THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
2,153) Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & Trinity — “Tramp”
The high priestess of Swinging London takes on “Tramp” and makes it her own; no easy feat following in the footsteps of Lowell Fulsom, Carla Thomas and Otis Redding!
Fulsom trotted out “Tramp” in December ’66 and reached #52 (#5 R&B), followed by Carla Thomas (see #432, 1,372) and Otis Redding (see #1,333, 1,385) in ’67 with their classic duo version that reached #26 (#2 R&B). Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & Trinity (see #1,031-33, 1,312, 2,021 (without Driscoll)) released their delightful tie-dyed version later in ’67.
Matthew Greenwald writes about “Tramp”:
“Tramp” was one of the most definitive Stax records of its era. Being huge fans of the Memphis sound, this was a perfect cover for Julie Driscoll/Brian Auger & the Trinity. However, the band reworks the fury of the original into a delicious bossa nova meltdown, with a great vocal tradeoff between Auger and Driscoll. For good measure and a sense of humor, Auger throws in the riff from the Bar-Kay’s [see #416, 670] late-1967 hit “Soul Finger.”
Certif1ed adds:
[A] heavy version of “Tramp”, [which was] originally written but never recorded by Jimmy McCracklin. Instead, Lowell Fulson had a hit with this piece that is well worth checking out, and later, Otis Redding and Carla Thomas ripped the soul out of it with Booker T and the MGs, providing what has proven to be a very samplable backing. Auger and the band more than do the piece justice, though, fusing rock, soul and jazz into a delightful proto-prog edifice – and here we hear Driscoll for the first time, attempting a kind of Janis Joplin meets Grace Slick style vocal – quite successfully. The only thing that lets this cover down really is the horn section, which is rather stilted – the Sly and the Family Stone version of this section works a lot better.
Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity define Swinging London for me. “Sadly short-lived, but the combination of Driscoll’s vocals and sex appeal and Auger’s musicanship was stunning for a while.” (Vernon Joynson, The Tapestry of Delights Revisited)
“Auger is one of the truly great Hammond slingers to come out of the UK in the 60s . . . . [He] wasn’t any run-of-the-mill organ grinder hammering out blues riffs with his elbows either. His roots were in jazz and he had the chops to bring the heat. . . . [JDBAT] created a grip of enduring dance floor classics, melding jazz, R&B, beat and psychedelia”. (Larry, https://funky16corners.com/?p=2674)
“‘Jools’ was as much a sixties icon as Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy [see #1,789] but she neither sought nor enjoyed the attention.” (Duncan Heining, https://www.allaboutjazz.com/julie-tippetts-didnt-you-used-to-be-julie-driscoll-julie-tippetts-by-duncan-heining) As Cathi Unsworth describes her:
For a brief moment in time, ‘Jools’ became ‘The Face’ of Swinging London. And what a face — huge eyes with dark shadow and long, long lashes dominated the heart-shaped, pale-lipped visage of this arresting beauty. Needing no unnecessary adornment, she wore her hair close-cropped and moved with a spider’s shadowy grace under layers of chiffon and feather boa. Her deep voice was just as captivating and the detached way she deployed her vocals added to the mystique.
Season of the Witch: The Book of Goth
Jason Ankeny tells us:
As a teen [she] oversaw the Yardbirds’ fan club, and it was the group’s manager and producer Giorgio Gomelsky who encouraged her to begin a performing career of her own. In 1963 she issued her debut pop single “Take Me by the Hand,” two years later joining the short-lived R&B combo Steampocket alongside Rod Stewart . . . John Baldry and organist Brian Auger. After [it] dissolved, Driscoll signed on with the Brian Auger Trinity, scoring a Top Five UK hit in 1968 with their rendition of Bob Dylan’s “This Wheel’s on Fire.” Dubbed “The Face” by the British music press, Driscoll’s striking looks and coolly sophisticated vocals earned her flavor of the month status, and she soon left Auger for a solo career. Her debut solo album 1969 heralded a significant shift away from pop, however, enlisting members of the Soft Machine and Blossom Toes [see #709, 1,115] to pursue a progressive jazz direction. Also contributing to the record was pianist Keith Tippett, whose avant garde ensembles Centipede and Ovary Lodge Driscoll soon joined. She and Tippert were later married, and she took her new husband’s name, also recording as Julie Tippetts. With her 1974 solo masterpiece Sunset Glow, she further explored improvisational vocal techniques in settings ranging from folk to free jazz. Two years later, [she] joined with Maggie Nicols, Phil Minton and Brian Ely to form the experimental vocal quartet Voice . . . .
