Forget about the past

I know it sounds morbid but barely a month goes by these days without the passing of a veteran soul singer, musician or record producer. And outside of specialist soul magazines and websites, it rarely get a mention. Nobody seems to know or care.

Norman Whitfield died last year. Whitfield was one of the important record producers in the history of popular music. At Motown throughout the 60s and into the early 70s he produced the label’s biggest hits – ‘I Heard it Through the Grapevine’, ‘Papa Was a Rolling Stone’ and many many more. In the 1970s he produced every one of soul/disco outfit Rose’s Royce’s international hit records for his own record label, Whitfield. And he made great music with many other bands and singers. I didn’t find a single obituary in the British press and not a great deal on the internet.

Loleatta Holloway passed away only a couple of months ago. She was one of the finest vocalists you’ll ever hear, with a voice and a repertoire to match Aretha Franklin (whom she used to sing with). In the early 70s, with songwriter Sam Dees she made timeless Southern soul classics such as ‘Worn Out Broken Heart’ ‘Cry to Me’ and ‘The Show Must Go On’.

Later that decade she was recording for the Salsoul label, making some of the best dance music to date and losing none of her vocal prowess. In the following decades, ‘samplers’ and DJs across the world have been making a living from her work, most notably Italian fraudsters Black Box, who she successfully sued in the 1980s. Loleatta Holloway passed silently into the night with barely a mention.

When the (obviously tragic) death of a high-profile singer such as Amy Winehouse is greeted with wall-to-wall media coverage, is it any wonder that many serious music fans feel that some of popular music’s real stars, and real talents, are unfairly overlooked. These are people who have had long, distinguished, but usually tough careers and yet we tend to heap uncritical praise on young stars who still have much to learn and much to prove. It does them no good.

I learned completely by chance that American songwriter and producer Jerry Ragovoy passed away earlier this month. Admittedly, UK newspapers the Guardian and Independent ran obituaries to the veteran music man, who died in New York aged 80, but only then because of his music’s associations with some very famous rock acts.

Ragovoy was responsible for some of the greatest songs of the last 50 years, the most well-known being perhaps ‘Stay with me (Baby)’ and Take Another Piece of my Heart’. Neither songs were chart hits for the original recording artists (Lorraine Ellison and Erma Franklin, respectively), though the latter tune, like other Ragovoy compositions, achieved much greater commercial success when covered by white performers such as Janis Joplin and the Rolling Stones.

Ragovoy’s music sprang to mind recently, while I was watching an episode of a new BBC series, ‘Secrets of the Pop Song: Ballads‘. Given that Ragovoy was behind some of popular music’s most quintessential ballads, one might have thought his work deserved a mention. Unfortunately, the show barely reached any further back than the 1990s. The peak of the genre in the eyes of the programme makers, seemed to be ‘anthemic’ slow pop songs such as Robbie Williams’ ‘Angels’, the power ballads of Jim Steinman (‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ etc) and the bland multi-million selling tunes penned by Diane Warren (‘Unbreak My Heart’). At their best, these songs (and their singers) expressed about as much human emotion as a greetings card.

Ragavoy belonged to a different school of music. He wrote and produced for some of the best, if little known, gospel/soul singers of the 1960s and 70s, such as Garnet Mimms (with whom he had an 1963 US hit with ‘Cry Baby’ – later covered by Joplin), Howard Tate and Irma Thomas, creating highly-charged emotional music, capable of rooting to the spot anyone with an ear for a good song and an ounce of humanity. It was not about image, fashion or packaging (though there’s nowt wrong with them) or famous names. His beautifully crafted songs and the artistry of the singers spoke for themselves. At least they did on Ragovoy’s recordings – chart success was another issue altogether. Even his most famous tune, Lorraine Ellison singing ‘Stay with me (Baby)’ was a flop, though it is now widely regarded as an all time classic. But that just shows that the pop charts are no real guide for what’s good and what’s not (no consolation for the unsuccessful artists of course).

Two of the most extraordinary singers Ragovoy worked with (and there were a few) in the 1960s and 70s were Howard Tate and Carl Hall. Both were steeped in gospel and could sing right up in the high, ‘countertenor’ area of the male vocal range. Both were capable enormous depth, control and emotional expression.

From the late 1960s, Jerry Ragovoy and Howard Tate worked together for the Verve label. Perhaps the highlights of the music they created were two heart-stopping ballads, ‘I Learned it all the Hard Way’ and ‘Get it While You Can’ (once again, the latter tune was covered by Janis Joplin).

The pair made the album ‘Howard Tate’ together in 1972, and reunited again in 2004 after Tate’s records and vocal ability finally began to gain wider recognition, outside of soul music circles. Around that time he appeared on UK television for the first time on ‘Later with Jools Holland’, but the years had taken a toll (as had drugs, alcohol and homelessness), though he gave a fine performance. Also, his music had a much more bluesy sound than previously, as invariably happens when soul singers appear on Holland’s show. That said, it is surprising how many soul singers have gone back to the music of their parents’ generation and the sounds of the South that in the 60s, they were effectively rebelling against. But that’s a story for another day.

