I was more than happy to talk with the
delightful Toni Green again. This beautiful lady out of Memphis has just released a new CD with Malted Milk, a soul-blues group out of France.
How did this uncommon collaboration come about? Toni explains it all below.
There’s also the
regular dose of new, independent Southern Soul CDs and retrospect compilations
– actually, all quite good this time – and a book on Otis Redding, Stax
Records and Southern Soul, again.
Toni: “The
project came about 2013, going into 2014. I met a gentleman by the name of Sebastian
Danchin. He was someone that had followed me and my career and he said he
had been trying to find something that was possible for me to do in France. For fifteen years he had been trying to get me, and finally there came the
opportunity with Malted Milk to do Southern soul, blues and r&b, so he put
it together.”
Sebastian produced
the brand new Milk & Green CD(Nueva Onda
Records, NOR002; www.nuevaonda.fr), and
he also co-wrote four songs together with Toni and members of Malted Milk. The
group is based in Nantes, France, and it was formed in the late 90s. In the
sleeve notes to Milk & Green -their 7th
album - they list the following musicians: Arnaud Fradin (voc, g), Éric
Chambouleyron (g), Timothée Bakoglu (p), Igor Pichon (b-g), Richard
Housset (d, perc), Pierre-Marie Humeau (tpt, flgn), Vincent
Aubert (tb, btb) and Sylvain “Sly” Fetis (ts, bar, fl). Still Laurence
Le Baccon and Julie Dumoulin are on background vocals, and they also
have violin & viola players on three tracks – Manuel Decocq and Jenny-Marlène
Galvao. Toni: “I got to have strings. I’m a Southern girl” (laughing).
Toni with Memphis Horns
JUST CALL ME
“They had sent
me some CDs for me to listen to, some cover songs, and of course I brought my
own songs, my own material. I chose out of that bunch maybe about fifteen
songs, and they took it down to twelve songs. I came over, we rehearsed, we
put it all together and we went out in the country to a very nice studio and we
recorded the songs. It didn’t take very long, but the mastering and mixing
took a little longer.” The recording studio is located in Puceul, in the
north-west of France, just over 30 km from Nantes, and the mixing studio is
situated in Besse, France.
Among the twelve
tracks, there are seven “in-house” compositions. “For the new songs I already
had ideas in my head before I left the United States. So when I got there, I
just gave them what was in my thoughts and we just came up with the musical
rhythms and whatever we could put around the lyrics and the melodies that I had
given to them. The music is mostly from them. And the same goes the other way
round. They gave me things that they had written and I kind of helped co-write
some of the things, put my melodies and change some things.”
One of these
songs is the opener, a punchy and funky mid-tempo number called Just Call Me,
which according to Toni is a strong candidate for a single release.
Helen Washington
TOMMY TATE
I’d Really
like to Know is Tommy Tate’s poignant, slow-to-mid-tempo song, which
was first released as his demo on a Japanese album in 1979 (
www.soulexpress.net/tommytate_discography.htm).
“Tommy Tate was a wonderful guy. As a matter of fact, I just visited Helen
Washington, who’s in a nursing home, and we talked about Tommy Tate, and
the tears just rolled off her eyes. We talked about one of the greatest voices
ever to be heard - that of Tommy Tate.” Helen was a dancer, who performed with Isaac
Hayes Movement in the 70s.
“I first met
Tommy, when I was very, very young. He took a liking to my voice. For some
reason, he liked how I sounded, and I adored how he sounded, and we did a few
things out there, a few gigs around the city and around Mississippi. He was
such a nice guy and I was honoured to be with him, so when this song came about
I was elated. I wanted to make
sure that we were going to do something in his honour. This was a little scary
for me at first, because the song was written so long ago and I was trying to
imagine how it would be received today. I was a little nervous about the black
and white situation. I didn’t know, was I sticking myself into something or
not, but as I began to sing the song and get involved with it, I looked never
back, because underneath we’re all the same.”
On Monday, October 26, Toni still contacted the nursing home, where they are
taking care of Tommy. "I am happy to announce that he is alive and doing fine.
I also talked to Tommy's son, Kevin Tate, who also said that his father is doing very good.
I asked Kevin to tell Tommy that we all miss his wonderful voice and that he is
truly loved by all."
