Larry Williams & Johnny Watson – “Nobody”

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"Nobody" (Dick Cooper, Ernie Shelby) Copyright 1967 Mikim Music Inc/Carlin Music Corp.

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.

“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/

Fontella Bass – “Rescue Me”

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(Carl Smith and Raynard Miner) Copyright 1965 Chevis Publishing Corporation, USA

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.

“Rescue Me” (Carl Smith and Raynard Miner) Copyright 1965 Chevis Publishing Corporation, USA

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.

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

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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

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

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"Midnight Train To Georgia" (Jim Weatherly) Copyright 1971, 1973 Universal-PolyGram International Publishing, Inc

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.

“Midnight Train To Georgia” (Jim Weatherly) Copyright 1971, 1973 Universal-PolyGram International Publishing, Inc

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”.

P.P. Arnold – “Medicated Goo”

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"Medicated Goo" (Steve Winwood, Jimmy Miller) Copyright 1969 Island Music Ltd, Universal/Island Music Ltd.,F-S-Music Ltd., Kobalt Music Copyrights SARL

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.

“Medicated Goo” (Steve Winwood, Jimmy Miller) Copyright 1969 Island Music Ltd, Universal/Island Music Ltd.,F-S-Music Ltd., Kobalt Music Copyrights SARL

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

BONUS HOLIDAY SONG: Clarence Reid – “Winter Man”

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"Winter Man" (Clarence Reid) Copyright 1974 Sherlyn Pub, Inc.

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!

“Winter Man” (Clarence Reid) Copyright 1974 Sherlyn Pub, Inc.

Bettye LaVette – “I Still Want To Be Your Baby”

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I Still Want To Be Your Baby (Take Me As I Am)" (Eddie Hinton) Copyright Eddie Hinton Music (BMI

Bettye LaVette is the epitome of perseverance. She cut her first record in 1962 at the age of 16, but it took over 40 years before she received the recognition and respect she deserved. In between, she weathered every injustice that the music business threw at her. But she never gave up, she never stopped working, she never stopped singing… in fact, she just got better. Bettye is more than just a singer; she’s an interpreter who can transform any song into something new & special. On this episode, we focus on a track from her 2007 album The Scene of the Crime, and trace the path that brought her to this album– one of my all-time favorites.

“I Still Want To Be Your Baby (Take Me As I Am)” (Eddie Hinton) Copyright Eddie Hinton Music (BMI) 

TRANSCRIPT:

So let me ask you a question: You have your favorite songs, right? What is it about those songs that you love? What makes those songs so great? Well, these are the questions that we try to answer here on the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast.

I’m your host, Brad Page, and each episode I pick one of my favorite songs and we listen to it together trying to understand what goes into creating a great song. No musical knowledge is required here, we don’t delve into music theory or technical jargon. All you need are your ears and just a little bit of curiosity.

If I had to pick just a handful of women’s voices for my desert island collection, it would have to include Aretha Franklin, of course, Mavis Staples… and Bettye LaVette.

Many people don’t know Bettye LaVette, but she’s one of the greatest vocalists I’ve ever heard. On this episode, we’ll be listening to Bettye and a song called “I Still Want to Be Your Baby.”

The story of Bettye LaVette is a story of perseverance, of determination, and survival. Bettye LaVette was born Bettye Jo Haskins in January 1946. She grew up in Detroit, and when she was 16 years old, she recorded her first single, a song called “My Man He’s A Lovin’ Man” in 1962. It made it to the top 10 on the R&B charts.

[Music]

Her next couple of singles didn’t do as well, but she made it back onto the R&B charts in 1965 with “Let Me Down Easy.”

[Music]

She continued to record singles for various small labels. She recorded in Memphis with the Dixie Flyers and the Memphis Horns, and reached number 25 on the R&B charts with a song called “He Made A Woman Out of Me”, despite the fact that it was banned on some stations because it was deemed a little too sexual for some folks. I love this track, though.

[Music]

They were planning a full album for Bettye, but the deal fell apart due to conflicts between the producer and the label. Bettye picked herself up and managed to sign a deal with Atlantic Records in 1972. She headed down to the Muscle Shoals studio in Alabama and finally got to record her first full album with the legendary Muscle Shoals rhythm section.

That album was going to be called “Child of the 70s.” It was mastered and prepared for release. There was even a publicity tour scheduled. But at the last minute, the album was shelved. The label called Bettye and said, “We’ve decided not to go forward with this project. Please return your plane tickets.”

