Return with us to those thrilling days o' yesteryear... we're talkin' 1965 here... when Otis, when he wasn't otherwise occupied by parking his ass on a San Francisco dock, was busy inspiring Aretha to take one of his songs for HER signature tune. And we're talkin' about this:
The horns. Omigawd... the freakin' HORNS!
We digress. Now I gots no argument with The Queen of Soul, given that she is one of Dee-troit's favorite native daughters, after all. Her riff on "R-E-S-P-E-C-T/ find out what it means to me/ R-E-S-P-EEE-C-T, take out the..." is one of the finest riffs, ever. That said, Otis' version of "Respect" is the best. Always was, always will be. Period. Full stop. There are very few tunes in my personal Greatest Hits pantheon that have a longer shelf life than this one. I still get goose bumps on my arms when I hear this song. May it NEVER stop... coz I'll be dead when that happens.
―:☺:―
Today has been one of those days. Which is to say I went to bed about an hour before sunrise and got up at the crack o' noon, or thereabouts. That brand o' weirdness knocks the whole damned day into a cocked hat. Plans get scrubbed, things that must be done get deferred to another day, and we're totally out o' synch with the rest of the world. Not that we care about that. That said (yet again), it was ALL I could do to make the blog rounds before the sun passed over the yardarm, which is shorthand for Happy Hour. But... it's all good. It's warm. We're alive. The fridge is stocked with our favorite beer. The humidor is fat. Life is good.
Buck, Otis WAS great. No doubt about it. I listened to his stuff when I was a kid. And, my little niece (now 26) memorized all his work from her Daddy's vinyl when she was about 5...she would perform for the family every time anybody would sit and watch!
ReplyDeleteThe Horns! And the Sax...oh man, that was good stuff. You know what I love about these old videos from that era...like Otis, or the Ronettes, or my cousin "Martha,"...is all the square-looking white kids in the audience just going ape crazy. The times, they were a' changin'.
Get some rest tonight...don't go carousing when you're out of sync. ;)
I'm trying to catch up on blogs after my mini-vacation - not to mention laundry, house cleaning, etc. So sleep in.
ReplyDeleteThe Otis version is great. I have a friend in Northern NM who sings Aretha songs. You would like her.
Nothing like old-time R&B/Soul. Those backing bands were so incredibly tight. I could listen to stuff like that all day long, heavy metal guy though I may be.
ReplyDeleteBuck, Otis still rules. And this song still makes me want get my 70 year old ass up and boogie. As for the "getting laid" issue, my advice is to saddle up Ms. Zukiko and go cruisin.
ReplyDeleteThe times, they were a' changin'.
ReplyDeleteAnd before that, even. I remember when the fam'bly came home from our five-year sojourn in Europe and Turkey in 1958 VERY well. I had gone five years without teevee and became an instant addict to The Box when we got back. Mom and Dad parked us kids with my grandmother in Atlanta while they set about making a new home in DeeSee for us. So, to get to the point, one afternoon I was looking at the teevee guide and innocently asked my grandmother "What's American Bandstand?" "Oh, just a bunch of kids in Philadelphia dancing. You wouldn't like it." Heh. FAMOUS last words. I never missed a single show that entire summer, and those square/hip white kids danced their assess off to Clyde McPhatter, The Coasters, Chuck Berry, yadda, yadda. So the times were changin' LONG before '65.
Lou: Are you tryin' to set me up? ;-)
Jim: You're oh-so-right about the bands from that period. Tight, indeed. They DEFINED the word "groove."
Dan: I've found that most women aren't that into bikes... unless they're Harleys. And that ain't me!
Heh! American Bandstand...yeah, Buck, it definitely was a time of "transition" in the US.
ReplyDeleteBut then again...when is it not?
Well, she is in her 50's. She is single. She is beautiful. She is fun. Her daughter is at UNM in an ROTC program to be a Marine and maybe a pilot.
ReplyDeleteSounds too good to be true, Lou. There are still single women out there with ALL those attributes? Really?
ReplyDelete