You Can't Hurry Love: The Chairmen of the Board: "Give Me Just A Little More Time"

“Love is possible only if two persons communicate with each other from the center of their existence, hence if each one of them experiences himself from the center of his existence.  Only in this “central experience” is human reality, only here is aliveness, only here is the basis for love.  Love, experienced thus, is a constant challenge; it is not a resting place, but a moving, growing, working together…” Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

And now we leave Manchester for Detroit, and what could be called the continuation of a Motown powerhouse under other means.  Holland-Dozier-Holland were one of the main songwriting Motown had in the 60s but left the label in 1968 to start their own, Invictus/Hot Wax* which was a success, much to the chagrin, I’m sure, of Berry Gordy. 

This was The Chairmen of the Board’s first hit and their firstsingle to boot; lead singer General Johnson had been recruited by H-D-H, and Johnson brought the band together (though in fact the band playing on this isn’t them but the 1970 version of the Funk Brothers, just to add to the confusion).  There is an awful lot of subversive and maybe just flat-out competitive streaks in the early 70s, and while Gordy had the Jackson 5 as well as many other long-time Motown acts to draw on, Invictus** did very well with both Chairmen of the Board and Freda Payne, who stopped them from getting to #1 on the NME chart. 

The balance is crucial – on the one hand there’s the upbeat family dynamics of the Jackson 5, and here there is a disarmingly grown-up view that things don’t happen quickly, they need to be nurtured and patiently dealt with.  He wants her, she seems to be disinterested in anything beyond ‘love at first sight’ and has already cooled on him, but here he is trying to convince her – to what end we never find out – that they owe it to themselves to try harder, to take love more seriously, to respect love as one would a mountain.  Is love hard?  The Chairmen say hell yes, love is hard, but anything as important and sweet as love is worth the effort.  As a sentiment it flies in the face of the whole lax ‘love the one you’re with’ hippie vibes of the time and the whole idea of love being something one ‘falls into’ as opposed to ‘works at’ (Erich Fromm would have approved of this song).  Johnson’s agonized vocals – he yelps and bbrrrrrrruppss*** and pleads in such a way that the object of his affection is either going to come back to him or run away; his voice pierces the record and the time he wants is ours as we are listening, even as we feel sorry for him for being in love with someone who doesn’t have the maturity (she is younger than him; it could be that he has sadly fallen in love with someone who isn’t ready for commitment) to recognize his words as the truth.  Love is as easy as ABC?  Hmm, don’t think so.

This rejection of summer of love idealism and transience and insistence on the solid and energetic path of love must have struck a chord with a generation who themselves were ready for commitment, who had had enough of superficial relationships, those who had been burnt once or twice and were now ready to slow down and give love respect, and in turn give themselves respect as well.  Besides the deep joy of love is the knowledge that is entails constant work; any relationship worth preserving has to go through the growing pains that this song describes, or demands, and it’s as true now as it was in 1970. 

As for Holland-Dozier-Holland, they kept right on working with not just their own label's artists but with Motown artists as well; that's how deep their love was, and how even with lawsuits and psedonyms, their attachment to Motown was unshakeable.

Next up:  a trip to the movies, for some more joyful realism. 

*Apparently Motown wasn’t paying them their due royalties; Motown countersued and this dragged on for years, meaning that H-D-H had to work under the name “Edythe Wayne.” Ron Dunbar helped to write it, so “Wayne/Dunbar” is credited on the single.   

**Presumably named after the W.E. Henley poem…or maybe not.

***Let me note here that Kevin Rowland is now seventeen; he’s the only singer besides Johnson I’ve heard to ever make this noise.

...In His Hands: The Edwin Hawkins Singers: "Oh Happy Day"

Some songs can take a long time to get into the charts; this song took longer than most, and for a good reason: when it was written, the only way to hear it was to go to church.

