"What Good Am I Without You" / Marvin Gaye & Kim Weston
MOTOWN #5
In April 1984, when I heard Marvin Gaye had been shot by his father in the heat of an argument, I bet I hadn't thought about him for seven or eight years. But as soon as I began to, I realized I had to mourn at least three different Marvin Gayes. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" is in some ways THE classic Motown track; his jazz-drenched 1970 hits "What's Going On" and "Mercy Mercy Me" shattered the Motown mold by actually being -- gasp! -- about something besides romantic love; then he practically invented the heavy-breathing song with "Let's Get It On" and "Sexual Healing," blatantly sexual tracks that mortified the teenage me when they first came out. (And now, of course, I love them...)
But the thing about Marvin Gaye I never focused on until recently was that so many of his hits were duets. Gaye was Berry Gordy's brother-in-law (talk about convenient), and I'm guessing that when his first few solo singles failed to chart, Berry looked for a way to hoist brother-in-law Marvin to bigger success. The solution? An album of duets with Motown's reigning girl star Mary Wells. Gaye's silky voice blended incredibly well with female vocals, and considering that he had come up through doo-wop, harmonizing was no doubt second nature to him.
Eventually he'd pair up, to enormous success, with Tammi Terrell and even cut a few tracks with Diana Ross, when she was the queen of Motown. (It's nice to be the girlfriend of the king.) In the mid-60s, though, Marvin Gaye's partner was Kim Weston, a Motown regular who never really got the success she deserved. Even stacked up against chart-topping Marvin&Tammi duets like "Precious Love" and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," I'd have to say my favorite Marvin Gaye duet is this laid-back syncopated number with Kim.
The honky-tonk piano plinking away behind the vocals gives it a touch of roadhouse sloppiness that draws me in right away; I can almost picture a tiny bare stage with two singers leaning into the same microphone stand to blend their voices on those jazzy wo-oh-ohs. The horn section, the back-up ooohs, the drumming, are all kept back in the mix so you can focus on the voices, both Weston and Gaye playing with notes and rhythm as if they are actually live singers and not studio-polished automatons.
Duets only work when the two singers are in the same groove, and I really feel like Kim and Marvin are both having exactly the same amount of fun here, getting a kick out of each other's stylizings. Like many Motown lyrics, this one picks a single concept and runs it through several variations -- in this case objects that need something else to complete them (sounds like a category from The $25,000 Pyramid, doesn't it?). "What good is a telephone if there's no one to call?" "What good is a wedding if no one says 'I do?'" "What good is a doctor if he can't cure the pain?" "What good is the heavens without the stars above?" et cetera et cetera.
Kim takes the first verse, Marvin takes the second, and they do a call-and-answer on the third verse, but at the end of every verse, on the line "What good am I baby, without you" they get to improvise for a measure or two, and man, what they do with it makes this song sizzle -- Marvin pulls a gritty edge into his voice, and Kim drops down a chromatic scale that's so languid and elegant, it's like she's channeling Ella Fitzgerald.
This is one of those songs where finger-snapping is more or less compulsory (Marvin Gaye was also a drummer, after all).
I loved Marvin Gaye the social activist and Marvin Gaye the heavy-breather, but this other Marvin, the swinging jazz singer, may be my favorite Marvin of all. And now I'm curious to dig up some more Kim Weston numbers, too. Marvin I always knew about...but Kim...
Friday, February 09, 2007
Thursday, February 08, 2007
"The Love You Save" / The Jackson Five
MOTOWN WEEK #4
What in God’s name happened to Michael Jackson? I never hear any of his new music – I guess it’s only released overseas, where his “true” fans live. I dug Off the Wall and Thriller like everyone else, but that was 25 years ago, and to be honest, I’m not sure I would have liked them so much if it hadn’t been for those sensational videos, back when MTV actually mattered. Soon after that he jumped the shark, making every track Bigger!Badder!Better! without charting any new musical territory. Like most everybody, I’m horrified by the bizarre spectacle he has turned into – it’s like Thriller come to life, his face morphing into a creepy mask worthy of Lon Chaney.
But being in a Motown groove this week, I’m listening to those early Jackson Five songs and it breaks my heart. Yes, they were highly produced commercial funk-pop. Yes, Michael’s image was managed to the nth degree, I’m guessing because “Little” Stevie Wonder had left the fold and Berry Gordy needed another cute kid phenom to take his place. Whatever. The fact is, those Jackson Five hits were tight and spunky, with hooks that stay with you like a rhinovirus.
Michael sounded so sweet and earnest on ultra-smooth ballads like “I’ll Be There” and “Never Can Say Goodbye” – though, come to think of it, at Michael’s age most boys wouldn’t be caught dead in a room alone with a girl. (And they grew up to be sexually normal.) Still, there was a cunning genius at work behind hits like “ABC” that riffed on the idea that a kid was singing them. I defy you to sing this chorus just once: “Simple as do-re-mi / A B C/ One, two three / Baby you and me,” even if you mix up the order, like I do. Or even if somehow you segue right into “ABC” in the chorus of “I Want You Back.” It’s all the same song, really.
