Elvis Stands Accused

Elvis Costello and the Attractions: I Stand Accused

[Purchase]

On March 24, 1979 Elvis Costello opened his Rochester, NY concert with "I Stand Accused". By that time, news of his ugly encounter at a Holiday Inn bar with Stephen Stills and Bonnie Bramlett had spread like wildfire. In his book Complicated Shadows : The Life and Music of Elvis Costello author Graeme Thomson gets Attractions bassist Bruce Thomas to admit they started the altercation as the alcohol flowed. 

“Stills said, “If you hate us so much, what are you doing in our country?”,’ recalls Thomas. ‘And Elvis said something like, “We’ve come to take your money and your women.” Then it just got worse. “What about our music?” “You haven’t got any good music.” “What about James Brown?” “James Brown?” Bang! That’s pretty much how that one started. It was just us being obnoxious bastards.’
In this instance, being obnoxious bastards culminated in Elvis describing James Brown as ‘a jive-ass nigger’ and Ray Charles as ‘nothing but a blind, ignorant nigger’.

The timing couldn't have been worse. The new album, Armed Forces, has just hit the Billboard Top 10 in America. On March 30, CBS Records called an emergency press conference to get Costello --now followed around by two armed policemen as bodyguards--to apologize and answer questions about whether he was a racist. Behind the scenes, record execs discussed dropping Costello from the label. They certainly stopped promoting the album. By the end of April, Armed Forces has dropped out of the Top 30 and the new single, "Accidents Will Happen", didn't even break into the Hot 100.

In his book Unfaithful Music + Disappearing Ink Costello writes of the incident:

I’ll have to take the word of witnesses that I really used such despicable racial slurs in the same sentence as the names of two of the greatest musicians who ever lived, but whatever I did, I did it to provoke a bar fight and finally put the lights out.
 It was an absurd overstatement of opposites, a contradiction in terms. 
Just as people say “bad” when they mean “good.” 
Surely this was all understood. Didn’t they know the love I had for James Brown and Ray Charles, whose recording of “The Danger Zone” I preferred to watching men walk on the moon? 
“My love for the world is, like, always.” 
How could you not know that? 
It seems that they did not. It took just five minutes to detach my tongue from my mind and my life from the rail it was on.

It's always interesting to see how people react to sudden fame, especially when they're expected to live up to some nasty misanthropic image. Costello may have deep regrets about the incident, but he also believes it might have saved his life. Like Dylan with his motorcycle accident, Costello would need to take a breather before he started trying to win back his fans.

Gone Are The Dark Clouds

Ray Charles : I Can See Clearly Now

[Purchase]

In October of 1977, Ray Charles released one of his finest albums, True To Life, his first since returning to Atlantic Records. Best of all is his version of the 1972  Johnny Nash hit "I Can See Clearly Now". 

The critics raved about the album, including Robert Christgau who wrote :

Charles hasn't sung with such consistent care in years. Not that he's given up his jocund audacity--two of the best cuts here are a miraculous recasting of "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" and a Bobby Charles song first recorded by, fancy that, Joe Cocker. But even on the throwaways he seems to remember the difference between goofing and goofing off. The first side is as listenable as any Charles I know, and I've learned to enjoy myself through the schmaltz of "Be My Love" and get to the easy stuff on side two. Now if only he'd let those Beatle ballads be.

Ray Charles was described as "the only true genius in the music business" by Frank Sinatra. Get a load of that genius from Charles, still making great music at the age of 47. To help promote the album, Charles would be the musical guest on Saturday Night Live in November of 1977.

40 Year Itch: Ray Charles Gets Political

1972 was an interesting year for Ray Charles. He was profiled in a New Musical Express article with the headlines "The Man Who Beat Drug Addiction And Blindness To Become A Legend". He recorded "America The Beautiful" and met with President Richard Nixon. But also, following the lead of Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield, Ray got political with the funky Quincy Jones produced single "Hey Mister". Written as a letter to a Congressman, Ray points out "we're the richest country in the world and I just can't understand why we got so many hungry people."

Hey legislation why don't you try a new route

Listen to the people and hear what they're talking about

You see the poor people know they can't impeach you 

They just hoping that they cries will reach you

The song peaked at #47 on the R and B charts. On shows like Dick Cavett, Carol Burnett and even Bill Cosby, Ray performed his standard hits like the five year old "Eleanor Rigby" cover. Both "Hey Mister" and "America The Beautiful" can be found on the album Message From The People, which also features a minor hit in "Look What They've Done To My Song Ma" and opens with a stirring version of the black national anthem "Lift Every Voice And Sing".