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/julie-driscoll-mn0000261098#biography
As to the breakup with Brian Auger & Trinity, Driscoll explains:
I suppose, I had a lot to get off my chest really[. ] But as we were doing a lot of travelling, I would have my guitar with me. I bought myself a Martin in New York, which I still have and which I love, and I started writing a lot of material[.] I was always searching for my identity. I think it was almost inevitable that the songs I was writing—because they were based on the guitar —would take on a different life. I suppose with hindsight, I was pulling in another direction. But I have to make this clear, it was not because I didn’t love the work I was doing with Brian Auger and the Trinity. I loved it and I would love it to this day. Brian had found what he wanted to do and he perfected that. Whereas, I really needed to find something else.
As to Brian Auger, William Ruhlmann tells us:
[H]is swinging, jazzy keyboards remained at the fringes of British rock through the 1960s. His roots were in R&B-inflected jazz . . . and he thrived during the late ’60s and into the 1970s by playing adventurous, progressive music . . . . [F]or decades, [Auger swung] between jazz, rock, and R&B . . . . [He] was raised in London, where he took up the keyboards as a child and began to hear jazz by way of the American Armed Forces Network and an older brother’s record collection. By his teens, he was playing piano in clubs, and by 1962 he had formed the Brian Auger Trio . . . . [In] 1964, he won first place in the categories of “New Star” and “Jazz Piano” in a reader’s poll in the Melody Maker music paper, but the same year he abandoned jazz for a more R&B-oriented approach and expanded his group . . . as the Brian Auger Trinity. This group split up at the end of 1964, and Auger moved over to Hammond B-3 organ . . . . By mid-1965, Auger’s band had grown to include guitarist Vic Briggs and vocalists Long John Baldry, Rod Stewart, and Julie Driscoll, and was renamed Steampacket. More a loosely organized musical revue than a group, [it] lasted a year before Stewart and Baldry left and the band split. Auger retained Driscoll and brought in bass player Dave Ambrose and drummer Clive Thacker to form a unit that was billed as Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity. . . . Open, was released in 1967 on Marmalade Records (owned by Auger’s manager, Giorgio Gomelsky), but they didn’t attract attention on record until the release of their single “This Wheel’s on Fire,” (music and lyrics by Bob Dylan and Rick Danko) in the spring of 1968 . . . . The disc hit the Top Five in the U.K., after which Open belatedly reached the British charts. Auger & the Trinity recorded the instrumental album Definitely What! (1968) without Driscoll, then brought her back for the double LP Streetnoise (1968) . . . . Driscoll quit during a U.S. tour, but the Trinity stayed together long enough to record Befour (1970) . . . before disbanding in July 1970. Auger put together a new band to play less commercial jazz-rock and facetiously called it the Oblivion Express, since he didn’t think it would last; instead, it became his perennial band name. . . . Their initial LP, Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express, was released in 1971, followed later the same year by A Better Land, but their first U.S. chart LP was Second Wind in June 1972 . . . . Meanwhile, Auger had moved to the U.S. in 1975, eventually settling in the San Francisco Bay Area.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/brian-auger-mn0000625014#biography
Here they are live:
Here in music video form is a snippet of “Tramp” from France ’68:
Here are Carla and Otis:
Here is Lowell Fulsom:
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