Baracho e Imperial – Vamos Cirandar (1972)

Baracho e Imperial
VAMOS CIRANDAR
19 autênticas cirandas Pernambucanas

Released 1972 Passarela / Discos Rozenblit, Recife, Pernambuco (LP 40.399)

Produced by Nelson Ferreira
Audio Engineer: Hercílio Bastos
Graphic design & layout – Walderes Soares
Photography: Wladimir Barbosa

Side One

CIRANDA A COBIÇADA
01 – Vou falar de Pernambuco/Olinda,cidade maravilhosa/Roberto Carlos/sereia
Lia,vem pra ciranda dançar/Recife tem praias pra se escolher/fui conhecer a
Paraíba/vida de pescador

CIRANDA IMPERIAL
02 – Não vá pro mar/o meu navio/castelo de areia/lavadeira

Side Two

CIRANDA DO BARACHO
03 – Esta ciranda quem me deu foi Lia morena,vem ver..

CIRANDA A COBIÇADA
04 – tomando umas e outras/baralho de ouro/uma moça me perguntou

CIRANDA IMPERIAL
05 – Ô cirandeira/cirandeiro, eu vou me embora

Transcription Notes:
Vinyl -> Pro-Ject RM-5SE turntable (with Sumiko Blue Point 2 cartridge, Speedbox power supply) > Creek Audio OBH-15 -> M-Audio Audiophile 2496 Soundcard -> Adobe Audition 3.0 at 24-bits 96khz -> Click Repair light settings, additional clicks and pops removed in Audition -> Normalized to -1db -> dithered and resampled using iZotope RX Advanced -> ID Tags done in foobar2000 v.1.0.1

Ciranda is a type of music and dance that is one of the loveliest things I have seen or heard in my life. It’s origins are, like most things, somewhat disputed but it is fairly clear that it developed initially among the fishing communities along the Brazilian coasts and then spread inward. In the south of Brazil, “ciranda” is a form of children’s music and dance, but in the northern sugar-producing region of the state of Pernambuco in northeast Brazil it is practiced by adults, although very much open to everyone. In fact if I felt up to it I could make an argument for ciranda as “musical communism.” Central to the whole enterprise is a “dança de roda” where anyone who wants to participate links hands and dance around in a great big circle (with an accent on the “one,” highlighting the communistic symbolism, obviously…), and when things are really going well and there are enough people, concentric circles will start forming. I saw some of this in the city of Recife once but I feel like I really didn’t experience ciranda until seeing the famous Lia de Itamaracá singing on the beach of the island where she lives, under a clear and star-speckled sky. I was traveling alone, as I often do, but my solitude was alleviated by the warmth emanating from this whole spectacle, the beauty of children dancing and singing along with their parents and other adults, who may or may not be enjoying a drink or three according to their whim. So different from the country where I was born, to see these kids out having a good time until 4 am, treated in a subtle but profound way as equals.

Of course dance cannot take place without music. The instrumentation is made of brass instruments and percussion (like the zabumba, mineiro / ganzá, maracá, caracaxá, and caixa / tarol), while a vocalist (cirandeiro or cirandeira) sings verses usually with a chorus of a handful of men or women responding. Although apparently the musicians traditionally performed in the center of these big dancing rodas, these days it is more common to have them performing on some type of stage. The music isn’t divided up into “songs” as we might typically define them, but ‘loas’ or verses with particular melodies and rhythmic structures that are sung interchangeably according to the singer’s whim. Thus a ciranda can go on for twenty minutes or an hour without a single break and with mostly the same rhythm, with the singer or the horns announcing a new melody and set of stanzas. Although a strong link to the Portuguese is often cited by the musicologists and folklorists who talk about ciranda, I can’t help thinking about how early the Portuguese were in contact with the western coast of Africa, when they traded with African kingdoms as equals before the onset of the slave trade.

