Tag Archives: Soul

Isaac Hayes: Shaft (Deluxe Edition)

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IsaacHayes_ShaftRemastered classic soul soundtrack with a bonus

Isaac Hayes’ classic soundtrack to Shaft hasn’t exactly been hard to find. The original double-album topped the Billboard chart, spun off a #1 Grammy- and Oscar-winning single, and ended up the biggest seller in Stax history. It’s been reissued more than a half-dozen times on CD, and more recently it’s been available for electronic download. So why another reissue, why now? Primarily because the Stax catalog has come under the control of Concord Records, and the label is, understandably, producing a new round of reissues. Reissues create buzz, press coverage and garner retail space, all of which helps keep catalog evergreens in the green, and keep royalties flowing to artists and their estates.

Reissues also provide a chance to run a classic through updated technology, as is the case with this Bob Fisher full re-master from original analog sources. In addition, Fisher has produced a bonus mix of the title song. The new mix opens with a drumstick click track that was edited from the original, moves Charles Pitts’ wah-wah guitar from right to center and deepens the tone (or simply increases the relative volume) of Willie Hall’s high-hat riff. Is it a must-have? Not really, given the iconic nature of the original. The new mix is just different enough to make you wonder if something’s off, but not different enough to give it a life of its own. A more compelling bonus for collectors would have been the edited, single version of the title song. Audiophiles with an earlier CD of the soundtrack may find Fisher’s re-master an improvement, but casual listeners likely don’t need to update.

Those who’ve never heard the full album should give it a spin. Though the score doesn’t measure up to the hook-filled catchiness of the single, it wasn’t meant to. The soundtrack was written as incidental music in support of the film’s action, while the theme was an expositional introduction to the film’s main character. The bulk of the score is, as with most film soundtracks, instrumental texture and emotional underlining. Aside from the title theme, the only vocal tracks are “Soulville” and “Do Your Thing,” and the latter quickly evolves into a terrific 19-1/2 minute soul jam. The instrumentals create mood that often transcends the moving images for which they were written. “Ellie’s Love Theme” is a tender mix of vibes and horns, “Café Regio’s” sports a breezy West Coast Jazz feel, and “Be Yourself” has a strong, funky party beat. The score is music worth hearing apart from its role within the film.

Hayes brought his musical ethos to the project, but didn’t set out to record the sort of genre-busting explorations of Hot Buttered Soul. The longer tracks find compelling funk and soul grooves, but weren’t meant to push directly into the spotlight. Those looking for an album full of “Theme from Shaft” radio hits will be disappointed, but those seeking a helping of Hayes’ genius as a composer, arranger, orchestrator, band leader and conductor will enjoy the soundtrack presented here. Even better, Hayes recorded the film soundtrack at MGM in Los Angeles and then re-recorded the soundtrack album at Stax in Memphis for better sound. Other great blaxploitation soundtracks would follow, including Superfly and Across 110th Street, but Shaft remains a primal inspiration. A 20-page booklet filled with photos, credits and new liner notes by Ashley Kahn rounds out this reissue. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Creedence Clearwater Revival: The Singles Collection

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CCR_TheSinglesCollectionCCR as first heard on Top-40 radio

As a band that had tremendous top-40 success during the hey-day of freeform radio, Creedence Clearwater Revival stood with one foot planted firmly in each world. Their LPs were recorded in well-produced stereo, offered extended jams, thoughtful cover songs and deep album cuts that found room on underground FM stations such as Bay Area legends KMPX and KSAN. But above ground, the band’s music was remixed into powerful mono, edited for length and unleashed via AM powerhouses. AM’s narrow frequency range added emphasis to the music’s midrange, focusing listeners on Fogerty’s vocals and stinging guitar leads, and further revealing the band’s rhythm section to be among the most rock-solid and potent of its era. Their driving rhythms are just that much more driving in mono, and the band’s pop tunes sprang easily from a single speaker in the middle of a car’s dashboard.

