You might not recognize the title... but you’ll recognize the melody. This was a 1969 gold record for Booker T. & the MG’s.
What I didn’t know is that this tune comes from the soundtrack album to the movie “Up Tight!”
Cheers, as always, to thunderbird1958, steady spinning the platters that matter on YouTube.
The Clash managed to cover this. They may be the only band that could pay loving homage to Booker T without having an organ. It's the correct way to honor your influences without copying them exactly, which they did on covers ranging from the Bobby Fuller Four to Toots and the Maytals:
ReplyDeletehttp://armagideontime.blogspot.com/2007/11/time-is-precious-i-know.html
You might not recognize the title... but you’ll recognize the melody.
ReplyDeleteWord. Is it because it's instrumental so there aren't any lyrics to hook us? But then, I can think of other instrumentals that I know the titles to so.... :-?
^ Jena6... same here. (Like "Soulful Strut," for instance.) But it's like I never knew what this tune was called.
ReplyDeleteSteven... cheers, mate!
ReplyDeleteJump on that Clash link, peoples. No telling how long it'll be active.
Gosh, I always knew "Soulful Strut" as "Am I the Same Girl?" by Swing Out Sister. (I had to look it up when you mentioned it.) I had no idea the song had this whole other life. I hate it when I mistake remakes for original work.
ReplyDeleteI saw the title and thought, "I KNOW this!" (Wasn't thinking of SOS, but thanks for the tip, christina.) But, I couldn't hum it. Another, stumper. Thanks, UBM.
ReplyDeleteThe single version is slightly different than what's on the LP, I prefer the single. It has a strange flow if you start counting out the bars of the melody, but it just sounds so natural that one doesn't notice its experimentation.
ReplyDeleteThe other reason the song seems so familiar is that it's based on Otis Redding's big tune "I Can't Turn You Loose".
@ Dacks,
ReplyDelete...which if I'm not mistaken, the backing band on "I Can't Turn You Loose" was none other than Booker T. & The MG's, along with the Memphis Horns.
It's criminal that Jules Dassin's ground-breaking 1968 film "Uptight!" has never enjoyed a video after-life (neither VHS nor DVD). Co-written by director Jules Dassin ("Never on Sunday") and Ruby Dee, the film was a largely successful re-imaging of the Irish revolution as a Black revolution in Cleveland, Ohio. Based on the novel by Liam O'Flaherty and the 1935 movie based upon it, John Ford's "The Informer," the film stars Julian Mayfield and Max Julien as the betrayer and the betrayed. Well worth checking out if you should ever stumble upon it on TV or in some obscure film library collection.
ReplyDeleteThe same device was attempted in 1969 with Sidney Poitier's "The Lost Man," also not available on video and also based on a novel and movie about the Irish Revolution: Carol Reed's 1947 "Odd Man Out" from the F.L.Green novel. Unlike "Uptight," "The Lost Man" actually aired this Summer on the Starz Black channel.
Oh well, at least we still have the Booker T. soundtract.
Thanks for the "Uptight!" info, Dr. F. I never saw it... and never knew what it was about.
ReplyDeleteRuby (and Ossie) were deep.