This record features Baracho, probably the most famous of cirandeiros. A native of the town of Nazaré da Mata, he was also a poet-singer of maracatu de baque solto (also known as maracatu do trombone or maracatu rural) before becoming famous as a singer and composer of ciranda. The lyrics of ciranda often deal with quotidian everyday life – enumerating and describing the beaches of Recife, singing the praises of Olinda, getting to know Paraíba (Pernambuco’s neighbor to the north), or the concerns of a fisherman. Although often pegged as a “folkloric” music it is also absolutely contemporary, making use of anything and everything happening in the world. For example this record features one of the most famous cirandas, titled simply “Roberto Carlos”:

Roberto Carlos
É o rei do iê-iê-iê
Jamelão cantando samba
Faz o morro estremecer

Lia na ciranda
Também é de primeira
No baião Luiz Gonzaga
No frevo Nelson Ferreira

I usually hesitate to make such crude and anachronistic comparisons, by the similarity to a hip hop shout-out and/or challenge is kind of striking here. The verse recognizes two huge personages of popular culture from the southeast of Brazil — Roberto Carlos, “King of iê-iê-iê” (pronounced Yeah-yeah-yeah, associated with the Jovem Guarda and in reference to their obsession with mid-60s Beatles music), and Jamelão, one of the giants of samba — and then in the next verse celebrates the cultural contributions of Pernambuco — the first-rate ciranda of Lia, the baião of Luiz Gonzaga, and the frevo of Nelson Ferreira (who, incidentally, produced this album). This verse is probably more striking if you know a little about the history of the Northeast and particularly Pernambuco, the first area to be widely colonized by the Portuguese and for a long time the engine of Brazil’s economy during the “glory days” of its sugar industry, before losing ground both economically and in terms of prestige to the coffee culture of Brazil’s south. Even without knowing about this, any non-Brazilian can probably make a quick mental inventory of the people they know who have visited Brazil as tourists and realize how few of them ever set foot anywhere outside the southeast or even outside Rio de Janeiro. So in this verse, it’s not as if the singer doesn’t like Jamelão or Roberto Carlos (everyone, I mean EVERYONE in Brazil likes Roberto Carlos, a mania it has taken me a long time to empathize with…). The point is that the narrator wants to place his own musical heritage on the same level of parity with these more famous cousins.

Although the musicians are uncredited, only citing “Baracho and Imperial” as the performers, I would wager all the money in my pocket right now (which, granted, is not much) that Lia de Itamaracá is singing on this album. The opening of the second side, “Essa ciranda que me deu foi Lia”, is unmistakeably her voice, to my ears. This verse, first recorded by Teca Calazans in 1963 and credited to “public domain” (a typical way to cheat a composer out of publishing rights, in this case Baracho), is so famous that Lia was practically a mythic figure, also receiving homages from the likes of Paulinho da Viola and plenty of verses from other cirandeiros long before she ever recorded anything under her own name. When that did happen in the late 1970s, she was not paid a single cent and reportedly only given twenty copies of her own album to give to friends and family. Nothing like being poor, black, and female to get yourself exploited in the music business, anywhere in the world. But Lia did finally get her due recognition, finally releasing a second album in the 1990s, touring and performing outside Brazil, getting written about in the New York Times and receiving accolades. Unfortunately even her second album is now out of print and getting scarce, but thankfully she has a new one (a year or two old).

