LAVERN BAKER
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1953–1992 |
Classic R&B |
Tweedlee Dee (1955) |
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Compilation
released: 1957 |
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Tracks: 1) Jim
Dandy; 2) Tra La La; 3) I Can’t Love You Enough; 4) Get Up, Get Up
(You Sleepy Head); 5) That’s All I Need; 6) Bop-Ting-A-Ling; 7) Tweedlee Dee;
8) Still; 9) Play It Fair; 10) Tomorrow Night; 11) That Lucky Old Sun; 12)
Soul On Fire; 13) My Happiness Forever; 14) How Can You Leave A Man Like This. |
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REVIEW
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That said, LaVern Baker did join the ranks of
Atlantic heroes relatively late (in 1953) and had fewer than 10 singles in
total under her belt before the huge success of ‘Jim Dandy’ finally prompted
Ertegün and Co. to add her to the list of artists generously graced with
their own best-of LP in the label’s Rock
& Roll series. Scarceness of material meant that, (again) unlike Ruth
Brown, LaVern also had to have quite a few B-sides pad out the vinyl’s
grooves: more accurately, 7 out of 9 of her singles are on here in their entirety,
which gives us a nice chance to have a comprehensive look at the scope of the
lady’s talents, but also, unfortunately, makes us remember all the formulaic
and fillerish principles of commercial pop music in its early days (though
some might argue that those have not so much changed as impressively
camouflaged themselves). The good luck of LaVern Baker is that it took
slightly more than a year for her to become one of Atlantic’s superstars; the
bad luck is that the superstardom did not come to her as naturally as it did
to some of the label’s other artists. As the bulk of her recorded output
shows, LaVern was primarily a deep blues / soul singer — related by blood to
the legendary Memphis Minnie, and stylistically close to the even more
legendary Bessie Smith. These echoes are quite clearly felt in her very first
single for the label, ‘Soul On Fire’, co-written by her with Ertegün and
Jerry Wexler and being essentially a slow, sensual soul waltz with a fairly
complex emotional landscape — a joyful and tragic ballad at the same time,
with a brilliant move in the chorus when they represent the joy by slowly going
up the scale ("..now you’ve set... my soul... on FIRE!") and the ensuing sadness by quickly sliding down
("...and I really had my
fun" — note the past tense here). It is a wonderful vocal performance,
but clearly not too innovative from a strictly musical perspective, and
because of that, listeners failed to pay much attention to the new bright
personality — the single flopped. (Do not miss the funny ‘Mack The Knife’
rip-off ‘How Can You Leave A Man Like This’ on the B-side — some fun electric
guitar and piano interplay on that one). Now cue forward to Miss Sharecropper’s third single,
‘Tweedlee Dee’, and watch the magic happen. Winfield Scott, mainly known for
being a songwriting partner for Otis Blackwell (and thus, responsible for
quite a few Elvis numbers), wrote this bouncy little novelty number with a
Latin twist; no depth to it whatsoever, but quite a bit of naughty-sassy
provocative attitude to justify the use of nursery language
("tweedlee-tweedlee-tweedlee-dot, how you gonna keep that honey you
got?" is one of those coveted questions that every guy probably wants to
be asked in his lifetime). Sooner or later, Atlantic Records would probably
have to bring back and redefine ye olde silly playful vaudeville, and,
accidentally, it was LaVern’s fate to help them do just that — in the
process, she established her reputation on the R&B charts, but narrowly
missed the chance to establish it on the general pop charts as well, after
the song was essentially «stolen» by the Mercury label, who recorded a very
similar, but predictably brushed-up and polished version with Georgia Gibbs
on lead vocals for white audiences. (No badmouthing Georgia Gibbs as a solid
entertainer in her own rights, but if you listen to the two versions back to
back, the old cliché about the white man stealing the black man’s
thunder really begins making much more sense than when you apply it to Elvis
— who, at least, was always prepared to genuinely amplify the thunder rather
than produce a diet version of it). Anyway, this particular problem has most likely been
remedied by time, since subsequent generations in their time travels are all
much more likely to fall upon LaVern’s version rather than Gibbs’. A much
worse problem was that the huge success of ‘Tweedlee Dee’ had locked LaVern
into a formula — her very next single was named ‘Bop-Ting-A-Ling’, and
another one released in 1956 was called ‘Fee Fee Fi Fo Fum’, and then another
song was called ‘Tra La La’... get the pattern? The former was at least
popular enough to be included on the LP, but the latter flopped completely
and was written out of existence. The ultimate irony of it all is that these
kiddie numbers, when you come to think of it, seem really more appropriate
for the likes of Georgia Gibbs — with her powerful, rumbling, raspy vocals
LaVern is clearly overqualified for this stuff. Much to the label’s honor, they did let her stew in
her own element every once in a while: thus, the B-side to ‘Tweedlee Dee’ was
the cover of the old Lonnie Johnson ballad ‘Tomorrow Night’ (which she drives
to a much more explosive climax than Lonnie, or Elvis, or anybody else ever
