It’s just that I’ve been busy lately. Real busy. In fact, I’m busier than I’ve been in years, and although that doesn’t go without it’s cost in sleep and sanity, this is what I do, and what my life is right now. I know some people out there know where I’m coming from. But I have no choice but to stay active. We do whatever we have to do to survive, like sharks that must continue to swim forward, always swim forward, or they cease to be able to draw life from the black depths of the sea.
I was recently asked to be a featured speaker at the Maysles Institute as part of the ongoing Ego Trip film series. Now you have to understand how much of an honor it is to have been even been considered to be involved with this, at such a prestigious and esteemed institution. I’m beyond humbled in fact, just to think that people actually want to hear what the kid has to say (other than the masturbatory ramblings that can be found on this site,) not to mention a place of such merit. I actually don’t know too much about cinema, but I do know quite a bit about Philadelphia, hip-hop and the coupling of the two. However I’ll know in a day or so if I will actually be able to partake in this honor, for last minute trips have been handed to me, sending me to of all places, Downtown LA and Portland. So I might just have to go to those places. Or not…
But TONIGHT, tonight I will be here in Money Making Manhattan doing what I do best – playing freaky songs that nobody really cares about except for me! Tonight marks the second installment of my good friends Sammy Bananas and Maggie Horn’s (collectively know as Telephoned) new monthly Switchboard. Billed as a “night of musical transposition” Sammy and Maggie – who are known for their unique covers of modern day pop songs – ask their artists to “telephone” their sounds in a way that completely reinterpret it. So I have some pretty cool things in the works for tonight, things that I believe in and that may be outside my lane a bit, but I’m confident that the translation will be made. Alongside me will be Telephoned and The Suzan, fresh off their tour with Chromeo.
Now, let’s talk about cover versions for a second. It’s been discussed ad-nauseum in books and blogs, the significance of taking compositions and re-imagining them in a different voice. In fact, I speak about it some in an interview on the front page of one of my favorite places in the world’s site, The Ace Hotel. So perhaps I’ll let that be a reflection of my thoughts and cut to the chase and get to talking about a record on this Breakbeat Tuesday.
Rare Earth was one of the biggest splinter acts on Motown. Signed in 1969, this funky white-boy rock band was at the forefront of Berry Gordy’s endeavor to start cultivating white groups to go after a whole new market. Posed with the question of what to name his brand new imprint, the group jokingly suggested to the Motown execs that it be named after them, which they surprisingly went ahead and did. The Rare Earth label went on to release a grip of albums but a whole number of artists, all of which sounded the same pretty much. White-boy blues rock doing their best interpretations of soul music – Rare Earth notwithstanding. Now I’ll be the first to admit that I’m actually not that much of a fan of theirs, myself kind of subscribing the the Gil Scott-Heron perspective of them.
Along comes the late, great Norman Whitfield, one of the songwriters and producers of the song. Originally penned in 1967 for The Temptations who, courtesy of The Funk Brothers, released it as a swinging soul number, the funky guitar licks and lush horn arrangement cannot mask the fact that this is a DARK DARK record. The song in itself is definitely a monster move towards a foreboding sound that Whitfield would soon be acclaimed for, and 3 years later when Whitfield got his hands on this innocuous white-boy group, he decided to take that sound into motherfucking overdrive.
This 10+ minute epic recording goes hard, and dark, into the soul of the man who is losing his woman. The madness and desperation of knowing that something so special is slipping quickly away. It’s fading, fading away and he’s clawing and scratching his way to try to keep it there. And Whitfield so masterfully illustrates this in his hardbody production encompassing the soul of Motown and the burgeoning psychedelic influence in soul music. This song is impassioned desperation on tape. And funky as fuck. Championed by everyone from David Mancuso to DJ Harvey to Eric B. & Rakim to Diplo, these guys really caught lightning in a bottle with this recording. And I don’t know why I picked this one today for Breakbeat Tuesday. Anyway, this song popped into my head this morning, and it’s a good thing cause I’m all about covers and remakes tonight! From the sound of it, it must really suck to be these poor fuckers, but let’s just hope that there was a happy ending for the composer. Nevertheless, knowing this record is an absolute MUST. I hope you dig…
In lieu of today’s Breakbeat Tuesday jumpoff, I am heading out into the cold cold cold hard black earth that is Manhattan so a brother can get his head cut. Got to prep for this weekend, where I will be hitting up some shows in Canada (Thursday at Hi Fi in Calgary & Friday at Fortune Sound in Vancouver) and Seattle (Saturday at HG Lodge.) Peep the events page for more details. Anyway, you know how we do – got to stay fresh to death, No Delilah.
