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Life carries on for those left behind in a post pandemic world.
In a post-pandemic world where no one has been left untouched by grief, shortages are the norm, and a new authoritarian regime is forcing control over a society caught up in their own individual pains.
A soundtrack of classic soul brings to life the yearning for normality, where everyone carries their own personal stories of anguish in a changed world. Amidst all the torment, life goes on with a yearning hope for the future, for happiness, and for love.
Chapter 1
Nina Simone - To Love Somebody
To Love Somebody was only Nina Simone’s second hit in the UK, and deservedly so. A cover of a Bee Gees song, it was also the title track on her 1969 album, which opens with what is a rather dire version of Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne. To be fair, there are an infinite number of covers out there of pretty much the whole back catalogue of Cohen’s work, so it was inevitable that some star or other would completely miss the mark. With the exception of the title track, it pretty sums up the whole album though. Nina Simone is more than just her voice, she is musical emotion, a collective history channelled through one woman’s performance. Unfortunately, the record label didn’t always feel the same.
This may well offend diehard fans of all things Nina, but I’m really sorry, any disc containing a cover of Pete Seeger’s Turn Turn Turn has to be questionable. It also lists three Dylan covers, including a particularly uncomfortable version of The Times are a Changin’, featuring some especially unpleasant warbling vibrato.
So the point is, some of the tracks on the album are poor, and some are outstandingly bad (and that will upset the Simone-istas), but To Love Somebody is quite, quite beautiful, and much deserved of being Barry Gibb’s favourite song by the Bee Gees. In the meantime, if you want to listen to an album by Nina Simone in order to appreciate her utter brilliance, go with Little Girl Blue, or Baltimore, or Pastel Blues, or High Priestess of Soul, or one of the live albums, or compilations, just not To Love Somebody.
Chapter 3
Curtis Mayfield - Hard Times
In 1975 I was just a snotty-nosed kid running around in flared jeans and a very dodgy haircut, and I was entirely oblivious to Curtis Mayfield and the world he occupied. Yes, Bohemian Rhapsody was in the charts, along with Space Oddity, but it was also the time for the Bay City Rollers, Showaddywaddy, The Sweet, Mud, and Windsor Davies & Don Estelle. It was also the first year that Jim’ll Fix It appeared on our TVs, to join the Black and White Minstrel Show as mainstream weekend watching – at least we hadn’t yet heard of Jim Davidson at that point.
You don’t need to be interested in the politics of the time, or even care about them in any way whatsoever, in order to appreciate the wondrous genius of Curtis Mayfield. He was a remarkable songwriter, musician, and singer, who epitomises the coolest of the cool when it comes to funk and Soul from the ’70s. There is though, no getting away from the emotional rawness in his songs, particularly around civil rights and Black Pride. Hard Times is just that. Seven years after the death of Martin Luther King Jr, at a time when injustice was still the norm, Curtis Mayfield was lamenting the end of the movement that had provided such hope. His first hit People Get Ready, with the Impressions, had become King’s unofficial anthem, so it was personal on many levels.
Curtis Mayfield sang of pride in his blackness, hope for the future, and courage in the face of oppression. Hard Times isn’t just a fantastic song, it is a man’s fight against injustice and his desire for a better future. I wonder what that flares-wearing eight-year-old me would have made of it back then. I suspect I would have liked it, a lot.
Chapter 5
Irma Thomas - Take a Look
One of the most wonderful features of the twenty-first century is the ability to discover and then explore music you missed the first time around – or even music that completely predates your time on this planet. So, the journey goes like this, my kids nag me to watch Black Mirror on Netflix, so I do, and I enjoy it. One of the tracks used is one I don’t recognise, so I Shazam it, and then bookmark it, and then many days later I return to it, and through the joys of Spotify, I get to hear pretty much everything Irma Thomas ever recorded. And there is no doubting it, music from the ’50s and ’60s, in fact pretty much any time in our history, is more accessible now than it has ever been, even more accessible than it was it when it first came out over half a century ago. Just how glorious is that?
