Just like with
my previous column, I grew out of patience. I have a bunch of presumably very
good records arriving in any day now, but the old reviews on the previous CDs
are irretrievably losing their topicality, so I decided to put the old ones –
some even from a few months back - on our site now and come back with the new
ones, hopefully in the immediate future.
Most of the CDs that
are reviewed in this column are refreshingly good. For me the best one of the
lot is the latest album by my interviewee this time - and one of the nicest
persons in the business - Mr. Otis Clay. In the compilations section
you’ll find comments also from Denise LaSalle and Millie Jackson.
OTIS CLAY *
My feature on
Otis appeared in our printed paper as early as in 1990, but those days our
magazines were published only in Finnish language, so there’s no purpose in
copying it for our website now. Today, at 71, Otis keeps himself very busy.
He is booked for various festivals around the world, he turns up at different
venues in the U.S. and a few months ago he released an excellent CD on his own
Echo Records, Truth Is (ECCD 358).
On fourteen
tracks (68 min.), Otis is backed with live musicians, horn section and
background singers, which creates a delightfully full sound. Otis: “Most of
them are members in my band. They work with me.” Beneath the title of the CD
it says “Putting Love Back Into The Music.” “So much of the music nowadays
sets the different sexes against each other. We just want to make some good
music, to make people feel good about their relationship. We put a lot of work
into it.”
The main
producer and arranger on the set is Tom Tom Washington, who these days
goes under the number “MMLXXXIV”, which I think means 2084. “That number
changes, I guess, every five or ten years. Tom Tom and I, along with Willie
Henderson, musically grew up together. We’ve been knowing each other for
many years.”
Tom, Otis and Darryl
Carter are the writers of the swaying, mid-tempo opening song called Love’s
After Me. “We met with Darryl Carter about forty years ago, when I was
with Hi Records. We’ve been friends and co-writers and collaborators all these
years.” Even Now is a very slow and emotional song, which Johnny
Adams has cut earlier. “I love Johnny Adams and him singing this song. He
was such a great artist. That song was from his last album” (Man of My Word
on Rounder in 1998).
I Thought You
Knew is a snappy, mid-tempo number, written by Darryl and Jonah Ellis.
“Jonah and Darryl wrote five of the songs on there. They were writing partners
in Memphis.” The slow and longing All That’s Missing Is You is another
song from the twosome. Jonah was born in North Carolina and he died at 62 in Memphis, Tennessee, in February 2010. He co-wrote two of Yarbrough & Peoples’
biggest hits, Don’t Stop the Music and Don’t Waste Your Time (in
1980 and ’84, respectively), alongside songs for the Dells, Switch, the Gap
Band, Billy Paul etc. He also sang in the latter-day Drifters and
was the lead guitarist for the Temptations.
Joe South’s
irresistible Walk a Mile in My Shoes was the title song of Otis’ album
six years ago. “It was always my plan to put it on the gospel album as well as
on a secular album. It’s such a great song. We got a Grammy nomination for it
(Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance), so we put it on this album,
too.” You can read Otis’ own comments on the album at http://www.soulexpress.net/deep207.htm#otisclay.
The title tune, Truth
Is, is a touching mid-tempo song, again by Carter-Ellis, whereas the
intense and deep, over 7-minute long I Know I’m Over you was recorded
live at the Monterey Blues Festival. “Originally Willie Mitchell and I
recorded the song on an album Watch Me Now on Waylo” (in 1989).
One of the
co-writers on the funky Even When I Win (Seems like I Loose) is Paul
Richmond. “It is a new song, although I came up with the title maybe forty
years ago. One night we were talking with a friend of mine, Walter Hatchett,
and I just laughed at myself and said ‘wow, even when I win I lose’. We looked
at each other and said ‘that’s the title of the song’. I think, Darryl and I
worked on it for Hi Records, but I never recorded it.” Walter Hatchett is
Otis’ long-time partner in music, and they worked together e.g. on the When
the Gates Swing Open cassette in 1990.
Otis Clay live picture courtesy of his website © Dragan Tasic
One of the
reasons for the late release of this new CD is that Otis didn’t have enough
uptempo material ready. “When we were talking about this album and how we want
to add some uptempo songs, I said ‘well, I want something like Hi-Heel
Sneakers’, and then I said to Tom Tom that there’s a song I started writing
years ago. I always remembered how I wanted it to go, and that’s how we wound
up putting Even When I Win on this album.”
