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This cd (the label is Ace) is, to coin a 60s phrase, groovy. I was familiar with some but not many of the covers, as the people at Ace did not go for the obvious (no Motown, no Tina Turner) and include some rarities instead, like Chubby Checker's take on Back in the USSR, though yes, they do include (and indeed end with) the one and only Aretha Franklin singing Let it Be. (As is proper, considering Paul had her voice in mind when he wrote it.) (Alas, Ace couldn't get permission to use any Ray Charles covers, which is a pity because his voice also was an inspiration, for another song, The Long and Winding Road, about which Paul said: It doesn't sound like him at all, because it's me singing and I don't sound anything like Ray, but sometimes you get a person in your mind, just for an attitude, just for a place to be, so that your mind is somewhere rather than nowhere, and you place it by thinking, Oh, I love that Ray Charles, and think, Well, what might he do then? So that was in my mind, and would have probably had some bearing on the chord structure of it, which is slightly jazzy.) I am amused by the anxious disclaimer in the footnotes that the choice of songs "is not intended to be a slight on the words and music of George Harrison"(because there are none present, which is why the cd isn't called "Black America sings The Beatles"). George gets the Scorsese documentary later this year, he can do without a cover compilation.
Given that John and Paul both loved and were hugely influenced by black American singers and songwriters when learning their trade as teenagers, the fact their own songs later were enthusiastically covered by black singers, sometimes even the very ones who inspired them, is a great example of transatlantic to and thro. Most of the interpretations on the cd boast amazing vocal performances; I'm not always keen on the intrumental arrangements, but there is no doubt none of the examples are just lazy copies of the originals, au contraire, each of the singers and groups tried to make the songs their own. This sometimes can be a revelation, as when Fats Domino sings Everybody Has Something To Hide (Except Me and My Monkey), which in the original version on the White Album is aggressive heroin-fueled John Lennon paranoia turned to the max, but as sung by Fats is just pure joie de vivre. To coin another 60s phrase, dig it. (And I never liked that song before.) Or when Mary Wells (not just the first black but one of the very first American artists to cover the Beatles) sings Please Please Me, gender pronouns changed, so what what used to be youthful tongue-in-cheek male exuberance suddenly is a confident woman telling her lover he'd better get more sophisticated in bed. On the other hand, it can also go over the top - Gene Chandler's version of Eleanor Rigby is even more bleak than the original because it's stripped of any of the melodic beauty and just cuts, cuts, cuts. (As with everything, any opinion is personal and thus subjective; your mileage may differ.) Or: Linda Jones delivers a stand-out, soaring vocal on Yesterday but the problem for me there is that Yesterday is a song where less is more and which should be delivered understated rather than going for orchestra (note: the famous combination of strings and guitar in the original actually is limited to a quartet and one guitar, which is all the difference between George Martin and Phil Spector producing) and operatic vocals.
Sometimes the interpretation makes you feel the difference neither as a revelation nor as a lessening but simply as a great alternate interpretation, as with Roy Redmond singing Good Day Sunshine; the slowed down tempo and his voice associate a long hot day in the American South rather than a brisk British breeze which is the impression the original gives me. And the Caribbean accent in R.B.Greaves' voice when he sings Paperback Writer (a song with a lot of very British allusions, from the Daily Mail to a man named Lear, not to mention the whole "Dear Sir or Madam" address) give the spoof/satire of the song a different kind of boost. And whether you see We can work it out like John did ("In We Can Work It Out, Paul did the first half, I did the middle eight. But you've got Paul writing, 'We can work it out / We can work it out'—real optimistic, y'know, and me, impatient: 'Life is very short, and there's no time / For fussing and fighting, my friend.') or notice that actually the Paul passages aren't optimistic, they're rather bossy and firm on the point that the singer is right and the other person is wrong, and unwillingness to budge from that point and interpret the song as Poppy Z. Brite did instead ("'We can work it out' is a love song to a hot-tempered friend, but it's also a warning to cut the crap if the relationship is to continue. We can get it straight or say goodnight. I love you dearly, but quit fucking with me. Beneath his benign nature and his pretty face Paul has a core of steel. John needed that"), the effect when instead of a duet you have the song sung by a single voice, and a female one instead of two males, as is the case here with Maxine Brown singing, is startling. It becomes far more a wooing attempt to convince the other person instead of an argument. And Al Green turning I want to hold your hand, aka the very song that die hard Rolling Stones fans keep quoting as an example of the early Beatles being asexual (conveniently ignoring the even earlier I Saw Her Standing There and Please Please Me, and of course that little ditty J & P wrote for their heroes) into what the leaflet calls "a steaming hunk of Memphis funk" is pretty amazing.
