HOW DOES MUSIC FEEL TODAY?

#1 The Pointer Sisters

Hello.

This new variety of post is meant to be an ongoing thing, please give comments and/or suggestions. It is simply a freak-out about a different song every post. I’m going to do my best to go off on tangents and give credit where credit is due, no matter how abstract ;) In this world of streaming no one reads the liner notes and commits to memory the names of the musicians, engineers, producers and personnel who DESERVE your respect and attention. In the future I intend to lean less on Wikipedia than I did here, but it does have it’s place at times. I intend to beat you over the head with master’s names like “Carol Kaye” until there is world-fucking-peace. Amen. 

And with that, and this shitty, shitty month, war and death can FUCK OFF. I interrupt it now with this:

LET ME COUNT THE WAYS IN WHICH I LOVE YOU…

#1-The Pointer Sisters

I’m a repeater when it comes to listening to songs. Right now I’m heavily addicted to The Pointer Sisters’ “Yes We Can, Can” from their 1973 self-titled LP, written by the mightiest of mightys, Allen Toussaint.  I’ve been here before, but I’m back in this song’s rotation again and just as in love as ever… maybe more so?

This ones been calling to me daily for a while. First of all, The Pointers don’t get NEAR enough respect for my liking. Sure, they have had enough #1 hits to be loaded? But is that ALWAYS the goal in music? NO, not even close. Music is love and the Pointer’s musicianship is CRAZY. And they make it look easy like seals swimming underwater, doing back flips and loop-de-loops in their sleep… They are a motherfucking squadron of vocal syncronization. They are straight-up magnificent. 

And the band? Get OUTTA here! Gaylord Birch on drums!? UGH! He holds this seemingly lackadaisical beat down for SIX minutes. Do you have any idea how hard it is to rock like that? I just wander around breathing through my mouth trying to fathom…

Ron McClure on bass? Yep. We should all be so lucky…

The guitar parts of Willie Fulton are as tasteful as they are basically a fucking cobra… 

Which brings me to producer, David Rubinson who coordinated said cobra’s entrances and exits so deftly I can actually SEE the second guitar part when it comes in at 2 o’clock on the stereo image map. When I’m in the driver’s seat of my truck it emerges from the far right speaker and sits up near my right hand like a little avocado colored miasma that has just been ironed to a knife edge that becomes a satin ribbon before my eyes and gives my hand a sassy, luxurious little slap with it’s tail. It KNOWS how sexy it is! Thanks to the mix Fulton remains on the spot and sentient in this track FOURTY YEARS on! UGH!!!! Rubinson is an overachiever who also helped bring to life such genius top ten groves in the history of humankind as The Chambers Brothers’ “Time Has Come Today.” I have never met a person who does not like that song, and I’m 51 soooooooo…

And after all that brilliance, it would be a shell without Anita, Ruth, Bonnie and June. Everyone together makes a timeless groove with a sentiment that is never, ever stale. Peace and Love to all of you. XO N

I highly recommend actually purchasing this record rather than just streaming, and Youtube is VERY unreliable for sound reproduction due to the bazillion ways the songs are uploaded to it (you WANT that cobra to give you the love-tap, don’t you?),the LP and CD sound fucking AMAZING. Git it! THE LADIES DESERVE TO MAKE FULL PAY FOR THEIR EXCELLENCE. 

AND ON SESAME STREET!!!!