Joe Tex month day 22: The "uptown" albums

After recording his two greasiest records in '68 and '69, the ever attuned-to-the-times Tex switched up his sound for his next two records, going for the slightly more sophisticated soul sounds of the early 70s. Not that JT was going to in any way go all Isaac Hayes on us, but these records do represent an attempt to sophisticate the hard southern soul of JT, with mixed results.

It mostly works on the With Strings and Things album. For one thing, it's only about half transitional - much of it is business as usual. It's like there were some standard Textracks in the can and a slightly more uptown session was recorded to justify the name. Tex even talks about the fact that he's in transition on the album's hit, "You're Right, Ray Charles", which we discussed in the Dapper Dropper post. 

There are many other snazzy songs on this LP. The lead track, "Everything Happens on Time" has one of the oddest arrangements of any JT song, and Joe responds with a lyric that is another wild metaphor typical to the man who spent a lot of his time buying books, digging gardens, and picking plums (in the same old soup).  

"Take My Baby a Little Love" is a killer mover with many classic lines, like: "I've got to stop being the town clown before I tear myself down!"

And "A Little Friendly Advice" is one of those weird "addressed to a specific individual male with a single syllable first name" songs we've heard throughout Joe Tex Month. It is probably also his best pure country song.

Joe's next album, From the Roots Came the Rapper, is one I have never been able to crack the code on.  There is just so much wrong with it. From the outset - look at that weird mod cover - what does that have to do with our down-home, nitty-gritty philosopher?

The album was recorded in Muscle Shoals studios with Eddie Hinton and some of his fellow Shoalers, so the playing is fine, but this really does sound like Joe trying to make an Isaac Hayes album.  There's only one original on the record, and one of the two "raps",  on the tediously eternal version of Burt Bacharach's "I'll Never Fall in Love Again", is one of the few times I can't connect with a Tex sermon.  Sure there's some ringer songwriters - future Ichiban month candidate Jerry Williams Jr. (aka Swamp Dogg), Don Covay, and the Left Rev. Eugene McDaniels, but overall things just feel off.

I suspect that the main reason the record doesn't really launch is because it's produced by Dave Crawford and Brad Shapiro, rather than Joe's main man, Buddy Killen. It's the only record that Killen didn't produce after Joe joined Dial, and it shows. JT sounds more uptight and serious than usual, and the whole thing is just kind of a drag. Anyone who has any insight into why this album is worthwhile is encouraged to open my ears to it.

A new direction was coming, though, as was Joe's biggest hit yet.

Can't call him Daddy-O now

Warning!

Let's Have A Wing Ding

I'll be live on the WFMU Rock 'n' Soul Ichiban webstream this Friday from 3-5 PM with MC Julie from the Dark Night Of The Soul With Julie, heard every Tuesday 3-6 AM on WFMU.  We will be giving away prizes in exchange for your dough.  We need full participation from all the Ichibaners!!    If you are listening while you're at work getting paid, please PLEDGE!  Make sure to specify "Ichiban" to be entered into the drawing for fabulous prizes, like rare records and DVDs.

$15 = entered into drawing

$50 = entered into drawing + grand prize drawing (CD compiled by J.R. Williams)

$75 = all + Ichiban One-Liners Volume 3 with artwork by Takeshi Tadatsu

$180 = all + WFMU Vintage Pack + 3 DJ premiums + T-shirt, bag, naming rights

More swag here.

Please specify you'd like to credit your pledge to Ichiban to qualify.

Week 2: Chris T will take over hosting duties.

Thanks to listener Jonathan Lemon for the video!

Road Runner Twice

Thanks to listener Sean Bonnell for sending in this amazing clip of Bo Diddley doing his thing circa 1972!!  Wembley Stadium - London, England.  Check out this lineup!!