I have a colleague who referred to this record as only “good for studying” but not so much for recreational listening, preferring as he does the most contemporary recordings of ciranda from the likes of Lia, Zé Galdino (who is quietly responsible for a renaissance and revitalization of Pernambucan music), Santino, or Siba. I personally disagree, but I understand what he means – the newer recordings communicate a bit more of the *force* of ciranda, in no small part because of better recording techniques. Even though the early seventies witnessed studios in Rio and São Paulo finding better ways to record samba – recording in multitrack and giving clarity to all the instruments, yet retaining the collective group dynamic better than had been done ever before — the studios of Rozenblit Records in Recife were making some pretty crusty recordings. In spite of the fact that, according to a documentary I recently saw, they had one of the first 16-track tape machines in the country, this record sounds like it was recorded with a stereo pair of microphones and maybe one microphone out in front for the main vocalist. Now, plenty an amazing jazz recording has been done this way with delicious results, but this recording sounds pretty grainy and kind of rough. In accordance with my principles of vinyl rips, I did absolutely NOTHING to the audio in terms of equalization — you can take care of that at your end and to your own tastes. I removed some of the clicks and pops but actually had to leave quite a few of them alone, for example when they fell exactly on the first beat in a measure, which is a particularly strong accent in ciranda (ONE-two-three-four-ONE-two..) Trying to remove a ‘pop’ that falls on that beat results in a weird and nasty sound (a “digital artifact” for those of you interested in such things), so it is far better to leave them there than to mess up the music by taking them out.

Enough of the techo babble. I am sharing this because it’s necessary to point out the Festa Junina, São João holiday, and the Nordeste is more than just forró. Here is another thread of the tapestry for you to enjoy…

in 320kbs em pé tré
  or MIRROR TWO ///  MIRROR THREE


 in FLAC LOSSLESS AUDIO

Azulão – Eu Não Socorro Não (1975)

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Azulão “Eu não socorro não”
Released 1975 on Esquema (1239023)

01. Nega buliçosa (Tiago Duarte)
02. Forró do Compadre Solon (José Silva – Ivan Bulhões)
03. Mané gostoso (Lidio Cavalcante – Adolfo da Modinha)
04. Tropé de cavalo (Genesio Guedes – Abenildo Lucena)
05. A filha de Mané Bento (João Gonçalves – Genival Lacerda)
06. Esquenta moreninha (Assisão)
07. Eu não socorro não (F. Azulão)
08. Candieiro de Iaiá (Brito Lucena)
09. Severina xique xique (João Gonçalves – Genival Lacerda)
10. Tem que ter suor (Antonio Barros)
11. Canção do roedor (Cecéu)
12. Rosa mulher (Agripino Aroeira – Rosilda Santos)

Produced by Arnaldo Schneider
with assistance from Antônio C.
Recorded at Estúdio Hara
Sound technician and mixing – Max Pierre
Record pressed by Tapecar
Album cover by Joselito

Transcription details:
Vinyl -> Pro-Ject RM-5SE turntable (with Sumiko Blue Point 2 cartridge, Speedbox power supply) > Creek Audio OBH-15 -> M-Audio Audiophile 2496 Soundcard -> Adobe Audition 3.0 at 24-bits 96khz -> Click Repair light settings -> dithered and resampled using iZotope RX Advanced

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This is the glorious first album by Azulão, born Francisco Bezerra de Lima. Known as “O Grande Pequeno” on account of his very diminutive height, there is nothing small about this guy’s voice or his charisma. He plays forró pé de serra in an old-skool style. When I first heard of him I was told he was in the same lineage (linha) as Jackson do Pandeiro, and while I was skeptical of such a bold comparison, I was also curious enough to buy his most recent album (released a few years ago) and he most definitely merits it. Since then I have had the pleasure of seeing him perform live during the season of Festas Juninas and must say he put on one of the best live shows I have had the pleasure of seeing. Azulão is a fixture in the music scene of Caruarú, a city in the interior agreste region of Pernambuco that is famous both for being the mecca of forró as well as holding the Guinness Book record for the largest outdoor concert(s) in the world, held during the São João festivities. Although he has been recording music for 35 years and performing music for much longer, Azulão remains something of a ‘best kept secret’, a forró celebrity in Pernambuco but seemingly under-appreciated everywhere else. I am still exploring Azulão’s discography but aside from some clunkers he recorded in the 80s, mostly due to 80s production values, it is hard to go wrong with this guy’s records and they are all worth checking out.

