MR/MS: JACKSON

Anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of this site will appreciate that there is likely little hip hop demographic within the reading or the writing. By way neither of apology or excuse, I guess this is a an age and colour thing, old white guys seldom experts outside their narrow zones of comfort. If I were younger, maybe a bit more: my son was a huge fan of the genre twenty odd years ago and certainly gave me limitless opportunity to absorb, wanted or not. And, I admit, largely not. But, as I peruse my i-tunes, I have rather more than I realised, and have no little grudging respect for certain artists, tending to prefer the melodic to the militant, the abstract to the angry. Like this, the contrast between the staccato delivery of the verses and the dreamy chorus grabbing my ears back then, even as I was scrubbing the graffiti off my son's bedroom walls.

Now, I guess I could now make this a hastily regurgitated precis of the life and times of the band, OutKast, or the duo, as they were, but I fear my sources would be obvious. Plus, we can all read wikipedia for ourselves, but I hadn't realise that the song relates to the relationship of Andre 3000, one of the pair, with singer Erykah Badu, or more specifically with her mother, the Ms "Jackson" the lyrics are addressed to. Whilst not necessarily a fan of the individual, she apparently loved the song, a fair bit more, in fact, than her daughter, who found it a little close to the bone. So, nearly avoiding also any clumsy link to the other OutKast song in my collection, lets celebrate a couple or so other Ms Jacksons...

Wanda Jackson isn't either actually quite my demographic, this little ditty hailing from the year of my birth, and comes from days when cultural sensitivities were, shall we say, less well honed. But, as a piece of rough hewn rockabilly, it certainly has some pizazz and she has continued ploughing that field right up until, astonishingly, as recently as 2012, that being when her last record was released. Little had changed.

So which one's Luscious, you ask? And given the Lucious, no s, Jackson was a male basketball player, and after whom this all-girl band named themselves, does this fit the strict criterion I apply to all my nonsense. Hell, no, but it's my post, and I like the band, as much for being there as for the music they produced.

Jade Jackson is/was 'One of 10 New Country Artists You Should Know", according to Rolling Stone in 2017, and has a bit more balls than many of the winsome souls who that sort of category might have you bringing to mind. In fact, she has me thinking more of a modern day Wanda. I know little of her beyond this song, but I like it. In fact, I may go check out some of her other work.

From the present back to the past I tread, desperately trying to bypass the Ms Jackson that is Janet, Mahalia being one I cannot possible exclude, a truly majestic vocal presence that lingers to this day. Whether gospel is or not your thing, I defy you to ignore the power and presence displayed. No wonder that Sinead O'Connor chose to revisit just this song for her latest come-back.

Who's your favourite Ms Jackson?

MR/MS: BLOE, GROOVIN' WITH

 

It's thursday night, it's 7.30, so it must be Top of the Pops, that covering most of my youth, from as early as I can recall, possibly aged five or so, and progressing much into middle youth, my twenties and thirties. I think I probably came off the bus in the '90s, as anonymous dance acts pretended to play, and it only took a couple of dozen sales to get in the chart, with the programme eventually running itself out of steam in the noughties. True, the time slot varied a bit, as did the length of the programme, but it was always, between those years, essential viewing, even when it was a family cringe-fest, ma and pa jutting in with their opinions, often broadly unhelpful, and requiring many Judas moments of denial that I liked that sort or thing. Or worse, if I actually did.

This song I shouldn't have liked at all, it being a novelty instrumental, a one hit wonder at that. But listen. It's actually very well played, and so it should have been, given the players. To be fair, I am wondering how much I did like it at the time, 1970, and how much it is the nostalgic feel good filter of rose-tinted earbuds. Be that as it may, I think it's a corker now.

It is actually a cover, the tune first cropping up, as above, a b-side of an already pretty hard to harvest band, Wind, who certainly evoke a me, neither response to anyone I know. They were a backing band for Tony Orlando, actually during the time he was better known for performing with Dawn. I guess Tony Orlando with Wind might prove a tad close to the bone, this instrumental the flip of Make Believe, a 1969 hit, seemingly, if not my side of the pond. Anyhow, it was picked up by Steve James of Dick James Music (DJM), then the record label for, amongst others, Elton John. Unable to pick up the rights to release the original, he picked a selection of artists available to him to recreate it. Elton allegedly played on the pilot project, but was ditched for a version with a Zack Laurence on the piano, the distinctive harmonica part possibly played by a Harry Pitch. However, by the time it came to Top of the Tops, the harmonica was being played by an Ian Duck. None of those three have any lasting backstory, but the rest of the band did, being, essentially, Elton's then backing band, later to become Hookfoot, with Dee Murray on bass, Roger Pope on bass and Caleb, brother of Finley, on guitar. A fairly huge hit, peaking at number two, courtesy the alongside presence of Mungo Jerry's In The Summertime. It then remained in the charts for eighteen weeks, and longer in the clubs, it fitting well into the then Northern Soul craze filling the dancehalls of northern England.

There were follow-ups, none successful. On the back of the UK success, Wind had their version re-released in the US, as and a-side, this time credited under the slightly safer band name Cool Heat. There have been the odd subsequent cover version, some very odd. Perhaps the oddest, and the least necessary, was by the Associates, the band the of maverick Scottish singer Billy McKenzie, more usually defined by his extraordinary vocal range and lifestyle choices. But, for posterity, I feel I should include it here.

Don't bloe it!