Wanted: One Soul Singer Vs. Soul of a Bell
The_Hook_Up
8,182 Posts
tough one, definitely high points in the Stax catalog, and I would argue perhaps the greatest LPs Stax ever released(even though Otis rules the roost, I dont think he had an LP that reached this quality) from the standpoint of "all killer no filler", which is hard to come by in a 60s Soul LP...right down to the artwork, which I would put on par with Reid Miles' Blue Note jackets...Im thinkin Im going to go with Mr. Taylor...just for the stylistic diversity on the LP...gorgeous ballads, tough minor key steez, head noddin funk and flawless soul..
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Even though William Bell's LP was fine as it was, it still had this "hit plus filler" feel about it, like they needed to get something out on the market just to say that William Bell had an album out. Johnnie's LP, by contrast, hangs together like a real, honest-to-goodness, well-conceived elpee.
Don't know if I could compare the covers to the Blue Note artwork. Blue Note wouldn't have done something as gimmicky as this:
In case you can't make it out (for those who have never seen this LP cover before), the tiny black print in the background is supposed to be the text of the want-ad section of the newspaper Johnnie is reading. The back cover showed his job application.
BTW, William Bell's actually LOSES points for RE-RECORDING his 1962 hit, "You Don't Miss Your Water." The liner notes to the CD reissue go on about how the original version was hissy, was only available in mono, and had an archaic organ sound, but that's why it was so great. You don't need to be an audiophile to dig Memphis soul.
nah, the version on SoaB is fantastic also. no points deducted.
I never said the remake was bad, I just didn't like the fact that they felt they had to remake it in the first place.
The recut isn't horrible, but I'd have to be a two-dollar fool to put the second one before the first.
not true
go take a look at Eric Dolphy 'Out to Lunch' etc
For real: I don't mean this as a criticism, but Blue Note indulged in a lot of gimmicky, play-on-image/word on their covers.
And in any case, I think what's impressive about the JT cover is the bold text treatment: you just don't see that kind of modernist approach on a lot of R&B albums of the era.
On that tip, this one always comes to mind for me:
You're right, they did do literal covers, but they were a lot more subtle about it than Stax would have been. If Wanted One Soul Singer had come out on Blue Note, they probably would have had a moody, noir-ish B&W shot of Taylor circling an ad in the paper, or something. They wouldn't have gone as far as having newspaper text clutter the front, or a mock job application on the back cover.
I think ALL albums had bold text back in those pre-psych times, not just jazz. When you look at the covers of some of James Brown's King LP's, there was no mistaking who those LP's were by.
This might not be as "tasteful" as Blue Note, but you could definitely see this album's artwork from across the street on a foggy day.
What about Eddie Floyd's Knock On Wood from that era? And Carla Thomas' The Queen Alone?
Strangely enuff, I think I might prefer the Carla album above JT and WB, although you can't go wrong with any of them.
Bold text, sure, but I'm talking about a modernist approach to layout and text design. That James Brown cover isn't modernist, however loud. What defined Reid Miles' work, for example, was this hyper-cool, super-modernist approach on his most classic covers and while there are examples of this in the R&B world, it just wasn't as common.
*cough cough*