In the September 2, 1967, issue of Billboard, »Lucky In Love« was predicted to reach the Hot 100. Alas, the reviewer was wrong and the song didn't chart eventually. Anyway, my favorite tune of this 45 is the B side. Enjoy!
The only 45 by Fontella Bass to get both sides into the charts. On the other hand, »I Surrender« was the last of Fontella's songs ever to enter the Hot 100.
The A side entered the Hot 100 on March 26, 1966, at #84 and peaked in May at #78. Strong airplay was reported from Detroit, St. Louis and Los Angeles in April. The tune reached #33 in the R&B Top 40 in May 1966.
The B side entered the R&B Top 40 on April 23, 1966, peaking at #31.
In November 1971, Stan Lewis of Jewel-Paula signed Fontella Bass. »She is the daughter of the great gospel singer, Martha Bass. Fontella was the musical accompanist for her mother and traveled extensively through the country playing Gospel music. In 1969 Fontella and her family moved to Paris, and there she recorded several albums with The Art Ensemble of Chicago. One was the soundtrack of the French film "Les Stances à Sophie." Fontella also has had numerous successes on the domestic scene. Now she'll be released on the Paula label« ran the short Billboard notice a few days later (Dec. 04, 1971, p. 14).
Billboard, Sept. 11, 1971, p. 35
At this time, around 1970-71, Fontella's career was indeed at a turning point. For one thing, she had started to work outside the pop and soul circuit, as with the above-mentioned Art Ensemble of Chicago (The soundtrack LP Les Stances à Sophie was recorded and released in France in July 1970, and in the US only in 1971). For another thing, she was picked up by Jewel-Paula in late autumn 1971 and embarked upon another pop-/soul career. However, the resulting album Free (Paula LPS # 2213, rel. 04/1972) was to be her last LP release in the field of secular music. In August 1973, her LP Free was, justly, described as »an instant success«, and Paula- Jewel announced »plenty of tunes still waiting for release« (BB, Aug. 11, 1973, p. 22). Yet these tunes were never released for their major part, and only some of them are found on the CD re-release of the 1972 Paula LP (Varese/Sarabande 2000).
Fontella's 1972 LP is certainly, as has often been claimed, a lost jewel in the realm of post-1970 soul music (read a review here). It was arranged and produced by Oliver Sain, Fontella's old mentor, producer and musical manager. Lightyears away from the often shallower pre-1970's productions, this LP comprises a wide array of well-arranged songs: love songs, political songs, and gospel, all adorned and made special by Fontella's outstanding performance. That we find a gospel song on her 1972 Paula LP prefigures the turn her later career took, when she focused mainly on gospel. Although she occasionally appeared live to sing R&B stuff, she only released gospel material after 1972 (apart from less than a handful of other songs exclusively on 45''). An incomplete overview over her post-1972 LP/CD releases would include the following:
From the Root to the Source (Soul Note LP # 1006, 1980, together with her mother Martha)
Everlasting Arms (1991)
No Ways Tired (1995, arranged by James Cleveland and nominated for the 1996 Grammy Award of Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album)
Travellin' (Fontella Bass with The Voices of St. Louis, 2001)
From her 1972 Paula LP comes this gospel gem, written by accomplished guitarist Morris Dollison (his real name being said to be Maurice Dollison; he often used his showbiz name Cash McCall) and entitled »My God, My Freedom, My Home«. Musicians and background singers are not credited, so we have to live with the simple fact that it's Fontella singing. But that just about suffices, doesn't it? Ah, by the way, it could well be Fontella herself playing piano on this recording; in any case she did it on a number of other occasions. (If somebody can corroborate this, please let me know.)
Blessed Sunday all!
Fontella Bass: »My God, My Freedom, My Home« from the Paula LP Free (1972):
In these days my main worry is to somehow make it through the pre-X-mas schedule of year's end dinners and the like. In times like these I tend to resort to some much- cherished classics, and today's classic comes from Fontella Bass (once again on this blog) and Bobby McClure.