So to Irma Thomas. Born in 1941 in New Orleans, by the age of 18 she had released her first single which reached number 22 in the US Billboard R & B chart. What makes this remarkable is that by the age of 19 she had already had two marriages and four children. On any and every level it wasn’t exactly an easy time to be black in the southern states of the US, double that, in fact quadruple it for a young black woman trying to make it in the music industry, particularly a second time married black woman with four children. Now, she may never have achieved the same star status as Aretha Franklin, Etta James, or Gladys Knight, but what a woman – and she is still performing and recording today, aged 79.
There are some wonderfully evocative tracks in her back catalogue. They conjure images of timid slow dances at the school hop, drive-in movies, and first dates at the local diner. Reality was clearly and profoundly different from this romanticised image of the era, as illustrated by Irma Thomas’ early life itself, but her music carries longing, passion, and nostalgic romance. Take a Look is all of these things, it is a wonderful track. I’m glad it never passed me by.
Chapter 7
Timmy Thomas - Why Can’t We Live Together
Have you ever been on holiday, enjoying the cool of the evening over a cold beer or a glass of wine, with perhaps some nibbly nuts and olives that taste oh so much better than the ones you get back home, and everyone’s chilling to the soft murmur of contented conversation and the sites of your fellow sunburnt holidaymakers wandering by, when the entertainment comes on and kills it all in one synthesised note? You know the one, where one middle-aged man, trying far too hard and getting paid too little, revels in the clapping joy of the leather-faced couple currently smashing their way through their fourth round of drinks in the last hour. The tunes emanating from his lonely keyboard, which he brings to lacklustre life with the repetitive tapping of a single finger, are all ones you know, but it takes you a few moments to recognise them past the synthetic drums, keyboard, and horn section. And then the piercing pain of the singing starts…
Back to the here and now, having known and loved Sade’s version of Why Can’t We Live Together, I was exceptionally pleased to come across the original recording by Timmy Thomas, it is a remarkable stripped-down production recorded in mono, with fantastic percussion, organ and lyrics. I should have heeded the warning in his name though, let’s be honest, Timmy Thomas was never going to make it big with a name like that.
The way it works, you hear a new song that grabs you, discover it’s by a singer you’d never heard of, and thanks to all the benefits of living in the twenty-first century you can bookmark it, and then go back and explore the whole of their back catalogue in your own time. Well, in the case of Timmy Thomas, don’t do it, trust me.
I haven’t actually had a physical confrontation with anyone in almost thirty years, and that was an act of pure self-defence, but the arrival of a third rate entertainer in that chilled out beach bar is every true music lover’s nightmare, and enough to send the most mild-mannered of us on a frenzied violent rampage. Five minutes of Timmy’s back catalogue will bring all those moments back. Just don’t go there. Enjoy this track, stop there, and go no further. I have, so you don’t have to. Just don’t do it. Trust me.
Chapter 10
Aaron Neville - How Could I Help But Love You
It was the Neville Brothers’ 1989 album Yellow Moon that first brought them to my attention. I remember, in 1990, camping with a couple of friends just outside St Malo in northern France, and it was pretty much all we listened to. With the vocals of both Neville and Aaron, along with their two other brothers Charles and Cyril, it was, and still is, a brilliant album. Having said that, the majority of their work is simply not up to the same standard. Too much of it is over-produced in an attempt to appeal to the mainstream, but still, there are some absolute nuggets.
It is similar with Aaron Neville’s solo career. Born in 1941 in New Orleans he started taking his music seriously after spending six months in prison for stealing a car in 1958. How Could I Help But Love You was released in 1961 and is one of those hidden pieces of gold. A song very much of its time it has a particular feeling of nostalgia, and as a consequence, I always expect to hear its appearance in a Martin Scorsese film.
He has dabbled in some mainstream sounds, tampered with some classics best left alone, and even encroached in to Country music at times. Still performing and recording today, he is a bit of a legend, and not everything he has done is worth wasting your ears on, but it is worth wading through for the many hidden wonders to be enjoyed.
