Being one of the queen mothers of modern jazz, blues and ultimately soul as well, Bessie Smith and the songs she recorded have inspired many. On March 2, 1927, Bessie recorded four popular songs, Turner Layton's & Henry Creamer's »After You've Gone« among them. (The song was first recorded in July 1918 by Marion Harris: listen to it here; find out more about it here and here.) At the time and later on as well, Bessie's choice of popular tunes was often criticized. Chris Albertson writes:
Blues purists - who, oddly enough, don't complain about Bessie's 1923 record- ings of lesser-known pop fare - have bemoaned her "commercial" repertoire for this session, and critics have rationalized it as an attempt to regain lost ground. But Bessie's popularity was not threatened at the time, and her recordings reflected only a part of her actual repertoire. Her treatment of these songs offers delightful evidence of her talent for turning banal material into something special. (...)
Just as the sudden popularity of theatrical blues (as opposed to the street corner variety) had turned "sweet" singers into blues divas overnight, so it was easy for blues singers to venture beyond their regular domain. Bessie did this routinely on stage, but even a song like "After You've Gone" almost be- came a blues when she handled it ... (Bessie, rev. and expanded ed., New Haven 2003, p. 148 f.)
The least one can say is that Bessie made the song her own, so that until today nobody (I guess) associates it with Marion Harris but rather with Bessie Smith. Thus we find it on two »Bessie Smith Tribute« LPs from the late '50s, the one, famous enough, by Dinah Washington, the other, truly obscure, by Becky Hall.
AAMCO LP # 324 (1959?)
Let's start with the second, entitled A Tribute to Bessie Smith (AAMCO # ALP-324). Strangely, the singer is nowhere mentioned on the cover; instead you'll have to read the sleeve notes on the back in order to finally stumble across the artist's name in about one of the last lines. On another blog, the writer is as clueless as I am about who Becky Hall really was. In fact, it is not even clear whether one of the two women posing in the cover photo is Becky Hall or not (my guess is that she isn't, because on many other AAMCO 33⅓ covers there is no picture of the artist but rather a more or less kitschy, if not outright trashy or freaky, tableau composed of otherwise unrelated models) ...!
The low-priced AAMCO label (a subsidiary of some sort of Alison Enterprises) was established in summer 1958 and barely a year later, in June '59, Alison-AAMCO already filed for bankruptcy (see Billboard, June 29, 1959, p. 7). However, if running across the net you'll find release dates for AAMCO LPs ranging from 1956 to the mid-'60s ... Conventionally, Becky's LP is assigned to 1959, and this makes sense because Georges Rhodes (who was Sammy Davis's accompanist) is mentioned as the arranger in the notes on the back cover. Rhodes joined Alison-AAMCO only at the beginning of '59 (see JET, Jan. 29, 1959, p. 64), thus 1959 seems to be about right as the release date of the album.
For the curious among you I can add that it is worthwhile to look for other AAMCO LP releases ... you'll find everything from serious jazz by famous soloists and bandleaders to mildly bizarre releases of more or less exotic stuff: Torero (Music of the Bull Ring) (»a 66 piece band captures the pageantry of bull ring«), Favorite Polkas, Mazeltov, Flamenco, The Scots Guards Bag Pipes (»Stirring songs of Scot- land«) and, my favorite album, Tarik Bulut's In An Egyptian Garden (»Sensuous songs of the exotic Middle East«). Also noteworthy is the respective cover art of many of these LPs, and not without good reason at least one AAMCO album made it on the Bizarre Records website ...
