Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

It’s been a more than a year since the last Covered With Soul. This one is rather good, I find. And a pretty mixed bag: from Al Wilson’s astonishing version of By The Time I Get To Phoenix to Betty Everett’s cover of Big Mama Thornton’s Hound Dog to the Isley Brothers fuzz guitar-driven take on Carole King’s It’s Too Late.

This is only the second Covered With Soul mix in three years, so savour this. If you’ve missed any of the previous 22 mixes, I think most are still live.

As always, CD-R length, home-covered covers, PW in comments.

1. Dee Dee Sharp Gamble – I’d Really Love to See You (1977)
2. Dorothy Morrison – Fire And Rain (1970)
3. Blossoms – Grandmas Hands (1972)
4. Lyn Collins – Backstabbers (1975)
5. Isaac Hayes – I’ll Never Fall In Love Again (1971)
6. Al Wilson – By The Time I Get To Phoenix (1968)
7. Blue Magic – Just Don’t Want To Be Lonely (1974)
8. René & Angela – Hotel California (1980)
9. L.V. Johnson – Try A Little Tenderness (1981)
10. Randy Crawford – Trade Winds (1981)
11. Samuel Jonathan Johnson – What The World Needs Now Is Love (1978)
12. The Smith Connection – ‘Til There Was You (1972)
13. Clydene Jackson – Tammy (1975)
14. Betty Everett – Hound Dog (1964)
15. Four Tops – Last Train To Clarksville (1967)
16. Maxine Weldon – My Way (1975)
17. The Isley Brothers – It’s Too Late (1972)

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More Covered With Soul

Many TV series have integrated pop songs into their narrative, even before The Sopranos did so to great effect. Shows like The Wonder Years and Ally McBeal helped blaze that trail. The Sopranos used this to great effect. The music Tony Soprano listens to, for example, reveals a lot about who he is (in some ways not that much different from any of us), as does Carmella’s obsession with Andrea Bocelli’s Con Te Partiro communicate much about her real longings.

Sometimes the music is just incidental — a particular kind of track would be expected to play at a particular location — but other times a song can colour the tone of a scene. Take the scene in the final season when Tony comes out of hospital after having been shot by Uncle Junior and beats up his bodyguard as a way of reasserting his manhood. Playing in the background is a merry doo wop tune by The Students titled Every Day Of The Week. It communicates the random absurdity of Tony’s action. The scene would have played differently had the background tune been, say, Voodoo Chile.

Of course, this is Soundtracking 101, and the producers of The Sopranos didn’t invent anything new here, though David Chase set incredibly high standards in the eclectic selection of music. They used single songs, rather than a traditional score, to superb storytelling effect, sometimes even as a form of narration.

And that wealth of music used lends itself to mix-making. And this is what we’re doing here, over two mixes.

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-whacked covers. PW in comments.

1. Alabama 3 – Woke Up This Morning (Chosen One Mix) (1997)
2. Cream – I Feel Free (1967)
3. Little Steven & The Disciples Of Soul – Inside Of Me (1982)
4. Tom Petty – Free Fallin’ (1989)
5. Alejandro Escovedo – Guilty (1995)
6. The Chesterfield Kings – I Don’t Understand (2003)
7. Shawn Smith – Wrapped In My Memory (2003)
8. Bruce Hornsby & the Range – That’s The Way It Is (1986)
9. Boston – More Than A Feeling (1976)
10. Foghat – Slow Ride (1975)
11. Johnny & The Hurricanes – Red River Rock (1959)
12. The Jive Five – What Time Is It (1962)
13. The Students – Every Day Of The Week (1957)
14. Dean Martin – Powder Your Face With Sunshine (Smile, Smile, Smile) (1949)
15. Percy Faith Orchestra – Theme from “A Summer Place” (1960)
16. The Dells – Oh, What A Night (1969)
17. Freda Payne – Band Of Gold (1970)
18. Chaka Khan feat. Me’Shell Ndegeocello – Never Miss The Water (1996)
19. Angie Stone – Without You (1999)
20. Pink Martini – Andalucia (1997)
21. Nick Lowe – The Beast In Me (1994)
22. Andrea Bocelli – Con Te Partiro (1996)

