Song of the Week: Don Covay and the Goodtimers -- Mercy, Mercy and Can't Stay Away

This Flipster just hit a record store which recently purchased a radio station's collection of singles. Clearly this Green Bay, Wisconsin station was into soul. That makes for a happy, albeit a little less financially secure, Flipster. In the coming weeks, you'll very likely be hearing a lot of these records digitally spinning here at On The Flip-Side.

We'll start with Don Covay's August, 1964 release for Rosemart Records. One of only two releases Covay had on the boutique label owned by Atlantic Records. Mercy, Mercy became a common number of the 60s garage bands thanks in large part to The Rolling Stones who more than ably covered it on their Out Of Our Heads album from 1965. Incidentally, they recorded the number at Chess Studios in Chicago. 

Don Covay recorded his composition on May 13, 1964 at A1Recording Studio in New York. Why is this important? Because the man he used for guitar was none other than Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix plays on both sides. And man, oh man, is it beautiful. It's as understated as it is great. Apparently when Jimi Hendrix got to the UK a few years later he used Mercy, Mercy as one of the audition songs for both Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell. Cool. But I don't want the Jimi Hendrix connection to overcome the greatness of these two songs. Sit back, play it again and again. It only gets better with age.

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!

Minnesota Garage Spotlight: The Deacons - Empty Heart

Minnesota garage mayhem continues into week two with a small band out of Johnson High School in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Deacons were, at the time of this recording, Earl Pritchard on vocals, Gary Starzecki on bass, Richard Weeks, Rick Youngberg on lead guitar and one other cat named, Chico. Don't know his last name. The high school mates had released two singles with a different singer named Jim Reiff in 1964 for Re-Car Records. Those singles fall in the Frat Rock/Party Rock category. They're fine, but don't hold up as well as our feature song, their third and last single, released in 1966 on local stalwart label, Soma Records.

The song was funded by one Dino Barilla, a bit of a lounge singer in Minnesota with some money connections. Fuh' get about it. Mr. Barilla needed a backup band and called on The Deacons for help. The Deacons cut Dino's song, the dreadfully bad Problems About Baby, with Dino crooning away at Kay Bank Studio in Minneapolis. Then they cut a cover of The Rolling Stones' Empty Heart with Earl Pritchard on vocals. And wow, what a difference. The two sides of this single share few similarities. Rick Youngberg lifts the four chord Empty Heart to incredible new heights. Their rendition starts out much like the Stones', albeit faster, but then the band adds a particularly killer Yardbirds' styles frenzied finish replete with wailing guitar and howling screams. I wish it didn't fade out. Fade outs are for sissies. 

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!

Song of the Week: Slim Harpo - Rainin' In My Heart/Don't Start Crying Now

Rainin' In My Heart

Don't Start Cryin' Now

Slim Harpo is a curious music figure. He barely registers for blues fans, but he was a huge influence on rock musicians. More specifically, the British Invasion musicians who mined the blues for their own material. 

Born John Isaac Moore, our hero today grew up in rural Louisiana and moved to New Orleans to work the docks at the height of World War II in 1942. There Moore labored away in relative anonymity, a laborer, not a musician. He played harmonica in his church band and occasionally played guitar for them as well. Anonymity was the word for many, many years. Then, sometime in the mid-50s, Louisiana blues man, Lightnin' Slim noticed John Isaac Moore in the church band and asked him to accompany him. It was with Lightnin' Slim that John Isaac Moore became known, first, as Harmonica Slim, and then later as Slim Harpo.

At age 33, Slim Harpo released his first single on the local Excello Records label in the Summer of 1957. That maiden record featured two originals,  I'm A King Bee/I've Got Love If You Want It. John Isaac Moore was no more and the anonymity was gone.  I'm a King Bee would be recorded by The Rolling Stones for their first full length release in '64. Similarly, the Flip-Side of Harpo's first single, I've Got Love If You Want It would be covered by The Kinks and plagiarized by The Who (as I'm The Face). The Rolling Stones and Dave Edmunds would later go on to cover Harpo's 1996 number, Shake Your Hips and the Yardbirds would plagiarize another of Harpo's 1966 singles, Baby Scratch My Back (The Yardbirds rechristened the number as Rack My Mind). Countless other European bands picked up on the covers by the Stones and Kinks in particular, and covered their versions, likely never hearing Harpo's originals. And the Moody Blues took their name from one of Harpo's songs. 

