If you knew that the original version of this song was released in 1956 by The Chips, then a tip of my fedora to you. Because I suspect that most of us first became aware of this song from its recording and performance by The Blues Brothers, a band fronted by Saturday Night Live performers John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd, and featuring some of the best studio musicians around. Their debut album, Briefcase Full of Blues was a chart topping success, and both “Rubber Biscuit” and Sam & Dave cover “Soul Man” were top 100 singles—and their first movie was a huge hit, commercially, if not completely artistically (although, this is still one of my favorite scenes).
Some critics had reservations about the quality of the music—mostly focusing on Belushi, who sang lead on most songs—and whether or not it was a ripoff (or, as we might call it today, “cultural appropriation”). But others pointed out that Ackroyd and Belushi highlighted a number of obscure songs (like “Rubber Biscuit”), revived interest in the genre, and probably got more than a few performers and songwriters unexpected royalty checks or gigs. To quote the Allmusic review of Briefcase,
The guardians of popular music have always been entirely too reverent and humorless, however, and it wasn't long before they were leveling charges of rip-off against the Brothers and complaining that John Belushi couldn't sing as well as Otis Redding. So what?
“Rubber Biscuit” was Ackroyd’s showcase, and featured him on lead vocals. Ackroyd loved blues music and had performed it on and off since his college days, sometimes sitting in with the Downchild Blues Band in Canada, and even played the drums behind Muddy Waters at a show. Here's a video of Ackroyd performing with them at their 50th Anniversary show last year.
The song is filled with nonsense scat singing, interspersed with spoken comments by the singer. Interestingly, much like the song featured in my last Non-Sense post, “Rubber Biscuit,” despite its silliness—and it is silly—has an underlying serious message. It is about poverty and hunger—the spoken part of the lyrics refer to “food” such as a “wish sandwich,” which is “the kind of a sandwich where you have two slices of bread and you wish you had some meat,” or a “ricochet biscuit,” which is “the kind of biscuit that's supposed to bounce off the wall back in your mouth. If it don't bounce back, you go hungry.”
purchase [Get Happy] There was a time - about 20 years back - when Elvis Costello and Talking Heads were what I mostly listened to. Both kind of quirky (as opposed to mainstream pop), but both very much in favor with the college-type crowd (which I had long since graduated from - but maybe couldn't leave behind?).
I'm pretty sure that among the things that attracted me to both were (a) the slightly-off the standard I-IV-V chord structures of their songs and (b) the near-poetic lyrics - enough that the words frequently caused me to take a minute or more to ponder their relevance to my current frame of mind. Oh, yes, and neither appeared terribly normal in the MTV videos I saw.
Now, at about the time that <Get Happy> (the album containing Can't) was released, Costello was in hot water on account of his multiple uses of "the n word". He had drunkenly referred to Ray Charles as such, and his "Lover's Army" includes lyrics to the effect "one less white ..n.". As a result, there are those who believe that his choice of "I Can't.." is a form of either apology or appeasement - because the song comes from the legendary Sam and Dave, who recorded it in a rather slower, more soulful tenor back in the mid 60s.
As for Costello, this song stands in contrast to his earlier dark, angry, vengeful style: granted, the pace - as compared to Same and Dave's slower soul - still rubs a bit the wrong way (also see his dis-jointed dancing on the vid), but you can almost sense that Costello is onto something new, and in fact, from here, it lead to a breakthrough in his career (and puts his racial slur gaffe more or less behind him)
We've got the "Can't" covered pretty well just in the title itself. But how about the "Incompetence"? Well, there's no requirement in SMM's current theme that any single post cover both terms - and in fact they do appear to be linked - if you're incompetent, you can't ... something. But, is there something about Costello or the song that encompasses <Incompetent> as well? Judging from where Costello went from after this output, I would say: no sign of incompetence on his part. Your thoughts?
As a theme, getting locked up carries a lot of weight and
takes on various manifestations: there’s mental prisons of our own making;
lonely cells behind actual bars; locks, and chains and the heavy burden of
time, doing it and being crushed under it.
It’s really no surprise to see the number of songs related
to some variant of the word ‘prison’, not to mention movies. Prison films make
up a special genre all their own, and I’m sure you have your favorite.
Something about a piece of art that depicts the horrors of losing one’s most
fundamental right, their freedom, just begs for a deeper look, and creates in
the depiction a purer form of empathy than exists in other genres. Something
about being locked away, unable to control even the slightest aspect of your
own autonomy, and often subject to the basest of human behaviors, creates in
the viewer/listener a sense of fear and sympathy. Simply put, it boils down to:
there but for the grace of God…No matter how awful the subject, the lack of
freedom makes us pause and wonder. And feel what the prisoner feels.
But, there will be plenty of time to focus on a nice, dark
bit of music inspired by prison. For now, let’s have a little fun.
Despite the inherent silliness of this song I’m choosing, or
perhaps because the subject leans so precariously toward the dark and the
serious, I can’t resist highlighting The Blues Brother’s take on the classic
“Jailhouse Rock” for our theme of “Prison.”
