How Can You Mend This Broken Heart?

No, I haven't had a fight with ma cherie amour (well, not today, anyhow...)!

I've been visiting the doctor these past two weeks, checking out some chest pains, getting a cholesterol test, x-rays and ECG scans to see how the old ticker is doing. No news yet, which is good news. I took up cycling again recently, in anticipation of the Tour de France - I always said exercise would kill me. SO I've been taking it easy a bit, going for gentle walks on the promenade by the sea, looking out the window in my bathchair, grumbling about the good old days, and mentally totalling the number of tubs of Haagen-Daas ice-cream I have consumed wantonly in my lifetime.

And now, this weekend, would you believe it, I've caught a nasty flu-type thing called parvovirus from kids at school! Taking Friday off work is just no fun if your actually ill! And ma cherie amour is currently off on a camping trip with her class somewhere near Ardres in Pas-de-Calais. So there is nobody to pamper me and feed me soup. In fact, there is no soup! Pizza delivery guys, I have decided, should be considered the seventh emergency service (behind the coastguard, mountain rescue and the AA).

There were thus many candidates for today's post. We've got Pain In My Heart from Otis Redding, or we could have had his I've Been Sick Y'all. The Supremes nearly made it with Nothing But Heartaches. Then there were The Isley Brothers with This Old Heart Of Mine. Sadly, those would all have involved me rummaging around for vinyl and tranferring them, while shivering and with a splitting headache!

In that vein, here are some fantastic heart-stopping tunes! Guaranteed to get your pulse racing and your soul aching!

Otis Redding - Pain In My Heart (from Atco LP 'Saturday Night At The Apollo') 1964

(for more on this track, read my old post here)

Al Green - How Can You Mend A Broken Heart? (Hi Records) 1972

Ann Peebles - Troubles, Heartaches And Sadness (Hi 2205) 1972

James Brown - Your Cheatin' Heart (King Records) 1970


Well, I'd better get back to the couch and my blanket, and hopefully I'll be playing you Art Posey with No More Heartaches soon! Also, I've just realised its Bastille Day, so I'm going to try to phone ma cherie amour's relatives with my terrible linguistic skills! Meanwhile, as a sort of Saturday question: How many soul tunes with a heartache or flu/illness/plague theme can you think of?

I've Been Put Out, Shut Out, And Told To Stay Out, And Then Talked About, But I've Still Got You: Joe Tex For The Hall Of Fame!

"This is what rock and roll is all about," Rock And Roll Hall of Fame President Joel Peresman said to the coterie of music executives who had hung around after the ceremonies, eagerly hanging on to his every word. "Who would believe that Van Halen would have to wait so long for their just reward. But lucky for them, I'm in charge now. I spent a lot of good money on hairspray, skipped class to follow their tours, and learnt three whole power chords so I could play their tunes on my 'axe' in my bedroom. Such devotion! But now the whole world understands..."

Bidding his friends farewell, Mr Peresman gave final orders to security to dispose of Iggy and The Stooges. Picking up another sparkling flute of champagne, he trotted, giddily, up the steps and onto the now empty stage. It had been a good night...

... a cold draft blew threw the room. Joel span around, suddenly convinced that he was not alone. But there was nothing there, of course. How silly of me, he thought, nobody noticed. How could they possibly know what we have done? They worship who we say they should worship...

This time, he was spun around with such force he snapped the stem of the flute between his fingers. Yet the strength moving him was not his own.

I Gotcha!

"No!"

You Thought I Didn't See Ya Now, Didn't Ya?

"It's not possible..."

You Thought You'd Sneak By Me Now, Didn't Ya?

"This can't be happening..."

Uh huh, Huh!

"But they told me you only made that disco hit where you ain't gonna bump no more with no big fat woman..."

Uh huh, Huh!

"Please, I didn't know..."

Now Give Me What You Promised Me, Give It Here, Come On!

There was a scream, then the sound of broken glass. Then there was just the sound of running footsteps, an empty awards room, stale champagne, and a pile of gaudy trinkets...




The decision to omit Joe Tex from the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame this year astonishes me! How can Van Halen have a better claim, especially in a list of candidates that also included The Stooges as a far more credible 'rock' act? I blame MTV... Yet it continues to be the case that soul artists such as Joe Tex are all but invisible to the public at large, and their contributions to music totally ignored. Even those artists who do rise above into the collective consciousness are incompletely understood. One British tabloid (the formerly proud, campaigning, working-class Mirror) recently described the funeral of Mr James Brown and the public procession to view the casket as 'bizarre' and 'ghoulish' and 'grotesque'. Such commentators are in the most extreme form of denial about the origins of their popular music, yet seemingly revel in their ignorance.

The blogosphere is not immune to such frippery either. The same day as the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame announcement, one blog admirably featured Joe Tex and several admirable samples of his work, yet spared no expense to mock his comedic lyrical style, and even to denigrate his religion by mocking his name (termed 'El Reg Dwight' for some bizarre reason) and with numerous references to eating pork scratchings. Yusuf Hazziez deserves better than this.


