separateness and tearful depression; Mr Mingus cries of misunderstanding of self and people. Throughout he presents a brooding, moaning intensity about prejudice, hate and persecution.’ Cranky, stubborn and angry he may have been, but Mingus could not keep the intense pleasure that music brought him out of his work. Whatever the good doctor said, The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady drips with joy.
James Brown
Live At The Apollo (Vol. 1)
A benchmark for thrilling soul performance, and the first of Brown’s enormous selection of live albums.
Record label: Polydor
Produced: James Brown
Recorded: Apollo Theater, New York; October 24, 1962
Released: May 1963 (UK) January 1963 (US)
Chart peaks: None (UK) 2 (US)
Personnel: James Brown (v); Bobby Byrd, Bobby Bennett and Baby Lloyd Stallworth (v); Lewis Hamilton (t, m); Roscoe Patrick and Teddy Washington (t); Dickey Wells (tb); St Clair Pinckney and Clifford MacMillan (ts); Al ‘Briscoe’ Clark (bs); Lucas ‘Fats’ Gonder (o); Les Buie (g); Hubert Perry (b); Clayton Fillyau (d)
Track listing: I’ll Go Crazy; Try Me; Think; I Don’t Mind; Lost Someone; Please, Please, Please; You’ve Got The Power; I Found Someone; Why Do You Do Me Like You Do; I Want You So Bad; I Love You Yes I Do; Why Does Everything Happen To Me; Bewildered; Please Don’t Go; Night Train
Running time: 31.36
Current CD: Polydor 5498842 is a 2-disc re-sequencing of the entire original concert complete with between-song banter and previously unheard songs.
Further listening: Say It Live And Loud/Live In Dallas (1998), a coruscating performance from August 26, 1968
Further reading: James Brown (Geoff Brown, 1996); Live At The Apollo 33 1/3 (Douglas Wolk, 2004); www.godfatherofsoul.com
Download: iTunes
Some people can’t recognise a good thing when it falls in their lap. Syd Nathan, the label boss of King Records in Cincinnati, wasn’t convinced by James Brown. ‘The worst piece of shit I’ve ever heard’ he declared in 1955 upon hearing Please, Please, Please. Released to embarrass Ralph Bass, the A&R man who had brought Brown to Nathan’s attention, Please, Please Please – that contradiction in terms, a hard-driving ballad – gave King a Number 6 R&B hit in 1956. The nine ‘failures’ that followed only confirmed Nathan in his doubts. He had big reservations, too, about Try Me, a song getting great reactions on tour, and released it spitefully, to prove Brown’s instincts wrong. It soared to Number 1 in the US R&B charts (48 pop). Henceforward, Brown charted as the seasons changed, at least four singles a year on the R&B charts and as many on the Hot 100. By 1962 ‘Mr Dynamite’ was the biggest live draw in the R&B market, his physically athletic and dramatic performances matched by impassioned ballads, relentless uptempo numbers and a tightly-drilled band. All this, suggested Brown and his manager, Ben Bart, should be caught live on tape. Still surprisingly indifferent to his star’s power, Nathan’s reply was, in effect, Over my dead body.
Undaunted, Brown put up $5,700 of his own money to record a show at Harlem’s black music mecca, the Apollo. His season there began on October 18, 1962 and by the night of the 24th the band was in blistering form, delivering a finely-honed set of their hits to date with Brown blasting from one song to the next with scarcely a pause for breath. For his core black audience it provided a vivid souvenir of Mr Dynamite in his pomp – and for whites it was an ear-boggling introduction to a thrilling kind of performance rarely seen or heard. As Brown (then still only 29) sails through the first five tracks, varying the pace but not the emotional intensity, you’d swear you can hear the sweat spraying out of his pores. With Live At The Apollo James Brown became – and would remain for many years to come – The Hardest Working Man In Showbusiness.
Sam Cooke
Night Beat
A pivotal moment in soul history.
Record label: RCA Victor
Produced: Hugo and Luigi
Recorded: RCA Victor Studios, Hollywood; February 22–23 and 25, 1963
Released: September 1963
Chart peaks: None (UK) 62 (US)
Personnel: Sam Cooke (v); Ed Hall, Hal Blaine (d); Rene Hall, Cliff White, Barney Kessell (g); Clifford Hils (b); Raymond Johnson (p); Billy Preston (o); Dave Hassinger (e)
Track listing: Lost And Looking; Mean Old World; Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen; Please Don’t Drive Me Away; I Lost Everything; Get Yourself Another Fool; Little Red Rooster; Laughin’ And Clownin’; Trouble Blues; You Gotta Move; Fool’s Paradise; Shake, Rattle And Roll
Running time: 37.35
Current CD: RCA 82876695512
Further listening: The only other album that approaches this intensity is Live At The Harlem Square Club (1963).
Further reading: You Send Me: The Life And Times of Sam Cooke (Daniel Wolff, 1996), a Cinderella story with a Tupac ending; www.samcooke.com
Download: HMV Digital
The sixth note in the musical scale is owned by Sam Cooke. No one has done more for that note in the history of recorded vocal music. While his peers were over-using the flatted seventh and flatted third notes, Sam was smoothly pinning his style right on that pure sixth interval. All the rest just rented their notes; Sam owned his. Many decades after his untimely death, he still does.
Cooke rose from a church background, the heartthrob lead singer of gospel superstars The Soul Stirrers, where he built his dizzying, flawless, effortless style. His transition to pop caused his former soulmates to berate him for converting to ‘the Devil’s music’. Cooke became massively famous as a pop singer and made an unprecedented step over the US colour line. By 1963, with several hits under his belt, Cooke was anxious to show the more mature side of his artistry. Prior to Night Beat, his LPs were filled with singles and weary fillers. Sam wanted an album that didn’t pander to the radio audience, one where he could express what he was moving towards as he grew older. He had no compunction about covering blues shouter Howlin’ Wolf (Little Red Rooster) or big band belter Joe Turner (Shake, Rattle And Roll).
A crack studio band was assembled around his long-time associates Rene Hall and Clifford White. Studio freshmen Billy Preston on organ and Hal Blaine on drums still count these sessions as some of their most mesmerising. On the opening track Lost And Looking, Sam duets with double bass player Cliff Hils while the rest of the band takes five. It stands as one of Cooke’s greatest vocal legacies. Elsewhere, blues and semi-gospel gems are addressed with real feeling, the musical perfection breathtaking.
Cooke’s goal was realised, and the album, out of print for decades, was re-released in 1997 to a legion of new fans.
Koerner, Ray And Glover
Blues, Rags And Hollers
Lo-fi early ’60s blues from influential American stylists.
Record label: Elektra
Produced: Paul Nelson with Koerner, Ray And Glover
Recorded: The Woman’s Club, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; March 24, 1963
Released: November 1963
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