5 Songs September 20, 2024

Four out of five were records I never heard before this week and two out of five were written by the same great songwriters

The Drifters – “Fools Fall in Love” 1957 available on The Definitive Drifters and many other Drifters collections. Keeping track of who was in the Drifters when can be a chore unless you were hearing all these records in real time. I didn’t bother to be born until the year after this single was a big hit, so I have to dig up info on the internet. Johnny Moore was the lead singer on this record, and he did one heck of a credible Clyde McPhatter imitation. The song was a bit of a throwaway from Lieber and Stoller, but the arrangement is peppy, the vocals engaging, and there are hot guitar and sax breaks from Jimmy Oliver and Jesse Powell respectively. The other Drifters do the kind of nonsense syllables that gave doo wop its name, and the whole thing gets by on charm and enthusiasm. I’ve pretty much always loved records like this, and the Drifters were the best of the bunch at making them.

Scritti Politti – “Here Come July” 1999 from Anomie and Bonhomie. Green Gartside, a pop star name so perfect you’d think Thomas Pynchon invented it, was never the most prolific of musicians. In a career lasting 24 years, his band Scritti Politti – speaking of great names – only released five albums. I fell in love with an early single, “Asylums in Jerusalem,” but didn’t follow along for the rest of the ride. I respect Gartside’s synth-pop rhythm heavy music, but what I really loved was the melodic joy he gave me on that 45. I don’t remember hearing this album, the fourth in the bands career which came out eleven years after the third, back before the millenium. This song pops and crackles with all the catchiness of their early work. I don’t know why he chose this grammatically incorrect hook, since adding an s to the end of “come” wouldn’t have changed the way he sang it, but somehow it works. With sharp chord progressions smothered in heavy distorted guitars and a wandering melodic bass line offering counterpoint to the vocal, Gartside sets us up for a celebration of summertime. But halfway through the buoyant record, he starts singing of darker times – “It doesn’t mean nothing, it doesn’t mean shit / How can I be a part of it?” It still sounds like a party, but it turns out his lover has been lying to him. He’s angry, but as a listener, I’m happy.

Bill Brown & His Brownies – “Zonky” 1929 available on What Kind of Rhythm Is That – Territory Bands 1927-1931. Dance crazes come and go, and some fade forever into history save for their names heard on certain ancient recordings. This particular dance number, co-written by the great Fats Waller, was done several times in the early 30s by the likes of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, Clarence Williams, and our case in point, Bill Brown & His Brownies. I can’t summon up any info on Mr. Brown, save he was a trombone player, and he was likely from somewhere in the Midwest. This tune was apparently composed in late 1929, and this version was recorded the day after Christmas that year, so I’m guessing he was in New York with the band ready to grab sheet music from Waller. It’s plenty exuberant, with some hot solos on alto saxophone and trumpet. Ovie Alston handles the vocal verse, with its somewhat ironic lines “I’d bet a dime against a donut / Other dances may come and go but / When you learn the zonky, you’ll want it to stay.” I can play this record over and over again, but that’s the closest the dance comes to lasting.

Leon Russell – “Easy to Love” 2017 from On a Distant Shore. Leon Russell was a mesmerizing talent who played a key role as a session pianist and producer, as a songwriter and arranger, as a singer, and as a live performer. He practically stole the show from a murderer’s row of major artists  in Concert For Bangla Desh.This is from his final album, released almost a year after he died in 2016. The songs he wrote for this one – in addition to three of his oldies redone here – are all from the Great American Songbook mold of pop vocalists before he started working in Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound. This one has a melody not dissimilar to “Has Anybody Seen My Gal,” but it’s slower, more intimate, and more delicate. Near the end of his life, Russell was able to afford bigger production values, thanks to the success of his collaboration with Elton John. So, with great musicians and a swelling string arrangement, he sings his eulogy for a long-lost love. The rhymes are as simple as can be – “cold, old” or “love, dove” – but the song sounds straight from the heart. It’s probably the best song he wrote in the last thirty years of his magnificent career.

Little Richard – “Hound Dog” 1964 from Little Richard Is Back (And There’s a Whole Lot of Shakin’ Goin’ On!” It’s like I stepped into an alternate universe here. Little Richard is pounding the piano and whooping his way through the song made famous by Big Mama Thornton and by Elvis Presley. In 1964, Richard was making one of his perennial returns from religion. I guess he figured the success of the Beatles and other British Invasion acts made for a good chance at hitting the charts again. It didn’t work, but this little oddity is a cool result. I love the way he opens the record with a gospel chord on the piano, then “You” whomp “you” whomp “you” whomp “not you” whomp “you.” It’s obvious he wasn’t taking this entirely seriously, but at the same time he gives it a powerful Richardian roar once he gets going. There’s a longer version of this released on CD later, that adds a lot of horns to make it even more overwhelming – that may be a rerecording, though the arrangement is virtually identical except for the horns. Either way, Little Richard singing Leiber & Stoller’s classic is a delightful find.