Fogerty wrote with the goal of placing his songs alongside the R&B hits the group had grown up loving on Oakland’s KWBR and Sacramento’s KRAK. His originals stood toe-to-toe on album, airwave and top-40 chart with covers of “Suzie Q,” “I Put a Spell on You” and “I Heard it Through the Grapevine.” Included here are the A- and B-sides of thirteen original singles, ranging from 1968’s “Porterville” (b/w “Call it Pretending”) through 1972’s “Someday Never Comes” (b/w “Tearin’ Up the Country”). Also included is the single-edit of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” (b/w “Good Golly Miss Molly”) that was released in 1976, four years after the group disbanded, and both sides of the stereo promotion-only experiment “45 Revolutions Per Minute.” The latter, a montage of production ideas, sound effects, musical bridges and comedy bits previously appeared as bonus tracks on the 2008 reissue of Pendulum.

Most of these songs are well-known to even casual listeners, as Creedence often broke both sides of their singles. The few less familiar cuts are the group’s first B-side “Call It Pretending,” Stu Cook’s “Door to Door” (an album cut from Mardi Gras and the B-side of “Sweet Hitch-Hiker”), and Doug Clifford’s “Tearin’ Up the Country” (also from Mardi Gras, and the B-side of “Someday Never Comes”). Strung end-to-end, these singles provide the AM listener’s view of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s success. While FM listeners grooved to 8:37 of “Suzie Q,” AM listeners enjoyed a concise 4:33 edit, and while album buyers sat back to enjoy album jams like “Graveyard Train,” “Keep on Chooglin’” and “Ramble Tamble,” singles buyers got another gumdrop every three or four months. The singles form an intertwined, yet separate, artistic arc that the band carved out in parallel to their albums.

Concord delivers thirty tracks on two CDs, each screened with a vintage Fantasy record label. The CDs are housed in a standard jewel case, together with a 20-page booklet that includes new liner notes by Ben Fong-Torres. Torres’ essay provides a genial trip through Creedence’s success on the radio, with quotes from 1960’s boss jocks, but it’s light on the particulars of these mono mixes and edits. A separate cardboard sleeve houses a DVD of four Creedence promotional videos: “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” “Bootleg,” “I Put a Spell on You,” and “Lookin’ Out My Back Door.” Staged in studios and aboard a riverboat these are real treats, with the band looking youthful and happy. There are groovy dancers on “Bootleg” and psychedelic effects of “I Put a Spell On You,” and the black-and-white footage of “Lookin’ Out My Back Door” looks like it was filmed in the band’s rehearsal space. A folded poster insert reproduces many original 7” picture sleeves and completes a cardboard slip-cased package that is, in its own way, as important as the band’s original albums. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Jackie DeShannon: Me About You / To Be Free

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JackieDeShannon_MeAboutYouToBeFreeSophisticated DeShannon albums from ’68 and ’70

Jackie DeShannon is a singer-songwriter whose songs generally overshadowed her singing. Her version of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “What the World Needs Now is Love” etched her name on the upper reaches of the charts in 1965, and her own “Put a Little Love in Your Heart” notched a second commercial favorite in 1969. But other than these two worldwide hits, her albums and singles typically languished in the lower regions of the U.S. pop charts. Her albums for Imperial ranged from early teen-oriented pop to adult contemporary, and 1968’s Me About You marked a step toward the latter. DeShannon mixed personal originals with delicate, intimately interpreted covers of songs from John Sebastian, Tim Hardin, Jimmy Webb and Van Dyke Parks. The arrangements (by Jack Nitzsche, Nick De Caro, Kirby Johnson and Arthur Wright) are inventive and moving, but the West Coast production occasionally leaves DeShannon’s voice sticking out from the instrumentation.

Even as DeShannon found a more sophisticated sound, her lyrics often looked back, as on the original “Splendor in the Grass,” and her choice of pop covers, such as the Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Didn’t Want to Have to Do It” and the Turtles’ “Me About You,” tied in to her earlier period of songwriting and hit making. What’s really interesting, though, is how DeShannon contemporized this material, and how her growing maturity led to the bigger reach of 1969’s Laurel Canyon and Put a Little Love in Your Heart (each available separately), and this disc’s second feature, 1970’s To Be Free, her last for Imperial. To Be Free was the album that followed the massive success of “Put a Little Love in Your Heart,” and it used the same production team. The songs, however, are mostly DeShannon’s, and the arrangements largely by Rene Hall. Hall’s work with Marvin Gaye and Ray Charles, and backing vocals by Vanetta Fields (Ikettes) and Clydie King (Raelettes) are the foundation of the album’s soul-meets-adult-contemporary sound.

