Al Green
Love And Happiness
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I’m Still In Love With You (1972)

Monty Alexander
Love And Happiness
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Rass (1974)

Jurassic 5
Baby Please
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Feedback (2006)

Al Green’s “Love And Happiness” is one of those tunes that’s loved by all. Enjoy the original, and consider adding a couple of clever reinterpretations to your MP3 collection.

Al owned the R&B charts in 1972, releasing two terrific LPs: I’m Still In Love With You and Let’s Stay Together. Al had so many hits in the early 70s that “Love And Happiness” wasn’t even released as a single. Bonkers.

Jamaican jazz organist Monty Alexander covered “Love And Happiness” a couple of years after its release. Ernest Ranglin’s rhythm guitar provides a subtle reggae backdrop for epic solos from Monty and guitarist “Trini” Clarence Wears.

“Love And Happiness” must have been massive in Jamaica; check out Al Brown’s full-on reggae version, also from 1974:

Jurassic 5 chopped up Al Green’s original “Love And Happiness” and reassembled it into an entirely different thing. The double-time rapping from MCs Akil, Zaakir, Mark 7even, and Chali 2na complement Exile’s bouncy production and DJ Nu-Mark’s razor-sharp scratching.

“Love And Happiness” has been covered by everyone from pop-jazz sax player David Sanborn to disco queens First Choice to this pretty awful house version. There seems to be a version of “Love And Happiness” to satisfy any musical taste.

Lady Day And John Coltrane
Pieces Of A Man (1971)
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Did You Hear What They Said?
Free Will (1972)
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Winter In America (Solo Version)
Recorded in 1978
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Back Home (w/Brian Jackson)
Winter In America (1974)
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I’ve been listening to Gil Scott-Heron’s music consistently for decades. I own about eight of his LPs, and have been on the hunt for at least two others. His recent passing merits a proper tribute.

Gil’s music was a gumbo of jazz, blues, R&B, and spoken word — Gil called it “bluesology, the science of how things feel.” He had a gift for melody and was among the most evocative lyricists that emerged from the civil rights movement. I don’t consider Gil to be a great album artist — there are many intolerable tracks in his repertoire  — but when the music, lyrics, and personnel clicked (usually when Brian Jackson was involved), the impact was super powerful.

I remember going to see Gil at Yoshi’s Jazz Club in Oakland circa 1998. I am almost sure Brian Jackson performed with him that night (which rarely happened post-1980), but the Internet has not been forthcoming with corroboration. Gil wasn’t all there but it didn’t take more than a few songs for him to find his equilibrium. His voice had become hoarse, yet was no less emotive. I had hoped to see him perform again, but he seldom performed in his later years due to substance abuse and related incarcerations.

Rather than replicate a greatest hits collection, I tried to pick tracks that capture some of the emotions that have coursed through me as I contemplate Gil’s life and career.

“Lady Day And John Coltrane” was one of Gil’s early singles, and speaks to the transcendent power of music. It’s fitting that Gil selected Billie Holiday and John Coltrane as the song’s symbols; all three pushed the boundaries of jazz by combining the personal with the radical. All three also struggled with substance abuse, and Gil’s lyrics could apply to both music or to getting high: “They’ll wash your troubles, your troubles away…”

“Did You Hear What They Said?” was written in reaction to the Vietnam War, but is a timeless dirge about losing a child on a faraway battlefield. Gil’s use of melisma highlights the agony, and creates an emotional analogue with the song’s key phrase: “This can’t be real.”

“Winter In America” is one of Gil’s most lyrically ambitious songs. Originally released in 1974, it grieves the loss of forceful, idealistic civil right leaders and hippie optimism. This elegiac solo version was recorded in 1978 — America still hadn’t thawed out in the four years since the original was released.

Despite purchasing the Winter In America LP sometime in the 1990s, I only clued into the near-perfect “Back Home” a few months ago. It has a catchy, singalong melody that belies its yearning for a simpler time. It’s poetic that “Back Home” would be the Gil track I’d be grooving on at the time of his death: “I gotta get back to see my people, someday and someway.”

Stevie Wonder
Creepin’
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Released in 1974

TLC
Creep
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Released in 1994

Scala & Kolacny Brothers
Creep
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Released in 2010

This time on Musical Cousins: three totally different songs with three totally different takes on the word “creep.”

First up, Stevie Wonder’s haunting “Creepin’,” featuring backup vocals from Minnie Riperton. In this song, creep refers to the stealth way a lover invades the dream world. The melody is typical Stevie perfection, but the moody, off-kilter synth floating underneath hints at something less rosy.

