***(Please Note: Dear Valued Reader: to view Soul Train 2 + 1 First... which I would suggest; please scroll down to the two postings below this one).
And before Stax & Motown or sweet soul music there was Doo Wop…
The time of The Kennedys… new New York cool… the Mafia wars… fancy pretty boy ‘quiffed’ hairstyles and Pontiac Firebirds… and a condom was something you bought at the barbers shop and used to stop chicks getting pregnant… that was the street atmos of the time? ...The mafia was brawling and shooting up New York and while they did they were listening to Dell Shannon and the Four Seasons… Micheal Manns crime story gives us a good sense of period…
Crime Story – Del Shannon Runaway (music video)...
‘Runaway’ was a sound that was originally influenced by male barber shop singing… male choirs using lots of high harmonies and falsetto voices was an intrinsic element in the sound… I found a film on Youtube that sums up the sounds of the time just as well as ‘Crime Story’ sums up the look and style… the new ‘noir’ culture of Americana was being birthed..
Incidentally this clip is what I love about You Tube… you start researching things and you come across unexpected gems… I had to include it not only because it is a good ‘collage’ of the sound of the times… but also because I just love the film.
Incidentally this clip is what I love about You Tube… you start researching things and you come across unexpected gems… I had to include it not only because it is a good ‘collage’ of the sound of the times… but also because I just love the film.
Legends of Doo Wop by Tony Mortillaro...
What you can hear lurking in the back of this film clip is the arrival of a new black influence in the form of DooWop…
Doo Wop...
…subtly working it’s way into the mainly white influenced mainstream American music culture of the day…up until then white music was for white people and black music was for black people…
Racial discrimination was still a huge issue in America back then… even in the more liberal Northern cites like New York and Chicago… so the white Doo Wop was personified by the Four Seasons high falsetto… a bit stiff… conservative
Racial discrimination was still a huge issue in America back then… even in the more liberal Northern cites like New York and Chicago… so the white Doo Wop was personified by the Four Seasons high falsetto… a bit stiff… conservative
Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons – Lets Hang On...
Very Italian American… more high pitched and faster than the black sound…
Both black and white where using a lot of harmonies but the black sound was slower and with a more smoky darker edge to it… more sexual...
Ray Charles – I Can’t Stop Loving You. (black + white)...
…but also perhaps there was a commonality that ran deeper than was immediately obvious... remember the ‘You are a Sicilian huh? scene Tarantino wrote for True Romance…
dennis hopper and chris walken/true romance...
In fact if you know both cultures well there are a lot of similarities between them particularly when it comes to sex and music…
The black sound resonates louder as Elvis starts doing gospel music for white folk… who actually thought it was a white sound… and called it rock & roll… not realising that it was gospel / blues ‘slave’ music remixed for white ears…
Elvis Presley (hound dog) sound edit djf...
Like Elvis doing Big Momma Thorton’s Hound Dog
***(you can view the original in my last posting)…
And it wasn’t just the sound of black music that was leaking into the mainstream music cultures… the sexy dance moves came over too… Elvis was dancing like a darky… and Rock n’ roll and American Hamburgers and a Coke was about to take over the world.
In this next clip you can see the new visual culture that emerged… see traces of the grafting of black onto white… people talk a lot about musical influences… but dance whilst less talked about had just as profound an effect… you can see the white kids in this clip starting to emulate the dance style of they’re more sexually energetic and wildly explicit black jitterbugging counterparts… that you see odd flashes of in the clip…
Dance Girls. – The Charts (1956) Doo Wop...
Black dancers had been rockin’ up a storm in dark noir smokey danchalls all over America for years… only white people never went there… because the dance styles originated in Africa and with the plantation slaves who danced to entertain themselves… so black dance had unfortunate undercurrents for white people… particularly sexually… take a look at this clip from 1941 to give you some idea of what they were afraid of…
Lindy Hop - Hellzapoppin (1941)...
The world was teetering on the brink of a musical revolution just as profound as the socio – economic one that was taking place in main stream American politics… and a huge part of this American revolution was influenced and inspired by the black struggle for civil rights… when Stax records came into being it was putting out southern soul, Memphis soul, early funk and Chicago blues… but it was based in Memphis Tennessee and was really putting out passionate pro civil rights ‘revolution’ music… with tracks like ‘Respect’ by Otis Redding or ‘Respect Yourself’ by the Staples Singers…
the staple singers respect yourself ...