Toni Green with Ann Peebles
THE WEATHER IS STILL FINE
Alongside Just
Call Me, another song that Toni and the band put together is a string-sweetened,
emotional and touching ballad named The Weather Is Still Fine. “It put
me in that solemn mood of no matter what you’re going through you have to come
out of it and say ‘I’m going to be okay’. It probably has underlying things
that have been very emotional for me – the relationships that I endured, and even
losing my mom. In spite of the rain and having to still cry, I still kept on
imagining that it’s got to be sunshine.”
Ann Peebles enjoyed
a small hit on Hi Records in 1971 with a George Jackson song called Slipped,
Tripped and Fell in Love, and now Toni does her gritty and funky version of
it. “I have met Ann several times, because I have been at the Hi Studios,
where I met her and her husband Don Bryant. Recently she was celebrated
at the Jus’ Blues Music Awards last year. She couldn’t say much and I went
over and hugged her, and when she realised it was me she just beamed up and
wanted to know, why I wasn’t singing that night.” Besides Ann, some of the
other honourees at that event on July 31, 2014, were Blue Lovett and Gerald
Alston of the Manhattans, G.C. Cameron and Cash McCall.
A memorable tune
with a laid-back and rather light arrangement called Wake up to Your Love is
followed by a Mary J. Blige song from six years back named I Can Do
Bad all by Myself. On this track Toni has added some extra power and
energy to her delivery. “This is my favourite. I love this song. It reminds
me of my friends, who are being abused. That’s one of the songs that really
took me to another place and hopefully still takes somebody to that same place
and let them know ‘you can do better’.” Already on her Strong Enough CD
in 2002, Toni had covered two Mary J. Blige songs, Round and Round and The
Love I Never Had. “I’ve met Mary several times.” I Can Do Bad all by
Myself is also a possible single release, along with Slipped, Tripped
and Fell in Love, which is a favourite among Brits.
JUST AIN’T WORKING OUT
Deep Inside is
a pulsating mid-tempo number, even a bit ominous. “That’s another one of my
favourites. I love it. We all put it together.” As Long As I Have You is
another familiar song from the past, as it was the title tune of Garnet
Mimms’ 1964 album on United Artists. On this rolling, uptempo track Arnaud
Fradin is sharing the vocals with Toni, as well as on Hold Back This Feeling,
a slow song with a heavy beat. “As Long As I Have You was Sebastian
Danchin’s suggestion. He gave it to me among a lot of other songs, and that
was the one that I chose.” On the cover of That Wiggle,Syl Johnson’s
1977 stomper on Hi Records (www.soulexpress.net/syljohnson_discography.htm),
Arnaud is the sole vocalist.
Just Ain’t
Working Out is Toni’s highly emotive, deep soul ballad, which she first cut
for her Southern Soul Music CD in 2003. It’s also the cream cut for
this reviewer on the CD. “I love that song, too. It’s one of my greatest
favourites, and that’s why I wanted to redo it.”
A lively and
melodically a bit angular dance track titled Party Girl introduces piano
and trumpet solos in the middle. “This is a new song. In our live show, Party
Girl is phenomenal. Everybody’s up and everybody’s dancing. It’s such a
fun song. That’s one of our most requested songs on our tours.” They also
added fake live audience to the track. “I told them that they need to have a
sound on the top like there’s a party going on.”
One hidden track
with a steady mid-tempo beat called D.J. Jam closes the CD. “It’s
actually called Sexy Love Machine. It’s also a studio cut.”
Toni with Malted Milk
Toni and Malted
Milk have shows scheduled at the end of November, both in France, and the U.K. “We’re preparing for more television and more of everything next year. We
would just like to give everybody a taste of this CD... and we also ask
everybody to let us know, if they like it or not. We’re hopefully going to try
for another CD.” In the future a home-turf record is not excluded either. “I
think to me honestly that would be something to look forward to, because my
roots are here in Memphis. I would love to be back at the Hi Recording
Studios, because I think it would give the flavour that’s needed for me as an
artist.”
“I want
everybody to know that I’m going to always try to give you the best of music.
We’re going to keep trying till we get to hopefully please the majority of the
people, who really want to hear our kind of music. We’re going to keep on
working on it, till we get better and better at this thing.”
(www.milk-green.com; interview conducted on
October 23, 2015; acknowledgements to Toni Green, Jean-Hervé Michel and Jean-Claude
Morlot).