As soon as I hear “The Love You Save,” I think of those street safety filmstrips we had to watch in elementary school: “Stop the love you save may be your own / Darling look both ways before you cross me / You’re heading for a danger zone.” This song wipes the Supremes “Stop In the Name Of Love” off the map for me, it’s so much more lively, with funky staccato rhythms and a melody that bounces all over the place. Naturally it starts out with a childhood setting, as Michael innocently explains: “When we played tag in grade school / You wanted to be it / But chasing boys was just a fad / You crossed your heart you’d quit.” But now they're adults – “When we grew up you traded / Your promise for my ring” -- and she’s still chasing boys around the playground, and Michael’s getting worked up into a real tantrum.
Jermaine and Michael swap lines in the bridge, egging each other into a frenzy: Michael, “They’ll ruin your reputation! / They’ll label you a flirt!”; then Jermaine, “The way they talk about you / They’ll turn your name to dirt!” The second verse is even cleverer, as Michael names the boys she’s fooling around with, and after the second bridge they fall back on that time-honored middle-section spelling shtick ("ABC" all over again): “S is for save it / T is for take it slow / O is for oh, no! / P is for please, please, don’t go!”
The songwriter was having F-U-N here, and so did the studio band (I assume this was the Funk Brothers, with Joe Hunter throwing out those snazzy glissandos on the keyboards), and so did the other four Jacksons, doing vocal bass lines and percussion. I’m sure I saw them perform this on TV and they had a slick dance routine worked out as well. By the time it was over they weren’t the only ones who had to catch their breath.
So that's why I still care, in a sad little corner of my heart, about what's become of Michael Jackson. If you never saw the Jacksons in their prime, you might think he's just a freak show, a tabloid curiosity. But for those of us who did . . .
MOTOWN WEEK #4
What in God’s name happened to Michael Jackson? I never hear any of his new music – I guess it’s only released overseas, where his “true” fans live. I dug Off the Wall and Thriller like everyone else, but that was 25 years ago, and to be honest, I’m not sure I would have liked them so much if it hadn’t been for those sensational videos, back when MTV actually mattered. Soon after that he jumped the shark, making every track Bigger!Badder!Better! without charting any new musical territory. Like most everybody, I’m horrified by the bizarre spectacle he has turned into – it’s like Thriller come to life, his face morphing into a creepy mask worthy of Lon Chaney.
But being in a Motown groove this week, I’m listening to those early Jackson Five songs and it breaks my heart. Yes, they were highly produced commercial funk-pop. Yes, Michael’s image was managed to the nth degree, I’m guessing because “Little” Stevie Wonder had left the fold and Berry Gordy needed another cute kid phenom to take his place. Whatever. The fact is, those Jackson Five hits were tight and spunky, with hooks that stay with you like a rhinovirus.
Michael sounded so sweet and earnest on ultra-smooth ballads like “I’ll Be There” and “Never Can Say Goodbye” – though, come to think of it, at Michael’s age most boys wouldn’t be caught dead in a room alone with a girl. (And they grew up to be sexually normal.) Still, there was a cunning genius at work behind hits like “ABC” that riffed on the idea that a kid was singing them. I defy you to sing this chorus just once: “Simple as do-re-mi / A B C/ One, two three / Baby you and me,” even if you mix up the order, like I do. Or even if somehow you segue right into “ABC” in the chorus of “I Want You Back.” It’s all the same song, really.
As soon as I hear “The Love You Save,” I think of those street safety filmstrips we had to watch in elementary school: “Stop the love you save may be your own / Darling look both ways before you cross me / You’re heading for a danger zone.” This song wipes the Supremes “Stop In the Name Of Love” off the map for me, it’s so much more lively, with funky staccato rhythms and a melody that bounces all over the place. Naturally it starts out with a childhood setting, as Michael innocently explains: “When we played tag in grade school / You wanted to be it / But chasing boys was just a fad / You crossed your heart you’d quit.” But now they're adults – “When we grew up you traded / Your promise for my ring” -- and she’s still chasing boys around the playground, and Michael’s getting worked up into a real tantrum.
Jermaine and Michael swap lines in the bridge, egging each other into a frenzy: Michael, “They’ll ruin your reputation! / They’ll label you a flirt!”; then Jermaine, “The way they talk about you / They’ll turn your name to dirt!” The second verse is even cleverer, as Michael names the boys she’s fooling around with, and after the second bridge they fall back on that time-honored middle-section spelling shtick ("ABC" all over again): “S is for save it / T is for take it slow / O is for oh, no! / P is for please, please, don’t go!”
The songwriter was having F-U-N here, and so did the studio band (I assume this was the Funk Brothers, with Joe Hunter throwing out those snazzy glissandos on the keyboards), and so did the other four Jacksons, doing vocal bass lines and percussion. I’m sure I saw them perform this on TV and they had a slick dance routine worked out as well. By the time it was over they weren’t the only ones who had to catch their breath.
So that's why I still care, in a sad little corner of my heart, about what's become of Michael Jackson. If you never saw the Jacksons in their prime, you might think he's just a freak show, a tabloid curiosity. But for those of us who did . . .
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
“Living for the City” / Stevie Wonder
MOTOWN WEEK #3
I grew up with Stevie Wonder. First he was Little Stevie Wonder, Motown’s 12-year-old genius, doing “Fingertips” on TV (I just thought he wore those sunglasses to be cool, until my mother set me straight). A blind black child prodigy seemed just a novelty, though; it wasn’t until the later 60s, when his voice changed and he started that amazing run of hits (“”For Once in My Life,” “My Cherie Amour,” “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”) that I sat up and took notice, even in the midst of my Beatlemania. And then, just as I began to itch to leave the nest and go to college, Stevie turned 21 and struck out on his own, re-negotiating his Motown deal to obtain artistic control.
