Liner Notes

Aretha Franklin: Soul '69

2006-01-27T06:10:15Z

Aretha Franklin
Soul 69
Atlantic / Men With Hats Records LP

By John Sinclair

There have been very, very few singers in the history of American popular music who hit with the power and impact of Ms. Aretha Franklin. Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Betty Carter: Each achieved an unprecedented level of artistry and personal expression through song and enjoyed the adoration of their legions of followers. But Ms. Ree, the undisputed Queen of Soul from the Motor City, blasted her music straight to the top of the pop charts and ruled the nation's airwaves in the mid-1960s with the unmistakable sound of her voice and her incredibly emotive delivery.

Aretha's series of masterful hit singles for Atlantic Records I Never Loved a Man, Do Right Woman, R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Chain of Fools, and a half dozen more won her millions of devoted fans and a central place in the pantheon of modern soul singers. Brilliantly produced by Atlantic's Jerry Wexler, these recordings brought Ms. Franklin's every budding musical gift to perfect fruition and established Sister Ree as the force to be reckoned with in the field of American popular song.

Aretha Franklin was in no way an overnight success, and her road to the top was a long and relatively rocky climb from its roots in her father's Hastings Street church on the near east side of Detroit. The Reverend C.L. Franklin was an exceptionally dynamic preacher of the Gospel whose message reached far beyond the confines of his pulpit when his sermons were recorded by local record man Joe Von Battle in the early 1950s and released to a national audience by Chess Records in Chicago. Rev. Franklin's 78 rpm Chess singles like The Eagle Stirreth His Nest were enormously popular with the black record-buying public, and his influence soon spread from the Motor City all across the country.

Aretha grew up singing with the New Bethel Church choir and was recognized as an outstanding soloist while still a small child. Her first recordings, a stirring set of soulful gospel performances, were made in 1954 and also released by Chess, and she toured the country with her father for the rest of the 50s, appearing in countless churches and auditoria from coast to coast as a teenage gospel singing sensation.

Outside of church, however, Aretha proved to be somewhat of a wild teenaged girl and mothered a pair of children before she was 18. She began to feel constricted by the insularity of the gospel music community and longed to follow Sam Cooke and other former gospel stars into the potentially lucrative world of popular music. Finally, at the turn of the 60s, and with her father's reluctant blessing, Aretha landed a contract with John Hammond at Columbia Records to record as a pop artist and jazz singer.

Columbia showcased Aretha in a series of elaborate pop productions which set her versatile voice against the sound of large, glossily arranged orchestras and won her a place on the abbreviated list of emerging jazz vocalists. Although these releases met with moderate success in the marketplace, the company sadly failed to fully recognize much less realize the vast musical and commercial potential Ms. Franklin represented.

Aretha labored at Columbia until the mid- 60s, increasingly dissatisfied with her musical direction and lack of popular impact, until Jerry Wexler reached out to bring her into the Atlantic Records fold and carefully crafted a new approach designed to make the most of every one of the singer's latent strengths. First he stripped away the pop-jazz veneer Columbia's production staff had been so intent on applying to her soulful delivery and cut all the way back to her roots in the gospel music of her father's Detroit church. Then he built her a new sound from the ground up, using the simplest of rhythmic configurations guitar, bass, drums and Aretha's own piano to adorn the singer's powerful voice.

Then he took Aretha way down south to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to make her first Atlantic recordings in the company of Fame Studios deep-fried rhythm team, a bunch of hard-backed white boys whose rough stance and extra-musical attitude seem to have spooked Aretha and her husband/manager Ted White to the extent that they bolted the sessions after only one song had been cut and headed back North.. But the one tune Aretha's own composition, I Never Loved a Man (The Way That I Love You), with the singer accompanying herself on piano provided ammunition enough for Wexler to work with, and he went back to Atlantic's New York City headquarters with an acetate of the song that he had pressed up into a batch of promo copies for distribution to several key R&B deejays. Their immediate and wildly enthusiastic response brought Ms. Franklin back into the studio to cut a B side for her first Atlantic Records single, and her time of triumph had truly begun.

Aretha's star began to rise against the soul music firmament studded with such stellar performers as James Brown, Jackie Wilson, Solomon Burke, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding and a host of other African-American singers who had smashed their way into the pop music charts to dominate the American radio airwaves. Her fellow Detroiters at the burgeoning Motown Records empire Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, the Temptations, the Four Tops, the Supremes, the Spinners, Martha & the Vandellas were also riding high in the nation's musical consciousness, and soul music had established itself as the eloquent voice of the current generation. But Aretha's magnificent voice and exuberant, high-spirited delivery took the music to a new level where the nascent Queen of Soul would reign supreme.

Propelled by crack studio ensembles from New York City and the South and supported by a sympathic set of hard-punching back-up singers, Aretha set a torrid pace as each of her next several Atlantic singles charged to the top of the pop charts. She and Wexler meshed into a mighty force of nature, delivering terrific songs with immense vocal power, irresistible rhythmic impact and impeccable arrangements. Beyond her musical import, Ms. Franklin gave unmistakable voice to the universal sentiment of the nation's citizens of African descent when she released her supercharged recording of R-E-S-P-E-C-T, a compelling demand which could be heard by any American within ten feet of a radio.

