Richie Barrett

Listen/Download Richie Barrett – Some Other Guy

Greetings all

The weekend is once again upon us, and so is the Funky16Corners Radio Show. Coming to you this and every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio, we bring you the finest in funk, soul, jazz and rare groove, all on original vinyl. If’n you cannot dig at airtime, you can always subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, or grab yourself an MP3 copy out of the archive here at the blog.

The tune I bring you today is without question one of my all-time favorites, and a 45 that eluded me for quite a while.

This is odd, because Richie Barrett’s ‘Some Other Guy’ is not a crazy expensive disc (between 50 and 100 USD on a good day), but it is in demand, so when copies pop up, the get knocked down rather quickly with a certain amount of competition in the bidding and so forth.

I was lucky enough to get my copy on the cheap side of things, and have probably given it a spin (or a digital play) every day since then.

Thing is, this record is one that loomed large in my musical tutelage for many years, thanks in large part to the fact that ‘Some Other Guy’ became one of the go-to covers for Liverpool bands of certain vintage, that being the heart of the beat era, and naturally, the Beatles.

The song was part of the playlist of the Fabs (it is the song they were playing when they were first filmed playing at the Cavern Club) and it was also recorded by bands like the Big Three, Johnny Kidd and the Pirates and a bit later on by ex-Beatle Pete Best.

It was the killer version by the Big Three that caught my ear first and made me want to track down the original.

Richie Barrett is a particularly interesting figure in the history of R&B and soul in that he was not first and foremost a recording artist.

Barrett made his mark as a producer and songwriter for groups like the Chantels, and hadn’t done a ton of recording before he found himself in the studio alongside the mighty Leiber and Stoller in 1962.

The record they made, ‘Some Other Guy’ is a brilliant bit of R&B well on the way to soul, with rumbling bass, electric piano and even a groovy organ solo.

Those widely separated opening notes on the electric piano build a tremendous amount of drama, especially considering what follows.

What ‘Some Other Guy’  also is, is one of the most blatant bits of imitation Ray Charles as has ever been impressed on a lump of vinyl.

‘Some Other Guy’ sounds like Leiber, Stoller and Barrett took a pile of Brother Ray’s late-period Atlantic ish, tossed it into a blender and poured the resulting slop into a microphone.

Not only do you get the rolling electric piano rhythm of ‘What’d I Say’, but Barrett is all but channeling Charles’s voice in every possible way.

It’s positively shocking that they didn’t try to release it under some name like ‘Charles Ray’, or ‘Brother Ray’ or some such tomfoolery.

Of course we are talking about Leiber and Stoller, who managed to kick ass just about every time they entered a studio, so despite any similarities to records living or dead, ‘Some Other Guy’ is epic.

Oddly enough, despite the obvious greatness of this record, L&S didn’t bother to mention it in their autobiography.

Slap this on at your next ripple and potato chip party and watch every last soul tear their way out onto the floor fighting over which part of the rug they get to slice.

In fact, I suggest that you go get lubricated, pop this one on at high volume and tear up the joint yourself, as best you can.

It is – after all – almost the weekend.

Capisce??

Groovy.

See you cats on Monday.

Keep the faith

Larry

 

 

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