Spies and Secrets: Secret Agent Man

purchase [ Johnny Rivers Secret Agent Man]

Kind of in the middle of the James Bond/Man from UNCLE and Danger Man (in the UK) came Johnny Rivers' 1966 hit <Secret Agent Man>.

Written by the duo P.F.Sloan and Steve Barri, it was Rivers who took it to the top of the charts (#3). Rivers, along with Sloan and Barri, was under contract to Lou Adler of Dunhill Records.  Curiously, once again, the Ventures again made the most of the times by recording this in addition to their James Bond Theme from back in '62.

If you sense a certain similarity between the two songs (Bond Theme and Secret Agent), that's because ... well ... it's a life of danger. And that guitar is what danger sounds like. And because there is a certain amount of ... plagiarism (No... building on what came before).

That said, seems to me that Johnny Rivers hasn't received the credit he's due. Don't forget: he's also the man who sang the (again #3) hit the following year: <Baby, I Need Your Lovin'>. There's an informative interview/article in Forbes magazine that provides some sense of the man and his life.


Sloan himself tells his version of how things went down here.
Sloan and Steve Barri, incidentally, went on to found The Grass Roots. (Sloan below)

Other versions include:

Bruce Willis (above)

DEVO (above)

Most folks think that Rivers did it best.

Prison: Parchman Farm

Bukka White: Parchman Farm Blues

[purchase]

Mose Allison: Parchman Farm

[purchase]

Johnny Rivers: Parchman Farm

[purchase]

Parchman Farm is one of many blues songs about prison. I could have probably found one blues song for each day of this theme, and I already shared another classic one, The Midnight Special. Why then is Parchman Farm my next choice? As you can hear in the versions I have chosen, the song can be a case study in the transformation of the blues. That also touches on the history of the place. Parchman Farm was a notorious work farm in Mississippi. The inmates were treated harshly, and the profits of the fruits of their labors went mostly to those who ran the prison. But the prisoners also grew their own food, and held various positions within the miniature society that existed there. Some were “trusty shooters”, given the authority to shoot their fellow inmates if they didn’t follow the rules. Parchman Farm also occupies an unusual place in musical history. The inmates there were kept isolated from the outside world, with not even radios permitted. As a result, musical styles in black culture from the nineteenth century that had evolved into new forms on the outside were still preserved in Parchman when John and Alan Lomax and their crew visited there in 1933. Thus, the Lomaxes were able to record and preserve music that provides many clues to the history of the blues.

Bukka White was a prisoner at Parchman Farm, although he wrote the song Parchman Farm Blues a few years after he got out. Nevertheless, the song and White’s style in general represent an early form of the blues, with all of the familiar rules not in place yet. This version was recorded in 1940, and the quality of the recording is typical of the “race records” of that time. Parchman Farm by Mose Allison is clearly based on White’s song, but the transformation is radical enough that Allison is credited as the writer. Allison gives the song his signature jazz-blues treatment, which has influenced many artists, but never been duplicated. From here, many white rock artists who embraced the blues would go on to record the song. Johnny Rivers was still in the early stages of his career in 1965 when he recorded his version, and it predates and may be the template for versions by John Mayall, Johnny Winter, and many others. Rivers was greatly influenced by the blues early in his career. In 1966, Rivers would have his first big hit with Secret Agent Man, and many other pop hits would follow, but he returned to the blues later in his career.

Musical Homonyms: Slow Dancing

Lucero: Slow Dancing

[purchase]

Johnny Rivers: Swayin' to the Music (Slow Dancin')^***

[LP & CD out of print, purchase on iTunes]


This is going to be one of the stranger blog posts on Star Maker Machine, but my life has been strange lately, so just roll with it, OK? OK.

	Johnny Rivers	Lucero
Song Name	Swayin’ to the Music (Slow Dancin’)***	Slow Dancing
Album	Outside Help	Tennessee
Year	1977	2002
Written By	Jack Tempchin	Ben Nichols
Highest Chart Position	#10 on US Billboard Hot 100, #3 in Canada	None
Song Storyteller	Man talking to a Woman	Man (aka "Trouble") talking to a Woman
Song Location	At Home	Dive Bar
Time	Late at night	Near closing time
Music Source	Radio	Jukebox maybe? Not specified
Dancing Partner	"My Girl"	Random woman, presumably intoxicated
Ambiance	Lights Low	Starry Disco Ball
Who's Watching?	No one	Everyone at the bar
Dance Skills	Swayin' to the music	Too drunk to keep in time
Interrupted by Telephone Calls?	No	No
Holding Dance Partner Tight?	Yes!	Yes!
Smiling?	Presumably, Yes	Yes, a lot
Slow dance to more than one song?	Presumably, Yes	No
What happens next?	More swayin' to the music	Couple goes their separate ways
And then?	More swayin'	Dude can't get chick off of his mind
Then?	More swayin' (damn this song is repetitive)	Homeboy smokes and drinks a shit ton
Post-script	Couples lives happily ever after in their house in the suburbs with 2.6 kids, a dog, and a Volvo	Narrator can never find this girl again, gets clinically depressed, ends up in rehab, gets emphysema
Can you actually slow dance to this song?	It’s little too up-tempo for a slow dance, but perfect for the late 70s	Yes, but afterwards you need to do whiskey shots and cry
Final Thoughts	This song is cheesy as hell but I love it	This song is pretty much the reason I started listening to alt country music

^***Composer Jack Tempchin originally entitled this song "Slow Dancing." The Rivers' version was changed to "Swayin' to the Music (Slow Dancin')" to avoid confusion with another 1977 single release entitled "Slow Dancing Don't Turn Me On" by the Addrisi Brothers. So for the purposes of Star Maker Machine, that's close enough.