i was torn about talking about an etta james track or a shem mccauley/slacker track seeing as they both passed away recently. because i tend to talk about electronic music in general the obvious thing would be talk about the latter but it's more cliché to talk about the former.
i'm going with etta james because i've been blessed to hear a lot of her gems recently, and i'm not even talking about after she passed away. i've known who she was and that she could sing ferociously but a familiarity to her catalogue besides big ballad numbers like "at last" and "i'd rather go blind" was lost on me.
but like most people that get into funk, soul and all that jazz in recent times my nods towards discovering other tracks came from hiphop. but this time not in terms of sampling but hearing certain swedish dj's, producers and other profiles talk about certain songs.
swedish rapper petter mentioned "seven day fool" in an interview for his latest album and spouted out this platitude: "when a young singer talks about being dumped it doesn't resonate to me at all. but when etta james says that she is pissed because her man dumped her, you feel that in your heart".
(note "seven day fool" isn't about being dumped though, it's about being treated like shit by your partner and taking it because you really love him/her, and that is not the exact translated quote as i don't have the magazine in front of me)
while that is a horrendous cliché thing that can only lead to the everpresent "nothing was like it used to be", it did trigger me to want to hear the song. i liked it even though the lyrics disturbed me a bit but it was a mighty funky number. which led me to find more of that because while i like the soul ballads and whatnot, i like the funk.
fact was that it was rather easy to find just on youtube but on other blogs as well i could find recommendations on tracks. tracks like "jump into love", "you give me what you want" and this one "all the way down".
the track starts very norman whitfield like and it reminds me a lot of the temptation's "papa was a rollin' stone" (and that's not a bad thing since that's probably my favourite song of all time). but then it goes into a kind of sleek interpretation of what james brown was doing. etta james even had that same vocal presence of brown but a bit more raw.
the topic of the song is a bit like convoluted in the beginning since it comes off like she is saying loose words that fit the groove and is rhyming but listening closer it's about fame and class. very much like james brown in the songs that come off as ten minute jams ("talkin' loud & sayin' nothing") but have a topic, it's just it's lost in the groove.
i know i mentioning james brown (and by james brown i mean brown and the whole cast of j.b.'s) a lot now but my frame of references isn't completely big and some one else might say that they can name maybe sly stone or whatever but i have no clue. for me the kind of the raw funk that's set in it's groove and goes on for what can be fifteens minutes or even more is james brown since he used to let his band just go on and on and every once a while break but then go back to that groove.
should be noted that is much like modern dance music yes but anyways, this track is that groove for most of the track and it has one break/bridge and then it kicks back in. for the break it goes even more raw and bit more rock & roll with it's fuzz guitar and heavier bass groove. the blurb/review on allmusic says something about a janis joplin influence and while i wouldn't know about that since i haven't listened that much to joplin i do have to agree somewhat. it's definitely rocking, and rolling and funky. it's awesome.
buy here (7digital)
No comments:
Post a Comment