Whew. That was a long blogpost title, huh? I know. But, let me explain:
In late 1967, Chess Records’ Checker subsidiary released this record entitled “More and More” by Little Milton, where the chorus sings and growls:
“More and More… all the time!”
Ironically, the flip is a meandering soulful blues cut called “The Cost of Living”. So, maybe the editorial statement of the release was:
“The Cost of Living” is “More and More”!
Or, maybe, on a more hopeful note:
With “The Cost of Living” growing “More and More”… find More with Less!
Either way, it’s a beautifully grooving little record by Little Milton in the vein of all his grooving blues-soul hybrids cut here in Chicago in the late 1960s (my favorites being “Drifting Drifter”, “Blind Man”, “Don’t Leave Her”, “Poor Man”, and more). It also just happens to make me pretty happy.
James (“Little”) Milton Campbell, Jr. recorded most of his best known material here in Chicago, but he hailed from St. Louis. In addition to growling soulful vocals, he also played blues guitar. Oh yes, and he wasn’t particularly little.
Fontella Bass is an amazing lady. Not only is the trajectory of her career fascinating, but she’s arguably the archetype for what Aretha Franklin was to become: a sassy, soulful siren in the first degree.
Ms. Bass comes from the St. Louis, and is a part of a group of St. Louis native vocalists that made their way in Chicago (this includes Chuck Bernard, Little Milton, and Bobby McClure). Her voice can be described as a salt-sweet contralto that is absolutely gorgeous, in my opinion.
She is best known for the HUGE hit “Rescue Me”, which is a Chicago-written, recorded,and produced slice of 60s Soul. Her greatest hit (which she also co-wrote), “Rescue Me” has been featured in movies, commercials, and TV shows galore; but it is also too often mistakenly attributed to Aretha Franklin. Ironically, at the time of its release, Aretha Franklin was singing jazzy pop standards, a’la young Dinah Washington.
In fact, “Rescue Me” predates Aretha Franklin’s soulful breakthrough release “Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)” by a couple of years.
“Rescue Me” was released on Chess Records’ Checker imprint, after which Fontella continued to release soulful gems for the label (my favorites being “I Can’t Rest” and “Lucky in Love”) until 1968 or so.
By 1970, in a plot twist worthy of an arthouse movie, Fontella Bass was married to musician Lester Bowie and had joined him as an expatriate in France in The Art Ensemble of Chicago. There, she served as the vocalist in the group: a seminal, Chicago-based free-jazz combo… I suspect that’s her in the white face paint in the far right corner of the album pictured below.
In 1990, she heard her own voice singing “Rescue Me” on an American Express commercial and was inspired to look into her rights, and wound up suing American Express and its ad agency. She won over $50,000 plus damages in a settlement. Awesome.
Enjoy Fontella Bass singing “Rescue Me” (while looking quite Chicago Mod in a houndstooth cap and jacket) on Shindig! in 1965.
…and, below, listen for some of her vocals on a righteous jazz workout from The Art Ensemble of Chicago. Jive on!
An absolutely beastly rendition of Howlin’ Wolf’s “Spoonful” by… Howlin’ Wolf. I feel like playing this cut tomorrow night.‘
Part of a push at Chess Records in the late 1960s (spearheaded by Marshall Chess) to rerecord both Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters in the then contemporary Psychedelic Blues style featuring awe-inspiring session work by Morris Jennings, Phil Upchurch, and more. Read more about this groovy situation here.
I love how the chunky electric keys interplay with the swirling strings, and Monk’s swinging saxophone.
Monk Higgins was born Milton Bland in Arkansas. He was already a staple on the Chicago Scene when he released this cut on Chess in 1968 (just before he went to LA, bringing fellow Chicago Scenesters Freddie Robinson and Mamie Galore for the ride).
UPDATE: For more Lovely versions of this classic composition (and a touch of drama), check the comments of this post.
I love the Dells. Formed in 1952, their career is simply epic. But my favorite period for them was ushered in with Charles Stepney. Unfortunately, as Chess Records (their label from the mid-sixties till the mid-seventies) crumbled, their hits (which include “There Is”, “Stay in my Corner”, “The Love We Had Stays on My Mind”, “Oh What a Night” and more) were harder to come by.
By 1973, The Dells, still at Cadet Records (a Chess Subsidiary), were recording work with a Detroit/Memphis lean. Tony Hester, who came from Detroit to Memphis, wrote and produced The Dramatics’ biggest album (“Whatcha See is Whatcha Get”) and subsequent Dramatics outings. Don Davis is a legend, producing for various Detroit acts (some of which, like Darrell Banks, were released on Memphis’ Volt Records), and ultimately working throughout the world of Soul.
With such a team behind them, The Dells (with lusciously gruff Marvin Junior on Baritone Lead) couldn’t help but come up with this gold. Jive on!
Minnie Ripertonwas, of course, so much more than her 1976 smash “Loving You”. I won’t even attempt to jam her legacy into a blog post. She was a mother (to SNL alum Maya Rudolph), a lover, (to Dick Rudolph) and a righteous songbird. Riperton (pictured above, 1968 [photo courtesy jeff lockard]) and her soaring soprano were featured in the Rock-Soul outfit Rotary Connection. Rotary Connection was the jazzy soulful dirty hippie baby of genius producer Charles Stepney and Marshall Chess (son of Chess Records founder Leonard Chess, and a visionary in his own right).