EmArcy LP # MG-36130 (1958)
Second, Dinah Washington. Her album Dinah Sings Bessie Smith (EmArcy LP # MG 36130) was out in February 1958. It doesn't need much of an introduction, I think. It features 10 songs made famous by Bessie Smith and recorded by Queen Dinah in December '57 and January '58, accompanied by her then-husband, the saxophonist Eddie Chamblee, and his band. »After You've Gone« in particular was taped at Universal Recorders, Chicago, on January 7, 1959. On the back cover of the EmArcy LP, the tune is explicitly mentioned as »one of a handful of non-blues songs among the 160 (which Bessie put on wax during her eleven years as a recording artist).«
Below, you can listen to Becky Hall's version of »After You've Gone«, followed by Dinah's. I personally feel that putting Becky's version first is doing her a favor, really. Maybe this is because I am, by personal inclination, unshakably partial to the art of Ruth Lee Jones. Anyhow, Becky's every so often strident voice is less forceful and less modulated than Dinah's, especially in the upper registers, and vocally she tackles the song as if it were kind of a French chanson. Finally, and quite indepen- dent from both the artists' respective talents, Dinah's voice was recorded way clearer and more up front than was Becky's. But well, there is always something to listen to with interest, if not delight:
Becky Hall ('59)/ Dinah Washington ('58): »After You've Gone«:
Merrily, we live in a time where a number of fairly specialized labels bombard us regularly with CDs containing unreleased material of many more or lesser known artists. Once run out of this prime material, the labels in question will then, not without some malice and correctly estimating our sheepish inclination to follow this strategy without demur, produce further CDs, presenting us with outtakes, re-takes, unfinished takes, the respective artist talking between takes, giant anthologies featuring each and every take (including all the single tracks used for vocal overdubs etc. etc.), demo versions, bootlegs if available, live recordings made by someone in the concert audience (often of deplorable quality), acetate versions, re-mastered originals, mono versions converted into stereo, stereo versions mastered down to mono ... to mention only the most obvious. Of course, there will be numerous idiots around, like myself, who eagerly collect this kind of pocket-emptying money-traps which come disguised, quite innocently, as CDs, often embellished by very useful and precious liner notes (which of course, according to our distorted minds, would by and in themselves justify the purchase of any of those CDs). It's a mad, mad world.
Mercury LP # SR 61119 (1967)
However, all this pertains to today's post only insofar as I would like to point out that all this is not a new thing as such, and certainly it is not a brainchild of the CD age. It was done in the vinyl age as well, albeit less often. Mercury released, little more than three years after the death of Queen Dinah, in April 1967, an album of unreleased songs and aptly entitled Dinah Discovered ... Great Songs Never Before Re- leased (Mercury LP # SR 61119). The LP features ten songs, all »taped at a Hollywood studio on two evenings in January of 1961 with Belford Hendricks ... as conductor«. Other musicians who were present: Ernie Freeman and Joe Zawinul on piano. Now, this is certainly not Dinah's most momen- tous album. But it does contain a number of memorable songs, something easily explained by the fact that Dinah rarely, if ever, did something not worthy of being recorded straight away. And since we spoke so much about takes and re-takes above, the following quote from Patti Brown, one of Dinah's accompanists on the piano, is relevant here: »Sometimes after a record date, she'd have a few drinks and cry, listening to her own records and reminiscing. ... She always liked to listen to herself. She was such an artist. She was a "one-take" or "two-take" person. No "twenty-takes" to make a record. She'd focus right in on what was necessary« (quoted in L. Gourse, Louis' Children, p. 224). Bad news for the re-take issuing industry of today, incidentally!
If she liked to listen to herself, how much more should we, then? (Well, this is admittedly not a very convincing argument if you do not already belong to the Dinah-devoted ...). Listen to »Pagan Love Song« and »Stormy Weather« below. The first song, »Pagan Love Song«, was, as far as I see, never before or after recorded by Dinah, so it makes its appearance only on this album. A fine, up-tempo tune driven along by the band. Originally from 1929, this song is supposed to take the listener back to Dinah's childhood (I'm quoting from the LP's back cover). The second song, »Stormy Weather (Keeps Rainin' All The Time)« on the other hand was one of Dinah's staple tunes. Recorded back in March 1954 in Chicago for the first time, it appeared on Mercury # 5906 but did not chart, in marked difference to several other of Dinah's songs in that epoch. She also recorded it again in December 1961, to be released on two of her »Golden Hits« albums. »Don't know why ...« are the words with which Dinah blasts the song off, and who could do it like her? »She used to say: Just bring me the bitch who could do what I can do - and do it all well« ...
