Those of you unfamiliar with Gary Roberts would do yourselves a favor and peruse this set of posts (which will start with this very post, until I post another Gary Roberts record). You will not be disappointed. You also can't go wrong listening to this classic.
Those of you who are familiar with the song-poem work of Gary Roberts might have several words to use to describe his performances. I'm guessing that well down below word 100 on that list would be "Bluesman".
And yet, that's what the bosses at Sterling assigned Gary to become, for the song "Remembering". The results are just as one-fifth assed as you might expect. Only the pianist here sort of seems to understand the genre, and the proceedings made even more delightfully incompetent by a blues harp solo which is shows off just about the equal to Gary's blues chops. (Now, admittedly, the appeal of the blues harp is 100% lost on me, but even as someone who avoids the instrument in that style of usage, I can recognize when it's being used by someone who has no idea how to use it.)
I note with some amusement that this is the very highest record label number found so far on which Gary Roberts' name appears, and that his tenure there lasted barely 100 label numbers (and he was not on all of those releases). I can just imagine - although I have no belief that this actually happened - that after hearing this performance, the folks at Sterling cut their losses and moved on to someone else.
Download: Gary Roberts - Remembering
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In comparison, the flip side, "You Did Me Wrong", sung by Shelley Stuart, is a solid piece of entertainment. But only in comparison. The lyrics are artless, in the style that song-poets have achieved since the genre came into being ("Why are you doing this the way you are?"), and they read more as a series of prose sentence than as poetry or lyrics. A sense a bit an attempt at proto-disco by the band at the 1:33 point, although the beat is a bit slow for that. Other than that, musically, this is sort of a throwback to Sterling's earlier days, when Shelley Stuart showed up more often, along with Norm Burns, particularly in the use of all that echo.
This is also the second highest numbered Shelley Stuart release on Sterling which has been found, to this date...
Download: Shelley Stuart - You Did Me Wrong
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4 comments:
Mr. Roberts' performance here is surpassed only by that dynamite guitar player accompanying him. Truly blues for all mankind.
Both sides of this make me laugh. Shelley's side, which I much prefer, takes its lyrical hook verbatim from a huge disco hit of 1976, while the Gary side...yes, as Timmy said, it's the blues for everyone! Thanks for posting.
Fly Robin Fly was disco at its most lifeless. White people in platform shoes and bad hair. Not enough cocaine in the world to make it exciting. But Shelley Stuart of Vampire Husband steals that chorus and makes it into something wonderful. Actually the whole thing depends on the lowdown piano riff, which was probably stolen from somewhere else. Thanks!
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