did), and the slow waltz ‘Play It Fair’ was delivered with such tense passion
that it gave her another big hit on the R&B charts, this time without any
pandering toward the inner child in all of us (also, the B-side contains one
of the most solemnly and anthemically recorded versions of ‘Lucky Old Sun’ I
have ever heard). But still, for some reason most of these songs either gave
us LaVern «Soul On Fire» Baker, the soulful queen of slow blues ballads, or
LaVern «Tweedlee Dee» Baker, the consummate cabaret entertainer. Nothing like
a ‘Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean’ or a ‘Wild Wild Young Men’ in the
repertoire to send her off to the tougher corners of the R&B front. A bit of a compromise was reached with ‘Jim Dandy’ —
the first track on the LP because it was LaVern’s latest and biggest hit at
the time, and, as it would soon become obvious, for all time. To be honest, primary credit here has to be given to
the backing band, none of which can be identified with certainty (other than
the Gliders on backing vocals): the drummer hits really hard, heavy, and
precise while setting an almost breakneck tempo (for 1955 at least), the
barrelhouse piano player does not stop his fluent and merry rollickin’ even
for a second, and the brass players get into the groove like a bunch of
bug-eyed arcade players. The song’s melody is still on the novelty side, but
at least it no longer mimicks the ‘Tweedlee Dee’ formula, and the lyrics are
more ironic than corny — sort of like The
Perils Of Pauline condensed into two minutes ("Jim Dandy in a
submarine / Got a message from a mermaid queen..."), poking harmless fun
at cinematic stereotypes while essentially just providing fodder for LaVern’s
rock’n’rolliest performance so far. Again, she seems overqualified for this
business, but at least this time, nobody dared to steal her thunder (maybe because
no white performer could see the right angle from which to approach these
crazyass lyrics — LaVern, on the other hand, simply took the bull by the
horns). Of course, Atlantic Records could hardly fail to
exploit this new success as well, saddling poor Miss Baker with nothing less
than a direct sequel the next year (‘Jim Dandy Got Married’ — the only thing
that’s funny about this is that it probably inspired Buddy Holly to follow up
his own ‘Peggy Sue’ with ‘Peggy Sue Got Married’ a year later), but this
should hardly detract from the dippy genius of the original. That said, it
pretty much crumbled any remaining hopes for LaVern to be recognized as a
«serious» soul artist: ‘Tweedlee Dee’ and ‘Jim Dandy’ would forever remain
her calling cards — and Atlantic Records flubbed their chance at hosting
their own Queen of Soul all the way until the signing of Aretha, a good
decade later. Fortunately, compilations like these are still available,
providing the discerning listener with a good chance to make their own
decision and enjoy ‘Soul On Fire’ and ‘Play It Fair’ as much as, or perhaps
even much more than, the super-catchy novelty numbers which find more
resonance in the lower than in the higher parts of one’s body (which lower parts is, of course, for
you to decide, dear discerning readers). |
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Album
released: March 1958 |
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Tracks: 1) Gimme A Pigfoot; 2) Baby Doll;
3) On Revival Day; 4) Money Blues; 5) I Ain’t Gonna Play No Second Fiddle; 6)
Back Water Blues; 7) Empty Bed Blues; 8) There’ll Be A Hot Time In The Old
Town Tonight; 9) Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out; 10) After You’ve
Gone; 11) Young Woman’s Blues; 12) Preaching The Blues. |
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There
were actually two separate tribute
LPs to Bessie Smith released in 1958 — one by Dinah Washington, the other by
LaVern Baker; I think that Dinah’s came first, so it is possible that
somebody at Atlantic got wind of that and decided to steal the idea for one
of Atlantic’s own artists because it just seemed too awesome not to steal. Or
maybe it was just one of those epochal odd coincidences, which is hard to
believe given that it wasn’t even Bessie’s anniversary or anything. Whatever
the circumstances, I do believe that the two records were among the first
LP-scale tributes to pre-war blues heroes, helping create the tradition —
today, such tributes are released on a casual basis, hardly likely to
surprise anybody, but in the technically innovative climate of the 1950s such
retro-oriented moves were still a novelty. |
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Of the two homages to the Empress of the Blues, LaVern’s
— upon first hearing, at least — should be unquestionably declared the big
winner. Dinah Washington was an elegant, polite, well-mannered jazz lounge
performer, a master of exquisite phrasing and manneristic sentimentality;
LaVern Baker was a rough, gruff, loud-mouthed soul sister who looked like she
could easily punch your lights out at the first opportunity. When the idea to
record a set of Bessie Smith songs was pitched to her, she allegedly agreed
only if she were allowed to do it «her way», which, naturally, was the best
way to do it, because «her way» of doing things, from the very start, had a
lot of obvious similarities with Bessie’s way: loud, powerful,
uncompromising, feministic, dominant. And she could have that aggressive
bark’n’roar in her voice which was lacking even in the wildest performances
of her direct predecessor and strongest competitor at Atlantic (Ruth Brown).