This record has a wonderfully crisp, full sound to it with top-notch production values complimenting the top-notch musicianship. Note the prominence given to the cavaquinho on this record – an instrument typically associated with samba, it was Luiz Gonzaga who first began using it on forró records. Although not uncommon in this setting these days, it is also not necessarily “essential” to playing pé de serra (the core instruments being sanfona, zabumba, and triangle), and so it is a delicious treat to have on this record. The title song is a bit of word play, which I would have missed if I had not been enlightened by proprietor of the Hotel Portela. The brief lyrics, repeated twice, are the cry of a man whose had enough of being mistreated by his lady. When he says that if he saw her being thrown into a fire and burning up, he wouldn’t save her (‘eu não socorro não’), the sonority of the sung refrain also comes out as ‘eu não sou corno, não’, the “corno” being the term for a man whose partner is famously cheating on him — in English, a “cuckold, Spanish “cornudo” or “cabrón”, Italian “cornuto.”

For better or worse, nothing is catching fire this week as the region where I live is being drenched in rain that has not stopped for four straight days. But if you can’t find a bonfire on your block, put on this record and start your own. Even if you don’t dance the forró or are perpetually dancing by yourself like me (which is particularly silly and impossible with forró), this album makes for a great listening experience under any conditions.

I have a handful of photos that I took of Azulão performing live, somewhere on a hard drive, but in lieu of their absence here is a look at the man in the present day from a pic I found on the interwebs

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n 32o kbs em pee tree
or MIRROR HERE

Azulão – Eu não socorro não (1975) in FLAC LOSSLESS AUDIO

password – senha in comments

Vamos Dançar Quadrilha (1976)

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“Vamos Dançar Quadrilha”
Passarela LP – 60.081 (Rozenblit)
Released 1976

Music by Martins da Sanfona
Dance calling / announcing by J. Austregésilo
Artistic Direction: Nelson Ferreira
Recorded in Recife, Pernambuco

Transcription details:
Vinyl -> Pro-Ject RM-5SE turntable (with Sumiko Blue Point 2 cartridge, Speedbox power supply) > Creek Audio OBH-15 -> M-Audio Audiophile 2496 Soundcard -> Adobe Audition 3.0 at 24-bits 96khz -> Click Repair light settings -> dithered and resampled using iZotope RX Advanced

Special thanks to “Helida” for writing her name on the album jacket and label three or four times.

The tracks:

01 – Os Cumprimentos
02 – O Passo da Chuva
03 – Dança do Xis
04 – A Dança da Roda
05 – O Túnel
06 – Os Cumprimentos (sem marcação)
07 – O Passo da Chuva (sem marcação)
08 – Dança do Xis (sem marcação)
09 – A Dança da Roda (sem marcação)
10 – O Túnel (sem marcação)

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So here we are, the first-ever INSTRUCTIONAL DANCE RECORD at Flabbergasted Vibes! This is an album teaching you how to join a gang and deal drugs. Wait, that’s not right… This is an album teaching you how to square-dance, Brazilian-style. For some etymological reason I simply do not know, the same word for square-dance or ‘hoe-down’ is also the same word used for gangs in Brazilian Portuguese. So you have to be careful when you are invited to join in a quadrilha and, let me tell you, I found out the hard way.

This is a frivolous post. I was drinking earlier during the Brazil v. North Korea World Cup match. I am well sobered up now but it doesn’t take me much to get me tipsy and so I don’t have much to say other than this record is rather silly but should make some of you happy. The first side of the album divides the dance into its respective five parts, and has an announcer calling out instructions to all of you dancing along at home (“Grab your partner” kind of stuff…” seriously, this is Brazilian square-dancing..). The music is loosely forró with sertanejo tendencies (I just coined this as a genre..), traditional music for this kind of dance which takes place in the northeast of Brazil during the “Festa Junina” leading up to the holiday of São João. Written and performed by accordian / sanfona player Martins da Sanfona and an uncredited band, the same exact music is repeated on the second side but without the announcer, so you can practice what you’ve learned on your own. If you are digging the music, for what its worth it sounds quite a bit better on the second side, due to the studio having rolled off the higher frequencies on the first side to make room for the announcer’s instructions to cut through the mix.. This was essentially a party record for the youngsters (right before they were recruited into drugs-and-arms-dealing gangs, of course), so crank it up at your next party and see what happens.

