The DN Report, March 24, 2024 - LOSING EARBUDS, WHITNEY'S HEADPHONES, STIRRING UP EMOTIONS & MEMORIES...
'70s MOTOWN MAGIC: EDDIE KENDRICKS (PEOPLE HOLD ON), DIANA ROSS (SURRENDER),
I smile and often shake my head in wonder. Last Saturday, I lost my earbuds when I was coming out of a busy London underground station. It was initially upsetting although truth be told, I found them irritating, especially when I couldn’t find the charging case - a 21st century ‘problem.’ I contemplated replacing them: when I got home, I looked around and found…an amazing pair of over-the-ear headphones I had never used! Not just your everyday headphones: these were a gift from when I attended a pre-Grammy event hosted by Primary Wave in February 2023 celebrating the legacy of Whitney Houston, with her name etched on them. More about me and Ms. Whitney in a future post but as a teaser, I did boogie down with her in London to “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” circa 1987!
Listening through powerful headphones made an immediate and palpable difference to my deep appreciation and love for the art form that is soul music at its finest: a somewhat rare London sunny Sunday provided the perfect opportunity to do a rewind to two of my all-time favourite albums of the ‘70s.
Sharon Davis - my longtime colleague and friend and wonderful ‘Motown Spotlight’ contributor to SoulMusic.com for many years now - recently focused on LPs released by the Detroit-then-L.A. company in 1972. In among them was the second solo album by the late Eddie Kendricks, “People…Hold On” which I personally think of as a true masterpiece.
“Let me run into your lonely heart…”
Recordings from our formative years hold memories for us and certainly, Eddie’s powerful set had just that. Hearing it newly (thanks to the Whitney H./Sony headphones) became a deep experience for me as I bopped down the road and in the park near where I live on that bright sunshiney-Sunday.
Right there in Vauxhall, I found myself grooving to “Girl, You Need A Change Of Mind,” the over-seven minute-long track that is often cited as one of the very first dance/disco hits, generating dynamic energy in clubs up and down America’s Eastern seaboard and having a similar impact in the clubs I frequented in London at the time - like ‘Yours Or Mine’ (aka ‘The Sombrero’ because of the big hat that adorned the restaurant above the niterie on Kensington High Street).
Memories of me and my running buddy Aly (who worked at the BBC, broadcasting in Swahili to East Africa including to his native Zanzibar) ‘scopin’ in the club for prospective ‘liasons’ and ‘encounters’ (yeah, when you’re single, that’s what you did!) and for sure, dancin’ the night away…
Other songs on “People…Hold On” (such as the powerful title track with its striking cover), the breezy “Date With The Rain” and “If You Let Me” took me back to ‘72, when I was dealing with an on-and-off affair with a guy who would these days be considered ‘fluid’ or minimally bisexual…
And then, “Let Me Run Into Your Lonely Heart,” another lyrically masterful cut on the LP! Back then, I wanted someone to run into my lonely heart as a 23-year old: over time, with the confidence that can come with life experience, I was up for running into - and occasionally ‘breaking’ - some lonely hearts!
Hearing the rhythm section (The Young Senators, Eddie’s touring band) in its full groove-a-liciousness on this epic track, along with the effortless falsetto tones of (erstwhile member of The Temptations) Mr. Kendricks as I weave my way through narrow neighbourhood streets last Sunday, I am transported back in time, a demonstration if ever one was needed - of what memories music evokes…
“Surrender your love, baby, surrender your love…”
By July 1971, when Motown released the third solo album by Diana Ross in a matter of just over a year since her self-titled and much-anticipated debut set, produced by the team of Nick Ashford & Valerie Simpson - with her now-classic chart-topping version of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” - hit the streets, she had achieved considerable success.
While her second LP, “Everything Is Everything” had performed well, it was hardly the resounding success that Berry Gordy, Jr., (then masterminding the early steps in Diana’s solo recording ventures after her much-publicized official departure from The Supremes in January 1970) may have wanted.
It was only when renowned British broadcaster Tony Blackburn focused on the track “I’m Still Waiting” from Diana’s second album and Motown’s UK office released it as a single - with a resultant No. 1 British hit for Ross - that “Everything Is Everything” got any attention.
Returning to the production team of Nick & Val for “Surrender” provided proof that Diana could declare “I’m A Winner,” the title of one of the eleven songs on what would be a modest-selling LP for Motown’s ‘First Lady.’ Its’ commercial success may have been less spectacular than Gordy and co. had hoped for - and it remains one of my own personal favourite albums of the ‘70s and beyond.
