The Tams – Trouble Maker
The Tams
Listen/Download The Tams – Trouble Maker
Greetings all
How about we cross the great divide here in the middle of the week with some tasty, uptempo southern soul?
The mighty Tams are one of those groups that I knew about long before I heard a note of their music.
It was only in the last five or six years that I started to pick up their records, around the same time that I began to dig into the Joe South (whose songs the Tams recorded) discography.
The song I bring you today is a great 1968 track that was released as a single, and also included on their 1969 LP ‘Portrait of the Tams’.
‘Trouble Maker’ was written, like many of the Tams’ biggest hits – like ‘What Kind of Fool’, ‘Hey Girl Don’t Bother Me’ and ‘Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy’ – by Ray Whitley.
Whitley was part of a group of Atlanta-area songwriters associated with publisher Bill Lowery, like the aforementioned South, and JR Cobb who had their songs taken into the charts by artists like the Tams, Billy Joe Royal, Tommy Roe and others.
Whitely wrote seven of the twelve songs on ‘Portrait of the Tams’, with one each by South,Cobb and Ralph Flynn, and a cover of ‘Hey Jude’.
‘Trouble Maker’ is a fast moving tune with great lead guitar (maybe Joe South?), a typically wonderful lead vocal by Joe Pope and a flashy horn section.
If you haven’t investigated the sounds of the Tams, you really ought to do so. They recorded a lot of amazing music during their career, and none of it is going to make you dig too deep into your wallet, so get to steppin’.
Sadly, Whitley fell into hard times later in his life, living for a time in a homeless shelter, before passing away in 2013.
I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll see you all on Friday.
Keep the faith
Larry
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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).
Themocracy
Take Away by them is one of my favorite songs ever.
A seriously underappreciated group.
Kris beat me to it….Shelter is a good one too:)
I love ‘Shelter’, there’s a great version by Joe South (who wrote it), too.