If ever there was one performer at the time to give these gritty old tunes a
coloring of Fifties-style sassiness and grittiness, it’d be Miss Baker.
(Sister Rosetta Tharpe might be a good candidate, too, but she’d probably
refuse to sing such Godless smut). For the recording, Baker was given a full-on jazz
backing band rather than Atlantic’s standard R&B session players; I do
not easily recognize any of the names, but this is simply because I am not a
well-versed jazz connoisseur — those who dig deep enough into classic
recordings to diligently study the liner notes will most certainly be
familiar with Buck Clayton on trumpet, Jimmy Cleveland on trombone, Wendell
Marshall on bass, and others (also, note the legendary Tom Dowd on
engineering duty, although he’d already been a regular on Atlantic records
for a couple of years at least). Predictably, the arrangements are tight,
thick, meaty, imposing, celebratory... and not particularly memorable, though
I guess the same could be said about the original, much more lean-and-mean,
Bessie Smith recordings (unless she paired up with somebody truly
outstanding, such as Louis Armstrong). Less predictable is LaVern’s song selection: she
seems to consciously avoid most of Bessie’s «broken-hearted and lonely»
ballads (other than ‘After You’ve Gone’) and concentrate more on her
affirmative sides — the reckless fun of ‘Gimme A Pigfoot’, the religious
ecstasy of ‘On Revival Day’, the fight-for-your-right attitude of ‘I Ain’t
Gonna Play No Second Fiddle’, and basically anything that, no matter how grim
or desperate, ends with an "as God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry
again" attitude (‘Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out’, etc.).
Consequently, this is not a complete portrait of Bessie Smith — she had her
share of lay-me-down-and-die songs, too — but a legitimate one, since such,
indeed, was the stereotypical image of Bessie transmitted to us from her
times. Still, despite the updated and expanded
arrangements, despite the interesting track selection, despite Baker’s vocal
powers that are beyond questioning — I cannot help but ultimately find the
record a bit dull. Amazingly, I find it easier to make my way through an
entire 70-minute CD of Bessie’s own recordings, poor sound quality and
everything, than to patiently make it to the end of this 42-minute long
experience. There is a nagging feeling that once you’ve enjoyed the opening
song, ‘Gimme A Pigfoot’, you’ve pretty much heard it all — a feeling that is
not quite as pervasive when you listen to the originals. Of course, part of
the reason is technical: Bessie’s blues tunes, even if they are usually not
far from each other melodically, were recorded over a period of about ten
years, with lots of different players and Bessie herself passing through
different stages — as opposed to this record, made up quickly with the exact
same band and featuring the exact same arrangement style, so even if the
arrangements are richer, they can still feel more monotonous. But
unfortunately, that’s not all. There is, after all, a reason why Bessie Smith is a major legend and LaVern Baker is a minor legend, and it is good to have
this tribute album to help us get to the bottom of it, instead of wasting
time on useless debates about whether ‘Soul On Fire’ and ‘Tweedlee Dee’ are
more powerful than ‘Back Water Blues’ and ‘On Revival Day’. LaVern gets it
absolutely right when she sees Bessie Smith as a proverbially strong,
imposing character — and she does her best to match Bessie’s strength and
monumentality with her own. But that is pretty much the only aspect of Bessie that she sees, or, at least, is able to
extract and adapt to her own personality. The result is that every single
song on here feels like an onslaught: with the very first song, LaVern boxes
you into a corner and then just keeps punching and punching and punching.
