Sam Cooke

Listen/Download – Sam Cooke – A Change Is Gonna Come

 

Greetings all.

Due to the impending election, I’m going to be doing something special this week, under the banner of Soul the Vote (yeah, I know. Not the most original idea but it says what I want it to, so, y’know…).

I will be re-posting some socially/politically relevant classics all week long, culminating in a special Election edition of the Funky16Corners Radio Show this coming Friday, 11/4.

Today is a post from December of 2014, on the 50th anniversary of Sam Cooke’s death. Though I’m reposting both sides, the one to focus on here (for obvious reasons) is ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’. Let’s all hope it’s a good one.

There is a lot at stake here, and while I realize that politics is not everyone’s bag, there is a tremendous amount at stake here, and if you are willing to throw your lot in with a maniac like that, then we don’t really have much to say to each other.

So dig the sounds, spread the word, and get your ass out there and vote.

Keep the Faith

Larry

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I hope the new day finds you well.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but in case I haven’t, here’s something…

As a more than casual student of the interconnected nature of the Tao, and someone who has experienced the (extremely) odd coincidence now and again, the way that my life intersects with certain records often causes me to take note.

Many a time, have I been in search of a particular disc for a long time, then I get a sudden urge to look again, and there it is.

The same kind of thing often happens when I write up a record (or get ready to do so) and then I discover that some important event tied to that record (birthday, death, anniversary etc) is coming up at the same time.

I had been trying to get my hands on Sam Cooke’s final LP ‘Shake’ (specifically to get the LP-only track ‘Yeah Man’) for some time. Considering the popularity of Cooke, and the fact that the album contained no less than three hits, it surprised me how scarce a record it was, and how hard it would be to get a copy at a reasonable price.

So this fall, when I had all but given up trying, I scored a copy of the ‘Shake’ 45, and then a few weeks later  a copy of the LP verily fell in my lap (sometimes – to paraphrase my man DJ Prestige –  it less me finding the record, than the record finding me).

Last week I sat down to digimatize the discs, and what should pop up on my radar but the fact that the 50th anniversary of Cooke’s death (12/11/64) was about a week away.

Cooke has been – thanks entirely to his untimely passing – at the top of the list of transitional (and hugely influential) figures of soul music.

This is not to say that he never made any ‘pure’ soul, because the tracks above will testify to that, but rather that the bulk of his post-gospel career was divided pretty evenly between R&B, pop music and crooning.

Cooke was a brilliant singer and songwriter, and there are all indications that he would (like Jackie Wilson, an artist who’s career paralleled his) have entered the soul ‘mainstream’ had he lived, but sadly, we’ll never know.

Today’s 45, which was released about a month before the ‘Shake’ LP (it was already charting within a few weeks of his killing) was a substantial hit, both sides making it into the R&B Top 10 by the end of January 1965.

It is a study in contrasts, with ‘Shake’, a hard driving (and influential) soul number, backed with the epic civil rights ballad ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’.

‘Shake’, later covered by Otis Redding and the Small Faces among others, features some surprisingly raw rhythm guitar (Bobby Womack) running through its middle, surrounded by booming horns and solid percussion. It was recorded at Cooke’s last session, less than a month before his death.

‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ is one of those records that has an eerie depth to it. It hearkens back to Cooke’s gospel roots, but despite the title, it has never seemed to me like a hopeful song. It has the ring of inevitable resolution about it, but only as viewed through great amounts of struggle and pain.

Cooke sang the song on the Tonight Show in February of 1964 (the performance has since been lost) and never performed the song live again.

Listening to ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’, it now seems inevitable that a song and performance so powerful would be seen as a landmark of sorts.

That it was released almost simultaneously with his death has cemented that status.

So toast the memory of the mighty Sam Cooke,  dig the sounds, and I’ll see you on Friday.

 

Keep the faith

Larry

 

 

 

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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.

Judy Clay and the Youngbloods (inset)

Listen/Download – Judy Clay – GetTogether MP3

Greetings all.

Due to the impending election, I’m going to be doing something special this week, under the banner of Soul the Vote (yeah, I know. Not the most original idea but it says what I want it to, so, y’know…).

I will be re-posting some socially/politically relevant classics all week long, culminating in a special Election edition of the Funky16Corners Radio Show this coming Friday, 11/4.

We’re going to get things started with Judy Clay’s epic reading of the Youngbloods’ ‘Get Together’, which was originally posted back in February of this year, during the primaries, when the unspeakable (Trump as a major party candidate) was still only a possibility.

There is a lot at stake here, and while I realize that politics is not everyone’s bag, there is a tremendous amount at stake here, and if you are willing to throw your lot in with a maniac like that, then we don’t really have much to say to each other.

So dig the sounds, spread the word, and get your ass out there and vote.

