Soul – Page 2 – Rock Salted

Gladys Knight & The Pips – Neither One of Us

Gladys Knight & The Pips – Neither One of Us Soul S 737L (1973)

The early 1970s were an interesting time for soul music. The genre underwent seismic shifts. Those musical shifts went along with shifting social circumstances. As the liberal “freedom movement” (AKA “civil rights movement”) stepped back following its “victories” (which proved small and mostly temporary), and as severe backlash (including torture and assassinations) against anti-capitalist black militancy set in, there was a kind of metaphorical fork in the road. The best and brightest black Americans could accede to the dictates of the establishment, forsake the “movement” in exchange for narrow personal benefit, or, instead, commit to solidarity with a large class-based coalition in spite of the scorn and repression of the vested interests and all their concomitant tactics of racial bigotry. So take the title track, “Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye).” There is a long tradition in black music of “masking,” with two meanings embedded in songs (usually one light and often romantic, the other socio-political and often dealing with racism). The title song could be seen as being about the decision point as the freedom movement and black militancy were receding and facing real defeats — in the face of state violence in the form of COINTELPRO and the like. Stick with it or turn one’s back on it and say goodbye? The song is brilliant, and one of Knight & The Pips’ best recorded performances, up there with their later hit “Midnight Train to Georgia.”

A lot of soul music in the early-/mid-70s drew on a sense of urban elitism. Adolph Reed is one of the best commentators on that phenomenon, asserting that “race politics is not an alternative to class politics; it is a class politics, the politics of the left-wing of neoliberalism. *** As I have argued, following Walter Michaels and others, within that moral economy a society in which 1% of the population controlled 90% of the resources could be just, provided that roughly 12% of the 1% were black, 12% were Latino, 50% were women, and whatever the appropriate proportions were LGBT people.” Or as Pete Dolack put it, “liberal ideology tends to fight for the ability of minorities and women to be able to obtain elite jobs as ends to themselves rather than orient toward a larger struggle against systemic inequality and oppression. *** A movement serious about change fights structural discrimination; it doesn’t fight for a few individuals to have a career.” The upshot of the now-prevailing neoliberal mindset is that so long as a representative proportion of racial minorities are given privileged positions in a system of stark and brutal inequality then the all forms of social activism aimed at the larger, systemic and institutional inequalities are deemed inappropriate, even invalid. This sort of undercurrent flows through a lot of “Philly Soul”, which could seem a bit opportunistic and self-congratulatory. But Neither One of Us conveys a deeper sense of conflict. It was poised right at the historical juncture when different paths forward were possible, and people, in essence, had to collectively and individually choose their path. It may not be explicit about it, but the album is chock full of a sense of apprehension about the future. Gladys Knight & The Pips were deftly conveying that sense of the times, as were a few others like Sly Stone (Fresh).

The arrangements and production on Neither One of Us are by an army of supporting personnel — six producers and eight arrangers! But it works damn well. Just check the phenomenal “This Child Needs Its Father,” opening with a seductively lethargic melodic line played on strings and a growing element of psychedelic guitar. Contrast the limp and boilerplate strings on O’Jays‘ Back Stabbers from the same year, which seem to simply magnify a single idea across many string players rather than using the orchestration to build something premised on the interactions of a multitude of players. This difference is precisely that between the urban liberal “there is no alternative” attitude exemplified by the formulaic, immutable and homophonic orchestrations of the O’Jays, on the one hand, and the more diffuse egalitarianism represented by the sort of interactive, layered orchestration on “This Child Needs Its Father” (or, say, early 1970s recordings of Curtis Mayfield), on the other.

This is a great one, up there with the very best Motown-affiliated LPs, like David Ruffin‘s My Whole World Ended, Marvin Gaye‘s What’s Going On, and Stevie Wonder‘s best few albums.