I still remember
how thrilled I was after hearing Tony Troutman’s Your Man Is Home
Tonight on the T.Main label in 1982. That made me seek his other
recordings on Swagger, Gram-o-phon, Note, Coastal, and later on Jerri and Solid
Gold (I still haven’t found them all), but that one single and Tony’s similarly
titled follow-up album made him a firm favourite in this corner. Unfortunately
he has now passed away. Later also Buckwheat Zydeco, Artie “Blues Boy”
White and J. Blackfoot have released creditable versions of Your
Man Is Home Tonight, and now Willie Clayton opens his new CD with
this great song. Although Tony’s original is still unsurpassable for me, I
also like Willie’s cover a lot. As always, Willie’s singing is superb and the
mid-tempo arrangement leaves enough room for him to burst into an emotional delivery.
The rest of the
songs on Heart and Soul (Endzone Entertainment, www.willieclayton.net) were for the
most part written and produced by Willie and Darnell “Showcase” Taylor,
a guitarist out of North Carolina. Darnell also handles all the other
instruments on nine tracks, with the exception of Marcus Anderson’s
saxophone.
Two singles - Come
on Rock Me and Let’s Dance -are also light and easy
toe-tappers, and especially the latter one bears a resemblance to the merry and
catchy 70s Miami sound. Your Love Is Wonderful is a mid-tempo stepper,
which grows towards the end, and the laid-back Mend Your Broken Heart trespasses
on Al Green’s territory. Bringing the tempo still down, Amazing Lady
is a beautiful, soothing serenade, whereas the melancholic and melodic Please
Don’t Leave Me is the cream cut and the killer ballad on the CD.
Three songs – Ain’t
No Party, Leave My Woman Alone and the remixed Boom Boom Boom –
derive from Willie’s earlier albums, but I’m really glad that finally we’re
getting closer to an ideal Willie Clayton CD. Avoiding passing fads and trendy
sonic tricks, we can now concentrate on Willie’s extremely soulful singing on
memorable melodies and tolerate even partial programming. Heart and Soul
is the best Willie Clayton CD in a long, long time.
The Truth (Coday
Records, AC 849; www.codayrecords.net)
was produced, recorded, engineered, mixed and mastered by Andrew Lee Caples,
who also wrote or co-wrote all ten songs on it. I picture Andre´ as “Will
Downing of Southern Soul”, since they both have smooth tenor voices and their
style is dominated by elegance and intimacy.
Although known
as “the balladeer of Southern soul”, on this CD there are as many as six light
and laid-back dancers. As a continuation of his stepping theme (earlier Stepping
with You and Gonna Go Stepping), Andre´ kicks off his 6th
CD with the soft and sensuous Let’s Go Stepping, whereas both the single
You Went and Did It, and Tell Me What I Gotta Do are charged with
more power. On the quick-tempo Right Kind of Woman Andre´ has his wife,
Miz Goldie, on background vocals. The balladeer comes out best on the
sweet Tell Me What You Need, while Anytime Anywhere is a song best
suited for romantic, late-night moments (www.andrelee.net).
Reaching
Out/Chess Records at Fame Studios (CDKEND 436; www.acerecords.com; 24 tracks, 65 min.;
notes by Tony Rounce) has been available for a few months by now, but –
unless you have most of these tracks already – I can’t think of any excuse for
a late 60s Southern soul fan not to purchase this marvellous compilation.
Produced by “Rick Hall and Staff”, there’s music from eight acts assigned
to Fame by Chess, and four tracks appear here for the first time.
The lovely and
ever-soulful Laura Lee has as many as five tracks, including three deep
soul ballads (It’s All Wrong, But It’s Alright, Hang It Up and Sure
As Sin) and two funky and sharp uptempo cuts (Wanted: Lover, No
Experience Necessary and It’s How You Make It Good).
Irma Thomas delivers
three impressive slow songs, such as Otis Redding’s Good to Me, a
cover of Joe Simon’s Let’s Do It Over and the touching A Woman
Will Do Wrong, one that you’ll never get tired of. From Etta James’ Fame
catalogue they have chosen two toe-tappers (The Same Rope and her hit, Security)
and one solid soul ballad, Don’t Lose Your Good Thing. Sticking still
to the ladies, for the first time they have unearthed Mitty Collier’s
two intense and powerful ballads: Too Soon to Know is country-soul of
the highest order and You’re Living a Lie is closer to blues but equally
magnificent.