Joe's music is much deeper that the comedy on the surface suggests. There is a serious aspect to many of his songs. The comedy comes from his keen powers of observation. Peter Guralnick puts into context the comedic aspects of Joe Tex's act in Sweet Soul Music:


"Perhaps humor was as good a way to handle the indignities of the road as any other... Removed by twenty [now forty] years, it is not always easy to remember just how grim those days really were ... Ballparks and taxicabs are segregated ...a book about black rabbits and white rabbits was banned... A drive is on to forbid 'Negro music' on 'white' radio stations... In the face of such opposition is it any wonder that many blacks should have fallen back on 'mother wit' as their first line of defence?..."

Joseph Arrington's conversion to Islam was also far from a flippant act. Many white people in the industry saw it as a sign of black activism, and thus a challenge to the established racial order of the day. In fact, it was a deeply personal search for spiritual answers, by a man who was not at all beholden to the allures of fame, and gave up his career to focus on his family and ministry. Now, of course, Joe's religion brings up other latent fears within some. How ironic that they would use comedy to protect themselves from it...

Today's song, from Joe's Dial recordings, shows the character of a man who had experienced ignorance and bigotry aplenty, yet was able to maintain his own sense of dignity and retain focus on the things close to him that meant something more...

Baby, if you be good, if you be good,
If you be good, baby, if you be good,
Listen!
I'll give you all the love and care that your heart desires
Yes I will...

Listen!
I've been lied on, stepped on, walked on, cheated on baby,
I've still got you.
I've been run down, knocked down , turned around and slapped down, baby
I still got you.

Listen!
A man would have to be crazy, to leave a good woman like you.
Coz you have got that certain little something,
That makes me forget all that I've been through...

I've been put out shut out, and told to stay out, and then talked about,
But I've still got you.
I've been beat up, cut up, shot up and told to shut up.
I still got you.

Listen again!
A man whould have to be crazy,
to leave a good woman like you,
Coz you have got that certain little something,
that makes me forget all that I've been through.

Joe Tex - Baby, Be Good (Dial 4086) 1968

Somewhere, I imagine, people who know, amongst them Buddy, Ahmet, and even James, are giving Joe a toast befitting to his contribution, and that's enough for him perhaps. And even down here, it isn't the end of the story. On October 26th 2006, someone named Phile wrote a comment in a blog elsewhere that read: "Where has Joe Tex been all my life?"

The details of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductees 2007 can be found here. To campaign for Joe Tex's inclusion in The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame for 2008, write to:

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation

1290 Avenue of the Americas

New York,

NY 10104

Or leave comments for this post, to form a petition!

Happy New Year! (Finally!) with Sam Moore & Amy Winehouse

And finally, with some delay, a very Happy New Year to everybody who comes to visit my blog!

It has been a very busy couple of weeks, with lots to do at work, plus internet troubles on my computer, and also looking for and buying my first ever flat (stressful!), so I only managed to post a post about the new Macon soul book that I had already prepared before the holidays. By the time everything was back to some normality yesterday, there seemed little to add in way of a tribute to Mr Brown that had not been much better said by others, and New Year had come and gone, for which I was trying to prepare a little quiz or something, and a tribute to those great people we said goodbye to last year. Fortunately, many others provided these tributes, including JB tributes by Larry Grogan at Funky 16 Corners, Jason Stone at The Stepfather of Soul, and Red Kelly at The B Side, who participated in and reported to us all on the viewing of James Brown at rest at the Apollo Theater, and who remembered many others on the last post of 2006.

I spent New Year's Eve with my brother and his partner, and my nephew, Rhys, before settling down, like countless others, to watch Jools Holland's Hootenany. This allowed me the treat of seeing the great Sam Moore singing I Thank You and Soul Man, and later on Hold On! I'm Coming. I saw him earlier in the year on the MOBO Awards, and he epitomises what I see as the true characteristics of a soul man: the experience of singing live, working at the craft for a living, something quite independent of the producers and stylists that dominate most modern musical stars, where the emphasis is on trying to reproduce the recorded, lip-synched and produced product.


Sam Moore at New Year 2007!

More treats were in store! The wonderful Amy Winehouse, so astounding she can even get the die-hards of the Soul Source forum trading in their 45s to buy her CDs! She sang I Heard It Through The Grapevine and it wasn't half-bad, as I hope you'll agree. I get the impression that Amy sings songs because she has to sing for her own sake. Amy can sing with the sense of real conviction, despite her tender years, and her own songs tackle human dilemmas in a way that rises above the 'girl-power' platitudes of most other current female icons, and are damn good music. Although I must grumble at the incongruous inclusion of grumpy Paul Weller, who could have picked a better time to try out his new 'grand old man of the blues' persona. OK, he did good for a mod revivalist!


Amy Winehouse 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine'

At one point in the evening, comedian Adrian Edmundson did a jazz rendition of Anarchy in the UK, and left Sam Moore and band in stitches when he atttempted a bebop trumpet solo with so much gusto you almost thought he would pull it off. For the finale they were all back to sing a rendition of The Mighty Quinn, which is how the show usually ends.

