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Soul S 35003 (B), August 1964
B-side of Satan’s Blues
(Written by Autry DeWalt Jr.)
My relationship with the saxophone mirrors that of one of my musical heroes, Gruff Rhys. I’m guessing that a great many people born in Europe between 1970 and 1980, and thus whose musical palette was initially shaped in some way by the landscape of Eighties pop, probably have a similar thing going on, but Gruff just happened to state it more baldly than anyone else. Gruff’s initial, instinctive reaction to a sax solo was one of physical revulsion, later describing the noble horn as “Satan’s own instrument”. “I generally dislike the saxophone. I like saxophones if they’re just doing basic notes, that’s fine. But saxophone solos I don’t enjoy. It has that vomit-inducing quality, it’s a physical thing”, he told the NME a couple of years ago. And a few years ago, I’d have agreed with him.
Because of its sheer power (in every sense), and because it’s so open to abuse by people with no taste, and because of the cultural signifiers (MOR, sleaze, overprocessed Eighties cheese) that can’t help but come to mind every time it hits certain notes, the sax needs to be handled with extreme care. Those signifiers also put off the young indie-pop fan looking to broaden her horizons, forbidding a casual delve which would immediately reveal the vast oceans of difference between Kenny G, Evan Parker and Junior Walker.
But times change. Gruff’s latest LP has sax all over it. And thanks in no small part to Walker, my own attitude has changed too; when I hear a sax strike up, I no longer get an immediate sense of doom, or the gag reflex Gruff mentioned, but rather I’m looking for someone to do something, well, cool with it.
That being said, it still feels dangerous, except that the fear of the player going out of control and ending up raucous and cacophonous (of which I’d approve!) has been replaced by a different fear: the player teetering on the edge of a vat of sticky AOR “R&B” soup. And as I mentioned when talking about the A-side, the uncompromisingly-titled Satan’s Blues, Junior Walker was as bad as anyone when it came to not knowing whether he’d fallen in. He just about keeps his feet dry here – at the cost of making a more interesting record, it has to be said – but he’s moving noticeably closer to the pot.
Monkey Jump is not at all dissimilar to some of Stevie Wonder’s early singles, a semi-instrumental showcase designed to highlight a one-trick act who’s not (yet) known as a vocalist. It may or may not be a coincidence that this almost shares a title with Stevie’s Monkey Talk, as the two records are very much alike, conceptually at least; here, apart from a few shoutbarked interjections (Awwwww, look at that monkey JUMP!), it’s a driving instrumental all the way, thudding bass and guitars providing a brief two-minute vehicle for Walker’s sax solo to float over the top.
Musically, it’s based around the same kind of riff as the first Motown instrumental, the house band’s Snake Walk from 1959, but it’s nowhere near as energetic, or as interesting – and it never seems to quite realise just how precariously it’s balancing on the edge of good taste. For every moment of cool, like part of the soundtrack to some hypothetical Sixties black action thriller, there’s a moment of peril, like part of the soundtrack to some hypothetical Sixties white spy comedy. The semi-screamed chants are enough to frighten off the squares, keeping it on the right side of cheese, but that carries its own danger (as Stevie had discovered), nudging it towards throwaway novelty status instead.
It all balances out, more or less, into a mildly diverting instrumental that doesn’t cause revulsion but doesn’t live in the memory. There’d be much better, and much worse, from Junior Walker yet.
MOTOWN JUNKIES VERDICT
(I’ve had MY say, now it’s your turn. Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment, or click the thumbs at the bottom there. Dissent is encouraged!)
You’re reading Motown Junkies, an attempt to review every Motown A- and B-side ever released. Click on the “previous” and “next” buttons below to go back and forth through the catalogue, or visit the Master Index for a full list of reviews so far.
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| Jr. Walker & the All Stars “Satan’s Blues” |
Sammy Ward “Bread Winner” |
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I have disagree with this verdict because I think this song is waaaay better than it’s A-side. I would at least give this a 6 or maybe 7. When I first began listening to it I instantly began to nod my head. This song contains a simple funk that is just right.
