The fictional LOU GRANT once declared, to MARY RICHARDS, "You have spunk....I HATE SPUNK."
One of the many things I hate...HYPE. There's no shortage of dopes who will tell you, perhaps with a finger jabbing your chest, "THIS is the BEST rock and roll record ever made..." (You also have to suffer people who will tell you about THE BEST in just about any category. Like, they insist you go to their favorite pizza joint because "THEY HAVE THE BEST PIZZA IN THE WORLD.")
So I hesitate in saying that Turley Richards has given the BEST performance ever on a single 45 rpm (which truncated the song from over 6 minutes on the album to about 4 minutes). But using the Prof. Irwin Corey "HOWEVER," it would be difficult to find a more impressively versatile performance. From Elvis to Orbison to McCartney to Aretha and back, most great performances are touching, exciting, or memorable but remain in one genre. THIS song, if you stay with it, manages (Edwin Hawkins did the arrangement) make great use of Turley's multi-octave range AND his ability to sing folk, blues, soul, gospel and falsetto. (Stay with it...the song starts a bit slow, and gains amazing momentum).
That, along with the subject matter, is what makes it so impressive, if not a "BEST." Quite an achievement for a recording now 50 years old.
For the "holiday season," sober and muted as it is for most people, and when certain obnoxious stores INSIST on playing atrocities like "Feliz Navidad," "Frosty the Snowman," "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," "Wonderful Christmas Time" and "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," here's a song with a lot more meaning.
Turley Richards, who was on many major labels without major success, makes a living teaching people to sing, and helping people record themselves. You can check other entries on the blog to read his remarkable story (two blog entries are devoted to his book Blindsighted). The good news, in these troubled times where it would be difficult for him to teach except via phone or Zoom, is that Turley's just released a new 2 CD compilation of his best work. It's called "The Man in Me," and you can get it on his TurleyRichards dot com:
In the words of the great Eta James, “at last!” This has been a monster project to create-sifting through all of my unreleased recordings to choose what I wanted to present to you, would be a tough task for someone sighted. It’s made even more difficult for me as my “filing system” is to listen and listen and listen again. And then I started writing again a few months ago and decided to record three new songs to include. I think it will be worth the wait!
Some of these recordings were master demos and some were live performances. All have been re-mastered by Chris Greenwell at Louisville’s own Downtown Recording Studio to give you the best quality listening experience.
These songs cover 50 years of my career from 1970 to 2020
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