Take My Money, My Cigarettes

Talking Heads : Take Me to the River (live)

In January of  1978, on a European tour, Talking Heads continued to play a concert favorite, their cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River", a version that greatly resembled what would be their first big hit, a US#26 single recorded for 1978's More Songs About Buildings and Food. 

Theirs wasn't the only version floating around in 1978, as singer David Byrne noted in the liner notes of Once In A Lifetime : The Best of Talking Heads:

"Coincidence or conspiracy? There were at least four cover versions of this song out at the same time: Foghat, Bryan Ferry, Levon Helm, and us. More money for Mr Green's full gospel tabernacle church, I suppose. A song that combines teenage lust with baptism. Not equates, you understand, but throws them in the same stew, at least. A potent blend. All praise the mighty spurtin' Jesus."

Levon Helm recorded "Take Me to the River" on a 1978 solo album he made with The Swampers at Muscle Shoals Sound studio in Sheffield Alabama. Lots of good horns here.

Bryan Ferry recorded "Take Me To The River" on 1978's heartbroken The Bride Stripped Bare, an album with sales so much less than expected Ferry reunited Roxy Music.

Hard rocking Foghat actually beat everybody to the punch, recording "Take Me to the River" for their 1976 album Night Shift.

40 Year Itch : Washing Me Down

Lobby Card for Lord Shango, 1975

Syl Johnson : Take Me To The River

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Syl Johnson adds a little harmonica and not much else to his cover of Hi label mate Al Green's "Take Me to the River". This would be his highest charting single, peaking at #7 on the R and B charts and #48 on the pop charts.

Here are the other entries for our Top 5 Cover Versions of "Take Me To The River"

FOGHAT, 1976

LEVON HELM, 1978

BRYAN FERRY, 1978

TALKING HEADS, 1978

40 Year Itch: Those We Missed Jan '74

               
                                                   
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   Italian symphonic prog rockers Quella Vecchia Locanda, follow up their beautiful 1972 debut with Il Tempo Della Giora ( A Time for Joy). While a lot of Italian prog strikes these ears as enthusiastically over-the-top, QVL produced warm and refined recordings with only a few splashes of heavy synthesizer.

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   Before drummer Neil "The Professor" Peart joined the band, bringing tricky time signatures and a sci-fi lyrical approach , Rush sounded more like a bluesy power trio that on its best night might even give Led Zeppelin a run for the money.

[Purchase]

Allen Toussaint produced the soulful, smokey-voiced Frankie Miller's sophomore album, High Life. ( His debut had been recorded with Brinsley Schwarz.) Miller was known as the white Otis Redding and one listen to this album will tell you why. Chrysalis did nothing to promote the album which is a shame because three Toussaint-penned tunes became hits for others: "Brickyard Blues" for Three Dog Night; "Shoo-Rah" for Betty Wright and 'I'll Take a Melody' for Hues Corporation. Four years later his "Darlin'" would be a Top 10 hit in the UK.

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When Neu! guitarist Michael Rother joined Cluster duo Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius to form Harmonia, the result was one of the most influential of Krautrock bands. The hypnotic debut album Musik Von Harmonia inspired Brian Eno to pronounce Harmonia "the most important rock band in the world". It is not a giant leap from "Watussi" or "Dino" to the Bowie/Eno Berlin Trilogy.

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We're still two years before this incessantly touring boogie band released a hit single ( the 1976 #20 "Slow Ride"). Energized lives up to its name even earning this recommendation from Rolling Stone : "This is one of the most satisfying fast-paced albums since Deep Purple's classic Machine Head."

[Purchase]

With backing from the Grateful Dead  ( on the Dead side) and "The Hold Up", written with George Harrison, David Bromberg's Wanted Dead or Alive might be a good place to meet this amusing, nasally voiced folk and blues singer. Be warned, he can sound like a certain famous, green muppet.

40 Year Itch: Can't Get Enough of the Boogie Blues

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Humble Pie's follow-up to its big 1972 Top Ten hit Smokin' is Eat It, a jam packed double LP with the kind of bluesy boogie that record buyers were apparently craving in the early 70's. Eat It's sides are broken up into four distinctive acts. Side 1 is original rock n roll, relying heavily on The Blackberries, the female back up singers. Side 2 is all R and B covers. The short, mostly acoustic Side 3 is the most listenable 40 years later ( and includes "Say No More") Side 4 is more live tracks that pale in comparison to Humble Pie's Performance: Rockin' The Fillmore  album. You can hear Marriot's enormous talent and the tortured soul that was consumed by drugs and alcohol before dying in a house fire at the age of 44.

 

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Still Alive And Well marks a comeback for the talented blues guitarist Johnny Winter who lost his momentum in the years preceding to a heroin addiction. The album catches fire from the start with the blues cover "Rock Me Baby". There are two Rolling Stones covers, "Let It Bleed" and "Silver Train" which had yet to appear on the Stones '73 album Goats Head Soup. Even classic rock stations don't play this kind of music anymore but Still Alive and Well made a whole bunch of "Best of"  lists at the end of 1973.

 


{Out of Print}

Blues loving California rockers Canned Heat had survived the death of Alan Wilson ( who sang the band's two most famous songs "Going Up The Country" and "On The Road Again") and recorded The New Age, their seventh album. Lester Bangs got fired from Rolling Stone for his sarcastic review of the album:

Most of...the songs are just  some kind of nondescript clinkletybonk tibia-rattling in pursuit of yeehah countryisms so let 'em  dry rot in the grooves.Buy this album if you've gotta lotta money or don't care much what you blow your wad on, but don't pass up any of the really cosmic stuff like the Stooges for it or the shadow of Blind Lemon Jefferson will come and blow his nose on your brow every night.

 

[Purchase]

Made up of three former Savoy Browners and Rod Price, a graduate of Black Cat Bone, Foghat returns with a second album of blues-tinged boogie rock known by fans as Rock And Roll because of the cover art. ( Get it?) They spent most of '73 touring with Johnny Winter. The CD doesn't sound as though it has been remastered.

40 Year Itch: Welcome Foghat

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 When "Lonesome" Dave Peverett decided he had enough of Savoy Brown the singer/guitarist took the band's drummer Roger Earl and bassist Tony Stevens with him. With the addition of lead guitarist Rod Price, the band signed with Bearsville and went into the studio, first with Todd Rundgren and later with Dave Edmunds.


 "Dave was very much into early Elvis and the Sun Records thing," Peverett recalls. "I loved the phasing effects he got on the vocals. He wasn't scared to try off-the-wall sound ideas."

 As the band finished off the album, all they were missing was a name. How about Brandywine Track? Hootch? Finally Peverett offered up a name he made up playing scrabble with his brother : Foghat.



 Foghat's debut LP reached #127 on the U.S. album charts, with the single, a cover of Willie Dixon's "I Just Want To Make Love To You" reaching #83 on the Billboard Singles charts. Foghat would dominate the 70's with their boogie rock, selling 8 gold records, one platinum and a live album that would go double platinum.