O’Jays – Back Stabbers

O’Jays – Back Stabbers Philadelphia International Records KZ 31712 (1972)

Soul music underwent a great shift in the early 1970s, from predominantly dance-oriented music with a big beat to a greater emphasis on harmony and layered complexity. The O’Jays were one of the leading groups of the “Philly Soul” sound. Back Stabbers basically takes up the socially-conscious approach of the likes of Curtis Mayfield‘s Curtis, Marvin Gaye‘s What’s Going On, and even Isaac Hayes‘ Hot Buttered Soul and Syl Johnson‘s Is It Because I’m Black. But, of course, the difference here is the emphasis on a smooth, sophisticated construction with a hint of psychedelia. So, “Love Train,” which closes the album, is pretty much one of the epic soul cuts. It is the ideal embodiment of the way christian philosophy — by way of gospel music — lurked behind the end goals of black militancy in the early post-Jim Crow era. Nothing else here comes close to that song, but, then again, little else in the entire genre does. If there is a complaint here, and perhaps there should be, it is that The O’Jays lean too heavily on a kind of urban elitism (or should we say “New Age Racism”) that would soon crush the remnants of the soul genre and pave the way for the abomination that is smooth R&B. This shows in the way some songs seem like safe, mainstream-ready adaptations of There’s a Riot Goin’ On (“When the World’s at Peace”). And also in the way the string arrangements are a bit lazy and complacent. So, there is a tension, with elitism being at direct odds with christian universalist values (The O’Jays would further complicate matters on later releases by trying to join christian universalism with its opposite: pre-christian, pagan “family values”). This one just don’t quite hold up to its reputation, even if “Love Train” surpasses it. Maybe check out David Ruffin‘s overlooked Me ‘n Rock ‘n Roll Are Here to Stay or Gladys Knight & The Pips‘ criminally under-appreciated Neither One of Us instead, or even The O’Jays’ follow-up Ship Ahoy.

Sam & Dave – The Best of Sam & Dave

Sam & Dave – The Best of Sam & Dave Atlantic SD 8218 (1969) & 7 81279-2 (1987)

I have to admit that I sought out this album (the CD reissue version) after watching the movie The Blues Brothers, in which the characters “Joliet” Jake and Elwood Blues listen to “Hold On, I’m Comin'” and “Soothe Me” from it on 8-Track while riding in the “Bluesmobile”. Originally released in 1969 with fourteen tracks, reissues expanded the track list by a full 50% (with twenty-one tracks). While the original version had the advantage of being one of the best track-for-track southern soul albums ever, the reissues add some more great tracks — even if some classics like “I Can’t Stand Up (For Falling Down)” are still absent.

Nicknamed “The Dynamic Duo,” “Double Dynamite,” and “The Sultans of Sweat,” Sam & Dave were the most commercially popular soul act of their era. They were a crossover success, achieving mainstream popularity rather than just ghettoized niche genre success. Decades later, with the vacuity of most pop, it is almost hard to believe that music this genuinely good could achieve such commercial success!

Sam Moore had a higher (tenor) vocal range, while Dave Prater had a lower baritone/tenor range. It was the contrast between their different voices that really set their music apart. But many of their best songs took those contrasts even further. “Hold on, I’m Coming” featured deep, low saxophones plus a contrasting bright, high trumpet, which mirrors the contrast between Moore and Prater’s vocals. The ending of “May I Baby” uses a similar device. “Soul Man” places the entire horn section in contrast with the sweet guitar of Steve Cropper. All that made for a useful metaphor for the late period of the freedom (civil rights) movement. The chord progressions and other aspects of the music drew heavily from gospel. The recordings benefit from being part of the classic Stax era, drawing on the talents of the house musicians and the songwriting team of Issac Hayes and David Porter. Sam & Dave’s working relationship deteriorated in the 1970s, and the two would barely speak to each other. That is perhaps an irrelevancy, as their brand of soul music fell out of favor as the world changed around them in that decade.

The Best of Sam & Dave is a great set of music, and it remains one of the essentials of southern soul.

Sly & The Family Stone – The Woodstock Experience

Sly & The Family Stone – The Woodstock Experience Legacy 88697 48241 2 (2009)

I think it’s great that the complete performance of Sly & The Family Stone at Woodstock has finally been released — it only took 40 years! What is amazing is that the band has a long-standing reputation as having put on fierce live shows in their prime, yet other than a few stray songs on festival compilations they never released a full-length live album. That always seemed incongruous. Now, finally, at least the Woodstock performance is available. It starts off inauspiciously with “M’Lady,” which is followed by an apology for the bad sound and a plea for corrective measures. After that, the sound does improve, even if it’s still not perfect. The group certainly did have a complex sound, with vocals coming from just about everybody, a horn section, and lots of interaction from all the performers. The music placed stiff demands on the still evolving equipment of the late 60s. Anyway, when the band gets rolling, they are quite a force, regardless of the sound problems. They focus on a lot of uptempo, funky numbers with a lot of drive. Rose Stone‘s organ takes a prominent position. This is just a great performance, and I can only hope that a band as successful as Sly & The Family Stone–led by a noted producer no less — recorded more live material that will be released some day.