Aretha ruled the charts all through 1967 and 1968, establishing herself in the hearts and minds of millions of Americans of every persuasion as the quintessential interpreter of African-American song. She toured America to great acclaim and in the summer of 1968 made her first trip to Europe, where she recorded a live album, Aretha In Paris. Before she left she cut the singles I Say a Little Prayer and The House That Jack Built with the Muscle Shoals rhythm section, and at the same time began work on what she and Jerry Wexler called the jazz album the one that would be released the following January as Soul 69.

By this time Ms. Franklin was so firmly established as the chart-topping Queen of Soul that she and Wexler felt confident in taking the singer back to her jazz roots and making an album that would enable her cash in on the substantial musical investment she d made with her series of Columbia albums. These LPs had garnered approval from the jazz critics but never managed to rack up the kind of sales Aretha's Atlantic singles enjoyed in the pop marketplace, and Wexler was now determined to show off his star's considerable skills as a gospel-jazz stylist her hard-won pop audience.

For these initial Soul 69 sessions in April 1958, Wexler brought the Muscle Shoals rhythm section Spooner Oldham (organ), Jimmy Johnson (guitar), Jerry Jemmott (bass), Tommy Cogbill (electric bass) and Roger Hawkins (drums) to Atlantic's studios in New York City and added three percussionists to the mix. Abetted by Aretha's soulful piano, they recorded Smokey Robinson's Tracks of My Tears and one of Ms. Franklin's long-time favorites, Today I Sing the Blues, a Helen Humes number from 1948 which had been the singer's first Columbia single back in 1960.

After Aretha returned from Europe, she and Wexler returned to the Atlantic studios for a five-day session to complete the album Wexler thought of as Aretha's Jazz Album. With engineer Tom Dowd as co-producer and the slick, skillful arrangements of Arif Mardin, Wexler fashioned a program of jazz-drenched pop tunes and R&B standards that showcased Ms. Franklin's trademark gospel-jazz style and musically sophisticated delivery to exceptional effect.

The band assembled for these dates was first-class in every respect. The rhythm section comprised pianist Junior Mance, guitarist Kenny Burrell, bassist Ron Carter, and drummers Bruno Carr and Grady Tate, aided by Latin percussion and backing singers on the pop chestnuts Crazy He Calls Me, Elusive Butterfly and John Hartford's Gentle on My Mind. The horn ensemble interpreting Mardin's charts included top New York players on every instrument: saxophonists Frank Wess, George Dorsey, David Fathead Newman, King Curtis, Seldon Powell and Pepper Adams; Joe Newman, Ernie Royal, Richard Williams, Bernie Glow and Snookie Young on trumpets; and trombonists Jimmy Cleveland, Benny Powell, Urbie Greene and Thomas Mitchell.

The inspired repertoire included a set of four R&B classics arranged for Aretha and jazz orchestra, including a pair of songs associated with Big Maybelle ( Ramblin and Pitiful ), Percy Mayfield's exquisite River's Invitation, and Bring It on Home to Me, a masterpiece by Sam Cooke, who was one of Ms. Franklin's central influences and a dear friend from back in her gospel music days. Also receiving the full Arif Mardin treatment were the venerable pop chestnuts If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody, I ll Never Be Free and the Russ Morgan theme So Long.

Punctuated by the expressive trumpet of Joe Newman and the telling tenor solos of King Curtis ( Pitiful ) and David Fathead Newman (all others), and beautifully borne on the flying carpet of sound laid down by the large ensemble, Aretha's performance throughout is a tour-de-force of soul and intelligent presentation. Her voice soars to its accustomed heights and drops down into a sea of pure feeling, delineating the disparate material with supreme grace and power and illuminating Mardin's masterful jazz arrangements with all the unleashed force of her distinctive personality.

One listen to this remarkable album is enough to place it irrefutably in the pantheon of Ms. Franklin's finest work. But one listen will never be enough, and you are bound to return to this musical program again and again to marvel at the consummate artistry of Aretha Franklin. She would go on from here to notch additional soul hits for Atlantic, cut powerhouse albums like Live at the Fillmore West and her intense gospel collaboration with the Rev. James Cleveland and his choir, and contribute an entire lifetime's worth of unforgettably great recordings. But Soul 69, Aretha's jazz album for Jerry Wexler, will stand out forever as a high point in her long and incredibly fruitful career.

New Orleans, March 7, 2002/
Los Angeles, March 18, 2002

Note: David Nathan's liner notes for the Rhino/Atlantic CD reissue of Soul 69 were a valuable source of information for these notes.

(c) 2002, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.

Delta 72: The Soul of a New Machine

2006-01-24T01:01:15Z

Delta 72
The Soul of a New Machine
Touch & Go Records

By John Sinclair

It is a hell of an undertaking to which the band called Delta 72 has committed itself: bringing the roll & soul of classic rhythm & blues back into modern rock, including the intense performance esthetic and direct emotional connection with its listeners and dancers that are essential elements of this incredibly vibrant African-American art form.

Not that Delta 72 is some kind of Blues Brothers act for the end of the century, slavishly aping the heroic soul singers and their elaborate backing bands in the sort of post-modern minstrel show now popular in places like the House of Blues and mainstream campus bars.

