Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd St. Rhythm Band
mannybolone
Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
I'm working on liner notes for a couple of upcoming Charles Wright/Watts Band comps and sat down with Wright this morning, finally hammering out some details that have been in complete, utter confusion for years now. Thought it'd be worth sharing with folks since I know there's a lot of Watts Band fans around here.Ok...here it goes (get your scorecards ready)...here are the key players:Charles Wright = singer, guitarist, multi-taskerThe Wright Sounds = a band Wright pulled together over the course of the mid 1960s which included all the members that played on "Together," In the Jungle, Babe," "Express Yourself" and "You're So Beautiful." Fred Smith = producer/owner of Keymen RecordsDJ Magnificent Montague = ran MoSoul(?), a Keymen sudsidiary and local radio personality"The Nashville West band" = a series of session players of which Wright was a member. None of the Wright Sounds players were a part of this band.Bill Cosby = pudding pusher.Warner Brothers = wascally wecord wabelNow put this in the mix too:Watts Band 1 = a bunch of players who knew Wright but were not in the Wright Sounds, nor were part of the Nashville West Band. This band, most likely were also known as the Soul Runners. Watts Band 2 = Wright + Nashville West Band w/o Wright Sounds Watts Band 2.5 = Wright + Nashville + Wright SoundsWatts Band 3 = Wright + the Wright Sounds - Nashville West Band1962: Wright forms the Wright Sounds in Los Angeles. Between now and 1968, he builds an 8-9 person group that includes almost all of the players who eventually become part of Watts Band 3. This includes Al McKay, Melvin Dunlap, James Gadson, Joe Banks, Ray Jackson, Gabe Fleming, Bill Cannon, and Johnnie Raynford (who was part of the Wright Sounds from the very beginning). 1965: The Wright Sounds begin a residency at the Haunted House in Hollywood (right around Star Shoes used to be, if I'm not mistaken). It is now an adult bookstore. ~1966/7: Wright is working with the Nashville West studio band. Fred Smith and Bill Cosby discover them. Hire them to back Cosby for his "Silver Throat" album (and later "Hooray For the Salvation Marching Band!").Smith creates a group that he christens the Watts 103rd St. Rhythm Band. This is Watts Band 1. They record a radio theme for DJ Magnificent Montague which is then released as a single, on Smith's Keymen label: "Spreadin' Honey". It becomes a decent hit. Montague re-releases the same song on a MoSoul single, under the name The Soul Runners. I can only assume this is the same band unless they were actually two different bands who recorded the same song (which is possible, I guess but unlikely). *This is where shit gets really confusing. Wright says he didn't play on "Spreadin' Honey" but says that some of the Wright Sounds members were part of the Soul Runners. BUT, when gave me a list of who was in the Wright Sounds, none of those people were the same people he named as part of the Soul Runners. I need to follow up with Wright on this.At some point, Smith relabels the Wright and the Nashville West band as the Watts Band (they are credited on the second Cosby album as such). This is Watts Band 2 and THIS is the group that records the first Warner Brothers album - either self-titled or called "Hot Heat and Sweet Groove" depending on your preference. This album includes "Spreadin' Honey"even though, if I have my facts straight, none of the members of Watts 2 actually played on this single. And likewise, none of the Watts 1 band play on the rest of the album.Confused yet? In the same year (67 was busy!), Wright, the Nashville West guys AND the Wright Sounds are backing Cosby on tour. This is Watts Band 2.5. At some point, Wright dumps the Nashville West guys and is only playing and recording with the Wright Sounds folks. 1968: Wright buys out Fred Smith and reforms the band into Watts Band 3. During a live session at the Haunted House nightclub, they record material that eventually ends up on "Together" (notice the meaning of that title now). Wright refers to "Together" as "our first album," basically disavowing the official first Warner Brothers album, which he was "not happy with." 1969: "In the Jungle, Babe" is recorded/released. Al McKay departs the group to join Earth, Wind and Fire after. He is replaced by Benorce Blackmon.1970: "Express Yourself" is recorded/released.1971: "You're So Beautiful" is recorded/released but not before Dunlap, Gadson, Jackson and Blackmon leave the group and join up with Bill Withers. The Watts Band is effectively dead and Wright records four solo albums after. Random Trivia: When the Wright Sounds forms, it includes Captain of Captain and Tenille fame (and his brother). One of my favorite Watts 103rd songs, "A Dance, a Kiss and a Song" is an old doo-wop song that James Gadson brought to Wright to arrange and Wright let Gadson sing it (which explains why this song doesn't like a Wright vocal. I was always confused about this).
Comments
what i really wanna know though is if it's them playing on the Bill Cosby Talks To Kids About Drugs album or if it's perhaps Herbie Hancock's band... that's one thing i've been curious about as there are no credits on that LP.