The instructions are broken down rather systematically on the album’s back cover, photographed and included with the other files here, for those interested.

Music scholar, writer, and author of many frevo songs Nelson Ferreira is credited with “artistic direction” but I think that basically means he was basically a consultant at the Rozenblitz recording studio and label at the time.

Vamos Dançar Quadrilha (1976) in 320 kbs em pee tree

Vamos Dançar Quadrilha (1976) in FLAC LOSSLESS AUDIO

Syl Johnson – Is It Because I'm Black? 1969-71 (2006)

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Syl Johnson – Is It Because I’m Black, 1969-1971 (2006)

I have had some requests for a repost of this record since the old link appears to be dead. The songs that make up the original album that gives this disc its title are just excellent. (Unfortunately packaged in a very confusing way and with a jumble of songs of dubious origins in terms of source tapes.. see original post below). The record opens with “Right On Sister” which owes a heavy debt to the Isley Brothers and James Brown, a nice long jam that references The Funky Chicken so you know it must be good. The next song is the bomb, though – “Is It Because I’m Black?”. Unfortunately some overpaid pundits (see reference to AMG in the original post, below) have been dismissive of Syl Johnson and insinuated that this record was an attempt to be contemporary with people like Marvin Gaye by incorporating social critique in his music. Without dissing Marvin Gaye at all, I have to say this is a ridiculous statement. “Is It Because I’m Black?” is a pretty damn courageous song and much more in the mold of “deep soul” than Motown, a slow southern burner laden with blues. When they first hit that minor-seventh right around 1 minute and 25 seconds, it just makes my backbone tingle. The lyrics tackling racial politics in the US are far more direct and confrontational than anything coming from most mainstream soul artists, with observations guaranteed to make white folks uncomfortable, today just as much as in 1970. The album has a fair share of cover tunes (Walk A Mile In My Shoes and Black Balloons both fit nicely thematically, Get Ready and especially Come Together.. not so much). But the real treasures for me are these two originals – the title track and “Concrete Reservation”, yet more biting, acid social critique but also a seriously huge song.

Near the end of this disc there is a weird remake of “Is It Because I’m Black” that references Wu Tang Clan, KRS-One, and Michael Jackson, followed late with a line of “Gimme My Money… I want to get paid.” !!. Basically he is castigating the people who famously sampled him and presumably neglected to pay his royalties. It’s kind of funny and sad at the same time, like the liner notes described below.

A classic album in a dubious reissue from an artist who never got his due and seemingly won’t be getting it anytime soon…

