Come Give Me Your Sweetness

Syreeta’s sweet soprano is from another world. 

Rita Wright was a receptionist at Motown before her incredible voice was discovered by in-house songwriter Brian Holland, of the Holland-Dozier songwriting team. She sang backup before recording her first single, the Ashford & Simpson-penned  “I Can’t Give Back The Love That I Feel For You” in 1967.

I Can’t Give Back The Love I Feel For You

She clearly had musical chops, and paramour Stevie Wonder encouraged her to write songs. Together they penned “It’s A Shame” for the Spinners, which hit #14 on the pop charts. Wright and Wonder got married in 1970. They began co-writing songs that year, including “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours)” and “If You Really Love Me,” which she also sang on. 

It’s A Shame-Spinners

If You Really Love Me

“If You Really Love Me” appeared on Stevie’s album Where I’m Coming From. It was has last album before he let his contract expire with the label, who were notorious for creatively-controlling their artists. Within two years, he re-signed with Motown, but under his terms. He had learned to play hardball with them after watching Marvin Gaye successfully negotiate control over What’s Goin’ On.

Motown wanted a flashier name than Rita Wright, and she became Syreeta. Her first LP Syreeta was produced by Wonder in 1972, the same year they got divorced. Apparently, there was no bad blood and only love between them, as they continued to collaborate for years to come. This album really was the genesis of Stevie delving into heavier experimentation in the studio over his next five albums. For some reason I never saw the silhouette of Syreeta’s face in the album art until just now. It’s like a magic eye puzzle, only not. 

Here she is on her first album doing an insane version of The Beatles’ “She’s Leaving Home” with Stevie on the vocoder.

She’s Leaving Home

Syreeta didn’t produce any big hits when it dropped, which is perhaps why her next album two years later, Stevie Wonder Presents Syreeta, name-checked Wonder and was presented as a debut. Singing backup on the album was Deniece “Let’s Hear It For The Boy” Williams, and Minnie “Loving You” Ripperton. Both, along with Syreeta, had sung backup for Stevie under the moniker Wonderlove.  I love Minnie Ripperton. She’s a whole other posting someday. I also love Syreeta’s Sunset Boulevard Norma Desmond look on the cover. 

“‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers” is one of the saddest break-up songs ever. It has that elusive melody quality that Stevie’s “Visions” has.

‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers

Visions

Jeff Beck recorded a version of “‘Cause We’ve ended As Lovers” in 1975, on his album Blow By Blow.

‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers-Jeff Beck

 

The 1977 album One To One moved into more of a dance direction.  This was Syreeta’s last Motown-affiliated album, as she was always butting heads with Berry Gordy over artistic control. 

Harmour Love

Syreeta scored her biggest hit duetting with Billy Preston with “With You I’m Born Again,” from the soundtrack to the Gabe “Mr. Kotter” Kaplan vehicle Fastbreak, a sort of Bad News Bears rip-off in which Kaplan coaches a misfit college basketball team. I’ve never seen this movie but I cant imagine this song playing during a romantic montage with Gabe Kaplan. Nuts. 

I don’t think this song is really about being born again in the Christian sense, though I remember my sister wanted to sing this song in our church, but she was worried that the lyrics were too explicit.  I loved this song. It was really the beginning of my secret love for syrupy duets in the vein of “Secret Lovers” by Atlantic Starr. 

With You I’m Born Again

Here they are singing it live, it gives me goosebumps!

In 1980 Syreeta made yet another album named Syreeta, her biggest seller due to the inclusion of “Born Again.” She released two more albums in the early 1980s, and collaborated with George Harrison on the song “Dream Away” from the 1982 film Time Bandits.

Dream Away

This movie played a lot on HBO in the early 80s and I loved it! I think this movie, Rocky 2, and The Terry Fox Story were the most broadcast films in HBO history. Just kidding, but that’s how I remember it. The Terry Fox Story  was about Canadian amputee and long-distance runner Terry Fox, who ran coast to coast in Canada to raise money for cancer, which he eventually succumbed to. My brother and I watched this movie at least twenty times. Below is a picture of the real Terry Fox. The Terry Fox Story was HBO’s first foray into producing their own TV movies. 

 Here’s the 1983 feature presentation intro on HBO. This sent my mind reeling at the time. 