Their first Checker 45, out in January 1965, was »Don't Mess Up A Good Thing« / »Baby What You Want Me To Do«. Now, this is a single I'd never hesitate to put in the famous »What-would-you-pick-for-a-lonely-island«-chest. This 45 was issued with two different B-sides, viz. the song you can listen to below and »Jerk Loose« by Oliver Sain (see the picture sleeve here). For all I know the original B-side seems to have been »Baby What You Want Me To Do« (a cover of Jimmy Reed's 1959 hit), and it is explicitly mentioned as flip in the Billboard issue of January 23, '65. Today, copies with »Jerk Loose« tend to be more commonly around, however.
»Baby What You Want Me To Do« is one of the primordial r&b duets from the '60s. Being released in the middle of the Beatles-mania (and contemporary with, for example, Elvis's pitiful »Do The Clam« or the Supremes' »Stop In The Name Of Love«) this record was the ultimate reminder of what r&b was all about when a record company did not look desperately for pop appeal but cut their artists lose on some earthy stuff. It's just such a pity that Fontella & Bobby didn't record more than just their few Chess/Checker sides.
For the record: Checker # 1097 was released towards the end of '64 or in early Jan. '65. The A-side made it to r&b #5 (BB) at the beginning of March and hit #29 on the Cashbox Top 100 in early April.
Fontella Bass & Bobby McClure: »Baby What You Want Me To Do« on Checker # 1097 (1965):
Postscript July 7th 2012: Read more about Fontella Bass here.
That's what I'm telling myself, once in a while. So what I was doing since last week- end was going through the older posts of this blog, revising here and there and adding several postscripts. After all, this blog is work in progress and I often come across some new or updated information, especially as information about many artists or songs featured here isn't easily to come by or, worse still, isn't as reliable as one would like. It also happens that I forget to browse my CD collection for re- issues or re-masterings of LP. I should always remember doing so because in many cases the CDs come with substantial and well-researched liner notes which provide information (not seldom in collaboration with the original artists) not found any- where else. And of course, there are the usual mistakes or errors you only detect when not looking for them. You know how it go.
In order not to tell you this without a rhythmic delight coming along with it I made today another Fontella-day! Her first release on Checker (and actually her first 45 after Vesuvius # 1002) had been »Don't Mess Up A Good Thing«, a duet with Bobby McClure arranged by Oliver Sain. The follow-up to this 45, in spring '65, was »You'll Miss Me (When I'm Gone)« / »Don't Jump«. The song on the A-side fared well enough, reaching #27 r&b and even denting the pop charts (# 91). A Billboard critic pronounced »You'll Miss Me« a »stronger entry« than the 45 that went before and prophesied that it had »hit written all over it« (see below). I'm not convinced. But still, these are nice songs and Fontella Bass does, as she always did with whatever material, make them worth listening to. And not to forget that the duets with Bobby McClure (with whom Fontella was also touring in '65) are the great fanfare announcing her soon-to-follow breakout with »Rescue Me«, released on Checker later in '65. My copy of Checker # 1111 has the burgundy red label with Checker in silver letters to the left, while there are other copies around showing the red-and-black »checkered« label on light blue ground. For all we know, the burgundy label was in use before Chess / Checker switched (for a short time really) to the »checkered« label.
Fontella Bass & Bobby McClure: »You'll Miss Me« / »Don't Jump« on Checker # 1111 (1965):
Hi there! Today is another »Fontella day« ... don't know why, but it feels like it to me. First of all, I wanted to share a wonderful rare picture with you. I took it from the St. Louis Blues Society's »Bluesletter« (autumn 2004, vol. 14, no. 46). It shows a very young Fontella Bass with the Oliver Sain Revue, probably in late 1961 or early 1962 (Oliver Sain is 3rd from left). This was right at the onset of her career when she performed mainly in the St. Louis area. Oliver Sain was then for many years the main responsible for Fontella's career, and in 1963 he teamed her up, for some few recordings, with Ike & Tina Turner (read more here).