(original post…)
So the first 8 tracks of this CD make up what is a stone-soul classic of an album, a lost classic of Chicago soul at that. It really is nothing short of amazing, so forget about Richie Uberbooger’s characterization of “minor soul singer” (edit: I’ve deleted that review that was in the original post, because AMG is staffed with idiots..) Originally released in 1970, this album is long overdue for a deeper critical assessment. It should have made Syl Johnson into a household name. Unfortunately this reissue, put out by the Twilight Label (which, I think, is Syl Johnson’s own) presents the music well enough, but falls short of doing it justice. The “liner notes” tell us nothing about this landmark album, such as who plays on it or where it was recorded. For some odd reason the songs ‘Kiss By Kiss’ and ‘Get Ready’ sound like they were sourced from Mp3s Syl found on the internets (not here, I promise!), or was just mangled by Sonic Solutions No-Noise for No-Good reason, but are sandwiched between ‘Black Balloons’ and ‘Talk bout Freedom’ which sound great. No idea what is going on here but probably somebody dropped a flaming roach on of the master reels or something along those lines. The CD also contains no information whatsoever on the TEN (that’s right, TEN) extra tracks appended to the album, which seem to have been recorded at various times and restored from even less-than-stellar sources that the two mentioned above, probably at least a few from worn-out cassettes. The song “Ms. Fine Brown Frame” appears to be the song from an album in 1982, although there is no info here to prove it… What we DO get in the insert is a rambling account of how Johnson has been cheated out of his royalties much like his grandfather was cheated out of his land. Which is all good and well and no doubt true, but he could have had somebody proofread the thing first — It’s poorly written and filled with misspellings and typos. In fact its kind of a disgrace, detracting from the seriousness and high quality of writing of the title song, which has been covered by more people than I can shake my stick at. As much as I’d like to give him my money rather than some label that’s ripping him off, this is a sub-par package for what deserves a memorial edition release.

From what I can tell, Willie Mitchell and the gang at Hi Records had a huge hand in some of all this. There are no specific credits besides what is listed in the image above. Songs from his first album (“Dresses Too Short”) are also thrown on here.. All in all, this CD should have been a celebration, instead it’s a mess. In fact, the liner notes almost make me think that old Syl (at 70 years now) may be a bit drug-addled or absent-minded or in need of some cash or all of the above, because the whole thing is a pretty shoddy product. I’m glad I picked it up, because the music is incredible when the audio fidelity lets it shine through, but I’ll continue my search for the original LP or the old Charly pressing, which usually have pretty amazing mastering in spite of their no-frills presentation.

——————

Syl Johnson – Is It Because I’m Black? 1969-71 (2006) in 320kbs em pee tree

Syl Johnson – Is It Because I’m Black? 1969-71 (2006) in FLAC LOSSLESS AUDIO

Jerry Butler – The Iceman Cometh / Ice On Ice (1969)

1. Hey, Western Union Man
2. Can’t Forget About You, Baby
3. Only the Strong Survive
4. How Can I Get in Touch with You
5. Just Because I Really Love You
6. Lost
7. Never Give You Up
8. Are You Happy
9. (Strange) I Still Love You
10. Go Away — Find Yourself
11. I Stop by Heaven

Reflections on the Romantic Darwinism of Jerry Butler
By Flabbergast

Tomorrow is “Dia dos Namorados” where I live, a day for lovers, Brazilian Valentine´s day. As a person with each foot on a different continent this means I have to suffer through this godforsaken holiday twice in one year. Fuck.

I’ve been told that you don’t get over a heartbreak until you meet someone new, someone special who comes into your life and on and on, that you don’t forget one love until you find new love. Alright, cool, that’s all good and well but my question is — What am I supposed to do in the meantime? My solution has been: listen to tons of classic soul music. And play it loud. And make a lot of it Jerry Butler.

So I am dedicating this post to all the other lonely people, and those lover’s we can’t seem to get over.

These two albums hail from the historic pairing of Chicago soul doyen Jerry Butler and Philadelphia writing and production team Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. Had they continued this partnership I think they would have taken over the world, put an end to world famine, and brought down the Berlin Wall long before Ronald Reagan could take credit for it. “The Iceman Cometh” in particular is Jerry Butler’s finest hour, at his emotive best.

The ‘Collector’ Choice’ label reissue of these two albums is a mixed blessing. It’s criminal to think that they were ever out of circulation (they were packaged together for another collection called “The Philadelphia Sessions”, which I haven’t heard), but these albums deserve better in the way of mastering and presentation. There is however a decent set of liner notes based largely on recent interviews with the man himself that make me like the guy even more, in spite of the fact that he still won’t respond to my emails about *this album*… The sound is a mixed bag, and it’s hard to say why since all the songs were recorded around the same period in the same two studios. But a number of the songs were released as singles a year or so before they appeared on these long-players, so consistency becomes too confused for me to form an opinion about. The fact that “Ice on Ice” sounds MUCH more crisp and present makes me think they may have lost the master tapes for ‘The Iceman Cometh’, which would truly be criminal….

