February, 2025 - The "I'm In Love With That Song" Podcast - Music Commentary, Song Analysis & Rock History

What happens when two R&B veterans team up with a psychedelic band for a one-off single? It’s either one of the weirdest songs of the ’60’s or a forgotten classic, depending on your take on these things. For me, I’m firmly in the “lost treasure” camp. This original mash-up by Larry Williams & Johnny “Guitar” Watson, with The Kaleidoscope backing them up, is a relic from a time when anything seemed possible.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome back to the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. I’m your host, Brad Page, and we are here on the Pantheon Podcast Network. Each episode, I pick one of my favorite songs and we explore it together, trying to get at the heart of what makes a great song. We don’t get into music theory here, so you don’t have to be an expert. This show is open to anyone interested in just listening.

On this edition of the podcast, we are listening to a song by an offbeat duo, but it’s really the result of an unlikely combination with a third force that makes this song such an anomaly. The song is called “Nobody”. It’s by Larry Williams and Johnny Watson, with The Kaleidoscope.

Larry Williams was born in New Orleans in May 1935. He moved around, living in Chicago for a while, then Oakland, California, but eventually returned to New Orleans where he connected with Little Richard and got signed to Specialty records. Little Richard was the biggest star on the specialty label, but when he quit the music business in 1957 to join the church, specialty needed another big act. And that was Larry Williams’ opportunity. Larry’s first hit was his biggest, “Short Fat Fanny” reached number five on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1957.

You can definitely hear the Little Richard influence there. He followed that up with a song called “Bony Maroney”.

But Larry Williams is probably most remembered today for his next single, which had “Dizzy Miss Lizzie” on the A side.

And “Slow Down” as the B side.

Both of those tracks would be recorded by The Beatles. In fact, The Beatles would cover a third Larry Williams track, “Bad Boy”, making Larry Williams one of the very few artists that The Beatles covered multiple times.

John Watson, Jr. was also born in 1935. He came from Houston, Texas, but moved to LA with his mother when he was 15. He gained a rep as a hotshot guitarist and a flamboyant showman, and earned the nickname Johnny “Guitar” Watson. He played without a pick, using his fingers to produce a snapping, stinging attack that Frank Zappa would describe as “an ice pick to the forehead” tone. And he meant that as a compliment.

In 1954, Johnny Guitar Watson released a single, the instrumental called “Space Guitar”, that pretty perfectly illustrates his tone, and features reverb and feedback in a way that was really years ahead of its time.

In 1957, he released “Gangster of Love”, which wasn’t a big hit at the time, but would eventually become his most popular song and would earn him another nickname as “Johnny Guitar Watson, The Gangster Of Love”.

Steve Miller would later nick that line for his song “The Joker”.

As the 50’s gave way to the 60’s, Johnny focused more on doing session work and being a sideman. He hooked up with Larry Williams and they worked together for quite a few years. Though they never had any big hits, they were a very popular live act, especially with black audiences. The duo released one album in 1967 called “Two For The Price Of One”. Johnny was as good a piano player as a guitarist, and this album features as much of his piano as his guitar. But it’s got some great overlooked R&B moments.

At the end of 1967, they released a brand new single, a song called “Nobody”. For this track, they brought in a new band to back them up, a psychedelic group of all white musicians from La called The Kaleidoscope.

Kaleidoscope was founded in 1966 and featured David Lindley. David would go on to become an in-demand session musician and a hired gun, as well as a solo artist. He was an incredibly talented and versatile musician on virtually any stringed instrument you can think of. David Lindley has played on tons, tons of albums, but he is mostly famous for one guitar solo– the solo he played using a lap steel guitar on Jackson Brown’s “Running On Empty”.

But back in 1967, Lindley was playing in this psychedelic band, Kaleidoscope. They released their first album, “Side Trips”, in June 1967, the Summer of Love. Here’s a song from that album called “Pulsating Dream”.

So somehow, Larry Williams and Johnny Watson, two lifelong R&B performers, decided to bring in this psychedelic band, Kaleidoscope, to back them on this one song.

“Nobody” was written by Dick Cooper and Ernie Shelby. It was produced by Larry Williams and Johnny Watson, and released in December 1967.

All the members of Kaleidoscope were multi-instrumentalists and often played traditional instruments. Not the kind of stuff you hear on most rock songs, and not my area of expertise. Sounds to me like there’s one part played on maybe an Oud, which is a fretless, stringed instrument from the Middle east. There might be a sitar in there, an acoustic slide guitar… I don’t know. Like I said, I’m no expert, but this is definitely not your typical Motown or Stax track.

Let’s listen to just their vocal track.

Now, they’re gonna do a classic R&B-style break here, but the oddball instrumentation puts such a great and fresh spin on this.

“The way we look and the way we dress may make some people frown, they just don’t understand our bag, that’s why they put us down”. You can tell this was written in 1967, and I love it. I also love this little vocal part here, too.

Let’s pick it back up right before that part.

And that gets us to a short little instrumental section where Kaleidoscope gets to do their instruments here. I don’t know who’s playing what, if that’s David Lindley playing the main part or not, but let’s listen.