But we focus today on Slim Harpo's third single, also on Excello Records, from January of 1961. Recorded in the small town of Crowley, Louisiana, it would be Slim Harpo's first release to chart on the US R&B charts and the first single of his to see a release in the UK. The number is Rainin' In My Heart/Don't Start Cryin' Now. Both numbers written by Slim Harpo. Rainin' In My Heart would be covered by The Pretty Things in '65 and Don't Start Cryin' Now would be covered by Van Morrison's Them as the Flip-Side of their first release in '64.

Even if Slim Harpo never attained fame, never became a household name, his impact was felt far beyond his native Louisiana. Enjoy.

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side. 

Under the Covers: Time is On My Side by The Rolling Stones and Irma Thomas

The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones released Time Is On My Side as a single in the US on September 26, 1964, their 4th US single. The number quickly ascended the charts and peaked at #6, their first top ten hit in the US. Two versions were actually recorded, the US single version and a later, better version that was included on the LPs. This version is the second.

Irma Thomas

Just three months prior to The Rolling Stones releasing Time Is On My Side, New Orleans soul singer, Irma Thomas recorded the Jerry Ragavoy (under the pseudonym Norman Meade) number for Imperial Records. It appeared as the Flip-Side to her 11th single, which reached only #52 on the charts. 

Enjoy. We'll see you next time On The Flip-Side!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PETE TOWNSHEND: The Who -- 1921

In 1968, The Who were at a crossroads. The four lads were well known in England but considered a definite second class to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. In the U.S., they were still an enigma to the masses. The year prior they had released one of the most successfully ambitious and entertaining records to ever hit the bins, the quasi-concept album, The Who Sell Out. But nobody in the U.S. bought it and few in the UK appreciated the album beyond the one single to come from the album, I Can See For Miles. (it didn't help that the theme of the album was an attack on state-run radio). For a very frustrated Who, success on the charts was as elusive as modesty is for Kim Kardashian. But their live performances were winning fans over one at a time. One was John Phillips of the Mamas and Papas who picked The Who to perform at the Monterey Pop Festival for the final night. Their blitzkrieg performance served not so much as a coming out party in the US, but more as a full frontal assault. After the American musicians and critics regained their hearing they asked, "who was that and what's next?"

The pressure was on and Pete Townshend, like a dog with his first taste of blood, began trying to expand on his nascent steps of writing a single thematic for an entire album. The result was 1969's hugely ambitious, Tommy, the so-called rock opera. This was not about flowers in your hair, love, and peace. This was about murder, pedophilia, false messiahs and the life affirming power of music. This self-produced album, with french horns and copious amounts of acoustic guitars was quiet, dark and brooding. This album effectively ripped the band-aid off of Pete Townshend's fragile psyche and exposed performances that are as gentle and complex as the subject matter is troubling and complex.

On the first side of the four sided album is a humble little song that introduces us to the central plot of Tommy. The song is called 1921 and it is our Song of the Week. Even certified Who fans might have to pause to recall this song...and it certainly won't ever make any greatest hits double disc. The Who often dropped it from their live performances of Tommy. But that is part of the beauty of this song. 1921 is one of those many intricate Pete Townshend songs in which he lays his soul out for all to see. But as he had done before with deeply personal songs (think Sell Out's Sunrise), the song is obscured from the listener with its shy demeanor and elliptical lyrics.

Let's linger over those elliptical lyrics for a second. As mentioned earlier, they tell our central story through which the rest of the album must be understood. But in typical Townshend fashion, he forces the listener to work for it with a constant sleight of hand. His central tool in this musical prestidigitation is the constant switching of narrator.

