The Flipside(s) of Don Covay

By , February 5, 2015 12:12 pm

Example

Don Covay

Example
Example

Listen/Download – The Soul Clan – That’s How It Feels

Greetings all.

The end of the week is nigh, so I will remind you once again that the Funky16Corners Radio Show rolls around this and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio. If you cannot join me at airtime, you can always subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, listen on your mobile device via the TuneIn app, or grab yourself an MP3 here at the blog.

As promised on Wednesday, today we will be paying further tribute to the mighty Don Covay.

As mentioned earlier, Covay was more influential than he was famous, having written a number of amazing songs, some he recorded first, others he passed on to singers like Aretha Franklin.

Covay’s discography, covering ground from the mid-50s to the early 80s is filled with high quality music.

As I was pulling his 45s out of the crates over the past few days it occurred to me that most people had heard his more heavily covered material (like ‘Mercy Mercy’ and ‘Take This Hurt Off Me’), but there were a couple of excellent tunes hiding on some of his flipsides.

The first of the two songs I chose to feature, ‘Please Don’t Let Me Know’ appeared in 1964 on the b-side of ‘Take This Hurt Off Me’.

‘Please Don’t Let Me Know’ is one of those songs that came as a surprise when I finaly flipped over the 45 and played it. Though ‘Take This Hurt Off Me’ is cool, it the more you listen to it the more it seems to hew awfully close to the template of ‘Mercy Mercy’. ‘Please Don’t Let Me Know’ is – like ‘Long Tall Shorty’, which Covay wrote for Tommy Tucker – one of those songs that starts deceptively slowly, picking up a significant amount of steam as it progresses. It features a great, pleading vocal by Covay, and some crazy, falsetto backing vocals toward the end.

I really dig the end of the song where Covay switches up the refrain to ‘Don’t let Don know!’.

The second track is the flipside of the 1968, one-off 45 by the Soul Clan. Featuring Covay, Ben E. King, Solomon Burke, Arthur Conley and Joe Tex, and produced by Covay, the Soul Clan never really took off (for a variety of reasons). That said, their one 45 is outstanding, with the fast-moving dancer ‘Soul Meeting’ (penned by Covay, and a Top 40 R&B hit) on the A-side and the gospel-inflected ‘That’s How It Feels’ on the flip.

Co-written by Covay and Bobby Womack, ‘That’s How It Feels’ is (at least in my opinion) right up there with the finest southern soul ballads of the era. Oddly enough, and I see this as yet another testament to Covay’s talents, the members of the Soul Clan were never in the same studio, with Covay and Womack creating the backing track, and the individual singers adding their parts piecemeal in separate sessions.

That said, it’s a powerful record, and ought to be better known.

The cool thing is, if you aren’t a vinyl hound, you can get Don Covay’s Atlantic, Mercury and Philadelphia International albums in iTunes (hell, you can even get the Soul Clan album!*), so there’s no excuse not to dig in.

I hope you dig the tunes, and keep your ears peeled for a Don Covay tribute on an upcoming episode of the Funky16Corners Radio Show.

See you on Monday.

Keep the faith

Larry

Example  

*Note – ‘Soul Meeting” and ‘That’s How It Feels’ are the only “true” Soul Clan tracks on the album, with the balance of the tracks made up by individual recordings by the separate members.

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived! The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock. They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US). Click here to go to the ordering page.

Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).

 

Example Example

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

Leave a Reply

New Comment Capcha System = Simple Math! * Time limit is exhausted. Please reload CAPTCHA.

Panorama Theme by Themocracy