Bill Emerson - Goin' Out To Hollywood
So here's a mighty fine record by Bill Emerson, who lays out the inspired tale of a backwoods country boy with a plan to head west to Hollywood, stoked up on visions of movie stardom, limousines, and flashy Fender guitars.
Is it country, rock & roll, or maybe rockabilly? All of the above, I guess, but to tell you the truth I think it's mostly in the ear of the beholder.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Goin' Out To Hollywood (MP3)
Mad For Ichiban
Chris T. of Aeriel View loves the Ichiban stream so much that he went out and bought five internet radios so that he can listen in nearly every room of his home. Where there is no dedicated internet radio, he uses his stereo or regular radio. This is easily accomplished by using the WFMU phone app.
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| Living Room |
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Chris will go LIVE this Friday, March 2, 3-5 PM looking for your monetary support of WFMU and Ichiban! Tune in and do the Popeye with him!! And please make a pledge to support the obscure hits of the 50s and 60s!
Joe Tex Month Day 28: The Disco Years
After coming out of retirement in 1975, Joe had a string of singles on Dial, but it wasn't until 1978, when he jumped labels one final time, to make his final comeback, the always suprising Bumps and Bruises. The sound is pure late 70s soul, but the songs and themes are vintage JT. While it may not look it, this is probably the best record JT recorded post-Happy Soul. The album was a hit, largely because of its lead track, "Ain't Gonna Bump No More with No Big Fat Woman", the other side of the coin of "Skinny Legs and All". Could Joe find no middle ground in his choice of dance partners?
The rest of the album is filled with similar songs sending up the 70s - Tex style. The songs are back to being wonderfully specific instead of the more generic moments on parts of I Gotcha & Spills the Beans. Several songs are credited to songwriter Benny Lee McGinty, who gets several co-writing credits with Tex on his next two albums.
"Jump Bad" in particular is a classic piece of 70s jive storytelling - it's the tale of Run Down the hustler getting royally whooped upside the head by a grandma who doesn't take kindly to him accosting her in front of the check cashing place. Tex is a comedic virtuoso here, playing Run Down, the Grandma, and the narrator.
"We Held On" is a classic Tex soul country number, with a similar melody to "Games People Play", and it should have been a hit. There's also songs where Joe decides to have an operation to remove his hands and one where one of his buddies dances with a "sissy" while preaches tolerance. Side one never stops giving it up. One major problem - there's only one rap on the whole record, a spoken intro on "There's Something Wrong", but it's not by Joe! Who the heck dares to "rap" on a Joe Tex record but JT?
His second Epic record was Rub Down. Early collaborator James Booker was on the session, and the title track has Joe admitting that he can't dance as good as his old rival James Brown. So the roots are in place, and there are a couple of fine raps, particularly on the freaky slow jam version of "I Gotcha". The songs, however, aren't quite up to snuff overall, and this one fulls into the category of FOR COMPLETISTS ONLY.
JT fittingly returned to Dial for his final LP. More on that tomorrow - the FINAL DAY of Joe Tex Month. Tune in for one more mind boggling piece of wisdom.
28 Rounds and Still Swinging!
Ed. note: "I Mess Up Everything I Get My Hands On", "Leaving You Dinner" (mp3s) Also from Bumps & Bruises.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Joe Tex month, day 27: The Funk Years
Well, Ray Charles must have been right, because in 1972 Joe had his biggest hit yet, "I Gotcha"! This song fully launched Joe into the funk era, topping the R&B chart and hitting #2 on the pop.
The album had a number of "I Gotcha" soundalikes and a few ballads. It's not peak Tex, but it's not a bad record either. I think, however, I prefer Spills the Beans.
Spills the Beans was the last JT album before his temporary retirement. It's more of a return to traditional Tex sound, with a couple of funk numbers thrown in to remind you that this is the "I Gotcha" guy. The more contemporary numbers reflect the "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" style of social consciousness, like "A Mother's Prayer" and the apocalyptic "Living the Last Days".
But more in keeping with Joe's strengths are the hilarious "King Thaddeus", one of the all time great songs about a rooster, right up there with Sam the Sham's "The Cockfight", and, best of all, "Papa's Dream", the song that inspired the album's title and weird cover. It's right up there with "Grandma Mary" in terms of being a great reminiscence of his time growing up, and is tragic and uplifting at the same time.
And it was covered by Johnny Cash, ca. 1975, as "Look at them Beans".
