commentaries by Daddy B Nice

January 28, 2008.

Daddy B. Nice's...

Southern Soul "State Of The Union": 2008

Daddy B. Nice, Charles Wilson and The Mississippi Boy

I'll be frank. My interest in Charles Wilson has as much to do with Wilson's recent work as a remote, behind-the-scenes, talent magnet and producer as it does with his career as a performer. In the latter role he has long ago proved himself. Recording "It's Sweet On The Backstreet", the mid-nineties, John Ward-produced tune that helped define Ecko Records as a Southern Soul label would by itself merit him a place on this Top 100 chart. Wilson's honey-rich vocal was the quintessence of easy-going, mid-tempo Southern Soul.

But the mystery surrounding Wilson's recent activity is an illustration of what any chronicler of the chitlin' circuit is up against. There's a vast ocean--underground water table, if you will--of music out there, along with all the attendant confusion that accompanies deep and dark places. And, as in the rest of life, the chase--the hunt--the search for that ever-elusive new music--is more satisfying (and more of an obsession) than listening to what is familiar.

Your Daddy B. Nice first heard a song called "Mississippi Boy" in 2003, and it knocked me out with its bluegrass ambience and infectious rhythm--its pure Southern Soul originality.

"I'm tired of the city life.
Everything's much too fast.
I'm used to old dirty roads,
And the smell of country grass."

It was as if the Fats Domino of "I'm Going To Be A Wheel Some Day" had time-traveled to the 21st century and deposited a gem from the vault. I didn't catch the name of the artist--it sounded like "Will T."--but to this day your Daddy B. Nice remembers the exact words WMPR (Jackson, Ms.) deejay Queen Bee used to close out the song.

"Ahhh, just a Mississippi boy," she sighed. "Got that Mississippi mud on my boots. I sent that out to none other than my son, Danny Rico. I don't know why he like that song so much, but he like that song about Mississippi mud. I guess he got a little bit of it on his shoes."

"Mississippi Boy" gained another fan that day, and your Daddy B. Nice spent the next two years (two years!) searching everywhere for the title and/or artist, while the track faded back into the obscure mists from which it came.

Not long after that, driving up "north" in Southern Soul territory, past WBAD in Greenville, Ms., to where another chitlin' circuit radio station--KKFA in Helena, Arkansas--holds sway, I encountered another don't-drive-off-the-road, hold-onto-your-hat Southern Soul radio hit with a slinky beat and a blue-collar vocal, and again I didn't quite hear the name of the artist.

The song was "In My Sugar Bowl," and I convinced myself that "Sugar Bowl" was by up-and-comer Earl Duke (of somewhat limited "Mr. Fix It" fame), wondering with no little exasperation why such a can't-miss track could have been left off his debut disc, Down For You (Mardi Gras, 2004).

Finally, two long years later, in April of 2005, Charles Wilson released the CD If It Ain't Broke Don't Fix It on Delta Entertainment Records. "Mississippi Boy" was on it, and between wild dances around the living room blaring it at top volume, your Daddy B. Nice noted another track in the credits. Sure enough, it was the "Sugar Bowl" song--the real title was "Salt In My Sugar Bowl"--but it was the same slinky tempo, the same bass-line-from-heaven, and the same laid-back vocal.

"When I came home last night,
I knew something was strange.
Oh, my little sugar bowl,
She wouldn't answer when I called her name."

If these two songs were indeed Charles Wilson's, they represented a rejuvenation of his career, which--although he has recorded many creditable songs since--arguably peaked in the mid-nineties, with his It's Sweet On The Backstreet CD (Ecko, 95). That album had tremendous staying power and influence on the Southern Soul artists just emerging at the time, and "It's Sweet On The Backstreet" remains a chitlin' circuit classic.

On the other hand, if the tracks were by, respectively, a "Will T." and "Earl Duke," why weren't they credited to those artists, and what were they doing on a Charles Wilson album? Both "Mississippi Boy" and "Salt In My Sugar Bowl" were written by the terrific Southern Soul composer, Floyd Hamberlin, Jr. (author of Artie "Blues Boy" White's classic, "I Can't Afford To Be Broke") who recently wrote all of the material for Cicero Blake's comeback album, Ain't Nothing Wrong, on Mardi Gras Records.