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The Sopranos Vol. 2
The Deuce
Freaks & Geeks
The Wonder Years
Soul Train
Any Major TV – Theme Songs Vol. 1 (full versions of TV themes)
Any Major TV – Theme Songs Vol. 2
Any Major TV – Theme Songs Vol. 3
Any Major TV – Theme Songs Vol. 4
Any Major TV Themes (as featured in the titles)

More Music from TV Shows
More Mix CD-Rs

What needs to be said about the genius of Aretha Franklin and her influence has been said. One part of that genius was her ability to take possession of other people’s songs. Mention songs like Respect or Say A Little Prayer or Spanish Harlem, and few will say Otis Redding or Dionne Warwick or Ben. E. King. When Aretha took those songs, they became hers.

Many others she re-interpreted in such a way that her version would become virtually a different song, not infrequently eclipsing the almost ineclipsable. Consider what she did with the Beatles ballad The Long And Winding Road or Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water — both fine ballads beloved of crooner types — by giving them a bit of gospel. The Beatles track acquires a depth neither the composition nor Phil Spector’s production suggested in The Beatles hands. The S&G track acquires a spiritual dimension that was hinted at in the original but not quite realised

So by way of tribute, here is a mix of Aretha Franklin singing other people’s songs. In the parentheses I cite the respective song’s original performer.

As always, the mix is timed to fit in a standard CD-R length, includes home-shouted covers. PW in comments.

1. Soulville (1968 – Dinah Washington)
2. Groovin’ (1968 – The Young Rascals)
3. Until You Come Back To Me (1973 – Stevie Wonder)
4. You’re All I Need To Get By (1971 – Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell)
5. Long And Winding Road (1972 – The Beatles)
6. Young, Gifted And Black (1972 – Nina Simone)
7. People Get Ready (1968 – The Impressions)
8. A Change Is Gonna Come (1967 – Sam Cooke)
9. Drown In My Own Tears (1967 – Sonny Thompson)
10. Bridge Over Troubled Water (1971 – Simon & Garfunkel)
11. Don’t Play That Song (1970 – Ben. E. King)
12. A Brand New Me (1972 – Jerry Butler)
13. Tracks Of My Tears (1968 – Smokey Robinson & The Miracles)
14. The Weight (1969 – The Band)
15. Dark End Of The Street (1970 – James Carr)
16. Eleanor Rigby (1970 – The Beatles)
17. Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing (1974 – Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell)
18. Something He Can Feel (1976 – Irene Cara)
19. Oh Happy Day (with Mavis Staples) (1987 – Edwin Hawkins Singers)
20. Ever Changing Times (with Michael McDonald) (1991)
21. I Dreamed A Dream (1991 – from “Les Misérables”)

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More Mix CD-Rs
Covered With Soul
1970s Soul

Some years ago I ran a long series on the lesser-known originals of big hits. Here we continue a series of mixes that bring many of those originals together, by themes. Previously we’ve had the originals of Burt Bacharach songs, Christmas classics, Elvis Presley (Vol. 1 and Vol. 2). Here are the originals of hits from the 1980s.

One act could have featured twice here: early ’70s soul group The Persuaders feature here with their quite nice original of Some Guys Have All The Luck, with the famous cover a cautionary tale of what can happen to a perfectly good song when you add ’80s synths, cocaine and Rod Stewart to it. Not featured is A Thin Line Between over And Hate, later a hit for the Pretenders. But another original of a Pretenders hit features here, the Kinks’ 1964 song Stop Your Sobbing. At this point I notice that the first three tracks on this mix were originally sung by men and covered to commercial success by women.

