It speaks volumes about Aretha Franklin–whom we celebrate today on her 68th birthday–that even God couldn’t turn her down. (For you wee bairns out there, that’s “God” as in “Clapton is God,” the anonymous graffiti first scribbled on London’s Islington Tube Station’s walls in 1965.) Eric Clapton is credited with “guitar obbligato” on “Good to Me as I Am to You,” the soul-deep, slow-cooked blues moan (co-written by Franklin and then-husband Ted White) from 1968’s Lady Soul LP, yet he’s no more (or less) a hired gun than Tom Cogbill (whose conversational bass lines cut a calm counterpart to the singer’s increasingly frenzied vocals), or the all-star horn section (as airtight as James Brown’s Famous Flames, and as wise as a Greek chorus). Make no mistake, “Good to Me as I Am to You” is all Aretha: begging and demanding within the space of a single note, flirting with chaos at the edge of tonal control, uncompromising, undeniable, and, for nearly seven decades, absolutely unequalled.
Aretha Franklin is a force of Nature, a gift from God. Her fierce, joyous, ferociously sexual voice encompasses gospel, blues, pop and jazz, effortlessly leaping from growling lows to glass-shattering highs in pitch-perfect two-octave bounds. From her 1967 Atlantic Records debut, across five albums (four Top 5) and nine singles (eight Top Ten), and through the summer of 1968 (when Time magazine honored her as the first Black woman on its cover), Franklin soared to the summit of American popular culture, her sweet, smiling visage among the most recognizable Black faces in the country alongside Martin Luther King Jr., Bill Cosby and Harry Belafonte. Franklin’s apocalyptic “Respect” (a #1 hit in 1967) alone inspired more Black Pride and perked up more white ears than a month of marches and sit-ins. In the midst of all this, opening Side Two of Aretha Now, her fourth LP, awaits the subtle gem, “You’re A Sweet, Sweet Man.” Riding atop drummer Roger Hawkins’ spare, funky back-beat, Franklin settles effortlessly into a no-nonsense, soul-deep groove, her electrifying moans and spine-chilling swoops sending sugar to her lover as the Sweet Inspirations lay down some honey in the background.
Merry Christmas from everyone at Damn Fine Day! Our present to all of our listeners this year is a little sass and a lot of soul courtesy of Solomon Burke. With his booming vocals and fiery interjections, it’s no surprise that Solomon began his adult life as a preacher and gospel radio host. And while he may not have attained the same mainstream success as Otis Redding or Wilson Pickett, he deservedly secured his seat in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with a number of first-rate songs. “Presents for Christmas” is a fervent showcase of Solomon’s flair, his voice enlivened by a particularly vivacious band. If you listen closely you can hear the ecstatic howls of the other musicians in the background, praising Solomon’s voice for exactly what it is, a gift.
If you expect nothing more than classic disco or smooth ballads from the Bee Gees, this 1967 single will certainly throw you for a loop. The brothers ditch their old school folk balladeering for a detour to Pepplerland on this dark psych ballad, awash with swirling mellotron, acid guitar and echo drenched drums. (Thankfully, the trademark Gibb sibling harmonies still remain intact.) Having recently moved to London, the Gibbs were clearly taking in all that the swinging city had to offer as evidenced on the trippy track, which owes much to the work that Pink Floyd and the Beatles were doing at that time.
Before Todd Rundgren went on to greater success as a solo artist releasing critically acclaimed albums like Something/Anything? and A Wizard, A True Star, he fronted the short-lived British Invasion-inspired band The Nazz.Kicking off the quartet’s 1968 debut Nazz was one of the album’s singles and today’s DFD gem “Open My Eyes.”For those unfamiliar with the track you may think you’re hearing a twisted version of the intro for The Who’s “I Can’t Explain,” but that soon disappears as the song transforms into a shining example of early power pop with a bit of late-’60s psychedelia thrown in for good measure.
“Spooky” was originally an instrumental song by saxophonist Mike Sharpe, and it wasn’t until the following year that lyrics were added by The Classics IV. Although covered by a number of artists like R.E.M. and Imogen Heap, it’s Dusty Springfield that gives the track a serious groove with her smooth vocals and swanky horn section.
