Young Holt Trio/Young Holt Unlimited — “Ain’t There Something Money Can’t Buy”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — March 2, 2024

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,132) Young Holt Trio/Young Holt Unlimited — “Ain’t There Something Money Can’t Buy”

Talk about a soulful strut, this ’67 B-side by the Young Holt Trio/’68 album track by Young Holt Unlimited is “Mod Jazz touched with ‘a little a bit of Soul’ from 1967” (NaturalSoulBrother1, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJZyo2FOkrw), a “[g]reat song! Gosh they are nailing it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” (timturbine6895, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCsRN3VgWfQ) Drummer Isaac “Redd” Holt totally transformed an easy listening instrumental by Si Zentner into a rollicking soul-jazz party with cool lyrics to boot, of course recorded live.

As to Young Holt, Steve Huey tells us that:

Bassist Eldee Young and drummer Isaac “Red[d]” Holt attended the American Conversatory of Music in Chicago together, and played together in a dance orchestra called the Cleffs, where they met pianist Ramsey Lewis and formed a popular jazz trio in 1956. After a decade as Lewis’ rhythm section, Young and Holt split to form their own act in the wake of the trio’s breakout pop hit “The ‘In’ Crowd.” Hiring pianist Hysear Don Walker and christening themselves the Young-Holt Trio, they scored a quick Top 20 R&B hit with the infectious and silly “Wack Wack.” Most of their material, recorded on several LPs for Brunswick, cut an invigorating soul-jazz groove . . . . In 1968, Walker was replaced by Ken Chaney as Young and Holt tightened up their sound, added some funky rhythms, and renamed the group Young-Holt Unlimited. They scored a left-field smash with the instrumental “Soulful Strut,” which was actually the backing track from Brunswick soul singer Barbara Acklin’s “Am I the Same Girl.” Although the actual Young-Holt group was rumored not to have even played on the track, it went all the way to number three in 1969, driven by a bright, indelible horn riff. Attempts to duplicate its success met with indifference, and although Young-Holt Unlimited remained a popular concert attraction on both the R&B and jazz circuits . . . their recording career was on the wane. They . . . disbanded in 1974.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/young-holt-unlimited-mn0000590524#biography

https://secondhandsongs.com/performance/299617/all

Steve Krakow in the Chicago Reader*:

Eldee Devon Young was born in Chicago . . . . [and] learned guitar from a brother at age ten, but he switched to upright bass at 13 and promptly began gigging professionally. He played an after-hours club on Sunday nights from 2:30 AM till dawn, then came home for breakfast and left for school.  Isaac “Redd” Holt was born on May 16, 1932, in Rosedale, Mississippi, and raised in the Windy City. He started on the drums while . . . . in high school[, when] he met Holt and pianist Ramsey Lewis . . . . Young . . . . played with Holt and Lewis in hard-gigging, play-the-favorites jazz band the Cleffs until after his graduation in 1953—in fact it was Holt who broke up the group when he joined the army after college in 1955 . . . . He hopped from band to band for years, touring the south with blues artists such as T-Bone Walker and Big Joe Turner, but he eventually tired of the road grind and returned to Chicago to play jazz again. . . . [I]n the fateful year of 1956 [Holt, Young, and Lewis] debuted as the . . . Ramsey Lewis Trio. . . . [who] released more than 20 LPs over the next decade, but . . . [didn’t] have their first smash [until] . . . “The ‘In’ Crowd,” . . . hit[ting] number five . . . . The pressures of fame may have caused internal friction that pushed [Young and Holt] to leave . . . . In 1966 they formed the Young Holt Trio with pianist Hysear Don Walker, though they would only make one LP under that name: Wack Wack . . . . The title track reached number 40 . . . but when Walker left, that ended the trio. . . . [A]fter adding groovy electric organist Ken Chaney, they christened themselves Young-Holt Unlimited. . . . They hit big with . . . the 1968 release Soulful Strut. . . . selling more than a million copies, and climbed to number three . . . . Young-Holt Unlimited couldn’t match that success with their subsequent albums. . . . But in 1973 they dropped an LP that’s since come to be considered a minor classic.  Plays Super Fly . . . .

https://chicagoreader.com/music/young-holt-unlimited-were-more-than-ramsey-lewiss-rhythm-section

Michael Jack Kirby:

An all-around percussionist, [Redd Holt] frequently made use of tambourines, triangles and even his hands and fingers if that’s what it took to get the sound he wanted. Eldee Young similarly avoided confining himself; starting as a guitarist, then making the bass his main instrument, he later mastered the cello. Throughout the late ’50s and into the next decade, the Lewis Trio gradually gained a loyal following, rising to the top after incorporating established soul tunes into their act, a move many jazz critics found objectionable. . . . [A]fter leaving . . . . Eldee and Red purposely constructed The Young Holt Trio under the same kind of setup they were comfortable with.  Hysear Don Walker, an impressive piano man from nearby Evanston, Illinois, was essentially hired to take the Ramsey Lewis role . . . . They were picked up by Brunswick Records and placed in the hands of Carl Davis, the highly successful Chicago producer . . . . The first single, “Wack Wack,” an infectious instrumental with the title squawk repeated several times, hit radio in late 1966 and reached the R&B top 20 and pop top 40 in January ’67. . . . The only thing is, there hadn’t been a hit since they’d “Wack”-ed. Walker left the trio around this time to do his own solo thing . . . .  Barbara Acklin . . . was in the process of recording “Am I the Same Girl[.]” Davis felt the completed backing track, a big brass number by the Brunswick session band, could be a hit strictly as an instrumental.  Floyd Morris played piano where Barbara’s vocals would go; Young and Holt were nowhere near the studio. The track was titled “Soulful Strut” . . . .

https://www.waybackattack.com/youngholt.html

* Steve has a great ongoing series of columns in the Reader about unsung Chicagoland musicians.

Live ‘67:

Here is Si Zentner:

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