Blondie vs. The Doors

Here is a great mashup of "Rapture" by Blondie and "Riders on the Storm" by The Doors. I usually don't like mashups a lot because I think that both songs suffer as a result, but in this case, it totally rocks. I would love to here this at a club.

Joe Cocker

Lately I have been absolutely mezmorized and bedazzled by the spells that Joe Cocker lays down in his songs. He doesn't have a bad song out there. True, he is mainly a cover artist, but all of his covers somehow are BETTER than the originals. That is quite a statement when you figure he has taken on The Beatles and Dylan. The only Joe Cocker song that I think is "eh" is his version of "Have A Little Faith In Me" by John Hiatt. Don't get me wrong, it is a good cover, but the arrangement doesn't differ a great deal from the original like many of his others do.




"Darling, Be Home Soon" by Joe Cocker

I Just Want You To Hurt Like I Do

"I Just Want You To Hurt Like I Do" by Randy Newman

I ran out on my children
And I ran out on my wife
Gonna run out on you too baby
I done it all my life
Everybody cried the night I left
Well almost everybody did
My little boy just hung his head
And I put my arm put my arm around his little shoulder
And this is what I said:
"Sonny I just want you to hurt like I do
I just want you to hurt like I do
I just want you to hurt like I do
Honest I do honest I do, honest I do"

If I had one wish
One dream I knew would come true
I'd want to speak to all the people of the world
I'd get up there, I'd get up there on that platform
First I'd sing a song or two you know I would
Then I'll tell you what I'd do
I'd talk to the people and I'd say
"It's a rough rough world, it's a tough tough world
Well, you know
And things don't always, things don't always go the way we plan
But there's one thing, one thing we all have in common
And it's something everyone can understand
All over the world sing along

I just want you to hurt like I do
I just want you to hurt like I do
I just want you to hurt like I do
Honest I do, honest I do, honest I do"

I've Got Dreams To Remember

Lately I am having a hard time finding a bad Toots and the Maytals song. Here is their version of Otis's "I've Got Dreams To Remember."

The Origins of the Talking Guitar

The "talking guitar" is an instrument that has made an appearance in many genres of music. Bands from Pink Floyd, Peter Frampton, Cher, and others have used the device to add character and personality to their music. Here, we will look at its origins and hope to gain a little insight as to how it came into the mainstream.

The abilities of vintage electronica (1930-1949) were far superior than we are often lead to understand. The vocoder appeared in the 1930's as a means to ensure accurate communication over telephone lines. It allows an encrypted code to be sent from sender to receiver and then entered into the machine manually. The machine would then voice the message with proper speech and inflection, allowing listener to understand intent and meaning in an otherwise vague context.

The following clip shows a vocoder demonstration from the 1930's...



By the early 1940's, musicians were able to incorporate this new technology with their compositions. Jazz, a genre dependant on personality and flair, used it a great deal. Big bands began to use the "sonovox" to help them give their trumpets, horns, and clarinets a literal voice.

See an example here...



Of all the intruments the were used with the sonovox, the most interesting became the slide guitar because of 1) polychromatic abilities (chords) as opposed to the monochromatic instruments also being used (trumpet, clarinet, etc.) and 2) the ability of the guitar to slide up the the next note, creating a natural blend with the human voice. Two main artisians of the talking slide guitar emerged in the 1930-40's, namely Alvino Rey and Pete Drake. As an interesting matter of note, Alvino Rey was both a Morman as well as the grandfather of William Butler, lead singer of Arcade Fire.

Alvino Rey - My Buddy



Alvino Rey - St. Louis Blues (featuring a creepy guitar puppet)



Pete Drake - "Hold Me" and "Sleepwalk"



Pete Drake - "I'm Sorry"


Stevie Wonder - "Close To You"

54-46 Was My Number

I had the opportunity last week to watch an amazing movie called This Is England. (2006). The opening credits blew me away. The movie is about a young boy in 1983 England who is trying to deal with bullys, fitting in, and the death of his father in the Faulklands War. So much of the movie is contingent on the viewer understanding both the setting and feeling of England during those years. To help set the exposition, a montage starts the movie with Toots and the Maytal's "54-46 Was My Number" playing over footage of events and happenings of the early eighties.

Toots and Company have a sound unique to themselves. They were around during the origins of reggae music and still have a good portion of early R&B in their sound.

Definately one of the coolest uses of music in cinema that I can remember.

Nothing Takes The Place of You

Today's post is a slight continunce of yesterday's post concerning the 1967 song "The Dark End of The Street" as we discuss another song entitled "Nothing Takes The Place of You." For a couple of years in the mid-sixties, it was common for reggae music to sound more like R&B than modern reggae. Geographically, there was a steady flow of musicians from Chicago to New Orleans and from New Orleans to Jamaica. Here is an interesting example of how the different styles influenced the music they played.

Toussaint McCall had his only hit in 1967 when his version of "Nothing Takes The Place of You" hit #1 on the R&B charts. It is easy to assume that McCall had a great influence on The Righteous Brothers after listening to his arrangment. Little is known of McCall after the song was published. He would record one more album in 1976 and then fade away.



Experiencing slightly more longevity than Toussaint McCall was the next artist to record our featured song, Prince Buster. While McCall epitomized Chicago style R&B (even though he hailed from New Orleans), Prince added an early reggae element to the song which makes it easier to allow the sad lyrics to go unnoticed. Prince even added and changed the last verse of the song, completely changing the significance of the relationship the two lovers have.

Here are the original lyrics...

NOTHING TAKES THE PLACE OF YOU
(McCall / Robinson)
Toussaint McCall - 1967


I moved your picture
From my walls
And I replaced them
Both large and small
And each new day
Finds me so blue
Nothing
Takes the place of you

I read your letters one by one
And I still love you
When it's all said and done
And oh, my darling, I'm so blue
Because nothing
Oh nothing
Takes the place of you

I, I write this letter
It's raining on my window pane
I, I feel the need of you
Because without you
Nothing seems the same

So I'll wait
Until you're home
Again I love you
But I'm all alone
And oh my darling
I'm so blue
Because nothing
Oh, but nothing takes the place of you.

Listen to Prince Buster's version and note the line he adds...

So I wait until we meet
at the dark end of the street
and oh my darling
I'm so blue
Because nothing takes the place of you

Yesterday we discovered that this line had become synonomous with an affair and not a normal romance. One wonders is Prince changed the lyric in order to take on a more autobiographical meaning or if he was simply giving omage to James Carr.