Chapter 13
Stevie Wonder - Heaven Help Us All
There’s little to be said about Stevie Wonder that hasn’t already been said, singer, songwriter, musician and producer, he is a prodigious talent. In a career that spans almost sixty years, I don’t think you need to like everything he’s ever done. For example, I cringe with an outward showing sign of fear whenever the synthesised opening bars of I Just Called To Say I Love You starts, and it is not the only Stevie Wonder song that leads to that reaction. But there are more tracks of absolute wonder than there are of cringe. If Paul McCartney can come out with a song performed with a chorus of frogs, I think we can forgive Stevie Wonder for some of his less-appealing tracks (or more appealing if their global success is anything to go by).
I like it that Stevie Wonder’s Wikipedia page separates his 70’s and 80’s eras of music in to his Seventies albums and classic period, as against the eighties as his commercial period, it pretty much sums it up. There is a serious treasure trove of music to be explored in this earlier period, something I didn’t do until quite late in life, due to my formative music years being in the aforementioned commercial period.
Heaven Help Us All was on the Signed, Sealed & Delivered album which came out in 1970, a great way to start a new decade. It’s a song with a big production, big sound, and a big message. A song with clear Gospel influences, it’s not shy in appealing to the power above and can get the best of us dancing with joy.
Chapter 16
Sergio Mendes & Brasil ‘66 - For What it’s Worth
Chapter 19
Al Green - How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?
Chapter 22
The Stylistics - You’re a Big Girl Now
The question over what makes a guilty pleasure is around what is clearly not good music, but you like it anyway. I’m really not sure if the Stylistics fall in to this or not.
Formed in Philadelphia in 1970, You’re a Big Girl Now was their first release, making it to number seven in the US Billboard R & B chart. It marked a period of just over three years where they produced some quite brilliant music, including I’m Stone In Love With You and You Make Me Feel Brand New. And then in 1974, they fell out with Thom Bell their producer, and things all went a bit awry. And I think it is this later period, where their popularity grew in Europe but declined in the US, where they moved to a distinctly 1970’s commercial style, that marks them out as a group with rather questionable credentials. If we split the two eras, and actually pretend the post ’74 era never existed, then we have a highly talented vocal group, liking which holds no shame. If you focus on the latter part of their back catalogue then there is much guilt and little pleasure to be had.
You’re a Big Girl Now contains some glorious backing harmonies, and a fantastic frontman swooping a range that would challenge the best of singers. It’s certainly not overproduced and reflects some of the best work produced by vocal groups during that time. It has the slight addition of a little cheese, but if you don’t take it too seriously, it really is a great song.
Having said all of that, I still have a guilty secret, one I share with my wife, and now I share with you. On a long car journey, particularly on a sunny day, we take huge pleasure in listening to the Stylistics, the volume on high. And we sing, very loudly, slaughtering all of those high notes. Try it, you won’t regret it, and you might even enjoy it.
Chapter 25
Terry Callier - It’s About Time
Chapter 28
Timi Yuro - Hurt
Timi Yuro’s Hurt packs more haunting soulful torment in to two and a half minutes than pretty much any other song I’ve ever heard. It opens with a powerful solo blast of her pain before retreating to a gentler more subtle reflection of tender distress, underlined by the ticking rhythm, strings and angelic backing singers. Oh, I know it turns all cheesetastic with the central chatty interlude, but it doesn’t last that long, and after an introduction like that she could have stopped in the middle, cleared her throat, filled a spittoon, emptied it on to the heads of the resisting backing singers, and then carried on as if nothing had happened, and it would still be a brilliant song.
As far as the rest of her work goes, there are dribs and drabs of magic, but you can see how she gained a reputation in the States as a Caberet artist. Okay, so Elvis was a big fan, and Morrissey did a cover of Interlude with Siouxsie Sioux, and It’ll Never Be Over For Me was a hit on the Northern Soul scene, but honestly, she never manages to recreate the pure magic of those opening seventy-seven seconds of Hurt.
