I Could Never Be President!

Race in US politics has always determined the heights of possible ambition. Is this about to change at the highest level? Jesse Jackson succeeded to the Democratic Party nomination. Will Senator Barack Obama first take the nomination and then the Presidency? That brings up very exciting possibilities. Mr Obama has strong family ties to Kenya, and supports local schools in his grandmother's town. I feel that such a man, if elected President, would therefore have a radically different perspective on the USA's relationship with the Third World. Then again, I feel less comfortable with his blanket praise for Ronald Reagan's ability to 'change' the entire nation. Ronnie, and even more so Nancy, have many great achievements in their favour, particularly in the sphere of the conclusion of the Cold War. However, domestically, the USA could not have been further from the goals of the Great Society during his Presidency. Maybe this comment by Obama explains what happened next...

On the other side, is the warning word of the cynic. Ironically, it was the Come-Back Kid himself, Bill Clinton, sometimes nicknamed 'the first black President' who, by referring to the rise of less experienced Obama as a 'kid' in 'the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen' left himself open to the charge of having a paternalist attitude. Don't set your hopes too high, he seems to suggest. I think it was the Reagan jibe that made him snap. To his credit, Bill did then make an attempt at amends, telephoning Rev Al Sharpton's radio show to tell him that "He [Obama] had put together a great campaign... he might win." Ah, Bill, you charmer. I can never stay made at you. You'd still make a great First Man. And when I look at certain policy proposals supported by Hillary, such as a health care or insurance scheme for all Americans regardless of wealth, I am of the view that Hillary too could make a President who made a difference.

However, Hillary Clinton and her campaign staff had by this time already proceeded much further in their politicking, in a manner that must leave her husband despairing. She discussed the legacy of Dr Martin Luther King Jr in the run up to the anniversary of his birth, and decided to give an ad hoc lecture on the importance of President Johnson in implementing civil-rights reform. Be it true that Martin Luther King could not alone in 1963 sway the politicians to support change. And it is one of those ironies of history that it was actually the career southern politician Lyndon Johnson, and not the dashing John Kennedy, who would actually turn out to care about civil rights and have the political skills to push them through Congress. Yet, to deny one of these facts over the other is to deny the obvious interplay between them. Historical factors do not work in isolation. Johnson knew very well his chance to pass the Civil Rights Act on 1964 depended on the up-swell of despair and human idealism that followed the death of a President and the mobilisation of that idealism by activists inspired by the speeches of hope given by Martin Luther King. Every one of those ordinary, extraordinary people who stood up and did something made a difference, as Johnson could refer to the popular movement and apply pressure to the stalwarts and cynics in the Congress.

Now, maybe Hillary Clinton, when she reflects a little out away from Washington, will come to see this, and the contribution of so many. What to say about the Clinton staff member, though, who briefed journalists that one reason not to choose Barack Obama as presidential candidate is that someone might want to assassinate him? Can the currency of civic duty be so debased that some would accept meekly the authority of an assassin to determine who should or should not stand in democratic election? And once again, skin colour stands as the shibboleth that America is too afraid to confront? No, too many times that has been allowed. No more, not this time.

I'm going to play Johnnie Taylor's I Could Never Be President, recorded in 1969. Johnnie is having one of those dilemmas we all have - should he be President and end discrimination and poverty, or spend time loving his woman. Or, in Bill's case, women. Now, I've gone through a half dozen changes of mind on what exactly this song is trying to infer in the light of recent events. It has the word President in it. Listen, then make a difference in your community, by using your voice and your vote. I Could Never Be President? Why the hell not?

Johnnie Taylor - I Could Never Be President (Stax 0046) June 1969

I'm sure this has been all over the press in the USA, but here is a link to a news report if you haven't heard the furor: Daily Telegraph report

99 1/2 Just Won't Do: Brown Eyed Has Got To 100!

I have let another milestone pass me by... my post about The Chants was in fact my 100th published post.! With all of the half-started posts strewn in my blogger dashboard, I never realised...

To help me celebrate it, here is the late, the great, the wicked Wilson Pickett, to sing that ode to perfection, 99 1/2 Won't Do. I just hope 102 is enough! Accompanying him, The Alabama Christian Movement For Human Rights Choir sing the hymn and freedom song from which Pickett, Eddie Floyd and Steve Cropper took their inspiration.