It’s deliciously brutal at first, but then you kind of just get used to it,
go a bit numb, and start taking the punches like Rocky from Apollo Creed. At
the end of it all, you got a good beating, but that’s pretty much all you
got. At the same time, what goes almost completely
untransferred is the sensitive — sensitive,
not sentimental — side of Bessie
Smith. At her best, the Empress of the Blues can bring me to tears, even
through all the crackling and distortion of her voice, because she had the
uncanny talent of sounding powerful and
vulnerable at the same time: strong and determined, yes, but just as well in
need of comfort, mercy, and pity. This part of her personality is all but
missing in LaVern’s versions; ironically, it might make more sense to hunt
for it in the interpretations of Dinah Washington — it’s as if the two ladies
split the complex character of Bessie Smith in half and each ended up with
but one side of it (though, admittedly, LaVern got the bigger and better
part). From a rigidly progressive point of view, you could fully justify this
— for instance, describing the sensitive and vulnerable qualities of Bessie’s
singing as elements of patriarchal submission, rightfully cleansed out by
LaVern’s aggressive stance — but I’d rather cleanse out the rigidity of the
(pseudo-)progressive point of view instead. None of this serious criticism should, of course,
undermine the importance of this record for LaVern’s own legend: at the very
least, having it sit alongside her seemingly novelty pop hits such as
‘Tweedlee Dee’ and ‘Jim Dandy’ raises the stakes for those very songs
themselves, much as we can feel more respect for ‘Yellow Submarine’ and ‘All
Together Now’ knowing that they came from the very same minds that created
‘Eleanor Rigby’ and ‘Hey Jude’ — or, to use a chronologically and
stylistically closer analogy, this is somewhat akin to the jazz albums of Ray
Charles, which are never going to occupy the same pedestal as records by
proper jazz greats, but help provide a solid musical context for Ray’s
comparatively «light weight» three-minute R&B hits for his label. It is
all the more impressive considering that not a lot of Atlantic artists were
allowed — much less stimulated — to have such parallel «serious» careers
alongside their blatantly commercial projects; Ruth Brown, for instance, was
never offered to make any such conceptual records. So, ultimately, there is quite a lot going for LaVern Sings Bessie Smith — or, at
the very least, it is one of those forgotten records which easily lends
itself to digging out and finding all kinds of historical and sociological
importance (just see how much I have already written, without even discussing
most of the music). Yet even if you develop a true taste for all things
Fifties-related, it is hard for me to imagine anybody being more attracted to
this kind of stuff than to the guilty pleasures of ‘Jim Dandy’ — or even ‘Jim
Dandy Got Married’, for that matter. |
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Album
released: August 1959 |
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Tracks: 1) I Cried A Tear; 2) If You Love
Me; 3) You’re Teasing Me; 4) Love Me Right; 5) Dix-A-Billy; 6) So High So
Low; 7) I Waited Too Long; 8) Why Baby Why; 9) Humpty Dumpty Heart; 10) It’s
So Fine; 11) Whipper Snapper; 12) St. Louis Blues. |
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REVIEW
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Instead of poking the usual fun at record executives
(especially now that we have already poked the usual fun at record
executives), let us simply continue to trace the singles history of Ms. Baker,
picking up from where we last left it with ‘Jim Dandy’ and ‘Jim Dandy Got
Married’. LaVern’s very next release, from August 1957, was the
above-mentioned ‘Humpty Dumpty Heart’ — arguably the nadir of her «novelty
phase», catchy enough for a quick laugh but completely lacking that little
bit of nitty-gritty toughness that made ‘Tweedlee Dee’ and ‘Jim Dandy’ pack a
real punch together with their comedy spirit. Honestly, it’s a bit of an
embarrassment (even if it gives you a rare chance to see the real LaVern
Baker in a bit of lip-sync action, from Alan Freed’s Mr. Rock And Roll
programme). The B-side, ‘Love Me Right’, is far superior — a dramatic rather
than comic performance, on which Baker’s voice commands actual respect; it’s
still very much «pop» rather than «blues», but it’s really the spirit that
matters, and she’s in truly fine form here. At least the record-buying public seemed to share
the same opinion; the flop of ‘Humpty Dumpty Heart’ thankfully heralded a
return to more sensible musical territory for LaVern’s subsequent releases.