Think back, if you will, to a time before the Internet; before compact discs, home computers, those big corporate computers programmed with punch cards; before the advent of television, vinyl, acetates, record players, radios, motion pictures, player pianos...back to a time when there were no planes, cars or trains.

We are in the London of the early 18th century, where Phillip Doddridge was born, the last of twenty children, into a religious household. He grew up to be a nonconformist Christian, a pastor of a congregation, and a hymn writer. The purpose of the hymns he wrote was simple - to summarize the sermon, to be a hummable and singable memento of whatever message he was trying to get across. He was also a teacher (of religion and philosophy) and a writer, his main influential work being The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, a book that converted William Wilberforce (the leading antislavery campaigner) to Christianity. For his hymn "O Happy Day, That Fixed My Choice" Doddridge wrote the words, and set it to music written earlier by J. A Freylinghausen. Doddridge died of tuberculosis in Lisbon in 1751, admired mostly for his religious writing.

There the hymn sat, words and music printed for congregations, until another man came along: one Edward Rimbault, also from London. He was born in Soho in 1816, son of the organist at St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and thus became a musical prodigy, from what I can figure out. At 22 he was lecturing on the history of music already, founded the Music Antiquarian Society not long afterwards with two fellow music historians, he later edited works by Handel including the Messiah and was offered, but turned down, a job at Harvard, already having gotten honorary degrees for his music scholarship elsewhere in Europe.

By the time he was in this thirties however, he settled down to work in various London churches as an organist, and applied himself to rewriting hymns. One he came across that he changed was Doddridge's hymn, for which he wrote a new melody in 3/4 time, and added a chorus. The hymn was sung, as it always had been, at baptisms and confirmations, in the UK and in the USA, the new 1854 version presumably making its way across the Atlantic before the Civil War. Rimbault died in 1876, the American centennial, a man known mostly to musical antiquarians and his London parishioners, and to anyone who looked to see who wrote the new music for various hymns.

There the song rested for some time, sung in waltz time, until in 1967 one Edward Hawkins, choir master, musician and composer from Oakland, changed the hymn from 3/4 to 4/4 time and discarded everything but Rimbault's chorus, taking the song to its essence, and recorded it with his singers at the Ephesian Church of God in Christ in Berkeley, as part of the album Let Us Go Into The House of the Lord. It was recorded in church on a modest budget and they sold the album wherever they appeared, right out of the trunk, just as so many gospel choirs did all over the US. A DJ in San Francisco somehow got a copy and began to play "Oh Happy Day" and it caught on, first a hit in the Bay Area and then spreading outwards, until we arrive here, in June 1969, over 200 years since it was first written, and over 100 since it was re-written, with man about to walk on the Moon, amidst the usual end-of-decade confusion and chaos, most if not all would have been unthinkable to Doddridge and Rimbault.

The influence of this song cannot be overstated; the simplicity of the song - it has, as far as I can tell, two chords - is a relief from the showbizzy songs of late, songs where grown women act like girls and so on. The main vocal here is by Dorothy Combs Morrison, is, amongst many things, the sound of a woman singing, a woman who does not have to be cute or pretty; she is the anchor of the song, the one who has experienced what the hymn is about, that supreme happiness that almost cannot be put into words. She sounds as if she has been through something, something momentous, and oddly enough she is not singing in a way (like Aretha) where you could hear her down the block. That is left to the rest, who are as loud and joyous and unified as a gospel choir should be, lifting the listeners slowly but surely, chord by chord. While Morrison experiences the mercy of being cleansed, the choir rejoices in being taught to sing and pray; it is a hymn wherein those who had been silent before spread the news now, and the happiness they sing of is not momentary or trivial but sits right at the heart and soul of their beings, and is thus transferred to ours (if our hearts and souls are open to it).