Artistic control – wasn’t that what we all wanted in 1971? Except what I did with it was a few not-half-bad English papers; what Stevie did with it was Talking Book. And then Innervisions. No one since the Beatles had written entire albums that scored so high on both social meaning and sing-along-ability. By the time Stevie hit Songs In the Key of Life, I felt like the kid down the street had just earned the Nobel Peace Prize.
By then I’d outgrown commercial Motown and discovered “real” blues, but Stevie’s politics earned him a free pass. Why a pampered child prodigy should be an authority on ghetto life I don’t know, but I believed it when Stevie sang it. This song in particular, which clocks in at 7:03, was an entire mini-opera. It begins at the beginning, naturally, with a hardscrabble childhood in the rural South (Stevie, by the way, was born in Saginaw, Michigan, far from Hardtime, Mississippi) – it’s like a Richard Wright novel, piling up the injustices, the father’s low-wage 14-hour days, his mother scrubbing floors for the white lady, his sister wearing secondhand clothes, his brother unemployed because “where he lives / They don’t use colored people.”
Oddly enough, coming from a tunesmith like Stevie Wonder, this song’s not much on melody – the verses are like talking blues, though the chorus is more catchy. The real hook is the repeated synthesizer riff, a jazzlike fanfare melting through several chord changes. Notice how Stevie’s voice gets a harder edge as his protagonist gets older and more frustrated with life. Eventually things slide into a long musical interlude, simmering synthesizers and counterpointed vocals, propelled by that same hard-driving beat that’s hustled us along from the start.
By all rights the song should be over now, but no – now our hero arrives in the city, the promised land. In an awed voice Stevie exclaims "Wow! New York, just like I pictured it -- skyscrapers and ev'rything" (a line that became my personal slogan for several years) as the track evolves into a cinema verite montage: sound effects of a bus pulling into Port Authority, a street hustler’s jive patter, sirens wailing, the echoing whack of a gavel, and the clang of a prison door (“Get into that cell, nigger!”) – boom boom boom, a swift and shocking series of events. By the time Stevie sings again, all that’s left is a gruff vocal wreck. But our hero's still singing, damn it. He’s still singing.
This one song telescopes 25 years of civil rights protests into one man’s story, and I have to say, Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” never reached me the way “Living for the City” did. Here I was, a white college girl identifying with these characters in a Motown song – but then, that was the early 70s, when we still hoped we were all on the same side. Well, some of us still do, thanks to Stevie Wonder. Maybe they should have given him a Nobel Prize.
MOTOWN WEEK #3
I grew up with Stevie Wonder. First he was Little Stevie Wonder, Motown’s 12-year-old genius, doing “Fingertips” on TV (I just thought he wore those sunglasses to be cool, until my mother set me straight). A blind black child prodigy seemed just a novelty, though; it wasn’t until the later 60s, when his voice changed and he started that amazing run of hits (“”For Once in My Life,” “My Cherie Amour,” “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”) that I sat up and took notice, even in the midst of my Beatlemania. And then, just as I began to itch to leave the nest and go to college, Stevie turned 21 and struck out on his own, re-negotiating his Motown deal to obtain artistic control.
Artistic control – wasn’t that what we all wanted in 1971? Except what I did with it was a few not-half-bad English papers; what Stevie did with it was Talking Book. And then Innervisions. No one since the Beatles had written entire albums that scored so high on both social meaning and sing-along-ability. By the time Stevie hit Songs In the Key of Life, I felt like the kid down the street had just earned the Nobel Peace Prize.
By then I’d outgrown commercial Motown and discovered “real” blues, but Stevie’s politics earned him a free pass. Why a pampered child prodigy should be an authority on ghetto life I don’t know, but I believed it when Stevie sang it. This song in particular, which clocks in at 7:03, was an entire mini-opera. It begins at the beginning, naturally, with a hardscrabble childhood in the rural South (Stevie, by the way, was born in Saginaw, Michigan, far from Hardtime, Mississippi) – it’s like a Richard Wright novel, piling up the injustices, the father’s low-wage 14-hour days, his mother scrubbing floors for the white lady, his sister wearing secondhand clothes, his brother unemployed because “where he lives / They don’t use colored people.”
Oddly enough, coming from a tunesmith like Stevie Wonder, this song’s not much on melody – the verses are like talking blues, though the chorus is more catchy. The real hook is the repeated synthesizer riff, a jazzlike fanfare melting through several chord changes. Notice how Stevie’s voice gets a harder edge as his protagonist gets older and more frustrated with life. Eventually things slide into a long musical interlude, simmering synthesizers and counterpointed vocals, propelled by that same hard-driving beat that’s hustled us along from the start.
By all rights the song should be over now, but no – now our hero arrives in the city, the promised land. In an awed voice Stevie exclaims "Wow! New York, just like I pictured it -- skyscrapers and ev'rything" (a line that became my personal slogan for several years) as the track evolves into a cinema verite montage: sound effects of a bus pulling into Port Authority, a street hustler’s jive patter, sirens wailing, the echoing whack of a gavel, and the clang of a prison door (“Get into that cell, nigger!”) – boom boom boom, a swift and shocking series of events. By the time Stevie sings again, all that’s left is a gruff vocal wreck. But our hero's still singing, damn it. He’s still singing.
