THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
Some great artists have recorded this Isaac Hayes/David Porter classic, including Johnnie Taylor (who did it first) (see #191, 390, 979), Sam & Dave (see #844) and Sharon Tandy (see #371, 441-42, 741, 1,485), but only Wilson Pickett (see #1,397) and Al Kooper (see #642, 705, 765, 804, 1,447) (“Al may be white, but he’s got soul!” (Bob Lefsetz, https://www.rhino.com/article/bob-lefsetz-welcome-to-my-world-al-kooper-primer)) gave it a toe hold to immortality. Oh, and by the way, that is Duane Allman on guitar with Pickett, inventing Southern Rock.
1,903) Wilson Pickett
The Wicked Pickett gives us a “stand-out gem[]” (Bryan Kluger, https://boomstickcomics.com/classic-waxxx-wilson-pickett-hey-jude/) that is a “[k]iller, funky, rocky soul belter[]” (Sounds of the Universe, https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/sjr/product/wilson-pickett-born-to-be-wild-toe-hold), “funky, hard-driving . . . with a powerful rhythm section and [a] fierce vocal performance. . . . showcasing the raw, upbeat side of Pickett’s sound.” (Round Flat Records, https://www.roundflat.com/shop/vinyl-records/wilson-pickett-hey-jude-180-gram-vinyl-record/?srsltid=AfmBOooF6d3sFAwUL3uitBwP1v0BBu_XUgN4M54sL1KVpziRKthcSLFH) “This song needs to be in a Quentin Tarantino soundtrack yesterday!” (larryschemeliajr.6590, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyHWGgvSzQY)
Mark Deming tells us about Pickett’s Hey Jude LP:
Wilson Pickett and the Muscle Shoals session crew with whom he cut most of his best work thankfully had the good sense to not try to go psychedelic when the pop charts went all day-glo in the late 1960’s, but that’s not to say they didn’t make an effort to change with the times. On Hey Jude, Pickett and producer Rick Hall decided to throw a couple of recent rock covers into the mix, and while Pickett’s version of “Hey Jude” suggests that he isn’t entirely sure what it is he’s singing about, he still belts it out with his typical level of commitment and builds up to a proper fury at the end; he sounds more comfortable with the neo-biker bombast of “Born To Be Wild”, a combination of artist and material that works far better than anyone would have a right to expect. But the most notable change in Pickett’s approach for this album was the addition of Duane Allman on guitar; his wirey, blues-accented leads don’t overpower the album, but they add a noticeably harder texture to the sound, and that seems to suit Pickett, one of the toughest soul shouters of his time, just fine. Most of the Hey Jude is dominated by hard Southern soul numbers like “A Man and a Half” and “Toe Hold”, and Pickett, one of the most dependable performers on the 1960’s soul scene, gives a typically con brio performance on all ten tracks, and the sharp report of the horn section and Allman’s blistering guitar makes for music just as potent as the wail of the lead singer, which is not an accomplishment to be sneered at.
Michael Little adds:
[T]he title cut is one of the most phenomenal songs ever recorded, and is in fact so great I would probably give this album an A even if every other song on it was a jingle for a cereal commercial. Pickett, whom I consider the best screamer in the history of soul and R&B, if not rock too, lays into “Hey Jude” like somebody just chopped his foot off with a hatchet, while the horn section kicks ass and Duane Allman, who was just beginning his career as a session musician, tears off one of the most brilliant and in-your-face guitar solos you’ll ever hear. . . . Fortunately Pickett fills out the album with a bunch of other songs that, while they can’t (what could?) compare with “Hey Jude,” are excellent in their own right. His voice is a miracle, his screams make Joe Cocker sound like a pee wee leaguer, and in short he turns in a whole slew of superb performances, demonstrating his mastery of phrasing and the wild scream even on those songs . . . that don’t quite measure up to the rest of the songs on the album. Putting Pickett, Allman, the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section . . . and some great horn players together in the studio was a stroke of genius on Atlantic Records honcho Jerry Wexler’s part, and it paid