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

Many bands would be running out of ideas by their 8^th album, but not Earth, Wind &Fire – many consider All ‘n All to be their best record. Freshly inspired by the varied sounds & rhythms of South America, Maurice White brought his genre-blending compositions to new heights on this 1977 album, as evidenced by the opening track, “Serpentine Fire”, which White himself described as Earth Wind & Fire’s “most ambitious single”.

TRANSCRIPT:

Sing a song and keep your head to the sky, ‘cause you’re all shining stars. This is the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, one of many fine shows on the Pantheon Podcast Network, and I’m your host, Brad Page. Each episode, I pick one of my favorite songs and we dig into it together, looking and listening for all those magic moments, the little things that turn a good song into a great one. Don’t worry if you’re not a musician or musical expert, you don’t need to be. We’re just going to tune our ears into the arrangements, the performances and the production that make it a great song.

This episode we’re listening to one of the biggest, most successful acts in history. Call ‘em R&B, call ‘em funk, call ‘em Afro pop, jazz, soul…. any way you look at it, this band has an incredible catalog of music and a bunch of huge hits. We’re going to explore one of those hits right now: This is Earth, Wind And Fire with “Serpentine Fire”.

This is our second visit with Earth Wind And Fire. We covered the song “Shining Star” back on Episode 56– check that one out if you haven’t heard it yet. It’s one of my favorites. So let’s recap just a little of Earth Wind and Fire’s history here.

Maurice White was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1941. For a while he played with Booker T in Memphis before he moved to Chicago to live with his mother and stepfather. He attended the Chicago Conservatory of Music, played drums around the scene, and worked as a session drummer at Chess Studios, where he played with many of the greats: Etta James, Chuck Berry, Junior Wells, Muddy Waters, just to name a few.

In 1969, he formed the Salty Peppers with Wade Flemings and Don Whitehead. Eventually he moved to LA and changed the name of the band to Earth Wind and Fire, based on his astrological sign. In 1970, his brother Verdine White joined the band as their bass player. Earth Wind and Fire released their first self-titled album in 1971. Their second album, “The Need of Love”, came out the same year, and a third album, “Last Days And Time”, was issued in 1972. That was the first album with vocalist Philip Bailey, who would share vocals with Maurice White and become a critical factor in the band.

“Head To The Sky” came out in 1973, and “Open Our Eyes”, their fifth album, in 1974. This album features “Mighty Mighty”, which was kind of their first big crossover hit.

In 1975, they released “That’s The Way of the World”, their 6th album. It was also the soundtrack to the film That’s The Way of the World, and the band appears in the movie. “Shining Star” is from this album, and it would become their first #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. See our previously-mentioned Episode 56 for more details.

The title cut was also issued as a single.

Maurice White was a musical visionary, but he was more than that, too. He envisioned bringing people together spiritually through his music. He viewed their next album, the album that would become “Spirit”, as their most important album so far. He was also interested in showing a different vision of black masculinity than what you typically got from celebrities. He wanted to present the band as “sons of a royal and noble Africa”.

The album cover featured the band all dressed in white, eyes closed in meditative poses with three large white pyramids behind them. This was the first of many album covers that would feature eastern and Egyptian imagery.

He wanted to awaken spirituality among his audience. Not so much religion, but spirituality. His goal was to share his interests– mysticism, Buddhism, Egyptology. As Maurice said, “Our vibe was definitely afro-centric, but not a separatist one. It was about community, the family of man.”

Sadly, as they were working on the “Spirit” album, they lost a key member of their family. Charles Stepney had worked closely with the band on their last few albums as producer, arranger and contributing songwriter. He died on May 17, 1976 from a heart attack. He was 45 years old. He was a close friend of Maurice White and the whole band, really. The album would be in many ways a tribute to Stepney. “Spirit”, their 7th studio album was released in September 1976.

After the success of the “Spirit” album and the massive tour that followed, by now, Earth Wind and Fire were putting on an amazing stage show and they were a huge concert draw. But Maurice White was exhausted. He needed a break. He took the first vacation of his life, spending two months touring South America. He visited drum schools in Brazil and absorbed the sounds and rhythms of the various cultures. When he returned home, he brought these fresh ideas to the next Earth Wind and Fire album, which would be called “All In All”, their 8th album of all new material.

Now, you would think at that pace, eight albums plus a live album, all within six years, that they would have run out of steam. But many people consider “All In All” to be their best album.

“Serpentine Fire” is the song that opens the album, and what a way to kick it off. It was written by Maurice White, Verdine White and Reginald Sonny Burke. It was produced by Maurice White.

\Maurice has described the song as “profoundly odd, an idiosyncratic mixture of African music, tango and gospel blues, with an abstract lyric about Kundalini energy.” Kundalini is a form of divine feminine energy located at the base of the spine. When awakened, it leads to spiritual liberation. Kundalini is a Sanskrit word meaning “coiled, or coiled like a snake”.

Maurice White says “Serpentine Fire” is Earth Wind and Fire’s most ambitious single because it’s so musically abstract. The song begins with an intro played by the bass, keyboards and percussion, with the horns joining in after the first four measures. You can already hear that Latin feel in the percussion.

Let’s go back and listen to the keyboards because it’s a very dense mix. A lot going on. Sometimes it’s hard to pick out the individual parts. There are at least two keyboard parts, one on the left and one on the right. The one on the right has a phasing effect on it. From there, it’s going to break out into a supremely funky track.

Let’s break that down a bit. Like all good funk songs, at the heart of the groove is the bass guitar. Adding to this syncopation is both the percussion and the horn parts. So let’s listen to those.

Little further down in the mix are the keyboard parts.

And there is one guitar part in the left channel. Let’s hear all of that together again. Now for the first verse.

Let’s check out the vocals. This is Maurice White with an occasional harmony by Philip Bailey. The vocals are doubled with a decent amount of reverb on them.

Let’s continue with the rest of that verse. This is the chorus where Philip Bailey takes over. Philip was renowned for his falsetto, and the way it contrasted and complemented Maurice White’s vocals is one of the most magical things about Earth Wind and Fire.

At the end of the chorus is a short section where they bring in the gospel influence. You can see how they’re blending all kinds of elements together.

That brings us back to the main riff. I love that vocal bit at the end there.

We’l pick it back up for the next verse.

That groove is so great. I want to hear just a little of the bass, the horns and the percussion. We’ll keep a little of the guitar in there, too.

I want to hear more of Maurice White’s vocal track.

And I’d like to hear just the vocals on that part, too.

There’s kind of a big finish there this time around. They could have ended the song right there, but just when you think it’s done, they kick back in.

Notice how there’s tuned percussion.

And that brings us to the last chorus. The guitars and keyboards are going to make their way forward a bit in the mix here at the end. The guitars are still difficult to make out, but there are two guitar parts in there. That’s pretty crazy, right? And of course, there are still the two keyboard parts. And of course, that killer bass guitar part that I just got to hear it by itself one more time.

All right, let’s go back to the final mix. We get another round of the chorus vocals, then the horns take over as the song fades out.

“Serpentine Fire” by Earth Wind and Fire. The “All In All” album was released in November 1977. The album cover featured artwork by Shusei Nagaoka. Shusei didn’t speak English, and Maurice didn’t speak Japanese, but they met and Maurice was able to articulate his ideas by showing him books on Egyptian art and UFO’s. Nagaoka sketched out some ideas and a relationship was forged that would result in a whole string of album covers for Earth Wind and Fire. Nagaoka created a bunch of other album covers for ELO, Jefferson Starship, and Deep Purple, but my favorites of his are the covers he did for Earth Wind and Fire.

Thanks for being a part of this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. You can find all of our previous episodes on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or just look for us in your favorite podcast app. We’ll be back in about two weeks with another new episode. Until then, check out some of the other great podcasts on the Pantheon Podcast Network.

It’d be great if you left a review wherever you listen to the show, and if you’d like to contact us, you can find us on Facebook, or send an email to lovethatsongpodcastmail.com.

If you’d like to support the show, the best thing you can do is to tell a friend about it, because your recommendation really does mean a lot. As always, remember to support the artists you love by buying their music. And thanks for listening to this episode on Earth wind and Fire with “Serpentine Fire”.

William Bell - Published by Bais Music (BMI) & Irving Music (BMI)

Throughout the tapestry of music history, certain figures stand out not just for their talent but for their sheer courage and resilience. Count Jackie Shane among them– a groundbreaking black trans woman who made a mark on the music scene in the 1950’s and 60’s. In our latest podcast episode, we delve into the life and legacy of Jackie Shane, a trailblazer whose story is as compelling as her music.

