Early Motown soul by two talented soul singers. Of course Marvin Gaye is one of the genre’s all time greats.
Sadly they both had careers cut short by tragedies.
Terrell, sadly was diagnosed with a brain tumor and had eight surgeries before dying in 1970 at age 24. Gaye was a close friend and some say he never got over her death and battled depression and drug abuse all his life, according to Terrell’s Wikipedia page.,Gaye was shot and killed by his father in an argument in 1984.
Their biggest song together ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ was huge. The song had a second life when Diana Ross and the Supremes covered it. The songs are tasty and make for easy soul listening but Mountain is clearly the best song here.
There is a song in here called ‘Somethin’ Stupid’ which took me aback as Marvin sounded like he had changed voices. He sang the song like one of the Herman’s Hermits. Now I don’t mean that disparagingly to either the Hermits or Gaye, it just doesn’t sound like Gaye. Listen below.
Whereas Gumbo featured a lot of classics and standards of the various music styles surrounding New Orleans (zydeco, e.g.) Taj is doing the same thing with blues.
Both musicians are such well studied students of their music that each of those albums could be used as examples in a 101 class of their respective music interests.
This has Blind WIlie McTell’s “Statesboro Blues” and “Six Days on the Road” leading off side 1 and side 2.
A classically trained musician, Mahal can play multiple instruments. His father was an African/Caribbean singer. His mother, too, was musical. Taj said he realized over time that the music in his house wasn’t what was coming over the radio in the outside world. So he did what all good cooks do, he blended songs, layered on his influences — everything from hip-hop to jazz to old blues and country.
This isn’t on the album but if this obscure 1990s track from Mahal doesn’t get you up on the dance floor, gyrating like their is no tomorrow, then nothing will.:
Like Dr. John or maybe more than Dr. John, Mahal, sprinkles a few originals and they are good (see Corrina). Most selections, however,,. are old classics such as Statesboro Blues or ‘Fishing Blues.’
Wikipedia says: Mahal often incorporates elements of world music into his works and has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music over the course of his more than 50-year career by fusing it with nontraditional forms, including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa, and the South Pacific .
Early in hi s career — 1964 — the three-time Grammy Award winner played in a band with Ry Cooder called Rising Sons. The album was not released at the time but apparently was reissued in the 1990s on Legacy.
From Left David Oliver, Mike Oliver, Susan Schneider Williams and Catherine Oliver.
Been a wild week, much of it spent in Las Vegas. More on that in this column at AL.com: Susan Schneider Williams.
Just got through playing one of my favorite albums of the past year or so: The Brummies’ “Eternal Reach.” You know why I am listening to it? Because I saw one of the best concerts I’ve seen in recent memory last night. The Brummies at the Saturn. Even ate one of those gigantic hamburgers from the man outside. The Brummies deny classification except I guess I’d put them under Beatlesqe. I’ve said it here before, they are a band to watch (and listen to). Dang that was tight last night.
So two days earlier I was at the Lewy body dementia international conference in Las Vegas (see Susan Williams story above).. After one long day, they had a pool party and they had listed (Live Music) in the schedule. We had no idea the live music was going to be REO Speedwagon as represented by lead singer and songwriter Kevin Cronin. Now this midwestern band had a huge career in the 70s, 80s and 90s. They were from Illinois but they were huge in my 1970 Junior High School named Klondike in West Lafayette, Ind. We took a picture and as we parted ways,he told me to ‘Roll with the Changes,’ and I told him to ‘Keep on Pushing.’ Seriously that’s true. So cool.
They became this big Top-40 band with the release of High Infidelity but they had been cranking out hard rock singles since 1972, Kevin came to the event because his mother had Lewy body dementia. His voice after 40 years of rock n roll singing, is not as strong but he entertained with another REO member dipping into the group’s deep bag of hits.
Kevin Cronin, lead singer of REO Speedwagon with Mike Oliver of myvinylcountdown.com
The Marvelettes were the first all female group at Motown to obtain a No. 1 record.