No, it's not like that at all: the stripped-down rock & roll ensemble called Delta 72 is instead engaged in a serious struggle to make a singular form of musical expression inspired as much by the rhythms & blues that gave birth to the modern idiom as by the popular music they hear around them today.

Delta 72 incorporates all kinds of hip things from the R&B esthetic, from the harmonica and Farfisa organ always prominently featured to great swinging grooves and well-controlled dynamics. Yet they never sound less than completely contemporary, and they can slash and burn with full rock intensity when they want to.

For 25 years now, rock--or popular music made by white people--has suffered from being severed from its African American roots. The rock & roll music from the 50s and 60s that people still listen to was entirely rooted in rhythm & blues--it rocked, it rolled, it was full of life and intelligence and wit, it made you feel like shaking your ass at somebody while the music danced inside your body and your brain.

Then Black music was programmed out of rock radio, and successive waves of white musicians and listeners were denied any communion with the original energy source which had in fact once fully shaped their world. Their music paled, and the roll was removed when they shrunk the music down to rock, pile-driving that one rhythm forward and refusing to switch from side to side.

Even the inevitable reaction to the awful lameness of rock had no connection to the Black roots of popular music, and all the rebels really could do was deconstruct the forms and gestures of rock into something truer and uglier--and even less swinging--than what they had been given.

There is something beautiful about music that swings which can t be found anywhere else in life. Swing brings joy and good feelings and the hope that things might get better after awhile--and even if they don t, we re having a pretty fine time right now while the music is playing.

Swing is a measure of the resilience and determination to overcome great difficulties which lives at the heart of African-American popular music, the thing that keeps people's humanity intact and their hearts and minds functioning in the face of all the shit they re up against in this life.

Swing can carry you through the shit and raise you up above it, whether it comes to you as jazz or blues or gospel, R&B or reggae or soul. Swing has this function, and now that it's been gone from popular music for so long, the music doesn t do those things for people any more.

Delta 72 would like to turn that around and make their music mean something to the people who hear it. They want you to be dancing while you listen--indeed, they want to move you, physically and emotionally, they want to connect you to the source and the force that powers their music and their life on stage. And they want you to thrill to it every bit as much as they do.

In its several years of touring the low dives and alterna-joints of this unattractive nation, through several changes in membership and a series of well-received recordings, Delta 72 has evolved a distinctive musical synthesis and found its own voice in the American wilderness.

This voice is calling you now: Come out from behind your television sets, your computers, out of your little lacklove cubicles. Come out and dance. Take a little swing with us. Let's have a natural ball while we re still breathing. It's the least we can do.

Let's put a soul into this new machine and enjoy the membership of R&B. That's the promise of Delta 72, and they deliver on it here.

--New Orleans
April 13, 1997

(c) 1997, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.

DELTA 72:
Greg Foreman, guitar, lead vocals, harmonica
Sarah Stolfa (Farfisa organ)
Brue Reckahn, bass
Jason Kourkounis, drums

1 Introduction (Part 2) (1:59)
2 Monopoly of Your Mouth (2:37)
3 Floorboard Shake (3:21)
4 The Cut (2:07)
5 I ve Dreamt of Leaving.... (5:16)
6 It's Alright (3:53)
7 Scratch (4:24)
8 Up in the High Numbers (2:12)
9 Blowout (2:25)
10 Go Go Kitty (2:07)
11 We Hate the Blues (3:16)
12 Green Eyes (5:35)

Joe Weaver: Baby I Love You So

2006-01-23T09:35:23Z

Joe Weaver
Baby, I Love You So 
Black Magic Records

By John Sinclair

Teenaged guitarist Johnnie Bassett was walking down the street in his westside Detroit neighborhood one afternoon nearly 50 years ago when he heard some kid playing piano on the front porch of a nice-looking girl's house. He followed the sound to find the personnage of a young Joe Weaver, whom Johnnie recognized as a classmate at Northwestern High School, and the two soon became fast friends. Bassett hooked up his new electric guitar with Joe's piano and the pair began to develop a formidable repertoire of popular R&B tunes and original compositions.

Weaver and Bassett began to gravitate to Hastings Street on the near east side, then entering its final days of glory as the Motor City's Black entertainment mainline, and rehearsed after school every day in the primitive back room recording studio of Joe Von Battle's record shop. Joe made some tapes of the youngsters and leased several masters to DeLuxe Records, including a groovy instrumental titled "15-40 Special" after the street address of the King recording company at 1540 Brewster Avenue in Cincinnati, Ohio.

One day Joe and Johnnie were walking down Linwood Avenue on their way home from an impromptu basketball game on the outdoor courts at Central High School when they heard some music emanating from a nondescript storefront, which proved upon investigation to house the offices and studios of Jack Brown's Fortune Record Company.

Jack and his wife, songwriter Devora Brown, were working with a young singer named Andre Williams and his vocal group to come up with material for their first Fortune session, and Johnnie and Joe were quickly signed up as sessionmen and musical directors for the local R&B powerhouse. Andre's first single, "Going Down To Tiajuana" b/w "Pulling Time," drew some welcome radio and record shop attention around town, and, as Joe Weaver & the Blue Notes, the fellows were kept busy for some time backing up the entire Fortune stable of artists.

