August 19, 2009 Earworm

Following a busy year that brought five top twenty singles as a recording artist and a number one and two as a writer, Neil Diamond decided to leave Bang Records for greener pastures and artistic freedom. What the world did to deserve this is still unclear but we do know that his first three singles for UNI, the wonderful Chip Taylor production "Brooklyn Roads", the also wonderful but not Chipped "Two-Bit Manchild", and the merely okay "Sunday Sun" got trapped in the bottom half of the Hot 100. The debut album that followed didn't help, saddled with the exploitative (and unintentionally funny) "The Pot Smoker's Song" and the schmaltz of "Knackleflerg" and the better tracks finding Neil stuck somewhere between folk pop and Jimmy Webb without the depth to match either. Then, in 1969, a divine plan sent Neil to Chips Moman's American Sound Studios in Memphis and that is how "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show" ended up being a (Neil Diamond version of a) butt kicking record.

"Hot August night and the leaves hangin’ down and the grass on the ground smellin’ sweet" and a great church piano lick set the scene beautifully, with the bass providing just enough sin to draw you in and before you know it, you've packed up the babies and grabbed the old ladies and fans are attempting to cut through the heat of revelation. "Cherry, Cherry" it isn't yet the same energy is there and soul it ain't, but it's not quite anything else either. One thing is certain, it wouldn't have worked if it had been recorded anywhere else. Once again, the single mix, heavy with reverb, a bit of double tracked vocal, and a tambourine on the edge of a nervous breakdown blows the album mix away yet that mono mix still remains outside the digital domain.

Sticking with their preferred theme of persecution, southern evangelicals cried that they were being mocked - by a Jewish boy from Brooklyn no less. Neil's story has changed a bit over the years so who knows what the intention was but, if he started out as a non-believer, as he passed the three minute mark he had clearly been moved - just listen to that yelp!

Being a little ahead of the God/Jesus pop curve that was to come, it wasn't a smash hit - it just missed the top twenty - but it, and the album that shared its name, paved the way for a return to Memphis a few months later to lay down the iconic groove that became "Sweet Caroline". Sequined shirts below unfortunate hair would follow and "Cracklin' Rosie" aside, "The Jewish Elvis" would never be the same or as good*.

*I don't care if he was on "The Last Waltz" and I still say "Beautiful Noise" wasn't that good even though it was pretty good.

If he's remembered at all, B.J. Thomas would probably be remembered for that "My Heart Will Go On" of 1970, Grammy and Academy Award winning "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head". If not that, it may be for the original version of "Hooked On A Feeling" or, thanks to the King's constant plundering of B.J.'s catalog, the guy who sang a lot of the same songs Elvis did.

By the time "Hooked On A Feeling" was released, Billy Joe, backed by The Triumphs, the band he joined in high school, had been recording singles for minuscule labels for more than five years. In 1964 they came close to a regional hit with the deliciously creepy "Billy and Sue" on Bragg but interest faded just as quickly as it had begun, a fate that a lease deal with and re-issue on Warner Brothers couldn't stop. The act eventually came to the attention of Houston's legendary Huey P. Meaux and they recorded an album with him with the intention of selling the product at their shows. Having promised his father that he would include at least one country song amongst the R&B covers, B.J. finished the all night album session with an exhausted cover of "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry". Smelling a hit, Meaux released the cut as a single on one of his many small labels and watched as it took off.

Scepter Records stepped in with a national offer which was accepted with the provision that any B.J. Thomas releases would be sold in Texas on Meaux's label while the rest of the country would get the product on Scepter. "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" hit the national top ten in 1966. The maudlin "Mama" followed it a few months later, just missing the top twenty. Meanwhile, another label, Hickory, picked up the lease on the now two year old "Billy and Sue" and gave it another go. This time the swampy tale of battlefields and infidelity gave B.J. and the boys their third top forty single. Scepter issued a handful of singles, mostly the remaining Meaux tracks already released on his label, but couldn't get the act anywhere near the top forty in 1967. Meaux finally closed his Pacemaker label at the end of that year relinquishing B.J., and Pacemaker's A&R man, Steve Tyrell, to Scepter, and a B.J. was sent to Memphis to Chip Moman's American Studios for a new direction.

The first single from that union was "The Eyes Of A New York Woman", a record that can barely conceal the feelings of freedom, relief, or joy. The American boys - and Moman - propel B.J. along his journey into a new world and a new love, shamelessly borrowing the string line from that earlier American classic, "The Letter", and a few other tricks to boot. I can not hear this record without smiling or throwing my arms wide open to embrace it and, much to Dan's chagrin, I can't play it just once or twice.

"The Eyes Of A New York Woman" only got to twenty-eight but it paved the way for the top five "Hooked On A Feeling". There are many of us who will argue that it should have been the other way around.