Song Draft 2021- Round Four Pick – Misery by The Dynamics

As the Song Draft continues, this is one that was on my list, and then I removed it. Then, while listening to my iPod, I decided it was too good not to include it. Once again, it has Detroit roots. This song was also on the list of songs my dad wanted me to record for him when I worked at WKSG in Detroit.

My Fourth Round Draft Pick is Misery by The Dynamics.

The Dynamics hailed from Detroit, Michigan and were formed in the early 1960’s. Misery was their first hit, and their biggest hit on the Billboard Hot 100, where it reached #44. At that time, the group was a quintet made up of Fred “Sonny” Baker, Starling Schafer, Lorenzo Campbell, Samuel Stevenson, and George White. It is interesting to note that the terrific instrumental backing was provided by an all-white combo from Dearborn called The Royal Playboys, featuring guest artists Joe Cyers on drums and Cliff Bramlett on guitar. (Thanks to the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends website for that info.)

The song was recorded at the United Sound studio for Fox Records, a small independent Detroit label, but the master tape was sold to Big Top Records out of New York and distributed nationally. “Misery” was a big hit in the Motor City, spending most of the fall of 1963 in WKNR’s Top Ten on the popular AM station’s Classic Top 30 Survey. (Side note: Keener 13 was one of the coolest stations! When I was at Honey Radio, we often played airchecks and sound clips from WKNR jocks with music. Many of the Honey Radio jingles were WKNR jingles that were re-worked for Honey.) As mentioned earlier, the song also did well nationally lasting 10 weeks on the Hot 100 and peaking at # 44.

I just absolutely love this cut. The intro totally grabs me with that drum beat and smooth little guitar ditty. You can’t go wrong with a pretty awesome sax solo, either!

From Michigan Rock And Roll Legends: The song would become the subject of a still unresolved controversy in 1964 when Pete Meaden, then manager/publicist of The Who, rewrote the lyrics to the song as “Zoot Suit” for The Who’s first single, released in England as being by The High Numbers. Meaden claimed sole songwriting credit for the melody he stole. The truth is in the grooves, however, as The Dynamics’ recording of “Misery” completely blows “Zoot Suit” off the turntable when the songs are played back-to-back.

It wasn’t until I started writing about this song that I found out about the Who song. I gave it a listen and was amazed at the “Note for Note” plagiarism. You may be familiar with the George Harrison/Chiffon’s lawsuit, which claimed that Harrison stole the melody for “My Sweet Lord” from the Chiffons “He’s So Fine.” I have listened to them both, and while I found them similar, I never really felt they were the same. That is NOT the case when I listen to the Who and the Dynamics! They are literally one and the same (except the lyrics). It’s crazy!

I have to agree with the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends website, though. The Dynamics song is far above and beyond the Who song!

Trivia: In the late 1960’s, the Dynamics were managed by Ted White, who was married to Aretha Franklin!

Misery – The Dynamics

If you give me one more chance
I’ll prove my love is true
(I’ll prove my love is true)

And do all the things
That I’m supposed to do
(That I’m supposed to do)

But if I let you down
(If I let you down)
And you set me free
(Set me free)

Oh, I don’t know but I think
I’d just live in misery

There is nothing I can do to
Make up for the
Wrong things I’ve done
(For the wrong I’ve done)

Cause when I met you, pretty baby
I knew you were the only one
(You were the only one)

But I couldn’t see
(I couldn’t see)
Just how it would be
(How it would be)

Oh, I don’t know but I think
I’d just live in misery

Now I sit and cry cause
I lost everything that I had
(Everything I had)

But I have to go on and
Take the good with the bad
(Take the good with the bad)

And I still love you
(And I love you)
Hope you still love me
(Hope you love me)

Oh, and maybe you’ll come back
And end this misery

Give the Who a listen and tell me this wasn’t totally ripped off from Misery!!!

As a bonus – here is the flipside of Misery – another song on my dad’s list – I’m the Man

Song Draft 2021 – Round 3- Look At Little Sister – Hank Ballard/Stevie Ray Vaughn

Welcome to Round Three of the 2021 Song Draft hosted by Hanspostcard. It has been fun for me to pick and share my songs, but even cooler to check out the picks of the other participants.

As I compiled my list of songs to pick from, I had Hank Ballard and Stevie Ray Vaughn on the list with two separate songs. Then, I had some music playing on YouTube at work and changed my Stevie Ray song to this one – just so I could share the video. More on that in a minute.

There are some songs that you can search and find pages and pages of notes and stories about. However, there really wasn’t a whole lot about this song. I removed Stevie’s name from the search and just searched “Look at Little Sister. All of a sudden, there was Hank Ballard.

Hank was born in Detroit in 1927. In 1953, he joined the Doo Wop group, the Royals. Because of the group The Five Royales, the group changed their name to The Midnighters. In 1954, Hank wrote “Work With Me Annie” which was a number one R&B song for 7 weeks. In 1959, he wrote and recorded “The Twist,” which became Chubby Checker’s signature song. In 1960 he had two top 10 records with “Finger Poppin’ Time” and my original Hank song draft pick “Let’s Go, Let’s Go, Let’s Go.”

