5 Songs September 13, 2024

Music From 5 Different Categories

Status Quo – “Mr. Mind Detector” `1969 from Spare Parts. Status Quo lasted a long time and went through a lot of different approaches. Their most famous song from the early psychedelic days was “Pictures of Matchstick Men,” which I’m not ashamed to say I learned from Camper Van Beethoven’s version. This track from their second, way less popular album is a lot more muddled than that one, but in a good way. The rhythm guitar almost sounds like it’s playing backwards, the horns sound like they’re auditioning for a mind-control sequence on Mission: Impossible, and the vocals are mixed low to match the trippy but catchy bare-bones tune. “Gotta find a way to learn infinity / Gotta find a way to make you save my sanity.” I suspect acid was involved in composing this one. But you don’t need drugs to get pulled into the delirium induced by this recording.

Gladys Knight & the Pips – “I Can’t Stand By” 1962 from Letter Full of Tears. Gladys Knight was all of 18 years old when she recorded this song, but she and the Pips had been working together for five years in their long-standing line-up by that time. I love this early record. It’s full of teen love drama – “I can’t stand by while she makes a fool of you.” There’s not much of the gospel soul approach Knight would use in her more famous later records – no melisma at all. There is a bit of a growl in her voice when she gets louder, and maybe a hiccup here and there borrowed from Jackie Wilson. But mostly, she’s right in tune with the sound of many early 60s girl group singers. She just happens to have more chops than almost all of them – than almost everybody ever, really. So, as this song builds and builds, with the strings swirling and the Pips chirping behind her, Knight’s powerful voice easily handles the dynamics and the high notes. It’s a perfect crescendo of overwhelming concern for a situation which really isn’t hers to solve.

The Slits – “FM” 1979 from Cut. In England, by 1979, punk was old hat, and all the newer musicians were trying out all sorts of ideas inspired by the freedom of creativity that had been unleashed. The young women in the Slits, still in their late teens at the time of this debut album, had progressed beyond their loud and gnarly guitar days. Somehow, they managed to get the great reggae producer Dennis Bovell to helm the sessions, bringing a heavy dub feel to the sound. Despite the fact that he wasn’t on the album cover, the great drummer Budgie, soon to join Siouxsie & the Banshees, was playing all the amazing rhythms in tandem with Tessa Pollitt’s bubbling bass and the shattered guitar parts of Viv Albertine. Ari Up was the singer, and she delivered personality that transcended her occasional wonky pitch. In some ways, this song was similar to Elvis Costello’s “Radio Radio” in its attack on the ways the FM dial was keeping people in the dark. “Frequent mutilation transmits over the air / Serving for the purpose / Of those you want to fear.” It’s a dark, moody song that can haunt your ears for a long time once you hear it.

A Tribe Called Quest – “Excursions” 1991 from The Low End Theory. It begins with a little reminiscing of Q-Tip’s teen years. “You could find the Abstract listening to hip hop / My pops used to say it reminded him of be-bop / I said well Daddy don’t you know that things go in cycles / The way that Bobby Brown is just ampin’ like Michael.” That first verse, the first words you hear on this second and most famous album by A Tribe Called Quest, is rapped over a looped acoustic bass line with conga drums. Man, when the drum beats hit, it’s like a bomb bursting in your ears – beats in those days were huge! This is entirely Q-Tip’s song, a celebration of the group’s early success, a call for positivity in the community, a search for truth and hope. Oh, yeah, and there are some horn samples, and a whole verse lifted from a Last Poets record. At the time, I wasn’t paying much attention to hip hop – I used to go in cycles myself of liking it and ignoring it – but this record stood out even then.

Bennie Moten & His Kansas City Orchestra – “Now That I Need You” 1930 available on Moten Swing (The Best of). A couple years later, Moten would officially turn over his band to Count Basie, who was already playing piano at this point. I happened to watch a 1928 silent movie called The Patsy the other night, and Marian Davies – a terrific and underrated comic performer – did a super fast dance that would match this music perfectly. The tempo here is way upbeat, leading to syncopated gyrations at a tremendous speed. I love the arrangement – the reeds and the brass alternate parts, there are brief solos from trumpet, vocals, accordion, trombone, and trumpet again. Oh, that trumpeter? He’s Hot Lips Page, a major swing player. The vocalist? A young Jimmy Rushing, who would have an excellent career for the next few decades. There are no hints of the specific Basie sound that would come soon enough, but this is a fun example of Kansas City big band in its youth.