“Any Other Way” William Bell – Published by Bais Music (BMI) & Irving Music (BMI)

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome back to the “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast– dreaming, screaming and streaming to you through the Pantheon Podcast network. My name is Brad Page, host of the show, and each episode here, I pick one of my favorite songs, and we kind of do the audio equivalent of taking out the magnifying glass and getting a close-up look at the song, uncovering all the elements that make it a great song.

So let’s get this out of the way right at the outset: If you’re one of those folks who gets all bent out of shape about things being “Woke”, well, I gotta tell you, this is our wokiest episode yet. June is Pride Month, and as an old straight white guy, I am perfectly happy to stand with our LGBTQ+ friends. And on this episode, we are going to celebrate a groundbreaking figure in the history of the gay and trans community, who is largely unknown but no less important. This is Jackie Shane and a song called “Any Other Way”.

Jackie Shane was born in May 1940 in Nashville, Tennessee. She was born in a boy’s body, but from the beginning, her mind, heart and soul was a black woman. At four years old, she was putting on high heels and dresses, trying on her mom’s makeup. She lived with her mother and grandparents, and they were all supportive of Jackie.

She started singing in church when she was eight, and joined the glee club in junior high. By the time she was 13, she considered herself a woman in a man’s body and started wearing makeup to school. This couldn’t have been easy… this was the 1950’s, after all. But Jackie was confident and stubborn and determined to be herself. She learned to play drums and had her first professional gigs, playing with a trio– herself a piano player and a guitarist. Jackie would play drums standing up and singing lead. Her first recording was in 1957, playing drums on a track called “I Miss You” by Lillian Offit. Lillian’s singing isn’t anything special and the guitar is out of tune, but Jackie’s simple drum beat swings.

Jackie kept busy playing drums on more recording sessions for Excello Records, and playing a ton of live shows in and around Nashville, playing with Big Mabel, Gatemouth Brown, Little Willie John, Joe Tex and more. Around 1958, on the advice from Joe Tex, she left Nashville. She spent time touring with a carnival. The carnival eventually made its way to Canada, where Jackie split with the carnival and made her way to Montreal. It was a smart move. Being black in the South in the ‘50’s was hard enough, being openly gay… but in Canada she felt free.

Not that things weren’t hard… or weird. She was dodging the mob and at one point, was essentially kidnapped by a gangster who thought he was going to make her a star. She talked her way out of that one.

In Montreal, Jackie met a trumpet player named Frank Motley, and she joined his band, the Motley Crew. No, not that Motley Crue. The band would rotate between gigs in Montreal, Toronto, Boston and Washington DC. When they would play in Boston, they were one of the hottest tickets in town. And Jackie was the star of the show. She’d work the audience until they went wild. Tables would be turned over. It was a whole scene.

Jackie had star power, but she wasn’t outrageous. She was subtle. She did her hair and wore makeup, but she didn’t dress outlandish. Her clothes were stylish but androgynous. Her performance style was subtle, too. One musician described her as “gliding like silk”. Focused, controlled, refined in command. She could be mesmerizing.

And this was Jackie offstage, too. This was not an act. She was not a drag queen or what they used to call a “female impersonator”. On stage or off, she was graceful, dignified and always open, honest and authentic about who she was.

In 1960, while playing the clubs in Washington DC, Frank Motley booked some studio time. After laying down a handful of his tracks, he asked Jackie to sing a few numbers. Jackie felt like she was being put on the spot. She wasn’t prepared to record anything, but reluctantly, she cut a few tracks, including a version of Barrett Strong’s “Money”. These recordings remained unreleased for years, until 1966– six years later, “Money” was released as a single on the Stop label out of Boston.

Meanwhile, Motley, Jackie and the band continued to work their circuit, building quite a following in Montreal and Toronto, as well as DC and Boston. It was while they were in Boston in 1962 that Jackie recorded the song that would be her signature tune. It was originally written and recorded by Stax recording artist William Bell. Here’s a bit of his version.

“Any Other Way” was a brand new song; t this time, it probably had only been out a few weeks before Jackie picked up on it. In fact, the band had likely only played it a handful of times before they recorded it for this session. And the clock was ticking in the studio. Time was tight, and she only had time to record one take– and she nailed it.

The song begins with a short introduction led by the horns. This is unique to Jackie Shane’s version; the original William Bell version doesn’t have this part, but it’s a major hook in Jackie’s version. The tempo is also just a little bit slower, giving a little more sultry feel to Jackie’s recording.

Everything here is very restrained; the horns pull back, the drummer is playing lightly, tapping his stick on the rim of the snare drum. It’s a classic technique. And Jackie turns in a tasteful vocal. No histrionics here, just a smooth, classy vocal.

Now, some people have pointed out that line, “Tell her that I’m happy, tell her that I’m gay”, and tried to assign some meaning to that. But that line was already in William Bell’s original version of the song. The intent of that lyric seems pretty clear. It’s not to say Jackie was unaware of the interpretation, but let’s not read too much into that. Let’s listen to Jackie’s vocal.

That ends the first verse. And another blast of the horns sets us up for verse number two. There’s even some snare drum fills in here.

I like Jackie’s little laugh before that last line.

You can hear Jackie pop the microphone there. That’s due to what we call “plosives”. That’s when a blast of air from your mouth, from the pronunciation of certain letters, causes the microphone to distort for a split second. That’s the kind of thing you would redo, especially today. But remember, Jackie had only one take, one chance to get it done. There was no time for do-overs.

And those horns return to bring us into the third and final verse. It’s a short song, two and a half minutes– just three verses, no bridge. Here’s that last verse.

And we’ll ride out over that horn riff through to the fade.

Jackie Shane – “Any Other Way”.

Jackie continued to work up through the end of the 1960’s with Frank Motley and the Motley crew, but also with other musicians, too. In fact, George Clinton and Funkadelic wanted to work with her, but she said no. They were just a little too far out, even for Jackie Shane.

One night, Frank Motley showed up to a gig drunk and the promoter called off the show. That was too much for Jackie. She decided she’d had enough. When she told Motley that she was leaving, he lost it– pulled a knife on her and threatened her. But she stood her ground and demanded that she got paid for the gig.

She played her last shows, and in December 1971, she walked off stage after her final performance in Toronto, and left the music business forever.

She essentially disappeared. She lived out the rest of her life in private, spending time caring for her mother, who passed in 1997. She had accomplished what she wanted, and she was content to stay out of the limelight. At the age of 78, Jackie Shane passed away in her sleep in February 2019.

Jackie only recorded a handful of tracks, and there is virtually no film or video of her performances. The only one I know of is an appearance on the local Nashville TV show “Night Train” in 1965. It’s a tight, fun performance, though Jackie is pretty reserved; she did not like doing TV and I believe this was her one and only TV performance. You can find it on YouTube if you look for it.

There is one album available, a live recording called “Jackie Shane Live”. It’s been reissued and you can find that one. And if you really want to dig deeper, there is a 2-CD set called “Any Other Way” that includes an excellent booklet outlining Jackie’s story. It was written by Rob Bowman, and I borrowed liberally from that book to put this episode together. So my thanks to Rob and to the Numero Group for putting out that collection.

Jackie Shane was a trailblazer. She was courageous and brave and strong. She had to be to be out in the world as a black trans woman in the 1950’s and 1960’s. I can’t even imagine. So, if paying tribute to someone with the strength, courage, and dignity of Jackie Shane makes me “woke”, well, I’m more than happy to be woke.

Thanks for joining me here on the Pantheon Network for this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast. New episodes come out on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so I’ll meet you back here then. You can catch up on all of our previous episodes on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or find the episodes on your favorite Podcast app.

If you’d like to support the show, just go tell a friend about it. Your word-of-mouth support is the best promotion I could ask for. So thanks for that.

And thanks for listening to this episode on Jackie Shane and “Any Other Way”.

REFERENCES:

Jackie Shane
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Shane

Frank Motley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Motley

Excello Records
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excello_Records

Rob Bowman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Bowman_(music_writer)

Numero Group
https://numerogroup.com/

Any Other Way (Album)
https://numerogroup.com/products/jackie-shane-any-other-way

Night Train TV Show
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Train_(TV_series)

William Bell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bell_(singer)

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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.

— Do yourself a favor and check out the other great music podcasts on the Pantheon Podcast Network. And remember to follow this show so you never miss an episode!

