SubscribeWhile you were still in Kaleidoscope you did this amazing psychedelic/R&B hybrid record backing Larry Williams and Johnny "Guitar" Watson, "Nobody."Chris Darrow of Kaleidoscope Interview, Part Two
One of the best records I ever played on, because of the people on there. Chester didn't play on that. John played congas, and the drummer on that was Earl Palmer. And I played bass. It was one of the most remarkable situations at the time. Because we had gotten to know Larry Williams, 'cause he was A&R director at the time at OKeh. He and Johnny Guitar Watson were like best friends, and they showed up at the session with matching coupe de villes, matching suits, and matching hats, with chicks on their arm, I don't know who the chicks were, wives and girlfriends or what. One of the cars was chocolate brown, and the other one was like deep burgundy. And the suits were deep burgundy, and the suits were chocolate brown. It was like the coolest. They walked in simultaneously together, they looked like two cool guys coming out. It was a really beautiful session. The guys were really nice to us. They really liked us an awful lot. We were treated with respect. I think it was pretty right-on that they brought in their own drummer, and I was very pleased to be able to be the bass player on it. David and Solomon were the two other--David played the harp guitar, and Solomon played saz. Chester didn't get to play on that one, which was really too bad. They just didn't feel that violin and/or his keyboard thing was what they needed on that, which was really too bad. I think John Vidican ended up playing some percussion. But even the major conga stuff in there, I think, is Larry.
I think the song's a great song, I always loved the song. They wanted to be psychedelic R&B. They thought it was natural. They just said, this is natural, man, this fits great. And I thought it did too. Apparently there was some kind of problem that had to do with--I think both those guys were involved with like dealing coke and all kinds of stuff. There was all kinds of weird kind of undercover stuff that I'd always heard about between those guys. There was a lot of sort of drug use, and they were maybe even pimps too. There was some kind of thing that happened between Larry Williams and the stations on some kind of payola level--it didn't get paid off--and that record just bombed. The radio stations refused to pay it. There was some kind of nefarious goings-on that had to do with those guys that just sunk that record. That was another one I just thought, man, this is a hit, man, what a great, beautiful record this is. And it just never saw the light of day. It came out, I have a copy of the 45, but I think other than what I have, a promotional copy, I don't know if I've ever seen one that had a really yellow label, that had the real OKeh label on it, that wasn't promotional. So I don't know how far it went. But as far as something that was, that really got to what they were doing, I thought it was a brilliant idea. It really didn't have anything to do with failing. I thought we did a beautiful job.
I remember going up to their offices and sitting around talking and, "I think you guys are great, man. What do you think of this?" And they [said], Sure, man, we can do that. We would love it." So we were all--I have a big huge collection of 45s and stuff, I'm a rock and roll guy from the fifties. So both of those guys were meant something to me besides that. It was some kind of weird snare in the record business, and they just ostracized Larry Williams. As I recall, it was some kind of behind-the-scenes stuff that kept that record.
Valise ? - It's Better To Cry* / ? - 1998 *also recorded in 1968 by The Appreciations on Sport 111.You see Watson songs on Beach music collections, too. That whole Northern Soul scene and esthetic is something else. There is some interesting social history there.
Although originally recorded some years earlier, this single was unreleased until the late Nineties when the label owner was persuaded to press copies up for the Northern Soul scene.
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Here is the Soulful Kinda Music - Johnny Guitar Watson discography.
Note that his recording career spanned forty years. In the beginning, with songs like Three Hours Past MIdnight, he inspired a teen aged Frank Zappa to take up the guitar. His reverb and feedback laden 1957 intrumental Space Guitar is considered by some to be the fountainhead of surf guitar. And, unlike any other bluesman, he stayed black--rather than endlessly recycling his 50s repertoire on the college and European circuit, he kept up, kept his core audience and kept re-inventing himself. In the 70s, he re-tooled as a funkateer and put out some some talky, ad lib laden hits that pre-figured rap and then revived his career again in the 90s and kept on going until he died on stage in Yokohama in 1996.
ID magazine once did an issue on what they called Funky Chic that came with a sidebar listing funk essentials. It began with Any Johnny 'Guitar' Watson album. No wonder : the covers of his 70s DJM albums--Ain't That A Bitch, A Real Mother For You, Giant, Funk Beyond The Call Of Duty, What The Hell Is This? and Johnny 'Guitar' Watson & The Family Clone--are funk era classics. He was the mack daddy's mack daddy.
See also The O.G. of Love
See alsoPhenomenology of One Size Fits All: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Frank Zappa
Rockabilly Hall of Fame - Johnny 'Guitar' Watson
And...
The official Johnny 'Guitar' Watson homepage
And a flashy Dutch Johnny 'Guitar' Watson fan page
See also LivinBlues- Johnny 'Guitar' Watson
See also Never Expect Modesty from a Man Named 'Guitar'
The Funk Anthology review
And one more Johnny 'Guitar' Watson
In concert, he would play some blues, for sure, but his was not a fly caught in amber oldies show. But it was was a show. I saw him three times and his were the greatest live shows I have ever seen. The man had beau coup charisma.
posted by y2karl at 2:22 PM on November 10, 2006