Act I: Z.Z. vs. Ethel

Z.Z. Hill:


It Ain't No Use


Ha Ha (Laughing Song)

Today's selections make up one of the 45s that I heard growing up that helped shape my appreciation for vintage soul music. My mother would play both sides of Z.Z. Hill's Mankind single "It Ain't No Use" b/w "Ha Ha (Laughing Song)" and I loved it, even though I didn't quite understand the seriousness of the lyrics. I don't know why I failed to mention the 45 in my 2007 Vinyl Record Day post, but I suppose it's better late than never to feature it, right?

Red Kelly has an excellent biography of the late soul blues superstar on The B-Side, so I'll just get to the music. The 45 was one of several successful singles pulled from The Brand New Z.Z. Hill, a Swamp Dogg-produced (he wrote or co-wrote many of the songs - including today's selections - as well) soul "opera" of sorts. Today's selections constituted the first two "scenes" of "Act I." On "It Ain't No Use," we meet Z.Z. and his new woman as they return to his pad for some drinks and romance. As the bluesy groove shuffles along, Hill is working on his mack, offering to make a drink ("put a little ice in it ... make some Kool Aid") and anticiping a good time ("heeeeeeeey, mama, girl that's out of sight!" he hollers as she makes her move). But before any "getting on" starts, the proceedings are interrupted by a knock on the door by his ex-flame, Ethel, whose initial tough posturing ("open this damn door, I wanna talk to you") quickly fades into a tearful plea for forgiveness. Hill's not hearing it, though, so he launches into the song, whose blunt lyrics were lost on me as a child (I was still hung up on the "Kool Aid" part). "Ha Ha" continues the withering dismissal, albeit with a funky groove this time. In the dramatic portion, Hill sends his unfortunate guest home and further expands on how Ethel mistreated him to the point that folks were laughing at him ("it's got so good now, they just kind of walk up and giggle in my face," he asserts). The lyrics to "Ha Ha" aren't as sharp as those in "It Ain't No Use," but the groove romps along and there's a great horn vamp before the final verse.

Oh, in case you want to know what happens in the rest of the album - Ethel eventually is forgiven and they get married at the end! How about that?

Gotta Catch Up on the "Get Down" #2

Bohannon - Stop and Go

Back in the fall I featured '70s groovemaster Hamilton Bohannon on the blog, and another one of his groove-heavy tunes will grace the blog today. "Stop and Go" was the title track of his 1973 Dakar debut and, as I noted in the prior post, it's easy to get caught up in the hypnotic groove Bohannon gets going. Although it's not as catchy as "South African Man," listening to it is a great way to move into a weekend. Get on down, y'all! TGIF!

Soul on the Air #12: Richard Pegue, 1975 (RIP)

Music Hosting - Play Audio - Richard Pegue, WVON Aircheck...

I hadn't planned to do a "Soul on the Air" feature so close to the installment featuring KCOH's Gladys "Gee Gee" Hill from a couple of weeks back, but I have just learned from Mary Mitchell's column in The Chicago Sun-Times that Richard Pegue (rhymes with "McGee"), one of the latter-day WVON "Good Guys" and Chicago soul musician, arranger and record label owner, has passed away at the age of 65. Pegue joined the WVON line-up at the end of the '60s, and with his cool style and sharp wit, the "Dubber Ruckie" fit right in with the station's style. I'll defer to Pegue's Best Music of Your Life website bio page for a chronology of his radio career. I remember that when I moved to Chicago in 1997 he was doing his thing on WGCI-AM (the former WVON, at 1390 on the dial), which would eventually turn into a full-time gospel station (although during the early gospel days, Pegue got to keep a late-night soul show). Afterwards he could be heard both on the revived WVON (when 'VON moved to 1390 in the mid-'70s, Pervis Spann acquired rights to the 1450 frequency, where he ran WXOL until 'VON changed its calls to WGCI and Spann snapped up the legendary calls), holding down Spann's all-night slot a few nights a month, and on Kennedy-King College's WKKC-FM, all programs of which I always enjoyed.

I'll stop writing a biography of Pegue here and refer you to this excellent 2004 episode of WHPK's Sitting in the Park in which host Bob Abrahamian interviews Pegue and features lots of his productions. (If you haven't been to the show's website, do go and enjoy interviews with many of the greats of Chicago soul!) I certainly enjoyed listening to Pegue when I lived in Chicago and enjoy records he had a hand in. May he rest in peace.