But Johnnie Bassett was called into the armed forces in the late 1950s, and Joe Weaver soon joined his cousin, legendary bassist Benny Benjamin, in the house band at Berry Gordy's fledgling Hitsville USA operation, where he recorded with rising Motown stars like Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Barrett Strong, Martha & The Vandellas, and Stevie Wonder. Joe did some road work with the Four Tops, but his musical career failed to sustain him and Weaver joined the industrial workforce at the Ford Motor Company.

Johnnie Bassett was stationed in Seattle, where he played with jazz and R&B ensembles in the area and backed up touring artists like Johnny 'Guitar' Watson, Little Willie John, and Ike & Tina Turner until the mid- 60s. When he returned to Detroit, the Motor City's heyday as a blues center was over, and Johnnie spent the next 25 years toiling with organ combos, bluesmen Little Sonny, Chicago Pete and Mr. Bo, and jazz and show groups around town, backing up singers and soloists of many descriptions while continuing to grow and develop as a musician.

The long drought began to end for Bassett one night in the early 1990s when drummer R.J. Spangler heard the guitarist playing with organist Ben Baber and hooked up with Johnnie after the show. Spangler and veteran keyboardist Bill Heid quickly formed a band, the Blues Insurgents, to showcase Johnnie's fluid guitar and mellifluous voice and together began to build an avid following in the blues bars of Detroit.

A live recording was made at the Montreaux-Detroit Jazz Festival and used to secure reviews and bookings, including showcase dates in Europe. A series of fine recordings followed, including Bassett Hound for Fedora Records, the Black Magic release I Gave My Life to the Blues, recorded in 1996, and two well-received albums, Cadillac Blues and Party My Blues Away, for Cannonball Records. With Johnnie Bassett's revived career now well established, Spangler and Heid turned to extend a hand to the guitarist's long-time associates, septuagenarian vocalist Alberta Adams and the perennial Joe Weaver, introducing them to Bassett's live audiences and recording contacts. Ms. Adams was introduced with four cuts on a Cannonball Records anthology, Blues Across America: The Detroit Scene, and then signed by producer Ron Levy for her first album date, Born with the Blues, accompanied by Heid and the Blues Insurgents. Joe Weaver joined Bassett & the Blues Insurgents for his long-awaited introduction to international audiences at the 1998 Blues Estafette in Utrecht, The Netherlands, where this writer had the pleasure of bringing Joe on and off the stage for his enthusiastically acclaimed performance.

Before they moved on to fulfill their other European dates, Joe and the band went into the studio for Black Magic Records with Spangler and Heid at the production helm and laid down the exceptional program of Fortune Records classics, one new Joe Weaver composition ("It Hurt So Bad"), and salutes to Chuck Willis ("What Am I Living For?") and fellow Detroiters the Falcons ("I Found A Love") now to be found on the compact disc in hand.

After nearly 50 years as a performing artist Joe Weaver is not the least bit the worse for wear. Like his old-time partner Johnnie Bassett, Weaver is every bit as strong and vital on stage and on record as he ever was, bringing to his current work the fully developed confidence and relaxed sense of ease that only a lifetime in music can bestow.

Bassett's support is impeccable, and Bill Heid & the Blues Insurgents lay down grooves that are supple and wholly sympathetic to the ends of this music, which means to make you smile, laugh, dance and party as long as there is life in your bones.

Saxophonist Keith Kaminiski supplies the icing for this juicy musical piece of cake, shining throughout on tenor and baritone like somebody who just stumbled into the middle of a Fortune Records session ready to start cooking as soon as they call out the key.

"I Found A Love," Joe's homage to old friends Wilson Pickett & The Falcons, and his reading of Chuck Willis' "What Am I Living For?" don't challenge the original versions for emotive force but do add a nice soulful touch to the program.

Weaver's Fortune hits and musical successes, however, are revisited in great depth, with Bassett and the Blues Insurgents reproducing the classic simplicity and relaxed pulse of the originals without adding a shred of nostalgic corn to marvellous tunes like "Do You Wanna Work Now," "Looka Here Pretty Baby," "Tootsie Roll," "It Must Be Love" and "I'm On My Merry Way."

In fact, there's nothing nostalgic at all about Joe Weaver's return to disk. It's all just as fresh and exciting as if these tunes had never been cut before, and the CD is one of those rare sides that rewards each repeated listening with more and more scintillating detail.

Joe is in great voice and sings with intelligence and taste, the band swings like crazy, and everything here is just as it should be. Welcome back, Joe, and please don't go anywhere soon without us.

--Charlottesville, VA
July 15, 1999

(c) 1999, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.

Isley Brothers: It's Time For Love-Beautiful Ballads

2006-01-18T18:04:59Z

The Isley Brothers
It's Time For Love: Beautiful Ballads

By John Sinclair

"You know those old, old love songs?" my wife Penny says, listening to this compilation with me. "These are like the new old love songs, the ones everybody'll be singing for years to come."

Listening to the Isley Brothers croon these beautiful ballads from the 1970s and 80s, one can almost see the young Ronald, O'Kelly and Rudolph Isley cruising the nighttime streets of the 50s in a smooth massive convertible, grooving to the sounds of love coming through the car radio and singing along to the songs of the day, soaking up the musical influences which would inform their entire career.