(Allow me to pause and give a Cliff's Notes version of the scant few lines contained in the six minutes of sublime music which precede 1921 on the album). Mr. and Mrs. Walker are a newly married British couple in love. Captain Walker soon heads off to do his duty for the Empire at the outbreak of World War I. In the father's absence, his son, Tommy, is born. Around this time Mrs. Walker is told that Mr. Walker has gone missing with a number of men, and that he is presumed dead.

It is at this point that we pick up our song sung from many different perspectives, all of which, except one, are sung by Townshend at his most vulnerable. It's New Year's eve and Mrs. Walker has found a potential new father for her young child. Mrs. Walker's unnamed lover opens the song (verse 1; PT) as he whispers words of proposal in the mother's ear while making love. Presently Captain Walker miraculously (and mysteriously) returns home to find his wife entwined with the lover. An enraged Captain Walker confronts the lovers (verse 2, PT) and, in one of Townshend's most susceptible vocal performances, turns to the wife and says "I had no reason to be over-optimistic, but somehow when you smiled I could brave bad weather." And with that the Captain violently kills the lover. Unbeknownst to him, his son (at least we think it is the Captain's son), witnesses the murder while looking through a mirror in the next room (we learn the particulars of this part later). And in verse 3, PT still singing, takes on the roll of the mother as she pleads "What about the boy, he saw it all"? Here is where things get interesting, both narratively and musically. Pete Townshend now plays the part of both mother and father as they turn to the juvenile Tommy and insist to him that he "didn't hear it, didn't see it, won't say nothing to no one ever in his life." Roger Daltrey, makes his debut as Tommy as he rebuts his parents and futilely argues against the orders ("I heard it", "I saw it"). Browbeaten, the young Tommy succumbs to his parents' wishes and resigns:  "I won't say nothing to know one...never in my life." And so it is, in this one verse with three narrators singing over each other, Tommy is psychologically programmed to be deaf, dumb and blind.

Mission accomplished, the Walker's turn their attention back to each other as the father now apes the words of the dead lover. Mrs. Walker, in turn, looks for forgiveness as her unsteady voice betrays the limits of her optimism. Townshend's bittersweet voice hits that perfect balance of sad and happy as the mother struggles to make sense of what is. A coda of distinctive chords (Eb - Absus4/Eb - Abm/Eb) rings out before we are represented with the central question of the album. A largely auto-biographical question, "what about the boy?" That is a question best answered by the rest of the album. 

Pete Townshend was only 24 years old when he wrote the groundbreaking 4th Who album that would shoot to the higher echelons of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. The Who took their album on the road for nearly two years where it would transform from a soft, sensitive, introspective confession into a brash, bold, powerful statement of the healing powers of music. It was the end of one turbulent decade, and the beginning of another. It was the end of an innocently self-conscious mod band and the beginning of the most articulate pilgrims of rock. And it was the end of a commercially tenuous band, and the beginning of one of the most successful in history. It was The Who. Enjoy! Until next time, we'll see you on the Flip-Side.

Song of the Week: "Nothing's Changed", Chris Isaak

Listen - Chris Isaak performs Nothing's Changed

Sometimes I have thought I was born in the wrong year. So many of my musical, design and fashion sensibilities seem to have often been stuck in a different time. Maybe a different place too. I should have been standing on the Sunset Strip the first time Arthur Lee and Love performed at the Whiskey. Or maybe I should have been at the Crawdaddy Club in london when the Yardbirds took over a residency from the Rolling Stones. Sometimes those feelings can make for a sad and lonely Mr. Flip. Like when I awoke from a wondrous dream in which I had been at the Monterey Pop Festival only to realize, that, no, I was still in a small apartment in Providence, Rhode Island and Candlebox had a hit on the radio. Then, every once in a blue moon you meet someone for the first time that you think might just feel the same way as you do. You'll never have a friendship with them, and may never see them again, but at least their is someone else out there that thinks like you.