Work is a four-letter word on this Labor Day. The boyfriend in Cilla’s song had it right when she sang about him in this 1968 B-side. Cilla was the second most-famous entertainer to come out of Liverpool, and her association with Beatle manager Brian Epstein was the key to her success. He molded and shaped her while his PR squad guaranteed that everyone in Britain knew who she was. Their efforts worked, and she became one of the best-known pop performers in the U.K., as well as a television star. Because of her relationship with Epstein, she was the first to cover a number of Beatles songs, in addition to having Ringo and George write songs for her. This tune was reintroduced 20 years later to a new audience via Damn Fine Day curator Johnny Marr’s band The Smiths on their “Girlfriend In A Coma” single.
One of the best and most durable bluegrass outfits, The Dillards first tasted national fame in the early 1960s as guest stars on The Andy Griffith Show. And while their roles as Mayberry’s local yokels may have been played for laughs, The Dillards’ singing and picking were no joke. “Hey Boys” shows both sides of this band to fine effect: a down-home, folksy persona paired with instrumental work and multipart harmonizing that would’ve done The Louvin Brothers proud (or perhaps The Beach Boys circa Smile). This track hails from 1968’s Wheatstraw Suite, a record whose place in the pantheon of country rock ought to be as exalted as that of Sweetheart Of The Rodeo.
Peter, Paul and Mary’s reading of “Too Much Of Nothing” became the first of Bob Dylan’s Big Pink compositions to crack Billboard’s Hot 100. What’s striking about the trio’s performance is the very distinct tone coloration they give the verses and chorus. While the former have a bouncy, country-folk quality, the latter is marked by an ethereal, atmospheric, almost-Beatlesque treatment. The common thread running through both is Peter, Paul and Mary’s trademark harmonies, which help heighten the visceral intensity of Dylan’s appreciation of—and fascination with—Old Testament wisdom, particularly as evidenced in the lines “It’s all been done before, it’s all been written in the book/But when it’s too much of nothin,’ nobody should look.”
For somebody who gets around as much as Jack Elliott it comes as a surprise to learn that he has only ever made it to New Orleans once. This trip, however, inspired one of his finest recordings. An air of wistful, stoned nostalgia graces this talking blues (“greens”) as Jack regales us with a typically rambling account of his memorable trip. It took place in 1953 and involved an encounter with a three-legged cat and an “ex-ballet dancer” with whom Jack danced naked around a banana tree in the rain. As this exquisitely evoked paean to the city that care forgot appears to taper away in a slow fade of hypnotic fingerpicking, Jack unexpectedly checks back in, singing the immortal lines, “Did you ever stand and shiver . . . just because you were looking at a river?” This is one of his very few credited compositions. It’s a shame he hasn’t written more.
Of The Association’s cache of hit singles, the best remembered may be “Cherish,” “Along Comes Mary,” and “Never My Love,” but their crowning achievement on the Billboard Top 10 has to be this light-psych masterpiece. Writer/band member Terry Kirkman dropped a little acid into the structure of his song “Cherish,” and the result sounds like the brothers Wilson crashing the Sgt. Pepper’s sessions. Producer/arranger Bones Howe took Kirkman’s simple love song and dipped it into a head-spinning array of complex vocal harmonies, orchestral flourishes, and rhythmic shifts. Compared to the somewhat cornball subject matter of their earlier material, the lyrics to “Everything That Touches You” are intense, poetic, and even spiritual. The flower children of the time may not have bought into The Associations’s attempt to become “hip,” but this track stands proudly amongst the landmark recordings of the Summer of Love.
The last proper album by The Beau Brummels is constantly compared to The Byrds’ Sweetheart Of The Rodeo. Both came out in 1968 and were recorded by Southern California bands in sessions at Nashville recording studios. But where Sweetheart Of The Rodeo is pretty much country through-and-through, the Brummels’ record flirts heavily with the genre on some songs and doesn’t really get all that close to it on others. “Cherokee Girl” is one of the later, an absolutely epic reverb-drenched folk-rock track that should’ve been played over the opening credits in a late-’60s Western by Monte Hellman or Sam Peckinpah. You can’t help but imagine galloping across some vast desert vista when the string part starts to soar and drummer Kenny Buttrey—who also played on Dylan’s John Wesley Harding album—suddenly shifts into a stomping shuffle beat.
