Song Lyric of the Day (Donny Hathaway, Hoping That ‘Brighter Days Will Soon Be Here’)

“Never mind your fears
Brighter days will soon be here
Take it from me:
Someday we'll all be free.”— “Someday We'll All Be Free,” written by Donny Hathaway and Edward Howard, performed by Donny Hathaway on his LP Extension of a Man (1973)

Last night, a beautiful cover version of this song by Hanka G reminded me of the stunning original by Hathaway. Edward Howard wrote the lyrics to encourage Hathaway, who was already suffering from the mental illness that would claim his life six years later.

A half century later, the song remains a powerful balm to the spirit for anyone experiencing anxiety, depression, or just simply the blues—especially with the holidays over and the bleakness of winter setting in.

Quote of the Day (Carina Del Valle Schorske, on the Painful Origin of a Pointer Sisters’ Country Hit)

“Anita Pointer wrote the first draft of the country song ‘Fairytale’ at a motel in Woodstock while she and her sisters were on tour singing backup for Dave Mason. She was still reeling from the revelation that her new boyfriend, a San Francisco radio DJ, had been married all along—a story so common she’d call it cliché if she didn’t have to plot the next chapter herself. That night she stayed up late running her favorite James Taylor tape on repeat, and the lyrics she wrote channeled his plainspoken style: There’s no need to explain anymore—I tried my best to love you, now I’m walking out that door. Once the tour was over, Anita’s baby sister Bonnie provided the bright and buoyant melody, as if to sustain the momentum of departure.”—Writer and translator Carina Del Valle Schorske, “Fairytale: The Pointer Sisters, the Great Migration, and the Soul of Country,” Oxford American, Issue 119, Winter 2022

I had just bought the latest issue of Oxford American this weekend when I heard about the death of Anita Pointer. The sad news brought back to me—as, I’m sure, it did countless other music fans—40 years and more ago, when she and her sisters embodied all the sass and ebullience of our collective youth.

The vocal harmonies of the Pointer Sisters began in youth gospel choirs in their parents’ church, before they would be heard, to joyous effect, across other genres: soul, pop, rock ‘n’ roll, and most surprisingly, as Ms. Schorske indicated, country.

(Not only did “Fairytale” win a Grammy for Best Country and Western Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group, but Anita would join sisters Ruth, June and Bonnie in appearing at the Grand Ole Opry—one of the first African-American acts to headline at that legendary venue.)

Alex Traub’s obituary for Anita in The New York Times stressed the versatility of her lead vocals: how, from her low register, she could “coo,” deliver “an earnest, imploring tone,” segue to a “huskier, sexier side,” but above all singing “with the speed and flavor of molasses.”

Although Traub’s piece sums up Anita’s protean vocal gifts, you really should read Ms. Schorske to appreciate what a cultural touchstone she created in “Fairytale”—a song that symbolized not only their musical restlessness, but also the larger movement that The Pointer Sisters represented as part of the Great Migration from the Deep South of the Jim Crow era. (Their parents left Arkansas for Oakland, Calif.)

Anita’s urge to remember the heritage of slavery and racism found an outlet in a collection of objects related to African-American history, a constant reminder to her that “everybody don’t love you and you have to prove them wrong.”

Remembrance was her private means of defiance, though the adoring public for her and her sisters will surely remember their public exultation in the face of everything, in hits like “Yes We Can Can,” “Jump (For My Love),” “Automatic,” “Fire,” and my favorite, “I’m So Excited.”

(For more on Anita Pointer and her sisters, you might want to listen to her interview three years ago with "Nasty" Neal Jones on the “Inside Your Head” podcast, promoting Fairytale, her memoir written with brother Fritz. In it, she discussed her sisters’ struggle starting out at Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, as well as the group’s appearances on Sesame Street, The Carol Burnett Show, and entertaining the troops with Bob Hope during the Gulf War.)

Quote of the Day (J. Geils’ Peter Wolf, on Catching Great ‘60s Acts at the Apollo)

“It was an incredible learning experience of how the artist made himself connect with the audience. The performer and the song became one. They were almost preaching to the audience. If someone was singing a love song, it was like high opera. They’d tear their jacket off, get down on their knees. And you really believed it; it was total credibility.”—Former J. Geils Band frontman Peter Wolf, on catching the likes of James Brown, Otis Redding and Jackie Wilson in Harlem’s Apollo Theater, quoted in Rob Hughes, “Maximum R&B,” Classic Rock Magazine, Issue 188 (September 2013)

(The image accompanying this post shows, in performance, Otis Redding, one of Wolf’s objects of veneration.)