Her oddly upbeat take on ‘St. Louis Blues’ (November ’57) did not chart
either, and I am not entirely sure if setting the drama of the song to a
galloping ‘Jim Dandy’-style beat really made much sense, but at least it was
a novel thing to do, and quite likely inspired the idea of the entire Sings Bessie Smith album as a
consequence. Next came her own take on the old chestnut of ‘Harbor Lights’
(not included on the LP) — decent if you’re into this kind of material, but I
far prefer the fast-tempo blues-rock of ‘Whipper Snapper’ on the B-side (included on the LP). At least it’s
credited to Leiber & Stoller, has classy interplay between piano, regular
brass, and sax, and has LaVern acting tough rather than trying to «seduce»
you as she did on ‘Humpty Dumpty Heart’. What’s up with all those B-sides
ending up better than the «money sides», anyway? Next up (September ’58) is another misfire — a cover
of ‘It’s So Fine’, which was one of the highlights on Jackie Wilson’s recent He’s So Fine album. What works for
Jackie, who has the same way with sounds as a natural-born juggler has with
oranges, does not in the least work for LaVern Baker, whose painfully labored
"it’s so fi-ayee-ayye-ayye-aiine" hiccups in the chorus make her
sound like she’s hopping around on hot coals. Again, the B-side, ‘Why Baby
Why’, is a comparatively superior, if not outstanding, piece of mid-tempo
R&B, too seriously derivative of Leiber & Stoller’s ‘Young Blood’,
perhaps, to be remembered, but at least not containing any cringeworthy
moments. Eventually, the gods smiled on the poor artist in
November ’58, with the release of ‘I Cried A Tear’, which became LaVern’s
biggest ever chart hit and her signature ballad. Musically, to be honest, it
is nothing but a re-write of Chuck Willis’ ‘What Am I Living For’ from
earlier the same year — but sonically, it is much more polished, with a
sophisticated, multi-layered arrangement, a great King Curtis sax solo, and a
nuanced vocal performance, in which LaVern juggles soft, dreamy vocals with
powerful operatic rocket launches on an almost entirely new level of
expertise. The novelty tune ‘Dix-A-Billy’ was this time happily relegated to
the B-side, where nobody has bothered to remember it and for a very good
reason. The huge success of ‘I Cried A Tear’ obviously
predicted that the next song, too, would be a slow-waltzing ballad; this
time, the writers were Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, but what they wrote
was ‘I Waited Too Long’, yet another variation on the same formula, albeit
with a couple of different key changes in the middle to avoid accusations of
plagiarism. It plays out like a little brother to ‘I Cried A Tear’, similar
to it but just a trifle inferior in every single respect, so it’s certainly
no surprise that it was unable to repeat the success of its predecessor. The
B-side was ‘You’re Teasing Me’, a mambo-influenced bit of lightweight dance
fun whose little bit of interplay between a curiously distorted electric
guitar and King Curtis’ wobbly «up-and-down-the-ladder» sax runs is frankly
more interesting than LaVern’s singing. Finally, we pause our journey around June ’59, with
‘So High, So Low’, the best thing about which is that it breaks LaVern out of
the formula, only to put her back into the pure upbeat pop mode — not too
bad, not too good. More impressive is the B-side, ‘If You Love Me’, which
begins as inauspicious doo-wop but quickly begins to rise to gospel heights,
showcasing Ms. Baker’s talent in the sphere of «heavy belting». In its own
way, it sets out the path to a more prominent gospel career that would soon
follow, culminating in hits like ‘Saved’ and an entire gospel album later in
the year (Precious Memories) which
was, not coincidentally, recorded at around the same time as ‘If You Love
Me’. All in all, it’s a fun journey even if it contains
more relative lows than highs — fun to see an artist surfing atop all those
different genres, perhaps not really understanding whether she loves silly novelty
songs more than gritty R&B or if she prefers sophisticated pop ballads to
Latin dance pastiches; or maybe she just preferred to see herself as some
sort of «R&B-naissance Woman» who could be equally good at all those
things. In any case, examples like these clearly show just how progressive
the Atlantic label was in those days — while those guys obviously knew (and
often abused) the power of stable commercial formula, they were also flexible
enough to twist and vary the formula at the exact moment when its commercial
stability was no longer guaranteed. |
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Album
released: September 1961 |
