Once more some
of the recent compilations are so magnificent that they deserve to lead the way
in this column. As far as Al Wilson and Luther Ingram are
concerned, I go back to my features on them and use some of their comments from
our printed papers a couple of years ago. In Al’s case I also called him to
get his latest update. There are complete discographies from both Al, and
Luther included, as well. The indie artist interview from the vaults this time
is with Stan Mosley.
If you wish to
start from the beginning, you can go first to my Ali Ollie interview that I
conducted about a year ago at
www.soulexpress.net/aliolliewoodson.htm, and inside that article you’ll find a link
to the complete Ali Ollie story, too.
These days Ali
is almost finished with his new CD, Never give up. “I’m still working
on that. I’m trying to make one great CD. I have other new songs that I’m
working on besides those that already are on that CD, so I’m kind of revising
it. I hope to be ready by the end of April.”
Hopefully we’ll
soon get to hear his gospel CD called He Died, too. “It’s pretty much
complete. Maybe one more song I’ll put on there, and sell it on the website”, www.aliolliewoodson.com.
During this past
year Ali Ollie has made one guest appearance on another artist’s record, when
he cut a slow and intense, jazzy version of I Love You More Than You’ll Ever
Know on Euge Groove’s CD, Born 2 Groove (on Narada Jazz). Euge,
aka Steve Grove, is a renowned saxophonist, who has played with numerous
artists both on stage, and in sessions (www.eugegroove.com).
“Cornelius Mims used to play bass with me. He was at the time playing
bass with Euge Groove, and they needed a vocalist for a song on the album, and
that’s how he brought me in on it.”
A while ago
there were reports that Ali has left Dennis Edwards’ Temptations Review
and that he was replaced by Paul Williams Jr. “Well, not quite that I
left. I’m taking a leave of absence. Currently I’m involved in a play that is
produced by Mr. Ed Weinberger. He did the sitcom Taxi, he did the Cosby
Show, Sparks, Good News and Amen. He wrote this play, and by me being in one
of his sitcoms I’m part of his family, his people, so he called me and many of
his cast members. He brought us all together to do his play. Right now we’re
running through the first week of May. It may start up again in the fall. So
when they called me, I took a leave of absence from the Temptations Review, but
I’m currently speaking to Mr. Crosby to line up some more dates with
them.”
“I’ve also been
doing gigs with Aretha Franklin. I just did two dates with her at Radio City Music Hall in New York City” (on March 21 and 22). There’s a possibility that Ali
still continues gigging with Aretha, but all those engagements don’t seem to
stop him looking for something new all the time. “I’m working on a reality show,
which is entitled ‘Treat her like a Lady’, and I’m also working on a creation
of a sitcom” (acknowledgements to Marva and Mr. Woodson).
AL WILSON
In Meridian, Mississippi, two schoolboys, Al Wilson and David Ruffin, used to compete a
lot at local talent shows, and they both used to win. Those days also Al’s
brother, Eddie Wilson, and Jimmy Ruffin formed their first
group. Al: “It was just a group they put together to attract girls.” Al’s
first taste of more or less professional singing took place, when he was twenty
and joined the Jewels in 1959 and cut his first record with them. You
can find Al’s complete discography at http://www.soulexpress.net/alwilson_discography.htm.
After four
singles with the Rollers in 1961 and ’62, Al fronted different,
non-recording groups, learned to play drums and, after quitting his last group
(the Souls), met Marc Gordon, who not only worked as a West Coast
representative for Motown but also as a Vice President of Soul City Records.
Marc introduced Al to Soul City’s Johnny Rivers, which launched Al’s
solo career in 1967.
Searching
for the Dolphins (Kent, CDKEND 290; 22 tracks, 71 min.; www.acerecords.com; liners by Tony
Rounce) is subtitled “The Complete Soul City Recordings and more 1967-1971”
and in this case that “more” means Al’s four singles on Bell and Carousel in
1970 and ’71. The core of the CD is the 11-track Searching for the Dolphins
album (Soul City 92006; released in 1969), and the CD also includes four
non-album cuts on that label.
Of the eight
albums Al has released so far, The Dolphins still remains his favourite,
and for the lovers of smooth and beautiful music with rich orchestration it
really is a keeper. Produced by Johnny Rivers, although all the songs (besides
Who Could Be Lovin’ You) had been released earlier, on this album they
for the most part have new and original arrangements – by Gene Page and Marty
Paich – and sound fresh, not least because of Al’s vocal interpretations.