You can imagine how devastating that must have been. To this day, nobody really knows why the record was shelved. But Bettye picked herself up again and went back to work.

A few more unsuccessful singles were released. In 1978, she recorded a disco single called “Doin the Best I Can,” which actually became a pretty big disco hit, but Bettye had signed away all of her rights to the song so she didn’t make a penny from it.

She wasn’t going to give up, though. She’d find a way to survive. In 1979, she joined the Broadway cast of “Bubbling Brown Sugar,” and she stayed in that production for four years. She kept recording records here and there all through the 80s and 90s, but none of them got much attention.

Then, a record collector in France had been searching for the master tapes of that 1972 album, “Child of the 70s.” In 1999, he found them. He licensed the recordings from Atlantic and released the album himself. 28 years after it was recorded, Bettye’s first album was finally released. And then people started to pay attention.

Between 2000 and 2006, the crowds grew bigger at Bettye’s shows, the records sold more copies, and the critics raved. Then, in 2007, she returned to the Muscle Shull Studio, now 35 years after her last sessions there to record her next album, and it’s a masterpiece.

Her record label reached out to Patterson Hood and asked him if he was interested in producing Bettye’s album. Patterson is a member of the Drive-by-Truckers, and he’s also the son of David Hood, the bass player from that legendary Muscle Shoals rhythm section. Patterson jumped at the chance to work with Bettye, and he set up the sessions at Muscle Shoals’ Fame Studios.

Patterson lined up a stellar group of musicians, including the rest of the Drive-by-Truckers, along with some of the original Muscle Shoals players. He even got his dad to come in and play on a few tracks.

They called the album “The Scene of the Crime”, acknowledging that she was returning to the place where her ill-fated child of the 70s album was recorded.

The album opens with this song, “I Still Want to Be Your Baby”. And right off the bat, Bettyee establishes who she is with this track. She’s tough, she is who she is, she’ll love you and stick with you through the good times in the bad– but don’t try to change her.

What makes her version all the more interesting is that this song was written by a man, from a man’s perspective. Eddie Hinton wrote this song. He was another one of the legendary players at Fame Studios; he was their go-to lead guitarist. He was also a songwriter.

Eddie Hinton died in 1995 before this album was recorded, so he wasn’t around to play on the record. Otherwise, I bet he would have been there and would have approved wholeheartedly of Bettyee’s interpretation.

The song opens with two guitars, one in the left channel playing a simple riff, the other is in the middle only playing half of the riff an octave lower.

Both guitars are slathered in reverb. This is not fancy digital studio reverb. This is the sound of a real tube-driven guitar amp with its built-in spring reverb. You can really hear that distinctive spring reverb sound on these guitars. And the guitar in the middle also has some tremolo effect on it, set at a relatively fast speed. Let’s listen.

[Music]

After that four-bar intro, the rest of the band jumps in. There’s a third guitar in the mix, panned a little to the right. There are three guitar players on this album, Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley, and John Neff, all members of the Drive by Truckers. And I’m not sure who’s playing which parts, but just keep in mind that there are three distinct guitar parts on this song.

The rest of the band includes Shana Tucker on bass and Brad Morgan on drums, also from the Drive by Truckers. So you’ve got the whole Drive by Truckers band backing Bettye on this track. Also on keyboards is none other than Muscle Shoals legend Spooner Oldham.

Let’s pick it back up from the intro.

[Music]

Bettye LaVette was 61 when she made this record. And I think she’s never sung better. This is not the voice of a young diva. This is the voice of a woman, a woman who’s lived, who’s loved, been hurt, and who’s learned.

Frankly, I wouldn’t be interested in hearing a 20-year-old singing this song. “I’ve been this way too long to change now.” That would just sound ridiculous coming out of the mouth of someone that young. Here, Bettye’s singing, it’s pitch perfect, but the ragged edges of her voice adds gravitas. It rings true. Feels real.

Whatever abilities may diminish with age, the experience that comes with growing older can more than make up for it. As great as Bettyee’s performances from the 60s and 70s were, I think she’s an even better singer now. Here’s the first verse.

[Music]

The guitars are playing behind the verses actually pretty atmospheric. Let’s listen to a little bit of that.

[Music]

And that takes us into the next chorus.

[Music]

I love her phrasing on that last line:

[Music]

Here’s the second verse, and this is where Spooner Oldham joins in on the electric piano. Listen for that.

[Music]

This is the closest thing we get to a guitar solo in this song, and I like the interplay between the rhythm guitars here.

[Music]

Let’s bring Bettye’s vocals up in the mix for this last verse.

