Drop whatever you’re doing tomorrow, and head over to the Stax Museum of American Soul Music for a gander at Ponderosa Stomp photographer Jacob Blickenstaff‘s brand new exhibit, “Still Life in Soul.”
If you’ve attended the Stomp in recent years, you’ve seen Blickenstaff at work. From performance shots to portraiture, he’s documented our mission in living color and in black-and-white. Now Blickenstaff has curated his favorite soul music shots — 40 in all — into a eye-catching, jaw-dropping exhibition that showcases the resurgence of American soul music. Lee Fields, Otis Clay, Barbara Lynn, the Mighty Hannibal, Barbara Lynn — they’re all there, alongside Stax artists Eddie Floyd, William Bell, Ben Cauley, and Skip Pitts.
The exhibition kicks off with an all-star opening party tomorrow night at 6 p.m. Be there or be square!
Whoa, WFMU’s Debbie D and company have gone bonkers over at the Rock ‘n’ Soul Ichiban site.
There are photos of Phil Spector, circa 1958, looking remarkably sedate. A picture of Tennessee Ernie Ford standing atop a pile of coal, advertising “Sixteen Tons.” A portrait of burlesque star Coco Barr brandishing a pair of pistols.
And, of course, there’s music galore: The Collins Kids, performing on the U.S. Air Force’s Country Music Time show. Big Star. Dexter Romweber. “The Patio Twist.” And an incredible live stream of “obscure ’50s and ’60s rock ‘n’ soul.” I’m listening to Huey Smith and the Clowns right now!
In other WFMU news, the Trashmen will be performing at the Record Fair, slated for Manhattan’s Metropolitan Pavilion on October 23rd, 24th and 25th!
Fifty-four years ago today, per Bumps Blackwell’s recommendation, Little Richard Penniman (seen above with Jet Harris, Gene Vincent and Sam Cooke) joined forces with Fats Domino’s band — which included the late Earl Palmer, drummer extraordinaire who performed at the 1st annual Ponderosa Stomp and served as Master of Ceremonies for Stomp #4 — at Cosimo Matassa’s J&M Recording Studio.
Their collective goal was to lay down tracks for Art Rupe’s Specialty label. As legend has it, nothing much happened, though, until the group broke for lunch. Then, in true recording studio mythology (see Elvis’ inaugural Sun session, or the story behind Isaac Hayes and David Porter’s “Hold On, I’m Comin’”), Little Richard sat down at the piano and began banging out a high voltage tune that he’d woodshedded in gay bars:
“Tutti Frutti, good booty
If it don’t fit, don’t force it
You can grease it, make it easy.”
Blackwell called in Dorothy LaBostrie to clean up the lyrics, and, after rolling tape for a record 15 minutes, one of the most iconic songs ever recorded in Orleans Parish was complete.
Mac Rebennack just happened to be standing outside J&M when the magic happened — and I got to quiz him about it 50 years later, for an article published in MOJO magazine:
“I was always hanging out there during Specialty sessions, trying to sell Art Rupe some songs. I remember telling my older sister, ‘This guy Little Richard is doing a session at the studio,’ and she replied, ‘Oh, I used to see him at Panama City.’ So Richard was already doing his thing as a solo act. He came out of those revues, where he had to really know his shit. Some people say he bummed his act from Esquerita, but to me, Eskew was more gospel sounding, and Richard was straight up hip. Sure, he sang kinda gospel but he played that ratty shit on the piano, with Earl Palmer following on the cymbals. His style was a revelation, a really good sound that could rock the house without fail.
Richard was a totally original cat – everything about him was off the hook. He was a little flamboyant, sure, but it went with that turf. Seeing him and Eskew hanging out wearing men’s suits, topped off with lipstick, that high hair, and women’s shades, would catch people off guard – they’d give them the once over two or three times, even though in New Orleans, we were used to the drag queen revues and traditions like that.
