Thursday, February 23, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
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!!
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!
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
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
Next up: Batman
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.
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.
Monday, February 20, 2012
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.
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.
Texmania Sweeps Miami
Joe Tex sure knew how to work a crowd into an over-heated frenzy, as indicated by this 1965 Jet article. And apparently the fever didn't exactly die in '65!
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Blue Light Special!
Since you're going to make a pledge to WFMU's 2012 marathon anyway, why not maximize your swag?
Any person who pays their pledge of $180 or more by Feb. 26th will receive the Vintage WFMU Pack - Upsalapalooza double CD, Crackpots & Visionaries Vol. 2 card set, plus a classic issue of LCD (WFMU's old 'zine).
Plus!
3 DJ Premiums, Global Domination Bag, new WFMU T-shirt and naming rights to a WFMU Fixture.
Might I suggest:
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| + |
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DJ premiums can also be yours for a pledge of $75 each.
Louis Jordan, 1954
The King Of The Jukebox auditions a new band member. Courtesy of the JET archives.
Below, Jordan can be seen still going strong in a 1966 appearance on The !!!! Beat.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Joe Tex Month: The Coasters/Sleepy LaBeef Connection
Joe Tex covers show up in the oddest places. Buddy Killen was one busy song-selling-son-of-a-gun from next door.
Both bands cover Joe's Buying a Book-era snotty little ode to germophobia, "It Ain't Sanitary". It's tailor made for the Coasters, and they really ham it up. It makes me wonder if he wrote it for them. A Coasters Sing Joe Tex album would have been great.
But it's kind of weird when Sleepy Labeef covers the same song on his Sun LP, the bull's night out.
Sleepy must have liked Buying a Book, because this album's also got a cover of the title track. Since the song is mostly one of JT's sermons, it's pretty weird to hear him cover it in his Sleepy baritone, word for word.
Joe Tex's Green Green Grass Of Home
Yesterday, Dr. Filth put up a fine post examining the intersection of the worlds Joe Tex and Roger Miller, which reminded me of another Joe Tex effort that came out of the country field.
The Green, Green Grass Of Home begins with a man happily recounting his eagerness to return to the familiar comforts of home after a long absence. There is, however, a catch. As the song unfolds, we learn the man is actually a Death Row prisoner and he's only been dreaming of going home. In reality, he is to be executed the following morning.
It's become something of a standard in the years since 1965 when singer Johnny Darrell released the original version of the song, followed almost immediately by Porter Wagoner's definitive interpretation, in which he added an extra layer of intensity by doing the final verse as a recitation. Tom Jones took the song to #1 in the UK in '67 and Merle Haggard, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Hank Snow, among many others, also recorded memorable versions.
So, all that said, check out Joe Tex's moving version of The Green Green Grass Of Home, performed live on Spanish television in 1968.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Joe Tex month day 17: Dang Me/Show Me! The Joe Tex/Roger Miller connection
"If I were a silly grin, I'd like to be worn on Roger Miller's face."
-Joe Tex-
Buddy Killen was the Joe Tex/Roger Miller connection. He was lifelong buddies with Miller, brokered several of his record deals, managed his publishing and sat the crazy laughing ADD genius down to complete his songs.
According to "I Love You Drops" singer Bill Anderson, "Roger would come in with seven or six lines of a song. It'd be something fabulous, and Buddy would just have to almost take him and chain him to the table to make him finish."
Killen was also one of the snappers on the giant Miller hit "King of the Road".
Joe Tex covered three different Roger Miller songs throughout his Dial career, and it wasn't just the fact that Killen helped make them the successful artists they were that made them simpatico. Both singers managed to say deeply profound things in often ridiculous contexts, and conveyed both happiness and humor in their performing style in a way that is absolutely captivating and infectious. And they were both funny as do-wacka-do.
JT covered "King of the Road" on The New Boss, "Half a Mind" on I've Got to Do a Little Bit Better, and "Engine Engine #9" on Soul Country.