Syreeta’s last album was issued in 1983. She continued to collaborate with other artists, like Willie Hutch, Jermaine Jackson, and Billy Preston. In 1994, she played Mary Magdalene in a travelling version of my favorite musical Jesus Christ Superstar. It kills me that I never saw this, as the original Jesus and Judas from the Norman Jewison film, Ted Neeley and Carl Anderson, reprised their roles. Carl Anderson died of leukemia in February of 2004. He was seriously so talented, and I can’t imagine anyone else playing Judas as greatly as he did. 

Here he is as Judas, dropping down from the sky from Heaven to explain to Jesus that he only failed because he didn’t market himself properly, which is true.

Sadly, Syreeta also died too young of bone cancer, only months after Carl Anderson, in 2004. She really deserves more recognition as a singer and songwriter. 

God, this is like the people dying of cancer too young post. Syreeta, Carl Anderson, Terry Fox, Minnie Ripperton. At least Gabe Kaplan is alive and kicking, but looking pretty smarmy.

I can’t end this post this way. Here’s Syreeta again. Rest in peace, girl.

Someday We’ll All Be Free

I first heard Donny Hathaway when I bought a copy of Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway at a thrift store. This album blew me away. It was a long time before I realized the pattern on the cover was made from handprints.

Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack were both promising piano players with gospel roots, who received scholarships to Howard University, where they first met. Donny didn’t graduate, as he was inundated with job offers, one of which was a role as in-house producer for Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom label.

How can you not love this this album cover?

Hathaway’s first solo album was released on the Atco/Atlantic label in 1970. Everything Is Everything was critically praised but not a best-seller. Mixing themes of black pride, spirituality, hellish city life, and love- and utilizing the entire pantheon of African-American musical styles- Hathaway’s album was too unconventional for mainstream radio. In terms of “music with a message”, Donny was a forerunner. Everything Is Everything  was released a year before Marvin Gaye’s What’s Goin’ On. It’s also impossible to think that Stevie Wonder didn’t draw greatly from Everything Is Everything, as his sound and and spirituality had richened in the early 1970s beginning with Music Of My Mind, which was released two years after Donny’s debut. 

Donnie had a minor hit on the album with “The Ghetto,” a seven-minute long song with few lyrics. He describes the  problems of the inner-city (de-intrustrialization, lack of jobs, poverty, violent crime) with screams, hollers, and an occasional moan. It’s a funky dirge. 

The Ghetto

“Tryin’ Times” is in a similar vein to “The Ghetto,” with lyrics by Leroy Hutson, a frequent collaborator, who later became lead singer in The Impressions after Curtis Mayfield began concentrating on solo efforts. 

Tryin’ Times

Roberta Flack did a version of “Trying Times” a year earlier, on her debut album First Take. She recorded the whole album in 10 hours, a testament, I think, to her musicianship. Once again, love the cover. 

Tryin’ Times

Hathaway’s second album, Donny Hathaway was less critically lauded, and he was not the primary songwriter. It’s not my favorite, but he did perform an amazing cover of Leon Russells’s “A Song For You.” Forget versions by Willie Nelson or The Carpenters, this is the one. Great piano opening. 

A Song For You

Also, a nice cover of The Hollies’ ode to brothers returning from Vietnam crippled and maimed.

He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother

1972 was a busy year for Hathaway, as he released a soundtrack, live album, and studio album. 

Come Back, Charleston Blue was the soundtrack to the Godfrey Cambridge-starring film, which was a sequel to the crime author Chester Himes’ novel Cotton Comes To Harlem. I haven’t seen this film, but I saw and read Cotton Comes to Harlem, both great, about the travails of two charismatic cops in Harlem, Coffin Ed and Gravedigger. This was  “supervised” by Quincy Jones, all music by Hathaway, however. 

Liberation

Donny Hathaway killed it live. This is an amazing album all the way through. The energy of the audience in this club parallel’s the vivacity of the audience on Sam Cooke’s Live At the Harlem Square Club, which is saying a lot. The audience totally freaks out during “The Ghetto.” Also, a mind-blowing version of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy.” I love the way he says “didn’t” when he sings “I didn’t mean to hurt you, and I’m sorry I made you cry….” 

The Ghetto

Jealous Guy

Sam Cooke deserves his own posting (a daunting prospect), but here’s “Bring It On Home to Me” at the Harlem Square Club in Miami so you know what I’m talking about. It’s like there’s a fire in there.