The first single
in 1967 was a pleading ballad titled Who Could Be Lovin’ You (Other Than Me),
and it was written by one of Soul City’s staff writers those days, Willie
Hutch. Al: “He was really beautiful to work with. He was creative. He
had a lot of new ideas, some good material plus he had that Sam Cooke type
voice. We struck up a nice relationship right after that.” On the flip there
was a slightly Motown-influenced dancer called When You Love (You’re Loved
Too), but the debut single missed the national charts altogether. Al: “It
sold well. The problem was with the disc jockeys, because they didn’t have a
category to put it in. The black disc jockeys said ‘man, it’s too pop’, and
pop disc jockeys said ‘that’s too black’.”
The next single,
Do What You Gotta Do, appeared on charts in early ‘68 and, although not
very high (# 39-r&b, # 102-pop), today it’s one of Al’s signature songs.
It was written by another staff writer, Jimmy Webb. Al: “It was on the
weekend, and Jimmy had been up on the mountains with his girlfriend. He called
me that afternoon and said ‘can you come by to the studio. I’m not finished
with this song yet, but by the time you get here I’m finished with the most of
it’. So I went down and as a matter of fact I helped finish writing it. Do
What You Gotta Do was one of the first country-rock tunes going.” Johnny
Rivers’ version, however, hit the streets a bit earlier on his Rewind album.
On the flip named Now I Know What Love Is you can hear echoes of Motown
again.
A firm Northern
favourite today, The Snake (# 32-r&b, # 27-pop) was lifted from Oscar
Brown Jr’s album five years earlier and Johnny Rivers had cut it too in
1966. “Oscar Brown Jr. wrote the song. It was predominantly a jazz tune, and
I had been doing it in supper clubs all along. As a matter of fact, it was one
of my openers.” Again the b-side, a folk-soul beat ballad called Getting
Ready for Tomorrow was written by Willie Hutch.
Poor Side of
Town (# 75-pop) and The Dolphins formed the fourth Soul City single, and the songs were earlier cut by their writers, Johnny Rivers (with Lou
Adler) and Fred Neil, respectively. “I love Poor Side of Town.
Mine was a little bit different. It was r&b basically.” Two other covers
followed, I Stand Accused (# 106-pop) and Shake Me, Wake Me (When it’s
over). “Again, I Stand Accused has been one of those songs that
I’ve been singing in clubs all along. I like all of the Jerry Butler stuff
anyway.”
The album-only
songs include the mid-tempo Summer Rain, the lush This Guy’s in Love
with You and the uptempo Brother, Where Are You (by Oscar Brown Jr.
again). Jim Webb’s By the Time I Get to Phoenix was again originally
cut by Johnny Rivers – and after that popularized by Glen Campbell - and
Al’s version became the b-side to his last Soul City single in 1969. Al
himself picked the plug side, CCR’s Lodi (# 67-pop), and
this happened during the time they were in Memphis with the idea of Chips
Moman producing them. Al: “When we got down there, Johnny Rivers felt that
Chips Moman had disrespected him. Down there they’re good old boys, and
everybody knows everybody, so consequently it’s loose and relaxed down there,
while here in California, once we get into the studio, it’s regimented work
time. We were talking about the original songs, and then B.J. Thomas and
a couple of guys walked in and Chips Moman turns away from Johnny and starts
talking to these guys about horses. We got back to the Holiday Inn, and he
said ‘man, we don’t have to stay here and take this mess’. We had been down
there for a whole week and we hadn’t done anything, and we got to have stuff
done by next week. I said ‘there’s a new tune, the b-side to Bad Moon
Rising, I love that song called Lodi’.”
In 1970 Johnny
sold his label to Larry Utall, and Al’s first Bell single was a funky
scorcher titled Mississippi Woman – “It was like one of those Tony
Joe White things” – backed with a poppy ballad called Sometimes a Man
Must Cry. The second single, Bachelor Man (written by Billy Page,
Gene’s brother), is light pop music, not unlike from Dean Martin’s
repertoire. You Do the Right Things, a soul ballad on the flip, was
written by Leon Ware and Scott Barnes. “Leon Ware had been a
staff writer with Motown also. He had left Detroit and come out to the West
Coast to try to work with Hal Davis and those guys. He didn’t do too
good with them, so he started free-lancing. He knew Marc Gordon, and Marc put
us together. Leon was a good writer and a good singer, too.”