Any questions about Diana’s ability to be ‘soulful’ were answered when I heard her impassioned vocals on album tracks like “And If You See Him,” “A Simple Thing Like Cry” and “Did You Read The Morning Paper?” On the LP’s title track, Ross was no coy cookie, as she sizzled with sexy menace demanding that “Surrender” was the name of her game, oozing with ‘I’m-in-charge-here’ dominance.
Assertively assured, “Give it to me, give it to me, I want it all….” was a long way and seemed a world away from coo-ing “Baby Love”…
In the summer of 1971 or thereabouts, I took a trip to Paris with one of my then-London flatmates. From my very first visit to France on a school outing circa 1964, I had been a teenage ‘fool for love,’ back then fawning over the adult waitress at the hotel where my fellow gaggle of testosterone-heavy teen classmates were staying in a town called Gerardmer not from Strasbourg. I even wrote the object of my hormone-driven desire a letter after we left France, declaring my unrequited love for her…
1964, France and romance, yes! By 1971, my constant unequited encounters with girls had been edged out into lust with boys - or rather, young men. I was 23 and had already experienced the emotional pain of a string of ‘no-good-heartbreaker-a liar-and-a-cheat’ guys with Aretha Franklin as my primary muse.
With Diana Ross, there was a ‘don’t-mess-with-me’ defiance in “Surrender” that truth be told, echoed more my REAL self! I was grown.
Etched forever in my store of memories from the ‘70s is dancing past midnight at a Paris disco, “Club 7” with the afore-mentioned London flatmate who idolized Diana in much the way I felt about Aretha.
I say ‘dancing’ but it was more than a little ‘sexually-charged’ and when the DJ played Ross’ “Surrender,” flatmate and I were bumpin’! Fortunately as life turned out, it was playful bumpin’ no doubt aided by a little rum (my then-only preferred spirit) and never went beyond into terrain that would have never worked for either of us when we got back to London.
Music - and particularly soul music - has never been an academic or intellectual ‘study’ for me. From “Walk On By” on in ‘64, it’s been ‘as-lived’ and very real, brimming with emotion, passion, love, lust and loss, wistful melancholy, sadness and, yes, joy, happiness and triumph!
As I hit my stride last Sunday - listening to the sheer brilliance of Motown arranger Paul Riser’s incredible orchestral arrangements with the peerless production chops and genius lyricism of Nick Ashford & Valerie Simpson along the gospel-fused background vocals inspiring Diana Ross into powerful soulfulness - I am returned to David, 1971 and beyond with “Surrender” a tantalizing taunt to anyone who might have considered my sometimes gentle-and-quiet demeanour is all there was or is…
‘Give it to me, I want it all…’
Memories….
© 2024, David Nathan/Blue Butterfly Entertainment Ltd. (UK), All Rights Reserved
Mr. Nathan, the memories you shared about dancing, flirting, scoring, and ho'ing, took me back... 1985-1992 Dancing all night at Peanuts, the Catch, and Studio One, until the house lights cut on...
And try as they might in Cominsky Park, they could not kill disco-- it only evolved and came back with a harder, tighter, and funkier booming sound, with some of the best lyrics to date.
We shook our tail feathers to Klymaxx, Jody Watley, JJ Fad, Shannon, the Cover Girls, Trinere, Salt N Pepper, Joyce Sims, Chic, Rick James, Tana Gardner, Tasha Thomas, Miquel Brown, Expose, just to name a few.
"I was at home feelin' sleazy..." Klymaxx announced, and Miquel Brown declared, "So really who cares about love, who wants their freedom taken away? 52-weeks of every year there's a new man every day!" as we all testified, working our bodies into a frenzy of grinding, bumping, swinging, gyrating, grabbing, and sweating, as the packed dance floor pulsated heat, fusing bodies together in endless combinations, as Expose belted, "You're taking me to the point of no return," and Tasha Thomas demanding, "Shoot me! Shoot me! With your love! Ready, aim, fire! My name is desire!" What an incredible time!
I never thought it would end! Even though HIV/AIDs tainted everything during that period, I can honestly say it was the happiest time of my life. And as I reminisce, sadness creeps in for all those who didn't grow old, "Could it be that it was all so simple then? Or has time rewritten every line? And if we had the chance to do it all again, tell me, could we? Would we?" YES INDEED!
I remember Yours Or Mine ( Sombrero ). I loved the flashing coloured dance floor, excellent music and The Bump was the preferred dance.
I also spent a lot of time in Paris between 1964-1966, I can’t remember the names of the clubs but I do remember it was the first place I heard Aaron Neville sing Tell It Like It Is!