Keep the Faith

Larry

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Originally posted 2/25/16

The last few months (hell, closer to a year) in relation to the upcoming Presidential election have proven to be the rancid cherry atop the shit sundae that has been served up by the opponents of democracy over the last eight (or 36, depending on your frame of reference) years.

The group I speak of is composed of the usual suspects, giant corporations, polluters, homegrown religious fanatics, cowpoke seditionists and every possible iteration of Archie Bunker-esque “populist anger” blowing ugliness at the world from their easy chairs. The combination of hard-edged, professional undermining of society, from those that would straight up fuck any one of us to insert another shiny dime in their offshore tax havens, and the infantile, heavily-armed anger of the dying white hegemony has finally pushed us to the place where we have a leading candidate for the highest office in the land that comes on like PT Barnum and the local schoolyard bully had a baby, and then handed the baby a gun.

If you were so inclined, you could start writing your stack of ‘thank you’ notes to Ronald Reagan, and all of his disciples, who somehow convinced a lot of people that their enemies were not the bosses that busted their unions and converted their once prized jobs into Third World child labor, but rather the cold, tired and huddled masses yearning to breathe free mentioned on the Statue of Liberty.

We live in a world where any number of Republican governors and corporatist Democratic apparatchiks in the school privatization movement (eager to run schools with all the vision they apply to your local Wal-Mart) have people convinced that teachers are the enemy. The same world where the people we’ve elected will turn to us and with a straight face continue to repeat the same insane incantations about deregulation and trickle-down economics that time and experience long ago revealed as a colossal sham.

We live in a world where one side of the political spectrum has collapsed like an angry toddler that has to be dragged through a supermarket, and the other side throws their hands up, without the courage or will to do anything about it.

The amount of ugly debris resulting from this collision – generally hateful, and specifically racist and nativist – is terrifying.

The press, for a variety of reasons a mere shadow of its former self, is filled not with the thinkers that once helped us make sense of an often incomprehensible world, but rather packs of fools that have abdicated their sacred responsibilities and spend their time talking about the election like they’re broadcasting a football game. As a result we are surrounded by people that have been dumbed down, and are fatally disengaged from the process.

It makes me sad, especially since I have young kids who will have to grow into a world that seems increasingly out of control.

This is not to say that all hope is lost, nor should anyone be giving up and preaching the gospel of running away (to Canada, or Europe of anywhere Donald Trump isn’t) because I believe that ultimately, this country is worth fighting for.

I suspect that no matter what happens in November, whether we are suddenly saddled with a lunatic at the helm, maintain an unsatisfactory status quo, or take a difficult first step toward something better, that there will be a lot of unpleasantness ahead.

When someone like the current Republican standard-bearer is allowed to whip a mass of shitheads into a frenzy, that energy has to go somewhere.

Whether it manifests itself as a horrific stain on a once great country, or in impotent rage at a revolution denied, is yet to be seen.

What those of us outside of the bubble need to do is – first and foremost – speak up.

Don’t let the insanity go unchallenged.

Campaign for something better.

Shut off your TV, or at least the part of it that perpetuates the stupidity.

Read a book.

Make something.

VOTE.

Or listen to some music.

It is precisely because I believe in the power of music, to move people and sometimes carry a message, that I do this at all.

I know the political posts are unpopular in some quarters, but as long as I have the ability to lay down and amplify (on some small scale) my thoughts, I’m going to do it.

The song I bring you today should be very familiar to most people of a certain vintage as one of the great peace anthems of the 1960s, as delivered by the Youngbloods.

I have been a huge fan of Judy Clay over the years, both for her duets with Billy Vera, and her solo work. She had a powerful voice.

So when I picked up the 45 of ‘Sister Pitiful’ (her female take on the Otis Redding ‘Mister…’ classic) I was kind of knocked on my ass by the flip side, a heavy, swampy, soulful version of ‘Get Together’.

Where the Youngblood’s version of the song is ethereal and hymn-like, Clay’s take on the song – instantly recognizable as a Muscle Shoals production – is a call to arms.

When the song starts with the words ‘Love is just a song we sing’ but then follows it with the warning shot ‘But fear can make us die’, it ought to turn your head.

Though the Youngbloods released their version in 1967, it didn’t really explode until the middle of 1969. The wistful optimism of the Summer of Love had been washed away by war, riots (race and otherwise) and paranoia.

Clay recorded her version of the song in May 1969, replacing the hippy mellowness with a powerful, gospel-infused cry, pushed along by hard charging bass, drums and horns.

It should have become and anthem all over again, but despite its inarguably high quality, it went largely unnoticed (it doesn’t even get a mention in the Wiki about the song) .

That doesn’t mean it has to stay that way.

Give it a listen, and see if you feel the power, too.

Remember that ‘Keep the Faith’ are words to live by, whatever your faith is,and the raised fist in our logo symbolizes the power of solidarity.

Pull down the ones and zeroes, and pass it on.

Keep the faith

Larry

 

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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.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.