In the summer of 1963, in the midst of the gruelling Birmingham, Alabama protests co-ordinated by Rev Fred Shuttlesworth of the ACMHR and Rev Martin Luther King of the SCLC, the Alabama Christian Movement Choir perfomed nightly at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in support of the protests. According to historian Wilson Fallin Jr: "In two organizations within the ACMHR, women made up the majority of the members. The ACMHR choir, formed in 1960, was intended to enhance the spirituality of the Monday night meetings. Twenty-three members formed the group. Most were Baptist women who sang in their church choirs and were accustomed to singing songs similar to those sung by the movement choir, including spirituals and gospel hymns. They sang "God Will Make a Way Some How," Walk with me Lord," and "Ninety-Nine and a Half Won't Do." One member of the choir remarked that "the choir sang with faith in God knowing that his power worked through their songs to give courage." In the mass meetings, female singers allowed their emotions to take over, and on many occasions, they had to be restrained by the ushers."

Choir conductor Carlton Reese adapted the lyrics to add new civil-rights phrases to a popular gospel song sung by Mother Katie Bell Nubin (mother of even more famous Sister Rosetta Tharpe). Reese is leading the singing, backed by a powerful thumping Hammond organ. This version was recorded by folk singer Guy Carawan. The recording served a dual purpose, giving nightly hope and strength to those taking part in the protest, but also as a conscious element of Project C, a strategy to confront the racialist system of segregation in the city head-on in a high-visibility strategy that would engage the entire nation. The singers themselves faced intimidation and arrest. Cleopatra Kennedy was 20 years old in 1963 when she sang solos for the choir. She recalls what it was like the first time she was sent to jail: "That first time, she was in jail for 14 days, but the group sang songs and stomped their feet on the iron beds to make their music. "Singing songs was our way of keeping our self-esteem up, of washing away fear," she says. The day after she was released, she went back on the picket line." When Martin Luther King was arrested and jailed in April of that year, local liberal white church leaders wrote to him urging him to tone down the movement's activities, calling them "unwise and untimely". His response was the famous Letter From A Birmingham Jail, with his powerful riposte: "For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant 'Never." The situation would become even more ense later in that year, with the use of dogs and fire hoses against student and youth protestors, and the bombing of the 16th Street Church during a Sunday school session, with the tragic death of four children. It was in trying times like these that freedom songs could give hope and inspiration.

Jump forward in time two years, to May 1965. Wilson Pickett arrived in Memphis courtesy of Jerry Wexler, who was sure that The Little Label That Could had the spark he needed to secure Pickett, former member of The Falcons, an elusive r&b hit. Pickett sat down with Steve Cropper, and within a matter of half-an-hour, they had come up with In The Midnight Hour and Don't Fight It, both taking the behind-the-beat Stax sound in a new direction by incorporating a behind-the-beat 'Jerk' rhythm. Not a bad night's work! So pleased was he with the sessions, that he sent each of the MGs a $100 thank-you gift.

Wexler and Pickett were eager to return in October and again in December 1965. Eddie Floyd, Wilson's old partner from The Falcons, Steve Cropper, keen to earn some more songwriting money, and Donald Dunn, impressed with Pickett's vocal ability, were all pleased to see him again. Jim Stewart was less keen, perhaps fearful that Atlantic Records were borrowing too much of the Stax sound. The MGs were joined this time by Isaac Hayes, brought in to play piano while Booker T Jones was at college. The new sessions were more difficult, as the group felt the pressure to reproduce what they had achieved in May. Nervous about the prospect, Steve Cropper turned to the experienced Eddie Floyd for advice about songwriting. Cropper said in an interview with Gerry Hershey: "He had been on the stage, and he knew what was going on... He was real helpful to me. Eddie knew the pulse on the street, he knew the pulse of the ghettos of Chicago and Detroit, and I didn't know jack shit about that..."

Eddie Floyd and Cropper had been working on a new song for a whole week, 634-5789, before Wilson arrived back in Memphis on 19th December. After hearing a tape, a clearly tense and nervous Pickett let fly: "This is it? This is my hit tune? It's a piece of shit!" Eddie Floyd had to be prised off his old buddy! But apparently, it had been no different in the old days with The Falcons...

Later on that day, Wilson had calmed down, and so had Eddie, so they went over to Pickett's hotel to write something else. Eddie and Steve noticed a Coca-Cola billboard, with the slogan 'Ninety-Nine And A Half Won't Do.' Recalling the gospel tune and the freedom song, and with Eddie suggesting they add that stop-start behind-the-beat jerk feel, soon Pickett had another classic in the can, so to speak!