And that brings us into another chorus.

Let’s back it up a little bit. We’ll take out the vocals and listen to just the instrumentation and the percussion.

I love these parts. Let’s go back and listen to just the vocals.

And here’s the instrumental part underneath that.

And check out this totally psychedelic ending.

“Nobody” by Larry Williams and Johnny Watson, with The Kaleidoscope.

This song would be recorded and released as a single a year later by Three Dog Night in November 1968. But their version is more conservative, without the exotic instrumentation and the psychedelic sounds. I much prefer this version.

Larry Williams lived a hard life. Drugs and violence were a consistent part of his life. He spent time in prison. On January 1980, he was found dead in his home, a bullet in his head. His death was ruled a suicide, but some suspected he’d been murdered. He was only 44.

As I mentioned before, Frank Zappa was a big fan of Johnny “Guitar” Watson, and Zappa invited Johnny to play on four of his albums. In the 1970’s, Johnny reinvented himself as a funk and disco artist. He re-recorded the song “Gangster of Love” in 1978, and it finally became a hit.

After Larry Williams death, Johnny kind of retreated from the public for a while. Though he would still perform overseas, he staged another comeback in 1994 with his album “Bow Wow”. A tour of Japan was planned for 1996 starting on May 12^th; on May 17, Johnny and his band took to the stage in Yokohama. As he began the second verse of “Superman Lover”, he grabbed his chest and fell to the floor. He died that night of a heart attack, age 61.

Kaleidoscope would go on to release four albums between 1967 and 1970, along with two reunion albums, one in ‘76 and one in 1991. David Lindley, of course, went on to much greater success as a sideman and with his own band, El Rayo X.

Four of the original five members of Kaleidoscope have passed away now, including David Lindley, who died last year, March 3, 2023. He was 78.

Thanks for joining me on this episode. I hope you like this one. As always, there are more coming. Another edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast will be here in just about two weeks. And of course, if you’d like to catch up on all of our previous episodes, you’ll find them on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com. Or look for us in your favorite podcast app.

If you’d like to support the show, write a positive review, those algorithms really love those positive reviews. But even better is if you tell a friend about the show, because your recommendations really do carry a lot of weight.

I’ll meet you back here soon on the Pantheon Podcast Network. Until then, stay groovy like Larry Williams and Johnny Watson with the Kaleidoscope on “Nobody”.

REFERENCES:

Larry Williams
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Williams

Johnny Watson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_%22Guitar%22_Watson

The Kaleidoscope (band)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaleidoscope_(American_band)

Specialty Records
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialty_Records

The Beatles
https://www.thebeatles.com/

Frank Zappa
https://www.zappa.com/

David Lindley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lindley_(musician)

Jackson Browne
https://www.jacksonbrowne.com/

Steve Miller Band
https://www.stevemillerband.com/

Pantheon Podcast Network
https://pantheonpodcasts.com/

Iggy Pop made his (first) comeback with the Raw Power album, released in 1973. The album opens with the ferocious track “Search And Destroy”. Produced by David Bowie and powered by the savage energy of the reconstituted Stooges (featuring James Williamson’s guitar fury), this track set the tone, not only for this album, but for decades of punk and heavy metal to come.

— This show is part of the Pantheon podcast network — THE place for music junkies, geeks, nerds, diehards and fans!

TRANSCRIPT:

Greetings, wild ones. I am Brad Page, your host here on the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, one of many great shows on the Pantheon Podcast Network. Each episode of this show, I pick a song and we dig into it together, trying to get a handle on what makes it a great song. You do not have to be a musical expert to enjoy this show; we run a jargon-free, low-tech shop here that’s light on music theory and heavy on just listening.

There are rock stars, there are legends, and there are huge personalities. And then there are people like Iggy Pop, who somehow manage to transcend all of that, who reach beyond genre. You like hard rock or heavy metal? Iggy Pop was kicking ass with the originators of those sounds. You like punk? Iggy is one of the founding fathers of punk. If you prefer new wave, Iggy made his mark there, too. The dude even released a jazz album.

What a career.

On this episode, we’re heading back to 1973 for “Raw Power”, Iggy’s third album with the Stooges, and one of their all-time classic songs. Buckle up, because this is Iggy & The Stooges with “Search And Destroy”.

James Osterberg, Jr. Was born in Michigan in April 1947. His dad was an English teacher and he grew up modestly living in a trailer park in Ypsilanti. But his parents were supportive of his musical endeavors, even making room in the trailer for his drum set. He played drums for some local bands, including the Iguanas, which is how he would earn the nickname “Iggy”. He eventually landed in Chicago and started a band called the Psychedelic Stooges. Iggy became the lead singer, with Ron Ashton on guitar, his brother Scott Ashton on drums, and Dave Alexander on bass. They started calling him “Pop”. And so Iggy Pop was born.

In 1968, they signed with Electra Records and their first album, “The Stooges”, produced by John Kale, was released in August 1969.

They followed that with their second album, Funhouse, in 1970.

