"Ooh Baby Baby" appreciation
mannybolone
Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
Smokey's best song?
Is this the best cover of it?
Discuss.
mannybolone
Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
Comments
That vid was great.
Aretha did Track of My Tears on Soul '69 with a classical guitar and big band. A fav, not on youtube.
I always liked That's What Love Is Made Of written in a folk style.
But man, don't get me started on Smokey. The consummate writer's writer. At one end he's got cathedrals like "Tracks Of My Tears" and "I'll Try Something New," and at the other end he's got "Ooo [no 'h', right?] Baby Baby" and "You Really Got A Hold On Me," so simple and perfect and emotionally direct that they don't seem like the result of actual human labor; like I told my man David one time about "Ain't No Sunshine" (or maybe "People Get Ready") stuff like that feels like it came out of a crack in the earth, you know? So elemental.
And Aretha's looking good there, but I don't think she covers this well. Too jazzy by half. Steamrolling over that fine little "what-a-price-to-pay" and shit.
And this is the not so close second, from the post-classic era:
Your writing, as always, is the best. And I always like your analysis.
But Aretha does a great job on this and the duet is wonderful. I heard no steamrolling and you best go back and listen to her piano to fully appreciate what a staggeringly great job she does here. Her piano under smokey's verse is killer on top of killer.
Or different strokes.
A few that I like from the first few letters.
AIN???T THAT PECULIAR
AS LONG AS THERE IS L.O.V.E.
COME ON DO THE JERK
IF YOU WANNA MAKE LOVE (COME ROUND HERE))
DON???T MESS WITH BILL
FIRST I LOOK AT THE PURSE
GET READY
GOING TO A GO GO
GOT A JOB
I SECOND THAT EMOTION
I???LL BE DOGGONE
Always really liked this later one too.
the groove is so in the pocket. whenever i hear it i just wanna hug a woman and slowdance.
come here girl.
I feel like here Aretha has over-compartmentalized, with butcher-block piano providing all the rhythmic push and her uniformly creamy jazz vocal ostensibly providing all the finesse. I think she misses a lot of the interplay, and with that, a lot of the point.
I'm kinda reluctant to parse it too too much, though; I mean, this doesn't seem like a proper duet so much as it seems like some cute thing she and Smokey were doing mostly just to do it. I don't think it's "wonderful," but it is fun to watch.
Like you said, different strokes.
Adore this track but to me Tracks Of My Tears is on a different level to pretty much anything else. As played out as it is I would expect its power to have died over the years but the wonderful song writing combined with Smokey's voice gets me every time. I can't think of many big hits where the male singer sounds as fragile as he does on that record, sure his vocals are as sweet as always but there's a real delicate, close to cracking edge to them, which adds even more power to the song.
"When Smokey sings.... He sings."
I can't take a good look at his face these days, so I will ride for "Being With You". It reminds me of sneaking to the pool hall during school lunch and their jukebox, which hard-nut neo-mods had queued up with Motown and Northern obscurities, as a soundtrack to furtive petty crime.
Occasionally this would break the 60's stranglehold (along with The Who, Blancmange's "Living on the ceiling", Kraftwerk's "The Model" and bizarrely, the instrumental of Soft Cell's "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye").
It was next to a dentists, and when it was quiet, you could hear the screams.
And you wonder why the Brits have bad teeth.
First off I would like to apologize for my superlative laden post. Isn't there some rule about not modifying an absolute?
I wish I could write like you. You do a great job describing the original.
I think this is simply a case of "I love the original which can't be matched". When I was a kid we considered all Beatles covers to be crimes against music. I have gotten over it.
If you could get past comparing the duet with the original, and just listen to the duet on it's own merits, I think you would see that your tastes are wrong and mine are right. :-S
b/w
I'd be interested in hearing what you like so much about this particular version. Is this in fact simply a case of "I love Aretha/Smokey who can't be matched"? Is this about that time a couple years ago when I cracked on her emotionally tone-deaf cover of the also-great "What A Fool Believes," D*n? Because apart from the awesome iconography of the involved parties, I'm having a hard time seeing what makes this duet special. It's a couple of legends having a bit of fun in the minutes betwixt and between on-camera bullshitting with Don Corn. Cool.
The opening piano chords and first solo, then duet la la las are heart wrenching.
The corny chatter that follows does not hurt my mood.
Not sure why you keep calling Aretha jazzy. Her first verse is simple and pure. I don't hear Dinah Washington (her jazz muse) or Ella. Though the purity of the way she hits 'What A Price' could be compared to Ella. Her piano under her verse is simple block chords, with some nice dynamic variations. I'll admit that Smokey walks through his verse, but her play with the piano harmonies underneath bring new meaning to the song. Her vocal interjections under Smokey's voice are the very definition of soul. The Ooh Ooh Oohs after Smokey's verse feature harmonic variations that end up making this more of a soul song and less of the pop gem the original was.
I always like hearing musicians making music together.
I will always prefer this kind of thing over the studio wizardry of Steely Dan or the Beach Boys.
A great piano player, 2 great singers, a great song, simple and pure delivery. What is not to like?
Thanks for pointing that out. A pet peeve of mine is the notion that insanity/drugs/abuse... is the source of an artist's genius.
Smokey is as great a song writer as any, and what a voice. Best I know he is a clean living guy who succeeded by working hard at his craft.