Soul

208. ‘Keep on Running’, by The Spencer Davis Group

/ UK #1s blog / 4 Comments

We skip on into 1966, where the first number one is, perhaps unexpectedly, neither folkey nor baroquey. It’s a straight-up rocker!

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Keep on Running, by The Spencer Davis Group (their 1st of two #1s)

1 week, from 20th – 27th January 1966

A dirty drum and bass riff kicks it off, and then we get a blast of some kind of feedback-slash-scuzzy chord couplet. It makes you sit up, makes you take notice. Keep on runnin’, Runnin’ from my arms… It’s not as heavy as The Stones have been recently, but it’s not as poppy as anything from the Merseybeat days. It’s like a perfect marriage of the two…

Actually, it’s got a real soul vibe to it too, as if Sam Cooke was now fronting a Beat combo. It’s cool – catchy and funky. I love the Hey! Hey! Hey!s, and the way that the intro riff returns for the now customary wig-out at the end. It’s clear that any self-respecting rock record in 1965-66 has to fade-out with the lead singer going a little bit crazy…

I know this song, but know very little about the band – The Spencer Davis Group (don’t ‘The Spencer-Davis’s’ sound like a posh couple that you avoid in Sainsbury’s?) I would have bet they were American, with their funky soul sound, but no. They were from Birmingham (and not the one in Alabama.) Interestingly, ‘Keep on Running’ isn’t a cover of a soul song, but a cover of a reggae hit from the year before. Check it out here… Unsurprisingly, it sounds completely different. I’ve never been a huge reggae fan – something that I’m sure will crop up in this countdown as the genre grows in popularity – so I’ll take The Spencer-Davis’s version, thankyouverymuch.

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It’s a great record. Though I feel, before we go much further, that the lyrics need some scrutinising. They’re a bit… overbearing? That’s putting it politely. The title refers to a woman who, try as she might, will not be able to escape the singer’s attentions. One fine day I’m gonna be the one, To make you understand, Oh yeah, I’m gonna be your man… It gets worse when you realise that he’s motivated not by love, but because his mates are laughing at him: Everyone is talkin’ about me, Makes me feel so bad, Everyone is laughin’ at me, Makes me feel so sad…

Hmmm. The more you think about them, the worse they get. But hey, this was the sixties. Different times, different levels of tolerance for possessive wierdos… File under ‘Catchy but Creepy’, with ‘What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?’ and ‘Oh, Pretty Woman’.

The Spencer-Davis’s will be back, and very shortly, for the second part of their chart-topping brace. They had had a few low charting singles in the previous couple of years, but ‘Keep on Running’ propelled them to another level entirely. It’s not quite a classic, a standard, but it has a hook that most people could sing. And, despite what I said about the lyrics, I do really like it. It’s fun, and a little rough around the edges. Like all the best rock songs should be… A great way to kick off a new year.

138. ‘I Can’t Stop Loving You’, by Ray Charles

/ UK #1s blog / 9 Comments

1962 throws up another curveball. From Elvis at his mid-career blandest, to the throwaway fun of ‘Come Outside’, to this classic with a capital C, L, A, S, S, I and C. Which way will it swing next? For the moment, who cares? This is pop music at its very finest.

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I Can’t Stop Loving You, by Ray Charles (his 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 12th – 26th July 1962

I can’t stop loving you… I’ve made up my mind, To live in memories, Of the lonesome times… A soft rhythm tickled out on the drums, meandering jazz-bar piano, swooning strings. This is a supremely well-made record; simple, yet soaring. I know it, indirectly; and yet I’ve never really listened to it.

It’s a song about a man who has resigned himself to living in the past. I can’t stop wanting you… It’s useless to say… So I’ll just live my life, In dreams of yesterdays… Both the lyrics and Ray Charles’s voice are raw and unadorned. There are no metaphors or flowery allusions here – he calls a spade a spade. When he says he’s blue you know he means it.

I can’t think of any song that we’ve featured so far on this countdown that has relied so much on backing singers. This whole song is a call and response between Charles and the guys lined up behind his piano. They remain in the same pitch, while he rises and falls around them. This contrast is most effective in the Since we’ve been apart… line. The backing singers softly plead; Charles almost yells the line out. And the bit where he tells them to Sing the song, children… is just pure class.

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What I wrote about the song – that I knew it without really knowing it – could apply just as well to Ray Charles himself. I know he was blind, and played a piano. That there was a movie made about him starring Jamie Foxx. Beyond that, to my shame, I’m a-blank. He had more famous hits than this: ‘Hit the Road, Jack’, ‘I Got a Woman’ and ‘Georgia on My Mind’. But sometimes the Chart-Gods decide to dish you out just one chart-topping single, and you just have to take it when it comes your way.

I feel that Charles is one of those American singers whose US success never quite translated to the same levels on the other side of the Atlantic. Billy Joel’s another such artist, as perhaps is Bruce Springsteen. Still, when you’re described as a ‘genius’ by Sinatra, and have featured in the top-10 of ‘Rolling Stone’s ‘Greatest Artists’ and ‘Greatest Singers of All Time’ polls, maybe you don’t much miss the recognition from one insignificant little island.

I should note – though I’m not sure if anyone will be interested – that this is the first chart-topper I have been unable to find on Spotify. They have all manner of (much longer) album versions, live versions, and re-recorded versions of ‘I Can’t Stop Loving You’, but not the original single cut. YouTube came to my rescue, however, and the link below should be the genuine, 1962 chart-topper. One of the classiest songs to have reached the summit so far, I’d say. Sing the song, children…