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I just find it dull compared to both Snake Walk and Monkey Talk (ha, that rhymes), which is weird considering it’s basically just a mashup of those two tunes. I don’t know, it just doesn’t do anything for me, along with about half of Junior Walker’s records. (Though I think the other half are great.)
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It wasn’t until the 90s that I got straightened out on this one. Till then, I assumed “Monkey” was the A-side, probably because the Shotgun LP chose to carry this, while “Satan” was held for Soul Session
In retrospect, I believe Walker served as the conduit artist for my subsequent interest in James Brown. Not a moment too soon, as Brown’s commercial streak of ’65 to ’74, was his longest and best. You could stack 10 singles on the 45 spindle of an automatic player with a Walker side between every Brown and the party would never slow. Today, not only do I have all Walker’s essentials but about 15 Brown albums and 70 of his 45s. His “Star Time” boxed set was among the first five CDs I ever owned. As the Supremes served the desserts, these guys served the meat and potatoes.
While not as neglected and ignored, say, as Kim Weston, The Elgins and The Velvelettes, Walker has not been given the Rolls Royce treatment yet as far as a definitive boxed set. The closest, so far, is the two-disc Nothing But Soul package of the mid 90s, which I happened to buy just weeks before he died around Thanksgiving, 1995. It’s great, but it could be bettered.
Walker is an instance where I contradict myself a little on the stereo/mono question. While his 60s hits, like the those of his labelmates, sound best in their single mixes, by about 1970 Motown was ‘doing’ stereo considerably better. As the What Does It Take-Era began for Walker, many of his tracks, such as “Gotta Hold On To This Feeling,” “Way Back Home” and especially “Holly Holy” were notably longer in the LP versions, and of a quality not shamed by the singles. A properly done boxed set would take that into account.
And, like in the cases of Mary Wells and the Four Tops, I’d be eager to buy and read a biography of Walker.
Welcome back, Nixon 🙂
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Hi Dave,
I love your analysis especially about Jr. Walker almost being the predecessor to JB’s sound. Was Jr. Walker still with Motown when he recorded “Urgent”?
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I’m not positive, but I think Nixon will be. I think, for a time, Walker did like the Temptations: left for a while, then came back. As for “Urgent,” I’m not sure if Walker has an active Motown contract at that time. When Whitfield started his own label in the late 70s, and Undisputed Truth was with him for a time, I think Jr. might have done some recording for that label too.
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Junior did go off to Whitfield Records at the end of Seventies, and came back to Motown in 1983 – “Urgent” (1981) was cut during the hiatus, though I don’t know if he stayed with Whiftield that whole time. The story is that Foreigner wanted a “Junior Walker style sax part” on the record, and started ringing around to find a recommended horn player who could provide something approximating Walker’s sound – only to discover Junior himself was not only available, but was currently recording a few blocks away!
When Junior came back to Motown in ’83, he recorded his own cover of Urgent, but I’ve not heard that.
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Thanx Nixon! I heard the song in Madonna’s movie “Desperately Seeking Susan.” I’m not sure if it’s with Foreigner or Junior by himself.
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Okay gang, Have a funny story about the song “Urgent” A few years ago I was in the supermarket shopping for food. “Urgent” came on in the in store music. Well, I started dancing around, pushing my shopping cart & singing along with Foreigner. Just imagine, a short, balding, white guy in his 50s doing that! LOL!!!!!
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LOL = )
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Dave, “Gotta Hold On To This Feeling” probably one of my favorites of Jr.Walker..
“Gonna Blow, Blow, Blow Cause I Love Love Ya now”!! Also, ” Don’t You See My Love Growing”..That HIGH note Jr. Walker hits with his sax in the center of the song, Oh My God!! There’s a master Motown Moment!!
