I’m counting down my 100 favourite songs of all time. To keep this from becoming a Bob Dylan / Tom Waits love-in, only one track per artist is allowed.
Go to 79: Trainspotting by Primal Scream
Go to 81: Let's Push Things Forward by The Streets
Stetsasonic’s claim that “James Brown was old until Eric B and Rak came out with ‘I Got Soul’”, was a grand overstatement. Sure, the Godfather of Soul was the most frequently sampled artist by the new breed of rap producers, but it’s impossible to imagine that Brown's storied back catalogue of funk and soul classics would have been lost in time were it not for hip-hop.
Yet behind the iconoclasm, Talkin’ All That Jazz has a point that “rap brings back old R’n’B”. Sampling has revived the careers and lined the pockets of a range of otherwise condemned-to-obscurity singers, groups and incredible bongo bands. Take, for instance, Marlena Shaw.
In the 1970s, the New York-born singer had a well-regarded five-year stint on Blue Note followed by a less successful period on Colombia. But by the mid-90s she rarely sang live and hadn’t released a record since a couple of mediocre albums for Verve a decade previously.
Not that you should have felt sorry for her status. Even at the height of her small success, Shaw was a part-time pop star. Born Marlina Burgess in 1942, she sang from an early age and went to music school but quickly dropped out, got married and ended up having five kids.
Though now a stay-at-home mum, she continued to sing and landed a regular gig at Chicago’s Playboy Club, commuting from her home in New York. This led to interest from Chess Records, who signed her to subsidiary label Cadet, and soon she was playing with Count Basie’s band. Yet Shaw was hardly the ambitious driver of this success and recalls how it was always others who urged label owners and band leaders to give her a shot.
Throughout it all, Shaw’s primary concern was her family. She would work on songs and arrangements with co-writers and producers by phone, only taking time out to go to the studio for recording. Her shows with Count Basie were intermittent and she turned down numerous opportunities to play in Europe.
Her talent continued to win advocates, like the mother of Blue Note’s Head of A&R. She saw the singer perform at a society event in North Carolina and called her son, who made Shaw the first woman to sign for the venerable jazz label. After some moderate success, her career slowly slid into obscurity. And then everything was transformed by a sample.
Remember me?
The next person to help return Shaw to the spotlight has himself disappeared from view. Alexis Blackmore had toured as a DJ with The Shamen before scoring a worldwide hit as Blue Boy with Remember Me, which samples two different versions of Shaw’s song, Woman of the Ghetto.
As excited as Shaw was with the success of the Blue Boy track, it was equally life-changing for the original song's co-writer Richard Evans. Down on his luck at the time, Evans was astonished and delighted when a check for $75,000 turned up in the mail with only the handwritten words “Remember me?” as a clue to its origins. A week later, Shaw called him to see if he’d received the money and told him about the Blue Boy hit.
It was just the beginning for Shaw, who began recording and touring again as her music was sampled by more and more hip-hop and dance producers. Woman of the Ghetto features on tracks by Ghostface Killah, Beenie Man and St Germain, whose Rose Rogue is Shaw’s favourite use of her song. Other artists to sample her work include Drake and The Avalanches. But the most frequently sampled song was also the first to find new life after its original release.
Soul ownership
Years before Blue Boy, Gang Starr released Step Into The Arena, one of the most highly-regarded albums in hip-hop history. The track Check the Technique features a devastatingly brash string loop - the opening orchestration of California Soul from Marlena Shaw’s 1969 album, Spice of Life.
California Soul was written by Motown husband and wife songwriting team, Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson, who also wrote Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, I’m Every Woman and most of Diana Ross’ solo material. Before Shaw released her version, the song had already been recorded by pop groups The Messengers and The 5th Dimension, and as a duet by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. Ashford himself recorded a version later, as did Edwin Starr.
Despite all this competition, Shaw makes California Soul her own. A lot rides on those much-sampled strings, whose vibrant opening blasts instantly embed the song’s melody in your head. An incredible beat puts the brakes on the arrangement, halting everything slightly until Shaw comes in:
California Soul is about itself. The creation of a sound, a song, a scene. Navel gazing has never sounded so good. With the chorus comes a parade of brass that swells alongside the strings, while Shaw belts out the song’s title. The second verse brings handclaps and backing vocals as the music becomes even more bright and beautiful.
The middle-eight emphasizes the creation theme – “They had a melody and a beat but it still didn't seem complete” – and is one of the most joyous and optimistic moments in music – “Until they saw two lovers kissing and knew just what was missing”. No wonder Shaw has a wonderful little laugh before the third chorus. The song puts a smile on your face that widens further as it builds towards its majestic climax with thrashing drums, stirring strings and Shaw’s deep, luxurious vocal wheeling.
Soul survivor
That fade out could have been it for California Soul. Neither the song nor the Spice of Life album were hits. After leaving Cadet for Blue Note, Shaw's style steered more towards the label’s signature jazz sound. She doesn’t include California Soul in her well-regarded Live at Montreux set just a few years later. If it wasn’t for crate-diggers like Gang Starr’s DJ Premier, the song may have been lost in the vaults.
Though sampled by lots of other artists in the decade following Check the Technique, I didn’t discover California Soul through tracks by DJ Food, Deee-Lite, The Wiseguys or Quasimoto. Instead I first heard it on a David Holmes mixtape and the song quickly became the staple of every house party, afternoon barbecue, dinner, walk to work, anytime I need a song to make me or the room feel good.
I even got a chance to see Shaw live at London’s Jazz Café in 2002, where she quipped “I’m happy to be back in London, hell I’m happy be seen anywhere.” Rap brought back old R’n’B ensuring that this great singer and her superb song could grab a hold on you once more.
