Before you even read this
mess, go to Chuck
Berry's web site and download one of the eight high resolution
photos for your computer's background... yes, that's better than
the those old family pictures you've been meaning to update...
This year in celebration
of Black History Month we'll touch on the subject of black music
that appears in white music, either because the white artist ripped
off the black dude, or it was a tribute, or a subconscious memory
that resulted in copyright infringement. As long as there's been
radio, there've been parents yelling "turn off those pernicious
African wailings" (or you can imagine your own references
to black artists), and there's been white singers trying to cash
in as a safe alternative. There's probably a liberal arts college
that teaches an entire course on this stuff. We're not experts
here (we're just lowly engineers for Chrissakes), but below are
just a few examples that we've noticed. And we're not even gonna
mention Elvis.
This is the time
of year when we're all reminded of "the day the music died",
Don McLean's 1971 musical tribute to Buddy Holly, Richie Valens
and J. P. Richardson (The Big Bopper), who died in an in-fated
Beechcraft ride on February 3, 1959. Dion DiMucci of The Belmonts
fame lived because he was too cheap to buy the $36 ticket that
was offered to him, a man after our own hearts. The full meaning
of McLean's lyrics are the subject of much debate, but he presents
The Bopper, Valens and Holly as the father, son and holy ghost
of rock and roll. No question that Buddy Holly had and would continue
to have a legendary career, but it's far more accurate say that
Fats Domino, Little Richard and Check Berry might have been the
trinity of early rock. In spite of the Hurricane
Katrina scare and unlike those unfortunate plane passengers
of 1959, this trio is still around and kickin! Maybe it's the
Gary U. S. Bonds Effect. Do the twist and you'll never grow
old!
Pat Boone's
Ain't That a Shame
One of the original
poachers of black entertainment, Pat's shameless rendition of
Fats Domino's Ain't That a Shame scored a monster hit.
Pat also charted with Little Richard's hits Tutti Frutti
and Long Tall Sally. It's doubtful that this "Christian"
singer understood the lyrics of the latter, which is an ode to
a transsexual relative, Uncle John, who's about to get finked
out to to his wife, Aunt Mary, for his bizarre behavior:
Gonna tell Aunt Mary
'bout Uncle John,
he claims he has the misery but he has a lotta fun...
...
Well, long tall Sally
she's built for speed,
she got everything that Uncle John needs...
...
Well, I saw Uncle John
with bald-headed Sally.
He saw Aunt Mary comin' and he ducked back in the alley.
Having been previously ripped
off on the song Tutti Frutti, Little Richard was encouraged
to sing Long Tall Sally fast enough so that Pat Boone wouldn't
be able to cover it, but Pat did it anyway. He also cut renditions
of Big Joe Turner's fantastic Chains of Love, and Ivory
Joe Hunter's I Almost Lost My Mind. Pat took some great
music and turned it into Muzak.
Jerry Lee Lewis,
High School Confidential
The line from
High School Confidential says what Jerry Lee thought about R&B:
Come on little baby let
me give a piece good news
Jerry Lee is going to rock away all his blues
My hearts beatin' rhythm and my soul is singin' the blues
This song stalled
as news of Lewis's marriage to his second cousin spread. As JLL
tells the story, everyone remembers she was 13 when they married,
but no one remembers her birthday was the very next day!
Beach Boys Surfin'
USA
Almost every guitar
riff you hear on a Beach Boys recording was robbed from Berry.
They gave him credit as co-writer of Surfin USA only after
he sued them, which is clearly his song Sweet Little Sixteen
with some new lyrics. Berry was in jail for his infamous violation
of the Mann Act when Surfin' USA came out. Here's two
verses, see if you can guess whose song is whose, then practice
them both so you can irritate your kids by singing the opposite
lyrics when you hear one on the radio!
If everybody had
an ocean
across the U. S. A.
Then everybody'd be surfin'
Like Californ-i-a
You'd seem em wearing their baggies,
Huarachi sandals too.
A bushy bushy blonde hairdo
Surfin U. S. A
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They're really rockin
Boston
In Pittsburgh, P. A.
Deep in the heart of Texas
And round the Frisco Bay
All over St. Louis
Way down in New Orleans
All the cats wanna dance with
Sweet little sixteen
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The Beatles Come
Together
The Beatles once
stole from the Shakespeare of Rock and Roll, and lost a lawsuit.
Here's the lyrics compared:
John Lennon's
lyrics to Come Together:
Here come old flat-top
he come grooving up slowly
He got Joo-Joo eyeball he one holy roller
He got hair down to his knee
Got to be a joker he just do what he please
Chuck Berry's
original lyrics from You Can't Catch Me:
Here come a flat-top,
he was movin' up with me
Then come wavin' goodbye a little' old souped-up jitney
I put my foot in my tank and I began to roll
Moanin' siren, 'twas a state patrol
So I let out my wings and then I blew my horn
Bye bye New Jersey, I'd be come and gone
Perhaps just a
little resemblance, but Morris Levy, a chisler who owned the rights
to Berry's work, filed a lawsuit against Lennon which paid off
in Lennon re-recording some other songs for Levy. Berry was ripped
off twice here!