And on Hold What You've Got, he wrote his own Roger Miller homage/parody, "Are We Ready?", the last verse of which goes out to Newt Gingrich.
Joe Tex with Buddy (right) and journalist Charles Lamb (center)
And just because it's too long to wait until Roger Miller Month, here's Roger and Johnny Cash.
I just told myself a dirty joke!
For more information on Roger Miller and Buddy Killen, check out the informative bio on the official Roger Miller website.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Ichiban One-Liners!
Here are some fun facts that you may not know about WFMU:
• We have made our signal available worldwide via the internet.
• We now offer podcasts, blogs, alternate webstreams and an enormous programming archive,
providing our online listeners with countless forms of entertainment.
• And we have done all of that without accepting money from corporations or underwriting.
• WFMU is completely independent, which is a claim that few
other non-commercial stations can make. We have to pay for everything
ourselves, from headphones to rent to electricity, roof maintenance,
telephones, etc. There's no "them" to give us any kind of support
whatsoever.
• WFMU DJ's do not get paid. No one gets reimbursed for labor, travel, expenses, "Santo research", parking tickets, 45s.
• We're economical and resourceful. When a piece of equipment
breaks, we try and fix the old one. Our headphones are held together by
duct tape and our turntables are supported by inner tubes.
• WFMU does not take money with strings attached. We don’t accept money from a university or underwriting.
Once a year we throw a big fundraising party and invite every listener to throw in a few clams to keep us on the air for one more year. That means you!! We even offer fabulous prizes and swag for your pledge of support.
A $50 pledge gets you entered in the drawing for Ichiban One-Liners, complied by artist extraordinaire, J.R. Williams!!! Pledge here before Friday, February 24th at 5:00 PM EST.
More infos coming your way next week!!
Joe Tex month day 16: Soul Country
“You wanna know my secret for getting a cross-over hit? I used the same formula every time – half soul musicians, half country.” - Joe Tex
Once Joe Tex and Buddy Killen started collaborating, country music became an essential part of JT's sound. Killen was an ex-bass player at the Grand Ole Opry, and was also a Nashville song publisher with vested interest in Tree Publishing. Under Killen's influence, some of the country elements present in Tex's early music were brought front and center. Most of his LPs included a straight(ish) country number or two, and countrified arranging techniques added surprising elements to hits like "I've Got to Do a Little Bit Better Than I've Been Doing".
The 1968 Country Soul LP is all country songs, and with the exception of "If I Ever Do You Wrong" they're all covers. I suspect that part of the reason for the song selection on this LP, and part of the reason for some of the cover choices on other LPs ("Heartbreak Hotel", for instance) is because Tree Publishing owned the rights to the songs, so Killen got some bread coming and going.
But the results are a pretty good LP - maybe some of the cover choices could have been better suited to Joe's natural abilities, but it was still one of the first full-length country LPs by a soul artist. And while folks like Ray Charles, Arthur Alexander and Solomon Burke were working similar veins, Joe's approach as always made the best of the songs uniquely Tex. Many of the notable numbers got posted in the "Joe Tex Show" post of February 15, so you should just go watch them there.
But there are a couple of other real winners on the record that deserve extra attention. His version of "Time Slips Away" is pretty hilarious - underneath the ordinary lyric of the Nelson standard, a second JT mumbles unspoken words of resentment. It's like Joe's dueting with his own subconscious.
But the track I love most is his chitlin' circuit version of "Ode to Billy Joe". I don't know whose idea recording the Bobbie Gentry megahit was, but the results are inspired. The funky soul arrangement drives the song from a lazy lope to a solid mid-tempo dance number, and Joe makes a number of lyrical modifications to personalize it. These make the song even weirder than it already was.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Joe Tex month day 15: The Joe Tex Show - complete! - THIS IS GENIUS
We've mainly been talking about Joe's recordings here on Inchiban, but today what we have for you is the best video and audio evidence available for his legendary status as a live performer. This video was recorded for a TV Special in Scandanavia in 1969, post Happy Soul, and it is 20 minutes of excellence. Great picture and sound quality, with spectacular dancing, singing, and an incredibly cooking band. Even the camera work is passable. Seriously - there are not many better live videos on YouTube than this.