Those four
ladies above are the stars of the show here, while the gentlemen are more or
less in supporting roles. They mostly increase the tempo and bring more
diversity to the program. Maurice & Mac, of course, make an
exception with their deep soul renditions of So Much Love (Latimore’s
version is the closestthat comes to my mind) and Lean on Me. The
duo’s third track, however, is a stomper called Run to Me. In terms of
swaying mid-tempo numbers and hypnotic dancers Bobby Moore & the Rhythm
Aces won’t let us down (Reaching Out, I Wanna Be Your Man and Come
Back Baby), and the raspy-voiced Lee Webber does a punchy cover of Good
Day Sunshine and tries to imitate Wilson Pickett on Party Time.
Charles Chalmers, the sax man, is featured on two mid-tempo instrumentals
(The Sidewinder and Two in the Morning) and one slowie (Take
Me Just as I Am). A highly recommended CD!
Masterpieces
of Modern Soul, vol. 4 (CDKEND 437; 23 tracks, 79 min.; notes by Ady
Croasdell) offers floaters mostly from the 70s, and issue-wise the CD can
be divided into three parts: 7 tracks were normally issued at the time, 8
tracks are previously unissued and 8 tracks were shelved and released only on
later compilations.
Among the most
interesting ones there’s Garland Green’s bouncy mid-tempo song called Just
Loving You with an opening monologue. Don’t Matter to Me by Billy
Cee & the Freedom Express has a mid-tempo Memphis groove to it, while Toussaint
McCall’s I’ll Laugh Till I Cry is a mellow dancer. Obrey Wilson’s
intense delivery on a message song named Daddy Please Stay Home makes
you either think, or dance... or both (if that’s even possible).
On Joe Evans’
Carnival label The Pretenders came up with a disco cover of Lee
Williams & the Cymbals original recording of It’s Everything about
You That I Love, and our old friend Viola Wills gets fervent on the
brassy and busy I’ve Got News for You. My guess is that the
Dramatics’ semi-funky reading of Don’t Lose What You Got (Trying to Get
Back What You Had) is one of tracks from the late 60s album that Steve
Cropper produced but which was canned, but I’m not sure.
George Soule’s
Midnight Affair is a pulsating mid-tempo number, and almost in an
unorthodox way Alvin Robinson lends his masculine voice to another
equally light and melodic mid-pacer. Among the rest of the featured artists
there are Greg Perry, the Ovations with Louis Williams and Darrow
Fletcher.
Before this
compilation I hadn’t heard their first collaboration, which was released in
July 1972, and it was a most pleasant surprise for me. So Long Love is
a powerful song with a rich orchestration by Gerry Shury, and this big
ballad is perfect material for Jimmy’s multi-octave range. Incidentally,
remotely as a singer he reminds me of Ronnie Dyson. Gonna Make You
an Offer was released next, but unfortunately the crucial follow-up, Jack
Horner’s Holiday, wasn’t distinctive enough to hit the charts anymore. Produced
by Wilf Pine and arranged by Andrew Powell, as a rescue they
rush-released a fully orchestrated cover of I’ll take good Care of You –
remember Garnet Mimms? – but they already had lost their moment.
The album, which
was released as late as in 1975, contains - besides more gritty and funky
tracks – covers of such downtempo pop songs as David GatesIt Don’t
Matter to me and the Drifters’ Like Sister and Brother.
There’s also a big-voiced version of Stevie Wonder’s I Never Dreamed
You’d Leave in Summer, with only a piano accompaniment.
Not on the ‘75
album but worth mentioning are also a lively and rolling cover of Johnny
Rivers’ The Poor Side of Town, the driving Lady Blue and the
almost operatic version of Jimmy Webb’s When Can Brown Begin. Altogether
Jimmy favoured pop-soul and MOR material, even show tunes.
After the Cube
spell, already in 1975 Jimmy released his next album on Cube’s parent label,
Pye Records, entitled Songs I Sing, and later he appeared on
soundtracks, performed in musicals, until as a lead singer of Londonbeat he
hit gold and big time with I’ve Been Thinking about You in 1991.
Alongside
American sports, Mark Ribowsky has earlier written books about Phil
Spector, the Supremes, Stevie Wonder and the Temptations, and now he
undertook to research the deeper and gutsier side of soul music for Dreams
to Remember – Otis Redding, Stax Records and the Transformation of Southern
Soul (Liveright Publishing Corporation, ISBN 978-0-87140-873-0; 400
pages). There are only eight pages with photos – and many of them are more than
familiar – but the ever-important index is included, although no discography of
any kind.