The songwriting and recording relationship was sometimes explosive but always professional, and could have produced even more hits, had not Jim Stewart become uncomfortable with the amount of studio time devoted to an Atlantic artist. Citing Pickett's 'drunkenness' (an assertion that Cropper and others hotly dispute, citing Pickett's sober dedication to every session), Stewart packed Pickett and Jerry Wexler back to New York. It was time for them to try to find similar magic at FAME Studios...

The Alabama Christian Movement Choir - 99 1/2 Won't Do

Wilson Pickett - Ninety-Nine And A Half (Won't Do)

Read A Letter From A Birmingham Jail here...

Information from Soulsville: USA by Rob Bowman, Nowhere To Run by Gerry Hershey, and liner notes of Voices Of The Civil Rights Movement: Black American Freedom Songs 1960-1966 by Bernice Johnson Reagon and Phyllis May. Wilson Fallin's article about the ACMHR and the role of women in the organisation can be found here. Visit the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute to read more and to study eye-witness accounts of events from 1956-1963. Quote from Cleopatra Kennedy from an interview for Baylor University magazine.

Hammer And Nails: The Staples Singers Make This House A Home...

I have just bought my first flat, and I have been busy in the last week packing, moving house, painting and decorating! Ma cherie amour et moi are very happy, and not a little exhausted! Finally, today, my internet was reconnected ...

Naturally, this gives me an opportunity to ramble on about The Staple Singers and to play for you the title song from Hammer And Nails, an album of gospel recorded for the renowned jazz label Riverside Records in 1962. It's taken me quite a while to record this onto my computer, since there was a slight nick on the surface that sticks once in a while. There were tears as I blamed myself for this crime against vinyl, but now I have secured a copy of the single, so enjoy!

By this time, the Staples family were already a well-established gospel group who had performed together for nearly 15 years, since Roebuck Staples, born on December 28, 1915 in Winona, Mississippi, decided to form a family gospel group in 1948, incorporating his bluesy guitar style. His elder daughter Cleotha, younger daughter Mavis, and son Pervis Staples took their places sharing the vocals with their father.

Before that time, Roebuck and his wife Oceola had moved from Mississippi to Chicago during the Depression, and had worked in steel mills and meat-packing plants to support the family. The musical talent of the children encouraged Roebuck to start performing in the local Chicago churches, and by the early 50s, they made the choice to become full-time gospel singers, touring churches across the country. In 1957, they signed with Vee Jay and recorded Uncloudy Day, and it became a nationwide gospel hit. Others followed, including Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Help Me, Jesus, and Swing Down Chariot (Let Me Ride). The greater exposure led to more bookings touring college campuses, concert halls and music festivals:

"Everywhere they go they generate a unique kind of soul-to-soul enthusiasm and give every type of audience a deep emotional thrill." -Gary Kramer

Distinguishing the Staple Singers from other gospel groups was their adherence to a southern gospel style, rather than follow the more polished modern vocal harmony groups. This was exactly the kind of gospel sound that most appealed to the growing white audience interested in the 'authentic' American folk tradition. Looking to expand the label, Riverside Records signed The Staple Singers. Orrin Keepnews, who supervised the Staple Singers sessions, had made his name in the jazz world by signing Thelonius Monk and recording him on a series of seminal albums. In April 4th 1964, the Staple Singers would be performing Hammer And Nails on TV's Hootenanny, recorded for that show at the Purdue University, West Lafayette, in Indiana, alongside The New Christy Minstrels and irish harpist Deidre O'Callaghan.

The period at Riverside would be shortlived. Orrin left the business side to his old friend and partner Bill Grauer. In 1963, Grauer died suddenly, and Riverside went into bankruptcy in 1964. The Staples moved on to the Epic label. Here they would take their exposure to the world of folk and protest song and use it to record songs that mixed gospel with themes of the civil rights movement.

In 1968 when The Staples signed with soul music label Stax Records, they would suffer a certain amount of criticism for this in gospel circles. Yet, musically, the only difference was that the popular music coming out of Memphis was simply taking more of its own influences from the same traditional gospel sources that the Staple Singers had always drawn from. Nor do their message songs exactly abandon their gospel message completely.

On this, the title song from the Hammer & Nails album, which was also a single, contralto Mavis sings a powerful vocal line, using the lines 'More, more more...' to drive the beat forwards and pushing harder and harder up to a crescendo in each chorus that evokes an ecstatic feeling. This version of the song is a very different one to the more widely available recording found on their greatest hits CDs. Inexplicably, Hammer & Nails is the only Riverside track that is not featured on their 'complete' Riverside Recordings CD.

