Tag: fame studios

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Purified Soul

Craig McAllister

If Motown was hit factory-produced street-smart pop and Stax was its rougher round the edges punkish southern soul sister, then Fame was the mongrel hybrid of both. A studio with a hit-making pop sensibility that retained its southern fried Muscle Shoals identity, Fame was responsible for recording some of the greatest under-the-radar soul music in recorded history.

At this point, musical trainspotters and soul aficionados will roll their eyes and reel off a list of 20 essential Fame tracks that everyone should know immediately, but as a label, Fame is relatively undervalued; the Hollies to the Beatles and the Stones, the Inspiral Carpets to the Roses and the Mondays. Great, yet overshadowed by more greatness.

Released on Bell Records in 1966, I’m Your Puppet was written by the gigantic combined talents of Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham (the pair of songwriters responsible, as you know, for such titans of popular song as The Dark End Of The Street and I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)). Penn’s version was released first, but it was the version by James & Bobby Purify that really connected with radio stations, and ultimately record buyers.

I’m Your Puppet – James & Bobby Purify

It’s a wonderful song, with a lyric of helpless puppy-dogged affection that will ring true with anyone who’s ever fallen hard for someone else. And that’s everyone, right?

Pull the string and I’ll wink at you…

Snap your fingers and I’ll turn you some flips…

I’ll be wonderful, just do what I’m told…

Treat me good and I’ll do anything…

I’m yours to have and to hold…darlin’, you’ve got full control of your puppet

In a handful of verses, it runs the whole gamut of what soul music is; a universal theme welded to four chords of gently lilting musical accompaniment, all tinkling pitched percusssion and clipped guitar, slightly out of tune piano runs and honeyed sax for added emphasis, always, always just a notch lower in volume than the vocal sung sincerely and with requisite tear-jerking pathos and emotion. Then there’s the major to minor key change in the bridge, the call and response section, the parts where James and Bobby trip over one another to get their own vocal adlibs in… the very definition of what soul music is.

Oft covered, it’s exactly the sort of track that Alex Chilton could’ve mastered with Teenage Fanclub back in the early ’90s when they briefly showed up as his backing band, Norman and Gerry providing the close-knit harmonies atop Chilton’s choppy guitar riffage and world-weary delivery. For a couple of reasons, this will forever remain an unfulfilled wish.

Another underheard Fame beauty is Two In The Morning by Spooner’s Crowd.

Two In The Morning – Spooner’s Crowd

Cut live in the studio, Two In The Morning is, as the label suggests, the Fame house band led by Spooner Oldham grinding their way through a mod/soul/r’n’b groover that owes a great deal to Green Onions and any number of those great swinging mid ’60s finger-clickers.

Cut to sound like the listener is entering some nudge-nudge, wink-wink members’ only club or other, it’s a proper full-on strut of a record, big loose ‘n funky bass notes on the piano playing just off the beat, primitive fuzz organ supplying the melody and a “say, honey…wild!” spoken word interlude straight outta the Cotton Club or Peppermint Lounge for added bona fide authenticity.

Ideal music for kick-starting a late night on lively tunes….and, just like the studio from where it was born, sufficiently unknown as to be underplayed and under appreciated.

Cover Versions, Get This!

Staton The Bleedin’ Obvious, Mate!

Craig McAllister

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For folk of a certain age, Candi Staton is best-known for the horn-driven, string-swept ‘Young Hearts Run Free‘, the disco track that burned up the charts in the boiling hot summer of 1976. It’s such a golden oldie standard these days that it’s easy to forget just how brilliant it is.

Candi Staton – Young Hearts Run Free

For folk of a different certain age though, she will be best known (maybe even only known) for ‘You Got The Love‘. A track initially released 10 years after her only other hit single, it finally came to prominence 5 years later when The Source transformed the original version into a slowed-down, hands-in-the-air rave generation anthem. With its sparse bassline and E-friendly lyric, it captured the mood of the times perfectly.

The Source feat. Candi Staton – You Got The Love

What many folk might not realise is that Candi Staton is as far removed from the notion of one (or two) hit wonder as is possible. Starting out in the mid 50s as a gospel singer (of course – where else can you develop a voice as powerful, as raw, as sky-scrapingly soulful as hers?) she did the rounds of the secular circuit, regularly crossing paths with a young Aretha Franklin and her preacher dad as they likewise found the feet and voices that would stand them in such good stead in the future.

candi-staton-fame-studios

Growing out of the gospel scene, she signed to Fame Studios in Alabama’s Muscle Shoals and re-branded herself as a Southern Soul belter, a big-voiced, big-haired ‘story’ singer. Her versions of Stand By Your Man and In The Ghetto were nominated for Grammys.

Candi Staton – In the Ghetto

Backed by a countryish, harmonica-led clip-clopping rhythm and see-sawing strings, the production places great emphasis on her voice; rich and soulful, skirting across the top of the original with comfortable ease. Just a thought, but had Brian Wilson visited the wide open vistas of the south instead of playing in his sandpit, he might’ve made records like this.

Fast becoming the go-to act for A&R men who you fancied taking a standard (Nights On Broadway, Suspicious Minds) and turning it into a soulified smash hit single, Candi’s albums at the time were criminally neglected, yet they’re packed full of terrific, rarely-heard Southern Soul smashes; story songs that build and peak and turn you inside out with guilt and pain, yet can keep you dancing all night long.

I’m Just A Prisoner (Of Your Good Lovin’) is classic Candi. The Staples-esque trembling, wobbly guitar intro and loose Fender Rhodes groove, underpinned by an impressive fret-hopping bass guitar allows her vocals to fly.  It’s a cracker…

Candi Staton – I’m Just A Prisoner (Of Your Good Lovin’)

There’s real grit in her voice, the kind of grit that surely only comes from being a God-fearin’, six-times married Southern woman. Perhaps she took the words of her own Another Man’s Woman, Another Woman’s Man a little too literally, given that it’s a classic cheatin’ song, a waltz-time tale of infidelity and indiscretion sung from the heart.

Candi Staton – Another Man’s Woman, Another Woman’s Man

And here’s The Thanks I Get For Lovin’ You, another loose ‘n funky track that calls to mind Aretha in her late 60s peak. A confession song in the same lyrical vein as the one above, you’d think she’d have learned her lesson by now.

Candi Staton – The Thanks I Get For Lovin’ You

A few years ago, Damon Albarn’s Honest Jon’s Records released a brilliant Candi compilation that gathered together much of the best material from this era. Heartache and heartbreak just never sounded so good. I would tell you to buy the album, but as mock Cockney Damon Albarn might say, that’d be Staton the bleedin’ obvious mate. Bad puns aside, you really should investigate it.