Teenagers' Records
I did a podcast I mentioned the other week where, in a Desert Island Discs knockoff section, I had to pick a song that was a musical coming of age moment. I didn’t hesitate in picking Eye Know by De La Soul. Three Feet High and Rising was an album that I fell deeply in love with, I must’ve listened to it every single day for about 6 months. I knew every word of it. I even rapped along. If you’re reading this you undoubtedly know the sound of my voice so you can imagine how shit that would sound, maybe the pitch is ever so slightly higher than you’re imagining. Eye Know changed my life because I happened to ask my Mum where that little whistle came from and she told me “That’s Otis Redding…”
Not to take anything away from Hip Hop but I started digging and realising that the parts that really moved me were ancient, scratchy, dirty Southern soul records. I followed the trail from Otis through Stax and eventually through my own personal 60s and 70s. Years later though I would still hear something where the recognition sat me bolt upright, I’d keep running into the records whose snippets made up De La Soul’s world. Now I’m a 47 year old I can’t believe the record collection those very young men pulled together for their first album. A few beers in last Saturday I thought “I need to make a playlist of every song that’s sampled on Three Feet High and Rising.” Then I sat and enjoyed that little dopamine hit of another imagined task imagined completed and congratulated myself.
Then I remembered that it’s 2024, the future, and anything you think of has already been done by somebody more motivated and better informed. Which is a good situation for the lazy. So I found this one that someone else had done:
It’s pretty great. You’d have guessed that though. There’s a party to be had with that playlist on so remember when you have company. Even if that company is just yourself.
Everybody knows about Otis Redding, Hall and Oates, James Brown and Sly Stone but a couple of the standout tracks in this list are from the Stax B-listers that time forgot- The Mad Lads. I suppose their band name is a bit shit to be fair, maybe to everyone in Memphis it sounded exotic in its Englishness. To me it just seems like something that would be printed on the back of a load of twats’ custom printed stag do t-shirts at Manchester Airport Terminal 3 as they uproariously neck lagers at 6 in the morning waiting to ruin everyone’s flight to Prague with their incessant larking.
Get past the name though, the Mad Lads are glorious.
Obviously everything ever recorded with that house band was above a certain quality but I feel like these lads had something. They might have done better if the military draft hadn’t messed with their line-up at the peak of their ascent to fame. Everything I’ve learnt about their career and the way the various members were entangled in the unrest of Memphis in the late 60s comes from Stuart Cosgrove’s Memphis 68, The Tragedy of Southern Soul. It’s the second in an excellent trilogy meticulously tracking the interactions of soul music, civil rights and history in general at the back end of the 60s. For someone like me who has grown up feeling like 60’s culture is this fully formed, permanent rock that we all built our houses on it’s weird to read through a series of books that follow seminal years through month by month till they’re gone forever. Years like 1967 and 1968 passed in the blink of an eye, to the people inhabiting them they were as meaningless and ephemeral as much shitter years like 1987 and 2009. There was an amazing little window in time there where there was magic in the air in a corner of Memphis and luckily some talented and motivated young people worked around the clock capturing it.
Howlin’ Wolf
Stop trying to watch music on Instagram and just take yourself a little half hour break to enjoy this footage of Howlin’ Wolf playing, being interviewed and drinking a few lagers. Little Barrie sent me this week, he inundates me with cool videos of blues. You can watch it on youtube if you prefer but you’ll end up watching an advert that pisses you off and then your feed will suggest something that grabs your attention and then off you’ll flutter like a confused little bumblebee amongst the turd smeared flowers of the internet. It’s your choice though, I’m sure I didn’t have the right to stick it here anyway.
The interview confirms my long held theory that all the best singers have singing voices that are exactly the same as their talking voices. Go on, think about it. Think about Otis Redding. And James Brown. And Elvis. And Little Richard. And Johnny Cash. And Aretha Franklin. Carry on, think of more. The fact is if you’re putting on your singing voice one day it’ll fail you but if it’s just your every day voice then you can sit there like Howlin’ Wolf, turning out a top gig while your body is crumbling.
Instafuzz
Speaking of Little Barrie you should really listen to his new album with Shawn Lee. It’s excellent stuff, largely instrumental but with a few vocal samples carrying things along. I should probably do something like that to add a narrative arc to my instrumentals but I’d doubtless pepper it with the oafish musing of local Lancashire knuckledraggers and damn my own hard work to the novelty section. Anyway, Barrie’s playing is phenomenal as always here and Shawn Lee sounds like the kind of person whose house I’d like to visit. Well done chaps!