“Everyday People” entered the Billboard Top 40 on January 4, 1969. Six weeks later it was the number-one song in the country, holding onto the top spot for an entire month. The lead single from Sly & the Family Stone’s upcoming album Stand!, it espoused “different strokes for different folks,” with the group’s leader, Sly Stone, assuring listeners that “I am no better and neither are you / We are the same whatever we do.”
Later that year the “psychedelic soul” band from San Francisco — featuring black, white, male, and female members — played the Woodstock festival, taking the stage at three in the morning on August 17 with inspirational anthems like “You Can Make It If You Try” and “I Want to Take You Higher,” which quickly moved the predawn crowd out of their sleeping bags and onto their feet.
In hindsight, it was as high as Sly & the Family Stone would go.
On January 10, 1970, their first single of the new decade, the double-A-sided “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” and “Everybody Is a Star,” landed in the Top 40, and within a few weeks had become the band’s second chart topper.
Ushering in the era of bottom-heavy ’70s funk dominated by bands like Kool & the Gang, Ohio Players, and Earth, Wind & Fire, “Thank You” featured a harder sound than the Family Stone’s previous hits, with Larry Graham’s percussive thump-and-pluck bass dominating the track alongside Cynthia Robinson and Jerry Martini’s trumpet-and-sax combo. Sly’s lyrics weren’t exactly relegated to the background, but expectations of good-time vibes from the group that recorded “Dance to the Music” tended to obscure lines like “Flamin’ eyes of people fear burnin’ into you” and “Dyin’ young is hard to take / Sellin’ out is harder.”
The lyrics that typically stand out on first listen are the titles of previous Family Stone hits incorporated into the third verse: “Dance to the music all night long / Everyday people sing a simple song.” It comes across as playful — a clever summation of the Family Stone’s triumphs in the decade just ended.
I led a semi-sheltered suburban life in my high school years, so it wasn’t until MTV made its debut on my cable system a year after it launched in 1981 that I really started getting exposure to music that wasn’t AC/DC or Rush. But that’s not all MTV was able to do. Because the channel only had so many videos to play in a 24 hour programming schedule, it meant that they were open to artists who had videos ready to go — ’cause, you know, they were starving for content. I had no idea what was going on in the bowels of MTV programming back then, but what I did find that I was able to hear and see artists I really didn’t know much about. Of course if you look at this list you’re thinking “Yeah, it’s classic ’80s…so what?” But before they were classics, they were new songs that were untried in the music marketplace. But MTV being what it was back in the day, meant the programmers were able to give many of these song/videos extremely high rotations. So much so, that one couldn’t help like (or love) what they were hearing or seeing. MTV affected radio playlists in ways program directors never thought it could. Kids seeing the video for something like “Rockit” on MTV would call their local stations and request the song. As the requests piled up, the songs eventually made their way to radio. Not all were breakaway hits, but if it wasn’t for MTV they certainly wouldn’t have been played on the radio all that much. (more…)
Ladies and gentlemen, meet the rarest of breeds in the music world: the protest remix.
It’s unclear which is more inconceivable today: that a major label would release a stinging protest song aimed at the government of an extremely wealthy country, or that the song would crack the Top 40. But thanks to the overwhelming good will that came from Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in late 1984 and USA for Africa’s “We Are the World” a few months later, benefit fatigue had thankfully not yet kicked in, and “Sun City,” shepherded by Steven Van Zandt, became a surprise hit in late 1985. Now consider some other curiosities about the track:
– Two of the verses feature rappers, a full six months before Run-DMC and Aerosmith would drop their game-changing collaboration.
- The production was by New York big beat maestro Arthur Baker, who was adored by musicians but not exactly known as a hitmaker.
- The majority of the artists who sang on the record hadn’t scored a Top 40 hit of their own in years, if ever.
Indeed, “Sun City” is about as hipster a benefit/protest record as you’re likely to find. Daryl Hall and John Oates, Pat Benatar and Bruce Springsteen are easily the biggest commercial names at the time to appear on the record, while socially conscious artists like Peter Gabriel, Midnight Oil’s Peter Garrett and, of course, Bono would find mainstream success in the coming years. The rest of the contributors are a who’s who of New York cool. Joey Ramone, Afrika Bambaataa, Kurtis Blow, Run-DMC, Duke Bootee, Grandmaster Melle Mel, Stiv Bators and Lou Reed all make appearances, as do Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, George Clinton, a pre-comeback Bonnie Raitt, Temptations David Ruffin and Eddie Kendrick, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Wolf, and Herbie Hancock. (Jackson Browne contributes as well, though getting him to work on a protest song back then was like shooting fish in a barrel.) Bob Geldof’s name appears on the 12″ single’s back cover, though one wonders if that was the benefit record equivalent to giving Berry Gordy writing credit on a Motown single; whether he contributed to the track or not, you gotta put Bob’s name on it.
