R&B The Transition Years

From the Sweet Soul Music Discography: R&B-Transition Years

This is a playlist I originally put together in 1986 as a kind of introduction to the Discography section of Sweet Soul Music. But I only imagined it – I never actually listened to it straight through. Here it is slightly revised and available through Spotify (and I’m sure you can recreate this on MOG, RDIO, or ITunes).  I can’t guarantee that every recording is the original – but it sounds pretty good to me. And in a funny way I find myself appreciating it so much more now than I once might have – even though these were always songs that I admired without reserve.

I think maybe I just wasn’t as open to wistfulness and melancholy in those days – in some ways I’ll put it down to the education that Elvis and Sam Cooke have provided me with. But, you know, when you really get down to it, it’s probably just life. Nat King Cole’s “Gee Baby, Ain’t I Good to You” – at one time I might have dismissed it as just a little proper, just a little sentimental. But now I hear Oscar Moore’s guitar solo, Nat’s piano, that voice, and there’s no hold-back in my engagement. I’m with Sam Cooke, I’ll take Nat King Cole as my tutorial model any day. Same with Charles Brown’s “Drifting Blues,” with Oscar Moore’s brother Johnny giving his name to the group and playing the beautiful guitar lead. Or the subtlety and heartache of the Prisonaires “Just Walking in the Rain.” It’s not that I didn’t appreciate them way back then. But I appreciate them so much more now.

Is mellowness all? Certainly not. Dig Guitar Slim’s “The Things That I Used to Do,” one of the rawest, most tore-down commercial blues of all time, which also marks the debut of arranger and pianist Ray Charles’ hard r&b sound. Or songs like Roy Brown’s “Good Rockin’ Tonight” – everyone knows what that led to. Or Louis Jordan’s seminal “Let the Good Times Roll,” which left its mark (like so much of Jordan’s groundbreaking work) on James Brown, Little Richard, Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, and Sam Cooke, just for starters. And, of course, where would we be without the Dionysian spirit of Howlin’ Wolf, James Brown, Jerry Lee Lewis, or Bob Dylan and Billy Joe Shaver in their untrammeled poetic years? (None included here – just a few points of reference.)

And then there’s the gospel infusion: the majestic Faye Adams version of “Shake a Hand” (I wish you could have heard Little Richard mashing down on this for six or seven minutes at the Donnelly Theater in his 1965 secular comeback – with Jimi Hendrix on guitar!). Or Roy Hamilton’s operatic version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic,  “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” which established a trend for spiritual uplift until Ray Charles blew the model wide open with his literal translation of the Southern Tones’ “It Must Be Jesus” into “I Got a Woman.” Or listen to the inspirational message of “Please Send Me Someone to Love” from Percy Mayfield, the “poet laureate of the blues” – nothing to do with gospel, really, just a universal (and universally influential) message of social uplift and racial justice cloaked in a graceful metaphor.

Every song here tells a story – each one has its own story. There’s no trend, there’s no stamp – or if there is a trend (and lots of people, obviously were catching on) each song, each artist stands on his or her own with a heartfelt message of exuberance, sorrow, plaintiveness or pain – doesn’t matter, there’s something to suit every mood.

You know, listening to this I started thinking about Solomon Burke (again), who considered himself a kind of cross between Gene Autry, gospel giant Brother Joe May (“The Thunderbolt of the Middle West”), and Ivory Joe Hunter (just dig Ivory Joe’s very soulful, and hugely influential, “I Almost Lost My Mind”).

You can hear everything that Solomon was listening to here – well almost. But I’ll tell you a funny story about “Don’t Deceive Me,” presented here in its original form by Atlanta blues singer Chuck Willis. When Solomon was making Soul of the Blues for Black Top Records, I suggested that he cut “Don’t Deceive Me” – I thought it would be a perfect match for Solomon’s improvisational skills, with its simple, gut-wrenching lyrics and melody and its wide-open space for a sermon. (I was thinking of the remarkable way that Howlin’ Wolf transformed the song in live performance.)

Well, Solomon did record it – and he called me up right afterwards. “You’re going to be really proud of me, Pete,” he said. “I did it just like you always want me to. I sang the song. And every time I started to get off of it, Selassie told me [this was his son, Haile Selassie], ‘Stick to the song, Dad. Remember what Peter said.’” And when I heard his version, it was indeed true. Solomon had stuck to the song, as I had not infrequently urged him to do – particularly when he stubbornly resisted learning many of the new songs that he was recording in favor of what he liked to call “spontaneity.” “Don’t Deceive Me,” for me, was an altogether different case. Or at least it should have been. But this was where Solomon chose to apply the lesson. Which is why you won’t hear any sermon on Solomon Burke’s beautifully rendered, emotionally controlled version of “Don’t Deceive Me.” I guess I’ll just have to take the blame.