[Music]

That guitar refrain returns, and Bettye does some improvising.

[Music]

All three guitars begin to play off and around each other:

[Music]

You can really hear that tremolo on the guitar here at the end.

[Music]

Bettyee LaVette – “I Still Want To Be Your Baby”

Bettyee doesn’t play an instrument, and she doesn’t write songs. Bettyee does one thing, and she does it better than almost anyone else: she interprets songs. In 2008, she appeared at the Kennedy Center Honors for The Who, and sang a version of “Love, Reign O’er Me” that brought the house down. It was a show-stopping moment.

Bettyee’s continued to make records, including “Blackbirds” in 2020, where she recorded her version of songs by the great black women artists that inspired her. And just last month, September 2023, she released her latest album, Simply Called “LaVette”, that’s a return to the rootsy, bluesy and Americana sounds of this track. It’s probably my favorite album of the year.

Bettyew is 77 years old, a living legend, and still going strong, doing some of her best work today.

Thanks for checking out this episode of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. If you’d like to know more, or share your thoughts, find us on Facebook or on Podchaser, where you can leave a review, rate us, and tell us what you think. And don’t forget to follow the show so that you never miss an episode.
We are part of the Pantheon podcast family– lots of great music-related shows to be found there, so check them out.

We’ll be back in two weeks with another new episode. Until then, go support Bettye LaVette by buying a few of her albums. You will not regret it.

[Music]

Ike & Tina Turner – “Nutbush City Limits”

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"Nutbush City Limits” (Words & Music by Tina Turner) Copyright 1973 EMI Blackwood Music Inc and EMI Unart Catalog Inc.

On this episode, we pay a little tribute to the great Tina Turner, with an exploration of the song she wrote about her humble beginnings in a little town called Nutbush, TN.  Join us on a journey down Highway 19 to visit “Nutbush City Limits”.

“Nutbush City Limits” (Words & Music by Tina Turner) Copyright 1973 EMI Blackwood Music Inc and EMI Unart Catalog Inc.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. My name is Brad Page, and I’m on a mission to uncover and rediscover my favorite songs, to get a better understanding of what makes them work and why I love them so much. Thanks for joining me on this journey here on the Pantheon Podcast Network. Everyone is welcome here– no musical knowledge or experience is required. If you love music and are even just a little curious about what goes into making a great song, you’re in the right place.

It’s reality that we are all getting older. I don’t care how young or old you are. We are all heading in one direction. And as we age, so do the artists that inspired us, that have moved us and, um, accompanied us through our journeys through life. Inevitably, we will lose these artists to the ravages of time.

The rock stars of my youth are no longer young. And over the last few years, we have lost so many artists that were such a part of our lives. And it’s just a fact that all of you will experience. Again, it doesn’t matter how old you are, or when you grew up… someday Janet Jackson will be an old woman; someday Britney Spears will be old; someday Taylor Swift will be an old woman. And that’s if they’re lucky– that they make it that far. There’s no shame or insult in that. It’s just the way it is. And nothing will shine a light on your own mortality than the death of an artist that you grew up with, that remains young and vibrant whenever you think of them.

This is all to set the tone for this episode because we’re talking about Tina Turner today, who passed away recently in May of 2023. I have been working on this episode off and on for a while. In fact, I first got the idea for this show back in 2017 when, on a road trip, we came near Nutbush, Tennessee. We never actually got to stop in Nutbush, but seeing the name reminded me of the song and that that would be a pretty good subject for a podcast episode.

So it went on my list, which is a pretty long list of podcast ideas. But one good thing about songs is that there’s no shortage of great ones. So this episode has been in the works for a while. It was about 80% done, just waiting for an opportunity for me to finish it up. And then Tina died… which I’m always of two minds about these situations, because I don’t want to take advantage of, or jump on the bandwagon, or be seen as “cashing in” in any way on the death of somebody, especially an artist as important as Tina Turner. And make no mistake, she is an historically important artist, but she should be remembered, she should be paid tribute to and she should be celebrated.

So I’m going to go ahead with this episode. Keep in mind that most of this was recorded before she passed away. It wasn’t originally meant to be a posthumous tribute, but I think it’s still relevant today. S

So, in honor of Tina, let’s take a road trip down to Nutbush, Tennessee, with Ike and Tina Turner, and “Nutbush City Limits”.

[Music]

Ike Turner was a journeyman musician. It was his band, the Kings Of Rhythm, that recorded “Rocket 88”, considered by many to be the first rock and roll song. Though he wasn’t credited for it– it was credited to Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, which always ticked Ike off.

