LADIES FIRST spotlights another classic song that 'she did first'.
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The original "What A Man" is by Southern Soul singer Linda Lyndell. It was released by the ever-wonderful Stax Records on their Volt label, and produced by Isaac Hayes and David Porter, hot off of creating all the hits of Sam And Dave.
LINDA LYNDELL -"What A Man" (1968)
It was first remade by Atlantic Records' Soul great Laura Lee, most known for "Dirty Man", "Women’s Love Rights", and "Crumbs Off The Table".
LAURA LEE -"What A Man" (1972)
The song reached its biggest fame when adapted by Rap dynamos Salt-N-Pepa, backed up perfectly by En Vogue at their peak.
ROCK Sex connects the dots on 'How A Rare Song Changed The Music Industry'.
Today, the story of "You Showed Me".
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"You showed me how to say exactly what you say/ in that very special way."
THE BYRDS said the say and everyone's been resaying it ever since!
The song was written by Jim "Roger" McGuinn and Gene Clarke in the Folk days before the band. Recorded a few times, it became a loose song kind of lost in the margins. Here's the final band version with its upbeat early Beatles influence.
THE BYRDS -"You Showed Me" (rec. 1964; rel. 1969)
The Turtles first heard it when their producer played it for them on a broken harmonium which forced him to slow down his pace. They loved the eerie waltz quality of that and recorded this radically different and pivotal version with sleepy keys and bleary strings, not unlike a Lee Hazlewood production.
THE TURTLES -"You Showed Me" (1969)
As an interlude in their debut concept album, De La Soul sampled those memorable strings and accidentally changed the record industry.
Sampling had progressed from short riffs to entire passages from songs by the late-'80s, and artists who weren't getting credited or paid for their originals were getting furious. When The Turtles took De La Soul to court over the lack of permission to use their recording, it set the legal precedent for royalty payment and crediting of all artists for samples going forward.
DE LA SOUL -"Transmitting Live From Mars (Interlude)" (1989)
People drew battle lines at the time -artist vs. theft, Rock vs. HipHop- but culture ultimately doesn't care. While one side (Thesis) does something different than another side (Antithesis), everyone else tends to just combine the best elements of either (Synthesis) next. Ta da... Culture!
Going forward the influence of both The Turtles and De La Soul would mutate the song on along.
So, spurred by the De La song, Salt-n-Pepa extended it further into the HipHop world.
SALT-n-PEPA -"You Showed Me" (1990)
When The Lightning Seeds covered it, it retained The Turtles' elegant wooze along with the club beats of the HipHop versions. (As an aside, the band got their name by mis-hearing the Prince lyric, "Thunder drowns out what the lightning sees." Rather appropriate, in this relay context.)
THE LIGHTNING SEEDS -"You Showed Me" (1997)
U2 did essentially what De La had done but now through legal channels. They sample those ever-influential strings (at 1:00) in this pointed barb at the shallowness of popular culture.
U2 -"The Playboy Mansion" (1997)
Continuing this game of 'Telephone', here's LUTRICIA McNEAL retaining The Turtles tempo and strings with the pumping HipHop beats.
LUTRICIA McNEAL -"You Showed Me" (2002)
"Chain Of Gossips", Norman Rockwell (1948)
I say 'Telephone' because I have to wonder sometimes how many of the folks in the relay even remember the original Byrds version, or maybe even The Turtles.
But that's a lot of how the spreading of ideas works. You put your work out there and then its up to each person's reaction from then on.
That said, everything expansive is also cyclical. Hewing back to The Byrds' original version with the easy pacing of The Turtles, here's a lovely Folk interpretation.
THE WATSON TWINS -"You Showed Me" (2011)
If Bob Dylan had inspired The Byrds, here's their song inspiring his son.
The song "I'm Blue (The Gong Gong Song)" was first done by The Ikettes, the back-up singers for Ike & Tina Turner. Fronted by the powerful belting of Dolores Johnson, this single was meant to expand the Turner brand into the market.
THE IKETTES -"I'm Blue (The Gong Gong Song)" (1962)
Here's ingenue Sylvie Vartan blasting it out in French. SYLVIE VARTAN -"Gong Gong" (1962)
Here's a refreshingly genderless take shortly thereafter...
THE NEWBEATS -"I'm Blue (The Gong Gong Song)" (1964)
It was rewritten by this Garage band who all met serving on a US military base in West Germany.
THE MONKS -"We Do Wie Du" (1966)
True to form, The Shangri-Las bring moody production and their underrated Soul to it.
THE SHANGRI-LAS -"I'm Blue (The Gong Gong Song)" (1966)
Mexico brings new resonance with this hip version.
THE ROCKIN' DEVILS -"La Pequeña Marilú" (1969)
The Shangri-Las version was sampled in this massive HipHop hit.
SALT-n-PEPA -"Shoop" (1993)
The original was featured int John Waters' HAIRSPRAY (1988), but it got its biggest fame blasted out Garage Rock style by The 5.6.7.8.S in their showstopping preformance in the film KILL BILL, Vol. 1.
"Liberation for all. Everything must be rethought." ______________
Two great things hybrid a third great thing. ROCK SEX is a metaphor for the creative connections that link our shared culture together. This Pop Culture hub explores the roots and branches of Music, Film, Art, Comics, and more. _______________
Rock'n'Soul music is a baton relayed by everyone. Learn the holistic history with the most advanced Music Playlists online!:
BLUES, MAMBO, JAZZ, ROCKABILLY, SURF, BEAT, SOUL, GARAGE, PSYCHEDELIA, FUNK, GLAM, PUNK, NEW WAVE, HIPHOP, POSTPUNK, GRUNGE, RIOT GRRRL, ELECTRO, next! _______________
This is our party and everyone is invited!
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