In June 1964, Sain had Fontella audition at Chess Records, and this eventually resulted in a contract. As is known, the first Chess (actually Checker) recordings issued in late '64 and spring '65 were two singles by Fontella Bass together with Bobby McClure. The first single (A-side »Don't Mess Up A Good Thing«) was an unexpected success and reached #5 r&b; Oliver Sain and his Orchestra was still involved at this point.
However, Fontella hit it big with her first solo effort: »Soul Of The Man« / »Rescue Me« (Checker # 1120), released in September 1965. Today, »Rescue Me« ranks as one of the most popular r&b classics of the '60s. At the time, however, »Rescue Me« was at first not per- ceived as the charting song of that single. Billboard in the Sept. 4, 1965, issue listed »Rescue Me« as the flipside and only reviewed »Soul Of The Man«. Now, this song was penned by noone else but Oliver Sain; you can hear it below in the album version.
The extraordinary success of »Rescue Me« (r&b #1, pop #4), making it one of the most popular tunes of winter '65, prompted Chess to rush an album out, looking for the quick buck in the wake of Fontella's stellar rise in the charts. Now, this album was recorded in Chicago's Ter Mar Studios in November 1965 and released some three months later in Feb. 1966. I'm speaking of Checker LP # 2997 The 'New' Look, of which I'm lucky enough to possess the original mono pressing, with the rare red and black »checkered« label (this label was used for only about five Checker LPs).
If ever there was an album built around one hit then this is it. Without any pretence at putting it somewhat diplomatically, the notes on the back cover of the LP (written by Marshall Paul of Chess) state this fact quite clearly:
One Saturday, in August, 1965, Fontella Bass was sitting in the Chess rehear- sal studio along with two of Chess's top writer-producers, Carl Smith and Reynard Miner. They were 'fooling around' with some new material when Phil Wright, one of the Chess arrangers, happened to drop in, and the result of this four-way jam session was the birth and finalization of Fontella's top hit, "Rescue Me".
When an artist has a hit single record, it is common practice in the record business to rush an album containing the hit tune into production. After the great success of "Rescue Me", it was decided that Fontella Bass should record an album. We took some of the great songs of the last few years and added Fontella's fantastic style along with the Chess Sound.
What is the Chess Sound? The Chess Sound is - Reynard Miner and Leonard Casten on piano, Maurice White on drums, Louis Satterfield on bass, Pete Cosey and Bryce Roberson on guitar, Sonny Thompson on organ, and Gene Barge as leader of the horn section, along with the production of Carl Smith and Reynard Miner under the supervision of A&R Director, Billy Davis, and Phil Wright's arrangements.
We knew that the combination of Fontella's great voice and soulful style with the fantastic Chess Sound that the above musicians, producers and arrangers make possible would jell into an 'out of sight' album.
[Note: Names as spelled on the original back cover]
If you wanted to have an album out fast, this was the obvious thing to do. Just look for proven standards that are easy to come by, put up some new arrangements and on you go. In Fontella's case, her first album thus contained the two songs of her most successful single (»Rescue Me« and »Soul Of The Man«) plus ten bonus songs, as it were. Among these, we have Maxine Brown's »Oh No Not My Baby«, Martha & The Vandellas' »Come And Get These Memories«, Ruby & The Romantics' »Our Day Will Come«, Carla Thomas's »Gee Whiz« and Barbara George's »I Know (You Don't Love Me No More)«. All of them nice songs, certainly, and rigorously on the pop-side of r&b. Fontella performs these tunes nicely, and they've been nicely arranged as well, even though I wouldn't say that Fontella's cover versions justify the album's title A New Look because, after all, the tunes sound in all cases very similar to the origi- nal versions. Fontella's voice does make a difference but the instrumental arrange- ments are conventional throughout and the arrangers didn't dare to really come up with truly novelty versions. However, the LP proved a success, reaching #6 of the top selling r&b albums charts in April 1966. In the US, the LP was sold with a whip- slinging Fontella on the cover (I don't know what the significance behind this is), while the UK issue actually shows a very beautiful, close-up portrait shot. Would that I had the UK issue as well!