[Music]

Ike also worked as kind of a talent scout for Sun Records and Modern Records, and spent some time as a session musician playing piano on records for people like BB King and Howlin’ Wolf.

She ended up in East St Louis, playing with his band, the Kings of Rhythm, and that’s where he met Anna Mae Bullock in 1957. She became a fan of the band when she was 17. She saw them whenever she could, and then she began singing with the Kings of Rhythm. They made their first record together in 1958, a song called “Box Top” with Anna Mae, nicknamed “Little Anne” on backing vocals.

[Music]

They had their first big hit in 1960 with a song called “A Fool In Love”, this time credited to Ike and Tina Turner.

[Music]

Ike was the one who changed her name to Tina. By then, she was already pregnant with their first child. Ike was married to another woman at the time; he had already been married at least four times, maybe six times by then. When she was in the hospital having that baby, Ike hired another woman to pretend to be Tina on stage so he could keep playing gigs and getting paid. When Tina found out, she checked herself out of the hospital, went to the gig and punched out that fake Tina and then finished the gig herself.

In 1962, they got married. She was 23, he was 31, and Ike hadn’t even bothered to divorce any of his previous wives.

The abuse started early. When she told Ike she didn’t want to change her name to Tina, he hit her. That was the first of many. He slept around and abused her all through their relationship, and he worked her to exhaustion.

By 1966, the hits had started to dry up. Producer Phil Specter was also going through a dry patch when he saw Ike & Tina perform on “The Big TNT” show in late 1965. Go check out that performance on YouTube– they were on fire that night.

[Music]

Phil Spector, being the control freak that he was, was not about to work with another control freak like Ike Turner. So, they cut a deal: Spector paid Ike a bunch of money to stay away from the studio, and Phil would make the record without him. Though “River Deep Mountain High” is credited as an “Ike and Tina Turner” release, Ike really had nothing to do with making that record.

Though the song didn’t sell as well as everyone hoped, it’s become a true classic; on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest songs of all time, “River Deep Mountain High” came in at number 33.

[Music]

The Rolling Stones– and this time we’re talking about the band, not the magazine– The Rolling Stones loved this song, and invited Ike and Tina to support them on a British tour. It was the first of a few tours where Tina would open for the Stones, and this exposed her to a whole new, and much bigger, audience.

One of the interesting things about both Tina and Ike is that neither one of them really wanted to be known as R&B performers, even though that’s what paid the bills. Their musical preferences were really elsewhere. So they were perfectly happy to venture further into rock and roll. And that’s where they’d find their biggest hits, with their versions of songs like “Proud Mary”, “Honky Tonk Woman” and “I Want To Take You Higher:.

[Music]

Ike opened his own recording studio and Tina did some session work there, providing vocals, including for tracks by Frank Zappa.

[Music]

As they got more successful behind the scenes, life with Ike was getting worse. More cocaine meant more violence. She had attempted suicide in 1968. It wouldn’t be the last time. Eventually, she left him in 1976. Their divorce was finalized in March 1978.

But back in 1973, they were still together when Tina wrote “Nutbush City Limits”. While Ike was becoming more and more difficult to work with, Tina was finding her own footing. She wrote “Nutbush City Limits”. But after it became a hit, Ike tried to take credit for it. But clearly this is Tina’s song. She wrote it about the town she grew up in.

Unfortunately, there’s no credits on the album, and there doesn’t appear to be much documentation as to who played on the song. Mark Bolan of T Rex may have played guitar on the track; it is confirmed that he played guitar on at least one other Ike & Tina song, so it is possible. It’s also been claimed that James Lewis, a member of Ike & Tina’s backing band, played guitar on the track. They both could be on the track. Who really knows?

The song opens with one guitar, maybe played by Mark Bolan, in the center channel. After a couple of bars, another guitar with a wah-wah pedal appears in the left channel.

Here come the horns on the right. The drums come in there, but it’s just the kick and the snare drum. No hi-hat, no cymbals. And they’re going to hold off on the cymbals for quite a while. The bass is also going to lay back for a while.

[Music]

She’s telling us about her little hometown, but she’s not using full sentences. These are barely even phrases. They’re just impressions. A church house, gin house, schoolhouse, outhouse… but you can see the town taking shape in your head, right?

Highway 19 is a small rural state route that runs through this part of Tennessee, I believe it’s about 43 miles long. And a stretch of Route 19 between Brownsville and Nutbush is officially called Tina Turner Highway.

