Ain't that good? Uploads are back to normal ... and I actually didn't even plan a post for today, but somehow I didn't want to skip this occasion now that things are working properly again.
Theme song for tonight is first a duet, being Tuesday, and second it's related to my today's mood, viz. »Ain't That Good«, performed by Mavis Staples and Eddie Floyd, from 1969. It was released as Stax # 0041 (B-side) and on the double album Boy Meets Girl (about the latter see more here).
So we have another Mavis-call today, which is fine with me. It'll be fine with you as well, I hope. Here we go ...
Mavis Staples & Eddie Floyd: »Ain't That Good« from the Stax LP # STS-2-2024 (1969):
Over the summer of '68, the Staple Singers left Epic and went to Stax. Quite an epic change, as all of you sure know; Mavis was soon to become independent on the Memphis roster. And nei- ther the Staples nor the people at Stax lost any time to produce new stuff ... and what stuff it was! Perfect almost every note they recorded, the choice of songs very fortunate, many of them with indirect or, more often, explicit political and/or social messages.
Their first Stax LP (STS-2004) was already out in December 1968, produced and engineered by Steve Cropper. It certainly is one of their most memorable Stax albums. Eleven songs, no filler, and much variety, ranging from Otis's »Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay« to »Long Walk To D.C.«.
Stax LP # STS-2004 (1968)
As beautiful as this LP is as strange it is that none of the no less than three 45s (Stax # 007, 019 and 031) which were based on this album (only the B-side of # 007 is not taken from it) did not make any noise chartwise. Hard to understand in retrospect, especially as the LP is basically a showcase for Mavis Staples, her vocal steam engine dominating each and every tune. Were many of its songs too overtly poli- tical? One wouldn't think so, given that the Staples regularly did message songs and had had considerable success with them before ... and the winter of 1968/69 was a troubled time, so political activism in the black music arena should not have deterred potential buyers? I guess the Staples appeared too streamlined or were perceived merely as idealistic soft-core message belters (as indeed many of their songs would suggest to those ill-willing). Trouble times favored radicalism in word and action, not benevolent and potentially quietist optimism, and even though the Staples saw themselves as Soul Folk in Action there might have been too little action, or incitement towards such, in their songs ... half a year after the assassination of Martin Luther King ...
Be that as it may, below you can listen to the one political song of this LP, entitled »I See It«, that did not go down favourably with many Americans. It is telling that this tune was released by Stax in the UK (Stax UK # 118), but not in the U.S. Although the song is, much in the Staples tradition, rather optimistic in outlook, there is a dis- turbing coda which re-creates, even today, the entire tension of the period by its rendering of the Star Spangled Banner. Best I quote here from the Stepfather of Soul page: »I See It finds Mavis and the group imagining a United States free from dis- cord and racism but full of brotherhood and national pride ... as the group goes to the fade the listener is jarred back into "reality" by a very discordant string version of The Star Spangled Banner, under which another violin plays Yankee Doodle. A very odd way to end such a positive tune, to be sure, but it very effectively underscores the problems that lurked underneath the surface in 1968 and still lurk today.« But it's not only about racism and social unrest. Think of the current case of the health care reform which is about to founder. If it does the poor will pay for it ... albeit only metaphorically, because the problem is exactly that they cannot pay ... ah well, no further, it makes me mad.
For good measure, there is a second song as well, Bonnie L. Bramlett's & Carl D. Radle's »We've Got To Get Ourselves Together«, again admirably done by Mavis Staples (did she ever do anything less than admirably?). Would that things work out as imagined by the Staples in 1968 ... usually they haven't, but there's always hope.
The Staple Singers: »I See It« / »We've Got To Get Ourselves Together« from the Stax LP # STS-2004 (1968):
The Staple Singers, from the back cover of Stax # 2004.
In August 1967, one of the most famous soul tunes of all time, »Soul Man«, hit the ears of the world. It was not even to be the first #1 hit for Sam & Dave, after the success of »Hold On! I'm A Comin'« in 1966 ...
From Stax LP # 725, back cover
In October 1967, then, their first Stax LP was out, entitled Soul Men after their recent hit. In great contrast to what happened usually this LP was no collection of more or less successful 45s plus some fillers. Apart from »Soul Man« and »May I Baby« (both on Stax # 231), the remain- ing ten songs on this album were never ever released separately. Businesswise, this was not too much of a good idea, because LPs still sold badly in those days (notwithstanding the fact that the LP entered the Top Selling R&B LP charts in mid-November and was to remain there until Feb. '68). On the artistic side, however, Sam & Dave's LP (together with others as well) have become known as very well produced (LP 725 by Isaac Hayes & David Porter) and consistently featuring above-average material which, in any case, was found only on the big vinyl.