Another interesting fact: throughout the liner notes to this album in 1962, Roebuck is referred to as 'Daddy' Staples. When did he pick up his more familiar monicker of 'Pops'?

The Staple Singers - Hammer & Nails (Riverside R-4518, from LP Hammer & Nails 3501)

Information garnered from Rob Bowman's summary of the Staple Singers career, info from The Rosebud Agency, and liner notes by Gary Kramer.

Soul Britannia: Stoned!

The early recordings of the Stones are going to be somewhat humourous to American soul afficionados. But they have their charms. And each song gives some indication of the influences of early British r&b and how a British r&b enthusiast perceived themselves in the early years.

With Come On, the guys attempt to do Chuck Berry for the first time. Clearly terrified of this strange music, the Decca producers constrict the band into a sanitised and clean arrangement that still resembles other tunes by British rock and roll stars of the time. Interestingly, it was not a hit with the r&b crowd, who were disappointed that it did not sound 'authentic', and it only reached No.29. What it does show is that rock and roll was a much bigger element in the influences of British r&b. The b-side, I Want To Be Loved, the Willie Dixon hit popularised by Muddy Waters, is a better track, kept tight by the professional drumming of the jazz musician Charlie Watts, who used to play in Blues Incorporated before joining the younger band. It's blues rather than rhythm and blues, and it's little wonder that early on, British r&b developed a heavy reliance on noisy guitar riffing, and on the power of the harmonica, due to the cheapness of the instrument in comparison with trying to organise a horn section, and the reverence in which blues artists were held by Chris Barber and Alexis Korner and other leaders of the scene.

Next, the Stones turned to songwriters that they idolised, Lennon and McCartney, who gave them I Wanna Be Your Man. Clearly unnerved by the poor response to their first single, both band and Decca Records looked for a sure-fire Beatleesque hit, the only r&b British record companies understood was saleable. The completely unexpected way in which the Beatles had suddenly reached No.1 on the US charts in January 1964 (not 1963 as I previously wrote in a hurry...) stunned everybody, not least themselves, and it had radically changed the way in which young r&b enthusiasts, starting up their own bands, saw their potential. Perhaps they could write their own songs as well as play their favourites.

On the b-side, Stoned shows that there was more to the Rolling Stones than so far meets the eye. It bears the unmistakeable influence of the 1962 hit Last Night by the Mar-Keys, although harmonica takes the place of horns. The British r&b fan was not just a classicist, trying to imitate a revered 'folk' music, however over-earnest some of its proponents sometimes acted (stand up Slowhand...). They were young people excited by an up to the minute sound. This is also a song with a lyric that hardly needs commenting was rather different for British music. The next year, of course, the Rolling Stones would return to the Stax stable to record Rufus Thomas' Walking The Dog for their first album.

The Rolling Stones first self-titled EP, recorded in late 1963, and their second recorded in Chicago in 1964, begin to reveal their true appreciation for some of the masters of r&b, and more closely resemble how they played live...

The Rolling Stones - Come On (Decca 1963)

The Rolling Stones - I Want To Be Loved (Decca 1963)

The Rolling Stones - I Wanna Be Your Man (Decca 1963)

The Rolling Stones - Stoned (Decca 1963)

Nugetre's Nuggets, Part Two: Carla And Otis Get Lovey, Dovey

Some more Nugetre magic, with some Stax sorcery added to the mix. Lovey Dovey was written by Ahmet Ertegun (Nugetre) and King Curtis for The Clovers (see Sunday's post). Carla Thomas and Otis Redding recorded Lovey, Dovey for their King & Queen of Soul album in January 1967. They replace the jazzy piano line and sultry saxophone accompaniment of the Clovers' original with Al Jackson's thumping drumbeat, and the sharp blasts of Memphis horns. I love how the horns build up and up towards the end, like when you start up on a rollercoaster, then we go over the top into the final fade out.



Carla Thomas & Otis Redding - Lovey, Dovey (Stax 244) Jan 1967

POSTSCRIPT: If you are an Otis Redding fan (you're not?!?!...), incidentally, the photo was featured on a great website devoted to Otis albums, with lyrics and liner notes, called The Otis Redding French Site. The text is in French but its got great features on hundreds of Otis items. And I am learning the French lyrics to Tramp at the moment! Clochard! (transl. Tramp!)