The Blues Brothers movie—cable TV ubiquity aside—is a
classic. Over the top, gratuitous, destructive, balls to walls in every way,
including the straight up marvel of the live musical numbers, The Blues
Brothers is one of the films that tends to overcome its own flaws and take on a
greater sense of iconic the older it gets.The musical performances, including Ray Charles, James Brown, Aretha
Franklin, and more are the strongest aspect of the movie. The all-out musical
mayhem and the use of the city of Chicago as a set to pay tribute to some of
the great voices of Rhythm and Blues is what make the film. James Brown’s burn
down the house preacher scene, Ray Charles’ pawn shop jam, Aretha Fraklin
singing R.E.SP.E.C.T in the diner, John Lee Hooker as a street musician. The
movie would be great without the addition of the madcap antics of brothers
Blues, the Illinois Nazis (“I hate Illinois Nazis!”), the entirety of the
Chicago PD force, The National Guard, and the Good Ol' Boys…You know the movie. If you don’t, you
should. It deserves the cult status it has earned and for a certain segment of
us, the “We’re On a Mission From God” poster was standard décor for the dorm
room.
The song itself? If you don’t know it was one of Elvis’
earliest and biggest hits, then you probably don’t know much about music. Here,
John Belushi and partner Dan Aykroyd, both musical aficionados and true fans in
real life, use the movies to enact their own living, breathing rock n roll
fantasy while paying tribute to the King, much in the same way they did with
other greats, such as Sam and Dave and Solomon Burke. A lot of people viewed
the Blues Brother’s musical venture with cynical scorn: two Hollywood goofs
play acting their way through a vanity project. But with the heavy weight
additions of some of the aforementioned greats, a legit backing band, and a
true love for Rock ‘n Roll, Soul and the Blues, the Blues Brothers output, at
this far remove, seems like a lot more than shtick. And, their first album, Briefcase Full of Blues, did actually
reach number one.
“Jailhouse Rock” is the end scene of the movie, last in
line for a lot of amazing musical numbers. While most of the movie was done in
Chicago, and was, according to Aykroyd a tribute to the city itself, the finale
was shot in LA. Somehow, the entire band ends up prison, thought it was only
Jake and Elwood that got arrested. Joe Walsh, from the Eagles, plays the
prisoner who jumps up on the table and starts the riot. Its not the highlight of the film but it is
the Blues Brothers doing what they did: down and dirty R&B that passed for
the real thing, because it is.
As for the original, by Elvis—have you ever listened to the
lyrics?It’s a great rock song that features
that indescribable shuffle and strum that only the King could spin, the beat
that changed the sound of pop music ever after. It’s such an iconic piece of
musical history, the covers of it run into the thousands (Search Spotify if you
doubt me…). But honestly, its an odd song, content-wise, and I always wondered
about it. According to Rolling Stone, the “…theme song for Presley's third movie was decidedly silly…
kind of tongue-in-cheek goof. The King, however, sang it as straight rock &
roll, overlooking the jokes in the lyrics (like the suggestion of gay romance
when inmate Number 47 tells Number 3, 'You're the cutest jailbird I ever did see')..."
I feel like I need to add, not that there’s anything wrong with that, and there
isn’t, but, seriously: the song has
forever struck me as odd, simply for the fact that it does seem to be a
strange, poorly told, and in poor taste joke, that despite his uber-cool, Elvis
really didn’t get what he was singing.Maybe that’s an indication of the times, maybe there’s noting wrong with
keeping an innocent sense of what the song is. Maybe we should just focus on
the sound: the clock-work rhythm, the punchy up-down guitar, the spin out drums
and Scotty Moore’s quick-step riff or wailing solo. When a song is as instantly
iconic and recognizable as “Jailhouse Rock”, does it really matter who sings
it (movie stars), or what it really means, so long as it gets played? And
really, great songs, or movies, don’t really need to make sense to be good.
I wasn't sure I would have time to post anything on the subject of Income Inequality until I heard Tom Petty's NPR interview. Petty was explaining a song called "Power Drunk" off his new album,Hypnotic Eye, when he veered onto our very topic:
I just tried to kind of explore this gap between the poor and people that get so wealthy that making more money really wouldn't change an hour of the rest of their lives. And yet they're obsessed with making more money, regardless of how that affects other people.
Maybe it's a moral question of, "Do you want something so bad that you don't need, even though it will hurt others?" 'Cause we're looking at a very different time in America right now. We've rubbed out the middle class, which was really the whole point of the thing for a long time — meaning America.
The Isaac Hayes/Paul Selph composition "Rick Kind of Poverty" comes from Sam and Dave's 1967 Soul Men, which of course featured their monster hit "Soul Man". Booker T and the MGs are the studio band.
Before Chef, before Shaft, and before his 18-minute version of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", Isaac Hayes was half of a potent Stax songwriting/producing duo with David Porter. Soul singers Sam & Dave were the prime beneficiary of their talents, having been gifted with classics like "Hold On, I'm Comin'", "When Something is Wrong with My Baby", and most notably "Soul Man". The first hit the duo had with Hayes & Porter was "You Don't Know Like I Know", which went to #7 on the black singles charts in March of 1966. It started a string of ten consecutive Top Twenty R&B hits for them.
In 1968 Hayes recorded his first album, which bombed. But his second album, Hot Buttered Soul (the one with the 18-minute version of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix") was the first in a series of hit albums that made him a star in his own right.
Incidentally, Porter also became a recording artist, but never achieved anything approaching Hayes' success.
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