No, it's not. That album was recorded probably sometime in 1970 or 1971, by which time, Wright and Watts would have been in the thick of their own career, especially after "Express Yourself" blew up.
One more trivia note: Wright plays on the soundtrack to "Gunn," the Peter Gunn feature film.
Did Wright mention anything about Society's Bag? I finally got a copy of the 'Let It Crawl' 45 last week, and the names on the label (Smith, Carmicheal) and the sound of the record (it sounds like it was modeled on the backing track for 'Chittlin' Salad' by the Soul Runners' suggest a connection.
L
There are quite a few Watts Band releases that have Gadson singing lead (including their hit "Love Land").
Yeah - though Wright had an interesting story about that too. Apparently, it had been sold to him by a local L.A. singer who claimed it was his song and the Watts Band had a big hit with it...until the actual song/publishing owner - who was back East - confronted Wright and threatened to sue. Oof.
And Gadson's singing career was apparently one of the sources of tension in the group but that's for another time.
He didn't mention it but if it was Soul Runners related, it probably was not a project Wright was involved in. BTW, Carmichael was the arranger of the Nashville West band and Watts Band 2.
i have the feeling that they are always offered highly overpriced here in germany.
50 euros is the normal deal for a good copy of any album - seems a bit high?
amazing music nevertheless, and thanks for the info!
Thanks much again,
- Diego
I don't know 'bout that - one band (Watts) was fading just as the other one (E,W&F) was starting up. And even then, Earth, Wind & Fire had to change labels before making any kind of impact.
Seems to me if the Watts Band were competitive with any funk band, it would have to be the Josie-era Meters (who also turned up on Warner/Reprise just as Charles Wright was easing out the back door). Probably Dyke & the Blazers too (and even then, some of their songs had Watts Band personnel playing on them).
Ha - you know, I asked Wright this same question - who were their peers and rivals:
"We had no rivals" was the gist of his answer though I couldn't be sure if he meant, "we had no equals" or "we didn't have beef with anyone."
There were many other R&B bands in L.A. at the time, but none of them were recording - in Wright's opinion - at the Watts level...which very well might have been true during their most productive era, 1968-1971.
The main artists that Wright drew inspiration from were, unsurprisingly, James Brown and Otis Redding.
But as Pickwick insightfully notes, EWF's real ascendence happens after the Watts Band is on the wane. I can't be certain, but I don't think "You'se So Beautiful" was that big a hit and in any case, the band was already beginning to fracture at that point. Wright didn't name names with me but it's pretty clear Gadson and at least one other of the senior players were having tensions with him and this eventually boiled over once Withers came into the picture.
That's a great quote by a great artist.
http://www.expressyourself.net/ is this an offical charleswright website??
Yes, that is.
I got to speak with Wright a couple of times. It was in 1993, after Warners had (finally) released a Watts Band best-of. By sheer coincidence I wrote a whole retrospective about the Watts Band in Roctober magazine around the same time. To make a long story short, I tracked him down via phone...I told him that it was interesting that the Watts Band didn't play very many rock clubs like the Fillmore; if they had, they would have given Blood, Sweat & Tears serious competition. Wright then told me that he almost got thrown out of the International in Las Vegas after saying he wasn't too impressed by B,S & T (?!).
Remember in his self-written liner notes to the In The Jungle, Babe LP, where Wright advised any record exec looking for another Watts Band that they could find them in any ghetto across the US? Or something like that.
Odub, you really should go to a library and track down Lester Bangs' rave review of In The Jungle in Rolling Stone (ca. late '69, with Miles Davis on the cover). You might find it interesting - Bangs has some insightful things to say about how there should have been more homegrown black soul BANDS (as opposed to singing groups) like there were in white rock, and he cited the Watts Band and the Bar-Kays as exhibits A & B.
The album didn't chart very high on Billboard's pop LP listings (#147), but it did spawn one Top 10 hit on the soul charts - "Your Love Means Everything To Me."
Thanks for the recommendations. Yeah - Wright's politics are part of the band's history that tends to merit less attention than it deserves. From what I've gathered, he was pretty outspoken (then and now) but it doesn't form as much a part of the Watts story compared to other artists at the time. It's funny though, this isn't a quote I can use for my liners since I'm not discussing "In the Jungle, Babe" but Wright told me there were two songs that gave him problems: "Love Land" b/c of the publishing incident I mentioned before. The other song was "Comment."
OW: Why did "Comment" cause you problems?
CW: Because White people didn't like it.
Most of, if not all five of, their albums have been reissued by now, and then there's the Warner Archives compilation I mentioned above. Did one of these reissues lapse out of print, or are there some more odds & ends on the way?