‘You gotta waitaminute waytaminute Wait Mr. Postmasman.”
They were pioneering but now seemingly lost in history.
I am going to do something, however small, to correct that. First off publishing this blog post.
And in this blog I’m going to name the names of the Marvelettes. Least I can do for such an amazing talent.
Here they are from: Wikipedia: They consisted of schoolmates Gladys Horton, Katherine Anderson (now Schaffner), Georgeanna Tillman (later Gordon), Juanita Cowart (now Cowart Motley), and Georgia Dobbins, who was replaced by Wanda Young (now Rogers) prior to the group signing their first deal. They were the first major successful act of Motown Records after the Miracles and its first significantly successful girl group after the release of the 1961 number-one single, “Please Mr. Postman“, one of the first number-one singles recorded by an all-female vocal group and the first by a Motown recording act .
These early ‘girl-group’ and boy groups were super smooth at Motown.
For this McCartney review I am going to rank the records I own (4) and comment on them. First off, John Lennon’s work after the Beatles was socially conscious, powerful and heartbreaking, critics said. While mostly true, it set up a false dichotomy with McCartney losing in the side-by-side comparison.
Paul’s stuff was good, excellent and silly silly. But his records contain enough good songs out there to show that he’s better than most on the radio — or at least then during the 70s.
With no further ado, the rankings in ascending order.
4. Red Rose Speedway (1973) — This has the best cover and goodies of the four McCartney albums.. A multi page booklet connected to gatefold. But album has much fewer great moments. I do like ‘When the Night.’ ‘My Love’ is big hit here, yawn. MVC Rating: 3.5/$$$
3. Venus and Mars (1975) …are more than all right tonight. Almost edged out Ram. MVC Rating: 4.0/$$
2. Ram – (1971) and overly criticized as Beatle break-up anger is still in the air. Critics chose Lennon as the genius at the expense of clear headed reviews of McCartney’s music. Paul’s stuff was easier to make fun of. Silly Songs, et.al. On this record Uncle Albert seemed like more silly fluff but I really grew to love that Abbey Road kind of song switch-up (kinda like Queen in Bohemian Rhapsody.) ‘Too Many People’ is a fan favorite. Me being the fan. MVC Rating: 4/0/$$$
1. Band on the Run: (1973) This is best. Best writing. Best song for song. Best thinly disguised metaphor for a put upon Paul. Just what do you do when laden with mountains of expectations. RUN!
Even a characteristically silly song, such as Mrs. Vanderbilt, is good. MVC Rating: 4.5/$$$
MVC Rating: 3.5/$$$ (I don’t think you are going to be able to get this for under $10 and maybe not under $15.)
There’s no other way to describe this band. They are punk.
Loud shouted vocals, thrashing, loosely played, guitars and an ideology bordering on anarchy.
The only thing about MC-5. They formed their band Motor City 5 in 1964. Yes that’s right, they were screaming their heads off and playing relatively sloppy G and A chords while the Sex Pistols were getting out of Kindergarten.
It would be another decade before the Sex Pistols, often called the first punk band ,would start doing their thing. Don’t believe me check em out. I saw this used in great condition and snapped it up at WUXTRY in Athens as a teenager. So I was prepared when the Sex Pistols and the Clash, Black Flag and Dead Kennedy’s. et al. began their angry and cathartic outbursts — about 10 years later.
In 1969 MC5 put out their signature song: ‘Kick Out the Jams.’
Because they often started that song with an obscenity, the Hudson Department store chain refused to stock and sell their records. Another omen of things to come.
NOTE: This is a preamble of sorts to another observation about connections I hope to finish up today.
Musicians jamming on a song get into a groove. They are altogether connecting in a series of reactions. Smiles, eye contact: They play off the sounds of the instruments — off each other.
The mix is elevated beyond the contribution of any single player.
Elevated improvisation within a structure. Its kind of what I’m doing here. And, it would be appropriate at this time to ask the question: What’s the point? The point these connections, these relationships shouldn’t be taken lightly. The brain is a buzzing slab of electro-excitability that needs its connections, its synapses and neurons to be firing.