Almost everything that makes JT my favorite soul guy is right here - the only thing missing is a slow "Hold What You've Got" style sermon. Check out that 1000 mph version of "Show Me"! And do not miss the workout on "Papa Was Too", where Joe defies gravity with the microphone stand.
"Man That's Your Baby", an extremely funny satire about delinquent baby daddies, is from Happy Soul. A whopping three songs from Country Soul (tune in tomorrow!) make up the bulk of the set, including the classic original, "I'll Never Do You Wrong". I love the sweat glistening on his forehead while he earnestly deadpans "I hope a sore come on my elbow/I hope a rock fall on my big toe./I love my toe/and my elbow/so you know I'll never do you wrong." Unassailable logic, that.
It all caps with a jive talkin' "Skinny Legs and All". Stick around past the credits for the best mic trick yet.
Unfortunately, the only "live" recording of Tex that's been officially released, Live and Lively, is a studio + overdub job. It's not a bad record, parts of it are, in fact, great - but it certainly isn't close to that video footage above. I can't help but think a real live album would put JT's rep up there in the highest tier, like he deserves. But, oh well. That's Life!
And what the heck - here's a crummy rip I made a couple of years ago, for my own devices, of that version of "Show Me" that leads the Joe Tex Show. Use it for your own devices.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Joe Tex month day 14: The Original Tex-Ter
We all know that Joe Tex was rapping before anyone called it rapping, but that's not the only "modern innovation" that JT foresaw and performed with both style and wit above and beyond the level it's normally practiced today.
I'm talking about Tex-ting.
Sure, we all occasionally, perhaps to our embarassment, LOL or TTYL in our random wordphone/ chatpane conversations. And if you don't, IMHO you've had to make the conscious decision to hate on the practice, probably for sound or perhaps just reactionary reasons.
But in "The Letter Song", Joe took the art of the abbreviation/acronym to such a high level that I propose we adopt some of them for Joe Tex month.
Particularly on today, Valentine's Day, how much better would it be to send one of Joe's messages to your sweetheart, rather than a silly less than sign with a three stuck on the end of it?
Check out Joe's personal Texicon:
YCCMAOT = You can call me any old time.
SYSLJFM = Save your sweet love just for me.
DKWIMTM = Don't know what it means to me.
DETYSLA = Don't ever take your sweet love away.
ICLMLTW = I can't live my life that way.
TCAHYTU = To come and help you to unwind.
So on Valentine's Day - don't just send your loved one a text. Send 'em a Joe Text.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Joe Tex Month, Day 13: I've Got to Do a Little Bit Better
It's a hit!
Joe's fourth Atlantic/Dial LP is, for me, his best - and one of the best soul LPs I've heard, period. Joe's performances are infectiously joyous, the arrangements on the tunes are exciting (and loaded with guitar!) and it's his best collection of original material ever. The two covers only add to the good natured, hilarious vibe of the entire record.
It starts with one of Joe's patented responses to a current hit, this time the "Tramp" rewrite "Papa Was, Too" (more on this one on Wednesday) and never lets up. "Watch the One (That Brings the Bad News)" is a great blues vamp about shoe shops, eating chicken, and rattling bags. "Lying's Just a Habit John" is a funny and instructional riff on the "Twistin' the Night Away" melody - it seems there are good lies and bad ones and John's are no good.
And the three that start side two are total jaw droppers. The countryish bowed bass fiddle hook that breaks up the title track is Buddy Killen arranging at its best. "The Truest Woman in the World" is one of JT's greatest sermons ("98% of us are jealous and suspicious and the other 2% are sneaking around!"). And what can be said about the soldier so in love with his girlfriend that he uses her letters to inspire him to get him some more enemies in "I Believe I'm Going to Make It" except maybe . . . "Batman and Robin!"