There are a few things to be said about the packaging here. A whole series of “Woodstock Experience” collections were released featuring Woodstock recordings of an artist/group together with the studio album they released beforehand (in this case, Stand!). The cynic in me looks at this as a crass marketing move, given that live Woodstock performances are likely to appeal mostly to fans who probably already have the studio album — forcing them to repurchase it to get to the new live material. Though these seem to be priced such that you aren’t totally ripped off if you are repurchasing. More significant is the inaccurate designation of “previously unreleased” material. “Love City” is denoted here as previously unreleased, which is incorrect because it was released on the 1994 comp Woodstock Diary.

Bobby Womack – The Poet

Bobby Womack – The Poet Beverly Glen BG-10000 (1981)

Bobby still can sing and write like he used to. Problem is this album doesn’t always sound sympathetic to what Bobby does best, but overtly tries to appeal to listeners into Prince as well as the “quiet storm” crowd. Take the airy backing vocals — no need for those. Anyway, this is a very serviceable album even if it’s not his best. If it hadn’t been recorded in the early 1980s it might have been better.

Bobby Womack – The Poet II

Bobby Womack – The Poet II Beverly Glen BG-10003 (1984)

It’s probably no surprise that this one suffers from a number of the usual faults of 1980s production values. The synths take away from it. Guest Patti LaBelle, as expected, mostly just adds showy vocalizations like she’s trying to impress talent show judges. This one is definitely not a good representation of Womack’s talents

Sturgill Simpson – A Sailor’s Guide to Earth

Sturgill Simpson – A Sailor’s Guide to Earth Atlantic 551380-2 (2016)

Following the success of his prior album, the excellent Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, Sturgill Simpson returns with a more grandiose effort, A Sailor’s Guide to Earth. His voice still sounds like Waylon Jennings, but the approach of this album ranges from country to southern rock to southern soul to chamber pop. The opening song has kind of spacey, vaguely psychedelic effects, but eventually launches into a full-throated soul song — very reminiscent of Willie Nelson‘s crossover success Shotgun Willie. By the third song, “Keep It Between the Lines,” with a full horn section (The Dap-Kings) and prominent slide guitar, he’s squarely in the progressive southern rock territory of “Spanish Moon” by Little Feat (from Feats Don’t Fail Me Now). Other songs recall later-period “roots rock” recordings by The Band. The closer “Call to Arms” is pretty rockin’ and concludes the album nicely. The lyrics remain a liability. They are mostly pretty clunky throughout, despite best intentions. And Simpson’s voice has a limited range. But the musical ideas here are fun and return to the concept of crossover country music that brings together groups of listeners that won’t normally interact, even if it does so in a retro way (it would have been more radical and daring to combine country music with contemporary hip-hop or smooth R&B than the kind of soul music that was popular four or five decades ago).

Barry Adamson – The King of Nothing Hill

Barry Adamson – The King of Nothing Hill Mute CDSTUMM176 (2002)

Barry Adamson, the maestro of fake soundtrack music, has a firm conviction to the devilishly absurd. His ridiculousness is part of his appeal. He is a collector, suggestor, director and actor. The illusory story lines hinted at on his albums can pull emotions and moods out of practically nothing. He takes the listener places. Plenty of new experiences are waiting. The King of Nothing Hill fits a sleek action thriller, the sorts with spies, international intrigue — that sort of thing. While it sounds like an exotic, action-packed journey, it is still pop music. It is just on the fringes. That seems like a comfortable home for Adamson.

“The Second Stain” and “Twisted Smile” pulse with monotonous vamps until the mood envelops everything. The songs point, prod, and push. Bass and keys alone can rush listeners back and forth between the highs and lows. Adamson can pick you up and place you carefully in new surroundings, ready to experience the moments as they arrive. You have to be open to the possibilities, true. If you’re not willing to budge then Adamson’s efforts might be an annoyance. He does have a talent for always being inviting though. You have to be quite closed-minded not to be swayed a little.

A funky workout session takes place on “Cinematic Soul” (cribbing a bass line from “Sing a Simple Song”). Adamson can be as brash and glitzy as anyone and still pull it off. His material may be described as rather composed, but it can boogie too. Then more surprises come when “That Fool Was Me” has the sultry soul comedy of him singing, “only a fool would leave you / and that fool was me.”