This one song telescopes 25 years of civil rights protests into one man’s story, and I have to say, Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” never reached me the way “Living for the City” did. Here I was, a white college girl identifying with these characters in a Motown song – but then, that was the early 70s, when we still hoped we were all on the same side. Well, some of us still do, thanks to Stevie Wonder. Maybe they should have given him a Nobel Prize.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
“My Girl” / The Temptations
“My Guy” / Mary Wells
MOTOWN WEEK #2
One thing I didn’t mention yesterday about Smokey Robinson: He was also one of Motown’s most prolific songwriters, turning out hits for other artists as well -- including this pair, consciously written as a soul-music version of "he says/she says." Motown had a huge hit on its hands in 1964 with Mary Well's"My Guy," but in a brilliant stroke of cross-marketing, Berry Gordy used that to promote another act with the 1965 sequel, the Temptations' "My Girl."
Smokey wrote several songs for the Temptations, but this was their signature tune, and it’s easy to see why. It starts off with one of those openings you instantly recognize when it comes on the jukebox – that drawling guitar line, bomb ba-bah-da-ba-dah bomb ba-ba-dah-ba-dah, taking its sweet time to climb upward. Then in slips David Ruffin’s shimmering tenor, "I got sunshine / On a cloudy day" (the flutters on "sunshine" and "cloudy" are classic). He keeps working that weather metaphor, "And when it’s cold outside / I got the month of May." Then all four parts come in on stair-step chords: "Well, I guess you’ll say / What could make me feel this way" and then Ruffin sparkles in again on "My girl" (as the harmonies deliver another "My girl," here comes a lush suite of strings too), "talking ‘bout / My girl." "My girl" the back-ups repeat in a high staccato, zipping it up to take her away.
Next verse, new metaphor: "I've got so much honey / The bees envy me. / I've got a sweeter song / Than the birds in the trees," and Ruffin’s voice alone is proof how sweet that honey is. Imagine the choreography that went with this, some smart snapping slide step, maybe with a synchronized spin. The Temptations were so goddam elegant, you just KNOW they’d give a girl a good time.
But something about Mary Wells' song comes a little closer to my heart. The beat’s snappier, with a pack of horns punching it up; it starts off with a metaphor (Smokey couldn’t resist): “I'm stickin' to my guy / Like a stamp to a letter / Like the birds of a feather / We stick together,” but as Mary’s voice skips along, all kittenish and flirty and coy, she’s simply dealing out the emotional facts: “Nothing you can do could make me untrue / To my guy / Nothing you can buy could make me tell a lie / To my guy.” I picture her facing another man who IS trying to woo her away, shaking her head and laying her long-nailed fingers on his chest to push him away.
Mary knows she’s got alternatives, and as neat as the rhymes may be, she’s making her decision the way a woman does, on deeper qualities: “No muscle bound man could take my hand / From my guy / No handsome face could ever take the place / Of my guy / He may not be a movie star / But when it comes to being happy / We are.” (Remember that Smokey also wrote “Beauty Is Only Skin Deep” for his own group, the Miracles – handsome as he was (is), Smokey knew that looks aren’t everything.)
Where the Temptations are simply giddy with how the girl makes them feel, Mary shrewdly lays out a battle plan – “I gave my guy my word of honor / To be faithful and I'm gonna” (love that rhyme). While the guys wallow around in bliss, the girl is rolling up her sleeves, knowing that a relationship takes work. She’s not saying he’s perfect, she’s not saying there’s magic -- but she’s got material she can work with. So what if he’s off in the clouds right now, warbling “My Girl” about her? Of course a girl likes being appreciated. And when the hard times come – and they will -- she’ll do the heavy lifting. I bet they’ll make it.
“My Guy” / Mary Wells
MOTOWN WEEK #2
One thing I didn’t mention yesterday about Smokey Robinson: He was also one of Motown’s most prolific songwriters, turning out hits for other artists as well -- including this pair, consciously written as a soul-music version of "he says/she says." Motown had a huge hit on its hands in 1964 with Mary Well's"My Guy," but in a brilliant stroke of cross-marketing, Berry Gordy used that to promote another act with the 1965 sequel, the Temptations' "My Girl."
Smokey wrote several songs for the Temptations, but this was their signature tune, and it’s easy to see why. It starts off with one of those openings you instantly recognize when it comes on the jukebox – that drawling guitar line, bomb ba-bah-da-ba-dah bomb ba-ba-dah-ba-dah, taking its sweet time to climb upward. Then in slips David Ruffin’s shimmering tenor, "I got sunshine / On a cloudy day" (the flutters on "sunshine" and "cloudy" are classic). He keeps working that weather metaphor, "And when it’s cold outside / I got the month of May." Then all four parts come in on stair-step chords: "Well, I guess you’ll say / What could make me feel this way" and then Ruffin sparkles in again on "My girl" (as the harmonies deliver another "My girl," here comes a lush suite of strings too), "talking ‘bout / My girl." "My girl" the back-ups repeat in a high staccato, zipping it up to take her away.
