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I'll wrap up my current mini soul fugue, as prompted by a flash from Big Hussein Otis in last night's Fish Fry comments Thread. It's my favorite cut by the pride of Harvey, Illinois: The Dells!Most Chicagoland kids who listened only to the city's two Top 40 stations never heard of The Dells until 1968, with the release of their first crossover single, "There Is." Several more big hits crossed over to Top 40 playlists over the next year, including "Stay In My Corner," "Oh What A Night," and this one, "Wear It On Our Face."
What we didn't know was that The Dells had been around since 1952, and were masters of doo-wop, jazz, and R&B in addition to the soul mode they hit big with in the late 1960s. And what I didn't know until tonight is that they provided backing vocals for the likes of Ray Charles, Dinah Washington, and Barbara Lewis. Neither did I know that the omnipresent Quincy Jones worked with them to help refine their sound.
As inferred by Big Otis in the comments, the Dells were at least indirectly part of the same galaxy that spawned the Twinight label in Chicago, all of them working in the orbit of a large independent soul and R&B promotional firm that handled groups signed to Chess Records, including subsidiaries Checker and Cadet (not to mention national labels like Atlantic, Motown, and Stax). But these guys were the old timers of the scene, all members having been born during the Great Depression---some of them were practically 35 when they released this side, fer crying out loud!
Wear It On Our Face, The Dells (1968, original 45 rpm release Cadet 5599, reissued on CD compilation "There Is," Chess [MCA] CHD-9288), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.
wear it on whose face, youtube?
ReplyDelete"Let me tug on your coat a minute, brother..." and others like "he wears it on his face", just a vernacular usage. And you thought what, exactly?
ReplyDeleteLexi "Potrzebie" Neocon
(a.k.a. Mr. Etaoin Shrdlu)
Lexi: I believe the query was about the personal pronoun in the title. The title is "Wear It On Our Face," and even I know that since I own it. But still, I located the file by typing "wear it on your face," i.e., second person. That's always what I thought the title was in high school (lyrics have largely sounded indistinct to my ears for most of my life). The YouTube poster made the same mistake when titling the post. See? Clear as milk!
ReplyDelete