Bill Withers: I Can’t Write Left Handed
Taken from the album “Live At Carnegie Hall” on Sussex (1973)

Sorry for the delay in posting. We’ve been doing some site upkeep over here. So I’m returning with some real heft. Today’s gonna be a doosy…

What is the anatomy of a superb soul song? For starters I’ll say this: the same elements that build a great rock tune do not apply here; for while those artists will drift sometimes (and successfully so) into the soulful realm, the framework of the music itself rarely supports the kind of delicate, unaffected emoting that R&B not only allows for, but actually encourages.

Certainly to my mind, there seems little question that in the relatively brief histories of both popular rock and popular soul music, the former has benefitted from having an audience more ready (largely because of drugs, no doubt) to embrace a greater level of experimentation, both lyrically and musically. The effect of this can be thrilling, or at least… interesting. (Who doesn’t love a a track with a sitar and a fender rhodes threaded under the vocals of a scrawny white dude singing about catching butterflies?)

Soul music, though, thrives on its unremitting passion. Its yelps, shrieks and, yes, occasionally tears. Sometimes the music over-relies on these things, to the detriment of lyrics that actually enhance the depth and complexity of the vocals. (Sure, there are about a million exceptions to this rule (see earlier post), but bear with me a second…) Even still, there can be little question of the raw power of soul.

Now, with this in mind, ask yourself a question: Why– with soul music being the emotional powerhouse, the pacemaker of conscience, the visceral call-to-arms, that it is– why with all of these qualities in mind, has it not been more successfully employed in the making of great anti-war music?

Good question, right? Obviously, Edwin Starr had that one little song (ha.). And Gil Scott , god bless ‘im, had plenty to say. But name a few others… Anyone? Bueller?

Part of it is, I think, that political soul music consistently turned its focus on the local level: our ghettos, our drugs, our struggle. And considering the origins of the music itself (slavery, repression, etc.), a certain level of afro-centricity should be expected. But, in Vietnam, black folks were dying too. Who would stand up as the voice of reason in a time of massive social discontent? Who would transgress the thickly drawn lines of a racialized country, and perhaps even more racialized music, to address the problems that affected every American?

Enter Bill Withers. In my mind a greater statesman of soul music never lived… (save, maybe, Marvin Gaye). Not the most prolific, the most vocally gifted, or the most musicially original, but, in his subdued delivery and nuanced lyricism, more evocative than virtually any of his peers. He wrote music that made you think. He told stories. And he sang his songs unpretentiously enough that, listening to them today, I feel like Bill’s just sitting down to rap with me for a few minutes before heading off to the grocery store.

This song–the entire record, really– highlights all of those qualities. (If you’ve never heard the whole of this album, BUY IT TODAY. It contends with Donny Hathaway’s live album as best ev-ar. Check the version of “Use Me”.) But it also manages to make a profound topical statement about war and its unspoken casualities, issued with an impossibly understated elegance.

The result makes me weak: The hypnotic piano line. The almost hymn-like vocals. The bluesy guitar flourishes. And all of this made even more amazing by the singer himself, who manages to straddle ever-so-deftly the line between precise individual narrative and large-scale social drama.

This is a real-deal anti-war song, however Bill may have tried to de-politicize it by introduction. And without trying to get too preachy on you, I will say this:

3,054 American Soldiers Dead. 22,951 (officially–riiiight) Wounded. 20,000 more waiting to be deployed…

Barbara Lynn: You’ll Lose A Good Thing and Heartbreaking Years
Taken from the album “You’ll Lose A Good Thing” on Jamie (1962)

I’ve been a little blue lately.

You know, sometimes I feel like I’m too young to get all full up with heavy-lidded melancholy like this. I mean, I’m twenty-two. Feels a little early for boo-hoo’ing, right? I should be drinking Dos Equis out of neon plastic party cups at a Senor Frogs just south of the border. I should be getting loopy over Fantasy league football. I should be lamenting–if anything–the bummer of how expensive auto insurance is for a young guy… Not going misty at the first dulcet croon of a break-up song.

But then, this is no ordinary break-up song. Sung by no ordinary soulstress.

Barbara Lynn wasn’t my age when she wrote (I repeat, she wrote) these songs. Nope. In 1962, 22 years-old probably seemed pretty ancient to little Miss Lynn. No Senor Frogs for her. Hell, probably no auto insurance. She was still in high school at the time. A sophmore, I would guess. Just s-i-x-t-e-e-n. Spell it.