The album opens with the funky bass, sharp horns and sweet strings of “Livin’ on the Easy Side,” and the sly “It’s So Nice” is sung like an early Prince song. The introspective and observational lyrics anticipate the singer-songwriter breakthrough of 1971’s Tapestry, though the slick production hasn’t the earthiness delivered by Lou Adler for Carole King. DeShannon’s eight originals are complemented by a medley of the Supremes “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” and Little Anthony and the Imperials’ “Hurt So Bad,” and there’s a deeply felt, gospel-flavored cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on the Wire.” The album’s single, “Brighton Hill” reached #10 on the adult contemporary chart with its warm lyric of satisfaction. This two-fer CD’s lone bonus is an over-orchestrated cover of Tim Hardin’s “Reason to Believe” that won’t make you forget Rod Stewart’s 1971 hit (nor Hardin’s 1965 original); but it’s largely superfluous amid these two fine albums. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Jackie DeShannon’s Home Page

Ray Charles: The Spirit of Christmas

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RayCharles_TheSpiritOfChristmasThe genius of soul’s Christmas album back in print!

Surprisingly, this 1985 album is Ray Charles’ only Christmas album. Recorded with a sizzling band and guests that include trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, saxophonist Rudy Johnson, guitarist Jeff Pevar, and the Raeletts, this is (despite the wintery cover photo) a warm and soulful album of Christmas and holiday songs. Charles and his co-arrangers (James Polk, Larry Muhoberac and Bill McElhiney) stretch out across soul balladry, jazz, horn-lined swing, choral harmony, and blue country. There’s a lot of style packed into this album’s ten tracks. Concord’s reissue (the first in twelve years) adds the Ray Charles/Betty Carter duet “Baby it’s Cold Outside” to the original album, extending the running time to 47 minutes. This is a solid shot of rhythm and soul for your holiday party. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Ray Charles: The Genius Hits the Road

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RayCharles_TheGeniusHitsThe RoadFresh remaster of Ray Charles’ 1960 ABC-Paramount debut

When Ray Charles left Atlantic for ABC-Paramount, he also sought to expand his stardom on the pop carts, solidifying the crossover success he’d begun with the single “What’d I Say” and the album The Genius of Ray Charles. The first outing for his new label was this 12-song release, whose travel- and place-related theme was sufficiently broad to leave Charles room to roam. The song list was compiled from numbers familiar to Charles and others pitched by his new producer Sid Feller. The titles include tin pan alley classics, Dixieland standards, trad jazz and pop numbers and even the nineteenth century minstrel tune, sung here as gospel with the Raeletts, “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny.”

The productions are backed by brassy orchestrations, lush strings and chorused vocals, leaving only short spaces for piano and sax solos. The upbeat numbers are sizzling, swinging supper club jazz, and the ballads, especially Charles’ tour de force interpretation of Hoagy Charmichael’s “Georgia on My Mind,” are deeply soulful. A few of the songs play like novelties today (and perhaps did so in 1960), but Charles gives each his complete his attention and has fun on lighter numbers such as the boastful “New York’s My Home” and the gleeful “Chattanooga Choo-Choo.” Still, even Charles’ effort can’t save a jokey call-and-response version of “Deep in the Heart of Texas.”

By this point in his career, Charles was marketing himself more as a vocalist than a pianist, but his mastery of the keys can be heard in the rolling notes of “Basin Street Blues” and the dreamy flights of “Moonlight in Vermont.” The seven bonus tracks on this reissue duplicate the first four appended to Rhino’s 1997 version, including the chart-topping “Hit the Road Jack” and a swinging soul take on Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” Newly added are a romantic version of “The Long and Winding Road,” the country-soul original “I Was On Georgia Time,” and a ham-and-cheesy cover of John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” Rhino’s bonus picks of “I’m Movin’ On” and “Lonely Avenue” were more solid outings.