Bo Diddley - Road Runner 

Joe Tex month day 21: JT and the sons of a gun from next door

Howdy, neighbor, howdy!

ca. the early 50s

If there was one thing that Joe Tex didn't much care for, it was somebody dippin' in his business. From as early as his King-era cover of "Ain't Nobody's Business What I Do", Joe made it loud and clear, again and again, that your business was yours and his business was his, so take your nose and put it somewhere else, thanks.

And who knows your business better than anyone? Those nosey nosey neighbors! 

Joe's adversarial relationship with his neighbors began in earnest when he was confronted on an early Dial side by that "Hand Shakin, Love Makin, Girl Talkin, Son-of-a-Gun from Next Door". Admittedly, the HSLMGTSOG from next door seemed to be dippin' in more than Joe's business, so Joe had every right to be perturbed.

Further evidence that JT had a less than kindly disposition towards his fellow tenants comes in the hilarious Drifters parody "You Can Stay". One glance at the title and you'd think it was a welcoming song, but the implied parenthetical title is "(But that noise has got to go)". Maybe Joe's lived next door to Mouse and the Traps.

As much as the neighbors drove him crazy, their antics also amused him - he always got a kick out of  petty jealousies and social climbing antics, like in this oddball fuzz 'n' harmonica waltz, "Funny Bone".

How, exactly, do you sit on your elbows?

But the last thing in the world you want to do to Joe if you're a neighbor is to try and borry something. This time-honored complaint has been the subject of many a classic tune since even before Jerry McCain had to loan his neighbor a suit to bury grandpa in. Here's Joe's take, from the Different Strokes, the 1975 winner "My Neighbor's Got the Gimmes".  And this is no funny business: "If Jesus would've have lived around neighbors like y'all, y'all would make the man hate you himself!"

But is it me, or does he borrow from (of all people!) Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons for the slowed down middle section of that song?

Batman - The Bat's Kow Tow Pt.2

IMDb:  Batman and Robin escape Catwoman's trap by hitting the precise note needed to shatter the glass chamber in which they're prisoners. They quickly get on the trail of Catwoman. The feminine feline criminal eventually "steals" the voices of Chad and Jeremy, Commissioner Gordon and talk-show host Allen Stephens. She blackmails the British government, which faces the lost of revenue from the taxes on Chad and Jeremy's performances. Batman and Robin eventually capture Catwoman and her gang, but not before Batman and Catwoman express obvious affection for each other. Written by Bill Koenig

*Note Catwoman's shout out to Ichiban's Mr. March, Roger Miller!

Batman - The Cat's Meow Pt. 1

 IMDb:  The Catwoman "steals" the voice of a television talk-show host in the middle of an interview with Bruce Wayne. She plants clues to suggest either the Joker, Riddler or Penguin may have committed the crime. In the meantime, she has fooled Commissioner Gordon into thinking she has gone straight. She makes her first mistake when she masquerades as Miss Klutz, a dance instructor visiting Wayne Manor. Allergic to dogwood, she sneezes and gives herself away. Her next target is to "steal" the voices of British singers Chad and Jeremy. Batman and Robin eventually track her to a dance studio, where a fight erupts. After it appears the Dynamic Duo has triumphed over Catwoman's forces, she drugs them. The heroes are placed inside a chamber where the sounds of water dripping will be magnified many, many times and drive them insane. Written by Bill Koenig

The police believe Catwoman has gone straight; however, the villainess has devious plans for her new voice-stealing device. After using it to silence a TV talk show host and Commissioner Gordon, she sets about to steal the voices of Wayne Manor's latest guests, British singers Chad and Jeremy. Under the guise of a dance instructor, she enters Wayne Manor to collect valuable information about its layout. Batman and Robin pick up her trail when her cover is blown. But unknown to them, Catwoman has a plan to destroy their minds and forever end their crime-fighting career. Written by Twenty Penguins

Next up:  Batman

Tassel Twirler Tuesday!

Big_Feet!

Joe Tex: The Dapper Dropper

"If I were a disease - Dr. Feelgood would cure me!"