“Hey Western Union Man” is a nice, smart, upbeat number to get things moving. The attentive will notice its mixed in mono, as well. It’s clever and great and a lot of you have probably heard it at least once in your life. But things start really clicking for me in the confessional take of internal obsession and external denial that is “Can’t Forget About You, Baby”, which is just pure genius. A midtempo stride with beautiful, straightforward lyrics, kick drum and high hat intro with a short snap of snare drum, you know that Motown and Stax are feeling the heat from these guys after ten seconds of this magic. It basically tells my story for me. It probably tells yours, or will someday. Butler’s voice soars sweet one moment, turns a blue note the next ….. changed my life, completeleeeeeeeeeeeeeey. It all comes to a subtle climax with, “I’ve tried to fool everybody else…. ain’t no way to ….. fool myseeeelf..” Ah hells yeah. I feel like I am giving away the end of a good movie. It’s just too perfect of an arrangement. I just spoiled it for you, unless you started the song sample below before reading this.

This song gives way to another one, even more classic and eternal, treating the admixture of vulnerability and perseverance, of the contradictions of masculinity in the twentieth century, that make up Jerry Butler’s romantic darwinism. “Only The Strong Survive,” told from the position of a mother giving advice to her heartbroken son, has enough nuance to fill a thousand pages of analysis and enough simplicity to make all of that utterly unnecessary. What does it mean to “be a man” and “take a stand”? The emotional survival of the species is at stake, but am I evolved enough to really dig it?

The best thing about great soul music is that you can play it when you feel down and it makes you feel good. The other best thing about great soul music is that you can play it when you feel good and it makes you feel even better.

At this point I most draw your attention to the unbelievably ingenious production of Gamble & Huff on this record. To that end, I have drawn up a sophisticated diagram of the stereo field as you are listening to the song “Only the Strong Survive.” Please feel free to print this out and tape it to your wall while listening back to the song.

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From here out, every song will have slight variations on this, with the bass guitar moving mostly to the center of the stereo field (but the drums staying almost exclusively in the left channel throughout). It’s a mixing formula that works extremely well for these songs. Like baking a cake. A solid reliable base made with wholesome ingredients found in any kitchen (bass, guitar, drums), then topped with confectionary goodness (vibraphone, strings, horns), the icing, and of course a paraffin miniature of Jerry Butler standing on top of it all. Piano and organ, missing from “Only The Strong Survive”, are also present on a whole lot of it, usually piano in the left channel and organ in the right. This is all a very no-frills approach to a good stereo mix that foregrounds the SONG and not the arrangement itself, but if you are attentive to such things you will find yourself in aural bliss for the next hour.

“How Can I Get In Touch With You”
This song would have helped me out in a lot of situations where I was too timid to ask a girl for her phone number. Provided that I could break into song like Jerry Butler while asking her, everything would have turned out okay. Since that’s not the case I will have to resign myself to the timidity and loneliness. Still, I can revel in Jerry’s confidence. That is until he gets to “If you already have a lover… just let me be your friend.” aw c’mon Jerry, give me a break, do you really expect me to believe this? I expected better of you. After the last three songs you let loose with this hypocritical malandragem, macho double-standard bullshit disguised as sensitivity. Why, I’d sock you in the jaw, if I wasn’t so afraid of confrontation and all that.

“Just Because I Really Love You.” Love can make us into emotional masochists. Or perhaps emotional masochism leads us to love the wrong people. Or both. Or neither.