I don’t think I’ll ever be invited to write anyone’s eulogy.
Chapter 31
Peggy Lee - Black Coffee
With a song like Black Coffee there are always other versions that someone prefers. From Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, The Pointer Sisters, Sinead O’Connor, or even Nana Mouskouri, there are too many versions of the song to even start listing. For me, it comes down to the two earliest versions, the original, by Sarah Vaughan, or Peggy Lee’s recording made four years later. I think the natural soul that pervades every aspect of Sarah Vaughan’s voice gives her a head start, but the bluesy jazz instrumentation on Peggy Lee’s version swings it, pipping her to the top spot – although both tracks are pushed hard by the 1996 recording by Tricky, featuring Martina Topley-Bird.
Peggy Lee was a 50’s American icon, which is unquestionable, given the fact that she even had an acting part in Disney’s Lady and the Tramp. I’m really not enamoured by the Big Band sound of that time but there is no getting away from the fact that it was still a golden period for jazz vocals. Peggy Lee’s velvety voice, offset by the bluesy melody and jazzy instrumentation is quite simply gorgeous. From the very outset, Pete Candoli’s smoky trumpet weaves a sensuous contrast to Lee’s vocals, underpinned by the steadying bassline and piano. It’s hard not to picture the dark romance of a fifties bar clouded in new-found decadence, and choking second-hand tobacco smoke.
Epilogue
The Cinematic Orchestra - To Build a Home
This is not soul music, Blues or Jazz, but it was the perfect song to close Eden’s Wake.
In one track, The Cinematic Orchestra’s pedigree in fusing jazz and electronica, in orchestrating the subtle instrumentation to a rolling crescendo, coalesced with the haunting beauty of Patrick Watson’s ethereal vocals. Underpinned by Watson’s beguiling piano playing, and sustained by understated strings, it is a gracefully emotive piece of music that evocates images of lost landscapes where emotions are cast adrift, and futures are uncertain.
And so it all ends at the bow of a boat, the solidity of land lost to the past, the open water ahead. No return, only a wide empty landscape and a new unknown destination. And then there is the shedding of a tear of untold emotions.
Extra tracks that didn’t quite make it
(or rather, they never made it through the numerous rewrites and edits)
Chapter 19
Diana Ross & The Supremes - Reflections
There is no doubting the talent and business sense of Motown’s top man Berry Gordy, but he seriously managed to upset a lot of people on the way. Whether it was destroying all but two of the copies of Frank Wilson’s Do I Love You (Indeed I Do), or trying to stop Marvin Gaye releasing What’s Going On, he didn’t always get it right. In relation to the Supremes, after a couple of years of working their little cotton socks off, they finally got their first big hit with Baby Love, leading to a number of years of great success, now with the focus on Diana Ross as the lead singer. Then in 1967 Gordy renamed the act the Supremes with Diana Ross, before settling on Diana Ross & The Supremes, all of which caused much upset within the group. Following this, there was a split as Florence Ballard was replaced with Cindy Birdsong, but with the release of Reflections, and a change in sound, the band managed to stay together for a couple more years, until Diana Ross finally went her own way in 1970.
The early music of The Supremes projected a more glamorous image and they were well and truly entrenched at the heart of Motown’s stable of artists. From girl group glamour, the 1967 release of Reflections saw a change in sound that helped carry Motown forward in to the latter part of ’60s. At the height of the Vietnam war, and in the so-called summer of love, Motown’s main production team, Holland, Dozier and Holland, took inspiration from the psychedelic sounds of the time, particularly The Beatles and The Beach Boys, resulting in Reflections.
It’s a great song, with a definite feel from the time. The electronic effects, combined with the wall of sound copied from the Beach Boys, along with the harmonies of the three singers led by Diana Ross, results in what can be considered one of the best pop songs of all time.
Three stories becoming one