Man, as a kind of death obsessed person that site is something else!
Mayfield slowly gets more love and respect, but I think part of it has to do with how gentle and unassuming he and his music were. Smokey Robinson sung in usually gentle voice and a high register, but the band was pumping and he would strain to make his case in song. The Impressions are so gentle, from their vocals to their musical arrangements to the way they expressed their socially conscious lyrics. I think they were fantastic, but they never screamed LOOK AT ME.
That is beautiful, a great song. For MLK day, a link to my favorite Mayfield song, “This Is My Country.” Wish I could find a performance of it, but the video is suitable to the day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8087c5icsPg I just think it is an incredibly powerful song, all the more powerful for being beautiful and gentle in its firm and unambiguous message.
The Impressions were always something of a second-line act that never got the sales or attention that groups like the Four Tops, Miracles, or Temptations had. They only managed to break into the Billboard Top 40 a few times, though they did very well in the R&B charts. Their primary label (ABC-Paramount) also didn’t have the saturation of the Motown, Stax, or Atlantic labels.
Also, Mayfield’s solo career was fairly undistinguished for the most part with a lot of mediocre records. The one huge exception, of course, was the Superfly soundtrack. He deservedly gets a lot of recognition for that one.
There’s a great DVD available of the Impressions called Movin’ on Up, which has this performance. The only available footage of the group performing “People Get Ready” was from a Where The Action appearance where they were on a boat on a resort.
I just heard about the lawsuit that Lou & John Cale brought against the Andy Warhol Institute over the banana on the 1st VU album. I think that album is probably the first one to have lawsuits over both the front & back covers (Eric Emerson brought a lawsuit over the use of his image on the back, which caused a delay in its release)
I saw that the clip I posted is from that DVD. I’ll have to seek that out. It’s hard to find good YouTube clips of the Impressions (and so many soul artists).
–“One of the more pernicious effects of the whole Live Aid/Farm Aid/Band Aid spectacle was to cement the hierarchy of the “legend” rock acts and a smaller tier of anointed successors from the slightly-younger generation (Tom Petty, Sting, Dire Straits, U2). It was the height of the Boomer Counter-Reformation. The late Eighties would see the over-publicized returns of everyone from Steve Winwood to the Monkees to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, to a revamped George Harrison to a MOR version of Pink Floyd to Robbie Robertson pretending that he was Peter Gabriel (a version of Gabriel who couldn’t sing) to an all-star Yes and a Zeppelin-sampling Robert Plant, culminating in the return of the “revitalized” Stones in 1989, the touring company now reincorporated into a gleaming multinational.”
–“The choreography makes a bit more sense if you imagine that each of them are pretending to duet with Tina Turner.”
Gary Wright just got some more of my money — I bought a gold disc version of Dreamweaver on Amazon for 18 bucks! My CD version is a record company pressing from who knows when.
I’ve now owned that SOB on two vinyl pressings, 8-track, cassette CD, and now Gold CD! My four-year-old son saw Gary’s airbrushed, eyes-closed picture on the CD cover and asked — “is he dead?”
Well, since I learned about the Gold Disc on his Twitter feed — I said no — but you could argue that his career died with his follow-up album “The Light of Smiles”
Which makes me wonder — has RTH in its illustrious five years ever done “Worst Follow-up to a Hit Album?” — because I want to enter Light of Smiles as a contenter for that title.
The Bowie Blog from Oats (http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/dancing-in-the-street/) has some great stuff. The big-rock-event of LiveAid did sort of cement the 60’s survivors into place as the Rock 1%. For instance, I just listened to Arc of a Diver and it is one very controlled and assured record. What did Steve Winwood do to deserve that kind of status?
And 2000Man should comment on the link re: Dirty Work . I’d like to hear that.
Re: My last post. I know Winwood wasn’t at LiveAid (I was, however). I was just commenting on the middle aged, mostly British rock vets who seemed like some kind of millionaires’ social club (McCartney, Jagger, Townshend, Phil Collins, etc) in the early to mid-80’s.
Even if the album is fantastic – and what are the chances of that? – it’s sad to see this. Macca, so long after the train left the station, is now jumping on the Great American Songboook bandwagon (he said, mixing metaphors)? Can this really be the same guy who was one of the great musical innovators of modern music?
Imagine if John had lived and done this kind of thing a decade ago. Now Paul would be saying how he had the idea before that, he just didn’t get to it.
And supposedly part of the motivation is his new bride and the lead single “My Valentine” is written for her. Really, he still hasn’t learned his lesson? I wonder if she appears in the video on keyboards.