Steal Away to
the Hide Away is Luther Ingram’s memorable, poignant ballad from
1977, and here Otis does it as a duet with Uvee Hayes. “Uvee Hayes is
the wife of a good friend of mine, Bernie Hayes, and Bernie and I’ve
known each other from back in the sixties. I hadn’t seen Bernie in some years,
but one day Tom Tom called me ‘hey, Bernie’s in town’, so I rode down to the
studio and that’s when I first met Uvee. At that time Uvee was doing Play
Something Pretty, which was written by George Jackson. George and I
worked for years at Hi Records. We were talking in the studio and I said that
maybe a man should be on the tune, and I just recorded the song with her.” Uvee’s
Play Something Pretty CD was released on CDS in 2009. “Later they were
doing Steal Away to the Hideaway. I always loved the song. We both
liked the song, so we cut it and put it on this album, too.” It first appeared
on Uvee’s CD, True Confessions, on Mission Park in 2011 (http://uveehayes.com).
The slow and
smooth I Keep Trying (Not to break down) was co-written by another
ex-Koko artist, Tommy Tate. “Tommy is a great singer as well as a great
writer. David Porter from Colchester, England, sent se some demos on
Tommy Tate. I did quite few Tommy Tate songs in my recent albums, like I
Can Take You to Heaven Tonight.”
That’s What
You Ought to Do is a new and tuneful, Carter-Ellis beat-ballad, whereas The
Only Way is Up (by the late George Jackson and Johnny Henderson) was
first cut by Otis on 1980 (Echo 2003), and eight years later it evolved into a
huge European hit for Yazz. “We added some more things to it. It is
the original recording, but we did some background things. That was the song
we felt that needed to be put out there, although the song is very popular in
the U.K., but we never got a lot of airplay in the U.S.”
The quick-tempo Messing
with My Mind is another song co-written by George Jackson and cut by Otis
in 1980 (Echo 2002). Clarence Carter and Barbara Carr recorded
the song a few years later. “It was in the same session as The Only Way is
up. Again we’re coming back to adding some uptempo songs to the new
album. The rappers Ace Hood and Trey Songz have probably done
million on Messing with My Mind, but they call it I Need Your Love.
We think it’s good for the people to hear the whole song, and that’s why we put
it on the album.”
Otis makes frequent
visits on other artists’ albums, too, like recently on a funky track titled Got
to Get Back (to My Baby) by a Memphis group, the Bo-Keys (on Redeye
in 2011). “I also did a song on a Johnny Rawls album. It hasn’t been
released yet.”
“We were
inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame on May the 8th in Memphis, Tennessee. Next I’m doing the Chicago Blues Festival at the Millennium Park on June the 8th, which I’m looking forward to, because I’m going to be with Eddie
Floyd, Sir Mack Rice, the Bar-Kays and... Uvee Hayes. (Interview conducted
on 14.5.2013; www.otisclay.net).
JEFFREY OSBORNE *
Jeffrey’s A
Time for Love (StarVista Ent./Saguaro Road Rec., 27429-D) really took
me by surprise. Eight years after his previous studio album, From the Soul,
Jeffrey invited his old musical partner, George Duke, into jointly
producing, arranging and orchestrating a set of Jeffrey’s jazz and standard
favourites. Backed by a nucleus trio of George Duke on keys, Christian
McBride on bass and John Roberts on drums, there are many other
famed musicians visiting on different tracks, such as Paul Jackson, Jr. on
guitar, Kamasi Washington and Everette Harp on sax, Rick Brown
and Walt Fowler on trumpet and Lenny Castro on percussion.
George produced Jeffrey’s first solo recordings in the first half of the 80s,
and the pair came up with such hits then as I Really Don’t need No Light,
Don’t You Get So Mad, Stay With Me Tonight, Plane Love, Don’t Stop and The
Borderlines.
