(oo) What you want
(oo) Baby, I got
(oo) What you need
(oo) Do you know I got it?
(oo) All I’m askin’
(oo) Is for a little respect when you come home (just a little bit)
Hey baby (just a little bit) when you get home
(just a little bit) mister (just a little bit)
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While the inclusion of “Respect” — one of the truly seminal singles in pop history — is in and of itself sufficient to earn I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You classic status, Aretha Franklin’s Atlantic label debut is an indisputable masterpiece from start to finish.
~Jason Ankeny (allmusic.com)
One of the most important characters in the Memphis music scene in the 60′s. Chips Moman helped start Stax Records, then American Sound Studios, which cut 122 chart hits from 1967 to 1972 — an unparalleled achievement.
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Lincoln Wayne “Chips” Moman (born, June 12, 1937 La Grange, Georgia, United States) is an American record producer, guitarist, and songwriter. As a record producer, Moman is known for recording Elvis Presley, Bobby Womack, Carla Thomas, and Merrilee Rush, as well as guiding the career of the Box Tops in Memphis, Tennessee during the 1960s. As a songwriter, he is responsible for standards associated with Aretha Franklin, James Carr, Waylon Jennings, and B. J. Thomas. He has been a session guitarist for Franklin and other musicians.
Armando Anthony “Chick” Corea (born June 12, 1941) is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis’ band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever. Along with Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and Keith Jarrett, he has been described as one of the major jazz piano voices to emerge in the post-John Coltrane era.His career has been driven by his will to operate as a free agent and compulsively explore different avenues of music making. This hunger has positioned him as an important catalyst in the world of serious, mainstream acoustic jazz, and he is one of the most influential and widely studied figures in the last 40 years.
..But it is “Long Black Limousine” and “I’ll Hold You in My Heart” which mark the high point of the album and indeed may mark the high point of Elvis’ career to date. “Long Black Limousine” is the almost quintessential C&W ballad, whose melody bears traces of such mournful standards as “Old Shep” and “Green, Green Grass of Home”.
~Peter Guralnick (Rollingstone Magazien – Aug 1969)
One of the strongest songs from one of the best albums ever released… nothing less.
Wikipedia
Released
June 17, 1969
Genre
Rhythm and blues
Length
3:44
Label
RCA Victor
Writer
Vern Stovall, Bobby George
Producer
Chips Moman, Felton Jarvis
Long Black Limousine is a song written by Vern Stovall and Bobby George; the best known version is probably the one by Elvis Presley, who turned the original country tune into a soulful rhythm and blues song.
Stovall and George, country musicians based in southern California, probably wrote the song in 1958, when it was first recorded (but not released until many years later) by Wynn Stewart. The first released version was Stovall’s, in 1961, followed by Glen Campbell’s in 1962. The only charting single of the song (in 1968 it reached #73 on the US country charts) was Jody Miller’s, her version was also on her 1968 album The Nashville Sound of Jody Miller. O. C. Smith’s version was released as the B-side of his million-selling crossover hit “Little Green Apples” in 1968. Elvis Presley’s version appeared on his classic 1969 From Elvis in Memphis album.
The sound produced at American had little to do with high-tech equipment and everything to do with its stable of musicians, who had developed a heavily R&B-influenced style that far transcended any bluesy edges the Nashville players might have boasted.
~Ernst Jorgensen (Elvis Presley – A life in music)
Elvis & Chips Moman
All southerners, all close to Elvis’s age, they shared a musical heritage that blended country, gospel, and rhythm and blues.
To the musicians Chips Moman was a godfather-like figure in the studio, who would tolerate nothing less than total commitment.
