40 Year Itch: Coochie Coochie Ahh

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She's sweet brown sugar with a touch of spice

Willie Hutch followed up  The Mack soundtrack, with one for the Pam Grier blaxploitation classic, Foxy Brown. The former Motown songwriter has aged better than most and you can't clean off the funk that's all over "Give Me Some of That Good Old Love"

[out of print]

Featuring the R and B  Top 10 "One Chain Don't Make No Prison", the Four Tops album Meeting of the Minds is a showcase for the ABC-Dunhill production team of Steve Barri. Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter who updated the old Motown group's sound and started them on the comeback trail. 

When it sounds this good, you can forgive  lazy lyrics like :

One chain don't make no prison 

Two wrongs don't make no right 

One rain don't make no river 

One punch don't make no fight  

40 Year Itch: A Big, Groovy Holiday Picnic

    On April 6, 1974 nearly 250,000 fans, paying between $10 band $15, jammed the Ontario Motor Speedway to see Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Black Oak Arkansas, Seals and Crofts,  The Eagles, Earth Wind and Fire and Rare Earth. Don Imus emcee'd the show which actually began 15 minutes early and stayed on schedule.

ABC Television co-sponsored the event while LA radio stations simulcast the concerts. 

Cal Jam grossed $2 million and, despite massive traffic tie-ups ( 700 cars were towed away after all 42,000 parking spaces had been filled), it was heralded as a huge success. 

  There were only 25 arrests.The smell of marijuana hung in the air, but that seemed to add to the peaceful vibe. Said one concertgoer who hiked 4 miles to find his spot: "It's like a big, groovy holiday picnic." 

  50 foot speakers helped provide the most powerful concert sound system ever assembled. Good news especially for Deep Purple, then the loudest band in the world. 

     This is the show that introduced Deep Purple's new members to the world: the still chubby vocalist David Coverdale and bassist and screaming vocalist Glenn Hughes. Richie Blackmore, apparently not used to having a camera in his face when he solo'd, attacked a cameraman and then set his amp on fire.

Emerson Lake and Palmer finished the night with Keith Emerson spinning end over end 50 feet above the ground in his piano contraption.

40 Year Itch: Life is Just a Shadow

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+'Justments doesn't have the hits like Just As I Am and Still Bill, but Withers's third studio album does contain the same kind of funky rhythms and small town church elder philosophizing. Dorothy Ashby's harp and Jose Feliciano's guitar ( especially on "Can We Pretend") add some textures to this heartwarming, criminally forgotten album. Questlove says this is his favorite album of 1974:

   Later I learned that the record was kind of Bill Withers's version of Here, My Dear, Marvin Gaye's 1978 divorce record for Anna Gordy for his own wife, actress Denise Nicholas. "Railroad Man" is the happies song on +'Justments, and it's about a train that decapitates a swindler.

40 Year Itch: Only Sad Stories To Tell

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  I once tried to expense a Richard Thompson concert. It was 1991 and Kevin and  I had been sent to Columbia, South Carolina to cover a trial of state representatives charged with selling their votes to undercover Government operatives who were seeking their support for a bill authorizing parimutuel horse and dog racing in South Carolina. Good stuff except that we were up there covering jury selection on the same day James Brown was getting released from prison. 

  Despite repeated phone calls back to the station pleading with the News Director to let us cover James Brown, we were told to "stand down" and stay at the Federal Courthouse. When Brown got out of prison he told a group of reporters and cameramen " I Feel Good!". Kevin and I watched the local news in a fury. That night, after dinner, Kevin and I saw Richard Thompson kick off his show at a local club with the Rumor and Sigh opener " I Feel So Good" as a tribute to the newly freed Godfather of Soul.

    It was a great show and at the end of the week, on the drive back to our station, Kevin and I decided we should expense the concert as "Entertainment". After all, we were thoroughly entertained and if a company is going to send two people to Columbia, South Carolina shouldn't the company make sure they were entertained? The News Director did not buy it.

    All of which is to say Richard Thompson's songs may seem sad, gloomy and bleak on record but his skill as a guitarist and his sense of humor in the stage bantering department more than offsets songs about drunkards and other outcasts. Such songs are the staples of I Want to See The Bright Lights, the first of six Richard and Linda Thompson albums and a perennial favorite among critics.

    Here you'll find the grinding title track which, on the surface, sounds like a "come hither" from a party girl. Then the desperation starts to slink through. My buddy at Charity Chic Music is worth visiting for more about this tune and the album itself.

