Archives for August 2021

Certain Songs #2167: Sarah Shook & The Disarmers – “Dwight Yoakam”

August 18, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Sidelong
Year: 2015

. . .

I know I say this every time it comes up, but has been one of my key beliefs that many of the greatest songs of the 21st century come from a little-known source: women who play country music. I’m not talking about your Mirandas and Taylors and Kaceys — though they certainly count — but rather people like Nikki Lane, Lydia Loveless, Margo Price, etc etc etc.

And Sarah Shook’s “Dwight Yoakam” just might be the greatest of them all, leaping right in with here big, sad voice announcing her current situation.

Certain Songs #2166: Sam Cooke – “A Change Is Gonna Come”

August 17, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Ain’t That Good News
1964

. . .

Despite all of his talent, looks, charm and entrepreneurial acumen, Sam Cooke was still a Black man in America. I was going to hedge that by saying “mid-century America,” but c’mon, already: while things might have gotten better, they sure as shit haven’t gotten better enough, else we wouldn’t need mass marches trying to remind the white power structure that Black lives matter.

And so, every single day of his life, Sam Cooke had to do calculations that I can’t even imagine, though whenever I read something about in Peter Guralnick’s biography, how they’d have car trouble on the road or their hotel was booked, I thought “oh my god, that must have been so much worse than had it happened to me.”

Certain Songs #2165: Sam Cooke – “Meet Me At Mary’s Place”

August 16, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Ain’t That Good News
Year: 1964

. . .

It’s ironic that the first album of Sam Cooke’s contract with RCA — which gave him the most control he’d ever had — was also the final album recorded and released in Sam Cooke’s lifetime. And while Ain’t That Good News wasn’t nearly as focused as 1963’s Night Beat, which was recorded in the space of three nights as opposed to nearly a year, it did have a structure. The first side featured uptempo songs — nearly all written or co-written by Cooke — like the rollicking title track, the previously-released “Another Saturday Night” and “Good Times,” which was covered by the Rolling Stones on their immortal Out of Our Heads.

Side two featured soaring string-laden soul ballads, mostly covers, and peaked with the Cooke-written all-time all-time that we’ll discuss tomorrow. Of course I like the first side better, and probably my favorite song on the whole thing was the amblin’ “Meet Me At Mary’s Place.”

Certain Songs #2164: Sam Cooke – “Another Saturday Night”

August 14, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Ain’t That Good News
Year: 1963

. . .

Because he had that voice, those looks and was also charismatic as hell, Sam Cooke never lacked for female companionship, and indulged in behavior that would have gotten him cancelled — and eventually got him dead — had it surfaced at the time. And so, it’s kinda ironic that one of his greatest songs was well, total horseshit.

Certain Songs #2163: Sam Cooke – “You Gotta Move”

August 13, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Night Beat
Year: 1963

. . .

“You Gotta Move” is an old spiritual that had been kicking around for ages, usually with lyrics about how when the Lord gets ready, you gotta get the fuck out of there. The most famous version is the Rolling Stones cover of Mississippi Fred McDowell’s take on the song, though they were presumably aware of Sam Cooke’s rendition.

On his Night Beat album, though, Sam Cooke took the apocalyptic lyrics and recast the song as an end-of-a-relationship song, not the first time he’d taken a gospel lyric and recast it as a pop lyric.

Certain Songs #2162: Sam Cooke – “Lost and Looking”

August 12, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Night Beat
Year: 1963

. . .

Recorded over three nights in February 1963, Night Beat was used a small group of musicians — including a 16-year-old Billy Preston on organ — and stands out in his discography as his quietest, most intimate album, bereft of horns, strings and complex vocal arrangements. Especially that last: the only other voices on the record are the musicians joyously shouting the title of “Shake Rattle and Roll.” But the rest of Night Beat? Just Sam Cooke singing his heart out.

And nowhere does he sing his heart out more than “Lost and Looking,” which — in my 1995 reissue called Sam Cooke’s Night Beat — opened up with just Sam singing over Clifford Hils’s bass:

Certain Songs #2161: Sam Cooke – “Twistin’ The Night Away (Harlem Square Club, 1963)”

August 11, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963
Year: 1963

. . .

In January 1963, Sam Cooke and his label RCA decided to immortalize his current stage show by recording a set at the Harlem Square Club in Miami. And the results were so revelatory, so indicative of where Sam was going with his music — a much grittier, harder R&B sound than he’d previously gone after — that it freaked RCA the fuck out and they didn’t release it for 22 years. In their mind, Sam Cooke was a pop artist, and this anything but pop.

Certain Songs #2160: Sam Cooke – “Chain Gang”

August 10, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Swing Low
Year: 1960

. . .

Sam Cooke was one of those singers, of course, where the old joke about he could sing the phone book and people would love it, because of the sound of his voice and his amazing phrasing. He just had one of the greatest voices in the history of popular music, full stop.

Certain Songs #2159: Sam Cooke – “Wonderful World”

August 9, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Single, 1960

. . .

I just finished reading Peter Guralnick’s 2005 biography on Sam Cooke, Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke, and one of my main takeaways was just how driven Cooke was. And not just in his music, but also his business, as he not only wrote and recorded his own songs, he also wrote and released songs for other artists.

He didn’t just leave gospel for pop, he dove head first into the pop ocean and came out with a pirate’s booty, and after his first single, 1957’s “You Send Me,” went to #1 on the pop charts, money essentially ceased to be an issue, and not just for Sam, but for his inner circle.

Certain Songs #2158: Sam & Dave – “Soul Man”

August 4, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Soul Men
Year: 1967

. . .

This is probably a generational thing, but, as it turns out I was first introduced to this song by The Blues Brothers, because of course I was. And I had kind of a complicated relationship with the Blues Brothers. As a 1970s teenager, I watched Saturday Night Live from its inception, and always enjoyed the appearances of The Blues Brothers on the show.

And a couple of years later, The Blues Brothers (1980) started its run of my all-time favorite film that I objectively recognize as bad. But in between those was Briefcase Full of Blues, and I absolutely hated that record. Sure, it was cool that John Belushi & Dan Ackroyd (and let’s face it, Paul Shaffer) were able to get Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn and Matt “Guitar” Murphy to play on their record, and Steve Jordan is as good of a simulacrum of Al Jackson, Jr as you could image, but let’s face facts: John Belushi was not a r&b singer.