Next verse, new metaphor: "I've got so much honey / The bees envy me. / I've got a sweeter song / Than the birds in the trees," and Ruffin’s voice alone is proof how sweet that honey is. Imagine the choreography that went with this, some smart snapping slide step, maybe with a synchronized spin. The Temptations were so goddam elegant, you just KNOW they’d give a girl a good time.
But something about Mary Wells' song comes a little closer to my heart. The beat’s snappier, with a pack of horns punching it up; it starts off with a metaphor (Smokey couldn’t resist): “I'm stickin' to my guy / Like a stamp to a letter / Like the birds of a feather / We stick together,” but as Mary’s voice skips along, all kittenish and flirty and coy, she’s simply dealing out the emotional facts: “Nothing you can do could make me untrue / To my guy / Nothing you can buy could make me tell a lie / To my guy.” I picture her facing another man who IS trying to woo her away, shaking her head and laying her long-nailed fingers on his chest to push him away.
Mary knows she’s got alternatives, and as neat as the rhymes may be, she’s making her decision the way a woman does, on deeper qualities: “No muscle bound man could take my hand / From my guy / No handsome face could ever take the place / Of my guy / He may not be a movie star / But when it comes to being happy / We are.” (Remember that Smokey also wrote “Beauty Is Only Skin Deep” for his own group, the Miracles – handsome as he was (is), Smokey knew that looks aren’t everything.)
Where the Temptations are simply giddy with how the girl makes them feel, Mary shrewdly lays out a battle plan – “I gave my guy my word of honor / To be faithful and I'm gonna” (love that rhyme). While the guys wallow around in bliss, the girl is rolling up her sleeves, knowing that a relationship takes work. She’s not saying he’s perfect, she’s not saying there’s magic -- but she’s got material she can work with. So what if he’s off in the clouds right now, warbling “My Girl” about her? Of course a girl likes being appreciated. And when the hard times come – and they will -- she’ll do the heavy lifting. I bet they’ll make it.
Monday, February 05, 2007
“Shop Around” / Smokey Robinson
MOTOWN WEEK #1
At the theater the other night, seeing Jersey Boys, our friends were raving about how the Four Seasons were the soundtrack of their childhoods in New Jersey and Queens. I had to stop and think; I mean, I liked the Four Seasons all right, but . . . well, I’m from Indiana and I never felt they were singing to me. Same deal with the Beach Boys – I figured I needed to be a sun-bleached blonde with a year-round tan to really get the Beach Boys. So what was the music of my youth, I wondered? Then it came to me: Motown.
And so, in honor of that epiphany, I hereby declare this MOTOWN WEEK.
The beauty part of Motown was that it wasn’t black music just for blacks – even we white kids could dance to that glossy soul-infused pop. And the guy who most epitomizes that Motown sound to me was William “Smokey” Robinson. Whether he got that name from his velvety tenor or those mesmerizing hazel eyes, Smokey was romance incarnate, tricked out with enough book-smart lyrics and polite manners that you could always bring him home to the folks. (Though we cannot ignore the fact that “Oooh Baby Baby” was the most intoxicating ladies-man seduction ever recorded – it makes Barry White’s sexy growl seem tepid).
Smokey could go in all sorts of directions, from house-party tracks like “Mickey the Monkey,” “I Second That Emotion,” or the infectious “Going to a Go-Go” to dreamy slow-dance ballads like “Tracks of My Tears.” Just where the self-pity classic “Tears of a Clown” fits in I don’t know, but it is one memorable tune (and the only dance hit I know that references the opera Pagliacci).
Smokey wrote “Shop Around” with his mentor Berry Gordy, and maybe that why it has a darker edge, or maybe it’s because it’s from 1960 (the label’s first #1 single) before the Motown commercial formula had been completely refined. This song is Smokey’s Some Like It Hot moment, with his high silky-smooth voice morphing into an female impersonation of his mother giving him advice: “Just because you've become a young man now / There's still some things that you don't understand now / Before you ask some girl for her hand now / Keep your freedom for as long as you can now’ / My mama told me:” The whole song jerks to a dramatic halt for a beat, then Smokey's voice swoops down dramatically low to deliver the punch line – “’You better shop around'.”
Is it just me, or is there something Oedipal about this? Sure, Mom’s just looking out for her baby boy’s best interests, urging him, “Make sure that her love is true now / I'd hate to see you feelin' sad and blue now.” Clearly this mother is in NO HURRY to see her son settle down with another woman, and she’s willing to sell out her own sex – “Pretty girls come a dime a dozen,” she says cynically, adding: “Try to get yourself a bargain son / Don't be sold on the very first one!” Caveat emptor and all that.
Now remember, this guy is just repeating what his mother said; it’s possible he’s using this as an excuse to deny a woman who’s pressuring him to settle down. But as the song swings into the coda, it builds to a frenzy of call-and-answer between back-up and lead vocal -- either his mom is picturing his love-making in incestuous detail, or he himself is quivering at the idea that girls are going to hold him tight and take his hand, et cetera. “Be a man, son,” he advises himself in his mother’s voice, as if playing the field is the only way to prove his manhood. And if mama told him to, he’s gotta do it, right?