Today's selection is from June 9, 1975. Pegue plays a nice mixture of hits of the day and some soul from a few years earlier while laying down some nice cool patter and singing along with songs as they fade out. As Herb Kent mentioned in his excellent new autobiography, The Cool Gent: The Nine Lives of Radio Legend Herb Kent, which I heartily recommend to any R&B fan, radio fan or Herb Kent fan, by this time WVON had lost its ratings dominance due to the rise of FM radio and the "less talk, more music" trend in broadcasting (a trend that some of the "Good Guys" weren't able or willing to adapt to), but several, including Kent, Pegue and Cecil Hale (many thanks to the good Dr. Hale for recently commenting on an earlier "Soul on the Air" feature to answer a commenter's question) went along with the flow and kept the soul going for a few more years, as demonstrated here.

Shufflin' Along

Vi Campbell - Seven Doors


I think I've stated on this blog before, and I know lots of soul fans agree with me on this, but I really hope that somehow there can be a definitive Duke/Peacock/Back Beat/Sure Shot soul comp released at some point. I am continually pleased to hear more and more fine soul and funk sides from those labels, but to know there's more out there keeps me longing for more than the ABCs of Soul CDs of the '90s which covered only the biggest hits. (There is a CD called The Northern Soul of Texas which covers quite a bit of material, but I'm not sure as to its legitimacy.) When there are records out there like today's selection, why must we fans suffer?

The 1966 Peacock single "Seven Doors" is a swinging shuffler with a Bobby Bland-styled groove over which Vi Campbell, about whom I know absolutely nothing, strongly delivers her accusations and predicts her revenge. (The Bobby Bland flavor is no accident, as Bland's bandleader and arranger Joe Scott had a hand in the record.) As far as I can tell, this was her only 45, but what a recording!

Ooh! Aah! Ooh-Aah-Ooh-Aah!

Alvin Cash - Twine Time (funk version)

TGIF, so says your ever-lovin' Stepfather of Soul, and to ring in the weekend is Chicago's dance master Alvin Cash, who is no stranger to this blog by post or by podcast. By the '70s, Cash floated from label to label, laying down slabs of funk punctuated by his chants and calls, and this release on the Memphis-based XL label was part of that sojourn. His remake of "Twine Time," the record that kicked off his hitmaking career, successfully updated the Chicago soul groove for the funk era, but kept the flavor of the original, even down to the "ooh aah" opening, although Cash punctures it with one of his trademark "oooooooooooooooooowwwweeeee" shouts. "Ooo wee" is right, though, because it's a nice piece of get down. Have a great weekend everybody!

In a Mellow Mood ...

Frankie Karl & The Dreams - I'm So Glad

Today I'm needing something mellow instead of a "get down," so some doo-wop flavored soul fits the bill nicely. I'll defer to Colin Dilnot's obituary of Frankie Karl at In Dangerous Rhythm for more details about Frankie Karl and his 1968 throwback hit "Don't Be Afraid (Do As I Say)," recorded with the mixed group The Dreams. "I'm So Glad" is the flip of that 45, and it is similarly smooth and doo-wop tinged. This is the type of song that should close out a DJ set or a podcast, especially in the former case if there are a lot of couples dancing. Maybe someday I'll try that out to see if my theory works!

Tuesday Is Blues (By Way of Chicago Soul) Day!

B.B. King - Just Can't Please You

The late Jimmy "Preacher" Robins' "I Can't Please You" is one of my favorite Chicago soul records, and I hastily posted it some time ago on the blog when I didn't have time to do a fuller write-up. That's a shame, because at the time I learned that, although Robert Pruter's Chicago Soul made it sound like Robins fell off the end of the world after "I Can't Please You" made noise, the truth is that Robins continued to record and, by the time he died on Christmas Eve 2007, he had established quite a CV in New York as "The King of Harlem Soul," an all-around entertainer (including acting credits), and as a businessman (in addition to musical enterprises, he owned a limousine service).

The neat thing about the classic soul era was that cover versions of lots of tunes abounded, which demonstrate the strength of the songs. B.B. King, no stranger to cutting soul-slanted sides by 1972, did a version of "I Can't Please You" (now entitled "Just Can't Please You") for his Guess Who LP. The bouncy blues feel King gives the tune is light years away from the darker, heavier groove of the original, but King's vocals do the song justice and Lucille gets some tasty licks in there. It's a nice toe tapper that, although not as good as the original, still brings home the goods for the listener.