If Howard Tate has received at least some belated recognition, the name Carl Hall is still virtually unknown. But Ragovoy was more interested in working with talented singers than big stars (though he said that getting the chance to work with Dylan was like a dream come true). So when Carl Hall arrived in New York, the producer ‘snapped him up‘. Hall had relocated from Chicago where he had been singing with gospel group The Raymond Rasberry Singers. Writer, musician and friend of Ragovoy, Al Kooper explains;

“I used to listen to the gospel group The Raymond Rasberry Singers on Vee Jay Records and marvel at the voice of the female lead singer. They never listed the names of the singers on the album so I always wondered who it was. Little did I know that it was actually a male singer named Carl Hall”

Hall made only a handful of recordings, including the Ragovoy-produced (and co-written) ‘What About You’ – an electrifying gospel-infused track released in 1973. It is little-known or appreciated outside of UK soul circles, but on this recording alone, he is regarded as one of the greatest soul singers.

Hall’s first recording with Jerry Ragovoy was the 1967 ballad ‘You Don’t Know Nothing About Love’ (listen here – scroll down to audio player). Since its recent re-release on two retrospective CDs,* Carl Hall’s version of the song (Ragovoy produced other versions on other artists including Howard Tate and Lorraine Ellison) has begun to acquire a bit of a reputation. And deservedly so.

In his otherwise slightly odd book ‘Deep Soul Ballads’, British writer Laurence Oliver describes Hall’s performance as; “a vocal of such astounding range, power and sensitivity that… anyone else considering singing the song [was] left standing shell-shocked… Excellent though Ragovoy’s later productions are, they get blown away by Hall’s hurricane-force catharsis.” p188.

According to Al Kooper, Ragovoy failed to secure a record deal for Carl Hall, and instead gave him session work as a backing vocalist. “It’s difficult to imagine this voice taking second place to another, as its birthright seems to be centre stage” says Cole (p189). Alas, Hall’s story is far from untypical – many great soul singers have had to eek a living singing backing vocals, advertising jingles or laying down guide tracks for famous white singers.

Finally, no article about Jerry Ragovoy could hold its head high without mentioning one of the finest albums of the 1970s – Lou Courtney’s ‘I’m in Need of Love’. Co-written and produced by Courtney and Ragovoy, this 1974 classic also features Carl Hall (a friend of Courtney’s) singing backing vocals. Though the album display some beautifully-crafted arrangements, as one would expect from Jerry Ragovoy, it’s a world away from his emotionally-charged dramas of the 60s. This is very much music of the new decade, and with its mellow sound, it’s definitely a post-‘What’s Going On’ album.

To acknowledging the influence of Marvin Gaye’s album is to take nothing away from Courtney and Ragovoy’s work – ‘What’s Going On’ was era-defining stuff. ‘Laid back’ vibe aside, ‘Im in Need of Love’ stands up, in its own right, as a great album. It’s an engaging mix of tender ballads, sensual mid-tempo love songs and more uptempo, but equally soulful grooves. It’s mellow but still oozes real emotion and grit. Brass and string arrangements compliment but never over-power the vocals; and contrast very nicely with the licks of a slightly southern-sounding guitar. It’s what I like to call ‘music for grownups’. Give it a listen.

So why is any of this important? With music, as with any creative pursuit, knowledge is a good thing. We can learn much from the experiences, the work and even the mistakes of people who went before us. That’s not to say that we should be restrained by the past or bow down before the people who went before us purely for reasons of tradition – but surely it’s foolish to ignore them and presume instead that nothing of value happened more than ten years ago? We don’t live in an ‘eternal present’ where the past is done, or has nothing to teach us. We should learn, and gain strength from our knowledge of the past, but at the same time, keep our eyes on the future and, most importantly, make some great music.

Links

The story of Loma records
Jerry Ragovoy worked for Loma as a producer and arranger in the mid-1960s. The label was home to many great soul and rhythm and blues acts, including as Ike and Tina Turner, JJ Jackson and the near legendary Linda Jones.

Old Music for New People: A Tribute to Jerry Ragovoy by Al Kooper
Excellent tribute by friend and accomplished musician Al Kooper. This is the only place on the internet that I know of to hear Carl Hall’s ‘You Don’t Know Nothing About Love’ as it is not available on Youtube. Well worth a read too.

Obituary in the UK Independent

Deep Soul Ballads by Laurence Cole
Interesting in parts but the author has a very very broad definition of Deep Soul, and some wacky ideas too.

Notes

*The two compilation CDs are:

The Best of Loma Records

‘Time is on My Side: The Jerry Ragovoy Story 1953-2003’