Although there
are at least two songs, which you could classify pop - James Taylor’s
soft Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight and the Carpenters’ Close
to You, here turned into mid-tempo groove – they fit well into the
sophisticated and soothing musical surroundings of the other jazz-flavoured
tracks. Among mellow, dreamy and atmospheric moods of The Shadow of Your
Smile, My One and Only Love, When I Fall In Love, What a Wonderful World,
Nature Boy, You Don’t Know What Love Is and A Time For Love, there’s
the comedy of Baby, It’s Cold Outside with Chaka Khan, the bossanova-ed
Smile and the improvisation on Teach Me Tonight.
A Time for
Love is a classy and also soulful smooth jazz album, and I hope it gets
a lot of exposure. You don’t get to hear this kind of high-quality music these
days very often anymore. (www.jeffreyosborne.com).
SOUTHERN SOUL STEW
WENDELL B *
Together with
his partner, Mike 360 Brooks, Mr. Wendell Brown has produced a
new, outstanding CD entitled Get to Kno’ Me (Smoothway Music; www.wendellbsounds.com). The twosome
also did the arrangements and wrote fifteen new songs, which gives you 70
minutes worth of listening pleasure. Already earlier Wendell had released a
DVD named Who Is Wendell B.?
By ‘outstanding’
I mean that Wendell has created a style of his own, an easily identified,
original sound, which is rare these days. The key element is his multi-layered
vocals. Wendell’s distinctive, masculine baritone is naturally on lead, but
even more dominant aspect is his overdubs and lively background voices; actually,
more co-leads than background vocals. You could describe it as one-man’s call
& response choir. All this creates an interesting, chequered audiophonic
mosaic.
The four
mid-tempo tracks have a slightly urban touch, although Good Man is a
genuine old-school floater. Midway through there’s an oasis of slow and
romantic, candle-light songs. This 5-tune group sets you at ease and may even
turn you on into something funny. The most soulful song on the CD is Do Me
Like That, a duet with Nikki Parish.
Wendell’s
down-tempo music is like hypnotic chant, rather than memorable melodies. But
it works. You can read about Wendell’s career at http://www.soulexpress.net/deep3_2011.htm#wendellb.
JERRY L
For his 7th
album, A Million Women (CDC 11), Jerry Minnis now turns up
on www.cdsrecords.com. He co-wrote one
song and single-handed wrote six out of the thirteen songs on display, and at
least six songs have appeared on Jerry’s previous albums. He also produced
seven tracks, while Ricky White, Carl Marshall and Simeo each
produced two.
Let’s start with
Ricky, another CDS artist these days. He shares lead with Jerry on a pulsating
and energetic opener and the first single, She’s Got That Ooo Wee,
whereas Make a Choice is a slow, “stuck-in-the-middle” story with the
ripping pain and also self-pity coming out strongly in Jerry’s delivery.
Carl produced
the title tune, a relaxed down-tempo swayer, which is another one to offer
intense vocalizing from Jerry. Don’t Turn on Me is a dull, slow beater...
and with those irritating toy horns again. Altogether, live instrumentation is
in minority on this CD. The two Simeo’s mid-tempo contributions (Get Busy
Loving You and When the Ladies Are Happy) are the lowest points
here; the latter even introduces autotune.
Girls in the
Hood, That Nookie Stuff, It’s Gonna Be Good to See You Again, I like Being with
You and Oops That’s My Bad are all smooth and easily sweeping
dancers, whereas The End of the Rainbow is Jerry’s most impressive vocal
performance on the CD. This McKinley Mitchell’s majestic song is here
credited as ‘public domain’, and you can read Jerry’s own comments on the song
at http://www.soulexpress.net/jerryl.htm.
For the indie CDs
above, look no further than www.intodeepmusic.com.
COMP-ART-ment
MOTOWN’S CHARMING SIDE
Keith Hughes and
Mick Patrick at Ace have compiled an interesting Motown music CD of
twelve tracks, unreleased at the time, and another twelve, which more or less
remained in the shadow area in the company’s output. Actually, there is one
charted record, Mary Wells’ What’s Easy for Two Is So Hard for One
(# 8–r&b, # 29-hot in 1963). Also for initiated, such songs as the
Andantes’ (Like a) Nightmare (’64) – led by Ann Bogan – the
Supremes’ Long Gone Lover (’64) and Buttered Popcorn (’61) – co-led
and led, respectively, by Florence Ballard – are more than familiar.