The most baffling thing about the If It Ain't Broke Don't Fix It CD is that all the regular tracks--even the Hamberlin, Jr.-written tunes--are blues cuts you've heard a thousand times before, while the three "bonus" songs, including "Mississippi Boy" and "Salt In My Sugar Bowl" plus a third track titled "Don't Ride My Pony" by Sharon Scott, dazzle with their idiosyncratic Southern Soul style.

But one has to search hard to find anything that quickens the pulse among the "regular" tracks. And you come away from the album wondering if Wilson, Hamberlin, Jr. and company appreciate what they have forged in these two mini-masterpieces, "Mississippi Boy" and "Salt In My Sugar Bowl," which in tandem signal a great new direction for Southern Soul.

Maybe they do, and maybe that's why they featured two such otherwise obscure songs on a Charles Wilson album. If so, they have done Southern Soul a great favor.
 
Tidbits

Postscript 1. 10/31/05 Daddy B. Nice wants to thank the website Blues Critic for information on Earl Duke's "Salt In My Sugar Bowl" and Will T.'s "Mississippi Boy." According to their website, the songs were first issued a couple of years ago on a compilation/sampler entitled Soul Blues Vol. 2 (Wilson Records). That would be Charles Wilson's record company, of course.

This rings true. It accounts for my hearing them long before they came out on the Charles Wilson disc. I also remember hearing deejays say "Soul Blues Vol. 2."--not to be confused with Soul Blues Hits Vol. 2, an Ecko Records sampler, which is where I kept hitting a dead end. DBN.

Postscript 2: October 1, 2006. I like David Brinston's new radio single, "Mississippi Boy" ("Mississippi's Where It's At"). It's further proof that Brinston is beginning to "loosen up" again. But did he have to use the title "Mississippi Boy," thereby stealing some of the much-needed spotlight from Will T.'s excellent but super-obscure "Mississippi Boy"?

Why do people do one another like that?

Lest people think I'm being hard on Brinston, let me remind them of how highly I regard Brinston's own super-obscure and so-hard-to-get yet excellent Fly Right CD (Suzie Q). DBN.

Postscript 3: April 6, 2007. To my knowledge, as of this date, Will T. has never scored an album deal. "Mississippi Boy" (by Will T.) remains one of those rare songs whose very obscurity lends it a romantic allure. And ironically, David Brinston's "Mississippi Boy" (which has gotten far more airplay in the last year) has proven to be Brinston's best and most lasting track in a long time. Life is stranger than fiction. DBN.

Postscript 4: April 21, 2007. Ecko Records' John Ward has sent me an "advance" copy of the new Denise LaSalle song from her upcoming CD. The title? It's "Mississippi Boy" redone as "Mississippi Woman," and it looks to your Daddy B. Nice like it's hit-bound. The promo copy has no less than five takes, featuring soul-blues, delta blues, and extended mixes.

Postscript 5: June 10, 2007. Denise LaSalle's "Mississippi Woman" has become a bona fide chitlin' circuit hit. And the hype surrounding the release has proven to be justified. The song is aging extremely well, and looks to become one of Denise's best-loved songs in recent memory.

Postscript 6: June 19, 2007. Now this will be of particular interest to Charles Wilson fans. Thanks to Dylann DeAnna once again for alerting me to the fact that Charles Wilson does--now--have his own version of Mississippi Boy" out. It's from his latest CD, Sexual Healing (Hitmakers USA, 2006). But you won't find this record listed at All Music Guide or any of my music affiliates. Here's the data I found by googling:

Sexual Healing
Release Date: July 11, 2006
Label: Hitmakers USA


Tracks:
Title Composer Time
1 Sexual Healing Wilson 4:19
2 Check Yourself Wilson 4:54
3 Mississippi Boy Hamberlin 3:10
4 If You Can Do It Wilson 3:56
5 I Love You Too Much Wilson, Scott 4:59
6 Just Enough Love Thigpin 3:49
7 If It Ain't Broke (Don't Fix It) Wilson, Coleman 4:26
8 Back and Forth Hamberlin 3:34
9 All Caught Up Hamberlin 3:08

I'm very surprised I haven't heard Charles Wilson's "Misssissippi Boy" on chitlin' circuit radio outlets. I have heard the intriguing and easy-on-the-ears tune, "Check Yourself (Before You Wreck Yourself)."

So to summarize. "Mississippi Boy" on Wilson's If It Ain't Broke Don't Fix It CD is really the Will T. version. "Mississippi Boy" on Wilson's new, hard-to-get Sexual Healing CD is Charles Wilson's version. "Mississippi Boy" by David Brinston is a different song altogether. And "Mississippi Woman" by Denise LaSalle is a faithful version of the Will T. song from a female perspective.