That was what happened the other night when a generous friend of mine introduced me to Chris Isaak. I had long followed Isaak's music (I hadn't realized how long until I really sat down to think about it) and had seen him perform live a few times. It was, however, the first chance I had to make his acquaintance. I'm not going to make too much of our cursory time together (other than to say that it was awkward when he asked for my autograph on his chest and wanted to take his picture with me...it feels so invasive to always have to do that!). But I will say, that I got that feeling of someone else who also felt as if they are of a different time. Chris Isaak exudes it in his dress, his mannerisms and his music. But, and this is a big but, his music is not so rooted in the past that it becomes a song of the past in the instant that it is born. Instead, Isaak seems to walk that beautiful and difficult line that divides tipping his pompadour to the music of Elvis, Roy Orbison and Conway Twitty and putting out fresh, original music. It's not so time out of place as it is timeless. Not everyone can do it.

Today's SOTW comes from Isaak's 1989 breakout album, Heart Shaped World. The album was recorded with the extremely lyrical guitarist, James Wilsey, who would soon leave the band, drummer Kenny Dale Johnson and bassist Rowland Salley. The latter two are still with Isaak, which says a lot about all of the men and the music. The song is the gentle and beautifully restrained Nothing's Changed. The title of which seems rather symbolic of the theme of today's article.

Enjoy Chris Isaak & Silvertone performing Nothing's Changed.

Song of the Week: "Moonlight Mile", The Rolling Stones

Listen - The Rolling Stones perform Moonlight Mile

On these digital pages, we good folk at Flip-Central usually like to hip you to songs we think you have not heard before, such as Born Loser. But today's SOTW is a song that we think you most definitely have heard before. We're just betting that it has been awhile since you heard it.

The song is from a small band out of the UK that goes by the name The Rolling Stones. The album is called Sticky Fingers. The song is the closing number on that 1971 album and is called Moonlight Mile.

While the song is credited to the usual suspects of Jagger/Richards, rumors have long swirled that Brian Jones' replacement, Mick Taylor had a more than major hand in writing this song. The way I've always heard it is that Richards wrote the main guitar riff while on a Mississippi Fred McDowell listening binge. Then the two Micks stayed up late working the riff into a full-fledged song. Jagger fleshing out the lonesome road weary lyrics, Taylor, fleshing out a full song structure. The boys later went into the studio in England to record the number for their 1970s debut. Keith Richards plays the dominant open-tuned acoustic guitar as Taylor ads the subtle and muted electric guitar work from his Gibson SG. [Ed Note: It appears that Keith is not on the recording at all, and that Mick Jagger plays the acoustic.]

A favorite moment of mine is when Jagger reflects, around the 3:00 mark, "I'm hiding baby and I'm dreaming. I'm riding down your moonlight mile." Then the song breaks into an aggressive surge of strings with a Far-East feel, only to subside in a long, slow descent of loose instruments as the song falls off to it's close. Ian Stewart's piano work is particularly effective in this rag-tag completion to a beautiful song that always makes me want to hit the open road. [Ed note: damn, I hate being wrong. A commenter to this article has pointed out that it is probably one Jim Price on piano, not Stewart]

Made a rag-pile of my shiny clothes. Gonna warm my bones, gonna warm my bones. I got silence on my radio. Let the airwaves flow. Let the airwaves flow.

Song of the Week: "Time is On My Side", Irma Thomas

Starting today, Flip-Siders are going to be treated to a theme week (similar to what we did a month ago with our week-long look at George Gershwin's Summertime). This week's theme is perhaps best described as "the original version of much better known cover versions." Not very catchy, I know, but it does the trick. We'll be digging deep into Flip-Side central's record collection to pull out some dusty, scratchy and smelly records to let you hear some wonderful songs that flopped (relatively) on the charts but were reborn in the hands and voices of other artists who -- for one reason or another -- were able to bring the beauty of the song in question to the masses. We'll post both versions of the song for you to hear.