The Voices of Solomon Burke

I’m going to be showing Paul Spencer’s wonderful documentary about Solomon Burke, “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love,” at the Country Music Hall of Fame on February 9, and I’m going to be talking about Solomon, too. Which led to this piece.

Some day I’m going to write an epic narrative (maybe it should be an epic

narrative poem) about My Travels with Solomon Burke. The thing about it is, you wouldn’t have to travel far. In fact, you would only have to spend a day or two with Solomon – maybe just a few hours – to have enough material for a film, book, or life-changing experience.

If I were to say that life with Solomon was a three-ring circus, it would be selling his circus short. There’s no telling the number of rings that he could keep going at the same time – or the number of voices. You could be sitting with Solomon, and he might call someone up, someone with whom, let’s say, he might be having certain problems of a fiduciary nature, and he would take on the mien, the manner, the voice of a Dr. Stein, Dr. Burke’s comptroller, explaining that there had been an unanticipated problem with the transfer of funds, or the conversion of foreign currencies, but he could provide full assurance that it had been taken care of. Or under certain exigent circumstances he might become Dr. Burke the brain surgeon, as he did when long-time club owner/manager/booking agent Jimmy Evans had in fact had brain surgery and was incommunicado except to his medical team in Intensive Care. Occasionally he was Solomon Berkowitz (this was more of a joke between friends), confidently throwing in a wide range of Yiddish expressions that he said he had learned from the kosher butcher that his father worked for when he was a kid. Or, on the other hand, he might be a Muslim brother (I can’t remember what name he went by), if the occasion so demanded – you just could never tell.

The first time I had any contact with Solomon was in 1980, just as I was beginning my book, Sweet Soul Music. I had pursued a bunch of false leads, run down a lot of out-of-service telephone numbers, and spoken to any number of people who professed to have no knowledge of Solomon or his current whereabouts. Then J.W. Alexander gave me the name of a man who he thought was still Solomon’s lawyer. (J.W., Sam Cooke’s friend and business partner, had managed Solomon for a minute in the late ‘60s, and still chuckled fondly over their misadventures, all precipitated by Solomon’s penchant for real-life “spontaneity” over any kind of long-range planning.) Anyway. I called the lawyer’s office, didn’t get any further, I thought, than I had with anyone else, and was going out to play tennis one day when Alexandra came rushing out after me, saying, “Peter, there’s someone on the phone who I think has something to do with Solomon Burke. I think he said it was Solomon Burke,” she said as we walked back to the house, “but I think I must have misunderstood.”

Once I got on the phone, it wasn’t hard to understand her confusion. I had seen Solomon perform in little clubs and headlining all-star Supersonic Soul revues – but the voice I heard on the phone didn’t bear any resemblance to the commanding voice I thought I knew so well from records and personal appearances. This voice was the voice of a mild-mannered (for that you can read “white,” if you like) insurance salesman. Maybe an accountant – or a very cautious lawyer. Maybe, it occurred to me, this was a different Solomon Burke altogether.

This Solomon Burke carefully went over the pronunciation of my name, which he had already established with Alexandra. Then he inquired in an exceedingly circumspect and mild-mannered way about the purpose of my call. Still thinking that this must be some kind of a joke, I started to explain that I was writing a book, it was a book about soul music, it was about Southern soul music. “Of course, of course,” interrupted the voice at the other end of the line, suddenly warming to the conversation and abandoning all pretense of polite neutrality. “And how,” said the man who bore the title of “King of Rock ‘n’ Soul” in a newly commanding voice, “could you write a book on soul music without speaking to the King?”

Well, that was it. That was the beginning of my journey. I went down to New York a few weeks later when he was playing Tramps. I met him in the dressing room upstairs, surrounded by a small coterie of friends, family, and long-time acquaintances, and he welcomed me into his world. After the show, which was as inspired as virtually every show I would see over the next twenty-five years (including the one whose second set consisted entirely of a spur-of-the-moment wedding ceremony – remember, Solomon was a bishop in his grandmother Eleanora A. Moore’s Daddy Grace-inspired church, the House of God for All People, which he insisted needed to be rechristened The House of God for All People, Let It All Hang Out), Solomon wanted to cap the evening with a visit to the famous Stage Delicatessen, so we drove uptown – but it was closed. As was every other familiar landmark that he wanted to introduce me to. So, undaunted, we ended up at an all-night diner in Times Square, where Solomon interviewed the hookers who had ducked in out of the cold, asking them with great good humor about their life and work as he used a salt cellar for a microphone and told them they were being filmed by hidden cameras.

It was a great beginning – and it never stopped. I’ve never had more fun – with anyone – than I did with Solomon, even though early in our acquaintance I had to tell him, “I don’t play,” as he sought to draw me into one or another of his intricately imagined schemes. (That’s a word that might perhaps be better spelled another way, one more example of Solomon’s dedication to the improvisational moment – but that’s another story.)