And then there's "S.Y.S.L.J.F.M" a song so good it gets its own post tomorrow.
Tip top! Get it at the record shop.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Joe Tex and Arthur Alexander - the sequel: I'm Not Going to Work Today
Obviously I'm not one to belabor a point, but here's a second connection between Mr. Ichibans of December and February. This time it comes courtesy of Clyde McPhatter.
On a 1966 Amy/Stateside 45 (seen here in its non-styrene UK pressing) Clyde covered the early Arthur Alexander hit, "Shot of Rhythm and Blues".
And on the flip he drops his version of "I'm Not Going to Work Today", Joe's calypso-fied ode to parental exhaustion. The song's from Hold What You've Got but must have been around for a while - Boot Hog Pefferly and the Loafers released it on Sound Stage 7 in 1963, and Hold What You've Got didn't come out 'til 65.
Me neither, Boot.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Doin' The Bump With Joe Tex
Seen here is a 1981 JET photo of Joe Tex on the dance floor. Well, to be fair, almost nobody looked very good in '81.
Joe Tex month day 11: Ernie K-Doe-Nus Cut!
In which we all learn that a h-o-m-e without l-o-v-e is just a h-o-u-s-e. Excellent 1963 B-side by the one and only Ernie K-Doe, penned by Joe Tex and never recorded by anyone else that I know of.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Joe Tex month day 10: The New Boss/The Love You Save
Now that they had their hit and they knew how to get the most out of Joe's talent, JT and Buddy Killen really started cranking out the product. In 1965 and 1966, Joe Tex released four different LPs for Dial/Atlantic, most of them loaded with original material. In addition most of the companies that released his material in the 50s and early 60s released LPs to cash in on the Tex craze. I think there are six different JT LPs with a 1966 date on them.
Technically, the New Boss, JT's follow-up LP to Hold What You've Got, isn't entirely new. It has a couple of songs overlapping with HWYG, and it's also unique in Joe's 60s library in that almost half the songs are covers (I don't care what he says or how good his version is, Joe did NOT write "C.C. Rider"). Recorded quickly on to cash the new demand for JT's music, it's not the best Tex album of the 60s, but it's got its moments, like the big hit "I Want to (Do Everything for You)" (which is a Joe Tex original and I don't care what it says on that King Sound Quartet LP In the Red put out in 1996) and "What in the World", which has a seriously great Tex vocal and a righteous horn chart.
But to my ears the next in the Dial Series, The Love You Save, is the more entertaining listen. Purpler commentariats than myself have made grand claims for the title track being about social unrest and the Civil Rights movement, and it's safe to say that there's more than love affairs being talked about when Joe's saying he's been hit in the head, left for dead, taken outside, brutalized, and always been the one who had to apologize. No wonder he looks so mad on the cover.
Other winners include the previously posted "If Sugar Was Sweet As You" and in particular "I'm a Man". This mind-boggling rewrite of "You Keep Her" has the greatest lyrics in musical history. If "If I were a song I'd like to be sung by the Rolling Stones" is not carved into my tombstone, someone hasn't been paying attention. Is this song some kind of slam on Bobby Darin's "If I Were a Carpenter"?
And lest y'all think I've forgotten I'm posting on Rock 'n' Soul Ichiban, there's also a hilarious mush mouth version of "Heartbreak Hotel", and a sleeper dance 45 - "You Better Believe It, Baby". This song wound up as the B-side of "I Believe I'm Gonna Make It", and it smokes - a hornless, rhythm guitar driven pounder with a pronounced Beatle influence - check out that scream that leads in the brief guitar break. Get it Elvis! Fill that floor!
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Joe Tex Salutes Little Willie John
As seen in the Jet archives, here's a 1968 photo of Joe Tex performing in Detroit at a memorial benefit for the recently deceased Little Willie John.
Joe Tex day 9: Hold What You've Got!
TEX SMASH!