However to satisfy my loyal reader’s never ending thirst for useless knowledge and WMDs, and my never ending hunger to keep on talking, a brand new Cosmo’s Crates went up today over at the Fool’s Gold site. Big shout out to Carl Bean.
Last January the earth opened up and swallowed part of Port-au-Prince, Haiti and leaving a country and a people in dire straits. The good people over at Soulstrutdecided to hold a “Heatrocks For Haiti” campaign, where the members of the site would donate some of their most prized pieces of vinyl for auction, with all the proceeds going towards several different charitable foundations. We had done the same thing for our folks in New Orleans when Katrina hit, and both times we raised a massive amount of money, helped people, and shared our love of music and vinyl in the process.
We all went on a furious bidding war to grab records but there was one in particular that basically smacked me over the head and that I was determined to grab. I WANT IT NOW. And so I bid and I upped my bid and I upped it a little more. Once it got into the 3 figures price range I was pretty sure that I was coasting towards victory, but at the very last moment (as too often is the case) someone snuck by me and came out on the other side, victorious. Thwarted, I vowed that one day I would own that record. That record is the Karen Records version of Betty (Bettye) Lavette’s “Let Me Down Easy” B/W “Ticket To The Moon” – and to use some of the most apt (yet absurd) vernacular to describe this record, “shit is hard body as a motherfucker.” Especially the flipside, “Ticket…” just reeks of nastiness.
The Bettye Lavette story is quite interesting. Basically a detroit girl, she started her singing career very young, performing with a variety of artists including the James Brown review as well as a young up and coming soul singer from Georgie, Otis Redding. Having enjoyed a relatively healthy career touring and recording all throughout the 60s, it was during this time she recorded what many soul music aficionados refer to as “one of the greatest soul recordings of all time,” the original 1965 Calla Records version of “Let Me Down Easy.” I know at least one hip-hop producer agreed with how ill the song is, but I can’t remember who that was at the moment (feel free to chime in, folks.)
In the early 70s she signed with Atlantic / Atco and went down to Alabama to record an album (“Child Of The Seventies”) at the legendary Muscle Shoals. For reasons still unexplained, the project was cancelled and, other than 1 single, the album was shelved. Disillusioned, she continued on with her career releasing a few disco records and even singing on Broadway until 1999 when a French record collector found the master tapes for “Child Of The Seventies” and released it on his own imprint (under the new title “Souvenirs.”) This began an upsurge in her popularity and, coupled with a gang of newly recorded material over the past decade, Bettye is as popular than ever, having won awards and selling records like crazy. Don’t call it a comeback!
A couple months after I lost that bid for the record, I found another copy on eBay and was determined to get this one. Don’t ask me how much it cost but for sure it was a pretty penny. You know I was psyched when I got the 7″ package in my mailbox and opened it up, finally having this banger. One of the first things that I noticed when I looked at the label was the words “Arranged By Dale Warren.” Now I honestly do not know the back story on how all of this went down, as I’m not really as deep in the digging game as a lot of other dudes, but I figured it had to be the only other Dale Warren that I had heard about in the soul music scene at that time. Dale Warren was a musician and arranger for Motown in the 60s, and he’s the man behind the original arrangement of “Let Me Down Easy.” Being the classically trained violinist it makes sense, as the OG version’s pizzicato is so powerful. In the early 70s Warren moved over to the Stax label to join up with Isaac Hayes as the label’s in-house arranger. In 1973 he released a concept album dealing with the effects of American poverty. That album is “Ghetto: Misfortune’s Wealth” by 24 Carat Black, a magnum opus that, while it didn’t sell well at the time, is considered a masterpiece and touchstone in soul and funk music.
That album is dark and gritty and brooding… and booming. There’s really nothing quite like it. And listening to the 45 I had just got, one can hear that it was the direction that he was moving towards. Desperation funk. Combined with the unmatched intensity of Bettye’s voice and the longing and pain in it, it’s rawer than almost anything. That’s HARD BODY. For my money, when it comes to describing something as “hardcore” I will put this A and B side doubleshot up against any record by Slayer or M.O.P. It sounded like it was recorded somewhere in a cave in Hades. Unbelievably powerful and moving. And YES, both sides have drums, hence this record being a no-brainer for Breakbeat Tuesdays. I hope you enjoy it, as I have the A-Side as a Youtube clip so you can hear it, and the B-Side as the WMD. Peace!