And I here I am moping around like a sucker. An old sucker, at that! Query: where does a 16 year-old girl find the depth, not only to write a truly superb sad song, but to sing it so convincingly that a fifty year old man could go woozy just humming along. Query: Where does said girl get her southpaw guitar chops? Her diva’s poise? Where does she get her hair done? I don’t know, but she did it all, this one. And then she disappeared. Until now.

Un-freakin-believable.

Go here to find out more the elusive Barbara Lynn. As for me, I’ll manage.

Sidney Owens & The North South Connection: Sputnik
Taken from the 7″ on Movin’ Up (197?)
Guitar Red: Hard Times
Taken from the 7″ on Mod-Art (1976)
Mitch Mitchell & Gene King: Never Walk Out On You
Taken from the 7″ on Prix (1973)

I’m not for a moment going to pretend like I own any of these records. So let me just stand right up and say it at the outset: I’m posing like I’ve got some serious heavy-hitter wax that is, in fact, only the digital byproduct of having enough time on my hands that I can idly surf the internet hunting around for this stuff.

Some of you may take issue with this–this plundering of others’ bounty. Some may argue that the recycling of already-posted material looted from another blog is a bogus practice. Distastful and crass. And, in general, I’d have to agree. But until some kind of Music Blogger Manifesto outlaws it, and considering that the recycled music in question was lifted from a now 8-month static site, and considering THE SHEER MAGNITUDE OF THE DEVASTATING-NESS OF THESE TUNES… I think exceptions can be made.

The site in question is HERE. The bad news is that the site hasn’t been updated for daaaays. The good news is that the entire archive of the blog is still available for download. (DON’T SLEEP!) And let me tell you, that’s no small thang.

Here’s the little I know: the Mitch Mitchell track was incorporated into the best mix of 2006; and that the Sputnik tune, which borders on un-fugg-witt-able, was written up (albeit rather abstractly) in this issue of Wax Poetics. As for ol’ Guitar Red: prehistoric moog rumblings + early drum machine programming= magic.

Los Pasteles Verdes: Angelitos Negros, Reloj, Recuerdos De Una Noche and Te Amo Y No Soy Correspondido
Taken from the album Recuerdos De Una Noche on Gema (197?)

I don’t know how it happened. One minute I’m wilin’ out chez moi, eating luke warm lentil soup and ruminating on the finer things in life; next minute my homie Dave is on the phone: Yo, Willis…–Mumble, mumble–…to the movies…–Unitelligible–…my treat…–Ambulence Passing–…calypto…

“Sure thing!” I say. Like a fool, like a goddamn fool.

Here’s what’s wrong with Apocalypto: EVERYTHING. Plotless, pointless, exploitative, gimmicky, dull, trite, nauseating. Here’s an abbreviated list of sources that Melly Mel grossly misappropriates or outright marauds on the course of this dizzyingly uninspired warpath: The Last of The Mohicans, Midnight Cowboy (think Ratzo’s touching departure minus the touching part), Indian Jones and The Temple of Doom, The Exorcist/Shining/6th Sense (Come on, possessed children? Really?), The Princess Bride (My name is Inigo Montoya.. Jaguar Paw…whatever), Run Lola Run (minus the red-haired femme and pulsing techno–which is to say a lot of running), Night of The Living Dead (Zombie head squirts, anyone?) and Tintin in South America (No joke.)

Just. Plain. Awful. And sure, I might have guessed as much– but, as always, the hype machine worked wonders and a handful of beguiling critics tricked me into… well, hoping for the best.

All of this has a point (I think).

After the movie came to its merciful end, I returned home. Haggard. Angry. Depressed. (It’s a sorry state of global affairs, when a guy as effed-up as Mel Gibson can not only get a picture as bad as this one made, but actually trick people into buying into it.) The more I thought about it, the worse I felt. I needed to find some respite. Some comforting bastion to reaffirm my faith in life, in love, in mankind… and, most importantly, in the magic of America Del Sur, as disassociated from Mel Gibson’s Hollywood taint.

(I used to dream about Mexico. And Chile, Peru, Venezuela. Idealized visions of great lands. The music, the culture, the language… Hell, I had been thinking about taking a trip down that way sometime in the near future… And now? Now what?)

A cold hollow of bitterness had descended into my heart. How could I regain that mystical connection to the faraway equatorial lands of my dreams, that now only conjured to my mind the disturbing image of a ghastly, soused bigot on a deserted stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway?