…and as the black voices grew louder… so the white sound of American music got blacker too…When Dion & the Belmonts redid the whiter more conservative Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons ‘Walk Like a Man’ or ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’ a new genre was born onto the street… a new New York street style that looked white… but sounded black… this clip from The Wanderers says it all about the new ‘American’ look and sound.
The Wanderers (pop video tribute)...
Incidentally for anyone who loves the music of the time this movie is an unmissable classic… a long form music video with killer soundtracks and a ‘noir’ kind of ‘West Side Story’ street fighting choreography… the styling is impeccable… as good as Manns Crime Story.
There are a number of defining moments in this film… like The Shirelles singing ‘Baby It’s You’ ( it still gives me goosebumps)… black music was coming ‘new age’…
There are a number of defining moments in this film… like The Shirelles singing ‘Baby It’s You’ ( it still gives me goosebumps)… black music was coming ‘new age’…
The Wanderers - 06 - Shirelles - Baby, It's You
And the Shirelles were the first of the really big female girl groups…
It’s interesting to look at how mainstream American culture came up with a more conservative and less obvious media response to the new ‘sexy’ black faces on the block… the clip below is a ‘collage’ of American t.v. of the time and it shows the black white conservative culture grafting going on… a whole nation had begun mixing it’s metaphors…
It’s interesting to look at how mainstream American culture came up with a more conservative and less obvious media response to the new ‘sexy’ black faces on the block… the clip below is a ‘collage’ of American t.v. of the time and it shows the black white conservative culture grafting going on… a whole nation had begun mixing it’s metaphors…
‘Will you still love me tomorrow?’ The Shirelles.
The Wanderers was a ‘funky’ mean streets reality… whilst the t.v. is the voice and look of the conservative new America publicity machine, another new socio-economic force developing at the time due to the arrival of television…
But t.v. stations were and are run by corporate traditionalists and the record companies were not… so the story that leaking out across America and the world looked different to how it sounded… but how it sounded was the most important thing.
But t.v. stations were and are run by corporate traditionalists and the record companies were not… so the story that leaking out across America and the world looked different to how it sounded… but how it sounded was the most important thing.
And then a big something else happened too!!!
The Beatles - Baby It's You...
The Beatles arrived.
An English band from Liverpool exploded onto the global music scene championing the new black sound…openly celebrating it’s huge influence on their work… The Beatles where huge champions of this new American sound that most white audiences in States still didn’t really get…
The Marvelettes - Please Mr. Postman...
…and when The Beatles, who the white audiences worshipped, started doing cover versions of the black songs people all over the world started to pick up on the new sound…
Please Mr. Postman...
…One of their all time favourites was Mary Wells…
Mary Wells - My Guy...
…The Beatles insisted on taking these very cool sexy black performers on tour with them…
Mary Wells - First Lady of Motown...
The Beatles on tour with black acts like Mary Welles & Martha and the Vandellas… what a line up…
Martha & The Vandellas - Dancing in the street...
...and when The Beatles brought them to less rascist Britain everyone immediately fell in love with them…
The back story to all of this… The Beatles grew up in one of the biggest seaports in the U.K. ...ocean liners ploughing back and forth across the Atlantic from New York to Liverpool.
Most of the cities families where linked to the sea and shipping and when the seamen came home they brought piles of the new vinyl records from New York… they played them on the long sea voyages… thousands of early soul and funk music discs poured into Liverpool and the kids grew up with the new music ringing in their ears… even to this day there is a lively Funk & Soul music club scene and dance movement there… simply called Northern Soul…
Another interesting fact is Liverpool was a hugely Irish ghetto full of celts… and in the movie the Commitments… about an Irish soul band… there is a famous line where the Irish are described as liking soul music because… "they are the blacks of Britain…"
Most of the cities families where linked to the sea and shipping and when the seamen came home they brought piles of the new vinyl records from New York… they played them on the long sea voyages… thousands of early soul and funk music discs poured into Liverpool and the kids grew up with the new music ringing in their ears… even to this day there is a lively Funk & Soul music club scene and dance movement there… simply called Northern Soul…
Another interesting fact is Liverpool was a hugely Irish ghetto full of celts… and in the movie the Commitments… about an Irish soul band… there is a famous line where the Irish are described as liking soul music because… "they are the blacks of Britain…"
The Commitments (1991)...
…a similar sentiment to the earlier ‘ Hey are you a Sicilian?’ clip… and if you know the U.K. Irish then you will know how true this is… watch Van Morrrison and John Lee Hooker in my last posting.