Apparently, the title is a lyric from “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter.”
There is a sliver of a chance that this will be good, if he takes the understated, classy route that Bryan Ferry took on his standards album, As Time Goes By, which I strongly recommend.
But the smart money says this will be a garish cash-in on the Rod Stewart model for standards-covering.
The idea of a love-giddy Macca recording an album of love songs for his new wife is nice. The idea of him then calling it “Kisses On the Bottom” — almost assuredly for reasons that are wink-wink, nudge-nudge related to his latest love affair — is just wrong. And, at the risk of sounding age-ist — the reason it’s wrong is because it puts the thought of a 70 year-old Paul McCartney either giving or receiving kisses on the bottom into my head.
But it did give Zappa the idea of the hilarious I Have Been In You. I know, it’s juvenile and it’s stupid, but it still cracks me up almost as much as it did when I was juvenile and even more stupid than I am today.
The link to Christgau’s article? Man, as much as I have days where I think the’s the biggest turd in the punchbowl, there are other days when he actually seems to be paying attention to what he’s listening to. He likes Lilywhite’s production on Dirty Work, and I think it sucks. I like the album as a whole. I don’t think it’s their best, but I don’t think it’s their worst. I think it falls somewhere in the middle. I think if it were an album by some relatively unknown band, Dirty Work would be something a lot of people liked. But since it’s The Stones and it’s not Exile a lot of people decided they hate it based on the video for Harlem Shuffle.
But Hold Back is awful. I don’t like that song at all.
Why is it that when the giants of soul are discussed Curtis Mayfield doesn’t get the love he deserves?
Here’s a website of album covers altered to remove the dead, although I don’t think there is an Impressions example. Surprisingly striking.
http://liveiseedeadpeoples.tumblr.com/page/2
Man, as a kind of death obsessed person that site is something else!
Mayfield slowly gets more love and respect, but I think part of it has to do with how gentle and unassuming he and his music were. Smokey Robinson sung in usually gentle voice and a high register, but the band was pumping and he would strain to make his case in song. The Impressions are so gentle, from their vocals to their musical arrangements to the way they expressed their socially conscious lyrics. I think they were fantastic, but they never screamed LOOK AT ME.
That is beautiful, a great song. For MLK day, a link to my favorite Mayfield song, “This Is My Country.” Wish I could find a performance of it, but the video is suitable to the day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8087c5icsPg I just think it is an incredibly powerful song, all the more powerful for being beautiful and gentle in its firm and unambiguous message.
The Impressions were always something of a second-line act that never got the sales or attention that groups like the Four Tops, Miracles, or Temptations had. They only managed to break into the Billboard Top 40 a few times, though they did very well in the R&B charts. Their primary label (ABC-Paramount) also didn’t have the saturation of the Motown, Stax, or Atlantic labels.
Also, Mayfield’s solo career was fairly undistinguished for the most part with a lot of mediocre records. The one huge exception, of course, was the Superfly soundtrack. He deservedly gets a lot of recognition for that one.
There’s a great DVD available of the Impressions called Movin’ on Up, which has this performance. The only available footage of the group performing “People Get Ready” was from a Where The Action appearance where they were on a boat on a resort.
I just heard about the lawsuit that Lou & John Cale brought against the Andy Warhol Institute over the banana on the 1st VU album. I think that album is probably the first one to have lawsuits over both the front & back covers (Eric Emerson brought a lawsuit over the use of his image on the back, which caused a delay in its release)
Weird! (The lawsuit stories, that is.)
I saw that the clip I posted is from that DVD. I’ll have to seek that out. It’s hard to find good YouTube clips of the Impressions (and so many soul artists).
That Bowie blog I mentioned just published a post about JaBo!
http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/dancing-in-the-street/
Yes, the Beatles want more of your money, but it’s only $9.99. Too bad I don’t have an iPad.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/look-at-them-all-george-harrisons-guitar-collection-gets-ipad-app/
Required reading!
That is good stuff. Highlights:
–“One of the more pernicious effects of the whole Live Aid/Farm Aid/Band Aid spectacle was to cement the hierarchy of the “legend” rock acts and a smaller tier of anointed successors from the slightly-younger generation (Tom Petty, Sting, Dire Straits, U2). It was the height of the Boomer Counter-Reformation. The late Eighties would see the over-publicized returns of everyone from Steve Winwood to the Monkees to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, to a revamped George Harrison to a MOR version of Pink Floyd to Robbie Robertson pretending that he was Peter Gabriel (a version of Gabriel who couldn’t sing) to an all-star Yes and a Zeppelin-sampling Robert Plant, culminating in the return of the “revitalized” Stones in 1989, the touring company now reincorporated into a gleaming multinational.”
