mousetrap
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While I've never been any kind of dedicated Prince fan (somehow I can never forgive him for "Raspberry Beret"), I have huge respect for his musicianship, his innovative arranging and production (no bass on "When Doves Cry?" Huh? But it works!), and his songwriting skills. All that by way of simply stipulating that it's not as though his "Kiss" was crying out for people to cover it and somehow validate its worth. Still, my Sunday treat for you here is a pretty compelling cover.
Howard Tate has to be one of the greatest soul singers ever. Elvis Costello has called him "the missing link between Jackie Wilson and Al Green," and songs that he originally recorded have been covered by Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, Aretha Franklin and many others. So how come you've never heard of him? Well, the short version goes something like this: he recorded his first album, Get It While You Can, in 1966 (yes, Janis later covered the title track). After two more albums were praised by critics but poorly promoted and therefore unnoticed by the public, Tate became discouraged and also indignant at never having received any royalties, and walked away from the music business.
For 30 years, no one who'd worked with Tate had any idea what had happened to him. He had various jobs in and around Philadelphia, but in the '80s he developed a crack addiction. He lost his job and his family, and at his lowest point he was living on the streets. Eventually he kicked his addiction and began counseling drug users and the mentally ill; by the mid-'90s he was the minister of his own church in New Jersey, singing only during services. On New Year's Day 2001, a musician Tate had toured with in the '60s ran into him in a supermarket – the chance meeting ultimately led to Tate being reunited with Jerry Ragovoy, the producer of his first record, and the two men went to work on a stunningly triumphant comeback album, the Grammy-nominated Rediscovered (2001).
Which brings us to "Kiss." Prince's original was plenty funky, but Tate and Ragovoy manage to bump it up a notch or two with a tight arrangement featuring the Uptown Horns and a bridge that recalls vintage Sam & Dave. What's perhaps most striking about Tate's singing here and throughout the rest of the album is his effortless transition to a piercing, dead-on falsetto – the same one he employed to dazzling effect more than 30 years previous. Given everything that transpired during that hiatus, to hear his voice emerging unscathed at the other end seems miraculous. Enjoy this, and check out the rest of Tate's discography. The guy's a national treasure.
I poked around and was surprised to find no previous posts on Sonia Dada, so Funky Friday seems like a good opportunity to get the band on people's radar. Founder and principal songwriter Dan Pritzker was already developing a 4-piece outfit with friends when he stepped off a Chicago el platform one day in 1990 and heard the gospel-tinged 3-part harmonies of an a capella trio. He cajoled Paris Delane, Sam Hogan and Michael Scott into attending the next band rehearsal, and suddenly the group was a 7-piece. The lineup increased to eight when they fleshed out their sound with keyboardist Chris "Hambone" Cameron. The band's mix of backgrounds and influences produced sounds and arrangements that could range from gritty rock to heartfelt gospel to soul crooning to butt-shaking R & B.
Which brings us to this tune, "Phases Of The Moon," from their 1998 album My Secret Life. It provides a nice taste of what they're all about, and I don't really think it needs any further commentary from me.
Sadly, Sonia Dada is a textbook illustration of the grim fact that while music fans love to describe their tastes as "eclectic" (even when that just means their collections include both Green Day's debut album and Jewel's Pieces Of You) – for a band, eclecticism is often the kiss of death...at least as far as The Industry is concerned. While Sonia Dada always had a dedicated fan base, probably due in equal parts to their outstanding records and their high-energy live performances, their labels never seemed to know what to do with them and the band had no interest in delivering the 2:50 single that might break them to a wider audience. They seem to have gone their separate ways around maybe 2006, or at least they're on an extended hiatus. Still, they released six fantastic albums of supremely tasty music, including the scorching live set Lay It Down And Love It Live, with a tight horn section lending additional punch. Check out their official site here – it's still active, which is perhaps a hopeful sign. Lots of opportunities to sample more of their music there, too.
Comments
MT, it's always a pleasure when you make one of your rare (ahem) appearances here. I'm getting a bit of a Little Feat feel here....
@Baudolino – Glad you like the song; definitely check out their site and CDs. The first three are no-brainer must-haves, but then I like them all.
@ivylander – Thanks, as always. I know, my surfacings are rare. But I've got a sweet cover for tomorrow, so stay tuned. Oh – and you in particular, Mr. World Music, should check out the side project that Sonia Dada's keyboard man is keeping busy with. It's called Chévere de Chicago, and they describe themselves as "Chicago's leading Latin/Jazz/Funk/Blues Band, mixing Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, Jazz, Blues, and just about everything else together into an exciting and unique collage of sound. Characterized by high voltage percussion and compelling original compositions, Chévere has performed in and around Chicago and the Midwest for 30 years."
This is HOT STUFF...and I don't always go for the Latin-tinged styles. But the integration of a B-3 into the mix and the obvious passion of their playing...well, I'm in. Go to their site and you'll hear samples right away. CD available for purchase.
But don't mind me -- you don't have to listen that closely if you don't wanna. Just feel it. Life's too beautiful to rush away, baby.
Comments
Hamilton is everything you say. This is a tremendous track. One could wish for the horn section to be slightly less conspicuous so that we could home in on the rhythm section a little easier, but that's the most ungenerous of quibbles....
@mezz: 'course we thought we'd like (likes?) it. We might also remember a July day a couple years ago when a certain Portland 4-piece hazarded its own version of this very song, preceded by the keyboard player dedicating the tune to someone who'd left us only days before. [sigh.....]
@ivylander: Gotta agree with you on the horns. As much as I like a well-arranged horn track, someone really wanted this one to punch, didn't they? Somehow I knew you'd dig this groove, as someone who was hip to Richard Davis when he was ID'd as the bassist on "Fat Cakes," the tune I posted some time back by the just recently departed Jimmy McGriff. [sigh again.....]
MOG Meter
Comments
Your fine essay and the primo track make this a top post. I just listened to the iTunes-allowed half-minute of Prince's version, which IMHO can't compete with Tate's. One tips one's hat to him for re-emerging late in life so musically in command.
I read today that there are new releases coming out not only from Tate, but also another Philadelphia-area-soul-icon-turned-preacher, none other than Garnett Mimms (in the studio for the first time in 31 years). What an amazingly wonderful world we live in that these two guiys are getting their due again....
@Spike – Thanks! Glad you like the tune...somehow I felt it might be up your alley. Tate appeared at our Waterfront Blues Festival here in town a few years back with a KILLER band, and it was clear there's no studio digital trickery going on – his voice really does sound that good.
@ivylander – Glad to get the heads-up on new stuff coming from Tate and Garnett Mimms! Did you already know that Tate was in a gospel group with Mimms when they were teenagers? Crazy, man...