I’ll tell you how to regain it: the compressed vocals of a sympathetic balladeer delicately crooning in his native tongue; the gentle wah’s of psychaedelic guitar emanating from a dusty P.A. in Lima, Peru circa 1972; echo, reverb, and a loping snare. That’s how.

So I set the needle running on this disc and guess what? Peace. Utter, blissful, glassy-eyed peace.

Smokey Robinson: Just My Soul Responding and Silent Partner In A Three-Way Love Affair… Plus a BONUS! Virgin Man
Taken from the albums Smokey and Pure Smokey on Motown (1973 and ’74)

If there’s one thing more impressive that an unmined soul gem by a nobody group on a podunk label, it’s an unmined soul gem by one of the most prolific R&B acts of the 20th century on perhaps the most influential label of the last, uh, millenium…

Introducing, for your delectation, Smokey Robinson and a few of his lesser known miracles.

There are so many things that slay me about Mr. Robinson, I’d be doing my fanaticism a disservice by trying to dissect them all. But here are three good reasons that you, too, should adore this man and his music:

1) No joke: sometime in the 60’s Bob Dylan called Smokey “America’s greatest living poet”… And you’re like , Uh, come again? And then you start listening–I mean really listening— to Smoke’s music and it’s like Dozier-Holland-who?

Even if the tender-hearted bard had stopped cold after penning “Tracks of My Tears” (god forbid!) I might have been sustained through many a lonesome night. But he didn’t stop; he kept right on going. In addition to masterminding a catalogue of hits for himself (and by proxy the Miracles), he also penned classics for The Temptations, Mary Wells and a handful of his other label-mates, that would ensure for Motown not only popular longevity but a true creative legitimacy that many labels of that era and of that size couldn’t have hoped to support.

2. When I was in high school in the Bay Area–perhaps still?– Smokey hosted a weekly call-in program on 98.1 on which a person so-inclined could ring up the station to discuss romance issues with none other that the love doctor himself. For clarification: once a week you could call Smokey Robinson on the telephone to consult him in regards to your relationship woes. Top that.

3. Finally. Al Green understood it. D’Angelo got it. Smokey wrote the formula: falsetto falsetto falsetto.

Both of these albums can be found for a buck or less at a flea market near you.

And now I can’t write anymore. I’m listening to these tracks on repeat and I think I might cry myself to sleep. ‘Til next time.

Leon’s Creation: This Is The Beginning and Until You Were Gone and Mirage
Taken from the album This Is The Beginning on Studio Ten (196?)

O, The irony! The injustice! Under any other title this album may have served as a stepping stone into a fruitful career in popular music; with another title it may have passed safely into the annals of music history, heralded for its sonic ingenuity and sheer fuzzed-out fonkiness… but no. The title–This Is The Beginning (so full of promise!)–stood, a hex was laid, and the group’s (justifiable) optimism notwithstanding, Leon’s Creation disappeared before they had even begun.

Leon Patillo burst out the Yay Area in the late sixties, locked and loaded with a killer band and some serious native funk and flash. He dropped a pair of promising 45’s followed by a debut album that seemed poised to make dramatic inroads into the budding commerciality of the psychaedelic soul movement… Too bad that Sly Stone couldn’t stomach the presence of the new kid on the block. Beseiged by jealousy or intense paranoia (or maybe acting on his notoriously bizarre whimsy; see Grammy’s) Sly quickly stepped in at Studio Ten records, bought the whole shebang and promptly shut down ol’ Leon and his creation. And that was the end of The Beginning.

(Reminds me of a story I heard (hearsay? maybe.) about another famous wierdo: a certain R. Kelly, abruptly yanking the rug out from under his eminently talented protege, Raheem DeVaughn, (SUPPORT TALENT) when he realized that Jr. may just have been a little too dope for his own good. It’s a damn shame I tell ya.)

At any rate, enjoy the tunes. It’s not every day that you find an album whose opening three tracks constitute fire, FIRE, and MORE FIRE!

Two last notes: Continue to the support the Cap’n (a.k.a.-Chewy Chewbaka, Duff-duf, et al.) by copping a FREE DOWNLOAD of the Building Bloc album (see below). Also, if you are interested in being part of some next level upliftment, get hip to One Self. I’ve been loving their music for a minute, but I saw these cats at the Root Down here in L.A. last night, and um… I’m in love with Yarah Bravo. There I’ve said it. Happy Friday.