Rooted in the Celtic folk that made the band Thompson co-founded, Fairport Convention, so pioneering, I Want to See The Bright Lights showcases Linda's amazing, non-plussed voice, Thompson's fiery Stratocaster solos ( was there a better guitarist not rooted in the blues?) and his world weary view that probably does little to convert fans to his Sufi brand of Islam. Witness the lines in the album closer "The End of the Rainbow", a children's lullaby of sorts with a message that sums up the album nicely.

There's nothing at the end of the rainbow/ There's nothing to grow up for anymore.

   Footnote: In 1978 Richard Thompson took another crack at the title cut when producer Joe Boyd presented the song to actress/singer Julie Covington who has just hit #1 in the UK with "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina". With Thompson on guitar, Covington's version is more upbeat and polished. Released as a single, it failed to make an impact.

40 Year Itch : Workin So Hard

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             Thanks to the Top 10 hit "Clap for the Wolfman", featuring a cameo from Wolfman Jack himself, Road Food was seen as a comeback album for The Guess Who. But the Canadian band hadn't really gone anywhere. They had consistently been churning out albums with great songs. And 1972's Live at the Paramount remains one of my all time favorite live records. 

Burton Cummings recently on "Clap For the Wolfman"

Personally, I never saw it coming, the huge hit single it became. It was just a novelty song about our pal who hosted the Midnight Special. We did the show many times, that's how the lyrics came to mind. Kurt and Billy were writing words about "Clap For Napoleon" and they didn't really amount to much...so it became what it became...and the actual Wolfman came into the studio and did his bits...all because he happened to be in Toronto at the time, hosting a classic car show...serendipity

                         Burton Cummings, one of rock's great singers and strangest lyricists ( "Well, have you ever seen a Madras monkey?/Have you seen an Orlon eel?"), still led the band through this filler-free effort. The first single, "Star Baby", barely scratched the top 40 in the US but it's a power pop classic.

                         

                        For consistently great pop, don't dismiss the early 70's pop from The Guess Who. It deserves the same kind of appreciation as the Beach Boys music of the same era.

40 Year Itch : Make a Friend If You Can

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The Staple Singers's smooth 1974 single would peak at #23 on the Hot 100 and at #3 on the soul charts. Mavis sings lead while Pops add a little chicken scratch on the guitar. And am I hearing steel drums?  Seventies sunshine soul at its very best!

Paul McCartney's Long Lost Demo

Paul McCartney : One Legged Lady ( demo)

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To promote his world tour's upcoming  tour of Japan, Sir Paul McCartney granted music bloggers phone interviews not to exceed two minutes. Here now is the all too brief interview 1001Songs did.

1001Songs
     Thank you so much for your time Sir Paul. May I ask what are you looking forward to the most about returning to Japan?

Paul: 
   Lovely to be here. Well, you know. I'm looking forward to getting through airport security first of all. I had a wee incident back in 1980 you may have heard about . But let's not go into that, mate. No, I've always loved the Japanese people. Even Yoko.

Paul talking to 1001Songs

1001Songs
    In interviews you've done about songwriting, you've talked about "the ether". Waking up and having "Yesterday" in your head. Only it's "Scrambled Eggs" right? How does that happen?

Paul:
    I dunno. Some songs are just there and all I have to do is reach up and grab them. It's funny you know. People think I really work hard at songwriting. Critics and fans are always trying to read special meaning into my songs. Like "My Love"  is about Linda and "Dear Friend" is about John. Or "One Legged Lady" is about Heather...

1001Songs
   "One Legged Lady"? I don't think I've heard that one...

Paul
    Oh yeah ( sings) She's got two eyes and two ears
                              But she's only got one leg


1001Songs
     Nice. But that's not about Heather Mills?

Paul
   No no no yeah. I don't know where people get these strange ideas

1001Songs
   Maybe because your ex wife is a one legged lady.

Paul.
   Yeah. Well I did notice that you know.No no no yeah but that could be about any one legged lady
   (sings)
          She's got two arms and two heads
           But she's only got one leg.    

Yeah. There must be thousands of one legged ladies out there in the world right now.    

1001Songs
     Two heads? I think you just sang "two heads"

Paul
   Yeah. I thought that was a bit crummy at first but then I thought John would have said "That's the best part!" Because there's the person we see and then there's the person we don't see.


1001Songs
Well I'm being told to wrap things up. Thank you so much Sir Paul. I think I speak for all of us, when I say you've enriched all of our lives with your songs and we'd love to hear "One Legged Lady" someday.

Paul:
   Cheers mate. I'll have me publicist send you the demo.