This is what made Richard special: As Fats Domino told me, ‘I couldn’t tell you what’s the difference between rock and roll and R&B.’ But Richard changed something in the New Orleans groove. Instead of a shuffle, he could play that eighth note thing on the piano, which set him apart from the rest of us. He used it from that first record on, and a lot of other people started using that shit. They still use it in rock and roll today.”
As Cosimo explained to writer Todd Mouton in the pages of Offbeat a while back, “If you transmit an emotion to the listener, it’s a good record. It’s gonna be a successful record. Now, having said that, how you measure it, I don’t know. How you predict it, I have not a clue. Because it happens, and everybody’s aware of it, you know, it’s fundamental. And yet totally evasive.”
Rebennack: “Back then, though, we didn’t really appreciate it. Everybody in New Orleans had so much to do, so many sessions to play on, that Tutti Frutti was just a little chunk of their lives. They didn’t have time to think much about it. I remember someone asking Red Tyler and Earl Palmer, ‘What do you remember about playing on it?’ and they both said, without batting an eye, ‘Very little.’”
Of course, like any million-selling single, there’s been an argument over the songwriting credits ever since.
LaBostrie, from Jeff Hannusch’s I Hear You Knocking: The Sound of New Orleans Rhythm and Blues:
“Little Richard didn’t write none ‘Tutti Fruitti.’ I’ll tell you exactly how I came to write that. I used to live on Galvez Street and my girlfriend and I liked to go down to the drug store and buy ice cream. One day we went in and saw this new flavor, Tutti Fruitti. Right away I thought, ‘Boy, that’s a great idea for a song.’ So I kept it in the back of my mind until I got to the studio that day. I also wrote the flip side of ‘Tutti Fruitti,’ ‘I’m Just a Lonely Guy,’ and a spiritual, ‘Blessed Mother,’ all in the same day.”
Blackwell, quoted in Charles White’s biography of Little Richard:
“I Knew that the lyrics were too lewd and suggestive to record. It would never have got played on air. So I got hold of Dorothy La Bostrie, who had come over to see how the recording of her song [I'm Just A Lonely Guy?] was going. I brought her to the Dew Drop. I said to her: ‘Look. You come and write some lyrics to this, ’cause I can’t use the lyrics Richard’s got.’ Richard turned to face the wall and sang the song two ot three times and Dorothy listened. Break time was over, and we went back to the studio to finish the session, leaving Dorothy to write the words. Fifteen minutes before the session was to end, the chick comes in and puts these little trite lyrics in front of me.”
And Penniman himself, again from White’s book:
“I’d been singing ‘Tutti Frutti’ for years, but it never struck me as a song you’d record. I didn’t go to New Orleans to record no ‘Tutti Frutti.’ Sure, it used to crack the crowds up when I sang it in the clubs, with those risqué lyrics. But I never thought it would be a hit, even with the lyrics cleaned up.”
I’ll let Mac close it out:
“Of course, the idea for Tutti Frutti was probably already floating around New Orleans. I bet Richard heard something like it from Eddie Bo. Considering who actually wrote this sucker – Dorothy LaBostrie, who wrote Johnny Adams’ and Irma Thomas’ first hit records – I’m sure the song came straight up out of the dozens. ‘A gal named Sue/She knows just what to do’ – that shit was nasty! Some New Orleans songs, like Tee-Nah-Nah, are Creole. You know, your tee-nah-nah is your ass cheeks, and your tee-nah-noo is your asshole. But Tutti Frutti isn’t Creole, and I don’t think it went with the ice cream flavor. You know what a fruit is, right? I think it had more to do with that shit. But did you ever hear Pat fucking Boone singing that crap? I don’t know if he got it and fucked it up, or if he didn’t get it, and fucked it up. Either way, it was pretty fucked up, but we didn’t pay no attention to that crap!”
On Saturday night, exactly 54 years after he headlined the St. Francis County Fair in Forrest City, Arkansas, alongside Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Floyd Cramer, Sun rockabilly Eddie Bond took the stage at the Center for Southern Folklore‘s Memphis Music & Heritage Festival.