P.P.S. : I've been trying to buy a Clovers track Little Miss Fannie (by Nugetre) on my friend iTunes, and have discovered to my annoyance that it is only listed on US iTunes, and that as a Brit, I am forbidden from purchasing it! AHHH! WHY! (... take a deep breath, there will be other soul music, remember the 12 steps...) Ok, feeling better. I hope they never find out how many 'gift/hobby' parcels of rare vinyl history leave the New World for my door every month...

Boy Meets Girl: It's Too Late

Is it? Is it too late? Has summer gone? Did it stay too long? The day is cloudy, and thus I have to make this the final Boy Meets Girl snippet for this summer. If you don't go and buy the CD RIGHT NOW, however, don't fear - I'm sure I'll come back to it next summer, and the next!

A pairing now of two artists we haven't heard yet, Eddie Floyd and Cleotha Staples. Cleotha is the oldest of the Staples siblings, born just before the late Roebuck 'Pops' Staples moved his family from Mississippi to Chicago. While younger sister Mavis gets to show off her vocal virtuosity on some outstanding soul shouters, Cleotha chooses a song in a more traditional gospel form, and building from a near whispher 'it's a weak man that cries...', she can take it up to match the haunting organ accompaniment. Eddie Floyd's voice, crisp and clean, seems perfectly suited for the song. A wonderful, pure song of love and regret.


Cleotha Staples worked with the Staple Singers up to Pop's death in 2000. Soon after that, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease, which, with the help of her family, she continues to cope with, and she helped to organise the release of the final Staple Singers sessions in 2003.

Eddie Floyd & Cleotha Staples - It's Too Late (STAX STS-S 2-2024) 1969

Boy Meets Girl: Just Keep On Loving Me

Carla Thomas featured prominently on the Boy Meets Girl album, at a time when she was beginning to feel that she was being sidelined as an artist at Stax. After performing in London at the Bag O'Nails club in front of an impressed Paul McCartney, she was actually asked to drop out of the Stax/Volt tour of England in 1967 to perform at a civil-rights benefit in Chicago that Al Bell had double-booked! Having recorded the successful King & Queen of Soul album and Tramp with Otis Redding, she was hoping to capitalise on this. Jim Stewart promised another duet album with Otis for December 1967; yet Phil Walden remembers talking with Al Bell about an album featuring Otis with Aretha Franklin.

Al Bell found a place for Carla on Boy Meets Girl, although she is billed last, under Stax's newest female singing sensation, Mavis Staples. Nonetheless, Carla Thomas makes the most of her chance. She performs three songs in her trademark ballad style, All I Have To Do Is Dream with William Bell, with Eddie Floyd on Don't Make Me A Storyteller, and I'm Trying with Purvis Staples. She streches out into more impassioned territory with William Bell again on I Can't Stop and I Need You Woman, It's Our Time with Eddie, and particularly forcefully on It's Unbelievable with Purvis Staples. But it is perhaps with Johnnie Taylor that she reaches her best rapport, first on the ballad I've Just Been Feeling Bad, and then on today's song.

Carla Thomas matches and outdoes Johnnie Taylor on every plea to Just Keep On Loving Me. It's clear to me that she is in fact the power driving this song, with more confidence that she expresses on some of her other duets here. Ironically, in September 1975, in the dying days of Stax as a real record company, this song was released with Carla's vocals removed, in an attempt to cash in on Johnnie Taylor's renewed popularity with the disco crowd and drum up some much needed cash while the vultures swooped (this version recently featured on Stepfather of Soul, I think, but I can't remember now). It is good, but does it feel like someone is missing when he cries out for Carla halfway through? If you have that version, compare it to the original here, and decide for yourself.

Carla Thomas & Johnnie Taylor - Just Keep On Loving Me (Stax 0042) 1969

Information for this post taken from Rob Bowman's Soulsville: USA, and the Stax Site. You can buy the CD Boy Meets Girl here.

Boy Meets Girl: Love's Sweet Sensation

Summer lingers on, the sun is shining, boy meets girl, feel love's sweet sensation...



1969: Following the revelation that Atlantic Records had conned them out of ownership of their entire body of work to date, and stunned by the death of Otis Redding, and the murder of Martin Luther King in Memphis, the Stax family gathered together under the new direction of Al Bell to consider the future. Even though there had been tragedy and trickery, and even though tensions lay simmering beneath the surface, everybody equally believed in the possibility to make one new team effort, in the Stax spirit, to push ahead. A big release of new material, in a fanfare of publicity, was planned for May 1969.