“Lost.” Another anthem, opens with blasts of trumpets heralding the arrival of an angel that is Jerry Butler’s creative genius. It’s enough to give me hope. Hope that three minutes later, there will be another great song.

These two albums are populated with classic songs that have been covered by other artists (Elvis, Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield) but my favorite of these is by far “Never Gonna Give You Up”, which was given the Isaac Hayes Treatment on Black Moses. You can totally see what Isaac, with his arranger’s ear, was drawn to in this song. Slow but not dragging, that kick-drum-bass-note cardiac pulse propelled by the movement of melody and its judicious use of vibraphone and a Hammond organ just barely tucked away in the right corner of your awareness. Another narrative that makes you ask yourself if the protagonist is faithfully dedicated, hopelessly obsessed, or immersed in masochistic self-punishment. Not that that I would know anything about that.

The next song asks the profoundly basic question of “Are You Happy?” , a reflective epiphany prompted by a chance remark from a waitress at a diner. The arrangement and the lyrics are pure poetry. I’ll take the liberty of dedicating this one to all those sustaining themselves on the superficial, using their outward beauty to help them avoid looking inward. Listen closely to this song and you too can contribute to the emotional evolution of the species.

Strange, I Still Love You. Damn, these guys were seemingly incapable of writing a bad song. And every intro to every tune is just perfection, perfection.

Go Ahead, Find Yourself. For the one who doesn’t know what she wants. But it probably isn’t you. But still you would welcome her back with open arms. Perhaps. The last line hints that maybe the protagonist is wising up after all.

I Stop By Heaven. Jesus himself would weep at this one. If you happen to be celebrating these Valentine-type holidays you could do worse than just sing this one for your partner. Or call up Casey Kasem and dedicate to her or him. Played as a waltz, I could imagine Willie Nelson covering this and making me weep even more with it.

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12. Moody Woman
13. Brand New Me
14. Been a Long Time
15. Close to You Love
16. Since I Lost You Lady
17. What’s the Use of Breaking Up?
18. When You’re Alone
19. I Forgot to Remember
20. Got to See If I Can’t Get Mommy (To Come Back Home)
21. Don’t Let Love Hang You Up
22. Walking Around in Teardrops

Okay, the opening number, “Moody Woman”, tells you right away that this album is just not as strong as “The Iceman Cometh.” I don’t know, a lot of people like this song, but its too Tom Jones for me. The album treads a lot of the same ground as its predecessor, which is obviously not a bad thing. But after the heights of inspiration of their first record, it’s kind of natural that their second work together would have trouble keeping up the momentum. I don’t want to prejudice anybody against it, because it’s great in its own right. But like any drug, if you are coming off the high of “The Iceman Cometh” you may just keep on enjoying yourself with “Ice On Ice” following it immediately afterward, or you may find yourself sobering up a bit. But there is a lot of electric sitar (Danelectro??) on this one, for whatever reason, so maybe it’s time to light a joss stick and roll one for the road and forget about reading the rest of this post. There are real gems here like “Brand New Me”, “Close To You Love”, and “Walking Around on Teardrops.” And also some moves in more heavy funk directions like “Been Too Long” and “I Forgot To Remember” (not to be confused with “I Forgot to Remember To Forget”), and a frantic gospel boogie in “Don’t Love Hang You Up” that will leave you praying… for more Jerry Butler. And once again, the production on this album is always tantalizing and flawless, and for whatever reason much fuller and “present” in its mastering on this CD two-in-one collection than “The Iceman Cometh” is. But even though “The Iceman Cometh” was pieced together from different sessions and songs released separately as singles, it hangs together much more as a cohesive piece of art. It plays with the quality of having an hour-long conversation with a friend, probably a friend wiser than yourself, about the trials and tribulations of love and romance. “Ice on Ice” is a healthy dose of soul music but it simply can’t match it, in my ears anyway.

Both albums released on Mercury Records, 1969.

Happy “Dia dos Namorados,” you bastards.

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