dixon share verses on "Going Down Slow". Dale Hawkins' hit Suzie Q was inspired by Wolf in general and by his song "Smokestack Lightning" in particular. It's both ironic and possibly fitting that Wolf's classic stream of consciousness song "Smokestack Lightning " is being used for Viagra commercials. The ominous song "No Place to Go" and its close relative "How Many More Years" each define existential dread and mystery."Mr. Airplane Man" uses the same melody found in "Smokestack Lightning".

"Evil" reminds me of Louis Jordan's similar musings on domestic relationships. "My Mind Is Rambling" has a delicate tricky beat. When I hear that song I always think of a bull dancing in a china shop and not breaking a single item.
Drummer and Army veteran Earl Phillips had one leg shorter than the other which could be what caused him to place extra emphasis on the "one" of the bass drum's beat. You can hear this most famously in songs like "I'll Be around" and especially "Forty Four". I can't decide whether "I'll Be around" is a classic stalker song, someone begging his woman to change her mind, or a warning from beyond the grave. It could be all of those. Anyway I'll be Around" is a great song with MASSIVE distortion via overdriven amps, microphones and recording board. When Wolf starts playing harmonica it's as if the speakers are going to explode. Wolf's voice is like something from another dimension here. It's scary. "Do The Do" gives a nod to Bo Diddley with its tom-tom heavy rumba riff and avoidance of cymbals. Wolf earnestly explains just what sort of woman he likes and why. ("34 bust, 22 waist, everything else right in place") . "Spoonful" is a song about how small things matter. "Moving" was recorded near the end of Wolf's life while he was suffering from kidney and heart disease and finally cancer. You can hear someone (Eddie Shaw?) feeding Wolf the lyrics. But as Wolf boasts, his name still rings everywhere he goes. "Hidden Charms" sees Hubert Sumlin reel off an extended inventive solo that shows why he was considered to be Wolf's definitive guitarist. "Commit a Crime" is a sinister one chord vamp. It bemoans a murderous woman. Wolf tries to survive long enough to leave. "I Ain't Superstitious" is another Dixon written tune that combines Dixon's favored stop time rhythms with lists of African-American superstitions.

But on "Just Like I Treat You" Wolf is not paranoid and hassled but very happy. The insistent song with a locomotive rhythm is a hymm to male female domestic equality. Wolf knows his wife will return his treatment of her for good or bad. And he wouldn't have it any other way. "Howling For My Darling", "Ooh Baby (Hold me)" and "You'll Be Mine" all express frank appreciation for life's female principle. In "Shake For Me" Wolf explains to a woman who rejected him that she returned a little too late because he's found a woman who shakes like jelly on a plate. It's a blues song but with something close to an Afro-Latin beat. A brokenhearted Wolf begs his woman for an explanation in "Tell Me What I've Done". "Killing Floor" is a famous song that was later "redone" by Led Zeppelin as "The Lemon Song" without proper credit. Wolf plays slide on "Down in the Bottom" which has the same theme as "Back Door Man": Wolf as a Lothario who must depart before his girlfriend's husband returns. "Sitting on Top of the World" is a classic traditional blues that Wolf probably learned from Charley Patton. Long Distance Call (w/Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley)  is actually Moaning at Midnight". It is from a late sixties session featuring Howling Wolf, Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters. The version of Little Red Rooster with Wolf on acoustic slide is quite pretty. If you're unfamiliar with this music I think you missed something. Songs that Wolf wrote or performed are blues or blues-rock standards. Howling Wolf was a giant of American music. 






Tuvan Throat Singing

Although the tone and sound of Tuvan Throat singing has some surface similarity to what Howling Wolf was doing it is completely unrelated and is actually musically something quite different. All the same some blues and other musicians have been fascinated by this sound and have performed with Tuvan style singers. After all humans are brothers and sisters once you get down to it and if you search for a while you can probably find something in common with anyone, no matter how small.
What throat singing does is allow the singer to create more than one pitch at the same time. There is the fundamental pitch and then the overtones. Effectively throat singing allows the singer to become a virtual human bagpipe. In males especially it can come across as a distorted growl with almost electronic sounds that are something akin to a Moog synthesizer.

This is most definitely an acquired taste but I happen to have it. The best stuff to listen to if you are curious about this music is the release "Fly Fly My Sadness" which features the Tuvan throat singer group Huun-Huur working with the female Bulgarian chorale group Angelite. The two music styles fit pretty well together I think. This for me anyway is trance music. It's something you can listen to when you're just reclining in a dark room with your eyes closed and meditating. It's repetitive. It's most definitely not for dancing, or at least not any sort of dancing I would be familiar with. Maybe you could do some sort of odd (to me) interpretive modern dance to the music. Maybe in Siberia and portions of Central Asia this is considered dance music. Dunno. But I doubt it. Although obviously I don't understand any of the lyrics, just like with opera or salsa or various other musics in languages I don't speak, the feeling of the music transcends language. At least for me. As mentioned this isn't for everyone. Nothing is. Some people I know find this music about as relaxing as listening to a broken garbage disposal that won't stop running or a belching contest. So YMMW. All that said though check it out if you want to hear something completely different.

Legend  Lonely Bird  Orphan's Lament   Fly, Fly My Sadness