So I’m going to take a little bit of a different lane today with today’s Breakbeat Tuesday. This time of year when the days grow short and the air is brisk, I find my listening tastes seem to go through a sort of shift. I definitely sway towards a dark and reflective sound this time of year. Now certain records remind me of – and seem to completely belong to – particular seasons. Donald Byrd’s “Love Has Come Around” says springtime to me with it’s musical exuberance . Ice Cube’s “Death Certificate” fits into summertime with it’s duel-edged passion and angst. And Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks” is nothing but autumn to me with the introspective death / rebirth that is that particular song-cycle. But come wintertime, I find myself searching for a sound that’s more melancholy and moody, something that reflects the way the season relentlessly imposes itself upon me. We all are affected by the seasons, and if you find yourself reading my site then it’s safe to say that you probably are affected by music as well. To quote paraphrase Joe Walsh, we listen to things to “find a song to sing that is everything that I meant to say…” I have found that voice in Jim Sullivan.
Jim Sullivan was a Southern California base singer-songwriter that absolutely had it, but the world just never realized it. He had a unique voice that had a certain longing and desolation to it. That voice fit perfectly some of the subject matters of his compositions, those of lost highways, deserts, and strangely enough, UFO abductions. Jim got in the studio and recorded a bunch of records, but none hit as hard as his “U.F.O.” LP which was released in early 1970 on Monnie Records. That album was soon released again on Century City Records. But the Monnie release has a distinctive sound to it. The way that it was mixed brought the drummer – one of the godfathers of rock & roll drumming, Earl Palmer – all the way out into the front. The mix was like a perfect storm, combining these beautiful and bittersweet songs over powerful David Axelrod type production. Honestly there’s nothing quite like it that I’ve heard before or since.
Removing our focus from the music for a moment, the Jim Sullivan story is just as remarkable. Jim always seemed to be poised for bigger things. His positioning was perfect, as he surrounded himself with the right people at the right time on the nightclub circuit in the late 60s and early 70s, rubbing elbows with movie stars and “made” musicians alike. But even after his record releases, guest appearances with big name acts, and even a cameo in “Easy Rider” his break never came. So after years of toiling in the business he decided to take a break and leave California for Nashville. With his family behind, Jim was attempting to set up shop and hopefully start earning enough bread so that his family could join him and they could start a new life together in Tennessee. Leaving LA in 1975, he set off in the desert in his Volkswagen into the night. One night later he checked into a motel room in New Mexico. Two days afterwards, Jim’s car was found abandoned on the outskirts of town. All his belongings, including his guitar and his wallet, were still in his hotel room. Jim had simply disappeared.
There’s something about this record that compels me to keep returning to it. Musically it’s absolutely dynamite of course, but there’s something else. The sadness, and weariness in his voice really speaks to me in a way not much else does when I need it to. It’s been a few years since I first discovered this record, thanks to the brain trust that is the good folks at Soulstrut. There also was a post on this on Waxidermy (a site that specializes on “loner folk” and shit like that) which is so fascinating. Over 30 years after his disappearance several of Jim’s family and friends, in just doing random internet searches of his name, were directed to the site and began to share their personal stories with the world about the man. So the discovery of the album by some record collectors became even bigger. 1 month ago, Seattle’s Light In The Attic records gave “U.F.O.” a proper release, exposing the world to a talent that was, and that should have been. Visit Light In The Attic Records and purchase a copy of this unsung masterpiece. A full Cosmo endorsement, ten thumbs up or so. If you read this column and you know what I do and what I’m about then it’s a no-brainer. I can safely say that it’s one of the best albums that I have ever heard. Absolutely essential. And absolutely fitting to convey the way I am feeling today. Thanks for lending me your voice, Mr. Sullivan, and good luck wherever you are.
Saturday October 26 – Harbor Haunt – Philadelphia, PA 
Rare Earth was one of the biggest splinter acts on Motown. Signed in 1969, this funky white-boy rock band was at the forefront of Berry Gordy’s endeavor to start cultivating white groups to go after a whole new market. Posed with the question of what to name his brand new imprint, the group jokingly suggested to the Motown execs that it be named after them, which they surprisingly went ahead and did. The Rare Earth label went on to release a grip of albums but a whole number of artists, all of which sounded the same pretty much. White-boy blues rock doing their best interpretations of soul music – Rare Earth notwithstanding. Now I’ll be the first to admit that I’m actually not that much of a fan of theirs, myself kind of subscribing the the Gil Scott-Heron perspective of them.
Along comes the late, great Norman Whitfield, one of the songwriters and producers of the song. Originally penned in 1967 for The Temptations who, courtesy of The Funk Brothers, released it as a swinging soul number, the funky guitar licks and lush horn arrangement cannot mask the fact that this is a DARK DARK record. The song in itself is definitely a monster move towards a foreboding sound that Whitfield would soon be acclaimed for, and 3 years later when Whitfield got his hands on this innocuous white-boy group, he decided to take that sound into motherfucking overdrive.