Concert Review: Diana Ross at Chautauqua Institution, NY

As soon as I heard that Diana Ross was coming to the Chautauqua Institution at the end of the week I was vacationing there, I resolved to see her. I don’t believe she had ever given a concert in this famous amphitheater in southwestern New York that had also seen such musicians as John Philip Sousa, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, The Beach Boys, and Michael Jackson; and, given her age, I didn’t know how many more chances I might get to see her perform again.

As it happened, I counted myself lucky to see her at all. The show sold out weeks in advance, and I was unsure, because of Chautauqua’s revised amphitheater seating arrangements of the last couple of years (notably, its “preferred seating” section), if I would even be able to get in. 

Luckily, armed with my weekly pass to the grounds, all I had to do was line up an hour and a half before the show. Even that far ahead of time, the line—senior citizens, the middle-aged, the young, the diehard fans and the merely curious—stretched down the hill.

I had never seen the Motown legend in concert. I suspect that many in the audience that night did not labor under this handicap. A middle-aged guy next to me, for instance, said his wife—sitting much closer to the stage than us—had seen the singer seven times, on this tour alone.

“This tour” was being billed as the “75^th Birthday Tour,” but it could just as easily have been labeled the “60^th Anniversary Tour,” as Ms. Ross had signed her first professional contract, with Motown, in 1959. Whichever title you prefer, the point is that Ms. Ross is a show-business veteran. She knows what her audience wants and what she must do to fulfill these expectations. 

More often than not, those expectations boil down to her greatest hits and a heavy dose of glamour—or, as another audience member noted at the conclusion of the show, “19 songs and five costume changes.”

Ms. Ross and her troupe—four backup singers and a tight set of musicians—have become quite adept at those wardrobe transitions. As she changed rapidly into yet another sartorial stunner (e.g., a clinging, gray sequined gown), her musicians used the additional two or three minutes tacked on at the end of particular songs to jam, demonstrating their considerable skill. (Saxophonist John Scarpulla was particularly impressive.)

Throughout the tour, Ross has not been afraid to vary her set list and even her routine, depending on the locale and the occasion. (At the Hollywood Bowl, for instance, backed by a full orchestra, she included several less-familiar tunes; at New York’s Radio City Music Hall less than two weeks before the Chautauqua gig, a number of tunes resonated very strongly with fans celebrating Pride Month; and on another occasion, she took audience questions, Carol Burnett-style.)

At Chautauqua, the opening number was—hardly a surprise—“I’m Coming Out,” with much of the early going featuring such hits from Ms. Ross’ Sixties heyday with the Supremes as “Stop in the Name of Love,” “Come See About Me,” “You Can’t Hurry Love” and “Love Child.” 

Later, solo career hits from the Seventies and early Eighties also thrilled the audience, such as “Touch Me in the Morning,” “Take Me Higher,” “Upside Down,” and the most familiar tunes from her films Lady Sings the Blues, Mahogany, and The Wiz. Some cover tunes (notably, of The Spiral Staircase’s “More Today Than Yesterday” and Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers’ “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?”) were also greeted warmly, as they have become concert staples of hers, too.

Like the ancient Roman huntress Diana, Ms. Ross has achieved the status of a deity. Remarkably, she has lost little not only in glamour but in the quality of her voice. While never powerful, even thin at points, it retains its warmth and sweetness, reaching out to touch three generations of fans. It was aided in Chautauqua by brief but effective stage patter in which she not only expressed sincere gratitude for fans’ affection but also conveyed a welcoming manner to many—notably, children she invited onstage with hugs and statements like, “Don’t be shy—I’m a grandmommy!” 

For all her undoubtedly sincere regard for her audience, Ms. Ross became a decade-defying institution less out of love than shrewdness and toughness—a canny calculation of her strengths and weaknesses matched only by her ability to withstand an entertainment industry that places a premium on trendiness and youth. In the eyes of some peers (notably, Supremes colleague Mary Wilson), she has gone beyond being a diva to being a termagent. 