Dinah Washington: »Pagan Love Song« / »Stormy Weather« from the Mercury LP # SR 61119 (1967, rec. 1961):
A photograph of Dinah Washington, from the January 12, 1961, issue of Jet magazine (that is, some days before she entered the Hollywood studio to record the songs above ... Rafael Campos, likewise pictured below, was one of Dinah's one-in- a-row husbands ... her marriage to the Dominican actor »didn't even last the time it took for a Sepia magazine article to be published on the newlyweds. By the time this big feature hit the newsstands, Rafael was on his way« ... read more here in Nadine Cohodas's 2004 interview):
It seems that things, when they come, they come in a bunch. A few weeks ago I stumbled across the newly released 12-CD box of Leontyne Price's albums of songs and spirituals. Now, more recently, I came across a new 4-CD box of some of Dinah Washington's most famous LPs, released by the Real Gone Jazz label. The box fea- tures eight remastered albums on 4 CDs and is part of the huge re-issue programme by Real Gone Jazz.
From Ebony, march 1964 issue
Of course, this is not spectacular news; we have the Complete D.W. On Mercury Collection, and several of Dinah's Mercury albums have been re-issued separately on CD more than once. But still, I paid about $14 for the box and this is, after all, a bargain (each one of the former separate re-issues of Dinah's LPs is priced almost as high!). However, there is no booklet (just scarce info about the personnel on the back), and the CDs do not come in repros of the original sleeves (as do, for example, the CDs in the Leontyne Price box). And the selection of the albums seems somewhat erratic, probably they went after some criterion of popularity.
Not included in this 4-CD box is Dinah's 1959 LP The Queen! (Mercury LP # SR 60111, released in autumn '59). This LP does contain a number of jazzy ballads and big band-blues tunes. It wasn't produced with much care, if we are allowed to deduce this from the fact that the song title of »Show Time« is given as »Show Place« in Martin Williams's notes on the back cover - and that's what the lyrics of the song actually say! (However, on the label of side 1 and on both sides of the sleeve we find it listed as »Show Time«). And Williams's comment that Dinah »sounds like she just walked out of a Baptist church, stopped by the Brill building just long enough to pick up a copy of a tune, and started to wail« is way over the top. Throughout his entire notes Williams really is keen to put Dinah in the gospel mould, noting that she »did beat the funky players to a kind of direct gospel-jazz« and referring to her being »almost raised on religious music« ... hmmm, don't start wondering what it could possibly mean for someone to be raised »almost« on religious music!
More sensible and closer to the truth is Billboard's short review in the Oct. 5, 1959, issue (p. 28): The Queen has a package here of much vocal craftsmanship. There are four blues ... and a number of ballads and sophisticated songs ... The backing is tastefully smart jazz. For those who are fond of wonderful phrasing and sensitive vocal nuance, here it is. Well yes, this about sums it up. You can listen to two songs from this album, »Show Time« (!) and »Trouble In Mind«. The latter song is famous enough but easily bears being played one more time. Both tunes were recorded with the Eddie Chamblee Orchestra at Universal Recorders, Chicago, on January 20, 1958.
Dinah Washington: »Show Time« / »Trouble In Mind« from the Mercury LP # SR 60111 (1959):
During the last weeks, I posted the »press item of the week« on Monday. Well, it won't do today, though there will be press items. Today is Dinah Washington's birthday, and this calls for celebration.
