Tobacco Road
Tobacco Road is the title of a socially critical song written by John D. Loudermilk and published by him in 1960. However, it was only successful as a cover version in 1964 by the Nashville Teens .
description
Loudermilk had recorded the single Tobacco Road / Midnight Bus ( Columbia Records 4-41562) on December 15, 1959. It was first released as a folk song in January 1960 . Except for a small, regional success in Brisbane, Australia, the single was unsuccessful. In August 1962 he played a new, more country music- oriented version produced by Chet Atkins , which was released on RCA Records on the LP 12 Sides of John D. Loudermilk .
Tobacco Road is about extreme social grievances in a 1950s working class and slum neighborhood in East Durham , North Carolina. Even if the seemingly autobiographical lyrics suggest this, Loudermilk did not live in this neighborhood. However, as a youth he occasionally carried telegrams out there while on a job. Marvin's Alley, as the street was called at the time, was a hub for tobacco harvested in the region , and the neighborhood was characterized by crime, prostitution and gamblers . The song is also about the desire and hope to change the world in the hated Tobacco Road ( "Only Lord knows how I loathe this place called Tobacco Road" ) and to be able to build a better life there ( "Bring dynamite and a crane, I'm gonna blow it up and start all over again ... " ). In the end, however, he confesses to his hometown in a kind of love-hate relationship ( "I despise you 'cos you're so filthy, but I love you' cos you're home" ). The explosive content is specifically about a young person who wants to exercise a job and get rich through it, but cannot overcome his love-hate relationship with his home. With dynamite he wants to blow up the rusted huts of this ghetto and found a new flagship street with the old name: Tobacco Road .
Cover versions
The song was recorded and published many times by other artists across styles in blues , country , punk and rock . COVER.INFO lists over 80 versions in total. Lou Rawls was one of the first to put a cover on the market, released in December 1963 on his LP of the same name.
The Nashville Teens
The English group Nashville Teens also had commercial success with their 1964 version. Equipped with a garish piano riff and a boisterous beat, the single, produced by Mickie Most and released in July 1964, made it to number 6 on the UK singles chart and number 14 on the US Billboard charts . While on John D. Loudermilks recording the acoustic guitar dominates, the Nashville Teens transformed the song into a the American 'n' roll rock -influenced rock song . Jimmy Page played electric guitar , the chorus was stirred up by John Hawken on the piano with a fat boogie-woogie game and accompanied by Pete Shannon's driving bass.
The two singers Art Sharp and Ray Phillips vary the lyrics in some places: "Only God knows how I loathe" became "Only you know how I loathe" ; instead of “With the help and the grace of God” they sing “With the help and the grace from above” . The single sold 200,000 in the UK and 800,000 in the US. However, on a later, re-recorded, and gentler version, the Nashville Teens reverted to the original text.
The Blues Magoos
The approximately 5-minute version contained in their album Psychedelic Lollipop ( Mercury Records ), which was released in November 1966, The Blues Magoos initially builds on the interpretation of the Nashville Teens. After the chorus (or third verse), however, the Blues Magoos become psychedelic and leave the original structure of the song in favor of a wild collage of sound effects and improvised instrumental parts. Towards the end they sing another verse, which then leads to a psychedelic and final fireworks display.
Eric Burdon & the Animals
Eric Burdon & the Animals played Tobacco Road as blues rock during the recordings on December 31, 1966 for a broadcast of the Beat Club by Radio Bremen , but the title was not broadcast.
The personnel of the Animals was probably already that of the "New Animals", as they were called. In any case, Barry Jenkins was on the drums, who had previously drummed on the Nashville Teens recording. The Animals played the song in a chord sequence typical of the blues and thus used the so-called dominant as the third chord towards the end of the third four-line verse .
Tobacco Road was not seen in the 16th Beat Club broadcast on January 21, 1967. The recordings later appeared on the bootleg albums From London to Frisco and When We Were Young . Eric Burdon & the Animals had their blues version of Tobacco Road several times in their live program, for example at the London Marquee Club in August 1967. This recording is on the bootleg The Live - London Marquee Club August 8, 1967 (1988) Find.
Eric Burdon & War
A 14-minute R&B version with soul , funk and jazz elements comes from Eric Burdon & War from the album Eric Burdon Declares “War” , which was released in April 1970. The piece is included here as a medley.
Apart from the textual lyrics, which Burdon varied widely and considerably expanded in an improvised way, their interpretation had little to do with Loudermilk's original. So they play the third verse or the actual refrain of the song with jazz chords and funk rhythms as a transition to a percussion- dominated passage. In this, Burdon improvises the text of the next verse and is accompanied by the band with a repetitive "road road" as background vocals. The refrain of their version consists of slogans freely improvised by Burdon such as "talkin '' bout the road" or "talkin '' bout Tobacco Road".
Burdon released many live versions of this song, most recently on the album Athens Traffic Live (2005).
Other
Other well-known recordings are from the Poets of the Fall , Spooky Tooth and Jefferson Airplane . Edgar Winter recorded a 17-minute version of the piece. David Lee Roth recorded a version of this title for his 1986 album "Eat 'em and smile".
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b John D. Loudermilk Fanpage, detailed song list, part 1, s. Tobacco Road
- ↑ Entry on Tobacco Road
- ↑ Nashville Teens: Tobacco Road in the Official UK Charts (English)
- ^ Joel Whitburn: The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits . 7th edition. Billboard Books, New York 2000, ISBN 0-8230-7690-3 , p. 448.
- ↑ Chuck Ayoub: Jimmy Page Biography. Archived from the original on April 7, 2010 ; accessed on May 7, 2017 .
- ^ AMG, The Nashville Teens, biography
- ^ Gordon Thompson, Please Please Me: Sixties British Pop, Inside Out , 2008, p. 87
- ^ A b Chrome Oxide, The Animals 1966 (December), chronological listing of publications and sessions
- ^ The House Of The Rising Sun - From London To Frisco. In: EricBurdonAlbums.com. Archived from the original on February 17, 2011 ; accessed on May 1, 2017 .
- ↑ Chrome Oxide, The Animals 1967 (August), chronological listing of publications and sessions
- ↑ The Live Eric Burdon & The Animals - London Marquee Club August 8, 1967. In: EricBurdonAlbums.com. Archived from the original on September 15, 2009 ; accessed on May 1, 2017 .
- ↑ Review of the Edgar Winter album on Rolling Stone