There might be somebody out there who hasn't heard the LPs of Sam & Dave, or at least not this one, or at least this one not in its entirety, or this one not in the mono version, or who doesn't remember it well, or whose vinyl collection was stored too near the heating, or whose record player fell recently from the balcony, or whose HD refuses proper service, or somebody who just likes to listen again ... so for those unfortunate people here are two songs from this LP: »I'm With You« and »The Good Runs The Bad Way«. The first song was actually first recorded by the 5 Royales in 1960 (and is correctly credited to one of their members, Lowman - »Loman« on back cover and label of Stax LP 725 - Pauling). The second tune is a Sam & Dave original and was penned by Andrew Love & Wayne Jackson of the Memphis Horns. It has a very James-Brownish feeling to it ... great stuff!
Sam & Dave: »I'm With You« / »The Good Runs The Bad Way« from the Stax LP # 725 (1967, mono):
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For the record: Both songs were recorded in Memphis in August 1967.
Some weeks ago, in November, I played two songs from Stax's double album Boy Meets Girl, this final LP experience of soul duets. However, among the plethora of duets which Stax was experimenting with in 1968 and 1969 one singing pair is, conspicuously, missing from the said LP set, viz. the pairing up of Judy Clay and William Bell. And yet this duo proved to be most successful Stax came up with during the late '60s.
Judy Clay we met on this blog as part of the Drinkard Singers, way back in the '50s. She then stayed with several labels until 1967 when she recorded her first 45 for Stax. Roughly at the same time, she teamed up with Billy Vera (on Atlantic). And finally, in spring '68, she recorded her first two songs with William Bell which were released as Stax # 0005 in July, »Private number« with flip »Love-Eye-Tis«. The A-side of this single proved to be the biggest hit of her entire career.
Rob Bowman in his Soulville U.S.A. has told the story of »Private Number« in detail (see pp. 152 f.). Like »Love-Eye-Tis«, the song was written by William Bell (based on a personal experience) and then worked out, musicallywise, with Booker T Jones. Both planned that Otis & Carla should record the song but the untimely death of Otis put an end to that. According to Bell, quoted by Bowman, it was then by chance that Clay and Bell recorded this song, mainly because both happened to be in the studio at the same time: »She completed the session early and she needed something to record. So we said, 'Give us an hour.' We sat there and completed 'Private Number' in the studio.« Anyhow, Bell was still thinking at that point to give the song to Judy, but then someone suggested that Bell's vocals should be added to Judy's demo. »Neither one of us had any idea that it was gonna be a duet« said Bell later.
Supposed that this story is true, there would've been thus no »grand« strategy at Stax, at least not yet at this point, to find a post-Otis/Carla duet. Rather it all happened by accident. But, if »Private Number« came about coincidentally as a duet, »Love-Eye-Tis« in all probability did not (Bowman is silent on this point). After all, they needed a B-side for »Private Number«. The A-side has remained the famous song of that 45, but I don't like it at all: it's too poppish for my taste and lacks the right hook. So only thing I gonna play here is the B-side which has some semblance of Memphitian origins left in it. As Bowman further explains, all newly numbered Stax singles from May '68 onwards (i.e. nos. 0001 ff.) were cut on the freshly acquired Scully 8-track recorder. I personally think that this hasn't increased sound quality compared to the earlier recordings. And we can hear on Stax # 0005 what we cannot but notice also in numerous recordings on the Boy Meets Girl album: the voices are mixed way too much in the background. They just don't stand out properly, lack force and get sub- merged by the bass line - it's a pity. Listen here:
Judy Clay & William Bell: »Love-Eye-Tis« on Stax # 0005B (1968):
Speaking so much of The Staples lately and pondering which duets to chose for today's post left me, really, no choice but to take the marvelous Stax 2-LP album »Boy Meets Girl« from the shelf. In the second half of the '60s, mixed duets were high on the agenda of record producers. Motown's Marvin Gaye was paired up with three female artists, and Stax climbed the charts with Otis & Carla. After Otis's tragic death, Stax joined Judy Clay and William Bell (while Atlantic had Judy out together with Billy Vera). But in 1969, Stax produced what is, arguably, the ultimate duet experience on vinyl, viz. the above-mentioned double album »Boy Meets Girl«.
We have 22 songs here and 7 artists, 4 male and 3 female. One song, the opener of the first LP, is sung by all, the remaining 21 are mixed duets. We have 10 different combinations, one of these 4 times, two of them 3 times, four of them 2 times and three duets just once. Two female artists (Mavis & Carla) are present in 10 duets, one (Cleotha) in only 1, whereas among the males we find the first (William Bell) doing 9 duets, the second (Eddie Floyd) 6 duets, the third (Johnnie Taylor) 4 duets and the fourth (Pervis Staples) 2 duets. Only one of the male artists (Pervis) has only one female duet partner (Carla), while Cleotha has but one song and thus is easy to calculate. Mavis and Carla are present with the same number of duets (10), but Carla has one more partner (Pervis) while Mavis has more duets than Carla with the same partner (William Bell). Eddie Floyd is the only one among the male artists to sing with all three female artists. I guess some mathematically minded and mechan- ically gifted geek could construct a nice Rubik's Cube from that. I, who am neither so minded nor gifted, have to do with the music.
