Tune Tuesday

It was on this day in 1966 that one of the greatest soul songs was released. The story of how it came to be is one of my favorites. I’m talking about Sam & Dave’s “Hold On, I’m Coming.”

As the story goes, songwriter David Porter was in the bathroom. His songwriting partner was Isaac Hayes (who would later be a solo act). They had not been particularly productive that day and Hayes was getting frustrated waiting for Porter to “finish his business.” Hayes finally yelled for Porter to hurry up so that they could get back to work. Porter responded, “Hold on, man, I’m Coming!” After saying this, Porter immediately finished up and rushed out of the bathroom. He grabbed Hayes and said excitedly, “Hold on, I’m coming” would be a great title for a song. The rest is history.

The song only reached #21 on the charts. This is because many radio stations took the phrase as … something one might say in a bedroom … and thought it too provocative to play. If they had only listened to the actual lyrics, they might have gathered how innocent the song was. Apparently, offering emotional support to help the lady through some tough times was frowned upon by radio station programmers.

Did you know that Booker T. Jones played on the record? He recalled the story to Uncut magazine:

“I think everything else had been taken – Issac (Hayes) was playing piano, I don’t think we had an organ on it – and for some reason, when they were just about to finish recording the song, they decided they needed a tambourine. So I jumped up on the drum kit and played a tambourine into one of the mics.”