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/

Podcast

Fontella Bass – “Rescue Me”

January 15, 2025
Tagged as: 1960's, American Express Commercial, Carl Smith, Checker Records, Chess Studios, Fontella Bass, Little Milton, Maurice White, Mini Ripperton, Motown Sound, One Hit Wonder, R&B, Rescue Me, Rhythm And Blues, Songwriting Royalties, Soul

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This episode, we travel back to Chicago, 1965 and dive into Fontella Bass‘s iconic hit, “Rescue Me.” Let’s explore this timeless track, recorded at the legendary Chess Studios, and discover the musical elements, the stellar lineup of musicians, and the story of Fontella Bass– an artist who did things her way.

TRANSCRIPT:

Well, hello. It’s good to have you back. This is the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, and I’m your host, Brad Page, coming to you on the Pantheon Podcast Network with another one of my favorite songs that we’re going to explore together on our continuing quest to understand how great songs come together. You do not have to be a musician or a musical expert to enjoy this show. All we ask is a willingness to listen, and you’ll come away from this show with a new appreciation for how great songs work.

On this episode, we’re travelling back to Chicago 1965, the famed Chess studios, and Fontella Bass with a song called “Rescue Me”.

There are many genres of popular music, but there’s one trait or trend that’s common in all of them: the “one-hit wonder”. Doesn’t matter if you’re talking about rock & roll, country music, R&B, hip-hop, rap, Top 40, they all have a history that’s littered with so-called one-hit wonders. In many cases, you can walk up to people on the street and nine out of ten of them might have heard of the song, but they couldn’t tell you who did it. But behind most of these songs are artists who worked for years before that song was a hit– and in many cases, worked for years afterwards. And this is one of those stories.

Fontella ass was born in July 1940. Her mother was a well-respected gospel singer, but Fontella made her career in the less-wholesome world of rhythm and blues. She played piano for guitarist Little Milton’s band. Here’s a song by Little Milton called “Satisfied” with Fontella on piano.

One night, Little Milton was late to the show so Fontella sang a few songs, and she did so well that they started giving her a featured vocal every night. When Milton’s bandleader, Oliver Sain, left, Fontella went with him. She eventually signed with Bobbin Records and released her first single, “I Don’t Hurt Anymore” in 1962.

Then she ended up with Ike Turner and recorded a few singles for his label, including 1964’s “Poor Little Fool”, which features Tina Turner on backing vocals.

Around this time, she met the legendary jazz trumpet player Lester Bowie, and they eventually got married. In 1965, she signed to Checker Records, a subsidiary of the great Chess Records label. Her first couple of singles for Checker were duets with singer Bobby McClure, the most successful one being a song called “Don’t Mess Up A Good Thing”.

In August 1965, Fontella was bouncing ideas around with Raynard Miner and Carl Smith, two of the producers and songwriters at Chess. Arranger Phil Wright joined in, and by the time they were done, they had written “Rescue Me”.

You would be forgiven for thinking that “Rescue Me” was a Motown song. It has all the hallmarks of a Motown classic: the four-to-the-bar snare (that insistent drumbeat with the snare on every beat), the horn section hooks, the infectious chorus. I’m sure that was intentional. The Motown sound was the new sound. Chess Records was starting to sound dated, and I think they were desperate to capture some of that Motown magic with the “Rescue Me”. They did.

According to Fontella, she was assured that she would get a writing credit for “Rescue Me”. But when the single came out, it was credited to Miner and Smith. Her name was not included. The song would go on to sell a million copies; it was Chess’ biggest hit in a decade. But Fontella didn’t get any of those songwriting royalties.

The song was performed by Raynard Miner on piano, Sonny Thompson on organ, Pete Casey and Gerald Sims on guitars, Gene Barge on tenor sax. And check this out: Louis Satterfield on bass, Charles Stepney on vibes, and Maurice White on drums. Maurice White was the man behind Earth, Wind And Fire, and both Setterfield and Stepney would be a key part of Earth, Wind And Fire. And if that wasn’t enough, on backing vocals, you’ve got the great Minnie Ripperton. Now, that is quite the band.

The song begins with the groove laid down by Louis Satterfield on bass and Maurice White on drums. Next in are the piano and a chucking guitar part. A quick drum fill by Maurice White brings in the rest of the band, including the horns. And then we’re off.

Now, that little part right there, you’ve probably heard parts like that many times, but I love that part. And it’s interesting to me because here’s why. First off, it’s descending in pitch. I mean, that’s obvious, but it is also kind of stretching in time.

Now, I know I always say we don’t get technical here, we don’t get into music theory, so don’t worry, I’m going to keep this simple. But I do want to at least scratch the surface of what’s going on here, so stick with me.

The first two notes of this section are 8th notes, hitting on the first beat of the measure. So, if you were counting it, as in “one and two and three and four and”, those first two notes would be the “one and” of this measure. But the next three notes fall in between those beats. There’s a pause or a “rest” in musical terms. So again, if you’re counting it, those notes hit on the and two and three and four. And so that leaves you with the rhythmical sensation of things slowing down. They don’t actually slow down– you can tap your foot to the beat and it stays in time. But those pauses and that shift in rhythm give the feeling of things slowing just a bit. Combine that with the notes descending in pitch, and you’ve got a very simple but very effective manipulation of your senses.

So let’s go back and hear all of that again in context.

“Rescue Me” just a great vocal performance by Fontella through the whole song. Let’s go back and focus on her vocal here.

And that brings us to the first chorus, with Fontella supported by the great Minnie Ripperton on backing vocals. It’s just an all-time classic chorus, augmented by those horns. And notice how high the horns are in the mix.

And that leads directly into the second verse. So let’s let that play through.

Now let’s go back and listen to that verse without the vocals, so we can just hear the band grooving. Couple of things to note. The bass is doing most of the heavy lifting here, but the piano is providing most of the flourishes. The rest of the instruments are playing it pretty straight. There’s a decent amount of reverb on the track, but it’s not overdone. And then, of course, there’s the ever-present tambourine, the secret weapon on many Motown tracks. So, of course, they gotta add one here, too. You can also hear some percussion on this track, probably conga drums.

Okay, here’s the second chorus.

And here comes a breakdown. Essentially the same as the intro, with everything dropping out except the bass and the drums, and then building back up. I like that descending piano part right before the vocals come back in. Let’s hear this last verse.

I like what the piano is doing here. Bring up the vocals again.

And here at the end, they break it down again, bringing it down to just the drums and percussion, bass and vocals.

And we ride out with just the bass, congas, and vocals.

“Rescue Me” by Fontella Bass.

Fontella never did get the songwriting credit she deserved. She said they kept promising her that they’d take care of it, but it never happened. When she got her first royalty check from Chess, it was so small, she tore it up and threw it back at them.

She got sick of the pop music business and did some work with her husband, Lester Bowie, performing on a couple of jazz albums with him. She released one more solo album in 1972, but then largely retired from the music business. She would release a few gospel albums down the road, but that was about it. But the one album she released for Chess in 1966 following the success of “Rescue Me”, it’s a pretty solid record. I like that album.

Around 1990, she was watching TV when she heard a voice singing “Rescue Me” in an American Express commercial. No one had asked her permission. She challenged American Express and in 1993 they settled with her for over $50,000.

Later in life, she suffered some health issues; breast cancer, a few strokes, and she had a leg amputated. She died from complications from a heart attack on December 26, the day after Christmas, 2012. She was 72 years old.

“Rescue Me” may have been her only big hit, but Fontella Bass did things her way, with integrity. She didn’t spend the rest of her life trying to find the next “Rescue Me”. I think there’s a lesson in there for other one-hit wonders.

Thank you for joining me for this search and rescue mission. We’ll be back again in about two weeks with another new episode of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, right here on the Pantheon Podcast Network.

If you’d like to catch up on any of our previous episodes, you’ll find them all on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or of course, you can find us in pretty much every podcast app and player that’s out there.

If you’d like to support the show, all I ask is that you share it with your friends– tell people about the show, because it’s your word-of-mouth that really helps us to grow our audience and celebrate this music that we love.

I’ll see you again in about 15 days. Thanks for listening to this episode on “Rescue Me” by Fontella Bass.

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It’s time for our occasional, somewhat-annual Halloween Spooktacular episode, where we pick a song appropriate to the season and see what terror awaits us. And what better way to get into the Halloween spirit than an examination (autopsy?) of the original “shock rock” song—“I Put A Spell On You” by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.

PREVIEW:

TRANSCRIPT:

It is time to ask the eternal question that has beguiled all of us since childhood: Trick Or Treat. That’s right, it’s time for our sort-of annual, somewhat occasional Halloween Special Edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. My name is Brad Page. I’m here on the Pantheon Podcast Network, where each episode I pick a favorite song and we deep-dive into it.