To say the least this song's power and simplicity made it an instant classic (I'm sure Doddridge and Rimbault would have approved of that) and no doubt benefited from Aretha Franklin's astonishing leap into the charts, bringing her own gospel style to the charts in an uncompromising and downright refreshing way. I can imagine people hearing this on the radio in complete confusion, admiration and then urgency - in that they had to go find it in a record store, now. It inspired George Harrison ("My Sweet Lord"), Todd Rundgren (his "I Saw The Light" is in the same key, even) and others to turn from psychedelic wig-outs to something simpler and, in some cases, more religious. The musicals Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell had yet to happen, but the whole "Jesus freak" hippie scene was already well underway, as the search for meaning, love and purpose that so many counterculture kids were undergoing led them to Jesus (in part, I tend to think, as he too had long hair and a beard). So this 1967 recording was an anthem of sorts for them, a confirmation of all things good and righteous, as well as being an inspiration to other musicians, in the UK (Primal Scream's "Moving On Up" being the most obvious) and the US.

Its message of acceptance and redemption must have appealed to everyone, at the end of a messy decade, that to sing and pray and participate in celebrating life instead of despairing of it was a way out or through. The happiness here is solid, though, and requires a similar solidity in the listener, as the choir grows louder and louder, the joy absolute, almost overwhelming. This is the beginning of contemporary gospel, gospel that crosses over to R&B and has more or less stayed there ever since, from Mary Mary's light funky soul (this is one of my favorite songs from last year) to Kirk Franklin's R&B swagger (this is another) to Marvin L. Sapp's incredible testifying (this amazing song crushes all competition for most uplifting song of 2010). All of these songs were Billboard hits, not just in the gospel but also R&B charts, and the pop charts as well, and that is a legacy from Hawkins' work, amongst others.

And so we have travelled a long way through time and space, from the misery of Fleetwood Mac to the overwhelming love here. What could come next? The return of the man who embodies these two extremes, in one song...

The Big Men: The Four Preps: "Big Man"

When I arrived in London in the summer of '88, I was intrigued by two girls from my hometown - L.A. - who had moved, voluntarily and of their own accord, to London. They were Tracey Bryn and Melissa Brooke Belland, and they led a band called Voice of the Beehive. Despite moving they still had that Californian sunshine and indefagitability in their voices, as well as a way with hooks and sudden pleasurable shifts, and their album Let It Bee was one of my top ones for that year. Little did I know that one day I would encounter their father's music right here in London, as part of a much bigger picture I could have hardly imagined...

Bruce Belland is the leader of The Four Preps (who are still going to this day, though not in their original lineup). When I hear "Big Man" - a song about the aftermath of a lover's spat (you can just hear the "You can't dump me I am dumping you first!" dialogue), I hear the sisters' good cheer even in the midst of doubt and loneness. "I was a big man yesterday, but boy, you oughta see me now" they sing as if they do and don't really want to be seen. Their voices are smooth and in regular harmony, but there is a definite alone-at-the-end-of-the-hallness to it, from the church basement rumbling piano to the admitting that "the only thing that made me big was YOUUUU!" that climaxes the song. He wants her back, he knows he's done wrong; his life is "so empty now that half my life's walked out" that you have to wonder how much headdesking will occur and maybe worse if she won't even look at him again. The song fades as if the narrator is indeed becoming invisible, leaving soundlessly through the back door at the end of the hall, not to sob but to just hang his head low at how stupid he can be. And his daughters will sing thirty years later: "It's just a city/ And on night like this I feel small in this world/It's just a city and I am just a girl."

But the story of the Four Preps doesn't just stop with this song. Bruce Belland's story is here, but what of Ed Cobb, who wrote "Tainted Love" and "Every Little Bit Hurts" not to mention "Dirty Water"? What of Glen Larson, who produced the The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman and Knightrider, whose theme he also wrote, later on sampled by Jay-Z? There was a lot of talent in these young men from Hollywood, talent that reaches towards science fiction, garage rock, New Pop and Northern Soul, not forgetting Motown. Not at all bad for a group I have only come to appreciate now - YAY L.A.!