Stax STS 2-2024 front cover
Robert Christgau wrote a critical appreciation of this album (and by so doing also spoke about the role of duets in late '60s black music in general), read it here (a review orig. publ. in the NYT, June 22, 1969). I do not agree with everything he says, but he's certainly right in assuming that Stax was looking for a new duet to repeat the success of the Otis & Carla formula: »Somewhere among the permutations there's just gotta be another Otis & Carla.« He then concludes that there wasn't. A look at the chart success and the sales figures for this album seem to confirm Christgau's view: The album, released in July '69, stayed for some weeks in the lower 40s of the 50 Top r&b LPs charts; of course, being a two-record package it was a costly item and I don't know whether Stax possibly sold it at the price of one LP. However, five singles were released from this album and none did chart.
I personally find that this LPs offer many a remarkable song. And there is the additional advantage that you can hear many different voices in different combinations, making the two LPs sort of a vocal lab. Below, you can hear Mavis Staples & Johnnie Taylor with »That's The Way Love Is« (never released on 45). Mavis has just one duet with Johnnie on this album and I somehow feel that they should have done more. And their voices are mixed not only much up-front (in contrast to several other pieces on this album) but also into different channels. Second duet is Cleotha Staples & Eddie Floyd with »It's Too Late«. I have to admit that this tune is not up my alley, nor is the arrangement. But, hey, there are so few recordings of Cleotha singing a prominent part so I just thought I'd owe her that for all what she did with the Staple Singers. But it's not only that: she really got a beautiful, almost lyrical voice. You kind of feel, though, that she's not used to sing »on her own«, as it were, and she seems to hold back a lot, shyly, giving her vocal performance too little force and ... confidence? behind it (especially if contrasted with Eddie's professional and self secure performance). And she's more at home in the higher registers, but still. Was I being unjust? Listen for yourself:
Mavis Staples & Johnnie Taylor: »That's The Way Love Is« (from STS 2-2024A, 1969) /
Cleotha Staples & Eddie Floyd: »It's Too Late« (from STS 2-2024B, 1969):
POSTSCRIPT:
This Stax 2-LP album was never re-issued on CD in its original form. Several songs are contained on a 2009 compilation entitled »Boy Meets Girl: Classic Soul Duets«. Mavis & Johnnie's duet »That's The Way Love Is« is added as bonus track on the 1993 CD re-issue of Mavis Staples's first two Stax albums »Only For The Lonely« (CD # STA 88012).
On a CD review page, I found the following quote from Mavis Staples:
»Man, that was a looong time ago«, Mavis laughed. »'Boy Meets Girl' was an album compiled of all of the female and the male Stax people. I don't recall much of it, but I do remember singing with William Bell, because they played the song we did, 'Strung Out', quite a bit on the radio.«
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Tracklist of the original 2-LP album (songs marked with (*)asterisks were released as Stax 45s at the time):
LP 1 (STS 2-2024A)
A1 Staples, Carla Thomas, William Bell, Eddie Floyd: Soul-A-Lujah (*)
A2 Mavis Staples & William Bell: I Ain't Particular
A3 Carla Thomas & Johnnie Taylor: Just Keep On Loving Me (*)
A4 Mavis Staples & Eddie Floyd: Ain't That Good (*)
A5 Carla Thomas & William Bell: I Can't Stop (*)
A6 Mavis Staples & William Bell: I Thank You
B1 Mavis Staples & William Bell: Love's Sweet Sensation (*)
B2 Carla Thomas & William Bell: I Need You Woman (*)
B3 Mavis Staples & Eddie Floyd: Never, Never Let You Go (*)
B4 Mavis Staples & William Bell: Hold On This Time
B5 Mavis Staples & Johnnie Taylor: That's The Way Love Is
LP 2 (STS 2-2024B)
A1 Carla Thomas & Eddie Floyd: It's Our Time
A2 Carla Thomas & Pervis Staples: It's Unbelievable (How You Control My Soul)
A3 Mavis Staples & Eddie Floyd: Piece Of My Heart
A4 Mavis Staples & William Bell: Leave The Girl Alone
A5 Carla Thomas & Pervis Staples: I'm Trying
A6 Carla Thomas & Eddie Floyd: Don't Make Me A Storyteller
B1 Mavis Staples & William Bell: Strung Out (*)
B2 Carla Thomas & Johnnie Taylor: My Life (*) B3 Cleotha Staples & Eddie Floyd: It's Too Late
B4 Carla Thomas & Johnnie Taylor: I've Just Been Feeling Bad
B5 Carla Thomas & William Bell: All I Have To Do Is Dream
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POSTSCRIPT 26th February 2013
Today, I received the following sad notice:
Cleotha »Cleedi« Staples has passed away at the age of 78 in her Chicago home on the morning of February
21, 2013. God rest her soul.