Billy Ward & The Dominos on Federal Records, Rudy West & The Five Keys on Aladdin, Clyde McPhatter & The Drifters on Atlantic, Lowman Pauling & The "5" Royales on Apollo were dominant forces on the R&B charts in the early 50s with their tantalizing mix of jump tunes and aching ballads. They inspired a whole new wave of vocal groups that would set the mark for the mid- 50s and carry the Black ballad to the shores of white America by the end of the decade.

The genre reached its peak with the offerings of the Moonglows and the Flamingos, two Chicago-based groups produced by Willie Dixon and recorded by the Chess brothers which created indelible masterpieces of Black balladry. Songs like "Sincerely," "Most of All," "When I'm With You," and "In My Diary" by the Moonglows, "I'll Be Home," "The Vow," and "A Kiss From Your Lips" by the Flamingos set new standards of excellence for vocal group records which have since perhaps been equalled but never surpassed.

When rhythm & blues finally broke through the race barrier in 1955 to wipe out an entire generation of Americans with its energy and brilliance, Black vocal group music crossed over to the same audience that thrilled to the frantic antics of Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Fats Domino.

Doo-wop was a big part of rock & roll during the second half of the 50s, culturally as well as musically. Teenage Americans of every stripe, from Black to white, began to organize their emotional lives around the sounds emanating from 45 rpm singles like "In the Still of the Night" by The 5 Satins on Ember Records; "Why Don't You Write Me" by The Jacks on Modern; "Goodnite Sweetheart Goodnite" by The Spaniels on VeeJay; "Only You" and "The Great Pretender" by The Platters on Mercury.

Young bodies pressed tight together in dim basement recreation rooms or in the back seats of cars, grinding slowly to the rhythms of "I Only Have Eyes For You" by the Flamingos and "Since I Don't Have You" by the Skyliners. Teenage lovers spent those long hours apart thinking thoughts of love and devotion derived from the provocative lyrics of Black balladry and came together at last to the texts of "The Ten Commandments of Love" by the Moonglows and "One Summer Night" by the Danleers.

By the end of the 1950s, the vocal group sound and its literature of love had permeated the consciousness of young America quite like nothing before, giving voice to the inchoate romanticism of a restless generation which found little to sustain its spirit in the blandishments of the popular culture of its parents.

Within the next five years teenage Americans of the caucasian persuasion would be given by the Beach Boys and the Beatles a music strictly their own, made by persons of their own background who had assimilated the sounds and concerns of the music of the African-American ghetto and transmuted them into something that would fit within the mental and emotional confines of a burgeoning suburbia.

But the Black ballad would provide a vital form for ghetto romanticism throughout the 1960s and into the 70s, continuing to fill a void in the lives of young Black Americans where innocence and anticipation were otherwise absent. Singers with roots in the doo-wop culture of the 50s persevered in their efforts to fashion up-dated forms from their own experience, and by the mid- 70s the Black balladry tradition was thriving in full revival.

Led by the works of the Spinners, the Chi-Lites, the Dramatics, the O'Jays, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, the vocal group revival included in its proud ranks the reconstituted Isley Brothers, whose singing members had been together since the early 1950s.

Starting as fellow members of an early- 50s Cincinnati gospel group, Ronald, O'Kelly and Rudolph Isley moved to New York in 1957 and crossed over to rhythm & blues, making their first single for Teenage Records. During the next decade they scored with numbers like "Shout," "Twist and Shout," and "This Old Heart of Mine" for a variety of small labels and then, in 1969, brought in as full partners their younger brothers Ernie (guitar and drums) and Marvin (bass) and brother-in-law Chris Jasper (keyboards) to become a fully self-sufficient unit, composing and producing a series of pop recordings on their own label, T-Neck Records.

Distributed first by Buddah, where their initial single was the smash hit "It's Your Thing," and after 1973 by Columbia Records to the widest possible audience, the Isley Brothers' releases climbed chart after chart. They reached a new peak in the mid- 70s with the Fight The Power album and their gigantic ballad, "For The Love of You."

But the Isley Brothers hits weren't everything worth hearing. For each record that gained the attention of the across-the-board pop marketplace, there were several that served the group's proportionately larger African American audience with the kind of sounds they especially craved--slow, sweet, soulful love songs to bring some much-needed escape from the realities of urban life in America.

What they got, in the sound of the Isleys singing, the billowy clouds of music on which their voices were carried, the coaxing reassurance of the lyrics they intoned, came in the form of a warmly secure musical environment where one may lay back and relax to one's heart's content, free of care and worldly strife, floating on a vast sea of music and love.

And you know what? These tunes work just as well today, in a "real world" gone even madder, where they aren't so much songs as fragrant oils for the entire body, not so much to be heard in the ear as to be felt from head to toe, soothing as a lover's tender caress and titillating as a warm tongue licking the skin.

This music is balm for the body and solace for the mind as well, sounding inside the brain like the voice of your sweetheart whispering softly, "baby, everything's gonna be all right, I swear it is."

