CANDI STATON - IT'S NOT LOVE (BUT IT'S NOT BAD)

I can't believe that this song didn't make it onto the otherwise great compilation of Candi Staton's FAME recordings that came out a few years ago. Have a listen, it's amazing -- this tune, originally by Merle Haggard is so passionate you can just feel that Candi's marriage to Clarence Carter wasn't going so well.

The sound on this record is incredible, Candi says Rick Hall of Muscle Shoal FAME records, 'made me sing songs over and over and over again. He wanted to get that hoarseness in my voice.'

Candi was always one to better the popular version. According to my mate Tim Tooher, her interpretation of In The Ghetto prompted Elvis to send a letter expressing his admiration.


Candi since went back to gospel singing but has another secular album coming out, check it out here.


Candi Staton - It's Not Love (but it's not bad)

MOMS MABLEY - ABRAHAM, MARTIN AND JOHN

As a comedian, Moms Mabley seemed an unlikely candidate to sing this song first made famous by Dion in 1968. Written by Dick Holler in response to the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy that same year (the Abraham, of course, refers to Lincoln, the John to JFK) Marvin Gaye had a go at it as did Smokey Robinson & the Miracles but for my money, this is the definitive version.
Billed as 'the funniest woman in the world' Moms Mabley played the 'chitlin circuit' from the 1930s and ended up doing Carnegie Hall by the 1960s.

She used her stage persona to champion civil rights, so this single really isn't a stretch, see if you can listen without getting a little choked up. I only have the 45, but would like the album just to hear her version of The Isley Brothers' It's Your Thing! If you see one of her records, buy it! Moms died at the age of 81 in 1975. Read more on Moms Mabley here.


Moms Mabley - Abraham, Martin and John

Ernie K-Doe Appreciation

listen/download Mother-in-Law by Ernie K-Doe

To get into the Mother-in-Law Lounge in New Orleans, you have to be buzzed in. I pushed the button even though it looked dark inside, it was a Monday night after all.

‘Are you open?’ I enquired

‘No I’m Antoinette’ came the response.

Ernie’s wife and loyal guardian of all things K-Doe opened the door, plugged in the jukebox and cooked up some franks. We bought beers and wandered the small room. In the corner sits a mannequin of Ernie K-Doe, born Ernest Kador, a flamboyant R'n'B singer who was born, bred and died in New Orleans. The cracks are beginning to show in Ernie K Doe’s face. He died in 2001 and had a well-deserved send off fit for a king with a traditional jazz funeral, after all he was the self-proclaimed 'emperor of the universe'. He's since run for mayor and toured, in his fibreglass mannequin form.

Here's a choice slice of K-Doe, true he made (some) money off his ‘mother-in-law’ (the song went to No.1 in the US in 1961) but Antoinette will tell you, he and his MIL were tight. Well it wasn’t actually his song, it was Allen Toussaint’s, the man behind the Minit label and the musical genius of New Orleans – The Meters and Lee Dorsey, to name just a few, have him to thank for their careers.

Always the king of self-promotion, one of K-Doe's catchphrases was the self-addressed 'you just good, that's all!' I'd say that's an understatement, Ernie K-Doe is brilliant!

Buy some K-Doe music here.