Maxine Brown's Greatest Hit
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Artist:
Just had one of those epiphanic moments when the iPod psychically divines what song you need to need to hear at that exact instant. Taking a chance that someone else out there in the MOG-O-Sphere has the same need. Of course, when can't you use a creamy, rich, soulful vocal almong with an elegant arrangement and a sly, subtle lyric with a twist (which I won't ruin)? To my amazement, a rudimentary search indicates that Maxine Brown is still in the game, appearing rather more sporadically than one would like but still appearing, and that her last album came out in 2005. I knew her only as Chuck Jackson's occasional duetist on Wand and the artiste behind this cracker of a song. If all you know is that pathetic Rod Stewart remake, prepare for a revelation....
Locating MOG account...
Comments (17)
Well, I didn't know I needed to hear it, but it's a treat. I'm always up for some Goffin & King.
Those crummy remakes... can't we pass a law or something?
Screw Rod the Cod's version. This is fo' reals, man!
As far as remakes go, Manfred Mann did a really nice job on this Brill Building jewel, but Maxine's version still rules.
Before joining Wand Records, she had a couple of hits in the very early '60s, "Funny" and this one, her first (well, only) Top 20 single on the pop charts:
Oh, I also wanted to mention that the track "Sanctuary," by the talented teenage thrush Gabriella Cilmi, starts off with a lick that is very familiar to anyone who knows that Maxine Brown G&K recording:
enjoying every second of this
I listened to the lyric. I think I may have missed the twist. Or, perceived only a "bend." Would you mind ruining (i.e.: sharing your reading of) it?
A bend is a subtle twist, ending together in a ring? One guesses that Fontella Bass, Dusty Springfield and Carole King did the song justice, perhaps not at this level of ineffable perfection. One is also now going to have to check out this Maxine Sullivan.
A possible reading: The song presents a narrator who is far less naive than she lets on. She is well aware of the bad signs this relationship (and her mother!) are sending her, but is wagering that if she expresses toward her man a front of absolute confidence in his goodness and good intentions that she will get what she wants in the end: a commitment. We can perhaps assume that deep down this guy is actually worth it (a diamond in the rough!), and that this young flibbertygibbertyflib is wise enough to know it. Or that she is smart enough to get what she wants for whatever reason - simple or not - she wants it.
This is also a shrewd managerial style: let the underlings know that you are joyfully confident that they will deliver their best and they usually will.
The lyrics are simple on the surface, but are built from solid, deeper possibilities that stay semi-hidden in the listener's gut long after the song is over.
I believe they were doing a lot of drugs then. Besides being smart as whips.
Fank U, Ivylander. A wonderful start to my morning.
deedee - This is a real "Grace of my Heart" moment, isn't it?
Mike - Amen to that!
emscee - Agreed about the Manfred Mann, which I remember hearing for the first time Many thanks for both these cuts. "All In My Mind" had slipped out of the memory bank entirely and needed to be reinserted, and the Gabriella Cilmie track does such a nice job of reclaiming the original and doing something really interesting with it - digging her voice, too....
rawk - You're certainly entitled to play it again.
Petey - I think you nailed what makes the lyric great. The twist, to me, is that the setup leads you toward a you-were-a-louse-and-everyone-was-right moment, and instead you get the much more nuanced, mature outcome that you so articulately described. It also acknowledges, quietly, that sometimes people have "last-minute flings" not because they're inherently cheaters, but because they may be scared to take the big step they know they need to take. And all this wisdom is the more effective because Maxine sounds so young and earnest.
Spike - I think any of the women you mention could have done this song justice, and no doubt at least one of them did....I would have especially liked to hear Fontella Bass tackle this one.
Cody - No doubt, on both counts.....
dermahrk - Or nearly any morning....
Dusty did do 'Oh No Not My Baby,' and as always, nailed it. And on what I consider Aretha's finest album, 'Spirit In The Dark,' she claimed it as well. Carole's own version was late in coming, and is not a golden-age performance, but it's nice to have her take on it nonetheless.
i love it when my ipod decides to be nice to me too.
Don't have Dusty's, but can fondly imagine it. Here are Fontella's from 1965 and Carole's from 1980.
Carole King & Gerry Goffin
Spike, sorry I didn't see this comment right away - notifications have been a little wonky for me lately. Thanks so much for these. Fontella's is terrific, pure Chicago. Oddly, Carole King seems to be least emotionally in sync with the song that she wrote. It's an interesting and not wholly unsuccessful counterpoint to the other two, but not, finally, on their level....
ivylander, I agree with you. I'd score King's recording a 90 to the others' 100, which to me is still pretty gosh darn good considering other music out there. Bass & Brown hardly strayed at all from her melody. I always learn from what your ears notice.