In a concert clip of Hank singing “Look At Little Sister” he says he wrote the song in 1959 after watching his little sister out in the back yard dancing around. Whether or not that was true, or whether it was just a clever way to intro the song at the show, I didn’t know. I am friends with Hank’s son, Daryle, on Facebook (He is a singer, too) so I reached out to him and asked. He confirmed to me that his dad told him that his sister was indeed the inspiration for the song. I had no idea that the song was originally done (and written) by Hank. I had to find it. After listening to it, I was blown away. It sounds fantastic! It has that early Rock and Roll/R&B/Rockabilly feel to it.

Hank was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

Look At Little Sister –

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey mama look at little sis
Out in the backyard….shakin’ like this
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey….look at little sister
Hey hey hey hey….look at little sister

What about the neighbors….what they gonna say
Stop little sister….gettin’ carried away
Hey hey hey….look at little sister
Hey hey hey hey….look at little sister

Shakin’ like a tree….rollin’ like a log
Shakin’ and a rollin’ now….that ain’t all
Hey hey hey….look at little sister
Hey hey hey hey….look at little sister

(Guitar solo)

Shakin’ like a tree….rollin’ like a log
Shakin’ and a rollin’ now….that ain’t all
Hey hey hey….look at little sister
Hey hey hey hey….look at little sister

What about the neighbors….what they gonna say
Stop little sister….gettin’ carried away
Hey hey hey….look at little sister
Hey hey hey hey….look at little sister

What about Stevie’s version??

Stevie Ray Vaughn released Look at Little Sister on his third album Soul to Soul in 1985. I gained a better appreciation for Stevie Ray’s music long after he had passed away. All I really had heard was “Pride and Joy” and “The Sky Is Crying” prior to that. The more I listened to it, the more I appreciated his vocals, and of course, his guitar playing. Which brings me to the video I wanted to share.

It was a toss up between a few of Stevie’s songs for this song draft, but then I saw a video of him doing Look at Little Sister live. What is so special about it? In my opinion, the video of this particular performance shows what an amazing talent he was. During the second half of his guitar solo, at around the 2:35 mark, he breaks a guitar string. Now if you just listen to it without watching it, you have no idea it broke. The solo is flawless. Watching it, you realize that he just improvises the rest of the solo around the strings he has left. I can watch this video over and over again and am amazed at how he never flinches.

What makes the video even cooler, is that his crew knows his string is broke. He looks at them mid-solo, after the solo, the crew brings him another guitar, Stevie keeps singing while the new guitar is handed to him, and without missing a beat, he is back to playing when he’s supposed to. It truly is an fascinating thing to watch.

Check it out:

Stevie Ray Vaughn was killed in a helicopter crash in 1990, the same year Hank Ballard was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Stevie Ray would be posthumously inducted in 2015.

Don’t ask me to pick one or the other as my favorite – I can’t. To me, that is what makes a great song. Here is the same song, recorded two and a half decades apart. Each version having a similar, yet different feel to it. Yet, they both stand alone as fantastic tracks.

So, did I cheat and actually make this about TWO songs instead of one? No. I draft one great song – but feature two different versions! I hope you enjoy this one as much as I do!

Song Draft – Pick #1 – Mind Over Matter – Nolan Strong and the Diablos

This blog is part of the 2021 Song Draft hosted by Hanspostcard…. I have followed his blog, for some time and he always posts some great musical and movie stuff! His blog can be found here:

https://slicethelife.com/author/hanspostcard/

I’d like to thank Hans for allowing me to participate in the song draft (and Max for asking if I’d be interested).

In preparation for the draft, I went through years worth of Billboard charts, scanned my entire DJ library, and listened to all of the songs on my iPod (more than once). After going through a list of songs, I came up with my list. I have a few extras picked, just in case one of the other drafters pick one of mine.

My first draft choice is probably a song that many have never heard. I was born and raised in the Detroit area, and worked on the radio in Detroit for 10 years. Because of this, I decided to find a song that is not only a favorite, but showcases my hometown. The song is not a Motown song, but there certainly is a Motown connection to it that I hope you will find interesting.

When I first started at the radio station in 1988, my dad gave me a list of songs to put on cassette for him. They were almost all songs from his childhood that he couldn’t find in stores. While at the station, I searched for many of the songs on the list and heard them for the first time as I recorded them for my dad. The first song on the list was “Mind Over Matter” by Nolan Strong.

The Diablos with lead singer Nolan Strong was one of Detroit’s most successful early vocal groups. The group’s classic 1954 recording of “The Wind” would have probably been a national R&B hit were it not for spotty distribution by the tiny Fortune record label.

According to author David A. Carson, “In 1962 Fortune owner Devora Brown wrote a song expressly for Nolan Strong. Although only his name appeared on the label, the Diablos backed him up. ‘Mind Over Matter’ was an irresistible midtempo dance record full of sudden stops, starts, and vocal acrobatics, as Nolan sang about putting a hex on his girl to win her love.”