In keeping with the Halloween tradition, this time I’ve selected a seasonally appropriate track. In fact, this one is almost ground zero for over-the-top performances out of some kind of nightmare. Before there was Tobias Forge, before there was Marilyn Manson, before Alice Cooper, before Arthur Brown, there was Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and “I Put A Spell On You”.

The life of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins is one big tall tale. So much so that it’s hard to tell fact from fiction with any details of his life, at least as he told them. He made up stories about his military record; he claimed to have studied at the Ohio Conservatory of Music– there is actually no such place; and he said that he fathered 57 children, although 33 children so far have been traced back to him… so maybe that part is true.

After he was discharged from the army, where he played saxophone in the Special Services branch, he returned home to Cleveland, Ohio. He left his first wife and child– this was the first in a long line of pretty terrible treatment of women– and connected with DJ Alan Freed. From there, he hooked up with a performer named Tiny Grimes. Tiny’s schtick was to dress up like a Scottish Highlander, kilt and all. It was with Tiny Grimes that he first developed his Screamin’ Jay Hawkins personality. He eventually went solo and over time, developed the stage show that he became famous for. Leopard skin costumes, capes, voodoo imagery, carrying a skull and a stick.

He wrote and first recorded “I Put A Spell On You” in 1954, but that version wasn’t released. He did release a handful of other singles, though, but none of those were very successful. He moved from label to label, and in 1956 landed at Okeh Records, where he recorded a new version of “I Put A Spell On You”. The producer, Arnold Maxim, thought that they were playing it a little too straight, too safe, not wild enough. So he brought a few cases of beer into the studio, and when the band was suitably trashed, that’s when he pressed the record button.

The song is in 6/8 time, which you can count as two groups of three, like 123-456. And they play it with this very lumbering feel. I can picture some kind of zombie clomping out of the fog. Each footstep on the count of one and four: 123, 456.

That laugh he does there is so great.

Along with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins on vocals, the band included Mickey Baker on guitar, Ernie Hayes on piano, Al Lucas on bass, David Panama Francis on drums, Bud Johnson on baritone sax, and Sam “The Man” Taylor on tenor sax. Here’s where the sax gets to play a solo.

And there’s one more verse, and that’s it. The song is only 2 minutes and 25 seconds long. You know, back in the ‘50’s, there wasn’t a lot of time to mess around. They kept these singles real tight.

Let’s bring up his vocals here.

Now that’s an ending. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – “I Put A Spell On You”.

Initially, radio stations didn’t want to play it, probably no surprise… but over time, this song would sell a million copies and make Screamin’ Jay Hawkins the original shock-rocker. They used to call him the “Black Vincent Price”. He never really had another hit, but he milked this song for all its worth and made a whole career out of it. He performed right up until his death in February 2000 of an aneurysm.

This song has been covered over 100 times. There are many versions out there by a wide range of artists, like Credence Clearwater Revival.

That’s from their debut album back in 1968. Annie Lennox released a version in 2014.

Of course, Marilyn Manson released a version in 2005.

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown also did it back in ‘68.

Brian Ferry from Roxy Music covered it in 1993.

One of the most popular versions was by Alan Price, the keyboard player from The Animals, who went solo in 1965 and released a version of “I Put A Spell On You” in 1966 that reached number nine on the UK charts, which I believe makes it the highest charting version of this song.

My personal favorite version of the song is by Tim Curry, from “Rocky Horror” fame. He recorded a version on his 1981 album “Simplicity”.

But the most significant version, the most critically and culturally important version, was by Nina Simone. Nina was a serious artist and she brought a whole ‘nother level to this song. She released her version in 1965.

Nina Simone, one of the many versions of “I Put A Spell On You”. Thanks for being a part of this Halloween edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. Join us here on the Pantheon Podcast Network in two weeks for another new episode. Until then, you can listen to all of our previous episodes on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or pull us up in your favorite podcast app.

Remember to support the artists that you love by buying their music, and thanks for listening to this episode on Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and “I Put A Spell On You”.

REFERENCES:

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screamin%27_Jay_Hawkins

Alan Freed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Freed

Tiny Grimes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiny_Grimes

Mickey Baker
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Baker

Ernie Hayes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Hayes

Al Lucas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Lucas

David Panama Francis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Francis

Bud Johnson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budd_Johnson

Sam Taylor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Taylor_(saxophonist)

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On this episode, we take a journey through the rich history of Stax Records, the iconic label that defined Southern Soul music, and I play some of my favorite Stax tracks from their earliest years– 1959 to 1963.

Stax produced some of the most unforgettable songs in music history. Join us as I spin up some of my personal favorites, featuring legends like Booker T. and the MGs, Otis Redding, Rufus Thomas, The Mar-Keys and Carla Thomas. Learn about the unique sound of Stax, the community that fostered it, and the incredible music that continues to resonate today.

Save 15% off t-shirts & merch from your favorite bands by using our discount code lovethatsong at OldGlory.com!

TRANSCRIPT:

Hold on, I’m coming– it’s the “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast. My name is Brad Page, here on the Pantheon Podcast Network with another edition of the show.

If you’re familiar with this podcast, then you know what we usually do here is to take a song and examine it, looking at the structure, performance and production elements that go into making a great song. But on this episode, we’re going to do something a little different. This is something we’ve never done before.

We’ve looked at specific songs, specific artists, individual albums, and music that came out during certain key years. But this time, we’re going to take a look at the releases from one particular record label– one of the most important record labels in the history of popular music: Stax Records.

I love the music that came out on Stax Records from their humble studios in Memphis, Tennessee, in my opinion, some of the greatest music ever made. So much great music that there’s no way I could cover it all in just one episode. So, this is going to be the first in an occasional series. Well come back to it now and then over the next few years. Today, we begin our exploration of Stax with a look at my favorite Stax singles from 1959 through 1963.

I imagine most people are familiar with Motown– the “Sound of Young America”, as they used to say. It was fresh, urban; the sound coming from the black communities in the northern cities. The sound coming from Stax, well, that was different. It was more raw, more sweat, the sound of southern soul music. Where Motown aspired to be uptown, Stax was down home.

It probably goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: This was music made primarily by, and for, Black Americans. But music this infectious, this good, couldn’t be contained. It made America a better place, and it caught the ear of people all around the world. But this is music born from segregated communities.. though it would not have been possible without black and white artists, black and white executives, working together, creating something together that was magical. But let’s be honest, it wasn’t always Kumbaya and rainbows. There were conflicts and challenges, and the limitations of integration at the time… I will leave that to the experts, the historians and the scholars. There are some fantastic books on the history of Stax, and there’s a fantastic documentary on HBO Max that I highly recommend.

The story of Stax is, like so many of our greatest stories, a story of triumph and tragedy, of serendipity and bad luck, of dreaming big and overreaching, of success and failure… and most importantly, the story of the music that has survived and outlasted it all.

And it all began in 1959 with Jim Stewart and his sister, Estelle Axton. Jim and Estelle were white, and they both worked in banking; Jim for First Tennessee, and Estelle for Union Planters Bank. But Jim’s real love was playing fiddle, which he did semi-professionally for a while. When Elvis Presley hit the big time with the records he made at Sun Studios in Memphis, well, that got Jim interested in recording. He made a few recordings, rockabilly and country stuff that didn’t really go anywhere.

But his sister Estelle mortgaged her House to buy an Ampex mono tape recorder, and she became an equal partner in the recording business. They set up their first studio, which they called “Satellite”, in Brunswick, Tennessee.

Jim Stewart didn’t really know anything about Rhythm & Blues, but somehow he got connected with a black vocal group named The Veltones, and they recorded a song at Satellite called “Fool In Love” in 1959. I don’t think it’s a particularly great song, it’s most memorable for its vibrato guitar sounds.

But that track was snatched up by Mercury Records and distributed nationally. It also brought Stewart in contact with Rufus Thomas, a singer and DJ on WDIA, the biggest black station in the area.

By now, Jim and Estelle had moved the studio into Memphis, setting up shop in an old movie theater at 926 Macklemore Avenue, in the heart of a black neighborhood. Rufus Thomas and his daughter Carla Thomas came into the studio on Macklemore Ave– in fact, they were the first act to record there– and laid down the track called “Cause I Love You”. Released in August 1960, it became a hit, and set the course for the future.