Family, a few beers, and Jools Holland on the telly. Can't beat it! Next year I will of course be reporting live from P Diddy's party mansion...

Links on YouTube by curtisandhooky.

Street Singers, Soul Shouters, And Rebels With A Cause: Music From Macon!

The sad passing of Mr James Brown at Christmas brought home to me that people we take for granted as ever-present parts of our culture are passing each day, sometimes without the recognition they deserved for contributing so much to the lives of thousands of people. Every effort that is made to record and learn about the life-stories of people who have on so many levels done more than entertain us should be cherished.

So after the shock of James Brown's death, something more positive is occuring for Georgia soul fans. A new book is being released in March 2007 from Indigo Custom Publishing and the New Town Macon urban regeneration scheme, entitled Street Singers, Soul Shouters And Rebels With A Cause: Music From Macon.

It has taken author Candice Dyer a couple of years and a supporting team of music sleuths to track down and interview the hundreds of key players who made Macon a special place for music. Here is a short list of just some of the people who have contributed: Phil & Alan Walden, Carolyn Killen, Hamp Swain, Little Richard and Melvin 'Percy' Welch, Zelma & Rogers Redding, Eddie Kirkland, Jerry Wexler, white soul singer Wayne Cochran, the late James Brown and Johnny Jenkins, Pinetop Perkins, Speedo Simms, Jackie Avery and Ella Brown, Rick Hall, former Ohio Untouchable Robert Ward, and Otis tour band trumpeter Newt Collier, as well as a number of people associated to the Allman Brothers Band.

The title of the book was thought up by Wade Griner from Warner Robins, who submitted the winning entry for the Name That Book contest held by Indigo Publishing in the autumn. He won an all-expenses-paid to see The Allman Brothers Band in New York’s Beacon Theater:

“Although I am not a Macon native, like so many others from Central Georgia, I’ve spent my entire life impressed by the music that came from our region. From the Reverend Pearly Brown to Little Richard, Otis Redding and the soulsters who shook the music world despite society’s racial lines, as well as the Allman Brothers Band who elevated rock and roll to a new level by playing it from the guts of the South---there are no few words to describe the history of music from Macon.”

Wade in fact has his own personal connection to Macon music. His wife, Jessica Walden-Griner, is the daughter of Alan Walden and the niece of Phil Walden.

The book will feature photographs never before seen and a CD of interviews with the key artists who transformed the music of the 60’s and 70’s. The website for the book is being set up as we speak and should be online later in January at: www.streetsingerssoulshakers.com You'll be able to buy the book, find out more about the music of Macon ... and also try a recipe for Rocklet Chocolate Chip Cookies. Mmmm.

Pre-order Street Singers, Soul Shakers And Rebels With A Cause here from late January...

Information and cover photo kindly provided by Mary Robinson at Indigo Custom Publishing.

We Feel Good: James Brown 1933-2006

James Brown 3rd May 1933 - 25th Dec 2006

I have been away on holiday for a week in France, and have had no idea what a loss we have felt this week, until a friend mentioned it in passing when I arrived home this evening.

On Christmas Eve, I left Solomon Burke wearing the crown of the King Of Rock N' Soul and a message of goodwill. At a famous concert back in 1965, Solomon was booked and handsomely paid $10,000 to perform, but was kept waiting for hours to get on stage until he was brought on just to be announced as 'deposed' by the headlining performer. I am sure that Mr Burke would again, for this moment, profer his crown, kingly robes and title to his friendly 'rival' of that night, Mr James Brown.

I chose the title for today's memorial post from an article that I read from Metro Beat, the local newspaper for James Brown's hometown of Augusta, Georgia. Faced with several recent scandals and blows that have knocked the reputation and the economy of the city, the council looked for inspiration from a local boy, and came up with an inspirational slogan and campaign, called We Feel Good:

Charles Walker Jr, a prominent local figure in politics made the proposal last year:

“We Feel Good’ says something about us. And I think the more we say it, the more we feel it.”

Pro Tem Mayor Marion Williams said:

“When you say, ‘I Feel Good,’ it just sounds right... I understand ‘We Feel Good’ includes a more collective group and we ought to be inclusive, so I’m all for it...”

Interim Mayor Willie Mays said of the suggestion:

"Let me say, that as a resident and business owner who just happens to live on James Brown Boulevard, I don’t have a vote anymore on this commission, but the gentlemen you’re talking about is a longtime personal and family friend. I had seven engagements that I had to speak at this week, and at least four of them, James Brown’s name was invoked and I didn’t see anyone with a frown on their face when we talked about him.”

James Brown came to represent a lot of things to many people. Musical pioneer, inventor of funk, the original rapper, icon of self-belief, black capitalist; he was determined in all things; rarely suffered fools; expected the same standards of professionalism from others that he exhibited; believed in competition to bring out the best in people; and made his own chances, having started with next to nothing to call his own. These were some of the things we admired about Mr James Brown, and emulating at least some of those qualities one would hope would bring some measure of the success and acheivement of Soul Brother Number One.