At the fifth annual Ponderosa Stomp, Bond was backed by Deke Dickerson and the Eccofonics, along with special guest guitarist (and one-time Bond protege) Travis Wammack. Saturday, he played with a group of Middleton, Tennessee country musicians, including an unknown hotshot guitarist disguised in a Hawaiian shirt and glasses.
Bond, a showman responsible for the phenomenal 1956 b-side “Rockin’ Daddy” and the 1973 pop culture hit “The Ballad of Buford Pusser” who cranked out the hits even as he pulled double-duty hosting several popular Memphis TV shows, took the stage inside the Center’s Folklore Hall wearing his trademark yellow blazer and played “Rockin’ Daddy” — twice!
Go here to read my Memphis Flyer feature about the changing face of the Memphis Music & Heritage Festival, which lost two perennial performers, Stomp alum Billy Lee Riley and famed producer Jim Dickinson, in recent weeks.
From the article:
When I caught up with Center for Southern Folklore director Judy Peiser a week before festival time, she had a heavy heart. Upon pausing to contemplate the gaping holes caused by the absence of the ever-dependable Riley and Dickinson, she said:
“Things are definitely mutating. It’s gotten so hard to do a festival every year because of the people who aren’t there anymore, people who had a major effect on what we do. I grew up listening to the music I started presenting, and now I’m presenting music that’s one generation removed. People like Jim and Billy Lee weren’t playing off records — they were playing off life.”
Peiser sighed, recalling moments she spent with Dickinson, co-producing bluesman Mose Vinson’s solo CD Piano Man. She remembered the blues sets that Riley often delivered, peppered with his classic Sun rockabilly hits such as “Flying Saucer Rock and Roll” and “Red Hot.” She sounded dismayed at the thought of anyone other than Thomas, the minstrel performer turned Stax Records mainstay — billed as “the World’s Oldest Teenager,” he died in 2001, when he was 84 years old — performing “The Funky Chicken.”
“Life goes on,” Peiser finally said. “Sure, there was Michelangelo, but there were also a lot of people after him.”
In a music industry where an artist’s life expectancy is often measured by their fleeting time in the spotlight, Ronnie Spector’s influence truly precedes her: it’s evident and immediate from the second that unforgettable drum intro to the Ronettes’ 1963 smash “Be My Baby” kicks in, and she hasn’t even started singing yet. No matter who you are, what you’ve heard before or what you will hear in the future, there’s little that can compare to hearing “Be My Baby” for the first—or even the millionth—time. Ask artists as varied as the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, the New York Dolls, the Ramones or even Billy Joel, whose “Say Goodbye To Hollywood” was written for her.
But don’t just stop there, look to Beach Boy Brian Wilson, who was so taken with “Be My Baby” that he penned the nearly-as-great “Don’t Worry Baby” in response to it. Even Madonna once famously stated, “I want to look the way Ronnie Spector sounds.”
Spector didn’t just shift the musical landscape, she shook it up with earthquake intensity, defining careers right and left with “Be My Baby,” “The Best Part of Breaking Up,” “Baby I Love You,” “He Did It” and unforgettable renditions of Christmas classics like “Frosty The Snowman.”
To quote the lady’s website, because we couldn’t say it better ourselves: “Only a few artists in history have been capable of defining an entire era in pop music. Ronnie Spector is one of those artists: the embodiment of the heart, soul and passion of female rock ‘n’ roll in the 1960s. And to this day, no one has ever surpassed Ronnie’s powerful trademark vocals, her gutsy attitude, or her innocent but knowing sexuality.”
The truth, plain and simple. From her slit skirts to her sensual voice, there’s never been anything ordinary about her. Born Veronica Bennett to a white father and half-Cherokee half-black mother, Spector grew up in Spanish Harlem during the heart of the doo-wop era. Her earliest influence and lifelong idol, Frankie Lyman, lived just blocks away, and Spector would often go out of her way to pass his house on 165th Street. Cutting her teeth at the Apollo Theater’s infamous amateur nights, she formed the Ronettes with sister Estelle and cousin Nedra while still in her teens. After a stint at the Peppermint Lounge, they were soon performing at DJ Murray the K’s notorious Brooklyn Fox rock ‘n’ roll package shows.