Perhaps the most famous of these originals is Gloria Jones’ 1965 b-side Tainted Love; a soul track (often falsely said to be a Tamla Motown record) that became a synth classic. It came to the UK by way of England”s Northern Soul scene which thrives on obscure ’60s soul tracks. Before Tainted Love became a hit, Gloria Jones attained some pop history fame: she was Marc Bolan’s girlfriend and passenger when he was killed in a car crash in 1977.

A couple of tracks here may, to some, be better known in the original. The Labi Siffre original of It Must Be Love is hardly obscure. Still, it is the 1981 Madness cover that was the bigger hit and gets the wider airplay. Madness reached the UK #4 with the song; in 1971, Siffre (one of the first openly gay singers in pop) reached #14 with it. Rather endearingly, Siffre made a cameo appearance in the video for the Madness single (he is a violin player).

Likewise, when teenage singer Tiffany scored her 1987 debut hit I Think We’re Alone Now by performing it at malls, the kids’ parents (seen in the video looking on bemusedly at Tiffany’s exploits) probably recognised the song as Tommy James & the Shondells’ 1967 US #4 hit. And while Tiffany topped the UK charts with her version, the original didn’t chart there. Curiously, Tiffany”s cover was followed at US #1 by another Tommy James cover, Mony Mony by Billy Idol.

Certainly in Europe, the Laura Branigan hit Gloria was better known in Umberto Tozzi’s Italian original from 1978. Branigan had another big hit with an Italian hit: 1984’s Self Control was a Euro hit the same year for RAF.

Some originals were written or co-written by the artist who’d have the hit with Read more…

Another easy-going month, for which we ought to be grateful. Still, we lost the man for whom a huge record label was founded, the original Good Morning Vietnam DJ, a one-time teen dream, the composer of classic TV themes, and several others whose work brought people joy.

The unlikely teen dream

Bay City Rollers co-founder and bassist Alan Longmuir always seemed like the most unlikely of teen idols. Already in the second half of his 20s when Rollermania hit, he looked rather like Woody”s uncle than bandmate. So when he left the band in 1976, he was replaced by baby-faced Ian Mitchell, who in turn was replaced by seven-years-old Pat McGlynn. After an unsuccessful stab at a solo career (the featured track explains the lack of success; it”s the bad flip side of a shocking A-side), Alan returned when the teenyboppers had outgrown BCR, but by then the band was superannuated. In interviews, Alan always seemed a nice, down-to-earth guy. When the music thing didn”t work for him anymore, he ran a hotel. When that ruined his health, he retrained to become a building inspector.

The singing actor

Tab Hunter“s claim to fame obviously was his acting career “” with Natalie Wood he was the last actor to be signed to an exclusive contract with Warner Brothers. But he also had a brief but successful recording career. In 1957, he topped the US charts for six straight weeks with Young Love on Dot Records. A follow-up reached #11, at which point Jack Warner invoked the exclusivity contract and founded the Warner Bros record label as a vehicle for Tab Hunter records. Well, it was one of the reasons; Hunter”s singing success was the impetus to put into action a business decision made earlier. But by then his crooning career was fizzling out. Whereas for a while, Warner Bros. Records became a rock music behemoth.

The TV composer

If you”ve seen TV shows like Columbo, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, The Streets of San Francisco or Lou Grant (the themes of the latter two he wrote) you”ve probably heard the compositions of multiple Grammy-winner Patrick Williams in their scores. Williams, who also write a highly rated jazz-symphony titled An American Concerto, was also a sought-after arranger. Frank Sinatra requested his services for the two Duets albums. Before that Williams arranged such classics as Dusty Springfield”s The Look Of Love, Dionne Warwick”s Theme from Valley Of The Dolls, and Barbra Streisand”s Evergreen, and orchestrated classic albums like Billy Joel”s The Stranger.

The all-rounder

How much did Richard Swift, who has died at 41, still have to offer? The man was an all-rounder: Read more…