As Keith Hughes
(www.dftmc.info) has later explained, these
masters were picked up during the time the Ace boys were looking for material
for the Eddie Holland double-CD a couple of years ago, and that’s why
most of the tracks on Finders Keepers/Motown Girls 1961-67 (Ace,
CDTOP 1364; www.acerecords.com; 24
tracks, 64 min.) derive from the first part of the sixties.
As a rule, there
are and there were obvious musical criteria for a track to remain in the can,
and also here I can very well understand, why cuts, for instance, by LaBrenda
Ben (Do You Know What I’m Talkin’ About; ‘63) and the Marvelettes,
actually Bettie Winston, (Grass Seems Greener on the Other Side;
‘63) went unreleased.
However, to
these ears there are more genuine gems than fool’s gold. Personal number one
is Gladys Knight’s fascinating and so-soulful rendition of the mid-tempo
When Somebody Loves You (You’re Never Alone) (’67). Other highlights
include the waltz-time Lover Boy (’65) by Carolyn Crawford,
the soft and sensual Till Johnny Comes (’66) by Brenda
Holloway, a big-voiced blaster inventively titled Dance Yeah Dance (’63)
by Thelma Brown and two snappy and steady stompers, You’ll Never
Cherish a Love So True (‘Til You Lose It; ‘62) by the Vells - aka
the Vandellas - and Let Love Live (a Little Bit Longer;
‘65) by the Velvelettes.
I was also drawn
to the last four tracks, which to a degree deviate from Motown’s standard
sound. Admittedly, Anita Knorl’s If Wishes Came True (’63) still
sticks to the basic concept, and on this sweet and mellow song she sounds like Mary
Wells, only more delicate and fragile, but Linda Griner’s So Let Them
Laugh at Me (’63) takes us away from Snakepit into a peaceful lounge
atmosphere. Liz Lands’ I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues (’63)
penetrates deeper into jazz, whereas Kim Weston’s version of the
standard It’s Too Soon to Know (’64) is unashamedly sentimental and
bloomy with strings and a heavenly choir.
Finders
Keepers is an essential purchase for Motown aficionados, but it offers
interesting listening moments for a common music consumer, too.
DENISE LaSALLE *
Making a
Good Thing Better/The Complete Westbound Singles 1970-76 (Ace/Westbound,
CDSEWD 152; 26 tracks, 76 min.; liners by Tony Rounce) gives us sides
from twelve singles plus two short radio ads from Denise’s Westbound stint.
She wrote or co-wrote as many as eighteen of these songs. Denise: “...as I was
writing poems, they would come to me with melodies. I started to put them on
tape. I had nobody to play music, and I’m not a musician, but finally, as I
was working as a barmaid in one lounge, a recording artist with Sun Records, Billy
‘the Kid’ Emerson came in. I asked him, how could I get a song published,
and he said ‘if you can sing it, I’ll play and tape it and I can get it
published for you’. So we took it to Chess Records, they liked the song and
signed a contract with me.”
Denise had five
singles released on Tarpon, Chess, Crajon and Parka, before the uptempo Hung
Up, Strung Out appeared on Westbound. However, it was the second Westbound
single that became a smash. A self-written, light bouncer called Trapped by
a Thing Called Love (# 1 – soul / # 13 – hot, in Billboard) sold gold and
is still the biggest record in Denise’s career. She has even re-recorded it a
couple of times. “It’s a great song. Trapped by a Thing Called Love is
a never-ending smash hit record, and the public will never let me live it down.
My fans want it continuously and I couldn’t give them the Westbound, because
they didn’t issue it anymore, so I had to go in and record it again. So, when
I recorded it in ’79, I did a long 15-16-minute version with a long rap on it
with the medley, and they ate that up. Then ABC went out of business, and they
couldn’t reissue it, you couldn’t find it anywhere. So I’m with Malaco, and
the public won’t let me live it down, so I had to cut it again, and it sold
third time all over again.”