“Cause I Love You” featured a 16-year-old kid named Booker T. Jones on baritone sax. Though he would soon become known as a legendary keyboard player, Booker T was part of the Stax family from the very first record cut in Memphis.

The success of “Cause I Love You” caught the attention of Jerry Wexler at Atlantic Records. He reached out to Jim Stewart and made a deal for Atlantic to distribute Stax’ records. Of course, Stax wasn’t even called Stax yet; that would come later. They were still using the name Satellite.

While Jim ran the studio in the back, Estelle ran the Satellite Record Shop out front. The neighborhood kids shopped and hung out there, and Estelle would use them as a test audience for the latest single recorded out back in the studio.

With the success of “Cause I Love You, they cut a solo Carla Thomas single, a song she had written when she was 16: “Gee Whiz”.

That was the record that really put Stax (or Satellite) on the map. It reached number five on the R&B chart and number ten on the Pop chart. In retrospect, it doesn’t really sound like a Stax record. They hadn’t really discovered that sound yet. That would come about a year later with the release of an instrumental by The Mar-Keys called “Last Night”.

Released in June 1961, The Mar-Keys started out as an all white band called, ironically enough, the Royal Spades. The band included guitarist Steve Cropper, bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn, trumpeter Wayne Jackson, and tenor sax player Charles “Packy” Axton, who was Estelle’s son.

When they recorded “Last Night” in the studio, they were joined by some black session players: Louis Steinberg, Curtis Green, Floyd Newman, maybe some others, making this the first integrated band at Stax. In its own way, it’s a milestone. It’s also a milestone in terms of the sound: heavy on the horns, powerful drum sound, the organ up front, and that groove.

There is no guitar on this track; Steve Cropper is actually playing keyboards along with Smoochie Smith, who takes the organ lead.

“Last Night” made it to number two on the R&B chart and number three on the Pop chart.

Around the time they were creating the sound that would become the Stax sound, they also created the Stax name. Not exactly by choice; there was another record label out in California that used the “Satellite” name first. To avoid legal trouble, they changed the name of the company. They took the first two letters from Stewart’s name (ST) and the first two letters from Estelle Axton’s last name, (AX) and created “Stax”.

One of the other producers working at Stax besides Jim Stewart was Chips Moman. He would go on to have a long, successful career as a producer, but it was these early years at Stax where he first made his mark. He signed a young singer named William Bell. Bell was also a great songwriter, and his first single for Stax was a song he wrote called “You Don’t Miss Your Water, released in November 1961. It’s a ballad in 12/8 time. If you want a deeper understanding of what 12/8 time is, go back and listen to our episode on “Somebody To Love” by Queen– we covered that time signature in detail there.

“You Don’t Miss Your Water” didn’t make much of an impact on the charts, but I think it was Stax first great soul ballad, and it’s now considered a classic.

Not every song released by Stax was a hit, and not every artist had a lasting career. Many of them, you can’t even call them “one hit wonders” because they didn’t have any hits. There were some forgettable records. Barbara Stevens recorded three singles for Stax between 1961 and 62. None of them hit, but I’ve always had a soft spot for one of them, a track called “Wait A Minute”, a fun song with a lively little vocal from Barbara. After those three singles, Barbara Stevens faded into obscurity.

Now, in 1961, Stax created a sister label, a subsidiary label called “Volt”. Radio stations could be reluctant to play too many records from one label, so it was common practice for many labels to create offshoots to get around that. So Stax had Volt. Most of the singles were released on the Stax labels, with occasional singles released on Volt. The only single released on both the Stax and the Volt labels was a little track by Booker T. And the MG’s called “Green Onions”.

One day, while waiting for another artist to show up at the studio, Booker T, Steve Cropper, Louis Steinberg, and Al Jackson Jr. started jamming on a slow blues riff, and Jim Stewart happened to record it. When they played it back, they thought it sounded pretty good. They called it “Behave Yourself” and decided it was good enough to release. Now they needed something for the other side of the single, so they took another riff that they’d been noodling around with and turned that into “Green Onions”. It was originally released August 1962 on the Volt label. Once it started selling, they reissued it on the Stax label, and it went on to hit number one on the R&B chart and number three on the Pop chart.

Booker T and his crew were really just studio cats and backing musicians, but after “Green Onions” became a smash hit, they became a band on their own. They would release several more hit records as Booker T and the MGs, as well as continue to be the backing band for many of the Stax’s artists.

Around the same time as “Green Onions” was burning up the charts, William Bell released his second single, “Any Other Way”. It never became a big hit, but stay tuned, because this song, um, will show up again on this podcast sometime next year.

Another artist who found his way to Stax in 1962 was Otis Redding. He was working with Johnny Jenkins and the Pinetoppers, and he was actually just driving Jenkins to the session at Stax– he wasn’t even supposed to sing. But when the Jenkins session hit a dead end, they let Otis sing a couple of numbers… and one of them was “These Arms Of Mine”, and they were blown away. Jim Stewart signed Otis right away, and “These Arms Of Mine” was released on Volt in October 1962.

In January of 1963, Rufus Thomas released “The Dog”. You know when you see Rufus Thomas’ name on a record, you’re in for a good time.

Deanie Parker was a local teenage girl in a band called The Valadors. When they came in first place in a Memphis talent contest, they won an audition at Stax. They didn’t have any original songs, so Deanie went home and wrote her very first song, “My Imaginary Guy”, which became her first single. Though she never had any big hits as a singer, she continued to write songs for Stax artists like William Bell, Albert King, and Carla Thomas, and remained a Stax employee all the way until the very end. Here’s Deanie with her very first song, “My Imaginary Guy”.

May 1963, guitarist and harmonica player Eddie Kirkland, who had been a member of Otis Redding’s touring band, released a single on his own called “The Hog”, featuring Kirkland on harp. For some reason, they shortened his name to Eddie Kirk for this record. But either way, this song smokes.

Booker T and the MGs continue to release instrumental singles, including one of their best– or at least it’s one of my favorites—“Chinese Checkers” in June 1963. This one features Booker T on electric piano.

In September, Rufus Thomas was back with another “dog” song. This time it’s “Walking The Dog”. This one’s an all-time classic and would go on to be covered by many artists, including Aerosmith. But here’s the original, the one and only Rufus Thomas with “Walking The Dog”.

I love that one. And as 1963 wound down in November, Carla Thomas released “Gee Whiz, It’s Christmas”, the first, but not the last, Christmas-themed single for Stax.

And that’s where we’ll leave it for this episode. But we’ll revisit Stax again next year, because I love these songs and I love the chance to share them with you.

I want to thank Rob Bowman; he’s the guy that wrote the extensive liner notes for the Stax box sets, and that was my primary source for all the information presented in this here episode. I couldn’t have done it without him. So thanks, Mr. Bowman, for your incredible work documenting this music.

I hope this episode inspires some of you to seek out these Stax artists. It’s really great stuff, and I think an important part of American history.

Thanks for joining me for this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast. If you’d like to support the show, why don’t you head over to oldglory.com and buy yourself a t-shirt or two? They have stock on all of our favorite artists, and when you use our discount code lovethatsong, you’ll get 15% off, and we get a little kickback. So you’ll end up with some cool merch and you’ll be supporting this show. Such a deal! That’s oldglory.com and the discount code is lovethatsong.

I’ll be back in two weeks with another new episode. In the meantime, you can catch up on all of our previous episodes on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com and you can check in with us on Facebook. If you’d like to find more podcasts like this, be sure to check out the Pantheon Podcast Network, its home to our show and a ton of other great music-related podcasts. As always, I thank you for being part of this show and thanks for listening to this episode featuring my favorite tracks from Stax.

REFERENCES:

Stax Records
https://staxrecords.com/

HBO Max Documentary on Stax Records
Stax: Soulsville USA | Official Website for the HBO Series | HBO.com

Booker T. and the MGs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_T._%26_the_M.G.%27s

Otis Redding
https://otisredding.com/

Rufus Thomas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufus_Thomas

Carla Thomas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carla_Thomas

Rob Bowman
https://www.rob-bowman.com/

Satellite Records
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_Records

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William “Smokey” Robinson was the man behind many of Motown’s greatest hits– not just the tracks he recorded himself with The Miracles, he also wrote many hits for other Motown acts. But perhaps his greatest achievement was “Tracks Of My Tears“. It was selected by the RIAA & NEA as one of the 365 Greatest Songs of the 20th Century; it’s on the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame’s list of 500 Songs That Shaped Rock & Roll, and Rolling Stone magazine named it The Greatest Motown Song Of All Time. Join us for this episode as we explore this masterpiece.

