This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1038: The Ninth Annual DANA'S FUNKY SOUL PIT.
SAMMY AMBROSE: This Diamond Ring
Gary Lewis and the Playboys had the hit with "This Diamond Ring," and it was a fine single. The forgotten original by Sammy Ambrose is well and truly THE version, and the contest is not even close. Here's an excerpt from the Sammy Ambrose entry in my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):
Understand: there is absolutely nothing wrong with Gary Lewis & the Playboys' 1965 hit recording of "This Diamond Ring." Nothing. It's a stellar record, and an integral part of that year's rich musical majesty, contributing to my ongoing conviction that 1965 was pop music's best-ever year.
Sammy Ambrose's original version destroys Lewis' take. Just destroys it, I tell ya...
...What became of Sammy Ambrose in the 23-year gap between the release of his last record "Welcome To Dreamsville" (also in '65) and his final discard of this mortal diamond ring in Florida in '88? It's tempting to make up a brighter story on his behalf, a tale of love found and fortunes won, of honor, of adventure, of goals met and vistas expanded. The fact of his death at the young age of 47 makes it difficult to pretend he found his happily-ever-after.
We're left with a small cache of Sammy Ambrose's records, tracks which suggest the promise of a young soul singer who should have at least been allowed a brass ring if not a diamond one....
P. P. ARNOLD: (If You Think You're) Groovy
The fact that I introduced this song on Sunday's show as by "the lovely and talented and gorgeous P. P. Arnold" might be seen as evidence that I have a tiny crush on Ms. Arnold. Guilty as charged. My favorite Arnold track is her simply sublime rendition of Cat Stevens' "The First Cut Is The Deepest" (the definitive recording of that much-covered song, and the subject of a chapter in The Greatest Record Ever Made!), but this collaboration with The Small Faces is likewise magnificent.
FONTELLA BASS: I Surrender
Speaking of 1965 (as we were in our Sammy Ambrose section above), that most excellent year also rewarded singer Fontella Bass with a huge pop smash called "Rescue Me." It's a true classic, but believe it or not, I once read of someone shrugging it off as a mere attempt to imitate the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. That seems a little harsh, but it's also kind of impressive. I mean, Aretha didn't achieve any notable success until 1967, which would make Fontella's choice to imitate Aretha remarkably prescient. Gotta jump on these things early, I guess.
Seriously, no one should dismiss Fontella Bass. She was a one-hit wonder, sure, but there were many, many great acts that created a wealth of superlative material, but only found real commercial success with one, maybe two songs. Ask The Knickerbockers, or The Bobby Fuller Four. Hell, ask Sammy Ambrose, who didn't even get one frickin' hit record to call his own.
Fontella Bass should have had at least had one more hit with "I Surrender" in 1966. It's nearly the equal of "Rescue Me" without really sounding anything like it. Nor does it sound like Aretha, for that matter.
It sounds like a hit.
But it wasn't.
RICHARD BERRY AND THE PHARAOHS: Louie Louie
"Louie Louie" was written and first recorded by Richard Berry, a 1955 single credited to Richard Berry and the Pharaohs. I betcha you've heard some subsequent covers of the song more (a lot more) than you've heard the original, and The Kingsmen's triumphantly inept hit rendition is now rightly considered iconic. It's The Kingsmen's version that gets a chapter in The Greatest Record Ever Made!, but we must also acknowledge the spark provided by the original:
...Although a better'n decent R & B record, it was not a hit, and likely destined for the dustbin of obscurity. Long before '70s punks proclaimed the belligerent value of flowers in the dustbin, rock 'n' rollers in the late '50s and early '60s were searching pop music's castoffs for inspiration. It's how The Beatles got started. And in the Pacific Northwest, it's what lead to this obscurity called "Louie, Louie" being rediscovered, revived, and sent on its path to rule the world....
MERRY CLAYTON: Gimme Shelter
Slacker that I am, I have not yet seen 20 Feet From Stardom, the 2013 documentary about backup singers. But I do know that Merry Clayton is among the singers receiving an overdue spotlight in that film. Although Clayton also recorded as a solo artist, her biggest claim to fame is singing with The Rolling Stones on "Gimme Shelter," and her voice on that track is as essential an instrument as anything played by the Stones themselves. I'll stop just short of saying that her own 1970 version of "Gimme Shelter" surpasses the Stones, but the idea that it even comes close--and it does!--is impressive in its own right.
JIMMY CLIFF: Miss Jamaica
As I think back, I can't remember where I first heard the music of Jimmy Cliff. I've never seen the film The Harder They Come, and I don't know when I was first exposed to Cliff's classic tracks "Many Rivers To Cross" and "You Can Get It If You Really Want It." The latter was included on the mix tapes I made for my daughter Meghan when she was little. My first vicarious contact with Cliff was likely The Animals' cover of "Many Rivers To Cross" on their 1977 reunion album Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted.
But I do know that I first heard Cliff's 1962 ska tune "Miss Jamaica" in 1992, when Dana played it one week on our old TIRnRR precursor We're Your Friends For Now on WNMA. The song is certainly unlike Cliff's subsequent and better-known reggae sides; it's agreeably goofy, and I immediately found the difference between early Jimmy Cliff and later Jimmy Cliff noteworthy and fascinating.
ISAAC HAYES: Title Theme (From Three Tough Guys)
I don't think I've ever seen a blaxploitation film. The latter-day parody/pastiche I'm Gonna Git You Sucka doesn't count. I've never seen Superfly, nor Blacula, nor Shaft or any of its sequels. I did watch some (diluted) small-screen iterations: Teresa Graves in Get Christie Love!, and big-screen John Shaft himself Richard Roundtree in the short-lived Shaft TV series. But I was too young to see the movies at the time of their release, and have never quite gotten around to checking them out after the fact.