In late 1970
Marc Gordon launched his own label, Carousel, which was distributed by Bell. For this scribe the two singles Al put out in 1971 on this label represent musically
the lowest point of his career. There’s a swamp rock cover of I Hear You
Knocking, a rock beater called Sugar Cane Girl and an awful
psychedelic mess titled Falling (In Love with You). That’s also where
this CD ends, and you can always skip those last tracks and enjoy the beauty of
the rest of the album.
After that Al’s
rock experiments still continued on the two first Rocky Road singles in ’72 (Heavy
Church and Born On The Bayou), but then come Show and Tell (originally
cut by Johnny Mathis), Touch and Go, La La Peace Song (first by O.C.
Smith) and I Won’t Last a Day Without You & Let Me Be The One (originally
by Paul Williams) in 1973 and ’74, and Al had found his winning
formula. Later he still scored with I’ve Got a Feeling (on Playboy in
’76) and Count the Days (on Roadshow in ’79). He’s been performing all
these years, and during the last ten years he has released two new CDs with
some nice music on them.
AL WILSON TODAY…
Al: “My house
burned down exactly a year ago, the 30th of March. One of the
bedrooms got burned and everything else was basically water and smoke damage.
It was either a water heater or something electrical, in wiring. They just
rebuilt it, and we’re getting ready to move back in. I had the studio in the
garage, and I lost a lot of the memorabilia, irreplaceable stuff like pictures,
posters, old recordings… plus some new original stuff I was working on that I
hadn’t really had a chance to duplicate. But, hey, it could have been worse.
Fortunately all my masters were in a different place.”
Still Al keeps
himself as busy as through all these years. He’s constantly performing,
recently in Tucson and Phoenix in Arizona and in Las Vegas. His next concerts
will take place in Tucson again and after that in his home town of San Bernardino, California, in Jackson, Tennessee, in Philadelphia and in Cleveland, Ohio.
Al’s follow-up
to his 2001 Spice of Life CD is still in the making. “Some of the
things that I hadn’t duplicated I lost, and I have to recreate them from the
very beginning… plus I got to replace all my equipment. Now we’re in an
apartment waiting for the house, so everything has been on a standstill.”
“This is my 50th
anniversary. We’re working on a DVD of fifty years of being in the business.
We’re putting together a documentary, a docu-interview. We’re gathering
different clips and whatever I can find. I got some stuff from Soul Train,
concerts and those things. I’m going to tell my whole life story, and those
things are going to be on the bluescreen behind me. We’re trying to get it
done, so that we can get it out by the end of the summer. And I’m working on a
Christmas DVD that we can have out hopefully by September.”
LUTHER INGRAM
Last year they released the A’s and B’s of
Luther’s first ten KoKo singles (1967-71) and now we get the rest ten (1972-78)
on I Don’t Want to Be Right/the Ko Ko Singles, vol. 2 (Kent,
CDKEND 292; 19 tracks, 69 min.; liners by Tony Rounce), and this CD covers
Luther’s peak period, both musically and sales-wise. Luther’s complete
discography is available at http://www.soulexpress.net/lutheringram_discography.htm.
The last single
from Luther’s debut album, I’ve Been Here All the Time, is the one to
start this compilation in early 1972. A cover of Sam Cooke’s ’58 middle-sized
hit, You Were Made for Me, is turned into a heavier mid-tempo strutter.
Luther: “I chose it, because it was such an intimate song.” It’s also Luther’s
own favourite of his recordings along with If Loving You Is Wrong and To
the Other Man. Luther’s version peaked at # 18-soul and # 93-pop, whereas
on the flip a softer re-reading of his KoKo single four years earlier, Missing
You, reached # 26-soul and # 108-pop.