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Tracks: 1) Saved;
2) For Love Of You; 3) Manana; 4) My Time Will Come; 5) Shadows Of Love; 6)
Must I Cry Again; 7) Bumble Bee; 8) Shake
A Hand; 9) Don Juan; 10) Wheel Of Fortune; 11) Senor Big And Fine; 12)
Eternally. |
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REVIEW Some
chronological justice is probably served by the fact that LaVern Baker
started out about three years later than Ruth Brown — and, consequently, her
chart successes also ran out about three years later. Brown never succeeded
in making the transition to the early Sixties; her last singles that sold
well were all recorded in 1959, and she was either unable or unwilling to
make friends with any of the trendy songwriters on the scene, most
importantly, Leiber & Stoller, whose chief clients on Atlantic Records at
the time were The Coasters but who wouldn’t mind curating some of the other
artists as well. And LaVern had the useful distinction of being able to make
it as both a serious, monumental, emotional soul singer and a tongue-in-cheek vaudeville performer; it was her skill of
being equally convincing when singing ‘Soul On Fire’ and ‘Jim Dandy’ that
ensured her commercial survival almost to the beginning of the British
Invasion (though it would be rash to directly blame the Beatles on her
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Anyway, listening to this next bunch of singles and
a few LP-only tracks assembled on Saved
does occasionally show that we are dealing with an artist out of the past — a
few of the songs have that early 1950s R&B sheen all over them — but on
the whole, this is hardly a nostalgia fest, and, more importantly, it’s a fun record, brimming with energy and
excitement where so many other singers would simply prefer to dissolve
themselves in syrupy strings and succulent sentimentality, so characteristic
of mainstream pop around 1960-62. There are a few orchestrated ballads here,
but even on those LaVern pushes forward with a fiery gospel or hot Latin
spirit, rarely, if ever, allowing herself to step out of her «tough girl»
persona, though maybe this wasn’t really such a tremendous achievement,
considering that persona was her own nature. A Dionne Warwick she was most
certainly not born to be. There is no question that the title track — released
as a single in April 1961 and becoming Baker’s biggest hit in two years — is
the primary highlight here. How many people saw the album cover in record
stores and passed it by, disappointed by the idea of their favorite R&B
belter becoming a straightforward gospel singer? And how many people actually
saw the Leiber & Stoller credit before putting on the song, completely
unaware of its tongue-in-cheek nature? If you do so wish, you can try and play it straight, like a
genuine exuberant redemption dance from a certified sinner; ultimately,
though, the simplistic symmetry of the lyrics ("I used to smoke / I used to drink / I used to smoke, drink / And
dance the hoochie koo..") and the arch-hyper-ecstatic overdrive of
the groove betray the song as a good-natured parody on the genre, though on
the formal level it’s literally immune from any criticism on the part of any
God-fearing pundit. Certainly LaVern belts the lyrics out with a completely
straight face on, but, you know, when that line about "I’m in that soul saving army / Beating on
that big bass drum" is dutifully echoed by six crashing beats on the
big bass drum in question, it’s impossible not to smile. It’s more of a ‘Jim
Dandy’ song than a ‘Soul On Fire’, that’s for sure. Mahalia Jackson wouldn’t
touch this with a ten-foot cross — but leave it to Jerry and Mike to end up
as the writers of one of the catchiest gospel tunes ever made. I have listened to several later covers of the song,
by the way, from The Band’s tribute version on 1973’s Moondog Matinee to the recent live resuscitation by Beth Hart and
Joe Bonamassa (ugh!), and all of them are doing the same mistake — playing it
as more of a rock’n’roll number, with an unnecessary aggressive component,
when in reality it’s a vibe that’s 50% pure giggly hilariousness and 50%
sarcasm. It is interesting, though, that LaVern was on an actual bit of a
gospel kick at the end of 1960: prior to ‘Saved’, Atlantic had issued her
cover of Sister Rosetta Thorpe’s famous ‘Didn’t It Rain’ — with plenty of
spirit and an impressive arrangement, though obviously not enough to wrestle
the song away from Sister Rosetta. The decision to switch to a subtly parodic
angle, on the other hand, was brilliant, because LaVern had this bit of
inborn vaudeville comedy genius, and Leiber & Stoller came up with the
perfect recipe. Nothing else on the album quite matches the energy