Mark first takes
us to Dawson, Georgia, where Otis Ray Redding Jr. was born in September 1941. After
that he leads us through Otis’ musical awakening and early experiments with
choirs and groups in Macon, Georgia, all the way to his first recordings in Los Angeles in 1960. Otis’ further career is chequered with management disputes between Phil
Walden and Bobby Smith, the more or less improvised recording of These
Arms of Mine at Stax Records Studios in 1962 and a shootout with Otis
himself involved in 1964. Al Bell’s marketing tricks in the mid-60s –
“riding Berry Gordy’s coattails” – contributed to Otis’ gradually
increasing popularity. There were also duets with Carla Thomas, Jotis
Records, the breakthrough Monterey festival in 1967 and constant searching for
that elusive crossover hit. There were also assumptions of Otis leaving Stax
and signing with Atlantic, but that we’ll never know for sure, because Otis’
plane crashed into the lake Monona, close to Madison, Wisconsin, on December the
10th in 1967.
Mark’s writing
style is descriptive and captivating, but I, for one – as a lover of
fact-orientated biographies – am not too keen on over-literary, metaphorical
and exaggerating, even blabbering style. Also at times Mark’s opinions and
conclusions are curious. What do you think about the following
generalisations?
-“Even in pain,
his (Otis’) songs are odes to the joy of full-on emotion, something lacking from
the grooves of music since his death.” No joy of full-on emotion in music
since 1967?
- Or: “Little
Richard pumped out a string of others (like Tutti Frutti)in
the same throbbing vein, including Long Tall Sally, Good Golly Miss Molly,
Ready Teddy and Rip It Up. Two went to number 1 R&B and Sally
top 10 pop. Soul music had arrived.” Little Richard introduced soul in
the mid-50s?
- Or: “...doo-wop,
a form of controlled madness, with tight harmonies backed by a riveting bass
line and scat-form lyrics, which had arguably begun with the Five Satins’
In the Still of the Night in 1956...” Really, began in 1956?
Mark doesn’t
avoid writing about Otis’ alleged dubious characteristics, such as quick
temper, infidelity or treating his musicians badly. Actually, all these
accusations were brought up already in earlier biographies on Otis by Scott
Freeman (Otis! - The Otis Redding Story in 2001) and Geoff Brown (Otis
Redding – Try a Little Tenderness in 2003), as well as most of the
information in this new book.
For this book,
Mark has done a lot of research and interviewed, among others, Al Bell,
Wayne Jackson, Floyd Newman, Dennis Wheeler and Alan Walden, but
many key figures for some unexplained reasons were not recorded. The ones that
first come to my mind include Zelma Redding, Jim Stewart, Steve Cropper and
other musicians, fellow artists and people working in the music business in
that area, who were there and who still are among us.
I give Mark full
credit for focusing on music and creation of music and thorough analysis on
songs. That side in these biographies is often ignored. On the other hand,
there are some odd mistakes, which long-standing soul music fans could correct in
no time at all and which make the reader question the familiarity of the author
with his topic, his perspective. For instance, Mark writes that
-“James Brown...
cut a demo of Try Me, his first recoding.” Correction: Try Me was
cut in 1958, two years after Please, Please, Please.
-Another one: “But
when the song (Respect) was released in April 1967 as the first single
from (Aretha) Franklin’s groundbreaking I Never Loved a Man
the Way I Love You album...” Correction: The first single was the title
tune b/w Do Right Woman – Do Right Man.
- More: “... about
Percy Sledge, another Atlantic artist scheduled to be on the tour, his
leverage and drawing power proven by the certification of When a Man Loves a
Woman as Atlantic’s first gold record...” Correction: Atlantic received
many gold records already in the 50s, and still more in the early 60s.
- One more: “Two
years later, (Johnny) Baylor produced the cover of the song (If
Loving You Is Wrong, I Don’t Want to Be Right) by Millie Jackson on
Koko, which earned two Grammy nominations.” Correction: Millie’s cover on
Spring Records was produced by Brad Shapiro and Millie herself.
As the subtitle
says, also Stax Records and Southern soul are dealt with, but not very
exhaustive. For the story of Stax Records I can recommend the definite book, Rob
Bowman’s Soulsville, U.S.A.As you can see, I have
mixed feelings about this Mark’s book, but if you’re not very familiar with
Otis, this is as good a biography as any to start with.