John Lennon once
said "if you tried to give rock and roll another name, you
might call it 'Chuck Berry'." Roger that!
Chuck Berry and
the Rolling Stones
Let's first point
out that the phrase "Rolling Stone" was first popularized
in an ancient Muddy Waters song:
Well, my mother told my
father,
just before hmmm, I was born,
"I got a boy child's comin,
He's gonna be, he's gonna be a rollin stone,
Sure 'nough, he's a rollin stone
The Stones covered
tons of Berry's work and almost always included (and credited)
one of his songs on each of their albums in the sixties, no doubt
as a good luck charm.
An example is
Berry's Carol on their debut album, it's a great rendition.
For homework, you need to buy or rent the DVD Hail
Hail Rock and Roll,
a movie produced about Berry in the 70s. In it there's a scene
where he is explaining the wa-wa sound in the chorus of Carol
to Keith Richards, with plenty of eye-rolling from both characters.
This is solid gold, and it's so special it's one of only half-dozen
CDs and DVDs that you can buy at your local Starbucks on your
way to work today.
Other Berry tunes
that the Stones cut include Bye Bye Johnny, Around and Around,
Come On, Talking Bout You, You Can't Catch Me, and Little
Queenie. Chuck kept track of who covered his songs, the
long list can be found on his web site.
The Who
Early Who efforts were
clearly imitations of Black R&B music. How do we know
this? Because their most famous wall poster says so. Long
before they recorded My Generation, they were performing
R&B hits. Check them out in the movie
The Kids are Alright, available on DVD at Amazon!
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Led Zeppelin
Nobody's Fault but Mine
| Led Zeppelin
took blues in many original directions. Their song Nobody's
Fault But Mine was first cut by Blind Willie Johnson,
an itinerant Texas preacher who recorded for Columbia around
1930, back when the Mills Brothers were just teenagers. The
1927 song was originally about Willie fretting about not reading
his Bible (how could this be his fault, he was blind?), Led
Zepp made it into a song about doing
drugs and other pleasures of the flesh. No credit was
given to Willie on the 1976 album that Nobody's Fault
appeared on. Other artists have praised Johnson's influence,
Eric Clapton was a big fan of his slide guitar skills. Willie
died from pneumonia that set in from sleeping on a wet mattress
after the roof burned off of his house. So much for fame and
fortune. |
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George Thorogood
and the Destroyers
|
Diddley Daddy
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Thorogood made a career
out of singing Chuck Berry covers and using the Bo Diddley
beat. It seems to have worked out! GT&D used Bo in a
music video, the two of them play pool during Bad to
the Bone. But as Bo once said, "I opened the door
for a lot of people, and they just ran through and left
me holding the knob..."
While we're on the subject,
read about how Bo Diddley's appearance
on Ed Sullivan got him banned for life!
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Billy Idol, Wine
Spoodee-o-dee
Is there a whiter
rocker than Billy Idol? Probably not. But when you listen to his
version of LA Woman (by Jim Morrison) on the album Charmed
Life, you can clearly hear him mouthing the words "drinkin'
wine spoodee-o-dee", which ain't part of the original song.
Wine Spoodee-o-dee was a signature song of Sticks
McGhee, dating back to 1949. How did Sticks get his name?
Not from being thin. It was from the sticks he used to push his
brother's wagon with as a kid. His brother was crippled from polio.
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Let's borrow
a little from another
web site on the origin of spoo-dee-o-dee:
"Spodee
(among other spellings) is a Pacific Northwest party drink,
a mixture of alcohol and fruit, frequently made in a trash
can and left to marinate a day or two before the party.
The origin of the word is unknown, but it seems likely to
come from the classic R&B song "Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee"
by Sticks McGhee, which in 1949, was the first big hit record
for Atlantic Records." Another reference to spo-dee-o-dee
describes it as a nonsense word that Sticks used because
it fit in with an expletive with the same number of syllables.
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Why would Billy
Idol make this reference? Probably just a proven way to use the
F-word and get away with it. Billie Freakin' Idol!
Johnny Rivers
The singer best
known for the opening music to the TV show Secret Agent Man,
River's best cuts were all previously recorded by black artists,
but they are just great covers pure and simple. Midnight Special
(originally recorded by Leadbelly), Lawdy Miss Clawdy (Lloyd
Price), Memphis and Maybelline (Chuck Berry), Tracks
of my Tears and Baby I need Your Lovin, (Smokey Robinson).
Rivers still plays concerts, even though he is old enough to collect
Social Security and then some. Check him out, you won't be disappointed.
That's all for
now!
Check out the Unknown
Editor's amazing archives when you are looking for a way to
screw off for a couple of hours or more!
