Welcome again, fans of music, and fans of talking about music!
This week Mary and Dave take a listen to the final side of Rachel Gamboa’s soul/funk/R&B mixtape. There’s quite a few good songs this week and we really think you’re going to enjoy this one. This episodes selection of songs features Mary’s favourite song of these mixtapes. (I wonder which so it is.)
Meanwhile, Dave has decided to revive Sneaky Dragon’s old Top 5 lists and brings us a Top 5 favourite covers of Bob Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”. So if you’re excited about hearing the same song five times you couldn’t have made a better choice of song.
Here is this week’s selection of songs:
Rachel Gamboa’s Mixtape 2 – Side Two:
- The Beginning of the End – “Funky Nassau Pt. 2” – Funky Nassau, 1971
- The Knight Brothers – “Temptation ‘Bout to Get Me” – single b/w “Sinking Low”, 1965
- Tyrone Davis – “Can I Change My Mind” – Can I Change My Mind, 1969
- The Free Design – “Bubbles” – Stars/Time/Bubbles/Love, 1970
- Chris Farlowe – “I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself” – 14 Things to Think About, 1966
- The Geminis – “A Friend of Mine Told Me” – single, b-side to “You Put a Hurtin’ on Me”, 1966
- Carla Thomas – “Something Good (Is Going to Happen to Me) – The Queen Alone, 1967
- Labelle – “Nightbirds” – Nightbirds, 1974
- Cumberland River’s – “If It Wasn’t for the Lord What Would I Do” – This May Be My Last Time Singing: Raw African-American Gospel on 45 RPM 1957-1982, 2011
- Lorraine Ellison – “Stay with Me” – single, “Stay with Me” b/w “I Got My Baby Back”, 1966
- Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes – “Bad Luck” – To Be True, 1975
Top 5 “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” cover versions:
- Joan Baez – Farewell Angelina, 1965
- Them – Them Again, 1966
- Chris Farlowe – 14 Things to Think About, 1966
- Graham Bonnett – Graham Bonnett, 1977
- The Byrds – Version 1, Unreleased, Turn! Turn! Turn!, 1996
Additional songs played this week:
- The Friends of Distinction – Grazing in the Grass”
- James Moody – “I’m in the Mood for Love” (excerpt)/ King Pleasure – “Moody’s Mood for Love”
Thanks for listening.
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“Can you dig it? Yes, I can!” Okay, that was Chicago talking about “Saturday in the Park” but it could easily apply to the last side of this soul/funk/R&B mixtape. Mary, I really liked “A Friend of Mine” too. I did not see that twist coming (and apparently neither did the song’s narrator.) It’s such a great song, I did a search to see if anyone else has covered it and discovered that Gladys Knights and the Pips did. The extended mix version has a…wait for it…a spoken word passage…which I’m usually not a fan of. But I love how she breaks back into song partway through the line, “It ain’t your enemies you got to worry about. You gotta keep an eye, keep an eye, keep an eye on your close, close friends!”
I also loved Labelle’s Nightbirds, which I hadn’t heard before. (Okay, that applies to most songs.)
Now I would‘ve heard “Stay With Me” before as Bette Midler sang it in the movie, The Rose (1979). I guess it didn’t, er, stay with me, as I was too young to appreciate a song about the heart-wrenching agony of a bad breakup. Midler’s character was based on Janis Joplin so it was probably her hard rock version of the song she was reinterpreting in the film. But I loved Lorraine Ellison’s poignant and soaring version with its orchestral backing. (I’m so relieved that I won’t get socked on the nose.) BTW, that’s a great story of how the recording came about due to Sinatra’s cancellation.
What a great finish to the soul mixes – for me, this was the best of the four. Loved pretty much all the tracks, with Labelle probably the standout. I’d never heard Nightbird before and thought it was wonderful. I was struck, though, how the line ‘Nightbird fly by the light of the moon’ was clearly lifted – both melodically and lyrically – by Bob Dylan for Jokerman, on Infidels. That was a revelation. Nona Hendryx definitely should be credited as co-writer on that one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XSvsFgvWr0
Interesting to hear the different versions of It ain’t me Babe. I’m not a huge Joan Baez fan, but thought her interpretation was lovely, with some beautiful guitar work.
And you’re right, Dave – the explanation of Acoustic-Digital-Digital WAS fascinating!
Oops – that’s Analogue-Digital-Digital, isn’t it?
“Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune,
Bird fly high by the light of the moon”
Thanks for pointing that out, Chris. The imagery and tune do seem too similar to be a coincidence. I wonder if it was a subconscious borrowing, or if Bob Dylan chose to do a musical allusion. And if so, I wonder if a court of law would rule that his refrain is just different enough to qualify as “inspired by” rather than “taken from.”
Hi Louise – yeah, that’s possible. And maybe there’s been a deal behind the scenes that we don’t know about. I was just reading that, when it was pointed out that the tune of Dylan’s song Beyond the Horizon, from Modern Times, was – cough – similar to Red Sails in the Sunset, he paid a royalty to the estates of the original composers (Jimmy Kennedy and Will Grosz).
It’s not just about cash though. I’m a huge admirer of Bob Dylan, but will always think of Jokerman as a co-written song now. That melody and lyric are essential to the main hook of the song and it would be nice to see Hendryx’s input reflected in a credit. Radiohead did this with Creep, which used a similar chord progression to The Air That I Breathe, and that seems the right way to go.
Always enjoy reading your comments, by the way!
Yes, there’s definitely the money side of the thing and the moral side of things. There’s a fascinating and moving documentary on Netflix’s Remastered series – “The Lion’s Share” (2019) which recounts the story of a writer’s musicological detective work and the resulting legal wrangling over “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, “Wimoweh” and “Mbube”. I was struck by the complex and varying motivations of the different parties involved in the fight for rights, royalties and recognition. I remember Ian and Dave had a lively debate on a Sneaky Dragon podcast about the whole idea of copyright and whether heirs to an artist’s estate should be entitled to the royalties and if so, for how long.