Speaking of the footnotes in the leaflet of the cd, they are generally well written and informative, and occasionally make me smile, as when they're talking about Little Richard's version of I Saw Her Standing There (other than I'm Down undoubtedly the most L.R.-esque song Paul McCartney ever wrote): McCartney wears his admiration for Little Richard like a favourite shirt, and is always happy to admit that the group nicked their falsetto 'ooooooooooh's from the Georgia Peach (who had, in turn, appropriated them from one of his few idols, the gospel singer Marion Williams). Because this is music and not gossip, the tale of Ringo being chased by Little Richard is missing, but we do get the photo of four fanboys (if you're into Doctor Who, think David Tennant in the presence of Lis Sladen) using the opportunity when they're opening for their hero in Hamburg to get their picture taken with him:
(Note Ringo only just shaved his pre-Beatles beard, combed his hairs forward but hasn't dyed yet his white streak. This was just after they fired Pete Best and hired him.)
However, at one point the leaflet contains a true clunker, to wit, when it gets to cover songs from the White Album (Back in the USSR as done by Chubby Checker, Blackbird as done by Billy Preston, Rocky Raccoon as done by The Moments, Everybody's got something to hide (except for me and my monkey) as done by Fats Domino and Why don't we do it on the road as done by Lowell Fuson) and confidently states that all of those were "predominantly or completely composed by McCartney". Four of them were, my friend, but Everybody's got something to hide is pure Lennon. Brush up your Ian McDonald.
Speaking of the John side of the Lennon/McCartney force, Chairmen of the Board manage to make Come Together sound positively sinister, which is intriguing. Otoh Donald Height's take on Don't let me Down to me is missing the passion of the original, but then Don't Let Me Down is one of my favourite John vocals, so admittedly it's hard to match. However, as mentioned before, the album concludes on a triumphant note, because frankly, who or what can top Aretha? I mean:
***
Lastly, on a related note of nice things you find on the internet: this very charming and endearing article in which the author, apropos a recent Paul McCartney concert, muses about musical fantasies and father figures.
Given that John and Paul both loved and were hugely influenced by black American singers and songwriters when learning their trade as teenagers, the fact their own songs later were enthusiastically covered by black singers, sometimes even the very ones who inspired them, is a great example of transatlantic to and thro. Most of the interpretations on the cd boast amazing vocal performances; I'm not always keen on the intrumental arrangements, but there is no doubt none of the examples are just lazy copies of the originals, au contraire, each of the singers and groups tried to make the songs their own. This sometimes can be a revelation, as when Fats Domino sings Everybody Has Something To Hide (Except Me and My Monkey), which in the original version on the White Album is aggressive heroin-fueled John Lennon paranoia turned to the max, but as sung by Fats is just pure joie de vivre. To coin another 60s phrase, dig it. (And I never liked that song before.) Or when Mary Wells (not just the first black but one of the very first American artists to cover the Beatles) sings Please Please Me, gender pronouns changed, so what what used to be youthful tongue-in-cheek male exuberance suddenly is a confident woman telling her lover he'd better get more sophisticated in bed. On the other hand, it can also go over the top - Gene Chandler's version of Eleanor Rigby is even more bleak than the original because it's stripped of any of the melodic beauty and just cuts, cuts, cuts. (As with everything, any opinion is personal and thus subjective; your mileage may differ.) Or: Linda Jones delivers a stand-out, soaring vocal on Yesterday but the problem for me there is that Yesterday is a song where less is more and which should be delivered understated rather than going for orchestra (note: the famous combination of strings and guitar in the original actually is limited to a quartet and one guitar, which is all the difference between George Martin and Phil Spector producing) and operatic vocals.