Ultimately, it's a compliment to the art of the songwriter, Floyd Hamberlin: the evolution of a song. DBN.

 

Chitlin' Circuit Travels, West Coast Style: Daddy B. Nice Chats With Blues Critic


Imagine surf. Not Gulf Coast lapping. Real surf. Pacific surf. Then imagine two men facing one another on a beachfront ledge alongside a walkway leading down to the sand, absorbed in conversation of such intensity they're oblivious to the beach revellers coming and going, and you'll have a good picture of your Daddy B. Nice and Dylann DeAnna (of the Blues Critic website) discussing Southern Soul music on the beachfront in Encinitas, California (north of San Diego) a couple of weeks ago.

California and environs may seem like far-flung territory for chitlin' circuit talk, but it is rapidly becoming fertile ground for Southern Soul musicians, and to an extent has always boasted some Delta ties. Billy Ray Charles operates out of Las Vegas (where even Prince does a regular gig these days), Arthur Adams has managed B.B. King's club in L.A., and Ray Charles, Peggy Scott-Adams, Keb' Mo', Kenny Neal and countless other soul and blues artists have long maintained familial and recording ties to the area.

Still, the scene by no means conjured up the usual images of the chitlin' circuit. As the "heads" behind the two most information-intensive websites on Southern Soul music, SouthernSoulRnB and BluesCritic had long been friendly competitors. On this trip we'd kept trying to connect, and just when it was looking like it wasn't going to happen (the day before your Daddy B. Nice was due to leave, actually), we were able to squeeze in an hour of pell-mell conversation.

That's how we came to be sitting on the beachfront, oblivious to the sun trying to break through the foggy grey "marine layer" that clings to the San Diego coastline, unaware of the people filing by in their running shoes and flip-flops, entirely unmindful of the surfers in their beetle-black wet suits sitting on their boards out in the ocean, waiting for waves while the surf pounded at the shore.

The only thing we saw was one another's faces, and the illusion that we each held an invitation to the world of Southern Soul in our own countenance. If we could only ask enough questions, if we could only "talk for hours," if we could only compare enough opinions, we'd get this Southern Soul thing figured out.

Just a decade into the heyday of contemporary Southern Soul music, it's hard to imagine it without the electronic media--the websites--that have spread the "word." Most of the current Southern Soul websites appeared in the 2004-05 period, when SouthernSoulRnB, Blues Critic, Chittlin' Circuit, Soul & Blues Report and Dawg Pound emerged on the Net, and what's amazing, looking back, is that no other new websites have appeared in the last couple of years.

Progress has been significant. Ten years ago, you had to look hard to find and buy a nationally-distributed Southern Soul CD (young people--I am not kidding!); these days as many as a couple of dozen cutting-edge Southern Soul CD's are not only touted but sold on many of our websites.

The proliferation of internet radio stations, DeAnna and I agreed, was the greatest thing to hit the scene since Elvis donned blue jeans. Your Daddy B. Nice used to spend a couple thousand dollars on one of his prolonged trips through chitlin' circuit territory, searching for new music. Now that money pours into the website. Too poor to travel as frequently, your Daddy B. Nice can nevertheless sit at his desk and monitor today's music over the Net at WMPR, Chico's Radio, American Blues Network, Moonman's Radio, Chittlin' Circuit or Blues Critic's own streaming radio.

DeAnna came to Southern Soul from a blues background, and he is predicting a trend toward more contemporary straight-blues sounds. (Funky Larry from Soul & Blues Report also announced a move toward more straight-blues recently.) And DeAnna, who has argued this same point in Blues Critic reviews lately, forsees the mastering of high-quality production techniques as the chief impediment to Southern Soul's acceptance by the mainstream.

Your Daddy B. Nice isn't ready to hop on that bandwagon just yet. With technique, slickness and lack of substance so rife in the world of commercial R&B from which I came, I still love the crude and rough sounds that come from those funky, beneath-the-radar music labels that abound on the chitlin' circuit. If a performer with a great song and a great voice doesn't have the means to hire ace musicians, I'll give him a pass. But that doesn't mean I don't recognize a technically-superb track by Willie Clayton, Keb' Mo' or Lenny Williams when I hear one.