Come on, let's hype the Staples for another day! (Not that they needed it, though) Just a funky message song for today, considering our lousy times and all. This comes from their best Stax LP (that's what I think, anyway), released in March 1971. Those among you who find the machine-gunned intro somewhat silly or down- right cruddy, wait for the song to take off! After all, it's Mavis administering the ear drops to you here. And that says something.
The Staple Singers: »This Is A Perfect World« from the Stax LP # STS-2034 (1971):
In general I love duets, those of the same-gender kind and even more so those of the mixed variety. So I thought about posting duets on Tuesdays and that's what I'll start today. There'll be some classic & well-known duets, some lesser known and some, probably, not much known or remembered at all. And they'll be mostly of the mixed variety. At least, that's my idea at the moment. Let's see what comes of it.
Today, Rufus & Carla Thomas from 1964. They did several duet singles for Satellite/Stax/Atco, and Stax # 151 was their first on the Stax label, released in April '64. »That's Really Some Good«, penned by Rufus Thomas, is conventionally considered the A-side and peaked at # 90 of Cash Box's Top 100 in mid-June. A little more famous, in retrospect, has become the B-side, »Night Time Is The Right Time«. It's a very close cover of Ray Charles's (& Margie Hendricks's) immortal song, but it doesn't really come close, I think, to Charles's original. Carla's presence is way not as forceful as Margie's. Still, it is a groovy tune. What has never ceased, say: disturbing me is that we have here father and daughter singing this highly charged lovers' tune. No, not in the sense we hear it so often in the news nowadays. I mean knowing that here's father and daugh- ter singing just doesn't fit this song, or does it? (The same problem poses itself with a number of other Rufus & Carla duets!) Well, never mind, it's about night time here and I'm not dogmatic about it.
Rufus & Carla [Thomas]: »Night Time Is The Right Time« / »That's Really Some Good« on Stax # 151 (1964):
In the last post you could hear Bobbie Gentry's »Ode To Billie Joe«, and we pondered the great influence this song had on many other styles of music. Today, I would like to present another example for this fact. It is taken from the album »Doin' Our Thing« (Stax LP 724) by Booker T & The MGs, released in January 1968.
Booker T & The MGs are, of course, well-known. They were one of the most famous formations recording for the Memphis Stax-label during the 1960s and among the most popular instrumental groups in general. The group included organist/pianist Booker T. Jones, guitarist Steve Cropper, bassist Donald »Duck« Dunn (from 1964) and drummer Al Jackson. On their LP »Doin' Our Thing« we find a noteworthy adaption of Bobbie Gentry's »Ode To Billie Joe«. A very calm piece which actually only evokes, rather than adapts, the original song. In fact, it more resembles a impressionistic sound study, quite original by and in itself ... there is a certain Debussy-like quality to the tune, being a collage of melodical moods losely based on the original:
Booker T & The MGs: »Ode To Billie Joe« from the Stax LP 724 (1968):
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POSTSCRIPT June 2011:
I recently came across a notice speaking about the success of Bobbie Gentry's »Ode To Billie Joe« and the subsequent flood of cover versions, both instrumental and vocal. It is from the September 23, 1967, issue of Billboard, page 4:
*** BONUS SONG added March 31, 2012 ***
The Billboard article quotes, among several cover version, the instrumental by the Kingpins (i.e. King Curtis and his band) on Atco # 6516. This version was recorded in Memphis (Aug. 24, '67) at the American Sound Studios (supervised by Chips Moman; incidentally, there was also a recording session of the Sweet Inspirations that very same day!).
The tune did great on the r&b charts and eventually entered the Top Ten, peaking at # 6. It was then included in King Curtis's Atco LP King Size Soul (out in Nov. '67). A Billboard review described this version as »mellow jazz, which is loaded with soul« (Nov. 25, 1967, issue p. 84) and this is about right, I guess. In difference to Booker T's impressionistic rendering of the Ode we have here a smooth, albeit conventional version, actually rather close to the original. And of course the tenor sax makes this version very different from Booker's organ-based fantasie de Billie Joe ...
King Curtis & The Kingpins: »Ode To Billie Joe« from the Atco LP # SD 33-231 (1967):
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.