The recording push of late 1968 and early 1969 produced so much astonishing music, often from previously untapped talent at the company, that it was able to push Stax to new heights. Everybody was put to work writing songs, performing, producing, in new combinations. New acts such as the Soul Children, the Emotions and the Staples Singers joined the family, while Isaac Hayes got to work on Hot Buttered Soul. A grand total of 27 new albums and 30 singles were recorded and pressed for simultaneous release, with more in the pipeline.

Boy Meets Girl was one of those albums, and was in part a response to the perceived success of that other soul giant, Motown, with duet songs. The decision to record four sides worth of Stax duets may seem slightly over-enthusiastic. Not everyone, even at Stax, believed that it would be possible to release so much and promote every artist properly. Al Bell, who personally produced the album, explained the reasoning in an interview with Rob Bowman:

"It was an attempt to take the entire roster and come up with a unique catalogue album ... then I could expose every track on the album and ... get all of those artists out there..."

Almost every permutation of male and female vocalist gets an outing. Duets were recorded with William Bell, Mavis Staples, Cleotha Staples, Purvis Staples, Johnny Taylor, Carla Thomas and Eddie Floyd. The results are remarkable. Carla Thomas matches and outdoes Johnny Taylor with every plea to Keep On Loving Me. William Bell and Mavis Staples didn't have to love us but they did, yes they did, on I Thank You. Mavis's voice soars above Eddie Floyd to dare him, Take Another Little Piece of My Heart.

Al Bell, working with Don Davis and Isaac Hayes to produce the tracks, took the artists to Muscle Shoals Sound for half of the songs. This was the first time the Muscle Shoals rhythm section, David Hood, Jimmy Johnson, Roger Hawkins and Barry Beckett, had played on a Stax record. Eddie Hinton, Marvell Thomas and Isaac Hayes also played.

The other half of the songs were recorded at Ardent Studios, with the new line-up of the Bar-Kays. Marvell Thomas and Isaac Hayes came to record parts too. They soon would return to Ardent to come up with Hot Buttered Soul...

Today's song is Love's Sweet Sensation, a duet between Mavis Staples and William Bell. You can't help but think about the warmth of a sunny day. I always cheer up listening to this track. When William calls out that love's "like a big hurricane", listen out for Mavis' response: "ooh, windy..." The string parts (recorded at Tera Shirma Studios in Detroit by Russ Terrana Jr) add a soaring element that matches the song's sentiment, while the song never gets syrupy thanks to the clever changes of tempo that wind up the song.

William Bell & Mavis Staples - Love's Sweet Sensation ("Boy Meets Girl" Stax STS 2-2024) 1969

The predictions that the release schedule was overdone were in part justified. Boy Meets Girl, and its six singles, did not chart, like some of the other albums. But the album push did make an impression on the music industry, and the record-buying public - Stax would continue - and gave us a wealth of great music.

All of the facts in this post come from Rob Bowman's Soulsville: USA. Amazon.co.uk are selling the Boy Meets Girl CD at good price for 22 classic tracks.

Go 'Head On With The Packers

Continuing my Magnificent Montague theme, today's post centres around one of those legendary recording sessions of soul myth. Did Booker T & The MGs record a tune in LA while around them Watts burned?

In August 1965, Estelle Axton, joint owner of Stax Records, sent The MGs to do a tour of California. According to Steve Cropper, their last gig on the tour took place the night before the riots began (at the 5-4 Ballroom, which burnt down in the fires), and it was the liquor store next door that was set fire to next day at the start of the riots. Thus the rumour that the band recorded amidst the flames began, fanned by associations with the infamous catchphrase "Burn, baby! Burn!" of the MC for the Stax Revue gig and producer of the instrumental in question...

Of course, the recording took place elsewhere, as part of a session making jingles for Magnificent Montague's radio show. As he tells it, it "was another of those half-hour-left-in-the-studio throwaway jobs." Considering that writing and producing r&b instumentals was one of Montague's self-confessed money-making sidelines, and one he was good at too, it seems a little too convenient.