Signed to the Colpix label, their first records included standouts like the aforementioned “He Did It” and “You Bet I Would,” written by Jackie DeShannon and Carole King respectively. In 1963 the Ronettes hooked up with The Tycoon of Teen himself, Phil Spector, resulting in the worldwide smash “Be My Baby,” followed by a tour of England with the Rolling Stones and Yardbirds as opening acts. The next few years found them turning in a hysteria-inducing performance on the Tami TNT Show and taking front and center on the legendary Phil Spector’s Christmas Album.
In 1966 the Beatles personally requested the Ronettes to open for them on their final tour, then signed Ronnie to their Apple imprint in 1970 for the George Harrison-penned single “Try Some, Buy Some,” where she was backed by two-thirds of the Fab Four.
Inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame, Ronnie has remained a rocker to the very core, often commenting on the lack of passion in modern music. Her latest release, the tellingly titled (and excellent) Last Of The Rock Stars, features a smattering of friends and fans who range from veterans Keith Richards and Patti Smith to young Cincinnati garage rockers the Greenhornes. Never forgetting where she came from, it contains a great version of the tin-pan alley ballad-cum-R&B hit made famous by Frankie Lyman, “Out In The Cold Again.”
More videos:
Ronnie Spector performing “I Wonder” at the 7th annual Ponderosa Stomp.
Ronnie Spector performing “Baby I Love You” at the 7th annual Ponderosa Stomp.
Growing up in Houston, Texas, Archie Bell started singing in church before cutting his teeth in a junior high school vocal group called Little Pop and the Fireballs. By the time he’d made it to high school, he’d formed the Drells, who, though Texans through and through, specialized in a breezy thread of Chicago-style soul. Their unique approach won them many a talent contest and brought them to the attention of local disc jockey and Ovide Records head honcho Skippy Lee Frazier. Their first outing for Frazier, 1966’s “She’s My Woman” became a local hit but the next year Bell was drafted. Before heading off, he and the Drells managed to lay down a few tunes in the company of Texas State University’s ace instrumental soul squad the T.S.U. Tornadoes. One of the songs was a loose, infectious number called “Tighten Up,” which was subsequently released and became a hit, first in Houston and then all over the country.
It crested at number one on both the pop and R&B charts while Drell was recovering from wounds in Vietnam. Learning of his windfall, he began traveling back to the U.S. to record while on leave, and eventually lit out for a national tour with the Drells. It was after a show in New Jersey that he met Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, Philadelphia’s leading songwriting and production team. The partnership wound up being a fruitful one, scoring hits such as “I Can’t Stop Dancng,” “Do The Choo-Choo” and the most excellent, “(There’s Gonna Be A) Showdown,” which was later re-invented to perfection by the New York Dolls.
Last night, the primal sounds of fife and drum music were echoing at the Turner Family Picnic, an annual North Mississippi Hill Country tradition, and Bo-Keys leader Scott Bomar, Ponderosa Stomp graphics designer Kerri Mahoney and I were there to listen.
Since the death of Rising Star Fife and Drum Band founder — and Turner family patriarch — Otha Turner, his granddaughter Sharde Thomas (pictured above and below) has led the group. Last night was no different, as, under a hazy half-moon, Thomas blew her cane fife and, followed by a trio of drummers, traversed the packed dirt ground that was once home to her granddaddy’s farm. Her mother and aunts fried catfish and sold cold beer and hot sandwiches. Curious city slickers took photos, drank too much, and kicked up dust. When Thomas tired, friends like Kenny Brown, Junior Burnside and R.L. Boyce were quick to pick up the slack, performing Hill Country anthems like “Jumper On the Line” from a plywood stage.
Like most traditions, the picnic has changed over the last 50-or so years, even as it has stayed the same. Otha and his daughter, Bernice Turner, who helped with the band, died on the same day in 2003. The grandkids are growing up — a few weeks ago, Thomas started her sophomore year in college. The goat meat sandwiches had sold out by the time we arrived, and this year, for the first time, the family charged a $2 admission to the picnic.