Well, there are a lot of psychological layers here, more than usual for a pop song. But there’s also a boppy dance beat, a sizzling sax solo in the break, and those finger-wagging back-up “oohs” and “mmms” (listen and you'll hear Smokey’s future wife, Claudette Rogers). It comes flowing out in glorious monoaural -- a song made to be listened to on a transistor radio on a summer night, or blaring out of open car windows (who had AC in the car back then?). This is Motown, and I want more.
http://www.mp3raid.com/search/download-mp3/8/miracles/1.html
MOTOWN WEEK #1
At the theater the other night, seeing Jersey Boys, our friends were raving about how the Four Seasons were the soundtrack of their childhoods in New Jersey and Queens. I had to stop and think; I mean, I liked the Four Seasons all right, but . . . well, I’m from Indiana and I never felt they were singing to me. Same deal with the Beach Boys – I figured I needed to be a sun-bleached blonde with a year-round tan to really get the Beach Boys. So what was the music of my youth, I wondered? Then it came to me: Motown.
And so, in honor of that epiphany, I hereby declare this MOTOWN WEEK.
The beauty part of Motown was that it wasn’t black music just for blacks – even we white kids could dance to that glossy soul-infused pop. And the guy who most epitomizes that Motown sound to me was William “Smokey” Robinson. Whether he got that name from his velvety tenor or those mesmerizing hazel eyes, Smokey was romance incarnate, tricked out with enough book-smart lyrics and polite manners that you could always bring him home to the folks. (Though we cannot ignore the fact that “Oooh Baby Baby” was the most intoxicating ladies-man seduction ever recorded – it makes Barry White’s sexy growl seem tepid).
Smokey could go in all sorts of directions, from house-party tracks like “Mickey the Monkey,” “I Second That Emotion,” or the infectious “Going to a Go-Go” to dreamy slow-dance ballads like “Tracks of My Tears.” Just where the self-pity classic “Tears of a Clown” fits in I don’t know, but it is one memorable tune (and the only dance hit I know that references the opera Pagliacci).
Smokey wrote “Shop Around” with his mentor Berry Gordy, and maybe that why it has a darker edge, or maybe it’s because it’s from 1960 (the label’s first #1 single) before the Motown commercial formula had been completely refined. This song is Smokey’s Some Like It Hot moment, with his high silky-smooth voice morphing into an female impersonation of his mother giving him advice: “Just because you've become a young man now / There's still some things that you don't understand now / Before you ask some girl for her hand now / Keep your freedom for as long as you can now’ / My mama told me:” The whole song jerks to a dramatic halt for a beat, then Smokey's voice swoops down dramatically low to deliver the punch line – “’You better shop around'.”
Is it just me, or is there something Oedipal about this? Sure, Mom’s just looking out for her baby boy’s best interests, urging him, “Make sure that her love is true now / I'd hate to see you feelin' sad and blue now.” Clearly this mother is in NO HURRY to see her son settle down with another woman, and she’s willing to sell out her own sex – “Pretty girls come a dime a dozen,” she says cynically, adding: “Try to get yourself a bargain son / Don't be sold on the very first one!” Caveat emptor and all that.
Now remember, this guy is just repeating what his mother said; it’s possible he’s using this as an excuse to deny a woman who’s pressuring him to settle down. But as the song swings into the coda, it builds to a frenzy of call-and-answer between back-up and lead vocal -- either his mom is picturing his love-making in incestuous detail, or he himself is quivering at the idea that girls are going to hold him tight and take his hand, et cetera. “Be a man, son,” he advises himself in his mother’s voice, as if playing the field is the only way to prove his manhood. And if mama told him to, he’s gotta do it, right?
Well, there are a lot of psychological layers here, more than usual for a pop song. But there’s also a boppy dance beat, a sizzling sax solo in the break, and those finger-wagging back-up “oohs” and “mmms” (listen and you'll hear Smokey’s future wife, Claudette Rogers). It comes flowing out in glorious monoaural -- a song made to be listened to on a transistor radio on a summer night, or blaring out of open car windows (who had AC in the car back then?). This is Motown, and I want more.
http://www.mp3raid.com/search/download-mp3/8/miracles/1.html
Friday, February 02, 2007
"Redemption Song" / Bob Marley and the Wailers
Yesterday I was deep into the Specials; this morning I found myself diving deeper, down to reggae roots -- which for me means Bob Marley. Like most of my generation, my first taste of true Jamaican reggae came through the Jimmy Cliff movie The Harder They Come, where I found out about a slew of reggae artists all at one go. And right away it was clear to me that Bob Marley and the Wailers were head and shoulders above the rest (I'm glad I knew "I Shot the Sheriff" before Eric Clapton's cover). I love so many Wailers tracks -- "Is This Love", "Jammin'", "Waiting in Vain" -- but this song, man, this song is something else.
By this point in his career -- 1980's Uprising album, which would be his last --Bob Marley knew how to wrestle grandeur out of even a simple acoustic track like this. It almost seems like heresy to have a reggae song without a heavy electric bassline, but there's no bass on here, no drums, nothing but Marley's expressive voice and an acoustic guitar; the reggae beat is laid down entirely vocally, putting accents wherever the syncopation requires. The melody seems wistful, almost uncertain, but it soars exquisitely when it needs to, on "It's all I ever had" -- hanging fiercely on that unresolved chord.