What was also too convenient was that Packy Axton, Estelle's son and estranged member of the Mar-Keys, and his friend Johnny Keyes, just happened to be in town, signed to Montague's Pure Soul Music label, and present at the studio, ready to play horn and congas respectively. Montague it should be noted, doesn't mention the contract which meant that he would own the recordings that day, mischievously describing Packy as just "Booker T's sax player"! Nothing can be proved, but nearly all of the principals involved assume that Estelle Axton was pulling strings for Packy to get another chance of a hit record, after he had fallen out with Jim Stewart over time-keeping and drinking.

The song recorded was Hole In The Wall, which was releaed as by The Packers, and was a No.5 R&B hit. Montague describes the genesis of the song:

"We finished the jingles, and then, jsut for fun, I started beating on my conga drum: one, two, bop-bop. I'd read it was what slaves used as a code beat, a warning at secret meetings that massa was coming; the change-up of rhythm was the signal to start their emotional dance and laughter, to fool massa that they were contented and happy."

The session over, the MGs left for home, all knowing that Packy and Montague had put one over on them, and the feelings were mixed, between respect for Montague's acumen, sympathy for their friend Packy, confusion about why Estelle would arrange it, and some annoyance at the lost earnings on what should have been released as another MGs hit. The MGs are listed alongside Nathan (Montague's real name is Nathaniel) as writers, but it is doubtful that they or Montague have seen much of the royalties as the masters have been sold on more than once.

Montague added some girls from Santa Monica doing background vocals, yelling and cheering for a 'live jam' feel, in the style of Ramsey Lewis. But now, Montague and Packy needed a b-side. Packy, Johnny Keyes and Leon Haywood came back to record another instrumental, which was titled Go 'Head On. Out of the two sides, I think it is actually my favourite at the moment.

Larry Grogan at Funky 16 Corners blog did a detailed detective investigation into the various line-ups of the Packers after this session, and into the mysterious reappearances of Hole In The Wall and Go 'Head On in other guises, back in April 2004 and again in January 2006. Strongly recommended for further fascinating facts!

The Packers - Go 'Head On (Pure Soul Music 45-1107) 1965




A CD of the Stax Revue tour or August 1965 at the 5-4 Ballroom is available here. Interestingly, it lists the Mar-Keys as playing 'Last Night' at the gig. So, if Packy had been playing some nights on the tour anyhow, and horns were needed, the MGs would have perhaps expected his presence at the recording session... You can listen and hear Magnificent Montague MCing at the Amazon web page.

Johnny Jenkins: Walking On Gilded Splinters

After a short weekend trip to France, I came back to read some sad news for soul fans. Agent 45 at Georgia Soul! Blog reports that Johnny Jenkins, leader of the Pinetoppers and recording artist at Capricorn Records, died on Sunday June 25th 2006, aged 67. I had been reading about him and telling my girlfriend about him on the plane home...

Johnny Jenkins was born in Macon, Georgia in 1939. At age 9, he made his first guitar out of a cigar box and rubber bands; as a left-hander, he learned to play it upside down and entertained people at a local gas station.

Phil Walden signed Jenkins in 1958, while he was a high school president looking for a way to book r&b shows for fraternities. Johnny began to tour around the South, playing fraternity parties and various venues, first with Pat T Cake & The Mighty Panthers, and then with his own band, the Pinetoppers.

Paul Hornsby of the Capricorn Rhythm Section, who played with Johnny on his key albums, recalls:

"He was legendary playing at college fraternities at the University of Alabama. I always heard about the left-handed guitar player who was doing all these acrobatics."

Phil Walden talked about Johnny in a 1996 interview with the Macon Telegraph:

"I have a great deal of sentiment attached to Johnny Jenkins. He was my first client, and it was through him that I met Otis Redding. ... I was still a teenager when I met him, and I thought my entire world rotated around Johnny Jenkins' guitar. I was convinced he could have been the greatest thing in rock 'n' roll. He had all the earmarks of stardom. He looked the part, he played the part, he acted the part. ... He made a major impression on my entire career. This was my first relationship with an African-American musician, and what made that unusual was the time of the relationship (the late '50s). I learned so much about life from Johnny Jenkins and Otis Redding during those early years. It was exhilarating, to say the least."

At the Douglass Theatre in Macon, an amateur talent show was held every week and broadcast as The Teenage Party. Otis Redding sang regularly in 1958, and won week after week. One night, Johnny went to watch. Jenkins described what happened to Peter Guralnick:

"I heard Otis at the Douglass, and the group behind him just wasn't making it. So I went up to him, and I said, 'Do you mind if I play behind you?' And he looked at me like, 'Who are you?' 'Cause he didn't know me. And I say, 'I can make you sound good.' ... And you know how the guitar can make a singer sound good by covering up his weaknesses? Well, he sounded great with me playing behind him - and he knowed it. I say, 'How much you pay me?' He say, '25 cents.' I say, 'Well, that be all right, maybe you better pay me 15 cents now, 10 cents at the gig.'"