I have Lewy body dementia where the connections get snowed in; the neurons get caught in a sticky pile of excess proteins. I get that I have a lot of storage capacity but every day a little is being chipped away. Lewy body dementia robs people the ability to make those connections.
Please join us July 20 for a fund raiser basketball tournament to raise money to fight this horrible disease. I didn’t ask to be the poster boy in this, but I am so happy to be involved. We have raised a total of $25,000 in two years and are looking to do much more.
If basketball isn’t your thing, we have an after party at TrimTab brewery open and free to all. We’ll have Karaoke, purple T-shirts for sale and I hear there may be some dunking going on.
Relationships can be tricky. A misperceived comment; fumbled attempts to help. We listen but aren’t really listening. We make assumptions that aren’t true and build with those assumptions our own wrong-headed case for action – the wrong action.
From the archives today, we have something I wrote about 18 months ago. I believe I meant it as a warning that like a gentle rose, relationships need nurturing to keep the connections alive.
What is more fragile than a relationship?
A day too old rose waiting for one touch to send petals spinning to the ground.
The stability of a family facing a future with too many ifs.
The conviction that doing right is always right. Or always doing right is right.
The profundity of a well educated person.
The joy of sleeping when really really worn out.
The reality you see right now.
The love you can’t define but know it’s true.
The knowledge that the straight trail is better than the switchback.
The theory that a theory is not truth.
The laugh between old friends you may not see again.
The idea that your decisions don’t affect the world.
The notion that there are things that are impossible.
Caring, love as I rearrange everything
What is rare as a loving relationship?
DId you find that yellow bird?
Reach Mike Oliver at moliver@al.com and read his blog at myvinylcountdown.com
Wow, look at that cover on this album by a band named Malo.
When I first saw it, I thought of the cover art on Abraxas, Santana’s great second album. Obviously different covers in color and all — but similar in other striking ways, attention to detail, beautiful people from another time and place. Maybe it was the same painter?
I put it on the turntable and what did I hear. A jamming rhythmic Latin-tinged, multi-piece band with trumpets, electric guitar and lots of shake rattle and roll. Man it sounded like early Santana led by Carlos Santana.
So not surprisingly as I checked out the names of musicians, I noticed Jorge Santana. He is, I found out, Carlos’ brother. As an early Santana fan, I couldn’t believe I never heard that. As a decade long dweller in Marin County, California, where Carlos lives and is frequently spotted driving around in his convertible(s) I never knew he had a brother in a band or that I had never heard of the band. Of course I believe, the band no longer existed by the time I got there in 2001. They had a Top 20 hit with Suavecito but you don’t see this album around at least not on the east coast.
Maybe they should have re-thought the band’s name. Malo in Spanish means ‘Bad.’
The Malo album cover is from a painting by Mexican painter Jesus Helguera.
The Abraxis cover was from a painting called Annunciation by German-French painter Mati Klarwein.
I got this record around my junior or senior year in high school in Athens, Ga., and Steve Martin was taking off.
From writing for sketches on TV on shows such as the Smothers Brothers, he moved quickly to being an on-air comedian. His Saturday Night Live appearances boosted audiences by the hundreds of thousands. His ‘Excuse Me’ and “We’re just two wild and crazy guys’ became national catch-phrases. Then he went to movies. Some good ones Father of the Bride, All of Me; Some not so good, Dead Men Don’t Wore Plaid, Pennies from Heaven.
The Jerk in 1979 is along with Airplane, Dumb and Dumber and Ace Ventura Pet Detective, among the best lowbrow comedies of an era, punctuated with pratfalls and bathos.
Martin, Robin Williams and especially Jim Carrey drew heavily on the physical comedy of Jerry Lewis. But took that style to new and different levels.
But Martin was no lowbrow draw. Inspired by his philosophy classes, Martin considered becoming a professor instead of an actor–comedian, Martin’s Wikipedia page says..