Baptized Ruth Lee, »Dinah« was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on Aug. 29, 1924. She was one of the greatest voices of 20th century music. Hailed by many for her ob- vious talent, others criticized her for sell- ing her soul and voice out to commercial MOR pop. But hers was without doubt the rare talent that couldn't be undone by the choice of unsuited material. She could sing everything, and she did. There are obvious parallels to the career of Aretha Franklin here. (Fittingly, the only tribute album ever recorded by Aretha was devoted to Dinah.)
Dinah led a stormy life that ended much too soon by an overdose of sedatives. During the last five years of her career, everything she did and said was closely monitored, and often blown up, by the rainbow press (mainly by the tabloids for the black market). By her vocal artistry and her stage performances Dinah had earned herself a dozen nicknames: »Miss D«, »The Queen«, »Great Dinah« ... in early 1960, she was billed as »The Unforgettable Queen of Songs«. Yet, after a pistol threat charge, she wasn't amused to find herself billed as »Pistol-packin' Mama« in front of a night club.
Her volatile personality, to put it mildly, is legendary. Anecdotes about her abound, and we fortunately posess the fine biographical study by Nadine Cohodas (Queen. The Life and Music of Dinah Washington, New York 2006), arguably one of the most captivating and well-researched artist biographies. Shyness was an un- known feeling to Dinah, or so it must seem to the public. (After her death, many details came to the fore that shed a somewhat different light on her private per- son.) She often flew into a rage and was cussing in public. Her favorite expression was said to be »j.a.m.f«, i.e. »jive ass motherfu**er«. When she arrived at Sammy Davis's marriage party, she was told to go around to the back door. »I guess you know I told them where they could go« was her reply. Once in a while, she insulted the audience while on stage, and this brought her even charges of anti-Semitic remarks in Jan. '63. (The night club owner of Pittsburgh couldn't prove his case, though, and the charge was dropped.) Apart from that, she frequently arrived late at an engagement or walked out of concerts, sometimes she didn't show up at all. When a dress designer presented her a $700 bill, Dinah allegedly threatened her with a pistol.
By mid-1960, she had 6 ex-husbands and speculations about no. 7 were under way. She received roses and cards saying »From your Egyptian servant«, but even- tually she didn't marry the Egyptian S. Ares Omar but went, in February 1961, into a Mexican registry office with Dominican actor Rafael Campos. She was wild on fancy dresses, mink coats and glitzy shoes. Her wardrobe consisted of several $6.000 furs, and once she said she doesn't wear earrings because »she has not been able to find any with a large diamond.« In order not to pass unobserved, she often wore showy wigs, gold-blonde or flaming red (... she could have swapped them with Etta James). Her apartment was filled with expensive luxury items, and when engaged in some club she demanded a private phone line to be installed.
But it all boils down to one essential truth: She is unforgettable, and so is her voice.
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At the beginning of May 1960, Mercury released another of her numerous LPs. The new album (Mercury # SR 60232) was simply called »Unforgettable«, after the title song. It was actually the follow-up to her hugely successful album »What A Diff'rence A Day Makes!« (rel. November '59), even though Mercury had put out still other LPs in the meantime. The title-song »Unforgettable« was already out as single in November '59, but the most remarkable song on the album was, also according to critical acclaim, »This Bitter Earth«, soon to become one of Dinah's signature songs. The rest of the album did in general not find much praise. Critics said that the album was proof of Mercury's strategy to capitalize on Dinah's »new- found pop acceptance«. That was to say that Dinah's way to pop stardom was paved with MOR ditties, or in other words: She sacrificed her very talent and being by selling herself out to the mainstream pop market. Well, economically it made sense. But there is no need to be over-critical about this album, because for once the Billboard reviewer got it right when he wrote about this LP:
»Dinah Washington proves why she's entitled to be called "The Queen." She takes a brace of pop tunes and infuses them with believability so that they take on the aura of classics. Her own type of blues feeling is injected into such songs as "I Understand," "This Love of Mine," Alone" and "The Song Is Ended"« (Billboard, May 30, 1960).