~Ernst Jorgensen (Elvis Presley – A life in music)
An even better version – Long Black Limousine (Take 6):
Lyrics
There’s a long line of mourners driving down our little street
Their fancy cars are such a sight to see, oh, yeah
They’re all of your rich friends who knew you in the city
And now they’ve finally brought, brought you home to me
When you left you know you told me that some day you’d be returnin’
In a fancy car all the town to see, oh, yeah
Well, now everyone is watching you, you finally had your dream
Yeah, and you’re ridin’ in a long black limousine
You know the papers told of how you lost your life, oh, yeah
The party, the party and the fatal crash that night
Well, the race upon the highway, oh, the curve you didn’t see
When you’re riding in that long black limousine
You’re riding in that long black limousine
Through tear filled eyes I watch as you ride by, oh, yeah
A chauffeur, a chauffeur at the wheel dressed up so fine
Well, I never, I never, never, never, oh, my heart, all my dreams
Yeah, they’re with you in that long black limousine
Yeah, yeah, they’re with you in that long black limousine
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they’re with you in that long black limousine
Yeah, yeah, they’re with you in that long black limousine
Producer: Chips Moman & Felton Jarvis
Produced by Felton Jarvis and Chips Moman Engineered by Al Pachucki
Overdubs arranged by Mike Leech and Glen Spreen
Digital Engineer: Dick Baxter
Personnel
Elvis Presley – vocals, guitar, piano
String and Horn Arrangements – Glen Spreen
Ed Kollis – harmonica
John Hughey – pedal steel guitar on “In the Ghetto”
Reggie Young, Dan Penn – electric guitar
Bobby Wood – piano
Bobby Emmons – organ
Tommy Cogbill, Mike Leech – bass
Gene Chrisman – drums
Overdubbed:
Wayne Jackson, Dick Steff, R.F. Taylor – trumpets
Ed Logan, Jack Hale, Gerald Richardson] – trombones
Tony Cason, Joe D’Gerolamo – french horns
Andrew Love, Jackie Thomas, Glen Spreen, J.P. Luper – saxophones
Joe Babcock, Dolores Edgin, Mary Greene, Charlie Hodge, Ginger Holladay, Mary Holladay Millie Kirkham, Ronnie Milsap, Sonja Montgomery, June Page, Susan Pilkington, Sandy Posey, Donna Thatcher, Hurschel Wiginton – backing vocals
At the dark end of the street
That’s where we always meet
Hiding in shadows where we don’t belong
Livin in darkness to hide a wrong
You and me
At the dark end of the street
You and me
Dan Penn was an important player in the development of the “Southern Soul scene” in Memphis in the early 60’s.
Here he performs one of the greatest soul songs ever, which he wrote together with Chips Moman in 1966:
Dark End of The Street:
I also need to include the best version of this fantastic song – James Carr:
From Wikipedia:
Dan Penn (born Wallace Daniel Pennington, 16 November 1941) is an American singer, musician, songwriter, and record producer who co-wrote many soul hits of the 1960s including “Dark End Of The Street” and “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” with Chips Moman as well as “Out Of Left Field” and “Cry Like a Baby” with Spooner Oldham. Penn also produced many hits including “The Letter” by The Box Tops. Though considered to be one of the great white soul singers of his generation, Penn has released relatively few records featuring his own vocals and musicianship preferring the relative anonymity of songwriting and producing.
I’m Your Puppet (Penn/Spooner Oldham):
Steve Kurutz (allmusic.com):
Songwriter/producer Dan Penn has been a quiet force behind Southern soul music for over thirty years. Always moving just out of view of the limelight, Penn has produced and written hits for the Box Tops, Solomon Burke, Aretha Franklin and Ronnie Milsap, among others.
Originally from Vernon, Alabama, Penn began his career as a performer, leading several white R&B bands around the Muscle Shoals area. Achieving early success by selling a hit song to Conway Twitty (“Is a Bluebird Blue?”), the songwriter eventually moved to Memphis, joining producer Chips Moman at his American Studios. Together the two, along with Penn’s writing partner, organist Spooner Oldham, wrote and/or produced several hits for the Box Tops, such as “The Letter” and “Cry Like a Baby,” throughout the late ’60s.
…read more over @ allmusic.com
Album of the day:
Do Right Man (1994):
From allmusic.com (Chris Nickson):
If James Brown is Soul Brother Number One, you can make a very credible case for Dan Penn being number two. The Alabama native has had a hand in writing a fair number of classic soul songs, and here he commits his versions of them to tape for the first time, recording, of course, in Muscle Shoals, with their fabulous house band, and a horn section including former Memphis Horn member Wayne Jackson. It’s a tall order Penn sets himself, offering himself up for comparison with greats like James Carr, Aretha Franklin, and James and Bobby Purify, who have sung his songs — and that’s just the start of the list. However, he comes out very well, beginning with a quiet take on”The Dark End of the Street,” coming across like a note to a secret lover, rather than a cry of pain. …read more – allmusic.com
Elvis & Chips Moman