The King of Nothing Hill makes considerable use of electronics and sound effect samples. There is sometimes an erratic pursuit of a number of different styles, but Adamson uses those shifts to convey a sense of changing scenes in a movie. The effect can be a bit demanding over the course of the rather lengthy runtime of the album though.

As Above So Below, the predecessor album, had more lounge jazz/acid jazz and bleak, blaring trip-hop pushing it ahead even if it subdued the pseudo-soundtrack impressionism. Both efforts toy with kitsch. All things said, the albums are about equally good, just in different ways — if anything this album has more cohesive and focused individual songs even as it lacks some of the elusive intrigue overall.

The King of Nothing Hill is refreshing. Almost a decade and a half after its release, it has to be given credit for capturing the feel of the sorts of action thriller films it evokes. Granted, the lyrics go beyond what pure soundtrack music would normally do, by suggesting visuals to accompany the music (like the line, “I don’t even know how the gun got in my hand” on “Whispering Streets”). But that’s part of the fun of this approach to music. And Barry Adamson is still basically the only one doing what he does.

Bob Dylan – Slow Train Coming

Bob Dylan – Slow Train Coming Columbia FC 36120 (1979)

I’ve developed a theory that Dyan’s “christian” phase that began with Slow Train Coming was less about him converting to a particularly dogmatic strain of pentecostal christianity and more about him implicitly moving into the same camp as French academic charlatan Michel Foucault (maybe the “new philosophers” like André Glucksmann could be thrown into the conversation here too). The reasons some people are skeptical of this part of Dylan’s career are the same reasons some people are skeptical of Foucault’s neoliberal historicist/”identity politics” theories, which are complete bullshit and evidenced a questionable kind of pandering and opportunism (not to mention a huge over-reliance on revenge fantasies). But, anyway, this album was recorded in Muscle Shoals, and it has a smooth disco R&B/soul sound, like a mellower, less emotional counterpart to Bowie‘s Young Americans or even a more intellectual counterpart to the lily-white blues rock of Eric Clapton. It’s a little too easy listening for its own good, but it still manages to be decent with a few good new songs. The album benefits tremendously by having Dylan actually trying throughout, and having active involvement of producers other than Dylan.

Albert Ayler – New Grass

Albert Ayler – New Grass Impulse! A-9175 (1968)

A divisive album from a figure who seemed divisive in other ways from the start. Ayler rose to some level of renown among jazz heads as a pioneer of free jazz. But he got his start in R&B bands, and New Grass is an early attempt, of sorts, at jazz/R&B fusion. The album opens with typical Ayler free jazz wailing, then a brief spoken introduction, in which he states with radical earnestness that he hopes listeners like the album, and then it is on to the real surprise: R&B tunes laced through with solos far more skronky than any sort of King Curtis or The 5th Dimension mainstream R&B/soul track. The real problem with the album is how it gets going. “Message From Albert/New Grass” implies the album is something other that what it turns out to be — some kind of misguided attempt to ease listeners expecting “conventional” free jazz into the album. But “New Generation” and “Sun Watcher” really do get the album going, with great grooves, shimmering keyboards (on the latter), and what are actually smoking performances on sax by Ayler. Everything finishes strong with the sublime rave-up “Free at Last” too. But it is hard not to think that the album would have been much improved by dropping the first track and squeezing in the outtake “Thank God for Women” (posthumously released on the Holy Ghost box set). Anyway, while the album sequencing is too awkward to be entirely successful, this album deserves much credit for its radical concept alone. Jazz, and free jazz especially, was generally a pretty elitist musical form by the late 1960s, while lite R&B/soul was on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, with more plebeian appeal. Ayler throws them together without any regard for the social distinctions erected between those highbrow/lowbrow genres. While Miles Davis gets more credit for his approach to jazz/rock fusion, it is worth keeping in mind the way Miles leaned on esoteric and elitist forms of rock (not to mention the work of avant garde European composers). So, while some people saw this album as Ayler selling out to commercial tastes, a different, perhaps better, way to look at it is as an attempt to transcend the social confinement represented by narrow genre categories. And Ayler approaches that challenge with his usual open-hearted, emotive, and guileless version of what everybody typically expects to be purely cerebral, technically and conceptually challenging virtuoso performance. Contrary to its reputation, New Grass is slowly gaining more currency as a pretty decent album. It isn’t Ayler’s best. Yet it works. Anyone who does dig this should also check out Archie Shepp‘s similar effort For Losers.