[Music]

When she hits the end of the chorus, the bass comes in, along with a clavinet. A clavinet is an electric keyboard instrument; it was based on the clavichord, an instrument from the Middle Ages. But the clavinet is a relatively new instrument, developed in 1964. It has a very distinctive sound. It’s almost guitar like, but not quite. It’s really its own thing. Of course, it was Stevie Wonder who really popularized the sound of the clavinet on songs like “Superstition”.  Here, the clavinet is kind of accentuating the bass guitar part. Let’s go back and pick it up right before the bass comes in.

[Music]

“25 was the speed limit, motorcycle not allowed in it.” I love that line, it’s so specific. You can also hear that a low, droning note on a keyboard comes in there.

[Music]

There’s a chime or a bell in the right channel. There’s some interesting choices of percussion in this song, and that bell will continue to pop up in the right channel. And the drummer is finally going to play some hi-hat coming up. Listen for that when the vocal comes back in.

[Music]

Listening to the horn part; at first I thought there might be a synthesizer playing along with them, but now I’m not sure. I think it’s probably just horns, but see what you think.

[Music]

Let’s hear that verse with the vocals.

[Music]

Let’s play that chorus again and listen to her vocal. She does a nice little scream in there. And the way she cracks her voice on the word “city”, that is a Tina trademark right there.

[Music]

Now this is where the song takes a total left turn, I think. There is a synthesizer solo that comes out of nowhere, and it feels totally incongruous to me. I don’t know if this was Ike’s idea, he’s credited as producer on the album. At the time, synthesizers were still pretty new. They probably thought they were doing something innovative or updating their sound. But now, to me at least, this is the thing that sounds the most dated about the song. I guess there’s a lesson in there about relying too much on conspicuous technology.

And there’s also that incessant percussion part in the right channel. And that brings us to the last verse where that synthesizer is going to have a little back and forth with Tina’s vocal.

[Music]

And that last line, “salt pork and molasses is all you get in jail”. Again, so specific. And I love the way she sings that line.

[Music]

And I love the way she phrases that line, “It’s called a quiet little old community”. There’s a long pause she puts in between “it’s called” and “a quiet little old community”. And the way she hits the word “quiet”, it’s just so great.

[Music]

Let’s pick it back up and play it out through the fade. “A one horse town. You have to watch what you’re putting down in old Nutbush.”

[Music]

Ike and Tina Turner, “Nutbush City Limits”.

Nutbush, Tennessee remains a small rural town. There’s a sign over the town grocery store proclaiming it as the “birthplace of Tina Turner”. And then there’s that stretch of Highway 19 that’s named after her, Tina Turner Highway. I’m sure if you go there today, there will be memorials, flowers and tributes laid out in her honor.

There have been memorials and tributes pouring in from every corner of the world, and the internet is full of them. It’s a safe bet that every music-related podcast has discussed Tina in some fashion lately. So, I’m not going to explain all of the ways that she made a difference, all of the barriers she broke down gender, race, age, and how many people she influenced. There are other podcasts that have done that and probably done it better than I can. We’ll never know how many women who, inspired by Tina’s example, escaped an abusive relationship. For that alone, she deserves our respect.

But it will always be the music that she’ll be most remembered for. That will be her lasting impact. Her records leaped out of the grooves with energy and intensity, and as a live performer, she was hard to top. Thanks for everything, Tina.

And thanks to you for listening. The “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast comes your way twice a month, on the first and the 15th of every month, so make sure you follow the show in your favorite podcast app so that you never miss an episode.

We are part of the Pantheon Podcast Network, where you’ll find an endless supply of great podcasts.

Keep on listening and thanks for being here for this episode on Tina Turner and “Nutbush City Limits”

Etta James – “Love’s Been Rough On Me”

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Etta James - "Love's Been Rough On Me" (Gretchen Peters) Copyright Sony/ATV Tunes LLC dba Cross Keys Publishing/Purple Crayon Music (ASCAP)

Etta James lived quite a life; some incredible highs and heartbreaking lows throughout her 73 years. From hit songs to heroin addiction, from critical acclaim to violence and bad behavior & jail time, Etta experienced it all. And you could hear every bit of that experience in her voice. I’ve wanted to feature Etta on this podcast for a while; the easy choice would be to pick one of her early classic songs… but instead, let’s listen to an overlooked track from late in her career, when she might have been “past her prime” but more than capable of delivering a heart-wrenching performance.  

“Love’s Been Rough On Me” (Gretchen Peters) Copyright Sony/ATV Tunes LLC dba Cross Keys Publishing/Purple Crayon Music (ASCAP)

— Remember to follow this show, so you never miss an episode.