So slide this disk into the player and press the repeat button. Then turn down the lights, put another log on the fire, light up some incense, replenish your favorite bedside refreshment, slip off those flimsy underthings and crawl into the sack with your main squeeze, because it's time to get all the way down to love with the sweet sweet sounds of the ever-loving Isley Brothers.

Are you ready for the time of your life? Oh, make me say it again girl--you're all I need, oh yes you are. You're the key to my heart, you're beside me everywhere I go, I once had your love (and I can't let go). Let's fall in love, don't say goodnight, it's time for love, don't let me be lonely tonight. Lay lady lay, choosey lover, misty lady, set sail with me--let's voyage to Atlantis, all in my lover's eyes, brown-eyed girl, hello it's me.

Are you ready? Every woman, every man, join the caravan of love. Come on board now, because this is right where it starts--with the most beautiful ballads of the brothers Isley, circa 1971-1985, presented here in stunning array by producer Leo Sacks for your intimate late-night bed-time dining and dancing pleasure. Enjoy!

--New Orleans
March 1994

(c) 1994, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.

Solomon Burke: Soul of the Blues

2006-01-13T18:27:13Z

Solomon Burke
Soul Of The Blues
BlackTop BT-1095

By John Sinclair

Solomon Burke, the legendary "King of Rock and Soul," has always loomed larger than life, no mean feat for a man of his physical stature and enormous appetites.

Father of 21 children, Bishop and spiritual leader of a vast national Pentacostal congregation, proprietor of a chain of funeral homes, owner of a multi-city limosine service, drugstore operator and distributor of his own line of roots, herbs, and religious articles, Solomon Burke engraved his name in the big book of modern musical history with a sensational string of soul singles for Atlantic Records between 1961-68.

Starting with "Just Out of Reach," cut in December 1960, Solomon Burke blazed his way across the musical horizon with smash records like "Cry To Me", "Down in the Valley", "Home In Your Heart", "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love", "If You Need Me" and other great sides too numerous to mention. (His Atlantic hits are collected in a double-CD set, Home in Your Heart: The Best of Solomon Burke.)

One of the pioneers of soul music, he used the church-drenched voice Jerry Wexler has described as "an instrument of exquisite sensitivity" to reach across the musical Mason-Dixon Line separating R&B and pop, helping lead the way for a generation of soul singers to leave the rhythm & blues ghetto and enjoy mass-market success.

After pop music re-segregated itself in the early 70s, ending the golden era of soul supremacy and sending most of its stars back to the ghetto in search of an audience which could sustain them in the absence of hit records, Solomon tended to concentrate on his ecclesiastical duties and on business opportunities outside the music industry.

An occasional Solomon Burke album surfaced from time to time, including a collection of greatest hits re-recorded "live" at a D.C. nightclub to be peddled on late-night TV, yet Burke largely seemed content to follow his ministerial calling and restrict his performances to the pulpit.

But one day this past winter, inspired by an idea that had been germinating in his brain for more than three years, Solomon Burke picked up the phone and called BlackTop Records about making a blues record here in New Orleans. "I've recorded soul records, gospel records, pop records, even country music," he told a stunned Hammond Scott, "but I've never done a blues album, and now's the time to do it."

The idea had come from one of the bishops of his church, Martha Jean "The Queen" Steinberg, a popular religious figure and Detroit radio personality who had long hosted the Blue Collar Blues Show on WQBH Radio ("Where Queen's Back Home") as a vital component of her urban ministry.

The Queen was concerned about the musical void which surrounds the current generation of Black youth and implored the great singer and spiritual leader to do something to teach the young people of today about their precious cultural heritage. "Generations that are to come need to be exposed to the beauty, the feel, the sound, the soul of the blues," Martha Jean had pleaded.

And now, after "long anticipation and great exploration," Solomon Burke was prepared to honor this "royal request from Queen MJ" by cutting an album's worth of what he termed "Certified Gold Ribbon Classics" from the modern blues repertoire. "The time has come," the Bishop solemnly proclaimed, "for Volume One."

In selecting BlackTop Records for this project, the wisdom of Solomon had led Burke to the right place. For a dozen years BlackTop producer Hammond Scott has been conducting a secular crusade of his own, recording scores of blues sessions in the classic mode with the dogged determination of a circuit-riding revivalist preacher.

Excited at the prospect of working with one of the greatest singers of the modern era, Hammond immediately turned his mind to the question of appropriate material. "When I went into this project, I felt quite a bit of pressure because of all the great records Solomon had made," Scott confesses. "Then I came up with a list of 65 tunes that might work for him, and I put them on tape for Solomon to listen to.

"He wanted to use songs that people would recognize--blues chestnuts, blues classics--but he wanted to sing the blues his own way," Hammond explains, "so he made no attempt to copy the originals. In several cases he even devised lyrics of his own instead of following the original verses exactly. But what he wanted most was to get the feeling right--to make a real blues record that would pay proper homage to the tradition."

Solomon selected 14 songs from Hammond's treasure trove and came to Ultrasonic Studios in New Orleans last April to record them with the stellar group of Crescent City players which has come to be known as the BlackTop House Band. Powered by the peerless rhythm team of bassist George Porter Jr. and drummer Herman V. Ernest III, driven by the dual keyboards of organist Sammy Berfect and pianist David Torkanowsky, and topped by veteran guitarist Clarence Holliman--star of some of Bobby 'Blue' Bland's greatest Duke recordings--the BlackTop session band has jelled into a modern-day version of the magnificent combo that created countless R&B classics for a host of stand-up singers at Cosimo Matassa's New Orleans studios in the 1950s.