Two thirds of
Denise’s 70s Westbound single sides were up- or mid-tempo tracks, rather than
ballads. Among dancers and funky numbers the biggest hits were Now Run and
Tell that (# 3-soul / # 46-hot, in 1972) and Man Sized Job (# 4 / #
55, in ’72), but two catchy, even poppy ditties named We’ve Got Love (the
Good Part About It) (’74) and My Brand On You (# 55 / -; in ’75) –
although lighter – should make your toes tap, too. Add to that still John
Footman’s melodic song, What Am I Doing Wrong (’73).
The most touching
and soulful down-tempo numbers are I’m over You (’72), Don’t Nobody
Live Here (by the Name of Fool) (# 67 / # -; in 1973), Trying to Forget (’74)
and a powerful infidelity story named Married, But Not to Each Other (#
16 / # 102; 1976). Those last three songs were on Denise’s third and final
Westbound album. “Westbound was great except for the last year. I did three
good albums with Westbound, but things fell apart on the last album. Here I
Am Again (’75) should have been a big album – as a matter of fact, the
song, Here I Am Again, should have been a big record for me.” Here I
wholeheartedly agree. Here I Am Again is a great, tuneful floater and
simply one of the best songs in Denise’s career.
“That fell
apart, because we had lost our distributor. Something happened between the
distributor and the record company, like somebody was mad at somebody, and they
didn’t push the record. So we lost the album. Then Westbound was sort of at a
stand-still trying to get their money from this company (20th
Century) and not able to move on forward. I sat there for almost two years
with no album and no nothing. I’m sitting there going crazy, because I was
ready to go to the studio and I needed to cut another album. So, in 1976, when
my contract was up, I moved to ABC Records.”
I thoroughly
enjoyed this compilation. During this period Denise had most of her sessions
in Memphis, but six of the songs released in 1974 and ’75 were cut in Muscle
Shoals and two in Detroit (Here I Am Again and Married, But Not to
Each Other). (Denise’s comments are from my feature in our printed paper #
5/93).
MILLIE JACKSON *
I just love Millie
Jackson. She was my favourite chanteuse in the 70s alongside Gladys
Knight, and I even had a chance to briefly meet Millie here in Finland in the 90s. She can deliver gritty, funky material, not to mention raunchy and
funny stuff, but for me her forte is slow and passionate songs, often with a
touch of country. Now Sean Hampsey has compiled a delicious CD entitled
The Moods of Millie Jackson/Her Best Ballads (Kent, CDKEND 391;
20 tracks, 75 min.), which gathers up tracks from ten out of Millie’s eighteen
Spring albums and covers the years 1971-1982.
Early personal
highlights include the thought-provoking A Child of God (It’s Hard to
Believe) and a strong delivery of desperation, I Just Can’t Stand It, from
her first self-titled album. Millie had cut her first single for MGM in 1969,
but A Child of God was the first one to chart (# 22-soul, # 102-hot in
Billboard) in 1971.
Phillip
Mitchell’s Hurts So Good and Billy Nichols’ Good to the
Very Last Drop were released two years later. It Hurts So Good (# 3
/ # 24) was a movie song from Cleopatra Jones, and for Millie it also meant the
start of a ten-year plus partnership with the producer Brad Shapiro. Millie:
“They brought him in, because they were tired of the (earlier) Motown sound and
I was tired of it, too. So they brought him in to try and get more soulful
sound. It was between him and Don Davis. It was a matter of one produced
Johnnie Taylor and the other one Wilson Pickett, so I said ‘well,
either one of those could produce me’, so they chose Brad.”
After a powerful
beat-ballad called How Do You Feel the Morning After (# 11 / # 77; in
1974), we come across Millie’s first real concept album, Caught Up, in
1974. Cut in Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, the album eventually went gold, and
it yielded one mid-sized single hit, an impassioned version of Luther Ingram’s
epic hit more than two years earlier, If Loving You Is Wrong I Don’t Want to
Be Right (# 42 / # 42)... with a long, milliesque rap. “I’ve never had a
gold single in America. The album sold so much. At that time I picked up a
story line, and it didn’t make sense to just go by singles, because you didn’t
get the full story. They wanted the album, so the album went gold in six
weeks.” The two other samples from that album are I’m Tired of Hiding (co-written
by Phillip Mitchell) and a poignant reading of Bobby Womack’s I’m
Through Trying to Prove My Love to You (# 58 / # -).