Bring It On Home To Me

In 1972, Donny also recorded his first duet album with Roberta Flack. Here they are looking happy on the inside gatefold sleeve.

Among my favorite tracks are “I (Who Have Nothing)” and a cover of  James Taylor’s “You’ve Got A Friend.” Other versions of “I (Who Have Nothing)” seem overblown compared to their bluesy version. Interestingly this song, first made big by Ben E. King in 1963, was based on a 1961 Italian hit song, with English lyrics by Lieber & Stoller. 

I (Who Have Nothing)

You’ve Got A Friend

Extension Of A Man came out in 1973. “Someday We’ll All Be Free” is my favorite song off this album. It’s akin to The Beach Boys’ “Surf’s Up” or “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times” for me. When I was twenty or so, I felt this spiritual connection with Brian Wilson. I just felt all screwed up in general, and I’d listen to his songs and felt better that young Brian felt as out of place in the world as I did. 

Edward Howard, the lyricist of “Someday We’ll all Be Free” said that he wrote the words for and about Donny, who was experiencing depression and probably undiagnosed schizophrenia. Howard said: “What was going through my mind at the time was Donny, because Donny was a very troubled person. I hoped that at some point he would be released from all that he was going through. There was nothing I could do but write something that might be encouraging for him.” The lyrics begin, “Hang on to the world as it spins around/ Just don’t let the spin get you down.” 

Someday We’ll All Be Free

Extension Of A Man was Donny Hathaway’s last solo album. In the mid-seventies he continued to produce for others, but was plagued by depression and repeatedly hospitalized to fight it. Many of his friendships were damaged during this period, including with Roberta Flack, but by 1978 they had reconciled and recorded the slow-burner “The Closer I Get To You,” off her album Blue Lights In the Basement. 

The Closer I Get To You

The success of that song inspired them to begin recording another album of duets. By all accounts Donny seemed to be feeling better, which made it more shocking when a body, found on the sidewalk in front of The Essex House on Central Park South in NYC on January 13, 1979, turned out to be Donny Hathaway. He had been residing at the hotel. The glass in the window in his apartment had been carefully removed and there were no signs of foul play. Earlier that day Hathaway and his manager had had an amicable dinner with Roberta Flack at her home.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson eulogized Hathaway at his funeral, which was attended by Flack and Stevie Wonder, among other notable musicians. 

Roberta Flack released Roberta Flack Featuring Donny Hathaway, which included a few of their completed duets, in 1980.

In tribute to Donny, The Whispers recorded a song using the melody from “This Christmas,” Hathaway’s hit Christmas single from 1972. 

A Song For Donny

Speaking of tribute songs, I can’t help but post these two from 1984. The Commodores sans Lionel Richie recorded “Nightshift” for recently deceased Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye. Diana Ross recorded “Missing You” for Marvin, former labelmate, collaborator, and lover.

Nightshift

A Diana Ross video for “Missin’ You”:

Doing research for this post, I was excited to find out that Donny Hathaway was born three days before my mother, and was also a fellow Libran. My spiritual soul brother. 

A Jimmy Webb Whitman’s Sampler

Whitman Sampler’s are cheap and gross, but when was a kid and would go to the K&B Drugstore on Canal Boulevard in New Orleans, I coveted the Whitman’s Sampler, which was out of my price range. It was all chocolate-covered cherries or candy hearts for me. Yes, I bought myself Valentine’s Day candy. 

K&B Drugs, short for Katz and Besthoff, was founded in 1905. They used a distinctive purple hue in all of their advertising, as well as store fixtures such as cash registers and automated entry gates. It came to be known as K&B purple, and is still referred to as such in New Orleans, despite K&B being bought out by Rite-Aid Drugstores in 1997. K&B sold their own line of ice-cream, and was well-stocked with wine, beer, and liquor (Ah, New Orleans, where one can buy drive-thru daiquiris!).  You can still find old K&B purple shopping carts in use at thrift stores around town. 

This is what K&B purple is really like, not that early advertisement. These 4 matchbooks are going for $5 on ebay right now. No bids yet, so if you’re interested, here’s the link:

K&B Matchbooks

The Whitman’s Sampler offered a variety of tastes and textures, and I was drawn to the faux-needlepoint sampler box. Very Colonial-America. 

None of this has to do with Jimmy Webb, however.