Is this a song about a go-go dancer or just some girl dancing at a bar? It’s hard to say, but I’d like to think that “Ambitious Anna” is a beautiful and simple little ditty about a man who wants to go home with a stripper. Or maybe it’s about Anna Karina, swaying in front of a jukebox in Band Of Outsiders or some other Godard film. It isn’t easy to find much information about David Blue, and his music has only recently become available again. Back when his early albums first came out, he was dismissed by critics as a Dylan sound-alike, even though Blue was already a folk singer in Greenwich Village when he met and befriended Dylan in the early ’60s. Later he toured as a member of Bob’s Rolling Thunder Revue and made a couple of respectable turns as an actor.
When the hardest-workin’ man in show business took on the hardest-workin’ man in snow business, the result was a gift that keeps on keepin’ on to this very Damn Festive Yuletide Day. In 1966 James Brown released not one, not two, or three, but FIVE albums, including James Brown & His Famous Flames Sing Christmas Songs. It was pretty milquetoast by JB standards, so in 1968 he took a cue from himself and made it funky. A Soulful Christmas had such automatic classics as “Tit For Tat (Ain’t No Talking Back),” “Santa Claus Gave Me A Brand New Start” and this one, which always seems to be overlooked by radio stations who kickoff their all-Xmas format an hour after Halloween ends. Have yourself a merry and a happy Christmas! (And like James says, “Don’t forget Gary!”)
Between “Don’t Make Me Over” in 1962 and her ill-advised cover of “This Girl’s In Love With You” seven years later, Dionne Warwick notched up an astonishing 17 Top 40 Pop singles. All were composed by legendary team Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Except this one, courtesy of classical maestro André Previn and his artsy, singer-songwriter spouse Dory. Even judged alongside the shifting time signatures and lyrical twists peddled by Warwick’s regular collaborators, this curiosity features more stops, starts, and unpredictable jumps than an adolescent learning to drive stick shift. Yet the sultry Warwick glides through gracefully, her phrasing as sublime as Sinatra’s. Ultimately, this ditty proved the classiest thing about the big screen potboiler based on Jacqueline Susann’s scandalous novel. It peaked at #2 on the charts in early 1968 and earned Warwick a gold record.
They didn’t crown Solomon Burke the King of Rock ’N’ Soul for nothing. During his early Atlantic Records heyday, the expansive soul master granted both the weepy country ballad “Just Out Of Reach (Of My Two Open Arms)” and Bob Dylan’s defiant “Maggie’s Farm” a regal bearing that transformed each into something fresh and bracing. Fellow Soul Clanner Don Covay’s gently grooving “Party People” caught Burke’s ear in 1967. King Solomon laments not receiving his invitation to the hip shindig unfolding right across the hall, but since soul music, soul food, and his baby are all there, he’s strolling over to join “the happening crowd” and get in on the action anyway. The former Wonder Boy Preacher’s gospel-trained vocal is a mountain of subtle strength, and King Curtis’ cut-glass tenor sax slips into the sinuous backing every so often, the epitome of succinct class.
A weird start to an unabashedly weird album, “Vine Street” begins with a snippet of what seems to be an old bluegrass recording. It then turns into a piano rag with a disjointed orchestral part that sounds like it stepped right out of some deranged Technicolor musical, or maybe just a Harpers Bizarre recording session. Randy Newman wrote this clever, autobiographical song-within-a-song about an aspiring L.A. songwriter, and it also appears on Harry Nilsson’s Nilsson Sings Newman. I swear you can hear bits and pieces of “Happy Trails,” “The Entertainer,” and “Ode To Joy” in Van Dyke’s crazed everything-but-the-kitchen-sink arrangement. Harpist Joanna Newsom hired Parks to compose similar accompaniment for her last album, and his work was just as brilliant and strange as ever.
I Ain’t Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore The Rascals
Label: Atlantic
Released: 1968
NYC’s bass-less former bar band left little to chance on its 1966 debut album, applying max-energy Italo-soul style to such then-current genres as R&B, folk-pop, and Dylan, as well as ’50s rock ’n’ roll and I-will-survive balladry. The LP’s best three minutes, though, are its punkiest. A churning Hammond B-3 and climactic chorus (“Yeahhh!”) open, then give way to Eddie Brigati’s seething Standells-ish vocal (“You better watch your step, girl, or you can bet you’re gonna lose the best thing you ever had!”), sex-beat “Hang On Sloopy” drum breaks, and Gene Cornish’s barbed guitar solo. Composers Pam Sawyer and Lori Burton, not coincidentally, were responsible for a tough girl-group classic, The Whyte Boots’ catfight drama “Nightmare.”