I wish Solomon were here right now. Everyone who ever knew him – well, almost everyone – wishes he were here. Jerry Wexler said of him that he was “the best soul singer of all time, hands-down – with a borrowed band.” But I wouldn’t even put that qualification on it. He was without question the greatest singer of any kind that I’ve ever seen (remember, there’s a lot of singers that I haven’t seen – including, for example, Sam Cooke), one of the most inventive showmen (one of these days I’ll have to tell you about that second-set wedding at Tramps – with pictures, and I hope the participation of Red Kelly and his wife) – also one of the most brilliant, profound, and certainly the funniest person I’ve ever met, onstage or off – which tended to cost him in the pulpit. (“I couldn’t resist the joke, Pete,” he said to me one time after bringing his congregation to a point of mass hysteria, then throwing it all away with a dubious punch line.)

But all of this was secondary to the Experience of Solomon, just being around him, trying to keep up with his brilliant inventions and limitless imagination, just as prevalent in real life as they were in his music. He was a person of the most capacious mind and spirit – and for me, except for one or two unavoidable semantic stand-offs, nothing ever really changed from the moment I first met him and set off on what turned out to be one of the greatest – hell, why not just say it, the greatest adventure of my life.

For more information on the Country Music Hall of Fame event: click here

For more information on Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom: click here

PeterGuralnick.com interviews Peter Guralnick

PG.com: What are you working on now?

I was hoping you wouldn’t ask. I’m working on getting set up in Nashville, teaching Creative Writing at Vanderbilt in the eighth year of what was supposed to be a one-year appointment.

But in terms of the writing I’m working on, I finished a complete draft (for me, writing on the computer there is no longer any such thing as a first draft, because there’s so much everyday rewriting) of my Sam Phillips biography – which has turned out, against all my disbelieved promises to you, Alexandra, and others, to be about as long as the Sam Cooke biography. 

As soon as I get straightened away here, I’m going to start rewriting from the beginning – in which, for surprising reasons, Sam’s mother gives him the middle name of the doctor who was supposed to deliver him (“You take my ass dying when I was born, and you take a drunk doctor showing up – man, he didn’t even make it till I was born – and my mama being so kind she got up out of bed and put him to bed until he sobered up, and then the midwife comes and Mama feels so sorry for Dr. Cornelius she named me after him!”)

And then I guess I’ll just keep on going, with the hope (but not necessarily the promise) of finishing by the end of the year.

PG.com: Why did you decide to write this book?

Sam was as great an inspiration as I’ve ever encountered in my life. My father. My grandfather. Howlin’ Wolf. J.W. Alexander. Solomon Burke. Doc Pomus. A few more. But Sam – the music had always inspired me. But meeting him in 1979 was like having every fantasy I had ever constructed (in terms of philosophy, world view, idealistic purpose, and conscious intent) come true. Here’s a passage from the end of the book that sort of explains it.

Once in a while I dream about Sam, but none of the dreams has left as lasting an impression as the one I had not long after his death. It seemed to center on the first time Elvis was in the studio for his recording “audition” with Scotty and Bill. “I am nothing if not an idealist,” Sam proclaimed, whether to Elvis or me I’m not sure. Then: “I am anything but an idealist,” he declared. “The boy cannot fully understand.” 

For all I know, by “the boy,” he could just as easily be referring to me as to Elvis – because I cannot altogether understand. But then I don’t really want to. Like Sam, I, too, am anxious to take leave of my senses. Sam found the vehicle through music. I found the same vehicle in much the same way – but in large part, like so many people, it was through Sam, it was because of Sam.

PG.com: How will it be different than your previous books?

The difference, I guess, is apparent in the passage that I’ve quoted. The book is much more “personal” than any of my other books – I mean all of them are personal. All of them are intensely personal, because they represent what I care about and deeply believe. But here – in the book about Sam – I take on a personal role, because I was there for much of the last 25 years. I was there for many of the events. And I was there not strictly as a reporter (I’m never there strictly as a reporter) but in some other, less definable role. I suppose I would adopt much the same approach if I were to write a biography of Solomon Burke. Which, sadly, I never will. As Solomon said to me the last few times I saw him, “You know, your book about Sam [Cooke] is really great. But when are we going to do The Book?” I tried to get him to start it, I suggested that, just to get us going, he could tell a few of the stories about his grandmother and his days as a Wonder Boy Preacher to his daughter Victoria and send me the tapes - but he never did. And from my point of view (and I think from Solomon’s, too), it had to be a first-person narration. So that book will never be written. But, just as with Sam Phillips, I’ll do my best to continue to sing (as “Pete the Writer,” as Solomon dubbed me early on) Solomon’s song.