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That’s jumping ahead, yes, but I hear you! Love that stuff. In the booklet that comes with Nothing But Soul – and which will have to do till we get a decent biography- Walker says his approach at that point was, “hit them where they’re not.” Meaning, while his labelmates were at least sporadically setting romantic concerns aside for runaway children, clouds numbered 9, out-of-wedlock children, abandoned mothers, the Vietnam war and balls of confusion, Walker was picking up the slack with those wonderful urban, upwardly mobile-sounding love songs.
But, as most know, he did so first reluctantly. Johnny Bristol had to apply gentle but steady pressure to get Walker to record “What Does It Take,” and it didn’t stay buried in Home Cookin’ for long thanks to demanding DJ’s. Then, barely six months after the Guess Who’s original, he gets “These Eyes” to No. 16! ( I won’t lie, it actually hurt memorably in November ’95 to have barely gotten the shrink wrap off of that Nothing But Soul set, before learning Walker had died 😦 )
The summer of ’69, when I was 15, doesn’t live in my brain with the usual Supremes and Temps suspects: during the month men first walked on the moon, it was “What Does It Take” and Stevie’s “My Cherie Amour” that were in Billboard’s Top Ten.
But we’re a long way yet from that rocket. 🙂
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Yo Dave & Ron,
I am totally with you on Jr Walker, my buddies! Just love his late 60’s/early 70s stuff. And Dave, definitely agree with you friend … Jr’s stuff has held up over the years a little better than some of the more socially conscious stuff Motown was putting out at the time. I have some thoughts on Motown’s “psychedelic era”, but will hold off for now! (everyone sighs with relief! RIght? LOL!)
Hopefully I won’t be in the old folks’ home by the time we get there! LOL!
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Three stars might be a little harsh, becasue it’s not un-listenable but it’s certainly not memorable. Sounds more like a warm-up or jam than a full song. Disposable. Although the more times I listen the more that wood block or “plopping” noise grates on me to that point I can’t stand one more listen. Maybe that three is deserving.
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This was a weird one to mark, and the extended (enforced!) delay before it went live saw the score revised up and down quite a few times depending on my whim on that day. Oddly enough, when I came to finally post it, it was the percussion noise you mention which finally knocked it down to 3 for me too.
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Personally I like the sound of the saxophone, so I love artists like Ronnie Laws, Michael Brecker, Wilton Felder and Ernie Watts (although I can definitely leave Kenny G) as well as those bands who gave the saxophonist a chance to solo. Of them all, Junior Walker stands head and shoulders above the rest – even a mundane track sounds like a work of art when he is tooting and blowing. I will concede that he was at his Motown best when it was Johnny Bristol supplying the material – Walk In The Nigjht is an absolute classic – but I’m certainly going to be interested to see which of his tracks you think is worse than this!
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🙂 I do wonder if I’ll ever become predictable.
For me, like Gruff, I’ve long since made my peace with the sax, and Junior is a big part of that (also the last Scott Walker LP!) – but it’s an uneasy peace. The instrument still feels dangerous, in both the good and bad ways outlined above. Purely because of how I first got to hear it, I guess: a slick, gloopy, overprocessed garnish on slick, gloopy, overprocessed records. Not sure if I’ll ever be truly over it 🙂
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Since being commissioned to write a work for saxophone and piano, I’ve embarked on a steadily intensifying love affair with the instrument, with lots of discoveries – among them, this concerto by Yoshimatsu: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLfCVUQl1MQ&feature=related – I might also mention that the Cambridge Companion to the Saxophone includes a meticulous transcription of Jr. Walker’s wonderful solo at the beginning of ‘How Sweet it Is’ – they pay deserved tribute to his breathtaking technique, which I never fully appreciatede before – Hurrah for dangerous instruments! – I recently bought the CD of the original Shotgun album – it seems I’d owned it once, but like lots of treasures in my prodigal youth, I sold it to help make ends meet – nice to rediscover the instrumentals which never made it into the Anthology. This one is no masterpiece but certainly rates a 5 or 6.
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Can’t wait to see your review of Soul 35062-B (a belated Harvey reissue)…absolutely my favorite Junior cut.
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