5 Songs Nov. 8 2023

The debut of a new weekly feature!

I started this Substack with the intention of writing a lot more than once a month. Over two months ago, thanks to egregious actions by station management, I went on strike from doing the radio show on KDHX that I’d had for 28 of the last 36 years. This left me with no outlet for sharing some of the older songs I would have played on that show, so I’ll start writing about a few of them here every week.

The Delfonics – “Walk Right Up to the Sun” 1972 from Tell Me This is A Dream. Ah, the Philadelphia soul sound, as created by producer Thom Bell. The Delfonics were among the first vocal groups to get immersed in those swirling strings, that pseudo-Romantic Bacharachian soundscape. This song opens with kettle drums, a few brass and string chords, then those glorious harmonies this trio made their specialty. Like so many soul groups at the time, they had a tenor vocalist, and a falsetto vocalist, and a bass vocalist. Put these three singers together and you had something immediately perfect. Give them lyrics that push the trope of giving one’s lover the biggest, most impossible gifts you can. “Walk right up to the sun hand in hand / Walk right up to the sun and we won’t fear anyone.” Of course you won’t fear anyone, you’ll be consumed in the hottest blaze you’ve ever known. But, I guess that’s the ultimate description of love, right?

The Jayhawks – “The Baltimore Sun” 1989 from Blue Earth. In St. Louis, we were pretty sure there was no other music scene so wrapped up in rock musicians playing country-influenced songs. Then somebody introduced us to the Jayhawks from Minneapolis (which we always thought was a decidedly noisier city, what with Hüsker Du and the Replacements). Suddenly, the seeds of what would become known as alt-country were sprouting up. This song, co-written by the band’s Mark Olson and Gary Louris, reminds me of Gram Parsons’ “Ooh Las Vegas” with its country shuffle and spirited melody. I assume they started with the line “And the sun keeps shining on, son” and built a little tale of misunderstanding and a potential move to the East Coast from there. Great acoustic guitar solo in the middle.

The Wallflowers – “Maybe Your Heart’s Not In It No More” 2021 from Exit Wounds. Jakob Dylan has been plugging along for just about 30 years now. Though the Wallflowers no longer get the massive radio and MTV exposure that made their debut album a staple of used CD bins for decades, they still can tickle the ears with their folk-based roots rock. This song is a perfect example of what they do well. With organ swirling over a steady bass and drums rhythm, and acoustic guitars strumming while electric guitars and dobro drop filigree lines in between the words, Dylan sings a simple but irresistible melody that ends each verse with the title hook. It’s not really that distant from what his dad used to do with the Band. The song is concerned with a lover (or possibly just a close friend) who has pulled away from him despite his best efforts. It’s not a masterpiece, but it is a steady, workmanlike piece of musical pleasure.

Lucinda Williams – “2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten” 1998 from Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. This was the last of three albums made by the partnership of Lucinda Williams and guitarist Gurf Morlix. Neither one has since done anything as perfect as the records they made together. This particular song is all about feel. Morlix’s heavily reverbed guitar riff over the pocket-hugging rhythm section of bassist John Ciambotti and the brilliant drummer Donald Lindley (who passed away just a few months after the album’s release) conjures up the mood of a smokey, not-too-crowded dive bar somewhere in New Orleans. Williams, who was never comfortable with her singing voice, delivers the lyrics in a slippery purr, the equivalent of a smooth whiskey sliding down the throat. The images are of the inhabitants of the bar, the signs around the room, the jukebox playing Robert Johnson. And then the last verse takes us outside, where she stands on a bridge with a suicidal lover who, we assume, is the one to cool to be forgotten. I’ll always remember this song myself.

Ike & Tina Turner – “A Fool in Love” 1960 single, from the 1961 album The Soul of Ike & Tina Turner. Recorded right here in St. Louis, intended as a demo for another singer, with Tina Turner filling in just because she knew the song from rehearsals, this remains one of the high points of pop music. Honestly, if Tina had never done anything else, she might deserve canonization just for her responses to the Ikettes’ calls in the chorus. The record opens with Tina in the throes of gospel confusion, asking God (herein represented by the Ikettes) to tell her what’s wrong with her. Over a deeply intoxicating groove set by Ike Turner’s left hand on the piano in conjunction with Jesse Knight Jr.’s bass guitar and the slinky drumming of T.N.T. Tribble, Tina sings the lyrics about a woman’s role as an object for her man – jeez, Ike – as if she is entirely the subject. There is no way the singer in this song would put up with any shit. She’s a fool, they tell her, but she loves him, she cries. We know how this played out in real life, but in the context of the record, this interior battle becomes an exterior triumph for Tina Turner.