And I do think DeAnna is right in calling it a factor crucial to enlarging the audience. Lately I've been working with Yoni Neeman from Israel (Soul Of The Net), introducing more Southern Soul sounds to him. His website states up front that he's after those old-school, classic soul sounds, but he doesn't want to hear any "machine-tracks." Along with Claudio Balestrino's and Toby Walker's and Chris Lange's and Anders Lillsunde's and Hans Kierkegaard's Euro sites, he represents a vast overseas audience hungry for blues and soul.

DeAnna and I talked about the future of the music and if it would get "big" and if it would "last" and whether it would maintain its "romantic hold" on us, giving us the stamina to persevere in our websites. We talked about how we worked on our sites every day, and--just like the artists and everyone else on the chitlin' circuit--how much we were pounding our heads against the wall financially.

We gossiped. Oh, how we gossiped. But as they say, "If I told you about that, I'd have to kill you." All in all, it was a little like meeting a long-lost twin from whom you were separated at birth. There was the distinct feeling we were having a conversation no two other people in the country could have--yet within that similarity all we could see were our differences.

One thing we agreed upon was what a key player and touchstone for both of us Jerry Mason of the Boogie Report has been. As the website to first integrate Southern Soul into its format, "Boogie's" site was important to both of us, and I don't think I'll step on any toes by relating the "flava" and "gossip" behind us wanting the Boogie's blessing.

For example, I was a little envious of Dylann when he said Boogie had sought him out (he'd sent the first e-mail) after the Blues Critic website went up. In your Daddy B. Nice's case, I was the one who had sought out Boogie. On the other hand, Blues Critic was a little envious of your Daddy B. Nice because I had actually met Boogie on last year's trip through the chitlin' circuit.

"What was he like?" DeAnna asked.

"He was big," I said.

"Just like he looks in the picture?" (From the Boogie Report website.)

"Yeah," I said. "I told him we could walk into a Tall & Big Men's shop and clean the place out."

DeAnna laughed. (Your Daddy B. Nice is 6'4" and 165 pounds with his shoes on.)

In sum, SouthernSoulRnB and Blues Critic were glad we hadn't missed one another. And as we walked back up the asphalt path to the four-lane traffic on the #1, the (relatively sedate for California) Pacific Coast highway, we parted with a sense of renewed excitement and camaraderie.

As website gurus, the respect we get and the attention we're paid entails a responsibility. It's both an opportunity and a burden. We websiters' hopes and problems (and when I say "we" I'm talking about all the websites devoted to Southern Soul) mirror those of the chitlin' circuit artists, producers and writers. And if--inspired by my dialogue with Blues Critic--I have any advice to give, it would be plain-spoken and something like this.

Position yourself for when success does hit--the attention, the fad, the big-head-hundreds-falling-out-of-the-sky days--because you won't want to be left behind.

Meanwhile, you'll continue to lose money every day, but you'll keep doing it because you love it, and because you believe that the music is good enough to hit.

And if--best case scenario--Southern Soul's day does arrive, who is to say it won't be just as hard? Because all the "big boys" will jump into the scene, co-opting all the information that makes our current sites unique--or, if you're an artist/writer/producer, appropriating all the sounds and material on which you've lavished so much sweat and diligence.

If that time comes, all we will have to distinguish ourselves is what we now value too lightly: the fact that we were there first. We were the ones who turned the world onto Southern Soul.

DBN.
 

CHITLIN’ CIRCUIT TRAVELS
by
Daddy B. Nice

Awhile back I alerted readers that I would be away for some time, touring the "remoter regions" of the chitlin' circuit. Due to time constraints, it turned out to be not so remote at all.

One of the most enjoyable visits was with producer/songwriter/studio-head John Ward at Ecko Records in Memphis, where he operates out of space once used by legendary Southern Soul songwriters Homer Banks and Lester Snell. Ward was working on a sampler featuring selections from his stable of Ecko artists (O. B. Buchana, Sheba Potts-Wright, Lee "Shot" Williams, Sterling Williams, Ms. Jody, etc.).

While (later in our travels) Malaco Records' principals were out to lunch--a lunch that dragged on too long, unfortunately, for us to wait around in their very record-business-like lobby--the Ecko people all appeared to be eating lunches at their desks.Ward was a songwriter at Malaco in the late eighties when he and Ollie Nightingale came up with the Southern Soul masterpiece, "She's In A Midnight Mood In The Middle Of The Day." When Malaco declined to give Nightingale a contract, Ward decided to produce the record and Ecko Records was born.