TRANSCRIPT:

Every good song tells a story. The story is often all there in the lyrics; sometimes you have to use a little imagination to fill in the gaps, sometimes the story is mostly in the rhythm or the groove. Sometimes the melody tells you everything you need to know. Either way, a song takes you on a journey. Sometimes inward, sometimes outward. This is the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, where we look at how these songs, these stories, are put together and trace the steps along those journeys.

My name is Brad Page. I’m your tour guide on these musical trips. You don’t have to be any kind of musical expert here. Just open your ears and come along for the ride.

“Shop Around”, “You Really Got A Hold On Me”, “Ooh Baby, Baby”, “Going To A Go Go”, “I Second That Emotion, “Tears Of A Clown”. All of these were huge hits from Motown, all written or co-written by Smokey Robinson, and all performed by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles. That’s quite a track record. But if I had to pick just one Smokey Robinson song, my favorite would have to be “Tracks Of My Tears”. Three minutes of pop perfection. On this episode, we’ll be tracing the “Tracks Of My Tears” by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.

William Robinson Junior was born in Detroit on February 19, 1940. His uncle Claude gave him the nickname Smokey Joe because little William loved cowboy movies and that was his cowboy nickname. By the time he was twelve, he dropped the Joe, but Smokey stuck. He and his friends at Detroit’s Northern High School, Pete Moore, Ron White, Sonny Rogers and his cousin Bobby Rogers, formed a doo wop group, first called The Five Chimes and later The Matadors.

Smokey’s mother had died when he was ten years old and his sister Jerry became his legal guardian. Jerry was a jazz lover and turned Smokey onto singers like Sarah Vaughn, who became a big influence on Smokey.

I can definitely hear the influence in Smokey’s vocal style there. In 1957, Sonny Rogers left the band and he was replaced by Sonny’s sister, Claudette.

With a woman now in the group, they changed their name to The Miracles. Smokey and Claudette would eventually get married. Right around that time, they had an audition for Jackie Wilson’s manager. They didn’t get that gig, but they did meet Barry Gordy at that same audition– a chance meeting that would literally influence the course of music history. Gordy became their manager and producer, and he nurtured Smokey’s songwriting. When Gordy started Motown Records, The Miracles were one of the first artists he signed. In 1960, they released “Shop Around”, which became their first big hit, and Motown’s first million selling record.

A lot more hits would follow, including “Mickey’s Monkey” and “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me”.

And of course there was “Ooh Baby Baby”.

By then, guitarist named Marvin Tarplin had joined as an unofficial “Miracle”, and became one of Smokey’s key collaborators. Besides The Miracles, Smokey was writing and producing records for other Motown artists, like Mary Wells, Marvin Gaye and The Temptations. By 1965, with the release of the “Going To A Go Go” album, the name of the group was changed to Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. And Claudette stopped performing with the band. Though she would record with them in the studio, no more live gigs.

“Tracks Of My Tears” was released as a single, and it’s included on the “Going To A Go Go” album. The track was recorded on January 20, 1965. It was written by Smokey Robinson, Warren Moore and Marvin Tarplin. In 2021, Rolling Stone magazine ranked “Tracks Of My Tears” as the greatest Motown song of all time.

Now, as to who actually played on the track, well, that’s tricky, because I have a hard time finding documentation of who exactly plays on a lot of these old Motown tracks. Of course, it’s well known that Motown had its own in-house band, the Funk Brothers. And if you’ve never seen the documentary about the Funk Brothers, “Standing In The Shadows of Motown”, go watch it right now. It is essential viewing. But the Funk Brothers was a conglomeration of many players; multiple drummers, guitarists, horn players, etcetera. And determining which guys played on which record, well, I found it really hard to do. So here are just some of the key players in the Funk Brothers, who probably played on this track.

You had Earl Van Dyke, who was not only a keyboard player, but also the bandleader. On guitars, there were Robert White, Eddie Willis, Joe Messina. James Jamerson and Bob Babbitt on bass—I’m pretty sure it’s James Jamerson on this track. Drums, Benny Benjamin, Richard “Pistol” Allen and Uriel Jones. And on percussion, you had Eddie “Bongo” Brown and Jack Ashford. Jack turned tambourine playing into an art form. And for the horn section, well, that number of potential players is just too long to list here.

We do know that Smokey’s songwriting partner, guitarist Marv Tarplin, played on the track. And the members of The Miracles who provide backing vocals are Bobby Rogers, Ronnie White, Pete Moore and Claudette Robinson. With Smokey Robinson, of course, on the lead vocal, the song opens with a guitar part played by Marv Tarplin.

As the story goes, Marvin Tarplin was just kind of messing around with the chord changes to “The Banana Boat Song” by Harry Belafonte.

He switched the chords around, changed the rhythm, and the central idea for “Tracks Of My Tears” was born.

That little drum fill is such a classic Motown intro. It’s simple, but it’s so perfect. You can also hear Eddie Brown on bongos and Jack Ashford on that tambourine. The bongos are fairly low in the mix on the final version, but that tambourine jumps out through the whole song. Drum fills like that would be borrowed and used on hundreds of songs to come, because they announce what’s coming. They ease you into the song, but they don’t step on any of the other instruments or vocals. Just perfect. I believe that’s Uriel Jones playing drums on this track. One of the unsung greats.

Let’s listen to just Smokey’s vocal track. It sounds so great acapella.

Remember, this was before AutoTune and before they were punching in every other phrase or word even, to get the perfect take.

That short verse brings us right to the first chorus in classic Motown fashion. They don’t waste any time here. They’re packing as many hooks as they can into three minutes. And for my money, this chorus can’t be beat.

Smokey said that Marv Tarplin would make tape recordings of his guitar parts and give them to Smokey, and he would listen to them over and over to come up with melodies and lyric ideas for this song. The first three lines of the chorus came to him pretty quickly. “Take a good look at my face, you’ll see my smile looks out of place. If you look closer, it’s easy to trace”. You’ve got that nice triple rhyme in there, face, place, and trace. But he was stuck on what comes next. Until one day, Smokey was looking into the mirror shaving, and the thought popped into his head. What if someone had cried so much that it left tracks down their face? And that was all he needed to finish the rest of the song.

And then we have this short little two measure transition that gets us from the chorus into the next verse.

And that gets us to the second verse. And I especially like Smokey’s performance and his phrasing on this verse.

Let’s go back and listen to that vocal track again.

Smokey is not a belter. He’s a smoother, gentler singer. He’s up on the mic so you can really hear his breath. And I think that just adds to the intimacy and the humanness of the part.

Now, about the next line. Pete Townsend of The Who was a big fan of this song and the story I’ve heard– I don’t know how true this is, but what I’ve read is that Townshend was so captured with the way Smokey sings the word “substitute” that that inspired Townsend to write his song “Substitute”, which would become a Who classic.

Let’s listen to the backing track. Under that verse, you can hear some bells or maybe vibes, probably played by Jack Ashford. And notice how the strings swell up under the second half of the verse, all, um, building for that chorus. That little descending part that happens all throughout the song. That is such a crucial part of the song, resolving the end of each line, bringing it back to the start to the root. Now, let’s listen to the vocal track for this chorus and notice how he leaves out the last word of each line. Those key rhyming words, face, place, and trace. Smokey doesn’t sing them this time. He leaves that to the backing vocals.

Now let’s listen to that again as it all comes together in the final mix.

I love how they just stop there. They pause everything for a heartbeat and then another great drum fill takes us into the bridge.

That’s the crescendo of the song right there. A repeating set of four triplets, 123-223-323-423; the whole band is hitting those notes so dramatically. Even the tambourine is in on the action. And the vocal is hitting those beats too.

Smokey Robinson and The Miracles – “Tracks Of My Tears”

My mother-in-law wasn’t what you’d call a diehard music fan, but she did love Smokey Robinson. She’s gone now. So this one’s for you, Kath.

You can be forgiven for thinking of Motown as your parents’ music. For many people, that’s probably true. The music of Motown was the sound of Young America. It was everywhere when your parents, or maybe your grandparents, were young. It’s part of the soundtrack of their youth. These songs may have been oldies by the time you were discovering your own music, but I believe– I have always believed– that there is no expiration date for a great song.

Thank you for once again joining me on the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. The journey continues, and we’ll be back in about two weeks with another new episode. In the meantime, you can find all of our previous excursions on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or just find us in your favorite podcast app.

And if you’re still looking for even more musical adventures, be sure to check out some of the other podcasts here on the Pantheon Podcast Network. If you’d like to support our show, the best thing you can do is to recommend it to a friend, share it with your other music loving friends and help to spread the word.

