A Baby Is Born Every 8 Seconds.
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You all missed a lot of birthdays so far this month. Besides yours truly celebrating the birth of the herself, others like Marvin Gaye, Muddy Waters, Billie Holiday, Carmen McRae, Lisa Stansfield and Al Green* all emerged from some juicy womb screaming and writhing just like you. Except you didn’t contribute to the fabric of music history, so that’s where the similarities end. You can click on any of those names to go to a video performance.
* Is his wrist broken? Is that sling shimmering in the stage lights? Really?
QUICKIE! – Ragtime and Blues.
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I found some ragtime and blues from the 1920s and 1930s. I know nothing about the blues. It’s a genre that just escaped my mind, so I’ve never sought it out. I wasn’t exactly looking for this either but great things have a way of falling into my lap.
Ragtime Millionaire – William Moore
You Gonna Quit Me Blues – Blind Blake
This album features songs by Tampa Red, Carl Martin and other including Blind Blake who is often referred to as the King of Ragtime Guitar. Supposedly, only one photograph of this guy exists. Talk about being a breath away from being a ghost.
These tracks were obviously recorded from vinyl. You can hear the crackling all throughout the songs.
Donny Hathaway Saves The Day.
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REAL QUICK: I thought yesterday was going to include an amazing moment. I found out there was a “Paper Planes” remix on The Smoking Section. And then I found out it had Bun B and Rich Boy as the featured artists. What? I listened to it anyway and it’s actually more terrible than I imagined it was going to be. Ouch. Wrong move, M.I.A.
Paper Planes [remix] – M.I.A., Bun B, Rich Boy
The Ghetto – Donny Hathaway
Sugar Lee – Donny Hathaway
Later that night, however, I was sitting in my friend’s room waiting for him to get home from work. He was pretty late, work had obviously ran longer than either one of us had predicted. I was sitting at the computer when he came in the door and the first thing he did before even taking off his shoes was put on Donny Hathaway’s Everything Is Everything. We spent the rest of the album talking about our day.
I’ve always really liked Donny Hathaway. This album in particular rings in me like Curtis Mayfield album usually does. The production isn’t subpar or muddled but it does lack some of the crispness that I think has become heralded in hip hop recently. The kind of open space that lets the percussion almost crack. I might be exaggerating, but it sounds like everything was covered in honey. The way the bass starts on the opening track is more than the fuzz of dated recording equipment.
I know everyone remembers Nate Dogg groaning over the sampled intro of “I Believe To My Soul.” I think everyone’s probably heard at least chorus of ”The Ghetto” at least once somewhere. A commercial, television show, a movie soundtrack, in passing. My favorite part of the song is close to four minutes in when the handclaps start. I’m a sucker for handclaps. I love it when the percussion gets more animated. The baby crying is cool, too. Life sounds. “Sugar Lee” is a bluesy song. It has handclaps, too. It’s more of a groove than a song as it has no lyrics but it’s still lively. It’s mostly the sounds you would imagine you’d hear in some dim, smoky room while the band is playing a song to only their friends right before the place closes for the night.
The Crates Are Calling…
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The streets of Berkeley are good for so many things. I find all kinds of delights on simple walks: books, clothes, dusty photo albums, furniture, appliances. I’m not saying I need all these things, I’m saying they’re there. Up on Telegraph across from my local record store, Amoeba, there were books and records being sold for a quarter. Here are a few I picked up…and some treats.
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1. Innervisions (1973) -Stevie Wonder [tracklist]
2. Amigos (1976) – Santana [tracklist]
3. The Doors (1967) – The Doors [tracklist]
Break On Through (To The Other Side)
4. Long Live the Kane (1987) – Big Daddy Kane [tracklist]
5. The Isaac Hayes Movement (1970) – Isaac Hayes [tracklist]
6. Superfly (1972) – Curtis Mayfield [tracklist]
7. Sho Is Funky Down Here (1971) – James Brown [tracklist]
8. Guess Who (1972) – B.B. King [tracklist]
Context Counts.
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A Change Is Gonna Come – Sam Cooke
Anyone who has seen Spike Lee’s film Malcolm X probably remembers the scene when Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” starts playing. I don’t know if my sentimental attachment and emotional reaction to this song is tied to that or not, but this song makes me want to stop time every time I hear it. I get that guttural sensation, that pull in the back on of my throat that means I might start to cry. The sparse instrumentation combined with the aching sincerity of Sam Cooke’s voice makes this song not only a classic but an integral part of the genres of soul and blues.
The track was written and released in 1965 when the social and political climate was not just the rhetoric and ideas heard on television or read in books but the daily reality of blacks everywhere. The University of Southern Mississippi had just admitted its first two black students, Raylawni Young Branch and Gwendolyn Elaine Armstrong. A peaceful march of 600 blacks who wanted to vote attemped to walk the 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery but were disrupted by policemen who gassed and beat them six blocks into it. Six months later the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed and 250,000 voters registered with Mississippi having the highest black voter turnout of 74%.
It’s such an epic song although it only includes a few different sounds: a voice, strings, horns and percussion. It’s a time capsule, a sonic telegram from the past to encourage and inspire.
I also found out [through reading the liner note's in Aretha Franklin's I Never Loved A Man the Way I Love You] that Sam Cooke was a friend of her and her family’s and she did a cover of this song in memory of him as a tribute. She chooses piano and organ as well as percussion for her arrangement which gives the song more of a gospel feel. It’s interesting to hear two powerful, strong voices in different registers singing the same song.
A Change Is Gonna Come – Aretha Franklin