and catchiness of this masterpiece, but I’d say that ‘Bumble Bee’ at least
comes close. The song was originally written by Leroy Fullylove and recorded
with his own group, The Tads — the original demo, for
a very long time, remained unreleased because the Atlantic executives
apparently decided that the song was just perfect for their already
established star, LaVern Baker, and almost literally stole it from Fullylove
(even adding Baker as a co-writer on the original release), changing nothing
in the melody but giving the song a fuller and somewhat more inventive
rearrangement. The most inventive touch is the «bumble bee» guitar riff,
probably played by technology wiz Mickey Baker in such a loud and naggy
manner, it almost overshadows Baker’s vocals; but we shall also have to admit
that LaVern’s "...a bumble bee, an
EVIL bumble bee!" is more expressive than Fullylove’s original vocal
part, and that the extra vibraphone solo is deliciously beautiful in tone and
phrasing. (The song itself would later be covered by The Searchers in 1965,
which was the first version I’d heard; but in this case, it sounds positively
tame and cuddly next to LaVern’s performance). It might be instructive to
note that the song made it into the Top 50 on the general pop charts, but did
not register at all on the R&B ones — apparently, LaVern’s
African-American audiences were not impressed with the general «pop» vibe of
the song (‘Saved’, on the contrary, was a bigger hit on the R&B charts,
for quite transparent reasons). Other than ‘Saved’ and ‘Bumble Bee’, both classics
for the ages, the material on Saved
ranges from nice to mediocre. There is nothing particularly cringeworthy, and
there is a fair amount of genre diversity to keep one entertained, but it’s
unlikely that any of the other songs might produce some sort of special effect on you. We see that
there are clear attempts to try and market LaVern as a sort of «black female
pop Elvis»: one of the songs, ‘Shadows Of Love’, comes from Otis Blackwell
and feels as if it were very
specifically written for Elvis’ voice but somehow accidentally ended up with
Atlantic (LaVern sings it much too high, I sense a desperate craving for
Elvis’ deeper baritone) — and another, ‘Señor Big And Fine’, is a
slightly corny tango number from the Doc Pomus / Mort Shuman team, again
quite reminiscent of the average Latin-style numbers peddled to Elvis by his
songwriters. Not that this was a particularly new development: the Elvis
touch for LaVern was already evident as early as 1958’s ‘Substitute’ — a cross
between ‘Treat Me Nice’ and ‘Santa Bring My Baby Back To Me’ — but it is surprising
that they even tried to project the different stages of Elvis’ evolution from
rock’n’roll to pop onto Baker. Come to think of it, was ‘Tomorrow Night’ also a shadowing of the King, rather
than Lonnie Johnson?.. Anyway, the problem is that there’s just too much
trying to be somebody else here. Other than Elvis, LaVern covers Peggy Lee
(‘Manana’), The Hilltoppers (‘Must I Cry Again’), and even Charlie Chaplin
(‘Eternally’, the song from Limelight).
One song that is credited to herself is ‘For Love Of You’, but it is nothing
to write home about — it’s actually another
re-write of ‘What Am I Living For?’, completely redundant in the presence of
‘I Cried A Tear’. And finally, one more Leiber & Stoller contribution,
‘Don Juan’, is a lightweight bit of bossa nova with weak hooks and lyrics
that don’t really match the title (you’d expect a song about Don Juan to
cover the subject of adultery at least, but it goes somewhere completely
different: "Don Juan, your money’s
gone / And when your money’s gone, Don, your baby’s gone" — what?
how? why?). It’s all perfectly listenable, but thoroughly unnecessary; in
fact, I’d rather prefer it if they had at least completed the Elvis transformation
and turned the whole thing into an Atlantic shadow of Elvis Is Back! — that way, I’d have more to write about and we
could carve out the impression of a curious pop/R&B phenomenon,
regardless of whether you’d like to store it in your heart or not. As it is, Saved — the LP — ends up a mixed bag
of imitations and innovations, with one foot firmly in the present and the
other one still bogged in already obsolete Fifties’ conventions. Yet it does
prove that, of all the Atlantic veterans signed to the label when the
original R&B vibe was still king, LaVern Baker was the only solo artist
on the label that could still remain at least partially fresh and relevant in
the early 1960s — long enough, at least, to keep the flame burning until the
full-on establishment of Motown and the early British Invasion. |
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