I think that is quite accurately observed and does justice to this album. Let me add that the songs were recorded with Joe Zawinul on piano (Dinah's close buddy and musical companion during that time) and the Belford Hendricks Orchestra. Recording sessions were held in New York, between July and October 1959. I chose two tunes from the album: »The Song Is Ended (But The Melody Lingers On)«, which particularly befits my mood today, and »A Bad Case Of The Blues«, which is indeed the »bluesiest« song on the album and not much remembered nowadays. The first was recorded in NYC in mid-1959, the second on September 28 of the same year:
Dinah Washington: »The Song Is Ended« / »A Bad Case Of The Blues« from the Mercury LP # SR-60232 (1960):
* * *
... couldn't stop here, anyhow, also in case you're waitin' for the usual press item of Mondays. Well, here they come. In tune with today's songs and today's occasion, I best put them into context by saying something about Dinah's life and career around the time the album »Unforgettable« was released. At that time, in May '60, she already had recorded her legendary duets with Brook Benton, and the first single had been released in January (»Baby You've Got What It Takes«). In mid-February, she had another recording session in New York, whose results were released later on the Mercury LP »I Concentrate On You« (This session produced, among other songs, the memorable »I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good«). However, during the next months no sessions followed or were cancelled. The reason for that is that, in the first half of '60, Dinah was on a strenuous dieting trip. And this is where the press comes in.
Already in January, the L.A. police had searched her local apartment and con- fiscated many bottles with pills. It was found that these were merely sleeping and weight reducing pills, so the matter ended here. Thing is, at any rate, that Dinah's diet didn't consist in eating less or differently, but in going on eating as before and trying to reduce the carbohydrate imput by swallowing lots of diet and reducing pills. (Elvis adopted the same strategy 15 years later.) The impact of all those pills, which seem to have had some effect, weakened Dinah to the point that she had to cancel (or, according to others, shorten) a recording date in March. In April, she denied »that she was "weak and near collapse" from following a rigid diet designed to make her shed poundage. "I never diet," Dinah snorted.« (quoted in Jet, April 21, 1960, p. 59). Three weeks before, the same magazine had published a curious photo of Dinah's unshod feet. It was reportedly taken during a recording session in Chicago (Jet, April 7, p. 37):
And of course there was the by-then common hint at her dieting, its effects ... and its motivation (the next husband-to-be!). Dinah went on negating any dieting, but to little avail. In May she was reported to have lost 35 pounds in 6 weeks, »primarily as a result of taking reducing pills and injections from a doctor«. Dinah gave in and finally admitted her dieting efforts, not without stressing of how cleverly she proceeded: »Her secret: reducing pills after taking meals.« Today's dietologists will be astonished to hear that this »diet« helped her to »confine her eating to only two meals a day, although they are often heavy«:
From EBONY, May 1960, page 110.
As you can imagine, Dinah's dieting didn't go as planned. Her physical condition deteriorated further and things became worse in summer. She collapsed again in June, during an engagement, and was still sick in July. Only a stationary medication in July could resolve, for the moment, Dinah's self-inflicted diet problems. She remained addicted to many kinds of legally prescribed pills (no dope, though). It finally killed her. May her soul rest in peace.
»I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good« (1952 – 1960 – 1968)
One song, two Washingtons, three recordings.
The song by Duke Ellington (music) and Paul Francis Webster (lyrics) »I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good« from 1941 was recorded by dozens of singers over the years. To name but a few: Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James and Nina Simone, further Peggy Lee, Georgia Gibbs, Della Reese, Timi Yuro, Donna Summer and Cher ... and also, what seems to be less known, by Dinah Washington and Baby Washington.