***(Incidentally, I know the Stax and Motown stories are both hugely relevan here… but they are another important strand in the story I want to cover in greater detail later on… so don’t worry Barry Gordey and the rest will be here… I’ll do Motown in two postings time… and the next one will focus on the influence of the Stax record company.
Also you may notice I’m not obsessing over dating things all the time because I’m writing more about the influences than precise historical dates and records etc.
This is because the influences I’m charting often took time to surface and show they’re real cause and effect)…
***(Incidentally, I know the Stax and Motown stories are both hugely relevan here… but they are another important strand in the story I want to cover in greater detail later on… so don’t worry Barry Gordey and the rest will be here… I’ll do Motown in two postings time… and the next one will focus on the influence of the Stax record company.
Also you may notice I’m not obsessing over dating things all the time because I’m writing more about the influences than precise historical dates and records etc.
This is because the influences I’m charting often took time to surface and show they’re real cause and effect)…
And now for the other big happening… the cherry on top… Phil Spector…
These new black bands had the backing of the hugely successful Stax and Motown records… pumping out the sounds through Mom & Pop local corner record stores in black ghettos… and the music was now the black revolutionary sound of the era… knowing the music and it’s meaning gave life a purpose… made black people feel special…
And now Phil Spector’s ‘wall of sound’ arrived and it was to prove itself to be perfect for the more and more exotic electronic ‘big’ black studio recording sounds of the time.
Phil Spector - A Short Tribute...
The new sound and black culture in America was on a roll that would change the world of rock music forever… again... and it was now also championed by two of the most powerful white influencers of the music scene of the day… Phil Spector & The Beatles… one of the Beatles biggest hits aeound thast time was an old black soul standard...
The Isley Brothers - Twist And Shout...
and they rocked the world… this next clip is poor quality but the energy and power of the music and the atmosphere in the studio still comes across strongly… Phil Spector's wall of sound made the Crystals international stars almost overnight...
Crystal da doo ron ron ron ron ron...
…and then Phil Spector got together with Ike & Tina Turner and another seminal music track came out of the black white mix… it was to set a new international standard... and was to last and be relevant as long as the beautiful and brave black goddess Tina Turner thrilled the world.
Tina Tuner - River Deep Mountain High - Live from Amsterdam...
Black music perse couldn’t fail…and didn’t fail… it has become one of the worlds great cultural phenomena’s… although for someone like myself it seems to be losing itself now.
Like a lot of karmic philosophy… life is a mirror and you get back what you put out.
I never hear anything modern that has the same edge and passion… or is even as sexy…
I guess if you write and sing about B.M.W’S, Ho’s , expensive Champagne & Brandy, flash wheel rims, Bling Bling and the rest of the commercial rubbish of our corporate driven ‘consumer’ society… then that’s what you get.
Maybe the story the old blues players told us a long time ago was more accurate than we ever thought… that great black music goes hand in hand with great suffering and story telling... and lets face it the old music was just that... in my opinion… the new stuff’s a glossy ‘special effect’ with no real substance… made by spoiled children of the Mall culture… rather than brave black freedom fighters… it’s sad but true…
Its what often happens when revolutionaries win? …they become what they were fighting against… an establishment elite… in this case an ‘American’ corporate establishment masquerading as street ‘homey’ culture…
So that’s it for now I hope you enjoy the music and film clips as much as I did… I’ll be back next posting with… the Stax story.
Like a lot of karmic philosophy… life is a mirror and you get back what you put out.
I never hear anything modern that has the same edge and passion… or is even as sexy…
I guess if you write and sing about B.M.W’S, Ho’s , expensive Champagne & Brandy, flash wheel rims, Bling Bling and the rest of the commercial rubbish of our corporate driven ‘consumer’ society… then that’s what you get.
Maybe the story the old blues players told us a long time ago was more accurate than we ever thought… that great black music goes hand in hand with great suffering and story telling... and lets face it the old music was just that... in my opinion… the new stuff’s a glossy ‘special effect’ with no real substance… made by spoiled children of the Mall culture… rather than brave black freedom fighters… it’s sad but true…
Its what often happens when revolutionaries win? …they become what they were fighting against… an establishment elite… in this case an ‘American’ corporate establishment masquerading as street ‘homey’ culture…
So that’s it for now I hope you enjoy the music and film clips as much as I did… I’ll be back next posting with… the Stax story.