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| I may also have a tiny crush on Teresa Graves |
As great as that Shaft song is, Dana pulled a welcome switcheroo on this year's Soul Pit by selecting an Isaac Hayes theme from a different film, 1974's Three Tough Guys. Hayes appeared in that film, released the same year as his starring role in the movie Truck Turner. The title theme from Three Tough Guys echoes the feel of the earlier Shaft theme, albeit without the familiar Right ons, Damn right!s, and We can dig its. Shut your mouth? Just talkin' 'bout Three Tough Guys.
THE ISLEY BROTHERS: Summer Breeze
This is such an incredible record, and of course it earns a chapter in The Greatest Record Ever Made!
I don't remember the precise year, nor am I sure which TV show I was watching, and I can't even guarantee I have the right group. But I can tell you it was a Friday night, some time in the early-to-mid '70s. I think I was watching ABC's In Concert, a weekly live rock music showcase; I don't think it was Don Kirshner's Rock Concert or Midnight Special, the other two Friday night rock 'n' roll TV programs airing in that approximate time frame. But I vividly remember watching a black group perform a simply searing version of the Seals & Crofts pop hit "Summer Breeze." I mean, this version just cooked, and I was immediately impressed with it. I liked the Seals & Crofts hit just fine, mind you, but this? This was outta sight.
I didn't catch the name of the group performing this song on In Concert. Many years later, I would figure out that it was probably The Isley Brothers....
As a general preference, I don't like to play long songs on the radio. In a pop format, if a track goes on much beyond an already-lengthy 3:45, I say it's taking airspace away from other songs. The format itself thrives on the short 'n' sharp snap-snap-snap of song-song-song. It's a preference rather than a rule, and we frequently ignore it because, y'know, records! Gotta play records.
And we tend to ignore it for "Summer Breeze" by The Isley Brothers. We used to play the single version, and that's fantastic. The LP track is more than six minutes long--that's like four Ramones songs--but it's freakin' irresistible, and that's the version we've been more likely to play lately.
GLORIA JONES: Tainted Love
Though "Tainted Love" is best-known from Soft Cell's ubiquitous 1982 smash cover version, there is much to be said for the dynamic original by Gloria Jones. Gloria Jones' "Tainted Love" was recorded in 1964 and released in 1965--again, pop music's best year ever--and it should have been a hit, wailin' on the airwaves right along with The Kinks, James Brown, The Beau Brummels, Wilson Pickett, The Temptations, The Beatles, Adam Faith and the Roulettes, The Supremes, The Miracles, The Beach Boys...you get the idea. I dig both the original and the Soft Cell hit, even though my girlfriend became obsessed with the later during its top-of-the-pops reign in '82, and played the 45 over and over and over and...yeah, exactly. It's okay. The great pop records are supposed to be played that way.
(In the '70s, Jones worked with Marc Bolan and T. Rex, and she and Bolan became an item for a while, holding hands, making all kinds of plans. She was the driver in the 1977 crash that killed Bolan. She was also injured, but she survived.)
CURTIS MAYFIELD: Move On Up
In the '70s, "Superfly" and "Freddie's Dead" were the only Curtis Mayfield records I knew. I heard them on AM radio in Syracuse, WOLF and WNDR, and a bit later I owned my own copy of "Superfly" on a various-artists set called Dick Clark 20 Years Of Rock N' Roll. If I'd heard any of Mayfield's 1960s work with The Impressions, I did not remember it at the time, nor do I have any contemporaneous memory of any more of Mayfield's solo work during my adolescent and teen years.
"Move On Up" was released in 1970. It was not a hit, and I did not know it. Then.
The world has changed since the '70s--our world, your world, my world, all of it. As a clueless suburban white kid, I was certain that while racism was still present and active, it was in decline, an ugly anachronism, soon to be pushed into the abyss of history's discarded evils. The overt venom of hate groups like the KKK and the American Nazis, even the less violent (but still toxic) prejudice represented by the fictional Archie Bunker seemed poised to be swept away as unwelcome relics of a less enlightened past.
It didn't quite work out that way.
So yeah, things have changed, or really the perception of things has changed. Racists have become emboldened, proud of their twisted beliefs, encouraged by a morally (and often literally) bankrupt president eager to feign greatness while embodying the very worst of humanity. They pretend the Constitution was an early draft of Mein Kampf. If real life were a comic book, Captain America would punch each and every one of them square in their pseudo-Aryan noses. Justice would triumph.
But I guess maybe things didn't really change, did they? This poison was there all along, at times more clandestine than others, but there, sustaining itself, gathering support, gaining strength, oozing odious confidence as it became increasingly able to withstand the glare of the day, like a vampire suddenly granted the power to stalk in the bright light of the sun. Man, my kingdom for a really sharp, pointy stake.
Move on up.
It's time for change. It's time to vanquish would-be stormtroopers and the Füehrers and Grand Dragons they revere. At the conclusion of last week's joint address by presidential candidate Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris, Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up" played, a clarion call for positive action. It's what we need. It's what we'll get. It's what will win in November, and make January 20, 2021 the end of an error. Move on up. For God's sake--for our sake--move on up.
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| Move on up, or Christie Love will kick YOUR ass. |
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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.
The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:
Volume 1: download
Volume 2: CD or download
Volume 3: download
Volume 4: CD or download
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio: CD or download
Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 155 essays about 155 tracks, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1).
Volume 3: download
Volume 4: CD or download
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio: CD or download
Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 155 essays about 155 tracks, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1).
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