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome back to the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. Thanks for joining me here on the Pantheon Podcast network. I’m your host, Brad Page, and each episode of this show I pick one of my favorite songs and we explore it together, discovering what makes it a great song.

This episode happens to come out just in time for Valentine’s Day. And as I mentioned on this show before, I am not a fan of these holidays that are really just an excuse to sell greeting cards and merchandise, but it’s also an excuse for me to play a song. So I thought this time we’d listen to, I don’t know, maybe this is an anti-Valentine’s Day song. This one’s by Etta  James. It’s a song called “Love’s Been Rough On Me”.

[Music]

Etta James is a legend. She was born James Etta Hawkins in Los Angeles on January 25, 1938. She was 16 years old when Johnny Otis heard her singing in San Francisco. He asked her if she was 18. She lied. He brought her back to LA, renamed her Etta James, and she cut her first record with him, “The Wallflower”, in 1955.

[Music]

She released a few more singles, but the hits dried up for a while and so did the good paying gigs. To find a new opportunity, she borrowed a few bucks from Jackie Wilson and bought a bus ticket to Chicago to meet with Chess Records. Leonard Chess liked her a lot and signed her up. One of her earliest singles for chess was “All I Could Do Is Cry” in 1960, written by Billy Davis and Barry Gordy Jr. in the days before he started Motown, she recorded this vocal in one take.

[Music]

Chess Records was home to Muddy Waters, Howlin’Wolf and Chuck Berry. There wasn’t much call for strings, but once they started working with Etta, they pictured her as a balladeer as well as a house rocker, and issued quite a few lushly orchestrated ballads, culminating in the universal classic “At Last”.

[Music]

If Etta James had never cut another song, her legacy would be cemented by that track alone. But of course, she cut a lot more records than that. In 1963, she released one of my favorite records of hers, a live album recorded in Nashville called “Etta James Rocks The House”.

[Music]

Hard to believe that’s the same woman who sang “At Last”.

Life was not easy for Etta. She was a heroin addict and would struggle with addiction for the rest of her life. Over the course of her career, she would be arrested more than once. In and out of rehab, she spent 17 months in a psychiatric hospital. Somehow, in the midst of all that, she managed to record some great music, like the classic “Tell Mama” in 1967, recorded in Muscle Shoals Alabama.

[Music]

And the B side of that single was a song just as iconic: “I’d Rather Go Blind”.

[Music]

Though she was no longer hitting the charts by the mid 70’s, and therefore off the general public’s radar, she continued to make records for three more decades. In 1997, she released an album called “Love’s Been Rough On Me”, and this is the title song from that album. The song was written by Gretchen Peters, who’s released a bunch of her own records. But I think this recording by Etta James was the first time the song had been released. I don’t know if Gretchen wrote it specifically for Etta, but she might as well have. Etta delivers it like it was made for her.

This is a song about the real cost of love. Love can give you something amazing, but it can also exact a terrible price. I love this song because it doesn’t sugarcoat the subject. It’s not overly poetic, it’s not trying to be clever with its lyrics. It’s just laying it all out there, honestly.

There are two guitars, very cleanly recorded. One panned more to the left, the other panned hard right, and they’re playing off of each other. There’s a piano and a little bit of what sounds like a pedal steel guitar. It’s all very nicely setting the stage for Etta’s vocal.

[Music]

“They say life goes on… well, I can’t prove it, but I know they’re wrong”. I love that line.

[Music]

That brings us to the first chorus.

[Music]

“I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I don’t seem to be able to get back on my feet.” And with a pretty subtle delivery, Etta makes you believe it.

[Music]

Speaker B: That’s just a nice little guitar fill there.

[Music]

I will admit that I’m not into that distorted guitar part there. I’m all for distorted guitars– big fan. But I don’t think it’s needed here. I think that’s just a reflection of the time. This was recorded in the late 90’s. I think if they were making this record today, they would have gone with a different sound.

At any rate, here’s the next verse… and there’s only two verses in this song. Two verses and two choruses, and that’s it. Three minutes, no fat. But honestly, I could have listened to Etta sing this all day.

[Music]

Let’s bring up her vocal and listen to that verse again.

[Music]

“Love’s Been Rough On Me” – Etta James

Life was rough on Etta James. Along with fighting addiction, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2008, suffered a MRSA infection in 2010, and in 2011 was diagnosed with leukemia, which would eventually take her life on January 20, 2012, just before her 74th birthday. If anybody understood this song, it was Edda James.

