5 Songs Friday, Jan. 24

Four Americans and A British group

Betty Carter – “Stormy Weather” 1960 from The Modern Sound of Betty Carter. I’m not entirely sure how modern this sound is, or rather I’m certain Carter herself was up to date but maybe the arrangement behind her was a little corny. At any rate, the tension is rife between Carter’s rhythmic variations and melodic swoops against the somewhat stiff two-beat drum pattern, the clarinet or soprano saxophone that sounds like a cheesy harmonica, and the strings that don’t seem connected to any of it. But, man, she sings this classic song so beautifully it might be my favorite version of a song that practically every woman singer between 1933 and 1963 had to tackle at least once. Carter doesn’t wallow in the torchiness of the lyric, though she does convince me that with her man gone, she might just take to the rocking chair and accept her fate. Further proof that she was one of the greatest of all jazz singers.

Ray Price – “Don’t You Go Loving Nobody Else” 2002 from Time. Ray Price had a long career, with records from 1957 through this one, released eleven years before he passed away in 2013. He had big country hits in the first couple decades of his career, then aged out of what radio wanted to play. After that, he just kept on singing, no longer chasing hits but recording the kind of music he loved, which was all the kinds of country he made when he had hits. This one, a Cindy Walker obscurity, gets a light Western swing treatment. Price sings it with the authoritative cool he always brought to his songs, as he simply tells his lover that staying faithful would be best. “Don’t you go moon-eyed glancing / Don’t you go dining dancing / Wine sipping and romancing with nobody else.” Good advice for healthy relationships.

The Settlers – “Nowhere Man” 1966 single available on 60s Rare Hits. I’d never encountered this group before, but they have one heck of a big Wikipedia page (which never even mentions this record). They were a folk rock group in England before the folk rock movement we all know got started in the later 60s. Their sound is therefore a little more square than I’m used to, but Cindy Kent has a strong voice and an insistent delivery, so I’m happy with this jaunty take on the Beatles song. The arrangement does make it seem like the nowhere man is cooler than John Lennon intended – there doesn’t seem to be much concern that we all have a tendency to go through life with blinders on sometimes. But you can’t argue with the melody or the light-hearted fun of this record.

Jim & Jesse – “I’ll Wash Your Love From My Heart” 1952 single available on Best of the Early Years. Jim & Jesse McReynolds started their musical career as a duo leading their band of Virginia Boys right around the same time bluegrass music was blossoming into a potent strain of modern country music. They didn’t record until a few years after Bill Monroe first aided by and then, in competition with, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs set the templates for this form which are often still followed today. Jim and Jesse worked the sibling harmony game, though they were looser than the likes of the Delmore Brothers or the later Everly Brothers. But that works in the high lonesome game just fine. Jesse was also a heck of a mandolin player, and his intro to this song, in conjunction with whoever was on banjo at the time, is mighty fine stuff. “I’ll wash my love from your heart / With the tears from my eyes / That I shed when I cry over you.” At least these two are confident they’ll get over the pain of this separation pretty quickly.

Charlie Rich – “River, Stay ‘Way From My Door” 1964 from Charlie Rich. I know fewer and fewer people remain alive that even remember him from his two gigantic early 70s hits “Behind Closed Doors” and “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” so the number of people interested in his earlier recordings is miniscule. But, dang it, Charlie Rich was one of the greatest musicians of his time, a singer of variety and invention, a pianist who mixed jazz and country and rock’n’roll, and a pretty fair songwriter, too. This song dates back to 1931, written by Mort Dixon and Harry M. Woods. In Rich’s hands, it’s a fervent complaint, a bluesy attack on life’s problems, a resistance and a drilling down on what is most needed in life. I’m generally not one to complain about strings and backing vocals, believing as I do that pop music deserves to be taken on its own terms and with regard to its own time. But the strings and backing vocals on this cut are more annoying than the arrangement on the Betty Carter record above, and I pretend they don’t exist when I listen to this – Rich and his little combo deliver all the lifesblood this song needs.