“It changed what I believe and what I think about everything. I majored in philosophy. Something about non-sequiturs appealed to me. In philosophy, I started studying logic and they were talking about cause and effect, and you start to realize, ‘Hey, there is no cause and effect! There is no logic! There is no anything!’ Then it gets real easy to write this stuff because all you have to do is twist everything hard—you twist the punch line, you twist the non-sequitur so hard away from the things that set it up.”
That comedy was on full display on the ‘Let’s Get Small’ album.
On ‘One way to leave your lover’ he starts a lament about his girlfriend whome he lost one tragic night. I feel responsible Martin tells the audience. We were at a party and she had too much to drink. She snatched the keys from my hands. I told her no don’t go but she wouldn’t listen. Then Martin pauses and says: “So I shot her.” The audience doesn’t know whether to laugh or what. He waits and then adds: “With a shotgun.” Martin is chuckling a sinister chuckle. Non sequitur delivered.
The comedy is good and the record is inexpensive. Should have no trouble finding for under $5.
The five key shapers of my love of music are all men. I say that only because I just noticed it as I began writing this. The father of three daughters I don’t feel sexist in this regard, but maybe I am.
My five key shapers are The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Wilson Picket/Otis Redding, Prince and Bob Marley.
Hank Williams Sr. barely missed the cut.
I cheated I know with Redding Pickett, but they were big soul belters that startled this skinny kid in Georgia when I first heard them and fell in love with their songs. (Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You by Pickett hooked me from the radio.)
Prince was my James Brown, Little Richard altogether as those guys were before my time. And Prince channeled these guys (Sly Stone and MJ as well) into some of the most dynamic music of the 80s and 90s.)
British invaders, The Rolling Stones, some might say is too much like the Beatles but that’s not true. They are very different. At first it was the Beatles creating everything a rock band would be, good vocals, good songwriting, good musicians, genius production and engineering. The Stones came along and deconstructed all of that. Raw, simpler, looser. Black music for white kids who wanted the guitars turned up on blues-based rock. A lot of my friends were one or another: Beatles or Stones.
Then came Marley. Jammin’ with an aromatic cloud overhead. I didn’t expect to like him, but grew to love his music which could be rebellious, politically aware and sweet and kind.
Songs like ‘No Woman No Cry’ and ‘Redemption Song’ and ‘Is This Love’ and ‘Stir It Up.’ If you haven’t tried Marley start with this one, a compilation of ‘hits’ called ‘Legend.’ Another favorite I used to have on vinyl but is MIA was ‘Natty Dread.’
‘Babylon by Bus’ is a good two-record live album.
From Natty Dread’s No Woman no Cry
No, woman no cry No, woman no cry No, woman no cry Said, said, said I remember when we used to sit In the government yard in Trenchtown Ob-observing the hypocrites As they would mingle with the good people we meet (meet) Good friends we have, oh, good friends we’ve lost Along the way (way) In this great future, you can’t forget your past So dry your tears, I say
And no, woman, no cry.
Speaking of women. I swear I have lots of women, on record that is. My beloved Catherine introduced to me to Carole King and Carly Simon.
I have Heart, Janis Joplin, the Bangles, Diana Ross, the Marvelettes, Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell, Madonna, Stevie Nicks, an all-female hard rock group called Fanny, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynettte, Aretha Franklin, Bonnie Raitt, Nancy Griffith, Indigo Girls, the Shirelles, Melanie, Joan Baez, and many other ‘mixed’ groups like B-52’s, the Crams, Mamas and Papas, Sly and Family Stone, the Staple Singers, a Group called Smith, Eurythmics and so on.
While I enjoy much of those none were pivotal to me in transforming or greatly expanding my musical tastes. Janis and Aretha were close. But by then I was softened up to listen to them. Mavis Staples of the Staple Singers BTW has one of my favorite soulful voices.
NOTE: After I published this I realized I did not mention Dolly Parton. I watched her show with Porter Wagoner on black and white TV, probably in the late 1960s, early 70s. Sunday mornings. Been a fan ever since.