In 1972, on the heels of his biggest hit, Joe retired from the recording industry, changed his name to Jusef Hazziez, and devoted his life to the Muslim faith, spending his time preaching in the service of Elijah Muhammad. However, upon Muhammad's death in 1975, Tex secured permission from the church to get back into the game.
An initial 1975 session yielded some singles and several unreleased tracks, comped together on the rather fine 2 LP collection of rarities Charly issued in the mid 80s, different strokes. This record is well worth tracking down, as it has material dating back from '65 that can only be found here.
Taken together, the 1975 tracks make for an OK album on the level of Spills the Beans. But it wasn't the full bore comeback material he was looking for. That would have to wait until '78, where Joe would prove he still had a virtually inexhaustable supply of crazed novelty songs about women with unusual proportions.
Bonus cut: here's Austin rock and rollers The Hard Feelings, featuring Joe Tex afficianado John Schooley, whomping the stuffing out of "You Said a Bad Word" from I Gotcha.
Bonus click: Domino9, who's been contributing a number of great observations and corrections to Joe Tex month in the comments sections, has been assembling a website devoted to the life and music of the Dapper Rapper. Check it out.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Thanks A Lot!!
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Thanks to everyone who's already pledged to the WFMU 2012 marathon!! One more week to go. Tune in live this Friday from 3-5 PM when Chris T will be giving away fabulous prizes and thanking you on the air for your pledge. You can help keep Ichiban streaming commercial-free 24 hours a day!!
The Trashmen - Church Key
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
Debbie Does WFMU
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Tune in today 3-5 PM EST! This is my one and only marathon show this year. Today is the day to show your support to WFMU's Rock 'n' Soul Ichiban. See you on the radio!
Joe Tex month day 24: The Soul Clan
In 1968 Joe Tex found himself in yet another one of those situtations where he was ahead of his time and involved in something that has interesting echoes in modern day soul, r&b and rap: the Soul Clan.
Originally conceived by Don Covay and Solomon Burke, the original Soul Clan was supposed to be the following individuals: Covay, Burke, JT, Wilson Pickett, and Otis Redding.
The idea was that these huge soul stars would record together, pool their resources, and become a positive force for the black community. They would take the proceeds from their recordings and set up trust funds for their children and for the community. The concept was sort of like an early version of, say, Roc-a-Fella records, and was in part inspired by Sam Cooke's forming of SAR records - the notion that the best way for black entertainers to achieve financial independence by setting up their own collective.
Unfortunately, Otis died in the plane crash, and Pickett backed out, claiming he didn't need to be a part of the Soul Clan, that he had plenty of hits on his own. Redding was replaced by Arthur Conley, Pickett by Ben E. King. The group released their first 45, which was supposed to set them on a pathway to world domination.
But the only thing that ever came of the Soul Clan concept beyond that 45 was a single, dodgy, compilation LP.
The recording itself also has something of the vibe of later hip-hop singles, where rappers guest on each other's records - all the vocals were done around a pre-recorded backing track in separate studios at separate times, with the performers each taking a verse, doing their own schtick and call outs, based around their own hits and personas. The Soul Clan never really met in the studio.
Solomon Burke claimed the Soul Clan 45 was stopped on its run up the charts by mysterious corporate forces, who shut the record down.
"The Soul Clan was deliberately destroyed because we were becoming a power structure. Our interest as a Soul Clan was to build a financial empire, and once that was found out, we were destroyed."
Whether this is true, or if it's more likely that the Soul Clan single didn't top the charts because it depends more on star caché than truly good songs or artistic chemistry, is at this point a matter of speculation. It's still a heck of a thing to get to listen to.
King, Tex, Covay, Pickett and Burke - from an apparently disastrous
attempt at a reunion gig in the early 80s
Peter Guralnick's Sweet Soul Music is the source for this post. The book remains a great read 26 years later.
J.R. Williams' Ichiban One-Liners!!!
Make a pledge of $50 or more to Ichiban before today at 5 PM EST, and you could win this fabulous compilation of Ichiban One-Liners by our own J.R. Williams!! Check the complete track listing HERE!
*Please specify that you would like your pledge to be credited to Ichiban! Otherwise, I won't see it and you won't be entered!!
Help keep us on the air for another year!!
The Tradewinds - Gotcha
Thursday, February 23, 2012
More Golden Gassers!!
Tune in to Music To Spazz By tonight from 9 PM - Midnight when head chimp, Dave the Spazz tap dances for your dollars to keep WFMU on the air for one more year. These are desperate times and desperate times call for desperate measures! Gaylord Fields will personally thank you on the air!!!
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