These tracks aren’t the gutty jazz and soul of Charles’ Atlantic period, nor the groundbreaking interpretational work he’d unleash on 1962’s Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. They’re a way-point, a transition between Charles’ roots as a jazz player and his future as a pop crooner. The material is a mix of novelties and well-selected chestnuts, and though the orchestrations can get a bit strong, Charles holds down the center with a voice that makes it all worth hearing. As his first top-10 pop album, and hosting his first chart-topping pop single (“Georgia on My Mind”), there are enough winning cuts, particularly the ballads, to merit adding this to your collection. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

The Band of Heathens: One Foot in the Ether

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BandOfHeathens_OneFootInTheEtherAustin-style country, rock, folk, gospel, blues and soul

The Band of Heathens’ second studio album (their fourth overall, having started their recording career with two live releases) is a big step forward. The artistic palette of last year’s eponymous release is carried forward here, but the result sounds less like a collage of influences and more like a band that’s discovered its own groove. The twin inspirations of Little Feat and the Band remain particularly strong, but as channeled spirits rather than imitated sounds. With three singer-songwriters contributing a dozen originals to this self-produced release, the group clearly knows they have the goods. Their experience as a live unit pays dividends in the studio, as they sound like a band running through their set rather than musical architects constructing a recording.

The group’s comfort is immediately apparent on the chorus harmonies of “Say.” Their multipart singing is tight as a drum but also as loose as a casual back porch harmony session. The same is true for the gospel backing of “Shine a Light” and the lead passing on both the Little Feat groove “You’re Gonna Miss Me” and sad-sack blues “Right Here With Me.” This is a group that’s clearly spent time getting comfortable with one another. Their musical sympathy is heard in jamming solos and instrumental codas, and the seemingly ad libbed exhortation to “keep it going” as “You’re Gonna Miss Me” threatens to wind down.

The band’s name proves ironic as their songs are laced with biblical images. They sing of non-conformists, petulant ex-lovers, and independent ramblers, but these tales are filled with doubt and remorse. Gospel influences, both musical and liturgical, praise the hard work of salvation, cast an accusing eye towards the contradictions and hypocrisy of modern society, and call for reconciliation with one another and, seemingly, a higher power. The clanking blues “Golden Calf” warns of a false idol’s allure, and even songs of busted relationships have an eternal ring as they sing “you can give up, you can give in / but you can never quit.”

Last year’s studio debut climbed to the top of the Americana chart and promoted the band from scattered local club dates to a full touring schedule. Their continuing musical growth is evident in both the absorption of their top-line influences and the addition of new touches, such as the dripping Dark Side of the Moon styled guitar of “Look at Miss Ohio.” The results are organic and unforced, and by producing themselves and releasing on their own label, the group remains free to chase their singular, yet multi-headed musical muse. The adage “you have a lifetime to record your first album and a year to record your second” doesn’t seem to have vexed the Band of Heathens at all. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | L.A. County Blues
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The Mumlers: Don’t Throw Me Away

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Mumlers_Don'tThrowMeAwayMesmerizing old-timey soul music with a mysterious touch

The Mumlers’ music seems to float from a Victrola wedged into a dark corner of a mysterious antique shop. Will Sprott sings like a megaphoned apparition, and the group’s horn arrangements have the languor of a New Orleans funeral parade that accidentally marched into a morning-after session at Stax. Even when the band adds a psychedelic organ groove, such as on “Coffin Factory,” the vibe still draws one to the beyond. This is surprising, given the Mumlers home base of San Jose, California, the population anchor at the south end of the San Francisco Bay that’s christened itself the Capital of Silicon Valley. You don’t know the way to this San Jose.

The group’s second album stretches even further than their debut (Thickets & Snitches), including the trad jazz and blues of “Tangled Up With You” and slinky second-line of “St. James Street.” The latter echoes the standard “St. James Infirmary,” but is actually a straight-up description of Sprott’s urban San Jose neighborhood. The group connects to loungecore with a slowly careening instrumental cleverly entitled “The Instrumental.” The band drifts between jazzy melodies for movie scores, circus music and the swinging-60s vibe of Bob Crewe’s “Music to Watch Girls By.” The genre mash-ups are terrifically organic, and in addition to guitars, stand-up bass, drums, keyboards, and horns, the Mumlers include euphonium, clarinet, French horn and pedal steel.