Follow me on Twitter
If you like this, try:
Woman of the Ghetto (live at Montreux)
Liberation Conversation
Let's Wade in the Water
Remember Me - Blue Boy
Go to 79: Trainspotting by Primal Scream
Go to 81: Let's Push Things Forward by The Streets
Go to 79: Trainspotting by Primal Scream
Go to 81: Let's Push Things Forward by The Streets
Stetsasonic’s claim that “James Brown was old until Eric B and Rak came out with ‘I Got Soul’”, was a grand overstatement. Sure, the Godfather of Soul was the most frequently sampled artist by the new breed of rap producers, but it’s impossible to imagine that Brown's storied back catalogue of funk and soul classics would have been lost in time were it not for hip-hop.
Yet behind the iconoclasm, Talkin’ All That Jazz has a point that “rap brings back old R’n’B”. Sampling has revived the careers and lined the pockets of a range of otherwise condemned-to-obscurity singers, groups and incredible bongo bands. Take, for instance, Marlena Shaw.
In the 1970s, the New York-born singer had a well-regarded five-year stint on Blue Note followed by a less successful period on Colombia. But by the mid-90s she rarely sang live and hadn’t released a record since a couple of mediocre albums for Verve a decade previously.
Not that you should have felt sorry for her status. Even at the height of her small success, Shaw was a part-time pop star. Born Marlina Burgess in 1942, she sang from an early age and went to music school but quickly dropped out, got married and ended up having five kids.
Though now a stay-at-home mum, she continued to sing and landed a regular gig at Chicago’s Playboy Club, commuting from her home in New York. This led to interest from Chess Records, who signed her to subsidiary label Cadet, and soon she was playing with Count Basie’s band. Yet Shaw was hardly the ambitious driver of this success and recalls how it was always others who urged label owners and band leaders to give her a shot.
Throughout it all, Shaw’s primary concern was her family. She would work on songs and arrangements with co-writers and producers by phone, only taking time out to go to the studio for recording. Her shows with Count Basie were intermittent and she turned down numerous opportunities to play in Europe.
Her talent continued to win advocates, like the mother of Blue Note’s Head of A&R. She saw the singer perform at a society event in North Carolina and called her son, who made Shaw the first woman to sign for the venerable jazz label. After some moderate success, her career slowly slid into obscurity. And then everything was transformed by a sample.
Remember me?
The next person to help return Shaw to the spotlight has himself disappeared from view. Alexis Blackmore had toured as a DJ with The Shamen before scoring a worldwide hit as Blue Boy with Remember Me, which samples two different versions of Shaw’s song, Woman of the Ghetto.
As excited as Shaw was with the success of the Blue Boy track, it was equally life-changing for the original song's co-writer Richard Evans. Down on his luck at the time, Evans was astonished and delighted when a check for $75,000 turned up in the mail with only the handwritten words “Remember me?” as a clue to its origins. A week later, Shaw called him to see if he’d received the money and told him about the Blue Boy hit.
It was just the beginning for Shaw, who began recording and touring again as her music was sampled by more and more hip-hop and dance producers. Woman of the Ghetto features on tracks by Ghostface Killah, Beenie Man and St Germain, whose Rose Rogue is Shaw’s favourite use of her song. Other artists to sample her work include Drake and The Avalanches. But the most frequently sampled song was also the first to find new life after its original release.
Soul ownership
Years before Blue Boy, Gang Starr released Step Into The Arena, one of the most highly-regarded albums in hip-hop history. The track Check the Technique features a devastatingly brash string loop - the opening orchestration of California Soul from Marlena Shaw’s 1969 album, Spice of Life.
California Soul was written by Motown husband and wife songwriting team, Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson, who also wrote Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, I’m Every Woman and most of Diana Ross’ solo material. Before Shaw released her version, the song had already been recorded by pop groups The Messengers and The 5th Dimension, and as a duet by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. Ashford himself recorded a version later, as did Edwin Starr.
Despite all this competition, Shaw makes California Soul her own. A lot rides on those much-sampled strings, whose vibrant opening blasts instantly embed the song’s melody in your head. An incredible beat puts the brakes on the arrangement, halting everything slightly until Shaw comes in:
“It’s like a sound you hear that lingers in your ear and you can't forget from sundown to sunset.”
California Soul is about itself. The creation of a sound, a song, a scene. Navel gazing has never sounded so good. With the chorus comes a parade of brass that swells alongside the strings, while Shaw belts out the song’s title. The second verse brings handclaps and backing vocals as the music becomes even more bright and beautiful.
The middle-eight emphasizes the creation theme – “They had a melody and a beat but it still didn't seem complete” – and is one of the most joyous and optimistic moments in music – “Until they saw two lovers kissing and knew just what was missing”. No wonder Shaw has a wonderful little laugh before the third chorus. The song puts a smile on your face that widens further as it builds towards its majestic climax with thrashing drums, stirring strings and Shaw’s deep, luxurious vocal wheeling.
Soul survivor
Though sampled by lots of other artists in the decade following Check the Technique, I didn’t discover California Soul through tracks by DJ Food, Deee-Lite, The Wiseguys or Quasimoto. Instead I first heard it on a David Holmes mixtape and the song quickly became the staple of every house party, afternoon barbecue, dinner, walk to work, anytime I need a song to make me or the room feel good.
I even got a chance to see Shaw live at London’s Jazz Café in 2002, where she quipped “I’m happy to be back in London, hell I’m happy be seen anywhere.” Rap brought back old R’n’B ensuring that this great singer and her superb song could grab a hold on you once more.
Follow me on Twitter
If you like this, try:
Woman of the Ghetto (live at Montreux)
Liberation Conversation
Let's Wade in the Water
Remember Me - Blue Boy
Go to 79: Trainspotting by Primal Scream
Go to 81: Let's Push Things Forward by The Streets
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