Gavin B.

Song of the Day


My #1 Soul Sister ---Bettye LaVette

Take Me As I Am -Bettye LaVette- Kanye is pissed because Beyonce's Single Girl didn't win MTV's award for best song? I'd be embarssed to publicly admit I liked that song, let alone disrupt an awards ceremony because I thought it was "the greatest song of the decade." Kanye's disruption of the MTV Awards because Beyonce didn't win best song is most pathetic stunt on behalf of a bad cause that I've ever witnessed.

Today I'm taking a vow that I will never watch MTV, buy any music on Sony/BMG, or listen to any music by Kayne West or Beyonce again. They may be symptoms of the dismal shape the music industry is in, but I'm finished with enabling any of them swindle the American public out of their hard earned money from this day forward. I don't have to sit passively while music moguls at Sony and MTV force feed me the kind of musical garbage that isn't fit for consumption by a tone deaf donkey.

Maybe Kanye should be crusading on behalf of Bettye LaVette who's been ignored by mainstream music awards for over 4 decades and has more soul in her little finger than Beyonce.

Bulldog

Damn, that's a pretty bloody fine song there. I'm gonna have to investigate that a bit further when I've got the time - as you say, there's so much soul to that voice.

On another note, that Beyonce tune is the most annoying song since that one by the Ting Tings that I refuse to dignify by naming it. As if it wasn't irritating enough on its own, the fact it's been played in virtually every club I've walked into over the last year or so really doesn't do it a lot of favours with me.

Gavin B.

You're right about the Beyonce song. It's horrible and not "one of the greatest songs ever" as described by Kayne West when he disrupted the awards ceremony. All the song constists of is a drum machine and an annoying tape loop of an elaphantine sound without any discernable melody, which may be a great cheerleader routine but I wouldn't enter it into a songwritting contest for pre-schoolers.

For the past few years I've been telling anyone who'd listen to me that Bettye LaVette is the best soul singer since Aretha Franklin and Bettye was signed at Atlantic Records (Aretha's long time label) at age 16, in 1963, three years before Aretha was signed. She had a couple of minor hits that got airplay on black radio stations but none of her singles or albums took off in the same manner Aretha's did. Aretha's very first album I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You in 1967, was the top selling R&B album of the year and with the #2 selling single, Respect.

Finally Atlantic dropped LaVette in 1972 after refusing to release her album A Child of the Seventies, which in hindsight may have been her big commercial breakthrough album, had Atlantic released it. At age 25, Bettye LaVette was without a music label and didn't record again on a major label for the next 10 years. In 1982 she was signed to do an album on Motown but the timing was bad because it was released just as rap music was breaking and at the dawn of the MTV revolution.

She was in her mid-thirties by then and considered too be a has-been from the Sixties generation by the "hip" programming executives at MTV. After that Bettye was tempted to give up her career but instead she continued to tour and didn't record again for another 15 years, except for a couple album releases in Europe. She was big in France and Germany and both those nations frequently adopt American blues and jazz artists who are way laid by career problems, as their own. In the late Fifties and early Sixties many American jazz and blues artists were expatriates living in Paris because they simply couldn't find any work in the USA.

Finally in 2007 the indie label Anti put together a session with Ms. LaVette in the famed Muscle Shoals Sound Studio being backed by southern roots rockers the Drive by Truckers. The ten tracks — all but one are covers, as LaVette considers herself in the proper soul tradition as an interpreter, not a songwriter — are gritty, loud, raw, and drenched in Southern soul, blues, and gospel-tinged R&B. The album actually enjoyed modest sales and reestablished her career. The Scene of the Crime was released in late 2007.

The song I've embedded below was Before the Money Came (the Battle of Bettye LaVette) was the song caught my ear. I knew about Ms. LaVette's previous history as a minor soul singer at Atlantic and her song told the sad history of her musical career with a powerful storyline. She sounded in better voice than she ever did in her youth. I think the album first got attention primarily because of the Drive By Trucker's well deserved reputation as a premier roots rock band and I hope she continues her association with them because she sure sounds good on this cut.

Gavin B.

Song of the Day


Chris Joss in NYC


Summer Springs- Chris Joss Chris Josh is a multi-insturmentalist, music producer and remixer who draws heavily on Sixties and Seventies influences. Last year's brilliant Techtronic Overdubs sounded like a pastiche of film soundtracks for Sixties B-movies, black exploitation films, art house movies and old spy noir films. Summer Springs sounds like an outtake from a nature frolic with Ali McGraw and Richard Benjamin in Goodbye Columbus. Note the tasteful use of a psychedelic sitar solo with Cowsills type vocals in the background. Chris plays all the instruments in this song.