The next single,
(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don’t Want To Be Right (# 1-soul, # 3-pop),
is one of the landmarks in the history of soul music. Homer Banks, Raymond
Jackson and Carl Hampton wrote the song with the Emotions in
mind, but then they thought that it maybe wasn’t good for the image of a group
of sweet young ladies. Veda Brown couldn’t cut it satisfactory enough,
and also Don Davis and Isaac Hayes turned it down. Luther: “I
was in the room with Isaac and David Porter and I heard this demo, and
it was about a woman. I decided to change it and put it on a man, and they
liked it. I had my family – my sister and brothers – do the musical
arrangement. Then I went to Muscle Shoals, where they played more simple (than
in Memphis), and I recorded it.” Randy Stewart: “Luther really produced
the song on himself in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, but because of Johnny Baylor owning
the company his name went down there as a producer. But Luther and Pete
Carr, the guitar player in Muscle Shoals, did all the work.”
An album titled
after the hit single followed soon after, and among the soul LPs there aren’t
many that can top this. Jimmy Johnson: “The sessions were very
inspiring for all the players. We loved working with Luther. We were involved
in the tracking sessions only. Tracks and pilot vocals took five days of
recording, about ten hours a day. Overdubs and mixing was done back at Stax’s
Studios. We recorded two or three LPs on Luther with his presence in Muscle
Shoals. We never just cut tracks without him.”
Next three
singles were all culled from the album. A melodic and haunting mid-tempo song
called I’ll be Your Shelter (In Time of Storm) (# 9-soul, # 40-pop) was
backed with Luther’s third version of I Can’t Stop. Luther: “I
originally cut this one in New York some years back, juggled around with it for
the album and re-cut it in Muscle Shoals.”
A beautiful
ballad named Always (# 11-soul, # 64-pop) was to be recorded by Tommy
Tate to the same backing track three years later, whereas the flip, a
driving mid-tempo song called Help Me Love, had been cut by Tommy over a
year earlier. Luther: “With Tommy we worked some together. Tommy would sing a
song and I would sing a song, and we would always challenge each other to who
could sing the song stronger than the other. Johnny Baylor chose the one that
felt better.” The final single off the album in 1973 was a whirling slowie
titled Love Ain’t Gonna Run Me Away (# 23-soul).
KoKo ceased its
operations in 1973 due to the difficulties with Stax and IRS, but there are
contradictory opinions of what actually happened… Randy: “…it wasn’t what
everybody thinks it was.” Luther moved with his family to Overland, Missouri. “I just went and relaxed. Three years gave me a chance to regroup. I performed,
but didn’t perform on a large scale.”
In 1976 Johnny
Baylor re-launched his KoKo label for the third time (first in 1962, and for
the second time in 1966). Luther’s opener was the funky Ain’t Good for
Nothing (# 44-soul), backed with a melodic mid-tempo lilter called These
Are the Things. It was followed in 1977 by a title tune of the next album,
Let’s Steal Away to the Hideaway (# 33-soul), a soul ballad with a
strong vocal delivery from Luther. A heavy bouncer named I’ve Got Your Love
in My Life was the b-side. The disco-aimed beater called I like the
Feeling (# 35-soul) was tested next (b/w I’m Gonna Be the Best Thing,
a beat ballad), and it remained the last single off the album.
The title track
of Luther’s last KoKo album in 1977, a laid-back and mid-tempo swayer called Do
You Love Somebody, became his biggest hit in almost five years (#
13-soul). How I Miss My Baby on the flip is a beat ballad. Luther’s
final KoKo single was a simple dancer named Get to Me (# 41-soul),
backed with a melodic floater titled Trying to Find My Love.
KoKo closed its
doors in 1978. Randy: “Johnny closed the company down, because Luther walked
away from KoKo Records.” Johnny Baylor died due to a stomach cancer in 1986.
Luther: “After that I just kinda retired. I carried on with music, but on a
lesser scale.” He released one single on Platinum Plus in 1984 (Seeing You
Again), one album and three singles on Profile in 1986 and ’87 and finally his
fine and soulful re-recording of How Sweet It Would Be in 1998 on a
compilation titled 926 East McLemore/A Reunion of Former Stax Artists, vol.1.
Luther passed away on March 19 in 2007. I Don’t Want to Be Right is
as essential a CD as they can get.