Memphis is slowly but surely climbing on the Southern Soul bandwagon. I can remember how I used to audibly groan as I lost first the radio signals of the Southern Soul-sounding stations of the Jackson area and then those of the Indianola-Leland-Greenville corridor in north-central Mississippi.In those days, as I approached from the south, all of the Memphis radio stations were playing "urban-smooth" or blues, not that special blend of blues and R&B (the Southern Soul sound that is so hard to describe to people who have never ventured through Mississippi), but the kind of blues I could hear anywhere and everywhere across the urban USA. There just wasn't much of interest--or much that was new--in the onetime capital of Stax and Hi R&B.

That has changed. While we were there, a local radio station was hosting a free--yes, free--concert featuring one or two-song sets by no less than thirteen cutting-edge Southern Soul acts, including Bobby Rush, David Brinston, Lebrado ("Missing You"), Joy ("Cuttin' Up Sideways") and a host of other new artists.

The venue, the CC Blues Club on Thomas Street, was one of the most forbidding yet glorious holes in the wall I'd ever seen, a large, rambling yellow and green structure surrounded by chain-link and razor wire in the middle of a riverside ghetto that made the poor neighborhoods of Jackson look gentrified. With a seating capacity of three hundred and free food as an extra bonus, the place somehow absorbed a thousand-plus record company types, artist hangers-on, dancers and fans in an overflow that reached into the parking lot, under small tents.
The kicker? This fantastic scene was happening on a weekly basis.

Yet the highlight of the trip was our long-anticipated return to WMPR in Jackson, sitting in with longtime Southern Soul mentor DJ Ragman for an afternoon set. Ragman looked regal--dressed well enough to go onstage and looking very fit--as we watched and listened to him dispense his special blend of Southern Soul and unflagging optimism throughout blues country.

We met the "boss," Mr. Evers--Charles, the brother of civil rights hero Medgar--who looked as healthy and ramrod-straight at 84 as most men thirty years younger. He ushered us into his office, the walls of which were lined with photographs of Evers with practically every United States president and dignitary of the last forty years. Both men--Ragman and Evers--defied the typical, high-carb, high-saturated-fat stereotype of Mississippi. Mr. Evers even had his meals cooked onsite by one of his staff.

WMPR’s station had grown from a nondescript house indistinguishable from the surrounding residential area to a warehouse-like building with the call letters emblazoned across a large sign out front. Later in the evening, I listened to the radio station over a boombox from the hotel not far away, where (back in the day) your Daddy B. Nice had used to hole up in for days and weeks, recording the latest Southern Soul hits-- available virtually nowhere else in the world—and I was blown away by the crystal-fine clarity of the station's sound.

As readers and listeners know only too well, that quality of sound has been all too elusive over the Internet during the last year. The lack of Internet expertise remains the station's biggest flaw. And yet, I'm always afraid to complain too much for fear Mr. Evers (who I’ve talked with on the phone before) will throw up his hands and eliminate the Internet streaming completely. It's obvious that the complaints frustrate the staff and deejays, but the technician capable of bringing WMPR our of the its "server wilderness" is yet to appear. (Note: Online service has been great lately--and consistently so. Way to go, Staff at WMPR. DBN.)
I often wonder if Charles Evers truly understands the phenomenon Southern Soul music has become. The Southern Soul aspect of the station, which has traditionally focused on the tried and true trio of Blues, Gospel and Community Service programs, is the bounty of WMPR's incomparable musical staff: Deejays Ragman, Handyman, Outlaw, Uncle Bobo, Smooth, Queen Bee, Blues Boy and others over the last decade.

Mr. Evers himself still hosts a political talk show on most week nights. And it's hard to assess the delicate balance between gospel, talk and blues the station purveys, and how much and how firmly Mr. Evers influences the Southern Soul music the deejays have so carefully nurtured. My wife was fascinated with the yellowing sign, signed "Mr. Evers," on the wall above the deejay's chair, forbidding the playing of any Carl Sims music, the result of a disastrous alcoholic-induced visit by Sims to the studio a few years ago. But one senses such strictures are rare.

It's obvious that the station is still the number-one source for shaping Southern Soul in the Delta. And yet, Mr. Evers' very health, vigor and vision made me uneasy later, as I mused over what will happen to the station when Charles Evers finally passes.
DBN