An equally
impressive follow-up album, Still Caught Up, in 1975 also crossed the
half million mark. “Eventually, but it wasn’t certified. Feelin’ Bitchy (’77)
is the biggest is the biggest album I’ve ever had and Get It Out’cha
System (’78) went gold also.” The wonderful, country-tinged Loving Arms
(# 45 / # -) is one of the three tracks from Still Caught Up on this
CD. The song has been recorded by numerous artists throughout the years, and
it turned into a small hit for Dobie Gray in 1973. It was written by Tom
Jans, who’s a recording artist in his own right, too, and who died of a drug
overdose in 1984 at the age of 36. For me, however, nothing beats Millie’s
version.
Two commercially
let-down albums followed, Free and in Love (’76) and Lovingly Yours (’77).
“Reverend Jesse Jackson and Bush got involved with the music
industry. They were saying that profanity on records was destroying our
children. Record companies were afraid to release these records with profanity
in it... We kept watering and watering it down until we ended up with Lovingly
Yours, which was a total bum. Then I just said ‘no, you’re not gonna hear
what I’m doing’. I went into the studio and recorded Feelin’ Bitchy and
said ‘if you don’t like it, to hell with it, tear up the contract’. Needless
to say, when I did that I ended up with my biggest album I ever had (# 4 / # 34
- 38 and 23 weeks on charts, respectively). So after that they didn’t bother
me too much.”
This Moods CD
offers one song from Feelin’ Bitchy (’77), which is also my favourite
album in Millie’s output. That song is a convincing cover of Hot’s
golden hit, Angel in Your Arms, from the same year. Sam Dees’
beautiful Special Occasion (# 51 / # -) is the most noteworthy song among
the rest of the tracks from later years.
To pick up the
best ballads from Millie’s vast repertoire is difficult and always comes down
to personal taste. Instead of some of the songs here, I would have included –
and note: this is a personal opinion! – a couple of Latimore’s songs, All
the Way Lover and Keep the Home Fire Burnin’, perhaps a cover of Didn’t
I Blow Your Mind with an appetizing rap leading into the Delfonics song,
but definitely two country-soul gems, If You’re Not Back In Love By Monday and
Sweet Music Man. But although I bought each and every Millie record
right after it was released and still have them all, I cherish this wonderful
compilation, introducing deep and highly emotional soul music with good songs
and rich orchestration. (http://weirdwreckuds.com;
Millie’s comments are from my feature in our printed paper # 6/93).
CASTON & MAJORS
I particularly
bought this CD, Caston & Majors (www.bigbreakrecords.co.uk, CDBBR
0217; 17 tracks, close to 80 min.; liners by J Matthew Cobb), because
practically I didn’t know anything about this duo. Now after listening to it
patiently and repeatedly, I realise that I really haven’t missed anything.
Leonard
Caston, besides being a member of the Radiants in the 60s, is known
as a songwriter for Chess and Motown. Carolyn Majors comes from Detroit’s gospel circles, and the twosome started working together in L.A. in the early
70s and eventually also got married. This CD re-introduces their 1974 Motown
album (8 tracks) and the presumable follow-up (9 tracks), which stayed in the
can. The album and the three U.K.-only singles from it made some small waves
in Britain, but in the States the album went unnoticed.
The music really
is a hotchpotch of West Coast hippie-infused pop music of the late 60s (Child
of Love), pompous show tunes (There’s Fear), even “Abba” sound (Say
You Love Me True). On the released album the least experimental and the
most enjoyable tracks are a quick-tempo melodic floater called I’ll Keep My
Light in My Window and a gospel-meets-Motown stormer named Everything Is
All Right Now.
Among the
unearthed tracks What About the Price is gospel-disco á la the Mighty
Clouds of Joy, and alongside one operatic hymn (Don’t Let), one
down-tempo hallucination (I’m Flying Your Sky) and pure pop (I’ve Got
to Fly), there’s one nice love ballad (Carolyn Ann) and one decent
driving dancer (We’re Together).
This music is of
acquired taste, and I’m really amazed at the cult status this album holds. For
me the closest comparison in music is Rotary Connection, and with the
exception of Carolyn’s vocal parts here and there this has nothing to do with
soul music. Although the album has spiritual leaning, I’d say that the fans of
psychedelic Hair might enjoy this.