The BlackTop band is joined here by Burke's regular guitarist, Sam Mayfield; Solomon's son Selassie, who contributes background vocals; and a hot horn section with Eric Traub on tenor sax, Jamil Sharif on trumpet, the trombones of John Touchy and Steve Suter, and Mark Kazinoff's typically tasteful tenor and baritone saxophones, solos and arrangements.

With such splendid support, Solomon had no trouble summoning the spirits of the great blues artists to whom he was prepared to pay homage. "He was a little surprised to find that he was expected to cut his vocal parts with the band playing 'live in the studio," Hammond Scott says, "being used to coming in and laying down his vocals over the music tracks, but once we got started he would only come out of the vocal booth when the food arrived."

Burke treats each tune with deep respect, honoring the intentions of its creators with his heartfelt interpretations of the lyrics and his economical arrangements. The Willie Dixon composition "My Babe," written for the great Little Walter, gets a fresh rhythmic twist from Herman Ernest's second-line drums and benefits further from a funky Jamil Sharif trumpet solo.

Roy Brown's epochal "Good Rockin' Tonight," which sounded the clarion call of the rock & roll era way back in 1947 and twice rode the charts in revivals by Wynonie Harris and Elvis Presley, here presents Solomon Burke as a lusty blues shouter with hefty chops and a driving delivery, displayed again to good advantage on Big Joe Turner's "Crawdad Hole."

Burke takes Guitar Slim to church on "Sufferin' Mind," with his soulful reading of the lyric underlined by Sammy Berfect's Hammond B-3 organ and the moaning horn section. Slim's "Along About Midnight" gets the full blues treatment, and Solomon does justice to Chuck Willis, another vastly under-appreciated song-writer, with a down-in-the-alley version of Chuck's rarely-heard "Don't Deceive Me."

Solomon caresses Percy Mayfield's "Lonesome Highway" with his own distinctive voice and treats T-Bone Walker's "Street Walking Woman" to a nice smooth ride. Both songs are enhanced by Solomon's idiosyncratic vocal sound, so different in phrasing and texture from both T-Bone and Mayfield that it focuses welcome attention on the fine, fine lyrics of the tunes.

Blues balladeer Johnny Ace gets a loving embrace from Burke on a beautiful rendition of "Pledging My Love," Johnny's masterpiece from 1954. Conversely, Solomon discards both the original lyric and the rough Delta sound featured in Sonny Boy Williamson's only Ace Records single, "No Nights By Myself," to make an intensely personal statement in a deep soul mode that still manages to invoke the spirit and intention of its composer. Both songs, incidentally, were perfected in a single take, and the sessions with the BlackTop house band were completed in only three days.

"We'd finished the regular sessions," Hammond Scott comments, "when I remembered that there was one song I'd wanted him to hear, 'Candy' by Big Maybelle, which had not made it onto the tape. He picked right up on it and we cut it with Raymond Weber on drums and Anthony Hamilton on bass, along with Clarence Hollimon and Sammy Berfect. Then the Little Willie John song, 'Letter from My Darling,' came into Solomon's mind, and we cut it with this group the same day."

So there you have it, music lovers--a nicely balanced program of well-known rhythm & blues standards and more obscure selections from the venerable Book of the Blues, impressively presented by the once and future King of Rock & Soul with the impeccable support of the finest recording band in the South.

And Queen Martha Jean, baby, sit back with a big smile and enjoy the wonderful fruits of your wildest dream, because the Bishop has set it out just the way you wanted him to.

--New Orleans
1993

(C) 1993, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.

Boston Horns: East Coast Funk

2005-12-31T09:10:48Z

The Boston Horns
East Coast Funk

By John Sinclair

The Boston Horns have been through a lot of changes since their early incarnation as the Heavy Metal Horns, working their way through a maze of band members, musical idioms and actual repertoire until they ve distilled their artistic essence into an irresistible elixir they like to call East Coast Funk.

The Horns Henley Douglas Jr. on tenor & baritone saxophones and Garret Sayluk on trumpet have settled down into the extremely supple and ceaselessly swinging groove now being generated by the sensitive and ever-sympathetic rhythm team of guitarist Jeff Buckridge, keyboardist Mark Longo, Mike Squid Rush on bass and Jack Howard Jr. at the drums. Here the working ensemble is augmented from time to time by Russ Lawton on multiple percussions and the conga drums of Yahuba, with extra-special guest Melvin Sparks adding his beautifully seasoned guitar solos to the front line on four selections.

What's also special here is that all the songs but one have been composed and contributed by members of the band. Each tune weighs in with its own flavor, introduced by a brisk, catchy melody and extended by muscular improvisations from Henley Douglas's fluent saxophones, the eloquent trumpet of Garret Savluk and the expressive guitars of Jeff Buckridge and Melvin Sparks. A group vocal on the instructive dance number Ain t Nothin 2it offers timely advice ( Just find a groove and do it & You got to find your own groove ), and the Jimi Hendrix masterwork, Crosstown Traffic features a fine lead vocal as well, sung over a charging arrangement which may well have been inspired by the classic Gil Evans treatment given the song back in the 1970s.