Yet once we were ensconced with cold beers in one hand and catfish and Wonder bread sandwiches in the other, the swirling, Africa-meets-the-blues music pulling us into the mass of dancers, it was as if we were on board a time machine and traveling backwards to that first time Library of Congress musicologist Alan Lomax stumbled into the Turner’s end of summer celebration and documented it for all posterity.
Adding particular poignance to this year’s event was the fact that earlier in the day, the Mississippi Development Authority’s Division of Tourism dedicated a marker to Turner’s brand of fife and drum music on the Mississippi Blues Trail. It’s located in downtown Como, Miss., directly across the street from a marker commemorating the lifework of Mississippi Fred McDowell. Next time you make the drive between Memphis and New Orleans, be sure to check it out.
As the peacock-blue Cadillac with the gold trim and fur lining spun on a giant turntable in the Stax Museum of American Soul Music here, Al Bell, the final owner of the late, great record label, chuckled. Decades before 50 Cent with his customized Rolls-Royce and Akon with his tricked-out Lamborghini, there was Isaac Hayes with this pimped-out ride, an over-the-top gift from Stax to its over-the-top star, who wore slave chains like emancipatory bling across his bare, buff chest.
“The reason I chuckle is because I think of what has been born out of the rap and the hip-hop world, and then I look at what we were doing back then, and, you know, we were really ahead of our time,” Mr. Bell said.
His chuckle is rueful, though. When Mr. Bell, 69, stands by that revolving Cadillac, he sees the arc of his life come full circle, unexpectedly. The original Stax Records is long gone, Mr. Hayes and many other Stax artists, from Otis Redding to Rufus Thomas, have died, and, until recently, Memphis showed little interest in reclaiming or building on its soul-music heritage. Six years ago, though, the Stax Museum opened. And earlier this summer Mr. Bell was invited back to Memphis with a bittersweet mandate: to resuscitate the city’s once great music industry as chairman of the Memphis Music Foundation.
In 1940 or 1941 — the exact date is unknown — Mr. Paul made his guitar breakthrough. Seeking to create electronically sustained notes on the guitar, he attached strings and two pickups to a wooden board with a guitar neck. “The log,” as he called it, was probably the first solid-body electric guitar and became the most influential one. “You could go out and eat and come back and the note would still be sounding,” Mr. Paul once said.
The odd-looking instrument drew derision when he first played it in public, so he hid the works inside a conventional-looking guitar. But the log was a conceptual turning point. With no acoustic resonance of its own, it was designed to generate an electronic signal that could be amplified and processed — the beginning of a sonic transformation of the world’s music.
Paul died today, after a bout with pneumonia, in White Plains, New York.
Philadelphia-born jazz drummer Rashied Ali, a veteran of sessions by John and Alice Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, and the leader of his own Rashied Ali Quintet, died yesterday at the age of 74.
Ali and Ponderosa Stomp fave James Blood Ulmer worked together in the groups New York Art Quartet and Phalanx. Go here to read a great interview from Jazz Weekly.
Whoa, WFMU’s Debbie D and company have gone bonkers over at the 
Mac Rebennack just happened to be standing outside J&M when the magic happened — and I got to quiz him about it 50 years later, for an article published in MOJO magazine: 
On Saturday night, exactly 54 years after he headlined the St. Francis County Fair in Forrest City, Arkansas, alongside Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Floyd Cramer, Sun rockabilly 
Forty-six years ago today, the Ronettes charted with “Be My Baby,” dubbed by Brian Wilson as “the most perfect pop record of all time.” 
Like most traditions, the picnic has changed over the last 50-or so years, even as it has stayed the same. Otha and his daughter, Bernice Turner, who helped with the band, died on the same day in 2003. The grandkids are growing up — a few weeks ago, Thomas started her sophomore year in college. The goat meat sandwiches had sold out by the time we arrived, and this year, for the first time, the family charged a $2 admission to the picnic. 
