With all the attention on 45s this past week, seemed like the right time to do another all 45 post. The prior two have been around a theme, so I thought I’d keep that with this one too and play some slower tracks that seem oh so appropriate as the night is winding down just after the bartender lets you know it is “Last Call.” I haven’t always put it into practice when I’ve spun out, but I feel like a good night of music should wind itself down to the end, with some deep soul. So, I’ve picked out a couple of favorites of tunes I have on 45 that would work nicely as the night ends.
Franciene Thomas – Too Beautiful To Be Good
The pace on this one might be a little too quick, but I love the sentiment and the interplay of the horns and the strings which give it this epic quality that definitely does fit the mood of an end of the night. Thomas’ vocals are beyond raw, even on a slower song like this, she just knocks you out with the strength in her voice, as she runs down one hell of a dilemma regarding her doubtful man. This one is the flipside to one of my all-time favorite dancefloor burners, “I’ll Be There,” a truly dynamite bit of wax on the Tragar label out of my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. It is a tragedy that Franciene Thomas did not record any more sides than these two, but lord am I thankful that she did these.
Linda Jones – Hypnotized
This one has been in my mind quite a bit lately, since Mayer Hawthorne sampled it in one of his more recent singles. I’d never heard it before running into a copy of this split 45 at Bagatelle a couple of years ago. I’m still blown away by all the elements, the made for Hip-Hop production sound with those drums and the bells, the background singers and above all else the performance from Jones. She just kills it throughout, but especially when she sings “I’ll Go Wherever You Want Me To Go…” and those “La Da Da, Ha Ha”‘s she does a couple of times…slays me everytime.
Rudy Ray Moore – Easy Easy Baby
Rudy Ray Moore is best known as Dolemite, but he’d cut a number of LPs and 45s before becoming immortalized by his run of blaxploitation films. Like several other tracks in this post, I’d picked this one up for the flip side, a nice and playful mid-tempo track “Put Your Weight On It,” but over time this track on the flip side has become a personal favorite, maybe because “slow and easy is my style” or maybe it’s just the drunken slightly debauched vibe of the whole piece, it just sounds like “Last Call.” Whatever the case, “Easy Baby” definitely shows that Moore could have been a pretty decent soul singer if he’d wanted to be.
Betty Harris – Can’t Last Much Longer
No post on slow deep soul tracks would be complete without some New Orleans soul. I’d had this one in my collection for probably a good ten years before I finally checked out this super slow soulful number produced by Allen Toussaint (who I imagine is responsible for the lovely descending/ascending lines on the piano). Betty Harris lays down such soulful vocals that you’d swear you can hear the tears fall in the background, especially when Harris and the background singers mention that this man won’t even call. You almost don’t even notice that this is another in a long line of cheatin’ songs where the singer is waiting for some other woman’s man…
Toussaint McCall – Nothing Takes The Place of You
The final track for this particular post also has a NOLA connection to it, from Toussaint McCall. It’s interesting to me that most of us DJs who dig on raw funk and the like, would only pick this up because of the flipside, the upbeat organ-grinder “Shimmy,” but “Nothing” was actually a really big hit for McCall back in 1967 (which explains why “Shimmy” is almost always to be found for a reasonable price, despite it’s speaker burning potential). With lyrics full of deep longing for the one you love, it’s the perfect song to close out a night of fine music, and it also will close out this particular 45 edition of Dig Deep.
Cheers,
Michael