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.”
Opening with insta-party horns and driven by a response chorus of his buddies the Soul Stirrers, “Meet Me at Mary’s Place” had one thing its mind: fun.
em>A friend of mine told me one early mornin’
(Over at Mary’s place, ho)
Said tonight there’s gonna be a party goin’ on
(Over at Mary’s place, ho)
He said: “If you can enjoy a real nice affair
(Over at Mary’s place, ho)
Then you’ll make it your business to be right there”
(Over at Mary’s place, ho)
Apparently, Mary’s place was a real thing back when Sam was doing the Gospel circuit: a promoter in North Carolina who had a big ole house that everybody was welcome to hang at. And so “meet me at Mary’s place” was probably a thing people said to each other back then, timing their itineraries just so they could meet there, have some food and some drinks and maybe find some women, though that’s not even a subtext really to this song.
He said in fact: “Meet me
(Meet me at Mary’s place)
We’re gonna have
(We’re gonna have us a ball today)
Why don’t you
(Meet me at Mary’s place)
Why don’t you meet me
(Meet me at Mary’s place)
We’re gonna have
(We’re gonna have us a ball today)
Why don’t you”
(Meet me at Mary’s place, ho)
Instead, it’s really more about camaraderie than anything else, as evidenced by the interplay with Sam and the Soul Stirrers. Check out the choruses, how they weave in and out of each other vocal lines.
“Meet Me At Mary’s Place” was originally just an album track, though it was eventually reissued in 1966, a couple of years after Sam’s death, but it didn’t do anything. That said, Bruce Springsteen used it as the springboard for one of the most uplifting tracks from 2002’s The Rising, which he would stretch out to double the length in concert.
“Meet Me At Mary’s Place” Official Lyric Video
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