Like a campfire storyteller, Marley starts off by reciting his people's slave heritage: " Old pirates, yes, they rob I / Sold I to the merchant ships, / Minutes after they took I / From the bottomless pit," his Jamaican patois proudly, almost defiantly, emphasized -- so what if this record will be sold worldwise, it represents JAMAICA, and Marley's not going to play that down, not now. Songwriting technique is less important than the message, so he's willing to go with near rhymes, or no rhymes at all in some verses, like in "But my hand was made strong / By the hand of the almighty. / We forward in this generation / Triumphantly." He sounds to me like an Old Testament prophet exhorting his tribe in the desert, even knowing his words may (probably will) fall on deaf ears.
These phrases Marley's spouting by all rights should come across as propaganda, but he enunciates them with such utter conviction, they seem dogma-free -- even lines like: "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery / None but ourselves can free our minds." It's a rallying cry that digs really deep, laying it at every listener's door -- yours and mine too. Spirituality and politics and history are all braided together, and even when Marley's voice trembles, remembering past injustice -- "How long shall they kill our prophets / While we stand aside and look?" -- he's old enough, and wise enough, to spot the hand of God at work: "Ooh! some say it's just a part of it / We've got to fulfill the book."
It took me a couple of years before I understood Marley's not looking for "redemption" in the traditional Christian sense, but something a whole lot more specific: a slave being "redeemed," bought out of slavery. With that in mind, it's incredibly moving when he sings that "these songs of freedom [are] all I ever have." Even being a worldwide music star, and more or less a Rasta prophet, Bob Marley never forgot what it felt like being a poor kid from the Trenchtown slums, with nothing but the music and passion in his heart.
Singing this, at the apex of his career -- with the cancer that killed him already raging through his body -- he has an end-of-days urgency throbbing through his voice, and it's so . . . well, we use the word "awesome" too easily these days, but this song? This song is awesome.
Yesterday I was deep into the Specials; this morning I found myself diving deeper, down to reggae roots -- which for me means Bob Marley. Like most of my generation, my first taste of true Jamaican reggae came through the Jimmy Cliff movie The Harder They Come, where I found out about a slew of reggae artists all at one go. And right away it was clear to me that Bob Marley and the Wailers were head and shoulders above the rest (I'm glad I knew "I Shot the Sheriff" before Eric Clapton's cover). I love so many Wailers tracks -- "Is This Love", "Jammin'", "Waiting in Vain" -- but this song, man, this song is something else.
By this point in his career -- 1980's Uprising album, which would be his last --Bob Marley knew how to wrestle grandeur out of even a simple acoustic track like this. It almost seems like heresy to have a reggae song without a heavy electric bassline, but there's no bass on here, no drums, nothing but Marley's expressive voice and an acoustic guitar; the reggae beat is laid down entirely vocally, putting accents wherever the syncopation requires. The melody seems wistful, almost uncertain, but it soars exquisitely when it needs to, on "It's all I ever had" -- hanging fiercely on that unresolved chord.
Like a campfire storyteller, Marley starts off by reciting his people's slave heritage: " Old pirates, yes, they rob I / Sold I to the merchant ships, / Minutes after they took I / From the bottomless pit," his Jamaican patois proudly, almost defiantly, emphasized -- so what if this record will be sold worldwise, it represents JAMAICA, and Marley's not going to play that down, not now. Songwriting technique is less important than the message, so he's willing to go with near rhymes, or no rhymes at all in some verses, like in "But my hand was made strong / By the hand of the almighty. / We forward in this generation / Triumphantly." He sounds to me like an Old Testament prophet exhorting his tribe in the desert, even knowing his words may (probably will) fall on deaf ears.
These phrases Marley's spouting by all rights should come across as propaganda, but he enunciates them with such utter conviction, they seem dogma-free -- even lines like: "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery / None but ourselves can free our minds." It's a rallying cry that digs really deep, laying it at every listener's door -- yours and mine too. Spirituality and politics and history are all braided together, and even when Marley's voice trembles, remembering past injustice -- "How long shall they kill our prophets / While we stand aside and look?" -- he's old enough, and wise enough, to spot the hand of God at work: "Ooh! some say it's just a part of it / We've got to fulfill the book."
It took me a couple of years before I understood Marley's not looking for "redemption" in the traditional Christian sense, but something a whole lot more specific: a slave being "redeemed," bought out of slavery. With that in mind, it's incredibly moving when he sings that "these songs of freedom [are] all I ever have." Even being a worldwide music star, and more or less a Rasta prophet, Bob Marley never forgot what it felt like being a poor kid from the Trenchtown slums, with nothing but the music and passion in his heart.
Singing this, at the apex of his career -- with the cancer that killed him already raging through his body -- he has an end-of-days urgency throbbing through his voice, and it's so . . . well, we use the word "awesome" too easily these days, but this song? This song is awesome.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
"It Doesn't Make It Alright" / The Specials
When the Specials' debut album landed on my turntable in late 1979, it came with the only imprimatur that mattered to me that year -- Elvis Costello had produced it. Though it came on a legit label, Chrysalis, the black-and-white album cover looked homemade, with its checkerboard motif and the muddy photos of a multi-racial bunch of players, kitted up in skinny ties and narrow-brimmed fedoras. I considered myself a reggae fan, but it had never occcurred to me before that you could graft reggae onto punk, let alone throw in a ska organ and horn section. But as soon as I heard it, I knew it WORKED.
