The Smokin' Spitfires
Music
Higher & Higher.
Neil: Higher And Higher a Jackie Wilson song......and our version is another recording from the Coquetfest.
Jackie Wilson was a man who could almost dance the pants of James Brown and was certainly a sweeter singer.
That oh so familiar bass line was played by a “moonlighting” James Jamerson THE top session bass player at Motown records.
Jackie Wilson suffered a massive heart attack on stage in 1975. Slipping in and out of a coma, in 1976 he was deemed conscious but incapacitated. And in 1984 he died at the age of 49.
James Jamerson had died only months earlier aged 47.
Two giants of American music greatly missed.
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Hallelujah I Love Her So.
Neil: This is The Smokin Spitfires playing the Ray Charles classic, ‘Hallelujah I Love Her So’ at The Coquetfest (and loving it)
I’ve always wondered why the woman in the song, if she is his baby who lives next door, why she doesn’t just move in with him, save on the utility bills? Or maybe she doesn’t really love him quite as much as he does her. Perhaps she’s not sure if she really wants to commit.......
Well, whatever.....it’s just a marvellous song.....true Rhythm and Blues and Ray Charles knew how to write them!!!
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Face it Where it Stands.
Neil: Face It Where It Stands......the song that Tyne Tees Television wouldn’t let The East Side Torpedoes perform on the local arts programme “Come In”.
It’s my most political song, about standing up and being counted, about facing out injustice and generally loving a little more and hating a little less.
It touches on sexual abuse, the Me Too movement, BLM, racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, homophobia and political injustice.
Victor Jara (mentioned in the second verse) was a Chilean teacher, a poet, singer songwriter, guitarist, theatre director and a Communist activist. He was tortured and murdered by the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship. Pinochet, the man who whilst under house arrest in England in 1999 for numerous human rights violations, Margaret Thatcher (the woman who had called Nelson Mandela a terrorist)
claimed was a friend to the British people. A fact that many people still find highly embarrassing.
It’s a long time since this song was first performed, historical language still permeates modern dialogue. Here we are well into the 21st century and nothing seems to have changed.
“Sweet Jesus make us brave like the others and fight hard for our children’s better day....face It!!!”
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Sweet Soul Music.
Neil: Our version of Arthur Conley’s 1967 hit “Sweet Soul Music”. Recorded at the 2018 Coquetfest. It references some of the greatest ever Soul singers.
I always like to include Sam Cooke and Bobby Womack but if I was to name check them all we’d have a 45 minute set with one song......!
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Sweet Memory.
Neil: I was in the obligatory art school blues band and we’d managed to get a gig!!!
If the piano player couldn’t make it I would double vocals and very bad piano. Well, on this hot summers night the piano man never turned up and neither did the piano. So I just sang, well shouted into a crap mic through a barely adequate p.a........hold on, I move too fast.....
At college my mate (the piano player) really fancied a petite dark haired beauty in our class. He pursued her constantly even though she had a very steady boyfriend in the print department. So reluctantly he was reduced to admiring her from afar (sometimes near but mostly afar). Still, to be fair he was persistent.......right, now back to the gig......
The art school band was playing ‘da blues’ and I was expressing myself bluesley. Looking over the top of my ‘cool shades’ who should I see in the front row of dancers but our bloody piano player grinning from ear to ear with his paramour.....who was wearing a beautiful satin dress that was so tight!!!!
She smiled at me and I knew that for one night and one night only she was going to let him steal her away from her boyfriend........
Now that’s got to be a Sweet Memory, hasn’t it?
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Hold Back the Night.
Ernie: I'm usually at odds with the band when it comes to live recordings of gigs to be sold, distributed or whatever, to me they are part of that 'moment' and once it's gone, it's gone. Searching the internet will give plenty of instances where you'll find live moments from both the Torpedoes and the Spitfires that cannot be called anything other than dreadful, I can recall but very few occasions where I'm happy with the end product. Control freak? - its been said.
Whilst going through and picking out the live tracks from Ross at the Cluny and Trevor at Coquetfest for our fortnightly extravaganza I came across some video's that Stu Keeble, who does a fab job of looking after us at Platform one, Bedlington Station sent me.
Stu video'd the band and my initial horror turned to genuine surprise and delight when I watched them and had no hesitation in offering these for your bi-monthly slice of The Smokin' Spitfires.
Hold back The Night: (Composers: Allan Felder, Norman Harris, Ronald Baker & Earl Young) - four of the very many band personnel) This one is one of my favourite tracks particularly by the Trammps (yes, the spelling is correct...) however I (only just) remember being very drunk in Manchester about 40 years ago and for some reason getting into a Graham Parker and the Rumour gig only to come out of it singing New York Shuffle and of course Hold back The Night. Our version tends towards the more frenetic version of GP.