But that endurance should be celebrated, too—as Ms. Ross did, implicitly, with the final song, song made famous not by her but by Gloria Gaynor: “I Will Survive.” The reaction at Chautauqua confirmed that she had done so, emphatically, already.

Daughter Rhonda Ross, a singer-songwriter and guitarist in her own right, preceded her mother in a 5-song, 15-minute set that was respectfully received by the audience in the amphitheater. Respect, that is, but not rapture, which can only be generated by goddesses like her mother. Or, as a lyric from my favorite song of hers goes: On that you can depend, and never worry.

(Photo of Diana Ross taken by Harry Wad at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert, Oslo Spektrum, Norway, Nov. 11, 2008.)

Flashback, November 1968: Temptations, Supremes Join in ‘I’m Gonna Make You Love Me’

Few songs fill me with the kind of elation I hear in every note of “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me,” released as a single 50 years ago this week. This collaboration between male and female singing colossi—The Temptations and The Supremes, respectively—could have been merely an example of Motown mogul Berry Gordy Jr.’s matchless sense of the musical mainstream of the Sixties. 

But producers Frank Wilson and Nick Ashford crafted what the London Independent called a “shivers-down-the-spine remake” of a song by 25-year-old Philadelphia-based composer Kenny Gamble and his mentor Jerry Ross. In the process, Wilson and Ashford coaxed some of the most inspired performances from two groups that, at close to their commercial zenith, were integral to the success of “Hitsville, U.S.A.” 

The genesis of the hit began with the 20 minutes it took Gamble and Ross to write it at the piano in 1966. In the next two years, versions of it became middling hits for Dee Dee Warwick (Dionne Warwicke's sister) and Madeline Bell (Dusty Springfield’s friend and backup singer), and Jerry Butler also recorded a very fine cover. 

But now, Motown, in having The Supremes join forces with The Temptations, was reaching beyond its own music factory for a not-terribly-well-known product (Warwick’s take had been released by Mercury Records). The studio had succeeded only once before with a similar move, with the Four Tops' cover of "If I Were a Carpenter" the year before.

Maybe it took Ashford, who had sung backup on Warwick’s single, to find the key to unlocking the song’s full commercial potential. Having joined Motown, with writing-producing partner Valerie Simpson, after working on the original single, he was now in a position to do something about it. 

What also can’t be discounted was Gordy’s decision to magnify a highly successful studio formula. He had seen how duets with Tami Terrell had nudged the diffident Marvin Gaye away from more traditional jazz vocalizing and towards powerhouse rhythm and blues. Gordy especially loved the opportunity that duets afforded to double an album’s customer base. That, though, was with two voices. When Gordy gave the green light to Diana Ross and the Supremes Join the Temptations, he was putting eight in the studio mix: three female, five male.

Those eight voices had been increasingly clamorous of late. The year before, the Supremes’ Florence Ballard had been kicked out of the group. Gordy yielded to Ross’ demand that her frontwoman status be formally in the group’s new name—“Diana Ross and the Supremes”—altering the dynamics between the lead and fellow singers Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong.

Turbulence was also the order of the day with The Temptations. Heavy drug use and resulting erratic behavior by Dennis Ruffin led to the painful decision to part ways with this powerful lead singer and replace him in July 1968 with Dennis Edwards. 

Though the addition of Edwards continued The Temptations’ string of hits with the psychedelic “Cloud Nine,” a smash upon release in October, Gordy may have felt the group could use, in effect, an insurance policy. The combination with The Supremes seemed the best route to go.

Diana Ross and the Supremes Join the Temptations was meant to reinforce a splashy prime-time TV special, TCB, set to air during the 1968 holiday season. The climax of that production, “The Impossible Dream,” was intended to be the single, with “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me” a seeming afterthought. 

Those careful plans were hastily put aside when radio DJs, once they got hold of advance copies of the album, started to play “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me” instead. It’s easy to see why. 

The production contrasted the moods and styles of the leads—Ross, arch and playful (“I'm gonna use every trick in the book/I'll try my best to get you hooked”) and the Temptations’ Eddie Kendricks, tender and yearning in his falsetto (“Every minute, every hour/I'm gonna shower you with love and affection”). It was all supported by Motown’s ace background musicians, including “Ready” Freddy Washington, who managed to sight-read the tune’s complex bass chart on the first take.