So this song is my Valentine’s gift to you. It’s easy for people to say cliches like “it’s better to have loved and lost than never have loved it all”, but this is a song for everyone who’s ever loved and lost and never quite recovered. Have mercy, because love’s been rough on us all.

Thanks, as always, for being part of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. You can post a review or comments on our Facebook page, or on Podchaser, or wherever you listen to the show.

You can find all of our previous episodes on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, as well as on Apple podcasts. Spotify, Google, Amazon, basically anywhere that you can find podcasts, you will find this show. And don’t forget to follow the show so that you never miss any of our new episodes.

We’re part of the Pantheon family of podcasts, where you’ll find a ton of music related shows, so be sure to check them all out.

We’ll be back in two weeks with a new edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. Thanks for listening to this show on Etta James and “Love’s Been Rough On Me”.

The Temptations – “Papa Was A Rolling Stone”

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"Papa Was A Rolling Stone" (Norman Whitfield & Barrett Strong) Copyright 1972 Stone Diamond Music Corp.

Norman Whitfield turned The Temptations from a typical Motown vocal group into Psychedelic Soul pioneers. Their collaboration reached its zenith with “Papa Was A Rolling Stone“, a dark, atmospheric, orchestral showcase for both the Temptations and Whitfield’s genius. This would be the last #1 hit for The Temptations, and they would stop working with Norman Whitfield soon after. But they left behind this monumental masterpiece.

“Papa Was A Rolling Stone” (Norman Whitfield & Barrett Strong) Copyright 1972 Stone Diamond Music Corp.

If you enjoyed this episode, here’s a previous episode that featured another classic Temptations song:
lovethatsongpodcast.com/the-temptations-i-cant-get-next-to-you/

— And remember to follow this show, so you never miss an episode.

TRANSCRIPT:

You have managed to find your way to the “I’m In Love With That Song Podcast, one of the many shows on the Pantheon Podcast Network dedicated to bringing you the best music-related podcasts. I’m your host Brad Page, and each episode of this show, I pick one of my favorite songs and we attempt to discover what makes it a great song. Musical knowledge or experience is not a prerequisite here, we don’t get technical. This show is for anybody who loves music.

On this edition, we’re taking a look at one of the most epic songs to ever hit Number One, and probably the most unconventional track that Motown ever released. This is the Temptations with “Papa Was a Rolling Stone”.

Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield were one of Motown’s most successful songwriting teams. Whitfield was also their most adventurous producer. He was the man credited with creating the sound of “psychedelic soul”. Whitfield and Strong wrote “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” sometime in 1971. Whitfield had composed the music and recorded a basic track, and gave the tape to Strong with the suggestion that he come up with some lyrics that were fun. But as Strong listened to the tape over and over, he heard it differently. In particular, he thought that the bass part sounded like someone struggling to make sense out of confusion. He started to think about kids he knew who had been abandoned by their fathers. When they asked their mother what happened to their dad, what would they say? So Strong ran with that idea, finished up the lyrics and presented them to Whitfield, who liked them.

So they completed the song and then set about recording it with a band called The Undisputed Truth. It was this version that was released as a single in early 1972.

[Music]

That’s actually a pretty cool production, but it wasn’t a hit. Whitfield still believed in the song though, and he convinced Barry Gordy to let him have another crack at it. So Whitfield completely reworked the song and went back into the studio with Motown’s legendary Funk brothers and rerecorded it. They turned it into an epic twelve-minute instrumental, a track full of atmosphere. Whitfield brought in Paul Riser to arrange the strings. Riser thought the track was full of mystery and suspense, and he treated his arrangement like he was scoring a movie. The soundtrack to “Shaft” had come out a year before, and Reiser was definitely inspired by that.

Now here’s where the Temptations come in. By 1971, The Temptations had gone through some major changes. Paul Williams and Eddie Kendricks had left, leaving Otis Williams, Dennis Edwards and Melvin Franklin to carry on with two new members, Richard Street and Damon Harris.

The Temptations had had quite a few hits with Norman Whitfield producing, including two number ones. One of them, “I Can’t Get Next To You”, we covered here back in episode number 45.

But the Temptations were growing tired of Whitfield’s experimentations, which made the guys feel more like bit-players on their own records. They wanted to return to the romantic numbers like “My Girl” that they used to do. So, when Whitfield brought them into the studio and played them the twelve-minute track to “Papa Was a Rolling Stone”, they said, “No way, we are not doing that”. They argued for about 20 minutes when the group’s leader, Otis Williams, finally said, “Okay, we’ll give it a try”.