Sometimes the interpretation makes you feel the difference neither as a revelation nor as a lessening but simply as a great alternate interpretation, as with Roy Redmond singing Good Day Sunshine; the slowed down tempo and his voice associate a long hot day in the American South rather than a brisk British breeze which is the impression the original gives me. And the Caribbean accent in R.B.Greaves' voice when he sings Paperback Writer (a song with a lot of very British allusions, from the Daily Mail to a man named Lear, not to mention the whole "Dear Sir or Madam" address) give the spoof/satire of the song a different kind of boost. And whether you see We can work it out like John did ("In We Can Work It Out, Paul did the first half, I did the middle eight. But you've got Paul writing, 'We can work it out / We can work it out'—real optimistic, y'know, and me, impatient: 'Life is very short, and there's no time / For fussing and fighting, my friend.') or notice that actually the Paul passages aren't optimistic, they're rather bossy and firm on the point that the singer is right and the other person is wrong, and unwillingness to budge from that point and interpret the song as Poppy Z. Brite did instead ("'We can work it out' is a love song to a hot-tempered friend, but it's also a warning to cut the crap if the relationship is to continue. We can get it straight or say goodnight. I love you dearly, but quit fucking with me. Beneath his benign nature and his pretty face Paul has a core of steel. John needed that"), the effect when instead of a duet you have the song sung by a single voice, and a female one instead of two males, as is the case here with Maxine Brown singing, is startling. It becomes far more a wooing attempt to convince the other person instead of an argument. And Al Green turning I want to hold your hand, aka the very song that die hard Rolling Stones fans keep quoting as an example of the early Beatles being asexual (conveniently ignoring the even earlier I Saw Her Standing There and Please Please Me, and of course that little ditty J & P wrote for their heroes) into what the leaflet calls "a steaming hunk of Memphis funk" is pretty amazing.
Speaking of the footnotes in the leaflet of the cd, they are generally well written and informative, and occasionally make me smile, as when they're talking about Little Richard's version of I Saw Her Standing There (other than I'm Down undoubtedly the most L.R.-esque song Paul McCartney ever wrote): McCartney wears his admiration for Little Richard like a favourite shirt, and is always happy to admit that the group nicked their falsetto 'ooooooooooh's from the Georgia Peach (who had, in turn, appropriated them from one of his few idols, the gospel singer Marion Williams). Because this is music and not gossip, the tale of Ringo being chased by Little Richard is missing, but we do get the photo of four fanboys (if you're into Doctor Who, think David Tennant in the presence of Lis Sladen) using the opportunity when they're opening for their hero in Hamburg to get their picture taken with him:
(Note Ringo only just shaved his pre-Beatles beard, combed his hairs forward but hasn't dyed yet his white streak. This was just after they fired Pete Best and hired him.)
However, at one point the leaflet contains a true clunker, to wit, when it gets to cover songs from the White Album (Back in the USSR as done by Chubby Checker, Blackbird as done by Billy Preston, Rocky Raccoon as done by The Moments, Everybody's got something to hide (except for me and my monkey) as done by Fats Domino and Why don't we do it on the road as done by Lowell Fuson) and confidently states that all of those were "predominantly or completely composed by McCartney". Four of them were, my friend, but Everybody's got something to hide is pure Lennon. Brush up your Ian McDonald.
Speaking of the John side of the Lennon/McCartney force, Chairmen of the Board manage to make Come Together sound positively sinister, which is intriguing. Otoh Donald Height's take on Don't let me Down to me is missing the passion of the original, but then Don't Let Me Down is one of my favourite John vocals, so admittedly it's hard to match. However, as mentioned before, the album concludes on a triumphant note, because frankly, who or what can top Aretha? I mean:
***
Lastly, on a related note of nice things you find on the internet: this very charming and endearing article in which the author, apropos a recent Paul McCartney concert, muses about musical fantasies and father figures.