And like their mentors, the Clash, the Specials weren't afraid to dish up some politics while they were at it, even if it meant that racist agitators showed up at some of their early gigs to turn them into slugfests. But really, how could anybody be offended by this earnest plea for tolerance? Nothing could be less aggressive than these laid-back reggae rhythms, the offbeat guitar strums and organ riffs, the meandering bassline (granted, the drumbeat does morph into a bit of a bash-up at the end of every chorus). But I never doubted how sincere these guys were, with those inarticulate Midlands-accented vocals, not to mention the deliberately unglossy production values -- Elvis learned from the master, Nick Lowe, how to keep a record sounding authentic and fresh and honest.
We're not talking sophsiticated arguments -- these lyrics are simple and heartfelt: "Some people think they're really clever / To smash your head against the wall / Then they say "you got it my way" / They really think they know it all / It doesn't make it alright." This is the puzzled outlook of a kid who's been there on the street, and who could argue with that? Only people who like smashing heads against a wall. And the Specials -- or rather, organist Jerry Dammers, who wrote this song (with M. Harrison and D. Goldberg, according to the label) -- even have some insight into the psychological make-up that leads to hate: "Just because you're nobody / It doesn't mean that you're no good . . . It's the worst excuse in the world." You don't have to be a sociologist to understand the frustration that's made street punks throughout the centuries lash out because their own lives were such crap.
It isn't until the third verse that this becomes specifically about race: "Just because you're a black boy / Just because you're a white / It doesn't mean you've got to hate him / It doesn't mean you've got to fight." The Clash had already predicted that Britain was going to blow up in racial riots in their 1979 track "The Guns of Brixton" (long before Brixton finally erupted in April 1981). But anybody who listened to this Specials album, too, already knew there was hate simmering in Britain. I have to be honest -- this song is pretty mild, compared to "It's Up to You" and "Concrete Jungle" and "Too Hot" (the whole first side of the LP, actually), which was a bit of an eye-opener to us in the States, who'd always thought we were the only country in the world with civil rights problems.
Okay, the Specials were kinda asking for skinheads and rude boys to mix it up a little. But the skinheads never had a band like the Clash or the Specials or the English Beat explaining their point of view to me, so I've gotta go with these guys. After all, blacks and whites could play together in this band just fine. Nearly three decades later, this song's message still matters.
Song sample: http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/window/media/player/0,,167155-1237268-WMLO,00.html
When the Specials' debut album landed on my turntable in late 1979, it came with the only imprimatur that mattered to me that year -- Elvis Costello had produced it. Though it came on a legit label, Chrysalis, the black-and-white album cover looked homemade, with its checkerboard motif and the muddy photos of a multi-racial bunch of players, kitted up in skinny ties and narrow-brimmed fedoras. I considered myself a reggae fan, but it had never occcurred to me before that you could graft reggae onto punk, let alone throw in a ska organ and horn section. But as soon as I heard it, I knew it WORKED.
And like their mentors, the Clash, the Specials weren't afraid to dish up some politics while they were at it, even if it meant that racist agitators showed up at some of their early gigs to turn them into slugfests. But really, how could anybody be offended by this earnest plea for tolerance? Nothing could be less aggressive than these laid-back reggae rhythms, the offbeat guitar strums and organ riffs, the meandering bassline (granted, the drumbeat does morph into a bit of a bash-up at the end of every chorus). But I never doubted how sincere these guys were, with those inarticulate Midlands-accented vocals, not to mention the deliberately unglossy production values -- Elvis learned from the master, Nick Lowe, how to keep a record sounding authentic and fresh and honest.
We're not talking sophsiticated arguments -- these lyrics are simple and heartfelt: "Some people think they're really clever / To smash your head against the wall / Then they say "you got it my way" / They really think they know it all / It doesn't make it alright." This is the puzzled outlook of a kid who's been there on the street, and who could argue with that? Only people who like smashing heads against a wall. And the Specials -- or rather, organist Jerry Dammers, who wrote this song (with M. Harrison and D. Goldberg, according to the label) -- even have some insight into the psychological make-up that leads to hate: "Just because you're nobody / It doesn't mean that you're no good . . . It's the worst excuse in the world." You don't have to be a sociologist to understand the frustration that's made street punks throughout the centuries lash out because their own lives were such crap.
It isn't until the third verse that this becomes specifically about race: "Just because you're a black boy / Just because you're a white / It doesn't mean you've got to hate him / It doesn't mean you've got to fight." The Clash had already predicted that Britain was going to blow up in racial riots in their 1979 track "The Guns of Brixton" (long before Brixton finally erupted in April 1981). But anybody who listened to this Specials album, too, already knew there was hate simmering in Britain. I have to be honest -- this song is pretty mild, compared to "It's Up to You" and "Concrete Jungle" and "Too Hot" (the whole first side of the LP, actually), which was a bit of an eye-opener to us in the States, who'd always thought we were the only country in the world with civil rights problems.
Okay, the Specials were kinda asking for skinheads and rude boys to mix it up a little. But the skinheads never had a band like the Clash or the Specials or the English Beat explaining their point of view to me, so I've gotta go with these guys. After all, blacks and whites could play together in this band just fine. Nearly three decades later, this song's message still matters.
Song sample: http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/window/media/player/0,,167155-1237268-WMLO,00.html
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