Since there’s not much on this here site right now, I wanted to start things off with a repost from my blog on the World’s Greatest Sinners site. I’m also including a link to my first podcast over there, future installments of which I’ll be posting in this space. So, enjoy!
Soul Hangover Podcast Volume 1
Tracklist:
(Intro: Jerry-O)
Ghetto Man – Tony Clarke
(Intro: Jimi Hendrix)
Gimme Shelter – Merry Clayton
Jumping Jack Flash – Thelma Houston
Dum-de-Dum – The Dynamics
The Watts Breakaway – The Johnny Otis Show
(Intro: Little Richard)
From the Days of Pigtails and Fairy Tales – Chairmen of the Board
Tell Me What’s On Your Mind – Cyril Neville
(Intro: Allen Toussaint)
Who’s Gonna Help Brother Get Further – Lee Dorsey
There’s A Break In The Road – Betty Harris
Standing On The Outside – Charles “Soul” Brown
Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys – The Equals
And now, of Soul Sistahs and the Stones….
Probably the most common non-soul comparison my band World’s Greatest Sinners get these days is to the Rolling Stones, so lemme lay two new (to me) Stones covers on ya for today, both sung by tremendous soul mamas who are huge influences of mine: Merry Clayton’s Gimme Shelter, and Thelma Houston’s Jumpin Jack Flash. Give a listen, then we’ll talk:
Gimme Shelter – Merry Clayton, Ode, 1970
Jumpin’ Jack Flash – Thelma Houston, Dunhill, 1969
OK, dig it? So let me just start this by saying, Robert Christgau is a friggen idiot.
Yeah, yeah, Dean of American Rock Critics…my ass. You listened to that Merry Clayton song above, right? Now read what Christgau had to say:
Second-rate material stupidly overproduced and unreflectively emoted. Even the title song, which retains a lot of power, sounded better when she was duetting it with Mick Jagger–that is, she sounded better. Maybe that’s what it means to be a great backup singer. C+
Now, okay, I realize this kinda thing is Christgau’s schtick. And he brushed off Straight Outta Compton too, so I do think he’s a couple Iron Cities short of a sixer. But man. Are we even listening to the same tune?
Enough about Xgau though, let’s talk about Clayton, and about this version. Pull out your copy of Let it Bleed and give the original a spin; its a helluva song to begin with of course, dripping with apocalyptic passion, and of course that’s Merry singing right alongside Mick after Keef’s solo, briging it all to a nasty, churning, crazed apex. And while Mick has said in interviews that having Clayton on the record was the producer’s idea, there’s something so inherently Stones about it… after all, everybody knows what a hardon the lads had for the likes of Tina Turner and other black American soul stars, so having a former Raelette and grande-dame of soul backup singers alongside Mick is really a natural. To my ear, there’s an awful lot of Tina in Mick’s singing style, and there’s an awful lot of Tina in Merry too, so the Clayton-Jagger combo on the Stones version is like listening to Mick singing alongside the voice he probably hears in his head. For my money, that’s also what makes this cover great; the Stones’ original, while perfect in its own right, is perfectly about British white males reflecting back American black music. In Clayton’s version, the mirror is removed and its just pure, raw soul. The roots are there, particularly in the guitar sound and lines, but the unleashed rhythm section is funky as hell, the horns are positively southern-soul, and the organ and choir are straight out of church on Sunday. And of course, there’s Merry herself; her performance is totally possessed, intense, like she’s going to blow apart at any moment, or else bring down the end of days herself with just one more chorus. Born on Christmas day in New Orleans and raised up in the church, I believe it could happen. The record was never a hit that I know of, but for my money, it should’ve been.
The second track, Thelma Houston’s Jumpin’ Jack Flash, is of course from her monster of a debut album, Sunshower. You can’t really ask for a stronger debut than this LP, produced, written and arranged by the phenomenal Jimmy Webb, probably one of the most idiosyncratic guys in pop music. I, like most girls my age, knew him first as the guy behind the Last Unicorn movie, which of course I tortured my parents with by making them take me to the Cinema 10 to see it no fewer than 50 times (thank God for DVD players!). But Webb was a hit machine, Brill Building-style, and Sunshower was his pet project and Thelma Houston a vessel for his immense talent. Which is not to say that Houston wasn’t a monster in her own right; her range is stunning, and she’s a total chameleon, moving between songs and styles like she’s ten singers. Webb knew the level of talent he was dealing with, too. He described Houston as “the most prodigious talent I have ever encountered” and said that she “manifested everything great about the black female voice.” That’s gotta rank up there in “Rock Guys Giving Soul Singers Effusive Compliments” right alongside George Harrison calling River Deep Mountain High the finest record ever recorded. Webb had a flair for conceptualization as well as instrumentation, and the overarching theme of Sunshower seems to be a song for every side of Thelma Houston; it might be disjointed, if it wasn’t all so beautiful, and seamlessly united by her graceful, athletic interpretation and performance. Compared to the rest of the album, Jumpin’ Jack Flash is positively bombastic, but it works–Houston can be a sweet songbird or a soulful crooner, but she can also belt it like nobody’s business, and that’s made abundantly clear on this track. I read somewhere that there’s a Stravinsky line in the string break, which I wouldn’t know enough to hear, but Webb’s arrangement of the Stones is certainly effectively cheeky in addition to rocking hard. Unlike Gimme Shelter, it makes little reference to the original, but Webb and Houston are so good…well, who gives a damn.
That’s all for now… but there’s a box of new picks coming my way soon and I’ll be back with the story on a NOLA rarity that you won’t even believe.
Cheers, Jordan Valentine
