Click here to play the podcastWhat 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.
“Nobody” (Dick Cooper, Ernie Shelby) Copyright 1967 Mikim Music Inc/Carlin Music Corp.
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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 12th; 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/