Neither album was commercially successful. Of course, they’ve gone on to become classics, but at the time, few people were interested. But one person who was listening was David Bowie. By then, the Stooges had split up and Iggy was pretty deep into his heroin addiction. But Bowie scooped him up, along with guitarist James Williamson, who had joined the Stooges at the tail end. Before they split, Bowie took them both to London, hoping to hook them up with some British players to form a new band. But that just wasn’t working out. Iggy and Williamson were just too “Detroit” for these London glam musicians, so they brought back Ron and Scott Ashton, with Williamson on guitar. Ron switched to bass. He wasn’t exactly happy about that, but he did it.

They signed a deal with CBS Records and recorded the new album at CBS Studios in London. Iggy originally produced and mixed the album, but apparently that mix was kind of a mess and CBS wouldn’t release it. So Bowie was brought in to remix the record. Working under a limited budget, and with limited time, he had to mix the album in one day and it kind of shows it’s a rough and raw mix.

Released in February 1973, the album, called “Raw Power”, wasn’t any more commercially successful than his first two albums. But like those records now, “Raw Power” is considered a classic.

Now, before we delve into the album, there’s one thing we have to discuss, and that is these various mixes. As I mentioned before, David Bowie had mixed the album under less-than-ideal conditions and that is the version that was released on vinyl in 1973. But when the album was rereleased on CD in 1997, Iggy Pop remixed the whole album, and this has led to differing opinions. Some, like the legendary critic Robert Christgau, prefers Iggy’s remix. But many fans, including both James Williamson and Ron Ashton, who were in The Stooges, didn’t like Iggy’s new remix at all, and say the original Bowie mix was better. Now, none of this really matters if you’re listening to the album on vinyl– that’s the original mix. But if you’re listening on CD, well, which one are you really listening to?

There’s the first CD version from 1989, which, like many early CD’s, was not a great transfer. Then there’s Iggy’s remix from 1997. And then there’s the deluxe “Legacy” version CD released in 2010 that restored Bowie’s original mix. And, if you’re listening to it by streaming, well, good luck, because who knows which version you’re getting?

Let’s quickly compare the two. Here is the original Bowie mix and as acknowledged, it’s far from perfect:

And this is the 1997 Iggy remix. You can hear he’s pushed everything into the red. It’s a lot louder, but there’s also a lot of digital distortion which you can clearly hear:

The version that I am going to use here is from the 2010 “Legacy Edition” CD with the remastered and restored Bowie mix. I think that gets us closest to the original version and the original intent. Again, it’s not a great mix, but I think it’s the best of the choices available.

Ok, so the album opens with “Search And Destroy”. Like all the tracks on the album, it was written by Iggy Pop and James Williamson. It features James Williamson on guitar, Ron Ashton on bass and backing vocals, Scott Ashton on drums, and Iggy Pop on lead vocal.

The whole band launches in from the start. A couple of bars in, James Williamson overdubs a few guitar licks.

The song was inspired by an article in Time magazine about the Vietnam War. It’s always been assumed that the character in the song is a soldier, but there’s plenty of Iggy in this character, too. On the back of the album cover, there’s a photo of Iggy in one of his favorite jackets with a cheetah sewn on the back. So Iggy himself could be the “street walking cheetah”.

Let’s look at each element of the second verse. First, let’s hear the bass. Ron Ashton is using a really gnarly, fuzzed out bass sound on this track.

And now let’s hear Scott Ashton on the drums. I really like what he’s doing here.

And let’s check out guitar.

And listen to that second verse.

Let’s listen to the guitar in this section again. You can hear that there’s a second rhythm guitar overdubbed on this part, which adds a little extra punch to this already pretty powerful tracker.

You can barely hear the bass and the drums, they’re mixed so low.

Let’s go back and listen to just the bass and drums.

There’s let’s hear that all together again.

And there’s another short solo from James Williamson.

James Williamson really tearing it up here. Listen to his guitar behind the vocal.

“Search And Destroy” by Iggy and The Stooges.

Whether you want to call it proto-punk, primitive, heavy metal, or just the purest form of rock and roll, there is no denying how influential Iggy and The Stooges were, and how important “Search And Destroy” was in particular.

As always, I thank you for joining me for this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. New episodes are released into the wild on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so I’ll join you again then. And if you’re still jonesing for more, there are a ton of old episodes just waiting for you to discover them. You’ll find them on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or just look for them in your favorite podcast app.

You can support the show by writing a review and by telling a friend about the show. The power of your recommendation is the strongest advertising tool that we have. So, thanks for spreading the word.

On behalf of everyone on the Pantheon network, I remind you to support the artists you love by buying their music. And I thank you for listening to this episode on Iggy Pop and The Stooges and “Search And Destroy”.

REFERENCES:

Iggy Pop
https://www.iggypop.com/

The Stooges
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stooges

Raw Power Album
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_Power

David Bowie
https://www.davidbowie.com/

James Williamson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Williamson_(musician)

Ron Ashton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Asheton

Scott Ashton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Asheton

CBS Records
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBS_Records_International

Time Magazine
https://time.com/

Robert Christgau
https://www.robertchristgau.com/

Month: February 2025

Larry Williams & Johnny Watson – “Nobody”

Iggy & The Stooges – “Search And Destroy”