King Curtis, Aretha Franklin, JT

Joe was a master of the shout out. Whether shouting out to Rufus Thomas at the end of his "Walking the Dog" rip, "Looking for My Pig", or telling Elvis to "get it!" in his "Heartbreak Hotel" cover, JT always gave credit where it was due. 

The Ichiband of merry posters are huge fans of "I'm a Man", where Joe name checks B.B. King, Rufus Thomas, the Rolling Stones, James Brown, Willie Mays and Roger Miller. I think it's been posted four/ five times this month, but what the heck, here it is again.

The flip of SYSLJFM!!!!

But that's far from the end of the story - there are numerous examples of Tex giving his fellow soul singers some love in song. There was the 1970 single "You're Right, Ray Charles", wherein RC tells JT that he needs to stop singing slow songs and rock it out. Considering Ray's tendencies to cover "Eleanor Rigby" around this time I'm not entirely sure that this song makes any sense, but since Joe wrote from life, I wonder what the conversation described in this song was really like.

On "Woman Stealer", Joe, B.B. King, Bobby Blue Bland and Little Johnny Taylor have gotten together to stop woman stealers from stealing women.  Joe goes upside somebody's head yet again, but at least this time he's doing it to dudes. 

But the ultimate Joe Tex name drop song didn't get released until a 1985 UK double LP called Different Strokes, even though it's a 1970 recording. More on this comp in a few days. The song is a cover of a 1955 Ruth Brown hit, "I Can See Everybody's Baby". 

Joe's version is radically different. He turns it into a travelogue - Ruth sticks close to home looking for her baby, but Joe travels all over the US looking for his. And he just can't find her. But while he's looking, he "sees" the following women: Ray Charles', Johnny Taylor's, James Brown's (waitaminute! that's Joe Tex's woman!), Wilson Pickett's, Tom Jones', Clarence Carter's, Marvin Gaye's, Elvis Presley's, Joe Simon's, the Chambers Brothers', Sam and Dave's, Isaac Hayes', Lee Dorsey's, Bobby Bland's, Junior Walker's, Little Richard's, and Bobby Womack's.

Joe Tex Month Day 20 - "Papa Was Too" & "By The Time I Get To Phoenix" - Live and In Color in 1969

Joe Tex - Papa Was Too, By The Time I Get To Phoenix (Gala De Clôture 3.14.69) via bedazzled.tv

Joe Tex month day 20: the deep soul albums - Happy Soul & Buying a Book

By 1968, JT was at the peak of his popularity. He was one of the most popular live soul entertainers going (witness the numerous pictures from Greg G's trolling of the Jet archives of Joe getting mauled by fans) and he had a long string of winning R&B singles. 

And while the two albums he released these years continue to follow the Tex/Killen formula, they also have a deeper soul sound. Having the same sort of crossover appeal that typifies the earlier Dial releases does not seem to be a priority. Part of me wonders if this is because around the time Happy Soul was released in 1968, Tex secretly converted to the Muslim religion. He'd eventually change his name to Yusuf Hazziez and quit show biz completely for a few years, but more on that when we talk about I Gotcha.  

Regardless, they're both really good records with lots of great tracks.

Side one of Happy Soul in particular stands up with any LP side of soul music you'd care to name. A bunch of the tracks from this record have been posted elsewhere on Ichiban through the course of the month, but a couple haven't been covered yet. I'm a big fan of the home-town hi-jinx of "You Need Me", which has an almost Tom T. Hall vibe to it in terms of its telling little details. "Some were crying, and some bought lunch!"

And my DJ box is always packing the freight train of laffs that is "Go Home and Do It", because of one glorious occasion when I played it, much to the crowd's delight, right after some jerky couple finally got kicked out of one of my gigs for being obnoxious.

Now, bye!

Buying a Book has another great autobiographical song about Joe's early Texas childhood, "Grandma Mary" and the civil rights anthem "We Can't Sit Down Now".  And of course there's the title track.

.

Now, can someone actually explain to me what the phrase "buying a book" actually means? I haven't been to figure that out for 20 years.