Dinah Washington, »the Queen«, appeared on June 27, 1952, with the Wynton-Kelly Trio in New York's »Birdland« Jazz club. The »Birdland« – officially the »Birdland Café« – had been opened in 1949 by Morris »Moische« Levy whose name is indelibly linked, for better or worse, to the history of black music, especially in New York. In the early 1950s, the club was also known for being a place for live radio transmissions because Levy co-operated with the New York WJZ station. From after midnight to the wee hours WJZ transmitted a »record show«, and this included one hour of live music from the Birdland. And there, on June 27, it was Dinah Washington with her trio on the bandstand, not for the first time. They performed several songs, among others »I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good«. These so-called »Birdland broadcasts« of Dinah Washington from the years 1951-52 were for decades never made public until they were released on CD in 2007 (Giant Step CD GSCR 024). You can hear in the following the first part of Dinah's live performance of »I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good« from that CD:
Dinah Washington: »I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good« (New York, Birdland broadcast, June 27, 1952):
Never treats me sweet and gentle, the way he should
I've got it bad and that ain't good
My poor heart is sentimental, hmmm, it's not made of wood
I've got it bad and that ain't good
But when the weekend's over and Monday rolls around
My man and me, we gin some, we pray some and sin some
He don't love me like I love him, nobody could
Say: I've got it bad and that ain't good
In February 1960, almost eight years after the Birdland date, Dinah recorded the song for one of her studio LPs. Much had happened in the meantime: In June 1952 she had been known mainly to the black public, her last hit having been »Trouble in Mind« (r&b # 04). But in 1960 she was a generally known, nationwide acclaimed jazz-pop-bigband-singer who just had released her arguably most famous album, »What A Diff'rence A Day Makes!« She could, and indeed coveted, to sing everything and every style, no matter whether blues, jazz or »pop«. Her repertoire thus inclu- ded many different songs, and she defied categorization. Rather, she was her own category:
»She had headlined a jazz bill with Dave Brubeck, and now [in 1960] she was on the pop charts with Brook Benton–but not so pop that she didn't draw her faithful rhythm and blues fans, too. Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan may have been bigger stars, but neither ... commanded such sustained attention across the musical spectrum. With strings or with horns, upbeat or ballad, Dinah continued to put her stamp on anything she sang.« (Nadine Cohodas, Queen. The Life and Music of Dinah Washington, New York 2006, p. 335)
Mercury LP # MG-20604
As I said before, in 1959 and in early 1960 her most famous and memorable hits were released: »Unforgettable«, »What A Diff'rence A Day Makes« and her duet with Brook Benton, »Baby You've Got What It Takes« (r&b # 01). Undoubtedly she was at the top of her career in these months, and in summer 1960 another of her several signature songs was released, »This Bitter Earth«. And in the midst of this great and lasting success she recorded, in New York on February 16, 1960, a song which she had often and since many years performed live on stage: »I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good« ... although Dinah, who never paid much attention to lyrics, tended to »I've Got It Bad«.
On this recording Dinah was accompanied by the Nat Goodman Orchestra, with Joe Zawinul on piano. The song was released in December 1960 on the Mercury LP # MG-20604 »I Con- centrate On You«. Being an old standard, as were a number of tunes on this album, it was lavishly orchestrated, yet Dinah's voice still reigns supreme and she made this song hers, as she always did: »Dinah was now such an established presence that she could record what she wanted, and Mercury could market the music however it wanted. Down Beat listed I Concentrate On You in a December [1960] list of "recent jazz releases." Cash Box declared that Dinah now had "permanent pop stature" that enabled her to "return more and more to the blues"« (Cohodas, Queen, p. 355).