So let’s get into the track. Now, usually my preference is to go with the album version rather than the single, but this time we’re going to go with the single. The album version, at twelve minutes long, is a bit much for this podcast, and considering that the single itself is seven minutes, that gives us plenty to work with.

Here’s how the track begins. Just bass and hi-hat. Let’s hear just the bass, because that’s really the heart of the song.

The next thing you hear are the strings arranged by Paul Reiser. They add some real drama to the song. You can hear how Reiser was orchestrating this like a soundtrack to a movie, rather than just a pop song.

Here come the guitars, played by Paul Warren and Wah-Wah Watson. The two guitar parts play off each other and all the other instruments throughout the whole song. They’re always doing something interesting.

Added here, a trumpet played by Maurice Davis. Davis had already finished recording his part and was on his way out when Norman Whitfield called him back into the studio. He wanted to try recording it with a heavy echo on it. So, Davis re-recorded his whole part using the echo, which adds another layer of spookiness to the song.

Hand claps on the off beats. Notice how the hand claps stop there? The wah-wah guitar flutters and then the harp comes back in. All these parts flowing in and out. The wah-wah guitar drops out, the strings build and then drop out, too.

We are 1 minute and 55 seconds into the song, and here is where the vocals finally come in. On the album version, it’s almost four minutes before the vocals come in. You can see why The Temptations felt like they were being sidelined, but that intro really sets a mood, doesn’t it?

We’ll take a look at the vocals in a minute, but first, let’s just listen to what those guitars are doing in the background.

The Motown guitar players were usually relegated to just playing rhythm, but here they get to stretch out a bit.

Now the vocals. The first voice we hear is Dennis Edwards. Edwards and Whitfield clashed from the start about this song. Edwards kept trying to put more into his vocal performance, but Whitfield kept telling him to hold back, to tone it down. Edwards did not like to be restrained, but Whitfield wanted it dialed way down. That was making Edwards pretty mad. But Whitfield got the take he wanted.

Edwards was also upset because he was taking the lyrics a little personally. This verse about the 3rd of September being the day that Daddy died hit a little close to home. Now, the legend has it that Edward’s own father died on September 3, but that’s not actually true. His dad died on October 3. Still, it was close enough for Edwards to be concerned about it. And Whitfield had to convince him that it wasn’t personal. Barrett Strong had only written the lyrics that way because he liked the way it sounded–the date was purely a coincidence.

Let’s hear more of the guitars behind this verse.

Here come those hand claps again.

Maurice Davis’s trumpet, saturated with echo, appears again. The strings are going to take over for a few measures. Let’s hear what they’re doing. Reiser used nine violins, four violas, three cellos, and that harp for the string section.

In classic Temptations fashion, the lead vocals are shared by different singers. This works particularly well on this song, because it sounds like multiple children telling their stories. It’s not just the story of one boy, it’s the voices of all those kids who were let down by their fathers.

This next verse features Richard Street, who replaced Paul Williams in 1971, as well as Melvin Franklin, whose deep bass voice was the foundation for so many great Temptations songs.

I love that part.

Let’s zero in on Richard street’s vocals.

Wah-wah Watson is getting in some licks behind this verse. Let’s hear some of that.

And here’s the second chorus.

I like that guitar lick there. The final verse features Damon Harris, who replaced Eddie Kendricks when he quit in ‘71. Harris was the youngest member of the band, and while Kendrick’s falsetto was one of the Temptation’s trademarks, Damon sounds great here.

Damon gets the last word.

Let’s listen a little more to that backing track.

“Papa Was a Rolling Stone”. During their career, The Temptations had four number one hits on the top 100: “My Girl”, “I Can’t Get Next To You”, “Just My Imagination” and “Papa Was A Rolling Stone”. Three of those four were written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, and produced by Whitfield.

That was a magic combination, but it didn’t last. Within a few years, Whitfield and The Temptations would stop working together, and Whitfield would leave Motown. “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” would be the last number one hit for The Temptations, but it was their crowning achievement.

Thanks for listening to this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. New episodes are released on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so we’ll be back soon with another show. You can find all of our previous shows on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, as well as on Spotify, Apple, Podcasts, Google, Amazon, wherever you can find podcasts. And if you’re looking for more music podcasts, check out the other great shows on the Pantheon Network.

Drop us a line on Facebook, Podchaser, or send email to lovethatsongpodcast@gmail.com.

Don’t forget to support the artists you love by buying their music. And thanks for joining me for this episode on “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” by The Temptations.