Checker LP # 2997 (1966, mono)
Among all the poppish tunes on the album there are two songs that come closer to the earlier Chess recordings by Fontella because they are on the bluesy side. They highlight the fact that this was the kind of music Fontella's style was best-suited for. Chess didn't care about that much, as this LP amply demonstra- tes, and I think it has done Fontella's career no good in the long run. Only when she returned to gospel in the '70s she finally came back to what she should have continued back in the mid-'60s: putting her formidable vocal artistry to work in slower, soulful, bluesy tunes. And I am not alone in thinking this, because several others have singled out »Soul Of The Man« and »I'm A Woman« (along with »Rescue Me«) as the outstanding tracks on Fontella's Checker LP. I won't disagree.
As said above, »Soul Of The Man« is an Oliver Sain-composition, so it's one of two »Fontella originals« on this album; »I'm A Woman« was penned by Leiber & Stoller and merely covered by Fontella. Yet both admirably performed ... listen:
Fontella Bass: »Soul Of The Man« / »I'm A Woman« from the Checker LP # 2997 (1966, mono):
Summer has returned. And a Sunday in May is just the right day to present the religious hymn »In The Garden«.
Soul Note LP # 1006 (1980)
Both Mitty Collier and Fontella Bass, among many others, have recorded versions of this song. Mitty Collier's version comes from her LP »The Warning« (1972). Fontella Bass's version is contained on her album »From the Root to the Source« (Soul Note # 1006, 1980, Italian pressing). The songs on Fontella's LP were recorded on 4. & 5. February in the Barigozzi Studios, Milan. Fontella is accompanied by her mother Martha Bass who had been active for decades in the gospel circuit and for a time was a member of the famous Ward Singers.
The hymn »In The Garden« was composed in 1912 by Charles Austin Miles (1868-1946) and belongs since many years to the common repertoire of gospel singers, even if neither composer nor his song made it into Anthony Heilbut's Gospel Sound. However, Cedric J. Hayes's / Robert Laughton's The Gospel Discography 1943-1970 (West Vancouver: Eyeball Productions 2007) lists no less than 25 recordings of this song (up to 1970), and the list does not include the many commercial »Pop-Gospel«-recordings of the song by the likes of Dionne Warwick (1968), Loretta Lynn (1968), Pat Boone (1957), Perry Como (1958) and Elvis Presley (1967)! (Perry Como's version, recorded on June 18, 1958, with the »Ray Charles Singers«, was arranged by Ray Charles himself.)
In a blog entry, the great-granddaughter of C.A. Miles provides the following information: »By the way, for a little bit of irony, the gospel song we are speaking of, In The Garden, was written on a cold, dreary day in a cold, dreary and leaky basement in New Jersey that didn't even have a window in it let alone a view of a garden.« This more or less corresponds to what Miles himself (as quoted in George Washington Sanville's book Forty Gospel Hymn Stories, 1947) said, namely that he had the inspiration for this song in his dark room where he kept, curiously, not only his photo equipment but also his organ.
He then opened his Bible in the dark, opening it in the chapter 20 of John. The story there tells of Jesus, arisen from the tomb, as he speaks to Mary Magdelene on Easter morning. Miles had a vision in which he saw the scene ... and this vision became the song: »Under the inspiration of this vision I wrote as quickly as the words could be formed the poem exactly as it has since appeared. That same evening I wrote the music.« It does not matter much whether visions of that kind enter in your frame of belief or not. The interesting thing is that Miles's is presented as a very »modernistic« version of an enlightening vision – Miles said about his first reaction afterwards: »I awakened in full light« – because it conceptualizes darkness viz. blindness not metaphorically but in the quite real setting of a ... dark room!
