electric mud remixed?
TREW
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just finished watching one part of m. scorcese's 'the blues'.. the part with chuck and common in the studio with upchurch and jennings. during the recording marshall chess lays down the 'guidelines' of the session and alludes to more tracks being recorded.. anyone know if this ever happened in album form or was it strictly a one song deal for the film..(ps. if you're into blues at any level, i highly recommend watching this entire 7 part series)
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as best as i can tell, it was a one-song deal for the series. that remake of "i'm a man"/"mannish boy" appears on the soundtrack for the special, which i believe was just called THE BLUES.
i saw most of the series when it originally aired. i thought the series was only as good as whatever episode was airing that night. i'd say the one with bobby rush was the best; the fictionalized account of the kid discovering the blues by going to live with his uncle one summer was the worst. the british blues thing was passable, and everything else was worth seeing.
were there any more songs besides that "im a man" thing they were working on?
Now I felt this was the best one. I've always been a huge fan of British blues, so to know a little more about it was very interesting to me, and I learned a hell of a lot of stuff, especially in terms of racial issues, and the blues and jazz scene in England in the 1950's. Then, as we all know, they bring all of that music to the U.S. and people are either taken aback, or in shock, or both, to know that these British white guys are taking in black American music as their own, while there has been a movement of sorts in parts of U.S. to get rid of that race music. It's the only soundtrack I have out of the series, and I bought it after hearing Lulu. My knowledge of Lulu is very small, I know "To Sir With Love" and a cover of The Isley Brothers' "Shout" that Max Headroom showed on his TV show years ago, but I was blown away by her performance of "Drown In My Own Tears". The entire soundtrack of Red, White & Blues[/b] is great.
I am not sure, but the Common track is on there.
This is really too bad to hear, I have been wanting to see that one, as Charles Burnett was the most interesting (to me) director involved. He was the only African-American director involved, and his films that I have seen were excellent.
Of the episodes I saw, all were good, although my lack of interest in British Blues kept me a bit on the outside of that one.
Well, I guess for me I expected good, well-researched documentaries, and this one was a bit more about storytelling. I didn't expect that, and it felt more poetic than something like a good Howlin' Wolf documentary. Maybe if I watched it again, I would think differently, but it was very different from the other films, which were all documentaries.
I see Savoy Brown is playing at the Chicago Blues Festival next weekend. Never was a big fan of this band (although I'd LOVE to find a 45 of "Tell Mama"), but I still intend to check out the show for kicks. What the hell, it's free.
Isn't Tom Jones on there? Before he got so Vegas, he was actually a credible white R&B singer (check his first album, IT'S NOT UNUSUAL, for proof). It's high time somebody returned him to his roots.
As far as Lulu, I knew she always had it in her. After Jerry Wexler signed Dusty Springfield to Atlantic and gave her the Memphis soul treatment, he did a similar experiment with Lulu (heard on her Atco albums). The material didn't stand out as much as the songs on DUSTY IN MEMPHIS, but she could hold her own on those Southern soul-ish tunes - she wasn't guessing.
blew me away to hear tom's name spoken in the same sentence as the stones.. it's really quite difficult to see past his vegas-ness.
when t.j. first broke in the states, he was considered part of that same brit invasion that brought us the stones. but as the years went on, tom went one way and the beat bands went another. it's all about context.
i'll bet if he did the IT'S NOT UNUSUAL album and nothing else, you'd feel differently. the title track may be a shade on the pop side, but many of the tracks are quite raw, compared to the t.j. we know today. he WOUND UP vegasy, he didnt start that way from the gitgo.
i hear you. 'looking out my window' is somewhat funk45ish from what i remember. it's just a shame about his evolution. i feel the same way about kenny rogers...
The backing to "She's a Lady" is thisclose to being really hard; if only those horns and drums were grittier. Is there some heavy cover of this one I've never heard? It could have been copped all right by one of those yellers like Freddie Scott.
i hear you. if tom's management had better taste in music (and were more knowledgeable about R&B), they could have steered him in the same direction as freddie scott or chuck jackson, whose voices tom kinda favors.