I’ll see you soon. Thanks for listening to this episode on “Tracks Of My Tears” by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.

RESOURCES:

Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/smokey-robinson-and-miracles

Motown Records
https://www.motownmuseum.org/

Standing in the Shadows of Motown (Documentary)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0314725/

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Introducing a new segment of the podcast – “Creation & Evolution“, where we explore songs that travelled a long & winding road before they reached their final version. In this episode, we trace the history of a song that started from a phone call with Farrah Fawcett and ended up as Gladys Knight’s biggest hit.

TRANSCRIPT:

There’s the telltale theme music… it means it must be time for another episode of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast on the Pantheon Podcast Network. My name is Brad Page, and I’m your musical tour guide, your geologist of another sort, as we explore the rock that made history.

This time, I’m introducing a new segment I’m calling “Creation and Evolution”, where we’ll take a look at both the birth and the journey a song takes before it ends up in its final form. Some songs have a rather short path from the writer’s pen to the final release, but some songs take the long way around, and that’s what we’re going to explore here on “Creation and Evolution”.

For example, what do airplanes, Houston Texas, and Farrah Fawcett have to do with “Midnight Train to Georgia” by Gladys Knight and the Pips? Let’s find out.

Jim Weatherly was a songwriter from Mississippi who had written a few songs for Dean Martin and Peggy Lee. No hits, though he hadn’t really made his mark yet. One day in 1970, Weatherly called his friend, a struggling actor named Lee Majors, who would find fame as TV’s “Six Million Dollar Man”.

Majors wasn’t around, but his girlfriend, a struggling actress named Farah Fawcett, picked up the phone. She, of course, would eventually star in “Charlie’s Angels”.

Farah and Weatherly got to talking, and she told him she was just about to head out of LA to visit her family, leaving on a midnight plane to Houston. That phrase, “midnight plane to Houston”, stuck in his head. And as soon as he got off the phone, he sat down and in about 40 minutes, he wrote a whole song.

He based the song loosely on Fawcett and Majors. It was about a girl who went to LA to make it big, but when it doesn’t work out, she goes back home and her boyfriend follows her back. Weatherly recorded the song and included it on his 1972 solo album called Weatherly.

It’s a pretty modern country song, but the publisher had some faith in it and sent it around, hoping to find other artists to cover it. They even offered it to Gladys Knight.

But at this point, she passed on it.

They pitched it to another artist, singer Sissy Houston, Whitney Houston’s mom. She liked the song, but not the title. She said, “my people are from Georgia, and they didn’t take planes to Houston or anywhere else”. They took trains. And this is just a guess, but I think she might have been concerned about some confusion since her name was Houston and the song was about the city of Houston. Either way, Weatherly agreed to change the lyrics to “Midnight Train to Georgia”.

And besides the title change, this version also changes the genders. Now it’s the man who has failed and is going back home, and it’s the woman who follows him.

Sissy Houston released her version in February 1973.

Meanwhile, in 1973, Gladys Knight and the Pips had left Motown Records and signed a deal with Buddha Records, which gave her more freedom to pick her own material. By this time, Gladys had already had a hit with another Jim Weatherly song, “Neither One Of Us (Wants To Be The First To Say Goodbye” in 1972.

And when Gladys heard Sissy Houston’s version of “Midnight Train to Georgia”, she knew she could make it work. She envisioned it as an Al green style soul number.

Producer Tony Camillo had worked with everyone from Diane Warwick to Grand Funk Railroad. It was his job to record the instrumental tracks for “Midnight Train” for Gladys. But she wasn’t happy with what he came up with. Too polished, too orchestrated. She wanted something more stripped down. So he cut another version– and she rejected that one, too.

So working with engineer Ed Stasium, who would later become a legendary producer in his own right, working with The Ramones, Talking Heads, Motorhead and Living Color, just to name a few, they put together a small band: Jeff Mirinoff on guitar, Bob Babbitt on bass, Andrew Smith on drums, and Tony Camillo himself on piano. They banged out a simple backing track in an hour and sent it to Gladys, and that was exactly what she was looking for. They overdubbed horns and some strings, but for the most part, they kept it straightforward.

Gladys recorded her vocal in almost one take. No warm up, no run through, no punch-ins. She was well rehearsed and she knew what she wanted. She stepped up to the mic and four minutes later it was almost done. Except for some ad libs at the end, which we’ll get to later.

I love how she’s singing pretty softly there– she’s holding back, but then she lets loose a bit for the next part.

And here’s the first chorus.

Now, notice how the backing vocals by William Guest, Edward Patton, and Bubba Knight, along with Gladys herself, aren’t just singing harmonies or repeating lines from the lead vocal, they’re actually adding commentary. They’re in dialogue with the lead vocal. That’s something that Gladys and The Pips brought to the song. None of the other versions do that.

Here’s the second verse, and let’s bring up the vocals again so we can hear more of that interaction between the lead and the backing vocals.

I love this part.

And check out the backing vocals here.

James Jamerson is the bass player most associated with the Motown sound, and he’s a legend. But Bob Babbitt also played on many Motown classics, too, and he’s a phenomenal player as well. Let’s listen to some of Bob Babbitt’s bass work here.

You gotta love those woo-woos.

Now, I mentioned before how Gladys recorded her vocal in one take, and that’s true, right up until this point in the song. They wanted to have Gladys do some ad-libbing during the final choruses, some of those inspired, energetic interjections that can really add some emotional weight to a song.

The problem was that Gladys didn’t feel like she was a natural at that kind of thing, at least not at this point in her career. She didn’t feel comfortable and kind of froze up at the mic.

Merald Knight, who everyone called “Bubba”, was not only one of the pips, he was also Gladys’ brother. He took a mic into the control room, and with the backing track playing, he fed Gladys some lines into her headphones, and she sang them back as the tape rolled.

Now picture Bubba Knight in that control room looking at Gladys through the glass, singing these lines to her like, “my world, his world, our world”. And she’s singing them back and putting her own spin on them.

Gladys Knight and the Pips – “Midnight Train To Georgia”.

Buddha Records issued “Midnight Train to Georgia” as a single in August 1973, and eventually it worked its way to number one. It won the Grammy for best R&B vocal performance, and it would become Gladys Knight and The Pips calling card for the rest of their career.

Of the original Pips, Edward Patton passed away in February 2005; William Guest died in December of 2015, but Merald Bubba Knight, Gladys’s brother, is still with us, and Gladys herself, as of this recording, is still alive and well. She released her last album in 2014.

Jim Weatherly passed away in February 2021. He was 77.

Thank you for joining me for this episode. We’ll be back in two weeks with another new episode. Until then, you can binge on all of our past episodes, they’re all on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com.

You can find us on Facebook to share your thoughts and feelings, just look for the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, and you’ll find us. You can also send me email at lovethatsongpodcast@gmail.com.

This show is one of many great podcasts on the Pantheon Podcast Network, so be sure to seek out all those other great shows.

To listen to the song again, complete and uninterrupted, stream it, download it, or buy it and support the music you love. Thanks again for joining me for this “Creation And Evolution” episode on Gladys Knight and the Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia”.

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You may not know her name, but I guarantee you’ve heard her voice. When acts as diverse as Graham Nash, Peter Gabriel and KLF are in need of a soulful vocal, PP Arnold has been a top choice. Her voice has graced dozens of songs & albums for over 50 years, though she’s never had a hit under her own name in the US. On this episode, we take a brief look at her career and examine a great lost track, featuring Eric Clapton and the Derek & The Dominos band, recorded in 1970 but didn’t see the light of day until 47 years later.

Got time for more podcasts? Listen to dozens more on the Pantheon Podcast Network, the #1 source for music-related podcasts! (And don’t forget to follow this show, so you never miss an episode.)

TRANSCRIPT:

Well, hello there! Come on in, don’t be shy. It’s good to have you here. You’ve found your way to the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. My name is Brad Page, and each edition of this podcast, I come to you via the Pantheon Podcast Network with another one of my favorite songs to explore and examine, as we attempt to understand what goes into making a great song.

I’m going to start by playing eight short clips from eight different artists, spanning five decades of music. What is it that all of these songs have in common? Let’s start with:

Ike and Tina Turner’s “River Deep, Mountain High”
The classic 70’s band Humble Pie
Nick Drake
New Orleans legend Dr. John
Roger Waters from Pink Floyd
and then there’s Oasis
KLF
and Peter Gabriel

All of those songs featured the voice of a woman named P. P. Arnold. She was an American soul artist transplanted to London in the 1960’s, where she was able to carve out a career, though she never cracked the charts in the US.