off in a royal flush as the bunch of ‘em simply could not fail to turn an okay song into a great one. . . . Need I add that the horn section (Gene Miller and Jack Peck on trumpets, Joe Arnold and Aaron Varnell on tenor saxophones, and James Mitchell on baritone saxophone) all help to elevate these songs to a fever pitch? As do Barry Beckett on keyboards and piano and Marvell Thomas . . . on organ. As for Allman, it was these recordings that led Eric Clapton to look him up for a place in Derek and the Dominos, and while the fact that three guitarists played on the LP makes it difficult to know when he’s playing, I’m relatively certain that’s him tossing off short but brilliant bursts of pure cool on the revved up “Born to Be Wild,” as well as on the raucous “My Own Style of Loving” and the funky “Toe Hold[” (though Little inexplicably thinks it’s one of the lesser songs on the LP)] on both of which he shadows every Pickett utterance with a short, sharp, machine gun burst of notes. . . . Muscle Shoals guitarist Jimmy Johnson later stated that these sessions marked the creation of southern rock, which leads me to believe he was around to record the whole album. But it’s Pickett who owns this LP, thanks to his miraculous voice; it’s the purest expression of soul and R&B this side of Otis Redding [see #1,333, 1,385], with lots of great screams thrown in. As I said before, his perfect delivery and flights into screaming ecstasy make him as convincing and expressive a singer as any one who has ever opened his mouth. He can go from lady-killer to repentant lover in a heartbeat . . . . Listen to . . . the stutter-scat of the hard-hitting “Toe Hold,” and you’ll realize you’re in the proximity of a true master.
https://www.thevinyldistrict.com/storefront/graded-on-a-curve-wilson-pickett-hey-jude-2/
1,904) Al Kooper — “Toe Hold”
Kooper “hits a memorably funky groove” (Ian McFarlane, liner notes to the CD reissue of I Stand Alone and You Never Know Who You Friends Are) here. Natan Gesher complains that it “had an excessive use of horns, which were quite distracting”. (Natan Gesher, https://colossalreviews.com/music/i-stand-alone-by-al-kooper-vinyl-record-album-review/) WTF? More horns!
Bruce Eder goes into paroxysms of ecstasy over Al Kooper’s first solo album, I Stand Alone:
Al Kooper’s first solo album is a dazzling, almost overpoweringly beautiful body of music, and nearly as sly at times in its humor as it is impressive in its musical sensibilities — specifically, the overture serves its function, and also pokes knowing, savagely piercing fun at the then-current vogue for sound collage-type pieces (most especially the Beatles’ “Revolution #9”). Those looking for a reference point can think of I Stand Alone as a [very] close[] relative to [Blood, Sweat & Tears’] Child Is Father to the Man [see #765], drawing on a few remnants from the tail end of his tenure with the group and a bunch of new songs and compositions by others that Kooper wanted to record — one beautiful element of his career, that helped distinguish him from a lot of other talented people of the period, is that unlike a lot of other musicians who were gifted songwriters Kooper never shied away from a good song written by someone else . . . ; and he jumps in headfirst, as a stylist, singer, and musician, all over I Stand Alone. Stylistically, it’s a gloriously bold work, encompassing radiant soul, elements of jazz going back to the swing era, classical, pop, and even rockabilly — and freely (and masterfully) mixing all of them — into a phantasmagoric whole. . . . [F]or all of its diversity of sound and its free ranging repertory, and the unexpected edits and tempo changes, the album all holds together as a coherent body of work . . . that still leaves one kind of “whited out” . . . at the end — not even Sgt. Pepper does that anymore. On the down side, the sound effects that Kooper dubbed in between (and sometimes during) the songs may seem strangely distracting today, but they were a product of their time — this was the tail end of the psychedelic era, after all . . . though it’s hard to imagine too many people in the business keeping a straight face about such production techniques after hearing the fun this album has at their expense.