In 1964 things were looking pretty grim for JT's recording career. Dial didn't have very good distribution in the early 60s, and Joe's records just were not clicking. Accounts vary as to who was ready to ditch who - Joe either wanted out of his contract or Dial was ready to the guy who the label was started for in the first place. But Dial managed to get a distribution deal with R&B/soul powerhouse Atlantic - so decent distribution was no longer an excuse and it was all down to Joe.
In one of those stories that belongs in every rock 'n' soul legend's eventual biopic, it all came down to one last recording session, and the big song JT was cutting was "Fresh Out of Tears", another uptempo R&B number.
But things weren't clicking and after hours of recording, Buddy Killen suggested they try something different - a ballad Joe had brought in that could be arranged with a country beat, an overdubbed harmony vocal, and maybe just a hint of "Holy Holy Holy" in the melody to fool buyers in the Christmas spirit. Joe was too hoarse from hollering and hitting high notes on "Fresh Out of Tears" for seven hours, so he had to talk his way through the middle part. The resultant single, possibly cobbled together from several takes, was a #1 R&B/#5 pop smash. True to the script, Joe had pulled it out in the 11th hour.
Here's a rare live version of "Hold What You've Got" (and what the heck, a version of its follow-up, "You Got What It Takes") from the Murray the K Presents LP on the Brook-Lyn label. (Note: not, as noted in the Roctober Joe Tex guide, the Live from the Brooklyn Fox LP.) Right up there with his old rival's Live at the Apollo for audience interaction!
Special thanks to Joe at BlackGoldVinyl for the rips - I stupidly purged this LP years ago
After almost 10 years of slogging through the R&B record industry looking for a hit, once JT managed to find his big one, it was off to the races. Now that Killen and Tex knew how to best use his talent, they mined gem after gem, with Joe's songwriting growing by leaps and bounds. Hold What You've Got has four solid hits (including the mind boggling "One Monkey Don't Stop No Show") and they didn't stop coming. No wonder Joe looks like he's turning into the Hulk on the cover of HWYG!
Buddies!
For the rest of the 60s Tex and Killen would release single after single and album after album of memorable, funny, down home, soulful material that was set apart by JT's sincerity, enthusiasm, his goofy willingness to try anything, and the shameless good humor to get away with it.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Joe Tex month day 8: The Early Dial Sides
Like King and Ace, Anna and Chess didn't really work out for Joe. But because of his obvious talent, producer and music publisher Buddy Killen decided to start a label, Dial, specifically to release Tex's records. Things didn't go very well at first. In fact, a lot of Joe's early Dial singles are a step back in quality and uniqueness from his Anna and Chess waxings, even if they're a leap forward in terms of sound quality. Most of these early singles can be found on the Super Soul compilation pictured above, but they can be a wee pricey for a comp, since a couple of Joe's early Dials are considered Northern Soul classics.
But "Looking for My Pig", one of the best songs (especially for Ichiban purposes!) he cut in the early Dial days, is not. This barn-burning tip/rip to "Walking the Dog" - complete with shout out to Rufus Thomas at the end - only came out on 45 until its eventual release on the First on the Dial CD in 2008.
Another killer early Dial tune not on the Super Soul is "Blood's Thicker Than Water", the flip of "I Wanna Be Free". This is probably the most expensive record in Joe's catalog, consistently fetching over a hundred dollars on the Northern market. So if you see it for a couple of bucks somewhere, don't sleep!
The way forward was planted on "I Had a Good Home But I Left". A call-back to the first two Anna singles, it was a two-parter with a sermon on the flip. This time the tempo was slowed down to a fine Southern lope, and Joe and the band really work off of each other to give his words maximum impact. It gets so good to Joe that he punctuates one bit of wisdom with a "Think about it!" that would make Jerry Lee proud. The track is presented here (for the first time, as far as I can tell) as a seamless song rather than being split into two parts.
The record still didn't sell. But Killen and Tex would take this style to the A-side for the first time at the next recording session, and the results were much different.
For more on the Dial story, go here.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
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