On this episode, we’re talking about P. P. Arnold and her version of a song called “Medicated Goo”.

Patricia Anne Cole was born in Los Angeles in 1946. She started singing in public when she was just four years old. She came from a family of gospel singers. She got pregnant very young and got married, and may never have pursued a career in the music business; she already had her hands full working two jobs, but a friend convinced her to audition for the gig as one of the Ikettes, the backing singers for Ike and Tina Turner. When she returned home late after that audition, her abusive husband hit her. That was enough for Patricia. She grabbed her two kids, handed them over to her mother and hit the road with Ike & Tina Turner.

In 1965, the Rolling Stones booked Ike & Tina Turner as their opening act for their UK tour. And that’s what brought Patricia to England. She quit the Ikettes in 1966 and stayed in London. Mick Jagger took a liking to Pat. In fact, they supposedly had a fling. But it was the Rolling Stones piano player Ian Stewart who recommended Pat to producer Glenn Johns, who then introduced her to Andrew Oldham, who signed her to his record label, Immediate Records.

It was around this time when her stage name had been changed to “PP Arnold”, a name she didn’t really like. I mean, who wants to be called PP? But it stuck. And she still goes by PP Arnold today.

She wasn’t the first black artist to discover more opportunity and better treatment overseas than in her home country. Actually, the fact that she was a real Black American singer in the gospel tradition, in a country filled with a lot of pretenders and wannabes, may have helped her career. She was a rarity. The real thing.

She released a couple of singles on the Immediate label that didn’t really get off the ground. But in 1967 she had her first hit in England with a song written by Cat Stevens: “The First Cut Is The Deepest”.

She toured opening for the Small Faces. She had an ongoing affair with Steve Marriott for a while, and he wrote the song “Tin Soldier” originally for her, but then decided to keep it for the Small Faces, though she did contribute significant backing vocals to that song. We covered “Tin Soldier” in detail back on Episode 54– if you haven’t heard that episode, go back and check it out.

She recorded a duet with Rod Stewart called “Come Home Baby” that was produced by Mick Jagger, with a band that included Keith Richards, Keith Emerson, Ron Wood and Nicky Hopkins. How’s that for a lineup?

She released her second album, “Kafunta”, in 1968, which featured string arrangements by John Paul Jones. That album was a mix of originals and cover songs, including her version of “Angel of the Morning”. It was Merrilee Rush who had the big hit with that song in the US, but in England, it was PP Arnold’s version that was the hit.

By the end of the 1960’s, Immediate Records imploded. She tried working on a new album with Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees producing, but the project fell apart and only a couple of songs were released. The rest went into the vault.

When Eric Clapton went on tour with Delaney and Bonnie, PP Arnold was tapped to open the show. She put together a killer band for that tour that included Steve Howe on guitar and Tony Ashton on keyboards. After the tour, she went back into the studio with Eric Clapton producing and Delaney and Bonnie’s backing band, who Clapton was about to turn into Derek and the Dominos. She cut three tracks with Eric Clapton, but they too weren’t released and those went into the vault too.

Her time in the spotlight seemed to have passed. She did some musical theater and started picking up work as a session vocalist and a backing singer on tours. She moved back to Los Angeles in the mid ‘70’s, and after her daughter was killed in a car accident, she withdrew from public life for a while. And who could blame her?

Eventually she moved back to England. Throughout the ‘80’s & ‘90’s, she continued working as a session vocalist, cutting many tracks, including the ones we heard at the top of the show. In 2001, all of her recordings for Immediate Records were compiled and released on one CD called “The First Cut: The Immediate Anthology”. That’s a great place to start if you’d like to hear all of her early work.

And finally in 2017, after decades of legal wrangling, her recordings with Barry Gibb and those tracks cut with Eric Clapton were finally released– almost 50 years after they were recorded. That album was called “The Turning Tide”, and the song that opens the album is “Medicated Goo”.

“Medicated Goo” was written by Steve Winwood and Jimmy Miller, and originally recorded and released by Traffic as a single in December 1968.

P. P. Arnold’s version was recorded in 1970. It was produced by Eric Clapton and performed by the Derek and The Dominos crew. Check out this band: Eric Clapton on guitar, Carl Radle on bass, Bobby Whitlock on keyboards, Jim Gordon on drums, Bobby Keys on saxophone, Jim Price on trumpet, and Bobby Whitlock and Rita Coolidge on backing vocals. The song opens with the bass and the piano in the center channel, one guitar track on the right doubling the bass part, and another guitar on the left playing some licks. Let’s listen to some of those guitar licks.

Carl Radle and Jim Gordon were a pretty legendary rhythm section. Let’s listen to the groove they’re laying down on the bass and drums.

Now let’s bring in the piano and the organ and see what they add.

And then we’ll bring back the guitar parts. One in the left, one in the right.

All right, let’s hear it in the final mix with the vocals.

Here’s the second verse. This is where the horn section comes in. They’re playing a simple part, but it really adds a lot.

Love how the backing vocals join in for just that one line there. That’s great.

Here’s the next chorus, and this time let’s focus on the vocals, starting with PP Arnold’s lead vocal.

Now let’s listen to just the backing vocals.

After that chorus, they break it down, sort of a repeat of the introduction.

That leads into the third verse. And yes, I get that this song is basically just one chord progression repeated through the whole thing. That may bug some people, but not me. If it’s a good groove, a great feel, and the band is hot, they can work the same part all night, it’s fine with me. Let’s bring up her vocals again for this verse.

And let’s bring up all of the vocals for a minute.

Here’s one last break before the final choruses. I like the piano licks in the background and the way the organ swirls in at the end as they hit the chorus again.

There’s a nice little guitar lick that Eric Clapton plays there. I love how Pat sings that line. And there’s another cool little guitar lick from Clapton in there, too.

“Medicated Goo” by P. P. Arnold

“The Turning Tide” album, which finally brought to light all of these tracks that she originally recorded in 1969 and 1970, came out in 2017, and in 2019 she released her first album of new material in over 50 years. It’s called “The New Adventures of PP Arnold”.

This is a woman who’s seen it all, done it all, and lived to tell the tale. She is a survivor.

Thanks for listening to this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. New episodes come out on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so I’ll see you back here on the Pantheon Podcast Network in about two weeks. Until then, you’ll find all of our previous episodes on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or on your favorite podcast app.

Your reviews and comments are always welcome. And do me a favor– go tell a friend about this show. Your help in spreading the word is better than any advertising.

Remember to support the artists you love by buying their music, especially independent artists like PP Arnold, who count on fans like us. And thanks again for listening to this PP Arnold episode on that good old fashioned “Medicated Goo”.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
PP Arnold
https://www.pparnold.com/

Medicated Goo (Traffic song)
https://www.discogs.com/Traffic-Medicated-Goo/master/367906

Ike and Tina Turner
https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/ike-and-tina-turner

The Rolling Stones
https://www.rollingstones.com/

Immediate Records
https://www.discogs.com/label/

Immediate
6— Cat Stevens
https://catstevens.com/

Small Faces
https://www.thesmallfaces.com/

Rod Stewart
https://www.rodstewart.com/

John Paul Jones
http://www.johnpauljones.com/

Eric Clapton
https://www.ericclapton.com/

Derek and the Dominoes
https://www.discogs.com/artist/

New Adventures of PP Arnold (album)
https://www.pparnold.com/discography/the-new-adventures-of

Podcast

BONUS HOLIDAY SONG: Clarence Reid – “Winter Man”

December 21, 2023
Tagged as: 1970's, Christmas, Clarence Reid, R&B, Soul

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This year’s Bonus Holiday Episode features a lost Soul classic: Clarence Reid’s “Winter Man”. We’ll just kick back and listen to this vintage soul nugget, as well as saying thanks to all of you for listening. Happy Holidays!

1 2 3 »

Tag: R&B

Earth, Wind & Fire – “Serpentine Fire”

Jackie Shane – “Any Other Way”

Larry Williams & Johnny Watson – “Nobody”

Fontella Bass – “Rescue Me”

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – “I Put A Spell On You”

My Favorite Trax from STAX – Part 1: 1959-1963

Smokey Robinson & The Miracles – “The Tracks Of My Tears”

Creation & Evolution: Gladys Knight & The Pips “Midnight Train To Georgia”

P.P. Arnold – “Medicated Goo”

BONUS HOLIDAY SONG: Clarence Reid – “Winter Man”