Gavin B.

Song of the Day


The Easybeats vs Richard Thompson---Two Versions of Friday on My Mind


Friday on My Mind- Richard Thompson I love this cover of the old Easybeat's song by folk rocker Richard Thompson. The sound of his custom made Lowden L32C cutaway guitar is amazing. The Lowden L32 (before it, the Lowden L27C) only 6 string guitar I've ever heard that resonates like a 12 string guitar and has the fast fretboard action of Stratocaster. A guitar like the L32C will cost you about $6500, depending on availability. Most of Lowden guitars are special ordered and it's very rare to come across a new one in the retail market. Every Lowden guitar is handmade by one of ten skilled craftsmen under the supervision of master guitarmaker George Lowden in a little shop in Downpatrick Northern Island..

When the Easybeats were at the top of the charts with Friday on My Mind in the summer of 1967, Richard Thompson had just formed the first edition of Fairport Convention, a band that was originally influenced by California folk rockers like the Byrds, Joni Mitchell, the Mamas and the Papas and Emitt Rhodes. That all changed when singer Judy Dyble was replaced by the brilliant Sandy Denny in mid-1968 and Denny reshaped the Fair into a folk rock outfit with distinctive Celtic and British Isles folk influences.

Does anyone know who the identity of the all girl group backing Thompson? I thought it might be a couple of members of Lucious Jackson but I'm not sure.



Friday on My Mind- The Easybeats 1967 original of Friday on My Mind by the Easybeats. I forgot how much I liked this group. They were an archetypal Brit band with their matching tailored jackets, the mod hairdos and their irrreverant humor.

Intrestingly enough the band was formed in Syndney and the singer and the drummer were from Liverpool, the rythym guitarist and the bassist were from the Netherlands and the lead guitarist was from Scotland. The band relocated to England in 1967.

Doesn't lead singer Stevie Wright have an uncomfortable resembalance to Davy Jones of the Monkees? Nonetheless, Stevie has his own impish stage personae which made him an unique frontman for the group.

BTW, the lead guitarist George Young is the older brother Angus and Malcom Young of AC/DC.



CONCLUSION: Both versions are great, so I'm giving the nod to the original version by the Easybeats which I usually do when it's a close call between two competing versions of the same song.

Gavin B.

Song of the Day


Patti Smith in 1978


Gimme Shelter - Patti Smith A great rendition of the Jagger/Richards classic. Patti is still an electrifying performer and was truly the first woman to be in charge of the band, instead of being a "chick singer" for a band. She was ray of light through some very dark years of my life and for that I'm eternally grateful.

A lot of people forget just how important Patti was to the current state of popular music and what a revolutionary artist she has been over the years.

Gavin B.

Humorous Interlude

Don't you just hate it when your dog narks you out? (Caution: There are some four letter words)

Piss Me Off

Patti Smith has always been a very sentimental artist for me since my mum played her in the car when i was a kid. Horses and Easter are classic, the latter i was blasting out last night no less, and i do think she is a wee bit underappreciated here!

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Bulldog

Patti Smith's another one I haven't listened to in years. I do remember Easter kicking arse though.

Gavin B.

Song of the Day


The Fuzztones remain hopelessly obscure in America.


Ward 81- The Fuzztones The Fuzztones have been doing their garage rock revival thing since 1982 when they formed in NYC. The band is still making music and mostly touring Europe where they have a large cult of followers. Unfortunately the Fuzztones can't draw a crowd of over 200 people outside of New York and Boston in the United States but they play before SRO crowds in London, Paris, Berlin, Prague and Coppenhagen.

The Fuzztones are a great band and are worthy of the same stature as the other great purveyors of the garage sound like the Stooges, the Cramps and the Ramones. It's to the credit of the Europeans that they have discovered many of the great American jazz, blues and rock and roll bands that can't find work in their homeland of the United States.

When I lived in London in the early 80s I found that my British friends were better aquainted with the latest East Coast bands like Mission of Burma, the Fleshtones, the Bush Tetras and the Feelies than my friends in Boston and New York where these bands hailed from. I can only hope that the Fuzztones will survive long enough to gain some measure of recognition for their music in their homeland of the USA.