Jimmy Webb is one of my favorite songwriters. Despite trying to like his solo albums,  I’ve never been able to enjoy him singing his own compositions. This felt wrong to me for a long time, but I’ve gotten over it. Here is a Gentlebear Sampler of Jimmy Webb favorites as sung by others.

I suppose my admiration began as a young listener with Glen Campbell’s version of Wichita Lineman. There are so many other great versions of the song. Yes, his is the best, but what about O.C. Smith’s awesome version? You can feel the stuttering electric line needing repair from the lineman in the intro.

Wichita Lineman-O.C. Smith

How about The Moments, concluding a medley of “More Today Than Yesterday” and “Yesterday” with “Wichita Lineman” on their killer album Live At The New York State Women’s Prison? I just bought a clean copy of this record but still favor my scratchy rip from a few years ago. 

Medley: More Today Than Yesterday/Yesterday/Wichita Lineman

Jimmy’s “Do What You Gotta Do” is one of my favorite songs performed by Nina Simone. I always loved the line “I loved you better than your own kin did!” I’m including a live version, too. I love the open-endedness of the love-affair in the song. She’s basically giving a a greenlight to her man to go off and cat around. She’ll be around when he wants it, if he wants it. 

Do What You Gotta Do

Do What You Gotta Do-Live

Thelma Houston, who scored her biggest hit in 1977 with “Don’t Leave Me This Way,” recorded her first album with Jimmy Webb producing. Off 1969’s Sunshower, here’s “Mixed Up Girl” (actually named “Crazy Mixed Up Girl” on Sunshower). 

Mixed Up Girl

Dusty Springfield sang “Mixed Up Girl” on her 1970 album, See All Her Faces. The title track is possibly my favorite Dusty vocal. 

Mixed Up Girl

“The Velvet Fog,” Mel Torme, recorded some pop albums in the late 1960s for Capitol. Here he is singing “Requiem: 820 Latham” off Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head. Some sort of sexual encounter happens when the two people in the song “mix our hot young blood with granite dust.” 

Requiem: 820 Latham

Perhaps the most bizarre installment in this posting is “Paper Cup,” as sung by The 5th Dimension. This is a song literally about living in a paper cup and/or perhaps being a paper cup, in search of a paper plate to fall in love with. Figuratively, it’s a song about dropping out of society and not getting too hung up on things, but also about not finding love when you don’t leave the house/paper cup/confines of your mind. “I’m always looking up from inside my paper cup”, which is described in the song as an awesome bachelor pad. There’s a shower, air-conditioning, a den… Like I said, a bizarre song. 

Paper Cup

Here’s a video of the 5th Dimension in a circle, singing “Paper Cup.” I suppose they’re miming a paper cup. 

Donna Summer’s version of “MacArthur Park” is a masterpiece. This lover’s lament is perhaps inspired by W.H. Auden’s response to a reporter’s cameraman: “Your cameraman might enjoy himself, because my face looks like a wedding cake left out in the rain.” 

MacArthur Park

Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder made some great hits together. This hit #1 for them in November of 1978. Here’s Moroder manning his synths.

Here’s Donna Summer looking beautiful singing “MacArthur Park” in concert. I wouldn’t kick her out of bed. In fact, I would like to spoon her.

Apparently, Jimmy Webb has re-embraced his Christian upbringing. Concerning songwriting, he had this to say: “I couldn’t write a song without God. Sure, I could hack out hackneyed phrases and clichés, but to write anything meaningful I have to be in tune with God. He is the great source, my inspiration, the current that I have to connect to. Sadly I’ve not always used the gift he’s given me — the answered prayer — as best as I could or should have. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve done things I wish I hadn’t done.”

More power to him.

Hello It’s Me

If you had met me ten years ago, and I had taken a shine to you, you would have received a mix tape from me with three versions of the Todd Rundgren song “Hello It’s Me.” The first version I actually remember hearing was The Isley Brothers’ on the radio in New Orleans, and I was blown away by the lyrics. It’s a lets-not-breakup-song, but it’s already too late. It’s hard to say who’s breaking/broke up with who. I finally figured out who sang it (this is way before regular internet use for me- I don’t even think I had an e-mail account) and found The Isleys’ 1974 record, Live It Up!. 

Hello It’s Me-Isley Brothers

Those interested in finding out the astrological signs of each Isley need only peruse the back cover of Live It Up!.

Later on, I heard Todd’s hit version off the 1972 album Something/Anything?, and realized he was the writer. How I had escaped this version on “rock of the 70s and 80s” radio for so long, I’ll never know.