Certainly their most anthologized track is “I am the Black Gold of the Sun” (above), but each of their albums produced its crop of nuggets (my favorites are “Songs”, “Hey Love”, and “Aladdin”). The sound was a cross-section of Rock, Gospel, Soul, and Jazz nearly as big as the City of Big Shoulders that spawned it. Featuring Minnie Riperton on lead vocals for a number of their cuts, her other-worldly wails are the sound that almost never was.
Below, my short audio interview with Sidney Barnes of Rotary Connection (pictured far right), on how Minnie Riperton got the strength to embrace her own voice in the days when sopranos weren’t considered soulful.
I just found a copy of “Woman of the Ghetto” by Marlena Shaw for 4 bucks! Killer Chicago recording from 1969. The song has been sampled multiple times, among them:
St. Germain sampled from “Woman of the Ghetto” from Live at Montreux used in “Rose Rouge” on Tourist (2000)
9th Wonder and Buckshot also sampled “Woman of the Ghetto” in the track “Ghetto”, and Evil Dee (of Black Moon)’s remix of the same song.
Early integration of a Kalimba in popular western music. Richard Evans production. Jazzy Funk mastery. Lyrics below. Nuff said.
I was born, raised in a ghetto
I was born and raised in a ghetto
I’m a woman, of the ghetto
Won’t you listen, won’t you listen to me, legislator?
(ging, gi-gi-gi-gi-ging…)
How do you raise your kids in a ghetto?
How do you raise your kids in a ghetto?
Do you feed one child and starve another?
Won’t you tell me, legislator?
How do make your bread in the ghetto?
How do make your bread in the ghetto?
Baked from the souls in the ghetto
Tell me, tell me, Legislator?
Strong true,
my eyes ain’t blue
I am a woman
Of the ghetto
I’m proud, free,
Black, that is me
But I’m a woman of the ghetto
(ging, gi-gi-gi-gi-ging…)
How do we get rid of rats in the ghetto?
How do we get rid of rats in the ghetto?
Do we make one black and one white in the ghetto?
Is that your answer, legislator?
How do you legislate, brother?
How do you legislate, brother?
When you free one man and try to chain up another,
Tell me, Tell me legislator?
How does your heart feel late at night?
How does your heart feel late at night?
Does it beat with shame, or does it beat with pride?
Won’t you tell me, legislator?
(na-na-na-na-na-na-na, …)
My children learned just the same as yours
As long as nobody tries to close the door
They cry with pain when the knife cuts deep
They even close their eyes when they wanna sleep
We must all have identity
That’s the only way that we can be free
Now peace, you say
is all that you ask
But self-respect is a separate task
You may be sitting up there
in your ivory tower
60 stories tall
Now you may have seen at least one ghetto
But I wonder have you lived there at all?
Places like Watts,
ah, Detroit, tell me
Chicago, ah tell me,
Here’s a tasty slice of funk from the Duke of Earl himself, Gene Chandler. Masterfully dapper, ever-so-smooth, Chandler gets funky on this Checker side from 1969. An early version of the Curtis Mayfield-penned track titled “Hard Times”, the record manifests a ’creature feature’ vibe that’s fits this time of year like a rubber mask.
An alumnus of Englewood High School, Chandler is one of the founding fathers of Chicago Soul, having begun recording around 1960. Click here for my interview with him. You can’t see it, but that day he wore an O.G. diamond encrusted pinky ring that read “Gene”. Smooth.
I remember where I was when I first heard this: the local round-the-way record store. The carpet was checkered with the maytag logo in bittersweet on brown (harkening back to the store’s past life). There we stood in a communal experience that began with the shop owner saying, “You’ve got to hear this record”. We stood waiting. Waiting melted away to awe. Nine minutes later we knew life was a bit different…just wait for the progression of the track. It blossoms and eventually bursts.
“Dancing Girl” is from the album, “What Color is Love” (Cadet, 1973). A great record for a chilled autumn day.
Terry Callier was a childhood friend of Curtis Mayfield and co-wrote numerous Chicago Records for artists as diverse as the Soulful Strings, The Dells, and Garland Green. He spent much of the eighties and nineties as a single father, raising his daughter, Sundiata, and working at the University of Chicago.
He returned to recording in the late nineties to critical acclaim, and released “Hidden Conversations” (his fifth album in 10 years) this year. It features Massive Attack.
Summer has left our once-warm grasp. In memorium, Darkjive presents Chess Records’ Billy Stewart with a 1966 version of the classic song ”Summertime” (from Porgy and Bess). I love how Billy Stewart’s scats interplay with insistent horns and halting guitar licks. The drummer on the cut is a very young Maurice White (of Earth, Wind, and Fire).
Originally from Washington, D.C., Stewart scored a string of hits in the mid sixties with Chicago record label Chess, including “I Do Love You”, “Fat Boy”, and “Sitting in the Park”. He died just shy of his 33rd birthday when his car plunged into a North Carolina river, alongside three of his bandmates. Billy Stewart’s “Summertime”: Fruitful, fleeting talent singing the praises of a fruitful, fleeting season.