We kick off the week with a song made famous by the Rolling Stones, Time is On My Side. The Stones released Time is On My Side in September of '64 as their second US single. It became the lads first Top 10 hit in the States and landed them a slot performing the song on the Ed Sullivan show. It's a great song written by producer Jerry Ragovoy under the pseudonym, Norman Meade. (Astute Flip-Side readers will recall that Ragovoy is the same person who wrote As Long As I Have You for Garnet Mimms, which was featured with a SoTW back in March of '09 ). The Rolling Stones perform Time is On My Side perfectly and convincingly and succeeded in getting all the little girls screaming for Mick Jagger.

So, how did the boys come to this song? Just one month before the Rolling Stones released Time is On My Side for London Records, a young woman down in New Orleans, Louisiana released Time is On My Side as a Flip-Side to her Imperial Records recording, Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand). What's remarkable about the two recordings, is how faithful to the original recording the Stones were. The Rolling Stones slowed it down ever so slightly and added a longer intro (two different Stones versions actually exist - a US release version with an organ intro (the one to which we link) and a slightly later re-recording -- which is the better and better known version -- with a guitar intro). What struck me about Irma Thomas' version when I first heard it is that it includes the snaggly toothed guitar lead under the spoken word part in the middle. I have no idea who plays it for Thomas, but he/she deserves a heap of praise for that addition that I had assumed was a Keith Richards invention.

Click here to listen to both Irma Thomas' version of Time Is On My Side and the Rolling Stones' version.

Video Diary: The Who, "A Quick One"

The best music performance ever filmed. Period.

Song of the Week: "So Long Cruel World", Blanche

The construction of a song is a fascinating thing to deconstruct. I'm not sure that makes any sense but I'll forge on. When one pull's most rock songs apart that person is left with a musical skeleton that generally fits into two broad categories: blues construction or folk construction. Very often the two are the same so even this broad framework is too narrow. So, what, other than the lyrics, defines the character of a song? What makes one song a soul song and the next a blues number? One a country number, the other version a rockabilly number. Often it's the musical festoons, baubles or trinkets that define a song. In other words, it's the little things. Take The Rolling Stones' Satisfaction as an example. Again, we're setting aside the lyrics. The song, at it's heart is 4 chords. Simple as could be. But it's that famous "riff" that everyone humms. The little 3-note blues riff re-imagined from countless Jimmy Reed shuffles. But it's also that 5-beat drum break. And it's those dipped in reverb guitar fills Keith Richards slips between each verse line. Each of those things are as important as the lyrics at making the song more than just a blues based construction.

This is all just a very long winded intro to our Song of the Week, So Long Cruel World by genre defying Detroit-based band, Blanche. If you know Blanche at all, you probably know them because the main dude, singer and songwriter, Dan John Miller, aptly portrayed the stoic Luther Perkins in the film, I Walk The Line. 

2004 witnessed the release of Blanche's first album, If We Can't Trust the Doctors. It's an interesting stew of bluegrass, country, punk and surf all mixed together into a dark cauldron. In the middle of the album is our maudlin little song (as most of theirs are) entitled So Long Cruel World. It's a prime example, in my estimation, of a song that soars because of it's musical arrangement (festoons?) more than the structure itself. Opening with antimelodic pedal steel, a simple jazzy little bass riff played by Tracee Miller (married to Dan) on a Framus Star Bass (very similar to the one I used to play, by the way!) brings the song into whatever structure it might pretend to have. A simple banjo riff joins as the ethereal pedal steel falls into a melodic riff. Then Dan Miller ads a guitar riff worthy of a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western which twangs us into the whoa-is-me vocals. The band continues to add elements and riffs that lay on top of each other and skitter over the beats like a goony bird trying to stick a landing. There is little to no central musical framework. In between all of this - and it is in-between and not "over it" --  Dan Miller's hillbilly inflected vocals dramatizing one's suicidal yearnings are importantly backed up by the detached vocals of Tracee in a back and forth reminiscent of the work done in the early 80's by John Doe and Exene Cervenka. 

In the end the lack of structure and the lack of genre (who's in charge here anyway?) to the song is what I think makes the song so interesting. It's not for everybody, I'll admit that. But give the song a few listens and tell me if it doesn't become a way-homer for you.