G.S. questions some of Eder’s rhetorical flights:
Bruce Eder even had to write a glowing review in which he drew comparisons with Sgt. Pepper, implying that I Stand Alone was actually the better album. It didn’t help, I think. A few people just bought the record expecting another Sgt. Pepper, and came away disappointed. . . . Eder [also] put forward the idea that the whole sound effect thing was effectively one large gag, a sort of parody on the abuse of sonic collages — he may have had some firsthand information on this, but it certainly does not come across that way from the music; this is not a Zappa [see #793] album, and parody and humor do not tie in all that much with Kooper’s image of a romantic idealist. They just come across as a bad distraction, an inevitable, perhaps, curse of the time, but something that you have to forgive the record for before giving it the deserved thumbs up.
https://only-solitaire.blogspot.com/2011/03/al-kooper-i-stand-alone.html
Anyway, Jason adds:
I Stand Alone is one of those records that’s inventive in a post Sgt. Pepper way, ambitious in its wide array of styles, experimental within a pop context and bound to confuse at least a few listeners. It’s amazing that Kooper’s solo work and the first Blood, Sweat and Tears record have never been reassessed for the great records they are. I Stand Alone is a strong listen all the way through, divided evenly between originals and well chosen covers. . . . it’s an excellent, elaborate production though and proof that strings and horns can work well in the rock n roll format. Other tracks see Kooper cover classics by Sam & Dave (Toe Hold) . . . . All the covers are great and Kooper gives his own individual stamp on each song but of course it’s the originals that grab your attention. . . . This is an undeniably great album . . . .
G.S. again:
Poorly promoted and scantily reviewed, I Stand Alone did not make Al a solo star in his own right . . . . The general idea is . . . [e]clecticism as a goal in itself, a musical celebration of life’s various sides on the part of an innocent, but creative bystander. A humble bystander, too . . . so there is no problem about mixing his originals with lots of covers (something you could easily be publicly castigated for in 1968 if you were aspiring to Art with a capital A, and which may actually explain some of the disinterest in the record). Both the covers and the originals are consistently swell, though. It is true that the covers add little to the impact already done by the original: there are no really drastic reinventions . . . . [T]he whole thing was recorded in Nashville[. . . .] possibly the least likely album to be recorded in Nashville that year, yet it still happened — Kooper must have stolen Roger McGuinn’s passport or something to dupe these guys . . . . [T]rue fans of the Koop will most likely treasure the record for a few jazz-rock and art-pop numbers that Al must have salvaged from the wrecks of the first lineup of BS&T. . . . So, any flaws? One — alas, a big one . . . . In order to ensure Conceptual Coherence, Al thought it necessary to provide all the songs with large bunches of meaningless sound effects. Sirens, explosions, laughter, shrieks of horror, crowd noises, animal noises — by 1968, everybody already knew that you could insert some dog barking into any song of your choice without being evicted from the Songwriters’ Guild, so the novel effect was no longer in action, and still the man plowed on. Sometimes these nasties creep up at the wrongest moment . . . and sometimes they just f*ck the song up . . . . In all other respects, I Stand Alone still stands alone as a unique singer-songwriter-art-pop-philosopher effort — I can think of no other album from 1968-69 with this particular kind of eclectic, yet highly individual sound.
https://only-solitaire.blogspot.com/2011/03/al-kooper-i-stand-alone.html
Al Kooper should have long ago been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Bruce Eder says that Kooper “by rights, should be regarded as one of the giants of ’60s rock, not far behind the likes of Bob Dylan and Paul Simon in importance.” (Bruce Eder, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/al-kooper-mn0000509524) Yup.
He should also have been inducted into the Chutzpah Hall of Fame. As the famous story goes, he bluffed his way into a Bob Dylan recording session. They took up Like a Rolling Stone, and as Richard Havers describes it:
“I’ve got a great organ part for the song,” [Kooper] told . . . producer [Tom Wilson]. “Al, . . you don’t even play the organ.” Before Kooper could argue his case, Wilson was distracted and so the twenty-one-year-old, “former guitar player,” simply walked into the studio and sat down at the B3. . . . During a playback of tracks in the control room, when asked about the organ track, Dylan was emphatic: “Turn the organ up!”
Yes, that instantly recognizable organ riff!
Eder continues:
[H]e was a very audible sessionman on some of the most important records of mid-decade . . . . Kooper also joined and led, and then lost two major groups, the Blues Project [see #1,411, 1,709] and Blood, Sweat & Tears. He played on two classic blues-rock albums in conjunction with his friend Mike Bloomfield. As a producer at Columbia, he signed the British invasion act the Zombies [see #1,138] just in time for them to complete the best LP in their entire history; and still later, Kooper discovered Lynyrd Skynyrd and produced their best work.
Here are Sam & Dave:
Here is Johnnie Taylor:
Here is Sharon Tandy:
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