The album opens up with a slinky showcase for Sparks and the Horns titled St. Charles, which flows like the river Charles and sports the kind of funky strut that can be seen from the streetcar on the downtown end of the stately New Orleans avenue of the same name. Douglas contributes a forceful tenor saxophone statement, showing off his strong, mature sound and impressive growth as a modern stylist.

Soundcheck Jam may have developed out of something played one day by Savluk on stage before the start of a show, but it's a full-fledged Boston Horns number now illuminated by musical speeches from Douglas and its composer. Henley's bari lights up his own kdoggd7, subtitled Super-Hero Theme Music for Kevin Douglas, with Savluk on muted trumpet and Buckridge's guitar to the fore. The trumpeter and producer adds a heroic flourish of his own with the dramatic Jackie's Song, a fast-paced showcase for his own open horn and the confident guitar of Melvin Sparks, who inserts a little country flavor before the Horns return to the head.

Jeff Buckridge's Speedball is another brisk workout for the Horns on a traditional funk framework punctuated by Longo's organ washes, some tasty tenor sax-trumpet counterpoint and the composer's well-spoken guitar. Buttered Popcorn, a Longo-Buckridge collaboration, projects the smoldering ambience of a Lee Morgan session from the 60s, and the final cut, Garret Savluk's nicely heated Skillet, brings the album to a satisfying close with another welcome taste of Henley's baritone sax and some rollicking interplay from Rush and Howard on bass and drums. Buckridge gets in the last word with his guitar, and the Horns take it out.

East Coast Funk comes out of the gate riding high and sustains its elevated level of musicality and fun from beginning to end. Memorable instrumentals, a pair of well-placed vocal numbers, top-notch soloing, and a remarkable group empathy and unity of purpose make the Boston Horns stand out in any sort of company. This is an album you ll play and enjoy for years to come.

Detroit
June 3, 2003

(c) 2003 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.

Howlin' Diablos: Ain't No Party Like a Detroit Party

2005-12-31T08:47:00Z

The Howlin Diablos:
There Ain t No Party Like a Detroit Party &. 

By John Sinclair

When Kid Rock was trying to break into show business as a youngster from suburban Detroit, the hottest band in the Motor City, a wild bunch of musical degenerates who call themselves the Howling Diablos, frequently gave him a shot as opening act for their sizable audience. Any fool could see the kid was styling himself after his role model and mentor, HDs lead singer Little Tino, and in a real Tobacco Road scenario when Kid Rock got his big break first, he came back for the Diablos to produce their new album and join them for Drinkin Wine Spo-De-O-Dee on a star-studded tribute to Sun Records, Good Rockin' Tonight, that also features Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan and a host of other established stars.

Little Tino, joined by Showtime Johnny Evans on saxophone, Jeff Baby Grand ( Psychedelic Daddy ) on lead guitar, Mighty Mo Hollis on bass and a fluctuating gang of fellow mental patients, opened up a new chapter in the glorious annals of Motor City rock & roll when he started rapping over the sound of a kick-ass rock & roll band. The Howling Diablos soon became the darlings of hometown Detroit, with hundreds of rabid fans following them from gig to gig and shouting back at Tino the refrains of his demented songs like Green Bottle, Baby Sitter, Funky Daddy and There ain t no party like a Detroit party / cuz a Detroit party don t stop!

Rolling like a good-time party-down rock & roll juggernaut, the Howling Diablos blasted their way across the Midwest, creating a sensation as openers for a host of headliners at stadiums and major venues and rocking their way to the top of the bill at places like the State Theatre and Royal Oak Theatre at home. A Sunday night hit at the Bear's Den, an obscure corner bar in suburban Berkley, stretched into a two-year residency marked by weekly lines of eager patrons winding down the otherwise deserted street and severe authoritarian reactions by the local gendarmes.

You have to see the Howling Diablos to understand the fanaticism and insane dedication of their hometown following Psychedelic Daddy's frenetic lead guitar and Showtime Johnny's fearsome saxophone blasting over the thrashing rhythm section and the scratching of the deejay as Tino swings from the rafters and raps out his incredible tales of urban delusion and mass confusion.

The Howling D's are the quintessential live band with the kind of unbelievably loyal fan base that hasn t been seen around the Motor City since the days of the MC-5. They ve built it up at home beyond the point of breaking out, and now the Howling Diablos are taking it nation-wide for everyone to enjoy. That's right Detroit's best-kept secret is now coming your way, and you can hear them first on the new Sun Records tribute album, Good Rocking Tonight.

Let's face it: Detroit hasn t seen anything as powerful in performance as the Howling Diablos since way back in the days of the Grande Ballroom, and there hasn t been anything as intelligent and hilarious as Tino's songs since the heyday of Was (Not Was). Fellow Detroiters Kid Rock and Eminen have ridden to mega-stardom following the rap-and-rock formula revealed by Little Tino and the Howling D s, and now it's definitely their turn to howl.

Amsterdam
November 28, 2001

(c) 2001, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.