Timmy Thomas – It’s My Life
Timmy Thomas
Listen/Download Timmy Thomas – It’s My Life
Greetings all
Longtime listeners (first time callers?) will have read the saga of how I chased (and eventually harpooned) Timmy Thomas’s ‘Have Some Boogaloo’.
It was a long-time white whale/grail of mine, and one of those records I really had to put up a fight for.
Sometimes they fall in your lap.
Sometimes you have to strap on your pith helmet and elephant gun and set off into the bush.
This is often the case with the 45s that Thomas recorded for Memphis-based Goldwax records in 1967.
Though he would become world famous years later when he and his beatbox hit with ‘Why Can’t We Live Together’, his earlier sides were elusive.
Compared to his later hits, Thomas’s work for Goldwax was something else entirely, taking a much harder, organ-heavy tack than the mellow grooves of the 70s.
The record you see before you today was the second, and last 45 he would record for Goldwax.
Though his take on Jerry Lee Lewis’ ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On’ is hard charging and excellent, it is the record’s other side that we gather to speak of this fine day.
Were you to take a look at the song title,and writing credits on the label – without listening to the record – you might never discover that what you had was one of the cooler,and more obscure Animals covers ever laid down.
Why the song ‘It’s My Life’ is credited to Thomas, Quinton Claunch and Rudolph Russell, which is odd, since the song was written by Roger Atkins and Carl D’Errico, and first recorded by Eric Burdon and the Animals in 1965.
Timmy Thomas’s version departs from the original melody in places, but you need only listen for a few seconds before you realize what song it is you’re hearing.
The arrangement reminds me somewhat of another Goldwax 45 cover tune, Ben Atkins and the Nomads version of the Young Rascals ‘Love Is a Beautiful Thing’, which reworks its source material in a similar way.
The end result is actually pretty cool (how cool depending how attached you are to the Animals version). Timmy’s vocal is excellent, and the arrangement is interesting.
After parting ways with Goldwax, Thomas would record one 45 for the Climax label in 1970, before finally hooking up with Glades and having a string of hits in the 70s.
I hope you dig the track, and I’ll see you all on Wednesday.
Keep the faith
Larry
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