Dennis Olivieri – I Cry In The Morning
Dennis Olivieri – Opportunity
Dennis Olivieri – You Gotta
Today would have been Matthew Africa’s 47th birthday and every year at this time, we pay tribute to him here on Melting Pot. No matter what is going on in my life, no matter my mood, no matter how busy I am, spending time celebrating Matthew on his birthday is something I’ll be doing until the end of my days. As I’ve said many times before, there are few people in my life who exerted a greater influence on how I listen to music than Matthew. There are many records in my collection that are connected to him in one way or another, including a grip of records that actually came from his collection. This record is one of those that was in Matthew’s collection, but there’s a bit of backstory to this one, none of which I can verify because now Matthew is gone, but it’s still a story that I’d like to tell, even if it’s not entirely true.
I first ran into this record sometime around 2000 or 2001. I can distinctly remember finding a copy at Amoeba Berkeley as it was at a time where I was starting to get deeper into psych music and though I didn’t know a stitch about the artist, I was sold on the time period and the truly psychedelic artwork.
When I finally listened to it, I have to admit that I wasn’t particularly impressed. Olivieri has a weird sound, a really unique, kinda lazy style of singing/phrasing, and the songs are all over the place, despite some obvious talent. But, all that being said, there was at least a song that I thought I could play on my KALX show at the time. I do remember bringing it to the station and playing a song from it, though I don’t remember the track I played. I also remember Matthew taking note of the album’s artwork (since our shows were often before/after each other) and me saying something to the effect that I didn’t think much of it. Shortly after that, I traded the album for some records that I dug in an unqualified way with Cool Chris of Groove Merchant and promptly forgot about all about it.
I didn’t even think about this record again for more than a few years after that, when I discovered, much to my chagrin, that DJ Shadow had sampled “I Cry In The Morning,” as part of his fantastic song “Six Days” from The Private Press album. Thinking back now at this point, I don’t even know when I realized that the sample for “Six Days,” came from this album but it must have been some time before 2014 when I ended up winning it from one of the sales of Matthew’s records, cause as soon as I saw it for sale, I knew exactly what it was and knew I had to get it again.
And it’s here that I speculate, just for the fun of speculating…there’s a part of me that believes Matthew bought the copy that I traded into Groove Merchant after being intrigued by the album when I played it at KALX. There’s also this part of me that thinks Matthew played it for DJ Shadow, since the two of them were friends and would often play weird ass shit for each other, and this is definitely a weird ass record. Might this then have led DJ Shadow to sample “I Cry In The Morning” on “Six Days,” creating one of the best songs of his career? Probably not…but I like the possibility that it COULD be this sequence of events.
I wish Matthew was around so I could ask him, maybe I’ll ask Josh the next time he is in LA just to find out for sure. At the same time, there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to know for sure. Even more than the possibility of having influenced DJ Shadow, I just like the possibility that there was a record that I had that Matthew didn’t have, because, as his good friends know, Matthew had ALL of the good records. He was a DJ’s DJ and a Collector’s Collector. One of the best I’ve ever known and someone who I dearly miss, because there will never be another quite like him…That’s why so many of us say, “Matthew Africa Forever.”