I don't think the projects have been officially announced yet so I'm hesitant to say too much. What I can say is this: 1) it's all legit, 2) there's about 10 CDs, in total, involved in this, 3) the two projects I'm working on are both CD sets of never-heard-before recordings by the group.
Unlike a lot of other groups of the era, all the tapes for the group have been preserved and there is an insane amount of extra material that the compilers were able to comb through. Apparently, Wright would often times book the studio for the entire day and make the band practice a song 40 or so times...and then go back through and find the best version and cut that as a single or for an album. As a result, there's hours upon hours upon hours of them recording. The compiler who brought me on-board says he's never seen anything like it for a group of the Watts relative size and impact. It's like they were getting paid extra just to run tape.
As a result, every single of these projects will have practically an entire album's worth of bonus material, most of this never released before. In short, this pretty much trounces whatever's been done before (and new liner notes are being written for each of these).
What surprises me the most - and I'm not saying this to jock myself - but the fact that the Watts Band changed its entire personnel (minus Wright) b/t the first and second album is a pretty big deal that I've seen almost no one discuss before and I combed through all the web-based interviews/profiles I could find (of course, it may have been written on in print during the era and not transferred online at any point). I had only heard rumors myself so the first question I had for Wright was simply to clear this up and that's when I got the full story about the 3.5 incarnations of the Watts Band. It's pretty crazy and I'm sorry Fred Smith passed away two years ago b/c I would have liked to hear his role in the early years in putting a lot of this together.
That is really expensive, at least in the states, where all his albums turn up. I've gotten most of the catalog for next to nothing at shows and flea markets, and usually don't see them in stores for any more than $20-30.
I was listening to "against the grain" while reading your post. Perfect timing...
Good response pickwick. I can definitely understand that, and I'm always wondering about bands if they respected there peers or if there were rivalries. More times than most it's usually rivals, and not respect. I dunno If it was me in charge of the watts 103rd, and some new guys coming from chicago started doing funk on my label. That would make me a bit competitive.
Yeah, I guess at that point the band wasn't really worrying about the other shit. They like most people had there own personal things to work out within the band.
Thanks again for a thorough response.
- spidey
The thing is though - LA in this era didn't seem to have as many big name R&B recording artists as other cities. What's telling is that the Watts Band were mostly playing Top 40 music before they started recording and if you looked at their playlists, they'd be playing some Stax, some JB, some Motown, some Sly Stone, some Impressions...etc...everything except anything from Los Angeles with the exception of Dyke and the Blazers.
And I'm definitely NOT an expert on LA R&B of this era so I can't really say what was going on (or not going on) but in the late '60s, despite a shitload of R&B studio players and stage bands, it just seemed like there were few of them making a run at the charts besides the Watts 103rd. That said, I'm out of my league in knowledge here and other people can probably chime in and fill in the massive blanks I'm leaving.
I jsut read a set of notes (yet unpublished) that said "Spreadin Honey" was recorded by Wright, Carmichael PLUS Bobby Womack and Leon Haywood. This jibe with what you've heard?
The thing is: Wright said that none of the Soul Runners included people he played with from the Nashville West studio band...which means Carmichael couldn't have been a Soul Runners member (even though he might have arranged for them). Personally, I think Wright might be remembering this wrong...it seems completely reasonable that Carmichael was a Soul Runner, alongside Leslie Milton on drums plus one or two more players.
The question is: did any of the Soul Runners have anything to do with that first, Keymen recording of "Spreadin Honey" and "Charley" (since both songs appeared as Soul Runners' songs on MoSoul).
I have nothing to add to this thread except a gigantic thank you. Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd St. Rhythm Band are one of my favorite groups. Together is a mindblowing album. There is something about the mans voice that just crushes me every time.
'A mothers love' slays me.
And his version of here comes the sun has been the soundtrack to many a hazy morning.
Mr Wright would be one of the only artists that would leave me completely star-struck.
Whatever it is you are working on, im sold.
Thank you for posting this.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
Late pass, I missed it the first time: what is bangs talking about though? Call me crazy but was there an actual shortage of Black soul bands in this era?
Well, that certainly explains why the only good thing about the first LP is the cover.
Yeah, seriously. Like I said, Wright all but disavows this album as a POS.
So... will this project include Rhythm & Poetry and/or extra material from that album. I like that album a lot. It doesn't seem to get as much love as the others though and if I'm not mistaken hasn't really been available in the US on any format since it's release (???). I don't have the album in front of me... did it feature the same players as the early albums? If so, how did he convince the band not to get any credit on the album title? If not, then who were THOSE guys?
Good question. I don't know. That album wasn't on Warner Bros so it's not included in this set of projects and I haven't spoken to Wright about his later solo albums.