Unexpectedly hearing the Temptations-Supremes version of his song on the radio while out driving, Gamble had to pull over to avoid crashing. “That was unbelievable, hearing them play that song. This was my favorite group, the Temptations.”

After that, a string of hits followed (notably, Jerry Butler’s “Only the Strong Survive”), and, as Gamble recalled in an interview for the Grammy Awards Web site, “Everything was busting wide open. It was a musical explosion.” 

Gordy offered him and partner Leon Huff jobs at Motown, but the two decided to strike out on their own. By 1971, they had enough of a track record to launch Philadelphia International Records, later home of such million-sellers as "Love Train" (the O'Jays), "Me And Mrs. Jones" (Billy Paul), and "If You Don't Know Me By Now" (Harold Melvin and The Bluenotes).

As for the song that gave birth to it all: The Temptations played “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me” by themselves live in concert in their heyday (e.g., this audio recording, from YouTube, at a 1970 London appearance), but they never did so live with Diana Ross and The Supremes. (Ms. Ross had a flirtatious duet with Steven Wonder on The Hollywood Palace a year later.) 

More’s the pity: Though Gordy merged the male and female voices for entirely commercial reasons, the meshing of the two different sounds made this an artistic triumph, too. 

You will find upteen covers of the song between YouTube and the likes of Spotify (including by Lou Christie, and, inevitably, an “American Idol” version featuring contestants Candice Glover, Amber Holcomb, and Angie Miller). But I can’t hear any other version in my mind than the one by The Temptations and The Supremes. It carries everything before it, like the love they hail so exultantly.

This Day in Pop Music History (Levi Stubbs, Powerful Lead of 4 Tops, Dies)

Oct. 17, 2008—Levi Stubbs, the commanding frontman of the enduring soul band The Four Tops, died in his sleep at age 72 in his home in Detroit, the city where he was born, raised and achieved fame.

In May 1992, I was lucky enough to catch the Four Tops in concert in Las Vegas. In town for a trade convention, my group was looking to relax after an exhausting day. I wasn’t sure what to expect but was delighted by the end of the show.

With their resonant voices and refusal to turn out cookie-cutter versions of their old hits, Stubbs and his bandmates—first tenor Abdul “Duke” Fakir, second tenor Lawrence Payton and baritone Renaldo “Obie” Benson—deserved to sell out large arenas rather than a Vegas showroom. But their loss was their listeners’ gain, as we enjoyed hearing them in an intimate setting.

I had grown up in the late Sixties hearing their string of Motown hits—"I Can't Help Myself,” “It's The Same Old Song,” “Bernadette,” “Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever,” and “Reach Out, I'll Be There”—on WABC-AM, New York’s top 40 radio station, so I was certainly familiar with their work.

What I did not appreciate at the time was the bond of loyalty that kept the quartet together for 40 years—remarkable, then and now, in a music industry rife with egotism, money squabbles, and drug addiction. Those forces could divide and decimate the most enormous talents, as seen in the Four Tops’ colleagues in the Motown music factory, the Temptations.

Colleagues in the Four Tops may have appreciated that intense loyalty even more than Stubbs’ baritone. Fakir, for instance, told Billboard after Stubbs’ death: “He had many chances and many offers to be lured away into his own solo world, but he never wanted that. He said, 'Man, all I really want to do is sing and take care of my family, and that's what I'm doing, so all is well. Everything else that doesn't include you guys, it doesn't mean a thing to me.' That kind of character and commitment is really hard to find these days." 

Only serious illness could keep Stubbs from performing with his old friends till the end. Cancer and a stroke silenced and sidelined him for good after 2000, though he still tried to see the remaining Four Tops in concert as much as he could.

I could tell you how versatile Stubbs’ voice was—how it could rumble, implore, promise, agonize, woo, even threaten with carnivorous gusto (as when he sang as “Audrey II,” the man-eating "Mean, Green Mother from Outer Space," in the 1986 movie version of Little Shop of Horrors). But you knew that already. (And if you didn’t, I urge you to go now and listen to any Four Tops records.)

But a performer of transcendent goodness is every bit as worth celebrating as one of transcendent talent. Back in 1992, I would, if I had ever had the chance, thank Stubbs for giving such a great show. Now, knowing somewhat more about him, I would also be grateful for his tight bonds with his city, audience and friends.