The song itself is easily the best of the big benefit singles, with a crazy catchy “I ain’t gonna play Sun City” chorus and a slammin’ rhythm track assembled by Baker. And again, one must give credit to Van Zandt and Baker for leading off the song with rappers, an unprecedented move at the time. Some stations refused to play the song for that very reason – which just seems hilarious in today’s musical climate, where whitey is the odd man out – and that makes its rise into the Top 40 all the more impressive. What, then, would Baker do with the remix?
Go absolutely apeshit, that’s what. The A-side mix is over nine-and-a-half minutes long, and the “Not So Far Away” dub mix is a gargantuan twelve-and-a-half minutes. He samples Daryl Hall’s voice and turns it into a percussion track – something Girl Talk would turn into a copyright supervisor’s nightmare some 20 years later – and allows what I can only assume to be Hancock to noodle for the final five minutes of the dub mix. And, per usual, there are lots and lots of edits, though the credits for those edits go to Albert Cobrera (note the spelling) and Aldo Miran, which has to be the Latin Rascals (Albert Cabrera and Tony Moran) in disguise. Can anyone confirm or deny?
One of my favorite things about the A-side mix was how Baker turned the last lines in the verses sung by Springsteen, Bono and Bobby Womack into a cappella bits, only to bring the track thundering in on that fourth drum beat in the final measure. And man, listen to that Bono vocal. He hasn’t put anything that passionate to tape in ages.
These days, of course, “Sun City” has as much relevance as songs about occupied Germany, since apartheid came to an end in 1994. I am also reminded of a professor of mine who taught a class on the Sociology of Popular Music (help me out, Ohio University grads: he had a wooden leg, and would sometimes turn it around backwards to mess with people): he thought “Sun City” was fascinating because it’s basically musicians singing to other musicians. After all, no one buying this record was about to play Sun City, were they? (You could make a similar argument that Michael Jackson was singing about how he and his fellow pop stars are the world, and the ones who make a brighter day, blah blah blah.) And, adding an extra dose of irony, half of the artists who sing on this record were nowhere near the Sun City concert director’s radar (though if the video below is to be believed, Daryl Hall turned down $2 million to play there), which means that their declaration that they ain’t gonna play Sun City is like me saying that I’m not going to do business in Dubai. It’s good to have principles, but it’s a lot easier to have them when you know that you will never have to exercise them.
Still, you can’t deny that “Sun City” did an incredible job raising the average person’s awareness to an alarming human rights issue, and that was Van Zandt’s primary goal all along. That the song cracked the Top 40 as well was gravy. I will confess that I did not rip either of the tracks below (still need to save up the coin for a USB turntable, right after I plunk down my soul for the upcoming Beatles version of Rock Band), and the dub mix has a skip in it, but hopefully this will make up for it: the video I’ve included for “Sun City” is done “Pop-Up Video” style, woo hoo! Who would have thought that a third of the video’s budget was spent covering Jimmy Cliff’s hotel room?
Post script: I spent a day at Sun City in 1997, and while this may fly in the face of the thousand words before it, I have to say, the place was pretty sweet.
Even as a child I was intrigued by Miles Davis, much as I am today. His 1965 release, E.S.P., is the first jazz album that I can ever recall owning. It wasn’t until years later that I came to appreciate the awesome talent assembled for this record. For this is the mighty Miles Davis Quintet, that in addition to Miles included the all-star lineup of Wayne Shorter on tenor sax, Tony Williams on drums, Ronald Carter on bass, and Herbie (here called Herb) Hancock on piano. E.S.P. was the first recording for the quintet, which turned out to be the longest-lived of all of Miles’ groups.