In TLC’s 1994 single, “Creep,” the Atlanta trio and producer Dallas Austin made a buoyant R&B/pop classic dedicated to cheating on the one you love.

The last take on the word “creep” comes from an early Radiohead composition where the creep in question is the song’s self-hating narrator. I prefer Scala & Kolacny Brothers’s cover, used to great effect in the trailer for The Social Network. Dozens of post-pubescent Belgian girls singing in unison truly is creepy.

Elton John
Bennie And The Jets
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Album: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1974)

R. Kelly (w/T.I. & T-Pain)
I’m A Flirt (Remix)
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Album: Double Up (2007)

In this post, I feature distant Musical Cousins R. Kelly and Elton John. They don’t have any obvious connection but somehow it’s clear to me that R. Kelly had “Bennie And The Jets” in mind when he wrote “I’m A Flirt.” The bouncy, driving piano lines that feed both tracks result in vastly different songs, but both are 5-star classics to this listener.

I wonder if Elton John had any clue what his lyricist Bernie Taupin was talking about in “Bennie And The Jets.” Maybe that’s why he chose to mumble his way through the lyrics, shifting focus to the anthemic melody he devised for the song. Reading over the lyrics, my interpretation is that it’s a glimpse into the fascinating but vapid characters a famous pop star like Elton must have met after he hit it big, and the misplaced idolatry that comes along with fame.

In my prep for this post, I learned that “Bennie And The Jets” wasn’t intended to be a single until a Detroit R&B radio station started playing it. The song blew up, and eventually became a number-one hit on both the pop and R&B charts. Here’s Elton performing the song on Soul Train in 1975:

As usual with anything from 70s-era Soul Train, there’s much to admire. Elton’s pimp/leprechaun ensemble. His falsetto freakout. His lucite-encrusted piano. To be honest, I don’t think the Soul Train dancers knew quite what to do with this one; I enjoy watching the dude in the beige suit just behind Elton attempt to figure it out.

“I’m A Flirt” is one of the funniest and catchiest tracks you’ll ever hear. No matter what you think of R. Kelly as a person, it’s hard to deny that he’s a musical genius.

Joining Kelz is rapper T.I., who puts in a rock-solid verse that showcases his clockwork flow, and T-Pain, who proves why he remains Auto-Tune’s chief ambassador.

But it’s Kelz’s final, twisted verse that takes this joint to the next level. He was one of the first to fuse rap and R&B, and his double-time delivery rides that edge masterfully. Lyrically, he’s in all-out playa mode, no more so than in this couplet:

She be calling me daddy!
I be calling her mommy!
She be calling you Kelly!
When your name is Tommy!

As I said, the man is a genius.

People Say
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Just Kissed My Baby
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Africa
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Album: Rejuvenation (1974)

Though it’s not the most popular of The Meters’ records (I would guess it’s a tossup between Look-Ka Py Py and Fire On The Bayou), 1974′s Rejuvenation captures the transition from The Meters’ early, tight funk days to their later, jam-band incarnation.

Though The Meters haven’t released a studio album in the past 30 years, they continue to tour with some permutation of the original lineup. I’ve had the privilege of seeing them live on many occasions during the mid-1990s, and it is impossible not to seriously get down at a Meters show.

Though my perception of The Meters is rooted in their live performances, that’s a limited perspective, and there is no greater testament to this than the volumes of artists who have recorded with, covered, or sampled The Meters over the years: Paul McCartney, Labelle (The Meters were the studio band for “Lady Marmalade”), The Grateful Dead, A Tribe Called Quest, and many others.

“People Say” kicks off the album with a sweet guitar lick, then builds instrument by instrument until the groove is set. Lyrically, this track mines rare political territory, railing against the inequities of capitalist society. And you can dance to it!

“Just Kissed My Baby” feels like an outtake from The Meters 1969 influential Look-Ka Py Py LP. But unlike the stripped-down instrumental jams from that record, “Just Kissed My Baby” includes turned-on vocals from leader Art Neville. Zigaboo Modeliste — a true virtuoso on the drums — manages to concoct a beat that is simultaneously simple, complex and perfectly in the pocket. This track is a total 5-star classic.

The final selection, “Africa,” ends the record with some slinky cultural pride. The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Hollywood” is a cover version of this song, and it probably didn’t do them any favors that they changed the lyrics from Africa as the “motherland” to Hollywood as the “brotherland” — isn’t Africa the motherland for all humanity? I may be digging too deep on that one. Check out George Porter, Jr.’s acrobatic base line.