Well, here are the two versions of the songs, first that of Fontella Bass, followed by that, some years older, of Mitty Collier. The lyrics below follow Bass's version; Collier treated the traditional lyrics somewhat more freely, changing the text or adding to it.
Fontella Bass (1980) / Mitty Collier (1972), »In The Garden«:
I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses,
And the voice I hear falling on my ear:
The Son of God discloses
And don't you know He walks with me
And He talks, He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
Oh, none other has ever known
He speaks and the sound, the sound of His voice
Oh, so sweet the birds hush their singing
And the melody that He gave to me within, within my heart
Within my heart is ringing
Don't you know, He walks with me and He talks, He talks with me
And He tells me I am, I am His own
And the joy we share as we, as we tarry there
None other has ever known ... ... ...
In 1963, Fontella Bass was still 24 months away from her great breakthrough that came with »Don't Mess Up A Good Thing« (Checker, with Bobby McClure, r&b # 05) in spring 1965, followed by the mega-hit »Rescue Me« (Checker, r&b # 01) in autumn. Ike & Tina Turner on the other hand were rather past their prime success in 1963 ... »A Fool In Love«, »I Idolize You«, »Tra La La La«, all on Sue Records, had charted but there were no new hits on the horizon.
However, in 1963 Ike Turner arranged some recordings with Fontella Bass as the lead-singer. Bass who hailed from St. Louis had met the Turners in her home town because they frequently appeared there on stage. The first of these recordings is Fontella's song »My Good Loving«, recorded right at St. Louis. It was released on Prann # 5005, and The Ikettes provided the backing vocals (uncredited on the single). And although the single was officially produced by »Ike and Tina Turner«, on its label we read only »Fontella Bass with Oliver Sain Orchestra«:
Fontella Bass (feat. The Ikettes): »My Good Loving« (Prann # 5005A):
In the same year another single was released, this time for the Vesuvius label which was a subsidiary of Pompeii Records from Dallas. (I've always loved this name! I wonder if they were ever thinking of establishing other subsidiaries and calling them »Pliny Jr. Records« or »Volca-No« ... possibly releasing songs like »Ashes To Ashes« by »Craterman & The Lava Flowers« ...) And it was again Ike Turner who was behind that because he not only figures as producer but also played guitar on the recording. Fontella this time was not only accompanied by The Ikettes, but by Tina Turner herself. However, Tina only sings on the A-side »Poor Little Fool« which is why the billing on the label says »Fontella Bass and Tina Turner«. On the B-side, »This Would Make Me Happy«, there is only the voice of Fontella. In any case, Tina's contribution to »Poor Little Fool« is limited to the melodical main part of the song: »Poor little fool, why can't you see / This romance will never be«. In this part she accompanies Fontella in what is basically a close-harmony-duet. Yet the song is remarkable not only for being a fine, bluesy r&b-ballad, but also for being the only recording from the 1960s, as far as I know, where you can hear Tina Turner together with another female singer (apart from the Ikettes, of course). And yes, in general Tina was not used to playing the second fiddle ...
Fontella Bass (feat. Tina Turner*);
»Poor Little Fool*« / »This Would Make Me Happy« from Vesuvius # 1002 (1963):
NOTE
Some discographies list Vesuvius # 1002 as a recording (and, consequently, as a release) from 1964. According to most of the information I have this is not correct, but on the other hand, information is scarce regarding this 45. So maybe 1964 it is. We gonna find out some day.
POSTSCRIPT Oct. 17, 2011
There is now an enthusiastic review of »Poor Little Fool« over at Voyager's World. Check it out!
I am interested in the music, not in the relative rarity of discs. I also listen with great pleasure to Aretha Franklin, because she has the voice of the century. Music is no Faith and therefore has no heretics.
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No music downloads on this site. All mp3s (with very few exceptions where noted) are ripped from original vinyl discs. If something on this blog is objectionable to anyone or should, for valid reasons, be re- moved from the net please let me know; it will be removed. And to reiterate: This is a non-profit blog.
