The artist breaks through and takes control, though not in that order. Suddenly he’s writing better ballads than he used to choose, and not at any sacrifice of his endearing natural bathos (if you have doubts about “Sunshine of My Life,” try “Blame It on the Sun”). “Maybe Your Baby” and “Big Brother” continue his wild multi-voice experiments but come in out of left field. And “Superstition” translates his way of knowledge into hard-headed, hard-rocking political analysis.
~Robert Christgau
Talking Book is the fifteenth album by Stevie Wonder, released on October 28, 1972. A signal recording of his “classic period”, in this one he “hit his stride.”The album’s first track, “You Are the Sunshine of My Life”, earned Wonder his first Grammy Award, for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.
Superstition live on Sesame Street:
Sandwiched between the release of Music of My Mind and Innervisions, Talking Book saw Wonder enjoying more artistic freedom from Motown. Guest appearances include Jeff Beck, Ray Parker, Jr., David Sanborn, and Buzz Feiten. The sound of the album is sharply defined by Wonder’s keyboard work, especially with the synthesizers he incorporated, giving a funky edge to tracks like “Maybe Your Baby”. His use of the Hohner clavinet model C on “Superstition” is widely regarded as one of the definitive tracks featuring the instrument. His swinging clavinet and harmonica embellishments on “Big Brother”, though, defy categorization.
“When I’m on stage, I’m trying to do one thing: bring people joy. Just like church does. People don’t go to church to find trouble, they go there to lose it.”
– James Brown
“Our whole thing was based on James Brown. We listened to Live at the Apollo endlessly on acid. We would listen to that in the van in the early days of 8-tracks on the way to the gigs to get us up for the gig. If you played in a band in Detroit in the days before The MC5, everybody did ‘Please, Please, Please’ and ‘I Go Crazy.’ These were standards. We modeled The MC5’s performance on those records. Everything we did was on a gut level about sweat and energy. It was anti-refinement. That’s what we were consciously going for.”
– Wayne Cramer, MC5
Recorded
October 24, 1962
Genre
R&B, soul
Length
31:31 (Original LP), 40:47 (CD reissue)
Label
King, Solid Smoke, Polydor
Producer
James Brown (original), Harry Weinger (Polydor reissues)
One of the best live albums in music history, James Brown – Live at the Apollo was recorded on this day 50 years ago.
My favourite moment: The whole horn infused “Think” that borrows heavily from jazz legend Charlie Parker in the way Brown scats over the band with the crowd participating enthusiastically. Not remotely like the studioversions and terribly good!
Gene Clark (1944-1991) was one of the founding members of the legendary The Byrds, and this is what he is known for among the majority. This is too bad…In 1974 he made a solo album “No Other”. It was released on David Geffen’s Asylum Records. Apparently, after spending more than 100 000 $ to record the album (with an all-star cast of musicians, singers, and Thomas Jeffereson Kaye at the helm producing), the album was named “uncommercial” , it was considered the “Heavens Gate” of records.
When it finally came out it was not appreciated by his contemporaries and sold very poorly. Before 1976 it was out of distribution.
Today, most critics will agree that this is a so-called “Lost Masterpiece” or “Burried Treasure”. They are certainly right about that.
I had heard and read about the album for nearly 20 years, before I finally bought it after having heard it in passing in a local record store.
Samuel David Moore aka Sam Moore (born October 12, 1935) is an American Southern soul and rhythm & blues (R&B) singer, who was the tenor vocalist for the soul vocal duo Sam & Dave from 1961 to 1981.
Sam Moore is a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Grammy Hall of Fame (for “Soul Man”), the Vocal Group Hall of Fame, and a Grammy Award and a multi-Gold Record award-winning recording artist. Sam & Dave were the most successful and critically acclaimed duo in soul music history. Moore has also achieved a distinguished 25-year career as a solo performing and recording artist.
In 2008, based on a poll of other musicians, Rolling Stone named Sam Moore one of the 100 greatest singers of the rock era (1950s-2008).
Sam & Dave:
Sam Moore and Dave Prater were both experienced gospel music singers, having performed individually with groups the Sensational Hummingbirds and The Melionaires. They met in The King of Hearts Club in Miami in 1961, where they were discovered by regional producer Henry Stone, who signed them to Roulette Records. After modest success at Roulette,they were signed by Jerry Wexler to Atlantic Records in 1964, then being ‘loaned’ out to Stax Records to produce, record and release their records.
The duo’s November 1965 single, “You Don’t Know Like I Know,” started a series of ten straight top twenty Billboard R&B hits that included “Hold On! I’m Comin'” (1966), “You Got Me Hummin’ (1966), “When Something Is Wrong with My Baby” (1967), “Soul Man” (1967), and “I Thank You” (1968). Most of their hits were penned by Isaac Hayes and David Porter. In most recordings, they were also backed by Hayes on piano with Booker T and the MGs and The Memphis Horns. The ending of their association with the Stax record label and their frequently volatile relationship contributed to their first break-up in 1970. Their last performance together was on December 31, 1981, at the Old Waldorf in San Francisco. On 9 April 1988, Prater died in a car crash in Sycamore, Georgia.
(Wikipedia)
Oslo 1967:
Moore and Prater (posthumously) were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on January 15, 1992. Shortly after the induction, Moore announced plans to record a solo LP, featuring duets with Bruce Springsteen, Phil Collins and others.
On August 29, 2006, Moore released his first solo album, Overnight Sensational.