Hello It’s Me-Todd Rundgren

After that, I found the earlier version of the song Rundgren had recorded with his Philadelphia band he had begun as a teenager, Nazz. This version is my favorite. I can’t tell you how many times I played this song for people in my sun-drenched living room, drinking Coors Light, smoking joints, drawing. Re: Coors Light,  I was on a budget then- but now I’ve developed a taste for it! 

Look how much fun these people are having drinking Coors Light!

Hello It’s Me-Nazz

Here’s Todd performing “Hello It’s Me” on the 1973 television show “Midnight Special,” introduced by The Four Tops. Amazing make-up. 

Lastly, another Todd Rundgren song off his bizarre album A Wizard, A True Star reminiscent of “Hello It’s Me” in theme. “I Don’t Want to Tie You Down” is about the difficult balance between loving and possessing the object of your affection. The lyrics are rather creepy, but also sweet. I love the cover art. 

I Don’t Want to Tie You Down

Speaking of possessive love, here’s a video review of the 1981 Andrzej Zulawski film Possession that some ex-film student posted on YouTube. It’s actually pretty good. I feel like this guy talks about movies like I talk about music, and I wasn’t surprised to read in his profile that he thinks he’s crazy, and suffers from autism. I’m beginning to think that everybody I know is slightly autistic. Or artistic. 

I love watching Isabelle Adjani, one of my favorite actresses ever. This movie about obsessive love freaked me out for a few days after I watched it.  

Isabelle Adjani is so good at playing mentally-unstable. Here she is in the trailer for her first major film, at the tender age of 20, playing Victor Hugo’s daughter in The Story of Adele H., directed by Francois Truffaut. Unfortunately, the trailer is dubbed.

You’ve Got A Lot of Nerve

 

The power of Bob Dylan’s “Positively 4th Street” lies largely in the cheerfulness of the melody, in juxtaposition to Dylan’s scathing lyrics.

Anita Kerr arranged and produced many vocal groups, as well as collaborating with one of my favorite singer/songwriters, Rod McKuen (see my July 8th “On The Road” posting). In 1966, Kerr’s project, The Living Voices, recorded this gem for the album Positively 4th Street and Other Message Folk Songs. They take Dylan’s sarcasm to the next level in this sickly-sweet version of “Positively 4th Street.” Easy-listening with punch. Their version of “Universal Soldier” blows me away, too. 

Positively 4th Street

In the same vein of “Wow, what a weird reading of a song” is Noel Harrison’s version of “Whiter Shade of Pale.” Harrison, son of Rex, AKA Dr. Doolittle and Henry Higgins, is most famous for his version of “Windmills of Your Mind”, from the soundtrack to the original The Thomas Crown Affair. This is off his album Collage, which has an awesome trippy cover, which is why I originally bought it. 

Here’s “Whiter Shade of Pale”, along with the title track off his album Santa Monica Pier. 

Whiter Shade of Pale

Santa Monica Pier

Santa Monica Pier was built in 1909 and was one of the original amusement piers in America. By the 1970s it was in shambles and near demolition, when preservationists saved it. Where would Jack, Janet, and Chrissy (in the Three’s Company opening) galavant and drive bumper cars if not for those concerned citizens saving Santa Monica Pier? 

Some good things can’t be saved. New Orleans had an amusement park named Pontchartrain Beach, on Lake Pontchartrain, which was closed in 1983, due to dwindling ticket sales and the competition from the forthcoming World’s Fair of 1984. 

People used to swim in the lake, but not since I can remember. 

Here’s a 1962 radio commercial for Pontchartrain Beach from WTIX:

Pontchartrain Beach Commercial 1962

Pontchartrain Beach was “whites only” until 1964. Lincoln Beach was a smaller-scaled amusement park for non-whites, and featured live performances from great artists such as Fats Domino, Little Richard, The Neville Brothers, and Sam Cooke. It was also the site of the annual Negro State Fair, and was one of the only beaches open to African-Americans in the country. Here’s a clipping from a 1954 issue of Jet Magazine covering the “Miss Lincoln Beach” competition.

Lincoln Beach closed in 1965 mainly due to desegregation. It fell into disrepair, and was further damaged by the floodwaters of Katrina, which heavily affected New Orleans East. Here’s the old rusted sign and pavillion to Lincoln Beach now.