Mixing It Up With Wiley & The Checkmates

Wiley & The Checkmates - Ode to Billie Joe / Hip Hug-Her

Wiley & The Checkmates were featured on the blog last summer, so I'll just discuss today's feature, a track from the group's Rabbit Factory CD We Call It Soul. To mix the pop classic "Ode to Billie Joe" with the Stax classic instro "Hip Hug-Her" was a brilliant choice, and the group really does a good job with it. The Bobbie Gentry hit is already soulful and danceable, but the arrangement takes it to the next level.

Thursday Is Blues Day?

Buster Brown - John Henry

Time to break the "only on Wednesday" slump I've been in, and why not do a "Thursday Is Blues Day" to accomplish that?

Blues singer and harmonica player Buster Brown (birth name Wayman Glasco) has been featured on this blog before. "John Henry" was Brown's second Fire single. The band rambles along on this one while Brown sings about the "steel drivin' man" of folklore, breaking after a few verses to do some of his trademark whooping and harmonica playing. It's a nice piece of danceable R&B that, although not enough to make the title of his Fire LP New King of the Blues a fitting moniker, is worth a listen.

Get on Down ... on Wednesday, Again

Freda Allyne - Money, And All Your Love

The new Kent CD J & S Harlem Soul, a comp featuring releases on Zell Sanders' J&S and affiliate labels, is getting quite a few plays at the Stepfather's house since it arrived in the mail this weekend. The CD gravitates towards harder-hitting soul and R&B and some of the more obscure Sanders productions, as exemplified by today's selection. Freda Allyne's "Money, And All Your Love" was a 1963 J&S single featuring a piano-driven proto-funk groove punctuated by horn riffs, over which Allyne describes how she has everything going her way save for the title subjects. This is a solid cooker, and I would love to have a vinyl copy of it, that is, if I could overcome the relative scarcity and steep price of the 45!

The arrangement is credited to a Cliff Drivers, who the liner notes state had an instrumental release on the label in 1959. Is this the same person as Cliff Driver, the musical director for Daptone gospel group Naomi Davis and the Gospel Queens?

Soul on the Air #11: Gladys "Gee Gee" Hill, 1970

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Today's "Soul on the Air" segment features the late Gladys "Gee Gee" Hill from Houston's KCOH. The station, the first black-oriented radio station in Texas, started in 1953 as a "sunup to sundown" broadcaster and is still on the air today, bringing a mixture of talk, R&B, zydeco, gospel and more from the 1430 spot on the dial, twenty-four hours a day. Hill was one of a handful of female DJs to make a mark in the history of classic R&B radio (Detroit's Martha Jean "The Queen" and Chicago's Merry Dee and Yvonne Daniels are the only ones to spring to mind immediately), and is the only one for whom I have been able to locate any airchecks (it's hard enough to find R&B airchecks, much less those featuring female jocks). I haven't been able to find out much information about Hill, but I do know that she was well-regarded in Houston and is notable for helping break Archie Bell & The Drells' classic "Tighten Up": the tune was initially released on fellow KCOH jock (and co-owner) Skipper Lee Frazier's Ovide label, but Frazier was plugging the flip, "Dog Eat Dog," until Hill convinced him that the other side was the hit. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

This aircheck finds Hill doing her thing in 1970, playing a wide range of blues, jazz and soul, ranging from The Glass House to Albert King to the Merced Blue Notes. Near the twenty-minute mark, there's a sports news break featuring a pinch-hitting Lee Dickerson, whose somewhat stumbling reading of the news finds him correcting a report he'd made earlier and smoothly setting up a Schlitz beer commercial in the middle.

(EDITOR'S NOTE - Thanks to blogger Daddy's Girl, who commented on the last Soul on the Air feature. I look forward to her blog, "My Dad, Ed Cook" and hope to communicate with her soon about her dad and WVON!)

(Gotta Get Over The) Hump Day!

Carla Thomas - (Your Love Is A) Life Saver

Interestingly enough, the last time I did a Carla Thomas post on this blog was a Wednesday, and one that didn't find me in the best of moods, so I suppose it's deja vu all over again, as Yogi Berra would sasy, that Carla Thomas graces another Wednesday post. Today's feature is a Bettye Crutcher composition that did not see the light of day until Fantasy released the Carla comp Hidden Gems back in the '90s. I really can't see what kept "(Your Love Is A) Life Saver" from getting a "stax-o-wax" 45 release, as it is a solid piece of get-down on which Thomas brings a mix of toughness and vulnerability to her vocal and Booker T. & The M.G.'s lay down a hard-hitting groove featuring some nice guitar and bass interplay and then a great funky breakdown in which Steve Cropper lays down drawling licks to complement Al Jackson's drum work. Get on down, Carla!