“Love Man” legend has it that when he came on the scene in the year that the original hit the chart that the mother of the “Love Man” deemed that somehow this song was written for her new baby (sappy, I know). But I figured that this would be a very timely song (considering manana is the Love Man’s B-day) and this could feature our AOM and his prowess in covering a song. Enjoy!
Wanted to go back a little ways today to post a gem from an often overlooked pioneer of Soul Music: Jesse Belvin. Jesse’s life and career were tragically cut short in 1960 at the age of 27. A personal friend and influence to our AOM Etta James, and a major influence on the vocal stylings of Stevie Wonder. “Goodnight My Love” has been covered by many but I wanted to pair the original up with the cover by another GFM fave El DeBarge. Enjoy!
If you haven’t checked out one of the covers that Jessica “Sunshine” Johnson puts down from time to time you need to do your ears a favor and check them out. I can’t think of a more appropriate cover for our series this week considering the timeliness of Adele and the legislation proposed by our government that would effectively silence creativity and innovation like the above performance. Maybe we should work to make the law catch up with the technology… sorta like that whole evolving society thingy you know where maybe the laws that worked in 1918 don’t work so well 2012, like maybe we’ve learned some things and changed between now and then. Enjoy the music :)
Visitors to GFM should know how we feel about cover songs… we love them so much that we try to highlight at least one a week. As we’ve often stated a great song begs to be covered and this Marvin Gaye classic is no exception. So it was a no-brainer when the team that supports great friend to GFM Jayanti sent over some footage of her live performance from Holland Got Soul 2012 that we would post.
What can one say except that when you have the convergence of a great song, a great vocal performance and a great band you know that there’s going to be magic in the air. We are hoping that Jayanti will be a name that you will hear a lot more from in 2012 and in the years to come. Today, we just wanted to provide a little taste.
Paul Hardcastle takes on the Steely Dan classic “Do It Again” from his Hardcastle 1 project.
The 1980s were a rough time for Etta James, who would spend most of the decade in the grip of substance abuse issues before finally getting clean. 1989 saw the start of her comeback with the release of Seven Year Itch, a knockout album of rough-edged, back-to-basics blues.
“Feel Like Breaking Up Somebody’s Home” has become something of a genre standard, having been most famously recorded by blues legend Albert King and soul diva Ann Peebles, as well as everyone from Bob Seger and Bette Midler to Denise LaSalle and Millie Jackson. But nobody matches the passion and muscle of Etta’s version.
Here, the album version and a bonus clip, a ferocious performance of 51-year-old Etta singing it live at the Netherlands’ North Sea Jazz Festival in 1993 that gives a little glimpse of how playful and raunchy she could get in her stage act. Check her out, strutting around the stage, breathing fire and grinning like she knows something you don’t. More importantly, watch mama drop it and back it up fo’ ya!
You know I’ve always been a dreamer
(Spent my life runnin’ round)
And it’s so hard to change
(Can’t seem to settle down)
But the dreams I’ve seen lately
Keep turnin’ out, and burnin’ out,
And turnin’ out the same…
“Take It to the Limit,” The Eagles’ 1975 Top Ten hit about a lonely wanderer who never managed to make much of his life, carried a country tone with a tinge of blues around the edges. Etta connected with this song—perhaps saw herself in it—and began including it in her stage act, eventually recording it in the studio on Deep in the Night in 1978—a year that also found her headlining the Montreal Jazz Festival and touring as opening act for no less than the Rolling Stones.
Though Etta would continue to perform the occasional live concert after 1978, she would largely leave the spotlight for the next ten years, struggling with alcoholism and drug addiction so badly that she would release only one studio album in the following decade.
And when you’re lookin’ for freedom
(Nobody seems to care)
And you can’t find the door
(Can’t find it anywhere)
1981′s Live From San Francisco comes from that rough period, a bootleg recording that, despite all her hardships, shows Etta clearly in full command of her powers. Refusing the trends of the day, she never got involved with disco, funk, or Philly soul, and stayed hard and true to the gritty blues that spoke from deep within.
When Randy Meisner, Glenn Frey, and Don Henley wrote “Take It to the Limit,” surely they could never have imagined just how bluesy it truly was. In a period when she was fighting her own demons for her life, in Etta’s hands these lyrics reached their full potential. When she raises to a full-throated roar on “You know I’ve always been a dreamer,” she sounds practically on the verge of tears, and you know this is a woman who’s been given a raw deal her whole life. She’s had to fight for everything she’s ever gotten, and times have gotten darker than she’ll ever say, but she’s never given up on finding what she deserves. That theme has been the trademark wellspring of tormented soul that’s laced throughout Etta’s entire catalog—right through her final album, 2011′s The Dreamer.
Slowed way down into a dragging church waltz with reverent piano and organ and a call-and-response chorus, Etta reaches in with her bare hands and molds this song into a religious experience—a testament to the determination of the human soul, a sermon on the gospel of regret.
…So put me on the highway
And show me a sign
And take it to the limit
One more time…
Our AOM takes on R. Kelly’s 1996 classic “I Believe I Can Fly”.
