If you’ve ever wondered what Mick Jagger and Jimi Hendrix might have sounded like together, this southern soul gem is for you. "Mercy, Mercy", off of See-Saw, Don Covay’s 1966 LP reportedly has the young Mr. Hendrix playing session man (though Covay was reportedly no slouch himself). What sticks out even more though is Covay’s tenacious shout-speak bluesy wail, which played a large influence on Mick Jagger’s vocal style. The song itself is a funky-blues gumbo, something you’d expect to hear come out of roadside bars in the Louisiana night. Both Wilson Pickett and The Rolling Stones would later cover it, but the original is a definitive lost classic.
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Johnnie Taylor falls into the category of soul singers whose talents outweigh their commercial legacy, but “I Got To Love Somebody’s Baby” is an incredible cut from his debut Wanted: One Soul Singer that begs to be heard. It’s not just the incredibly raw recording, or the scene-setting guitar intro. Taylor has an incredible ability to bend words to his will, no longer just a description, but the actual events themselves. Co-written by Stax Records stalwarts Isaac Hayes and David Porter, “I Got To Love Somebody’s Baby” is a bluesy narrative of a lover done wrong, a man who’s “got to love somebody’s baby/ cuz somebody, somebody, somebody, sure been lovin mine” and while the band is in peak form, like so many other great soul songs, it’s the vocal performance that drives it to perfection.
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Track-listing:
1. Peoples – Cheers Elephant
2. The Fritz – Cruiser
3. The Walk – Mayer Hawthorne
4. Everyone Knows – Vacationer
5. This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) – Talking Heads
6. Milk – Theme Park
7. The Hale Bop – Mystery Jets
8. She’s So Scandalous – Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
9. Fletcher – Blitzen Trapper
10. Sir Duke – Stevie Wonder
11. Skin It Back – Little Feat
12. Carrying The Torch – Generationals
13. My Baby Is The Real Thing – Allen Toussaint
14. Come On Sock It To Me – Syl Johnson
15. Got To Be Some Changes Made – The Staple Singers
16. Scratch My Back – Otis Redding
17. Knock On Wood – Eddie Floyd
18. Blackmail – Robert Palmer
19. Ain’t Gonna Stop – Natural Child
20. Greatest Hits – Mystery Jets
21. If You Let Me Be Your Anchor – Dawes
The one-two punch of “Greatest Hits” and “The Hale Bop” make Mystery Jets’ Radlands one of the better albums of the year so far, a worthy exploration into 70s stylized rock and roll that has been sorely lacking in popular music.
For a British based band that made waves in 2008 with Twenty One, a record with a decidedly 80s synth pop sound, the radical departure in style would often spell disaster, yet Radlands manages to run the gamut of 70’s rock from Neil Young’s heartland Americana to David Bowie’s grunge-glam rock with great results.
“The Hale Bop” is such an example of Mystery Jet’s excellent reinterpretation of what made Bowie so great in the 70’s, a charismatic vocal performance, great guitar melodies and a frenetic groove.
RIYL: David Bowie, Neil Young
Radlands was released on April 30th, 2012 on Rough Trade Records.
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