When something is wrong with my baby:
What a fantastic singer! Happy birthday Sam!
Solo discography:
Plenty Good Lovin’ : The Lost Solo Album 2002
Sam Moore recorded this album in 1970 with R&B great King Curtis, who produced eight of the ten tracks. The album was originally intended to be Moore’s solo debut, but it was shelved for a variety of reasons (including the murder of King Curtis shortly after the album was recorded).
Overnight Sensational 2006
Other 12 October:
Bob Mould was born in 1960:
Guitarist/singer/songwriter Bob Mould was a member of Hüsker Dü, one of the most influential American bands of the ’80s.
He has released several great albums as a soloartist and as a member/leader of the group Sugar. We had the great fortune of seeing him perform Copper Blue at this years Oyafestival.
Happy birthday Bob! You also get the album of the day spot with Sugar’s Copper Blue:
Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul, or simply Otis Blue, is the third studio album by soul singer Otis Redding, released September 15, 1965 on Stax Records. “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” was originally recorded and released as a mono single in April 1965 whilst the rest of Otis Blue was recorded in a 24-hour period over July 9/10, and mainly features cover songs by popular R&B and soul artists. Two other original songs, “Ole Man Trouble” and “Respect”, were written during the sessions in the Stax Recording Studios in Memphis, Tennessee.
Otis Blue was critically acclaimed upon release and became Redding’s most successful studio album to date, peaking at number 6 on the UK Albums Chart, and his first to reach the top spot of the Billboard R&B chart. Furthermore, it produced three popular singles, all charting at least in the top 50 on both the Billboard R&B and the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It is considered by many critics to be Redding’s first fully realized album.
Recording:
After Otis Redding‘s appearance in a session with guitarist Johnny Jenkins, producer and co-founder of Stax Records, Jim Stewart. was so deeply affected by Redding’s rendition of “These Arms of Mine” that he signed him immediately. Following the moderately successful Pain in My Heart and The Great Otis Redding Sings Soul Ballads, both of which performed well in the newly-established Billboard R&B LP chart but not in the Billboard 200,preparations for the third studio album followed soon after. The album would be Redding’s third studio album and second on Stax’s sister label Volt.
Redding recorded the album with the Stax’s house band Booker T. & the M.G.’s—guitarist Steve Cropper, bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn, drummer Al Jackson Jr.—pianist Isaac Hayes and a horn section consisting of members of the Mar-Keys and the Memphis Horns. The album was recorded in two sessions, lasting from July 9 to 10, between Saturday 10 pm and Sunday 2 am, as the backing band had to omit several gigs.The album opens with “Ole Man Trouble”, which was finished on the sessions earlier than other songs, and was later released as a B-side of “Respect“.
The fifth track, “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long“, was the only one not recorded during the 24-hour session.It was, together with “Respect”, recut in stereo during the Otis Blue-session, with the remarkable change that on the latter song the line “hey hey hey” was sung by Earl Sims and not by Redding, while the first song was completely rewritten.“I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” was released with B-side “I’m Depending on You” and became a number-two hit on Billboard‘s R&B chart.
Critical Response:
Otis Blue has been regarded by music critics as the Redding’s best work.Bruce Eder of Allmusic wrote that “Redding’s powerful, remarkable singing throughout makes Otis Blue gritty, rich, and achingly alive, and an essential listening experience.” He also felt the album “presents his talent unfettered, his direction clear, and his confidence emboldened.”
Angus Taylor of BBC Music viewed that it stands “at the crossroads of pop, rock, gospel, blues and soul”, and asserted that the album contains “a set of short, punchy covers and originals, flawlessly ordered to ebb and flow between stirring balladry and foot stomping exuberance”. He dubbed the album “[Redding’s] definitive statement.”
Blender music critic Robert Christgau called Otis Blue “the first great album by one of soul’s few reliable long-form artists” and gave its 2004 collector’s edition four out of five stars, which he said “comes with many useless alternate takes, but also with live tracks that preserve for history Redding’s country-goes-uptown style of fun”.
Nate Patrin of Pitchfork Media cited the album as “[the] 1960s’ greatest studio-recorded soul LP”, and furthermore stated, “[the album is] a hell of a record, the crowning achievement of a man who could sound pained and celebratory and tender and gritty and proud all at once, with a voice that everyone from John Fogerty to Swamp Dogg to Cee-lo owes a debt to.”
Claudrena N. Harold of PopMatters also praised the diverse sound, which, according to her, is a mixture of “Motown pop, the blues, British rock, and Southern Soul”, although she cited Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul as Redding’s best album.
Rolling Stone described the album as “Redding’s true dictionary of soul, a stunning journey through the past and future vocabulary of R&B … documenting a masterful artist rising to … the immense challenge of his times.
In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Rolling Stone journalist Paul Evans gave Otis Blue five out of five stars and cited the album as Redding’s “first masterwork”.
NME ranked it 35 on their list of the “Greatest Albums of All Time”.
The album was also ranked 74 on the Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list
92 on Time magazine’s list of the All-Time 100 Greatest Albums
included in Q magazine’s Best Soul Albums of All Time list.
The album appeared in “1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die”
Track listing
“Ole Man Trouble” Otis Redding
“Respect” Redding
“Change Gonna Come” Sam Cooke
“Down in the Valley” Bert Berns, Solomon Burke, Babe Chivian, Joe Martin
“I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” Redding, Jerry Butler