BERT BERNS
The Bert
Berns Story/Twist and Shout, vol. 1, 1960-1964 (Ace, CDCHD 1178; 26
tracks, 65 min.; notes by Mick Patrick and Rob Hughes) is a
thrilling compilation dedicated to one of the geniuses of pop & soul in the
60s (www.bertberns.com). All songs
were either written, or produced – and in most cases, both - by Bertrand
Russell Berns. He wrote simple but highly melodic and infectious tunes and he
was one of the architects of crossover black music. His music had a strong
Latin and Caribbean touch to it, since he loved mambo and salsa. At his peak,
at only 38, we lost Bert as a result of a heart attack on December 30 in 1967.
Twist and
Shout is an interesting combination of big hits and less-known
recordings, even obscurities (such as Hold on Baby by the Hockadays).
The hits include tracks by the Jarmels (A Little Bit of Soap), Solomon
Burke (Cry to Me), the Isley Brothers (the second attempt at Twist
and Shout, after the Top Notes), Garnet Mimms (Look Away),
the Vibrations (the original of My Girl Sloopy, aka Hang on
Sloopy) and the Rocky Fellers (the kiddy-sound of Killer Joe).
There are some
pure pop ditties by Austin Taylor, Russell Byrd (Bert himself), Gene
Pitney, Mel Torme and the Wanderers, but also good examples of
fledgling uptown soul from Hoagy Lands, Sammy Turner, Little Jimmy Dee, Ruth
McFadden, Jimmy Radcliffe, the Drifters and Roy Hamilton.
Historically more interesting tracks
include Tell Her by Gil Hamilton (before the Exciters),
the rousing Come on and Stop by Marv Johnson, the stomping Mo
Jo Hannah by Esther Phillips, Baby Let Me Take You Home by the
Mustangs (prior to the Animals) and Lulu’s original take on Here
Comes the Night.
Among the soul
tracks there are actually only two slowies – Gypsy by Ben E. King
and I’ll Be a Liar by Betty Harris – but the whole material on
the CD is so captivating that you don’t even notice such a detail. This is a
delightful compilation and especially for those, who cherish the pop & soul
uptown sound of the early 60s.
LLOYD PRICE
Earlier this
year Shout! (www.shoutrecords.co.uk)
had released a compilation titled If Walls Could Talk by Little
Milton, and you can read my review at
http://www.soulexpress.net/littlemilton.htm.
Unfortunately Little
Milton isn’t among us anymore, but another veteran, who started recording in
the early 50s, is still going on strong. Mr. Personality by Lloyd
Price (Shout 43; 27 tracks, 66 min.; liners by Clive Richardson) is
subtitled “million-sellers and more from ABC”, and it indeed covers his ABC
period from 1957 till 1962, which actually was his peak period. He had scored
already during his Specialty years in 1952 and ’53 (Lawdy Miss Clawdy –
struck gold! – Oooh-Oooh-Oooh/Restless Heart and Ain’t It a Shame?/Tell
Me Pretty Baby), but he surpassed it after getting a release from the army
and joining ABC-Paramount with two gold singles (Stagger Lee and Personality)
and nine top-ten r&b hits.
Lloyd wrote -
mostly with Harold Logan – ripping and rollicking good-time music,
infectious melodies, which were arranged to a full orchestra and choir, and
interspersed with sax breaks. The driving sound made excellent party and
dance-hall music and hid the fact that Lloyd (www.lawdymissclawdy.com) wasn’t much
of a singer. But that has never been a big issue in New Orleans. Having said
that I hasten to add that those, who were good vocalists in that area, were
really good.
Almost all the
hits are here – Just Because, Stagger Lee, Where Were You (on Our Wedding
Day)?, Personality, I’m Gonna Get Married, Lady Luck and Question –
and only Come Into My Heart/Wont’cha Come Home are missing. Some of the
melodies bear a remarkable resemblance to Stagger Lee and Lawdy Miss
Clawdy, but, once you’ve found a winning formula, why not stick to it.
On the second
half of the CD there are tracks from Lloyd’s four albums, and especially the
samples from Lloyd Price Sings the Million-Sellers (1961) bring out his
limitations as a singer. One listen to Will You Love Me Tomorrow, At Last,
He Will Break Your Heart, Spanish Harlem, Once In a While and Corrine
Corrina is enough for me. But I thoroughly enjoyed the feel-good spirit of
the first half.
