"Multiply" Jamie Lidell-Multiply

I checked out Jamie Lidell's albums a while ago and rendered it as pseudo-hippster-wigger crap. Maybe it isn't but it certainly is not my speed. This track from the 2005 album of same title is something different. Always makes one wonder how an artist can roll out a song that is so good and the remainder of his/her work just leaves you feeling bland and indifferent.

A fusion of soul, funk and hints of reggae (at least in the intro) this tune brings to mind the sweet soul of Junior Walker, Joe Cocker's "Feeling Alright", Arthur Conley, Mitch Rider and the Detroit Wheel as well as Gary U.S. Bonds. Almost on the verge of Shag music or what we call up here in the northeast, beach music.

You can picture this song in a vacation commercial, two couples running in the sand, splashing in the waters. It could be used in a scene depicting a woman struggling home from work during rush hour in the big city then fading to her getting ready followed by a shot of her dancing into the wee hours with a few girlfriends.

What comes to my mind is a small place where I used to live in north Florida, about two hundred yards away from my house it was one of the only places that was open late night that served hard booze because of the draconian Southern Baptist laws. It was a strange place, I've walked into the bathroom countless times and seen someone shooting smack, there were a lot of tattoos, weirdos, whores sitting at the bar alone; basically the dregs of society. On many occasions I wound up getting either kicked out or on the cusp of putting a bottle across a forehead.

They had good tunes though and if not live the jukebox had a badass selection. Maybe because of the people, mostly because of the music, I always felt terribly comfortable in this place and it can be proud to know that it was one of the few places I would actually dance. I would dance not because I had to by coercion from a woman or because everyone else would but rather because the groove would hit me right in the face, at that point there is only one other option.

An old buddy's girlfriend taught me how to Shag properly and it was put to good use in this dimly lit place at one in the morning. Usually I was there alone sans friends on a random weeknight which is probably why when they are reading this they are crying "bullshit" but I used to get down at times. And in something I've never really heard a woman say before, they'd utter "You are a really good dancer." followed by "Though you don't look like you would be one at all." Which at 6'3" and 245 pounds was certainly true. They weren't bullshitting, I could tell. I could tell because I was entranced and lost myself, lost everything around me except her and the tunes.

I always said to those who would beg me to dance, "Give me something to dance to and I'll be there on the floor before you know it." To me this is the only thing to dance to. Techno/House/Electronic can be good but it doesn't hit me. I can Tango, Waltz and even two step (though it has been a while) and while cool they are too constricting. This groove however just as: Sam Cooke, Otis, Parliament and those mentioned before in this post hold they key to true movement in my mind. It touches you so down deep inside, the combination of Phil Spector-esque wall of sound, a great rhythm and that raspy growl...it is hard not to get caught up and find yourself out there without even realizing what you are doing.

"When Rita Leaves" Delbert McClinton-Nothing Personal

A while back I wrote a post about one of the slickest Marty Robbins tunes in the vaults. Days ago I was driving up the FDR eventually up to the country to do 18 and "When Rita Leaves" came on the radio. Strange because I rarely listen to music on the radio and stranger still was what popped into my mind.

I thought about the woman in "Devil Woman" and how Rita where probably the same person. It is nothing earth shattering but it gave me a smile to think of this one woman who wanders around the boarders of the southwest enchanting men and destroying their lives in the process. Then I thought about the song "Dry Lightning" that comes from Springsteen's The Ghost of Tom Joad album and again how it was written about Rita and then finally about Warren Zevon's "Carmelita" and once again how it was Rita he was singing about. My thoughts were awash with the similarities and story that could be written tying all these snippets of life together, all by different artists who probably had different women in mind. Hell most everything written, sung and painted has been stolen from someone else.

I had a friend whose mother loved Delbert McClinton and probably because of that never paid him much attention, however every once in a while he'd knock on the door of my ear and pry his way in. This song always finds its way in. The silky gut string's lead that trickles throughout the song placating the dearth of love the voice is singing of with a hint of strings barely audible in the corner combined with matter of fact lyrics in Delbert's honest voice is a wonderful combination.

Years ago in South America I ran into my own Rita in a small bar late in the evening. There had been ones before and after but this Rita burned a scar in my memory that will never heal. She spoke little English but we found ways to communicate, jet black hair with a small mole on her left cheek and complex deep brown eyes that matched the hue of her skin. I woke up the next morning in a small room with commotion outside the windows below the first story of which I was laying, A Saturday market in a part of town I could never place. Seven in the a.m. and it was already over thirty three degrees and close to that in the room, the ceiling fan doing little other than ensuring the heat was properly scattered throughout the room; Rita looking adorable and better than the night before sleeping in bed like an angel in the clouds wrapped in white sheets.

Until it was time to leave and I walked home up the hills of the campamentos with a throbbing headache from five bottles of bad champagne and a pack of Belmonts, though cigs and champagne never throbbed such as this. Maybe it was because of the difference in brands, maybe it was because this was the fourth day in a row of doing the same but more so it was withdraw of Rita and the views I had had of her silhouette against the fire lights of the streets and the strange words that rolled off of her tongue like the gut string in this song.

I keep saying I'm going to go back down there and find her but it is probably better to not take up such a logistically impossible request and just return there in my mind while Delbert's musical silhouette projects itself onto the walls of my living room, with instead of dark hips in my hands merely an old Yamaha that has a dead low E and cracks across the back.