Listen/Download – Righteous Brothers Band – Rat Race MP3

Greetings all.

I come to you in the middle of the week with an entry from the ancient tome, ‘The Weird World of Northern Soul’.

Truth be told, ‘Rat Race’ by the Righteous Brothers Band isn’t really weird at all, but it is a small window into the kind of unusual things that made their way into the Northern Soul canon back in the day.

While the Righteous Brothers made some groovy blue-eyed soul, and both side of this particular 45 are cool, ‘Rat Race’ isn’t exactly a textbook example of ‘soul’.

Originally composed by Elmer Bernstein for the 1960 Debbie Reynolds/Tony Curtis film of the same name, ‘Rat Race’ is a pounding instrumental that owes a tip of the hat to tunes like Henry Mancini’s theme from ‘Peter Gunn’.

Recorded in an earlier (slower) version by Sam Butera and the Witnesses, ‘Rat Race’ was redone by the Righteous Brothers Band in 1966 and in the next few years became a favorite of the UK soul scene.

‘Rat Race’ is one of those instrumentals that made its way into the canon by virtue of it’s unrelenting, four on the floor pace and the walls of brass.

Where Butera’s 1960 version is marked by growling, noir jazz saxophone, the Righteous Brothers Band arrangement (by Bill Baker, who arranged most of the RB’s records) has a slicker, uptown feel to it, and the pulsing beat locks into the Northern Soul “feel”.

While it certainly isn’t the weirdest, most incongruous instro to become a NS fave, it does illustrate the bridge between pop (or at least things not “purely” soul) and the Northern scene in that its importance is not in soulful roots, but more that it was really good to dance to.

It was so popular that it was repressed twice in 1970 and 1977 (in Ireland and the UK) as the flipside of ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling’.

I dig it a lot, and I hope you do, too.

See you on Friday.

Keep the faith

Larry

 

 

____________________________________________________________________________

 

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).

 

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

One Response to “The Righteous Brothers Band – Rat Race”

1. David says:

   July 2, 2018 at 9:11 am

   I came across Rat Race years ago on a compilation. It really is a groovy track and I had no idea that it had previously been done by Sam Butera. I always thought it must have been a track thrown in to give both Righteous Brothers a break when performing live, but I have no proof to back this up. Thanks for posting this information though.