In the Midnight Hour
It is midnight and I can’t sleep because WIlson Pickett is running my Jukebox Brain all on his own. How many times I have played this song is impossible to count. I recall smokey blue light bar rooms and stages with hundreds of adoring people all moving and groovin’ to this tune. If there was a fight breaking out on the dance floor Midnight Hour was the tune that de-escalated the confrontation. It is a love song of the first order, rather a seduction song. It is assumed that the woman being addressed in the song is an interested participant. Wilson is very insistent in his message. He describes what techniques of love making he will employ. This is a trademark of great soul music; the unabashed confessions of the singer’s intentions. This honesty was a major artistic element for the African American composer and singer. The white crowd had Pat Boone and Tennessee Ernie Ford. Elvis appropriated the mystique. This verbalization of technique separated Soul music from any other form of pop music. The soul charts were unique unto them selves. Great producers like Willy Dixon at Chess records created the super soul hero and the public ate it up, literally. But they needed drummers like Al Jackson to put it back in the pocket.
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Walk This Way
Walk This Way Walk This Way Written by Joe Perry and Steven Tyler based on a lick Perry came up with during an Aerosnith sound check in Hawai. My JukeBox Brain glommed onto it and almost ruined the rest of my day, I gotta respect the fact that…
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Super Freak
Super Freak Super Freak Written by Alonzo Miller and Rick James recorded by Rick James up in Sausalito close to the houseboat I was living in at the Record Plant then down at Motown family in L.A. with some of the Temptations singing back up. It was what…
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Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues
GoodTime Charlie’s Got the Blues GoodTime Charlie’s Got the Blues Danny O’Keefe wrote it and Jim Croce had a hit with it. He died the next year when his Nachitochis Airlines crashed hitting a Pecan tree at the end of the runway in Shreveport killing all on board…
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Wah-Watusi
Wah-Watusi Penned by Kai Mann and Dave Appell in 1962. My JukeBox brain is digging into my preteen memory and replaying this tune on repeat until I want to scream or maybe dance. Recorded by the Orlons. Was that a synthetic fabric? Dick Clark American Bandstand featured the…
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Gimme Shelter
Gimme ShelterRolling Stones nailed the zeitgeist of America back in the Seventies with this song just after the shocking violence at Altamont. The real high point of the song is Mary Clayton’s vocal performance. She put her whole heart and soul into her call and response blending the…
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Fame
Fame David Bowie and John Lennon cowrote this funky hit tune. The groove imitates an original R and B groove maybe from Otis Redding or James Brown. But it has a luster all its own. Lots of angst too. The posturing to avoid fame and glory is appreciated.…
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