Love As Force of Nature: Debbie Reynolds: "Tammy"

The day was sunny and quiet; it was early afternoon. I was almost home after yet another trip to the library to report that the mail he had sent weeks ago still hadn't arrived. We were both anxious, as there was not just a letter involved, but mix tapes as well.

As I walked down the crescent, just before the turn of the curve, I saw a bird, a robin I think. He was sitting on a branch, calling out and very obviously listening to see if there were any responses. Birds do this a lot in the course of their lives, but I was almost at eye level with the robin and could see its singular concentration...I got home, saw an odd parcel was stuffed in the mailbox; I let out a happy cry that bounced and echoed into the still air. HERE!

Could the bird have understood my joy? I don't know; the gratifications of a bird's life don't include transatlantic mail, the internet or music. And yet birds travel long distances, sing (certainly robins have a lot of variations in their standard 'song') and they court too. The robin is the bird of spring and hope; there is something uniquely determined about them (not to mention, loud).

In "Tammy" the narrator is in nature; the whippoorwill and breezes alike somehow know she is in love and say to her "Tammy, Tammy, Tammy's in love." The cold rational mind will scoff at this of course, but anyone who has fallen in love will know what she means. Suddenly, everything becomes significant - trees, birds, the wind, all of nature seems to comprehend and understand. It is a self-centered thing to hear your name, of course; but it could well be thast the narrator's falling in love is the first really important thing she has ever experienced; and it could be (even) that it is not something she expected to experience. (She lives on a Mississippi houseboat and is seventeen; I rest my case.) Her own wonderment and dazed happiness are in part because she is in love and also because she is, well, different. That her Other seems to be the only person who doesn't know she's in love with him doesn't bother her (as it would bother, say, a girl group); the song isn't about them, it's about her. It is, for all its calling out to nature, ultimately about the experience of being in love and knowing you are in love - existing and observing yourself, in short. (It's far more A Lover's Discourse than The Art of Love, for instance.)

The movie this song is from is called Tammy and the Bachelor which pretty much guarantees that there will be obstacles and they will be overcome; a young Leslie Nielsen plays the bachelor in question - the first Canadian involved with this blog but certainly not the last (Nielsen's later efforts may make this movie seem even more...funny now; it is too bad he and Reynolds haven't got back together for a comedy).

There is another odd strand out of this song that I cannot ignore - coming out of the phrase 'easy listening.' This term was coined around the time of this song (I have a hunch about this). And of course it describes "Tammy" perfectly - easy listening means sweet-stringed songs of love with gentle balladic highs and lows, songs with stars in their eyes, romantic songs in short that have nothing to do with the brash, vulgar and overtly sexual world of rock 'n' roll. These two genres existed side-by-side all through the late 50s and 60s on the charts and then began to merge in all sorts of ways, the most common being the 'easy rock' radio station (there's one in Toronto called EZ-Rock) aka 'adult contemporary' format. It is exactly what you hear in dentists' offices and such the world over. If it's balladic or mid-tempo or briskly cheery, you will hear it; but at the outer edge of this sits a man who was a young protege of Debbie Reynolds' husband, Eddie Fisher. (Not too long after "Tammy" was a hit, Elizabeth Taylor and Fisher had an affair and got married; it was the Aniston-Pitt-Jolie story of the day.) The protege's name: Noel Scott Engel. Yes, that's right - the young Scott Walker lurks at the back of this song, then tentatively makes his way to Los Angeles and thence to London, singing covers at first and then writing his own songs and indeed hosting his own show, just as Fisher introduced young Mr. Engel on his own.

By now, Walker has turned 'easy listening' on its head and then some; I like to think that he picked something up from "Tammy" - its patience and slowness, its odd sense of the person in nature being seen and private, known and unknown. It is a song with more to it than first meets the ear, a dimension where the self and nature become one, just as the bird sits and sings and then flies away.