Dinah Washington: »I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good« from the Mercury LP »I Concentrate On You« (1960):
Well, he never treats me sweet and gentle, the way he should
I've got it bad and that's no good
My poor heart is sentimental and it's not made of wood
Believe me, baby, I got it bad and that's no good
But when the week end's over and Monday rolls around
I end up like I start out, just cryin' my poor heart out
Well, he don't love me like I love him, I guess nobody could
That's why I got It bad and that ain't good
Though folks with good intentions tell me to save my tears
I'm glad I'm mad about him and I just can't live without him
Well, Lord above me, make my man love me the way he should
'Cause it's a drag to have it bad, believe me, it's no good
You heard me the first time: I've got it bad and that ain't good
And again eight years later ... another singer recorded that song, and she was, coincidentally, also called »Washington«: Justine »Baby« Washington, to be exact. Baby Washington who was often billed as »Jeanette Baby Washington« hailed from Bamberg in South Carolina, but grew up in Harlem. In 1963 and 1965, she had two hits in the top ten of the r&b charts, »That’s How Heartaches Are Made« and »Only Those In Love«, respectively. in 1967 she went from the New York-based Sue Records to Veep Records (likewise in New York). For the Sue label, which for some time had the likes of Ike & Tina Turner under contract, she actually recorded more Top-100 songs than any other Sue artist, Ike & Tina included. You can find the most complete and correct discography of Baby Washington on the Pete Hoppula's webpage.
Veep was a subsidiary of United Artists, and Baby Washington's first single on Veep (# 1274), released in November 1967, contained the songs »White Christmas« and »Silent Night« ... and both songs had, in November of the previous year, already been released as a Sue-Single! This smacks, even to the least suspicious, of desperate money-grabbing: not only that a much-talented soul singer gets the Santa Claus treatment, but her X-mas vocal gift is released for two years in a row by two different labels ... However, Veep Records did then try to put Baby Washington back on the soul scene by releasing in 1968 a new album entitled »With You In Mind« (Veep LP # VPS-16528). (Curiously, on the labels we read »Veep Gospel« ... I can't explain this fact.)
Visually, the album makes much of the presence of Baby Justine, and a very pretty presence indeed it is. On the front cover, she poses as a supper-club vamp in a silvery-white sequined dress, while on the back cover there are several shots showing her in a striped pantsuit and posing in a park, viz. standing in a tree fork, feeding doves and ... playing around, shyly smiling, with a baseball bat.
(You can see these photos here.)
Musically, the album offers little original material and rather comes along as a collection of seasoned chart toppers. Thus we find the Etta James-hit »At Last« beside other standards such as »People Sure Act Funny«, »I'm On The Outside (Looking In)«, »All Around The World« and »Take Me Like I Am«. Classy stuff it may well be, but given the choice of songs it was hard for Baby Washington to escape the danger of sounding conventional, after all. Still, her vocal performance is always remarkable and not seldom beautiful, the arrangements are never less than thouroughly professional. In the All Music Guide to Soul (San Francisco 2003) this LP was deemed worthy to be mentioned and awarded the mediocre number of three stars.
In any case, Baby Washington's Version of »I Got It Bad« is particularly interesting if one compares it with Dinah Washington's 1960 version. In listening first to the older, then to the younger version you can hear the development of 1960s' music in a nutshell (and I apologize for this awkward metaphor): Dinah's moody swinging version, underpinned by the string section, aims directly at the limbic center of emotions. Baby's much speedier Soul-version, dominated by the rhythm and horn sections, aims at the entire body ... and not to mention the background singers who now contribute with the refrain »no good, it ain't no good«.
And isn't it a strange coincidence – if coincidence it is! – that the albums of both Dinah and Baby Washington bear such similar titles: »I Concentrate On You« / »With You in Mind«?
Baby Washington: »I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good« from the Veep LP »With You In Mind« (1968):
Never treats me sweet and gentle, oh the way, the way he should, no
I've got it bad and that ain't good
(no good, it ain't no good)
My poor heart is sentimental, not made, not made of wood, no
I said: I've got it bad and that ain't good
(no good, it ain't no good)
When the weekend is over and Monday rolls around
Well I, I end up just like I start out, just cryin' my poor heart out
(cryin' my poor heart out)
He don't love me, not like I love him, and no no, nobody could, no
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.