–“The choreography makes a bit more sense if you imagine that each of them are pretending to duet with Tina Turner.”
That was great stuff!
Gary Wright just got some more of my money — I bought a gold disc version of Dreamweaver on Amazon for 18 bucks! My CD version is a record company pressing from who knows when.
I’ve now owned that SOB on two vinyl pressings, 8-track, cassette CD, and now Gold CD! My four-year-old son saw Gary’s airbrushed, eyes-closed picture on the CD cover and asked — “is he dead?”
And your answer was?
[Eliciting a hearty chuckle on my end of the computer screen.]
Well, since I learned about the Gold Disc on his Twitter feed — I said no — but you could argue that his career died with his follow-up album “The Light of Smiles”
Which makes me wonder — has RTH in its illustrious five years ever done “Worst Follow-up to a Hit Album?” — because I want to enter Light of Smiles as a contenter for that title.
Frampton’s “I’m in You” shut that conversation down years ago.
Naw – here are some contenders:
Yes – Big Generator
Pink Floyd – The Final Cut
Jethro Tull – A Passion Play
John Lennon – Some Time in New York City
Dream Police?
I think Dream Police was still pretty good Cheap Trick, if not quite up to what came before. The big plunge came after.
The Bowie Blog from Oats (http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/dancing-in-the-street/) has some great stuff. The big-rock-event of LiveAid did sort of cement the 60’s survivors into place as the Rock 1%. For instance, I just listened to Arc of a Diver and it is one very controlled and assured record. What did Steve Winwood do to deserve that kind of status?
And 2000Man should comment on the link re: Dirty Work . I’d like to hear that.
Re: My last post. I know Winwood wasn’t at LiveAid (I was, however). I was just commenting on the middle aged, mostly British rock vets who seemed like some kind of millionaires’ social club (McCartney, Jagger, Townshend, Phil Collins, etc) in the early to mid-80’s.
GROAN DEPT.
Sir Paul McCartney’s upcoming album seems to be a collection of jazz/broadway standards, paired with (I think) jazz/broadway standard-like originals.
It will be entitled “Kisses On the Bottom.”
Yeah, even I’m not gonna try to defend that one.
Even if the album is fantastic – and what are the chances of that? – it’s sad to see this. Macca, so long after the train left the station, is now jumping on the Great American Songboook bandwagon (he said, mixing metaphors)? Can this really be the same guy who was one of the great musical innovators of modern music?
Imagine if John had lived and done this kind of thing a decade ago. Now Paul would be saying how he had the idea before that, he just didn’t get to it.
And supposedly part of the motivation is his new bride and the lead single “My Valentine” is written for her. Really, he still hasn’t learned his lesson? I wonder if she appears in the video on keyboards.
I will give him credit for the title though!
Apparently, the title is a lyric from “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter.”
There is a sliver of a chance that this will be good, if he takes the understated, classy route that Bryan Ferry took on his standards album, As Time Goes By, which I strongly recommend.
But the smart money says this will be a garish cash-in on the Rod Stewart model for standards-covering.
The idea of a love-giddy Macca recording an album of love songs for his new wife is nice. The idea of him then calling it “Kisses On the Bottom” — almost assuredly for reasons that are wink-wink, nudge-nudge related to his latest love affair — is just wrong. And, at the risk of sounding age-ist — the reason it’s wrong is because it puts the thought of a 70 year-old Paul McCartney either giving or receiving kisses on the bottom into my head.
And now it’s in yours. BAM!
But it did give Zappa the idea of the hilarious I Have Been In You. I know, it’s juvenile and it’s stupid, but it still cracks me up almost as much as it did when I was juvenile and even more stupid than I am today.
The link to Christgau’s article? Man, as much as I have days where I think the’s the biggest turd in the punchbowl, there are other days when he actually seems to be paying attention to what he’s listening to. He likes Lilywhite’s production on Dirty Work, and I think it sucks. I like the album as a whole. I don’t think it’s their best, but I don’t think it’s their worst. I think it falls somewhere in the middle. I think if it were an album by some relatively unknown band, Dirty Work would be something a lot of people liked. But since it’s The Stones and it’s not Exile a lot of people decided they hate it based on the video for Harlem Shuffle.
But Hold Back is awful. I don’t like that song at all.
The guy’s a Beatle. I’m sure the place he’s been kissed the most for the last fifty years is on the bottom.