“Mind Over Matter” quickly shot to # 1 on the Detroit charts. Sheldon Brown, Devora’s son, remembered that Motown’s Berry Gordy was not pleased with Fortune suddenly having a # 1 record in his backyard. The story goes like this:

It’s early in the evening one day towards the end of September, 1962. The Temptations fourth single, “Paradise,” is being pressed up (along with a bunch of other new Motown records), ready for signing over to the distributors. The Motown rep who periodically comes to the pressing plant to check the print run notices stacks and stacks of boxes piled up in the corner, all full of seven inch singles.

The rep casually enquiring as to what’s going on, he’s informed that those boxes contain the complete inventory of the latest Fortune Records single, “Mind Over Matter” by Nolan Strong and the Diablos. The record was officially meant to have been released by now. It’s been getting some radio play, and indications across Detroit are that it’s going to be big. (For sure, the rep notes to himself, Berry Gordy Jr has remarked loudly and often how much he liked the record, and how he’d previously tried to sign Nolan Strong to Motown, with no success.) But some sort of organizational screw-up has meant that the distributors haven’t been able to get them out yet, so there they all are, still sitting in their boxes, still waiting to be taken away.

The Motown rep nods, makes his excuses, hurries out to a payphone and gets Berry Gordy on the line. Urgent, he says. Fortune Records has dropped the ball, he explains. The Nolan Strong record’s on the radio, but it’s not in the shops. Nobody can actually buy a copy. The rep doesn’t need to explain any further. Berry gets the point. Berry hangs up without a word. He’s got some calls of his own to make.

Gordy calls A&R. He calls the studio. He calls producer Clarence Paul. Got a top priority mission for you. Drop everything else you’re doing right now. Don’t care what group you cut it on. Just get me the damn record as soon as possible.

Within five days, Motown has its own cover version of Mind Over Matter recorded, pressed and in stores. That, in itself, it pretty amazing! What a turn around!!

A clip from the local paper shows how Motown tried to really capitalize on the fact that Nolan Strongs version was unavailable:

The story wouldn’t have a happy ending for Motown, as someone at Fortune got wind of the ploy and made sure the Nolan Strong record found its way into local stores, where – backed with Fortune’s undivided attention – it promptly flew off the shelves and became a regional chart-topper, squashing Motown’s competing version before it had had a chance to get started. But it’s illustrative of just how much could be achieved if Berry Gordy wanted it to happen badly enough.

The group Clarence Paul wound up recording Mind Over Matter were the Temptations, who (as noted above) already had a new single lined up; their record was due out on October 1st, and there was no point having two Temptations records out at once battling each other’s sales and damaging the group’s image. The quickly-recorded cover thus went out under an adopted name; enter “the Pirates”.

(The Gracenote CD database, and thus much of the Internet, insists that this group is actually white British novelty rockers Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, but that’s a bad mistake; these are the Temptations, under a stupid name, with Eddie Kendricks on lead).

Some people like the Temptations version better, however, there is something magical to the Nolan Strong version for me. Maybe it is the simplicity of it. I feel like his vocal is more solid than the Temps. Of course, maybe it is just because I never even knew that another version existed until a few years ago.

I’m not saying that the Temps version was bad, because it isn’t. Berry Gordy was an astute judge alright – and it came out as a decent single with a strong, driving groove, only to be denied a chart hit by the circumstances in which it came to be made. One cannot dent that the song is an important early record by one of Motown’s most important groups nonetheless.

As mentioned above, “Mind Over Matter” by Nolan Strong reached #1 locally around Detroit, but only made it to #112 nationally on Billboard. One of my favorite songs of all time!

“Mind Over Matter” quickly shot to # 1 on the Detroit charts. Sheldon Brown, Devora’s son, remembered that Berry Gordy was not pleased with Fortune suddenly having a # 1 record in his backyard. “Berry Gordy thought it was such a great record that he took the guys in the Temptations and they recorded a version of ‘Mind Over Matter’ as the Pirates for Motown, but Nolan Strong had the bigger hit.”

Mind Over Matter – Nolan Strong and the Diablos

My mind is made up ’cause you’re so cold
I want your love to have and to hold
I’ll have your love cause you are so fine
Mind over matter, gonna make you mine

And I believe that someone wants someone bad enough
The way I want you for you’re the one that I love
I’ll command all my powers to make you fall in line
Mind over matter, gonna make you mine

[Chorus]
I’ll put a spell on you, put a hex on you
I’ll make you love me too and I’ll be so nice to you
You have to fall ’cause I’ll be so dog gone kind
Mind over matter, gonna make you mine

(Instrumental Break)

I’ll put a spell on you, I’ll put a hex on you
I’ll make you love me too and I’ll be so nice to you
You have to fall ’cause I’ll be so dog gone kind
Mind over matter, gonna make you mine

Oh baby, so nice, ohh, you gotta be mine
Oh baby (fade out)

___

Here is the Temptations version, since it played so prominently in the story:

Thanks for reading – and listening!