The Pinetoppers, now with Otis singing, got a chance to record a single, Shout Bamalama, for Confederate Records, but the excitement was short-lived,a nd money became tight. Phil Walden set up Phil Walden & Associates, and booked the members of the band in various guises and combinations under assumed names to try to eke out more gigs - once they performed just as Johnny & Otis, with Otis playing the drums.

Johnny Jenkins then recorded a regional hit instrumental, Love Twist, released on Tifco, and then distributed by Atlantic thanks to record promoter Joe Galkin, who took a cut, and Phil Walden got a follow-up session booked at Stax Records. The confusion over Otis' role at the session stems from the fact that while Otis was an integral part of the band, they were there to record an instrumental follow-up to capitalise on Love Twist. But when the tunes didn't come together for the Pinetoppers, the remaining half-hour went over to trying some vocal tracks. Johnny Jenkins was there playing guitar on Hey Hey Baby and These Arms Of Mine, happily supporting his friend. Rogers Redding said that the original idea had been to promote These Arms Of Mine as a duo, Johnny & Otis.

But Johnny decided not to tour, disliking air travel, and perhaps more nervous, or more wary, about the prospect of fame than he liked to admit. He was suspicious of the Stax set-up, and like those black artists such as Gilbert Caple who played on Last Night but received no credit, believed that his contribution was being appropriated:

"They [Jim Stewart and Stax] had me in the motherfucking studio, and I played the best I knowed how... [then got Steve Cropper to study it]"

Johnny released just one 45 on Volt, Spunky bw Bashful Guitar. Johnny preferred to stick with Phil and those whom he trusted from Macon, and despite some portrayals of Johnny as a bitter man, others recall him quite differently. Joseph Johnson, curator of the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, recalls:
"I listened to an interview in which he said he never really wanted to become famous, he just wanted to play guitar. ... He was happy playing guitar, playing with a band and going home."

Paul Hornsby worked as a producer at Phil Walden's Capricorn Records when Jenkins recorded his most well-known album, Ton Ton Macoute, in 1970. He believes that Jenkins didn't try to get the fame and attention the other artists on the label such as the Allman Brothers, were receiving:

"Capricorn wanted him to be something special. They wanted him to be another Hendrix. But that just wasn't him."

Jenkins' guitar style is more familiar than you might think. Jimi Hendrix, whose aunt lived in Macon, saw Jenkins perform and fell in love with his signature acrobatic left-handed guitar style. Johnny was light-hearted about his possible influence:

"He used to see me at Sawyer Lake. The next thing you know, he's jumping around like me, but he had his own stuff."

The death of his best friend Otis Redding in 1967 had a profound impact upon Johnny. He could not bring himself to go to the funeral in Macon, unable to hold back his distress, and filled with suspicions that something more sinister might lay behind the plane crash. He feared also that Zelma and the family might be upset by his presence; and that Stax associates might not want him there, a reminder of Otis' younger, wilder days, rather than as a pop idol.

Johnny's career petered out with the fall of Capricorn Records. In 1996, Phil Walden produced Jenkins' comeback album, Blessed Blues. He performed at the first concert at the Douglass Theatre after it was renovated in 1997. Jenkins continued to perform sporadically, including a 2000 show at the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. His last two albums, Handle with Care (1999) and All in Good Time (2000), were produced by Mean Old World Records.

The singer Arthur Ponder sums up Johnny Jenkins as a character:

"I learned a lot from him... If you sang or played, you would go find Johnny. He would give you a chance."

The first track today comes from Ton Ton Macoute, and is a funky blues titled Walking On Gilded Splinters. Yes, Paul Weller once chewed this one up... Then, on his 2003 album, Johnny sings the William Bell penned tribute to his old friend Otis:

Johnny Jenkins - Walking On Gilded Splinters ('Ton Ton Macoute' 1970 Capricorn Records)

Johnny Jenkins - A Tribute To a King ('All In Good Time' 2003 Mean Old World)

Information and quotes from the Macon Telegraph, and from Sweet Soul Music by Peter Guralnick. Photos by Mark Pucci, and by the Capricorn Rhythm Section.