“Fugitive and Vagabond” features piano, harmonica, cymbal crashes and a whistled solo that seems to have been skimmed from aspaghetti western, and the set closes with the soulfully crooned “Don’t Throw Me Away,” an original that should have graced many a 1950s school dance. The Mumlers’ unusual influences and free-wheeling approach result in the sort of shape-shifting one would expect from a group named after a nineteenth century charlatan who made a living selling photos of ghosts to bereaved families. The Mumlers are the real deal, however, and their second album is one of the year’s most eclectic spins. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

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Various Artists: Boy Meets Girl

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Various_BoyMeetsGirl1969 collection of Stax male-female duets

Sibling and parent/child duets create a family voice that complements the individual singers. But duets between men and women elevate the relationship itself. The truth of country music has lent itself to many power duos, including Conway and Loretta, George and Tammy, and Johnny and June, but the raw emotion of soul music gives its duets another dimension of expressiveness. As the Memphis based Stax label expanded upon the success of its 1960s hard soul singles, the arrangements added strings, the horn charts softened and room was created for male-female duets. As part of the label’s push into album releases, a double-LP’s worth of duets were recorded for 1969’s Boy Meets Girl and released as part of Stax’s massive post-Atlantic Records rebirth.

Mavis Staples sings two album highlights, a conga-heavy deep funk cover of Sam & Dave’s earlier Stax hit “I Thank You” with William Bell, and a powerful Southern soul cover of Erma Franklin’s “Piece of My Heart” with Eddie Floyd. The album mixes up-tempo grooves such as William Bell and Carla Thomas’ “I Can’t Stop” with emotionally crooned ballads that include Eddie Floyd and Cleotha Staples’ “It’s Too Late” and Johnnie Taylor and Carla Thomas’ “My Life.” This reissue drops eight of the original LP’s titles and adds four, including the iconic pre-LP “Private Number,” a misguided mid-80s remake by Dusty Springfield and Spencer Davis, and a pair of tracks from Delaney and Bonnie’s 1968 sessions for Home. Those seeking the original track lineup (and cover art) can find it on a pricier UK reissue. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Listen to “Piece of My Heart” by Mavis Staples and Eddie Floyd

RIP Willy DeVille

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MinkDeville_CoupDeGraceAfter an initial diagnosis of Hepatitis C earlier this year, Willy DeVille was found to have pancreatic cancer, from which he passed away yesterday. DeVille founded Mink DeVille a few years ahead of the late ’70s punk explosion, but his band ended up sharing the stage with the leading lights of CBGB. Where the punks were loud and abrasive, however, Mink DeVille was soulful and suave. With Phil Spector’s one-time engineer Jack Nitzsche, the group waxed a pair of streetwise Spanish Harlem-inflected rock and soul classics, Cabretta and Return to Magenta, and a string of group and solo albums that expanded on the original Brill Building dream and into beefier rock, Muscle Shoals soul, and even New Orleans funk ‘n’ roll. DeVille was a superb showman, songwriter, vocaliast and band leader, who will be missed by all those touched by his music.

Willy DeVille was 55 when he passed away peacefully on August 6, 2009. RIP.

Listen to “Little Girl”

Nathaniel Mayer: Why Won’t You Let Me Be Black?

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NathanielMayer_WhyWontYouLetMeBeBlackLatter-day recordings from early ‘60s soul legend

Nathaniel Mayer is best known among early soul fanatics for his 1962 hit “Village of Love,” a few other early ‘60s sides and the cult status he developed during a nearly forty-year absence from the music scene. He resurfaced briefly in 1980 with the single “Raise the Curtain High,” but it wasn’t until Norton Records issued the vault side “I Don’t Want No Bald-Headed Woman Telling Me What to Do” in 2002 that he was prompted to return in full for 2004’s I Just Want to Be Held. With the soaring soul voice of his early records reduced to a bluesy rasp, Mayer’s showmanship and feel for music remained fully intact. Whether his latter-day voice is burnished or shot is in the ear of the listener, but the way he strutted through up-tempo numbers and drew out ballads recalled the artistry of his younger years.

In 2007 Mayer released Why Don’t You Give It To Me?, backed by a collection of players from the Black Keys, Outrageous Cherry, SSM, and Dirtbombs. The heavy blues arrangements paired nicely with the edginess of Mayer’s voice, providing bottom end and pushing him to sing hard. This posthumous release (Mayer passed away in 2008) adds eight more tracks from those same sessions, expanding upon the weathered crooning, pained blues, and neo-psychedelic soul. The album also includes two acoustic performances from a 2007 radio interview on which Mayer’s vocals are completely revealed; the simple guitar backings leave the wear and tear to speak volumes. It’s hard to draw a line between the voice on “Village of Love” and these latter day recordings, but the artistry and soul are easily identifiable. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Dreams Come True
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