Otis Rush - "I Can't Quit You Baby"
The blues scale is blue in a number of senses. It might be literally blue for the synesthete, for instance. It’s dark and depressing, of course, but also filthy and unspeakable. It’s as sloppy as the band who plays this song. Here the scale is employed by several instrumentalists simultaneously, who sound like they’re playing together (or, more accurately, against each other) for the first time, and after a long night of debauchery. Each instrument is insistently pointing to Rush’s pain, squawking and honking and harping on the blue notes. When Rush sings “You know it hurt me way down inside” at 2:54, the band brings us closer to the nerve centre, the very source of the blues, with dense unrestrained runs of the scale: a seriously blue moment that causes even the pentatonic scale to blush. [Buy]
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This song is part of the film Cool Hand Luke, which I haven’t seen in years and so can’t remember the context in which Newman performs it. But even without context, there is something oddly captivating about "Plastic Jesus."
Newman begins his song with the line “I don’t care if it rains or freezes,” and he sings it perfectly. He’s cautious and languid and sweet. It’s about all he does perfectly in his minute and a half of recorded musical output, but there’s something fitting about his stops and starts, his fumbling vocals, and his out of tune banjo. It’s his best shot - a modest and honest rendition. [Buy the DVD]
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See you all next year, I hope!
Posted by Jordan at December 30, 2005 7:20 AMAnd to think I always credited this "porch version" to Wayne Coyne
Supreme!
Posted by: k at December 30, 2005 11:15 AMsee you next year
thanks for all the sharing gramophonics
Posted by: gil at December 30, 2005 4:20 PMHe sings it after he is told his mother has died.
Posted by: Mark at December 30, 2005 4:29 PMPaul should have made albums instead of salad dressings. He could have still given the profits away. (please refrain from any http://www.thenewgoth.com/ comments).
indeed the best to you all in the New Year!
Posted by: k at December 30, 2005 4:51 PMWow, I was trying really hard for a while to find Paul Newman's version of "Plastic Jesus" but eventually gave up. This just made my New Year's day. Thanks!
Posted by: piehat at January 1, 2006 5:24 PMthanks for the otis rush!!
Posted by: mags at January 3, 2006 1:49 PMOh. My. Goodness. Now I get to have Paul Newman singing on my iPod. It really doesn't get any better.
Posted by: heather at January 4, 2006 5:00 PMThe context in the film which he sings the song in (since you asked): he's just learned from a prison guard that his mother has died. The rest of the men seem to already know, and they clear a path from him as he goes through the room, sits down, gets out his banjo from somewhere, and wham! Musical history.
Posted by: Stork at January 6, 2006 8:09 PM