I have to say right now that although I like a lot of jazz, I don’t know enough about it to give you an expert opinion on the music here. What I do know is how this music makes me feel. Wayne Shorter wrote the album’s title track, and it starts the album off at a breakneck pace. It begins with a riff that is so indelible that I’ve been able to hum it for as long as I can remember. Listening more recently, it’s apparent that for me, Hancock is the real find here. All of the musicians are brilliant throughout, both in solo settings, and as a part of the cohesive whole, but it’s Hancock who stands out. He would record his tune “Little One” again in a few weeks for his classic Maiden Voyage album, but the version on E.S.P. finds that song in an early state, before the arrangement was really firmed up, and it’s very interesting to juxtapose the recordings.
Wayne Shorter would go on to write most of the quintet’s material, and later become a founding member of one of the first fusion groups, Weather Report. He contributes the beautiful, Coltrane-like ballad “Iris” to E.S.P. Tony Williams is simply one of the most astonishing and influential drummers ever to pick up a pair of sticks, and it was here, in this quintet, that he first came to fame. Like Shorter, Williams went on to be a pioneer in jazz fusion. Double bassist Ron Carter has played on over 2,500 albums. His unique sound has made him the most sought after bassist in jazz history, both as a sideman, and leading his own groups.
What’s left to say about Miles Davis. He is one of my musical heroes. He was at least one step ahead of everyone else for his entire career. He triumphed over drug addiction, harsh critics, and audience indifference, to be recognized as one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. E.S.P. finds the great artist at one of the peaks of his powers.
I’ve gotten bored with what I’ve been listening to lately, so recently I went back into my collection to dig out CDs I haven’t spun in a while, like De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising, an album I haven’t listened to in at least four or five years. Hearing this excellent disc again piqued my interest for two reasons, the first being that I didn’t realize the direct influence it most likely had on my love of both Urban Dance Squad and P.M. Dawn.
Urban Dance Squad brought rock, ska, and funk to their rap, throwing together bits and pieces of sounds that didn’t seem like they’d flow as one — sort of what Prince Paul does these days. 3 Feet High and Rising is one of the first albums he produced and a starting point for his future sound collisions. Then there’s P.M. Dawn, who happen to be one of my all-time favorite groups; there are at least three or four tracks on 3 Feet High that could have fit nicely on P.M. Dawn’s 1991 debut, Of the Heart, Of the Soul and of the Cross: The Utopian Experience. With both groups the flow is pretty much the same, and even the lyrical style is similar, right down to the lines that seemingly make no sense on first listen but when broken down actually have some legit meaning.
But that’s not really the reason I’m bringing it up here. It’s because I’m wondering if there was any other album in the ’80s on which the biggest hit was track 20! 3 Feet High almost seems like a rap album from this decade, with a skit between every song (hell, they have two in a row at points), but even so, “Me, Myself and I,” a #1 rap hit and De La Soul’s only Top 40 hit (until they backed the Gorillaz on “Feel Good Inc.” in 2005), is buried all the way down at track 20.
I still think the album is excellent, despite the fact it felt like a decade had passed by the time I got to “Me, Myself and I,” but it really got me wondering if there was another track in the entire decade buried that far down on a disc. Greatest-hits and multiple-disc sets don’t count — I’m talking a single disc where the biggest hit was that far down. Hell, even just a single that was that far down on an album. Better yet, name any big hit that far down on a normal LP in any decade. It might have happened more frequently in the past decade on rap albums, but I still think it’s a pretty rare feat.
Mojo: “The exception that proves the rule” is a cliche whose meaning completely eludes me. It’s like saying just once, we can trust Rush Limbaugh to walk into an NFL pregame show and…well, you know what I mean. But if there was ever a band that fit the cliche, it’s Def Leppard. They fit a lot of cliches, but let’s focus on Mojo’s main rule: If it’s got a good hook, it’s gotta be good pop, period, and it doesn’t matter if it’s Miley Cyrus or Miles Davis is doing it. Def Leppard had dumptruck loads of good hooks, but no one would ever confuse them with good pop. “Rocket” is personally offensive to me, because they co-opt the very fabric of rock-n-roll and claim to be a part of the lineage that begat Major Tom, Dizzy Miss Lizzy, and even Lou Reed and his Satellite of Love–even though I think the gents in the last song-off did a good job of communicating the collective Popdose attitude toward Lou Reed. But even he’s a dozen steps up from this garbage.
In hindsight, it was as high as Sly & the Family Stone would go.
– Two of the verses feature rappers, a full six months before Run-DMC and Aerosmith would drop their game-changing collaboration.
Even as a child I was intrigued by Miles Davis, much as I am today. His 1965 release, ![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=d8df3c45-ba79-4117-9757-8d39a19e8bd0)
