We used to talk about Don Covay – me and Joe (Mr. C to you), Peter Wolf, and Freddy Blue.
He was the shadow king – not because he was any less of a talent than any of the other great soul singers, he was just different in that his talent was expressed primarily through his pen. Well, through his writing, through his
scheming and dreaming.
We used to kid around – was it Don or was it Mick? They sounded so much alike, particularly, of course, on “Have Mercy” (“Have mercy, baby – have mercy on…ME”). Which one of them took his style from the other?
Peter was the one who knew him best, who shared adventures and eventually songwriting credits with him. (Someday the world will beg loud and sweetly enough to persuade Peter to write about those adventures –whether with Don, or Alfred Hitchcock, or Tennessee Williams, or Van, or Bob, in an elegant, Christopher Isherwood-styled memoir.)
I think it was Solomon who first introduced me to Don. He said in that inarguably (I mean, who was going to argue with Solomon) persuasive voice of his, “Pete, you got to meet the guy. I mean, come on. ‘You’re Good for Me.’ ‘Tonight’s the Night.'” And he reeled off a string of Don’s hits – and some I’d never heard of – as if he were sharing the secret of the universe with me. Which of course, he was, in his own deeply allegorical Solomonic way.
Don was truly a free spirit. The Soul Clan, in all its permutations, both real and highly imagined, was perhaps the fullest extension of that freedom. With Solomon he was forever the warm, witty, irrepressible younger brother (even though I think he was in fact older). Each got such a kick out of the other’s eccentricities and foibles – but there was never any question who was in charge.
Sadly, Don’s warm, antic spirit never fully translated on stage – maybe it just couldn’t be harnessed. For all of his discipline as a songwriter and a recording artist, Don simply didn’t seem to possess the ability to pace himself. “He never,” said Solomon sorrowfully (but I’ve got to say, mirthfully, too), “knows when to stop.” But his music, of course, will unquestionably live on – and on – and on – well, just listen to it, and tell me he didn’t hit an eternity note.
The last time I spoke to Don, Peter and I called him up at the care facility outside Washington D.C., where he had been living since his stroke of eleven years before. Not every day was a good day, Don said, but this one was, and while his speech had been affected, his spirit shone thorough. He talked a little about his breakthrough as a songwriter, how after talking to his idol, Sam Cooke, he finally came to embrace his vocation. “Write about what you know, write about what you’ve experienced, write about what you observe,” Sam told him. “Write about natural things – you’ve got to come out of the future and get back to the past, to what you knew when you were a little kid.” Most important of all, Sam said, “All you got to do is be yourself.”
And that’s what Don became in his writing, his own pure, pluperfect and incontrovertible self. It was in that realization that he wrote “Have Mercy,” his first real Don Covay song. And after that he never looked back – his goal was, simply, to express himself, following whatever path his muse took him, never feeling the need to explain, just to express – himself.