To Stu keeble at STUKSound/videos - our grateful thanks for making us look better than thought possible!!!!
By the way, at about 1.35 seconds, Neil starts laughing, you can't see what the horns are doing.........!!!!!
https://www.facebook.com/STUKSound/videos/2866655700021409/
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Ain't too Proud to Beg.
Neil: Ain’t Too Proud To Beg.....another one from the 2018 Coquetfest......love this Motown hit by The Temptations! The Temps version has a fabulous Baritone sax part......we used to have a baritone sax in The Spitfires but Alan had to sell it......it was either that or the dog. Awwww come on we’ve all got to eat!!!!
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BeBop.
Neil: Two things before we start: Bebop: is a style of jazz characterised by fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key. e.g. The music of alto sax player, Charlie Parker. Embouchure: is the use of the lips, facial muscles, tongue AND teeth in the playing of a wind instrument. Okay....here we go...... A lot of people think that ‘BeBop Said’ is about alto sax player Nigel Stanger who used to play with Ern and I in The East Side Torpedoes. But the song goes back even further than Nigel. I was in a 5 piece R&B band from Middlesbrough called The Steel Mill Blues band when BeBop.......the name I’ve given him for the sake of the song (his real nickname was ‘The Whoop’ but that’s another story.....) asked if he could join or maybe we asked him (that’s probably more likely). He sang, played piano, harmonica and alto sax (sometimes all at the same time!!) Anyway, he joined us and we couldn’t believe it....he was a good few years older than any of us and we were in awe of him. He knew and understood Rhythm and Blues music. Our credibility soared!!!! However, like the song says he lost his teeth and his embouchure......and it wasn’t long before he became bitter about not being able to play.......and who could blame him. For some reason, best known to himself he decided to take it out on us. Slagging off his acolytes and generally criticising everything the band did. We were a little pissed off but we tried to understand. He left Teesside sometime afterwards and after a boisterous farewell party that lasted all night and into the late afternoon of the next day, I’m pleased to say that we all parted friends. Quite a few years later I found out he was playing alto sax in a Birmingham jazz group, he’d got his embouchure back!!! AND playing what he’d always wanted to play......Bebop!!!! Like Nigel, The Whoop taught me a lot about the soul of music......I will always be grateful.....thanks lads.......👍 Neil
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6345789.
Neil: This track is from a Smokin Spitfires set that was recorded (by accident) at The Coquetfest 2018.
Trevor Wharton was recording the band before us and left the machine running!
Back at his Purpledawn Recording Studio he discovered he’d recorded the Spitfires as well. He mixed it down and gave it to us.....thanks Trevor, nice one👍
It’s the usual line up but without Gary and Ian....Lloyd Howell (percussionist in the Spitfires 10piece) is on kit and Mick ‘The Master’ Hutchinson is depping on Fender Precision electric bass.
Of the Wilson Pickett songs we do 6345789 is my favourite.
The Wicked Pickett’s version is slower than ours but that’s because we are from England and a little more anxious. All the same I think you can hear we were having fun.
We’ll have a couple more songs for you soon.....watch this space.....
Stay safe,
Neil
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Check y' Change.
Neil: Ern has said many times over that I should tell people what my songs are about.....well because I am old and vulnerable with too much time on me hands and forced into the cupboard under the stairs to ‘self isolate’ (at least that’s what Shar tells me I’m doing). I thought I’d take the opportunity to let you into the ramblings of a mind that was confused a long time before I started drawing my pension. So here goes........ Check Your Change was written when I was spending a lot of time with friends in Notting Hill Gate London. The red head in tight leather trousers was a street vendor selling jewellry on the Portobello Road. And the couple were French kissing in the doorway of The Electric Cinema in Notting Hill. The rest kinda explains its self.....playing in bands and wondering if you’re going to get paid at the end of the night.....the gig economy......literally. Keep safe and well, Neil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYWIDitMXnM
Recorded live at The Cluny, 1st December 2019
Recorded and engineered by Ross Lewis and Dave Anderson of Immediate Sound, Newcastle Upon Tyne.
Mix down: Ross Lewis
Buffet’ Bob Garrington: Guitar
Mike Hepple: Hammond Organ & vocal
Ian Rigby: Electric Bass Guitar & vocal
Gary Cain: Drums
Lloyd Howell: Percussion.
Terry ‘Ernie’ O’Hern: Trombone / Horn arrangements
Dave ‘The Prince Of Prudhoe’ Blakey : Trumpet
Alan Thompson: Tenor Sax
Steve McGarvie: Alto Sax & vocal
Neil Hunter: Lead vocal