HANK DIXON
Based purely on
such values as the power of vocalizing and delivery of emotions, soulfulness, the
Originals belonged to the elite of Motown’s male groups. Although formed
only in the mid-60s, the origins of two members can be traced back to one group
ten years earlier, the Royal Lancers.
Hank: “I was
born on December 17 in 1939, in Detroit, Michigan.” Billy Ward and the
Dominoes was the number one group for Hank in his formative years, although
church music affected him too from his mother’s side. “Walter Gaines was
the one that formed the Royal Lancers. It was just something that we all got
together and did, like young boys get together and do things. I believe it was
myself, Walter Gaines, Joe Murphy and Raymond Dorsey. I was in
the group for a minute, and then I went to the army (around ‘57), because they
weren’t really doing anything. They were doing things while I was gone. When
I got out of the service (in ’65), that’s when I really got with them.”
The Originals started in the line-up of
Walter Gaines, Hank Dixon, Freddie Gorman and C.P. Spencer, and,
if we research the history of each member, we’ll find such groups as the
Domingos -> the Five Jets -> the Five Stars -> the Voice
Masters. Another branch came from the Romeos (Ty Hunter) and
the third branch was in the Dynatones, the Quailtones and the Fideletones
(Freddie Gorman). All this and both the Freddie Gorman, and the Originals
story is told in our printed papers of # 3 and # 4/1998, and an update in
#1/2002. C.P. Spencer’s in-depth interview appears in # 3/2002. The
discography is available at http://www.soulexpress.net/original.htm.
As mentioned earlier, Hank joined the
Originals in 1965. “They had a girl in the group at the time and I guess the
guys didn’t like the idea of having a girl in there, so when I got out of the
army they took me in right away. Joe Stubbs was in the group for a
little while at Motown Records. They were trying to find a place for him, so
they put him with us, but it didn’t work out.”
Surprisingly the
very first single the group cut for Soul in 1966 was the cover of Goodnight
Irene. “Clarence Paul produced that one. It was just something
they were trying on us. They were really trying to find our style. They were
just throwing anything at us, really, but Marvin Gaye was the only one
to really find our groove.” Those years the Originals were known to be backing
almost anybody on Motown. “Oh yeah, that was our main job there, along with the
Andantes.” Hank’s favourite song from that period is one of their backing
assignments, What Becomes of the Brokenhearted, and from their own
recordings, the Johnny Bristol-produced I’m Someone Who Cares.
However, the
Originals never rose to the first league at Motown. “I think we were too close
to the family. That’s my personal opinion. Sometimes, when you’re too close,
they seem to look other people better than people that are right among us. We
just grew up with them. We were with Mr. Berry Gordy before he did Please
Mr. Postman and Money. So they were trying to get other people, I
guess, rather than looking right in their backyard.”
The last album
the Originals cut was with Hamilton Bohannon in 1981 called Yesterday
and Today (on Phase II Records). “After that we didn’t do anything
really. We just hung around… being together as a group, just hoping something
would happen, but it never did. At that time Ty died, the disco had come in
and the music had changed.”
Although not on
record, the group could be heard on stage occasionally. “There was Alan
Beck that would take us to the ‘oldies but goodies’ shows. He would call
us and we’d get together to play different cities. So that kept us alive.”
After C.P.
passed because of a heart attack on October 20 in 2004, Freddie, Walter and
Hank recruited Hank’s daughter, Terrie, to perform with them. “Terrie
is fine. Me and her, we go out occasionally to do some things.” Also Freddie
passed as a result of lung cancer on June 13 in 2006. “Walter is kind of
retired right now, so there’s really nobody but me and Terrie. If anybody
wants to hear Baby, I’m for Real and The Bells, we get together
and we’re going to do it. Also I have a quartet at my church called the
True Vine Gospel Originals, so that’s what I’m doing now.”
(Acknowledgements to Hank Dixon, Dillon Gorman and to “Soulwally” at
www.soulfuldetroit.com/forum
for the idea).
Mike Snoddy
worked on three songs: on a nostalgic, feel-good, “old-school” mover called Back
2 the Good Ole Days (back in those days they would have written “to”
instead of “2”), on the heavily programmed, funeral-paced Foreplay,
which I shun, and on Carolyn Franklin’s and Sonny Saunders’
beautiful ballad titled Angel, which became a # 1 soul hit for Aretha
in 1973.
