Eddie Floyd, "Big Bird"

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holy shit.

does chuck eddy know about this one?

cos this is heavy metal, surely. with horns and everything!

― amateur!!!st, Tuesday, 17 August 2004 21:08 (twenty-one years ago)

metal? it rocks uber hard but metal? i dunno.

― dickvandyke (dickvandyke), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 21:11 (twenty-one years ago)

mmmm well it's something.

am i wrong or are there a few "louie, louie" references in this record?

― amateur!!!st, Tuesday, 17 August 2004 21:13 (twenty-one years ago)

yep--this is probably the greatest thing ever recorded at Stax. it's all booker t. except for the horns, and eddie floyd's vocal. dunno if i'd call it "metal" but it's easily the match of anything on "revolver" in my opinion. the opening riff was stolen by the move as the intro for their 1970 "hello susie." i saw the re-formed box tops do this one at their memphis show in '98...the oblique Stax style at its peak.

― eddie hurt (ddduncan), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 21:17 (twenty-one years ago)

OH OH OH ONE OF MY ALL TIME FAVORITE RECORDS BIG BIRD BIG BIRD YAY

― rumple, Wednesday, 18 August 2004 03:13 (twenty-one years ago)

booker t. plays that guitar lick? and the drums?

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 03:28 (twenty-one years ago)

The Jam do it too, I suppose that might be more metalesque.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 08:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I think Primal Scream do it live too sometimes, predictably enough

― bham, Wednesday, 18 August 2004 08:03 (twenty-one years ago)

amateur!st, Dave Marsh thinks this record is Metal, too!

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 10:07 (twenty-one years ago)

not the greatest thing ever made at stax, but eddie floyd regarded it as his rock n roll record when he made it.

― dickvandyke (dickvandyke), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 10:37 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, that record is all booker t. if i had rob bowman's book on stax handy, i'd look it up. there are so many great stax recordings--and of course some of them weren't recorded at stax, but in muscle shoals or in jackson, miss.--that i accept opinion that it might not be the greatest, but i think it pretty much is. and hardcore soul fanatics generally regard it as such.

― eddie hurt (ddduncan), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 16:21 (twenty-one years ago)

it seems too marginal in its sound to the "sound of stax" to be "the best stax record." actually the stax sound was pretty diverse, as a recent re-listen to a friend's copy of that 4-CD stax box reminded me. and surprisingly i found a lot of it pleasant but kind of ho-hum. and i have to admit never having a great fondness for the staple singers' stax stuff.

anyway, where does dave march write about this record??

― amateur!!!st, Wednesday, 18 August 2004 16:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I hate to say it but I think I always liked motown more than stax – far far far better songs overall. Just pit any multiple cd set of motown against that 4cd stax one. I like hi records more too.

― dickvandyke (dickvandyke), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 16:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Ken, who used to manage the local record store for ages -he moved to San Fan last winter, used to end DJ sets with this (it'd be his one chance to dance with everybody). It's pretty directly linked with that memory for me. Great song.

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 18:02 (twenty-one years ago)

nobody's referenced the similarity to "Beds Are Burning."

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 18:15 (twenty-one years ago)

maybe because one song is great and the other is lemur vomit?

― amateur!!!st, Wednesday, 18 August 2004 18:16 (twenty-one years ago)

i like stax, motown and hi. stax music is very different from motown, much more minimalist. stax speaks more to me than does motown, however, not that motown didn't go great stuff. stax is diverse, especially post-'68 when they brought in guys like don davis from detroit. "whatcha see is whatcha get" is more like detroit music than stax anyway; the staple singers on stax i do like a lot, and by then stax had changed its sound considerably. more ska influence and so forth, and actually the records probably sound better. hi is stax cleaned up, i think.

i'd say the greatest stax records would be these in no particular order:

bar-kays, last night; soul finger
rufus thomas, walkin' the dog
william bell, you don't miss your water
eddie floyd, knock on wood; don't rock the boat; raise your hand; big bird
booker t., green onions; hip-hug her
otis, dock of the bay; the entire "dictionary of soul" album
sir mack rice, mini-skirt minnie
sam and dave, i can't stand up; soul man; hold on! i'm comin'; you got me hummin'; wrap it up
isaac hayes, shaft
carla thomas, b-a-b-y
johnnie taylor, toe hold; the entire "who's making love" album; cheaper to keep her
dramatics, whatcha see is whatcha get
staple singers, i'll take you there
jean knight, mr. big stuff

i mean there's lots more and the thing is, the stax house style is worth listening to pretty much all by itself, as is the hi style. i find a lot of motown just overdone, fulsome you might say. as the supremes, for example. it's good pop music but it lacks something for me. but that's just me--i dig soul music in general.

― eddie hurt (ddduncan), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 18:40 (twenty-one years ago)

anyway... it is a great song... i think i heard that eddie floyd wrote "Big Bird" right after learning about otis redding's death in a plane crash, and it's got a sort of desperate grief about it that makes me believe it... The Deadly Snakes did a good version on their last In The Red 45 too, they really play up the call-and-response vocals...

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 18:45 (twenty-one years ago)

oh there's also that otis tribute by william bell...

ts: william bell "tribute to a king" vs. george jackson "aretha, sing one for me"

― amateur!!!st, Wednesday, 18 August 2004 18:50 (twenty-one years ago)

i love aretha sing one for me...

and not to be picky, but are you sure Booker T. played EVERYTHING on that record himself, eddie? surely it was booker t & the MG's...

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 18:53 (twenty-one years ago)

I also confess to preferring Motown to Stax - James Jamerson over Duck Dunn anytime, anywhere. Plus the Motown discs just plain sounded brighter, more immediate, whether on AM radio or my home stereo. Most of my Stax favourites are by Sam & Dave.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 19:00 (twenty-one years ago)

like coffee and sugar, ain't the one without t'other

― amateur!!!st, Wednesday, 18 August 2004 19:02 (twenty-one years ago)

There's a young undie hip-hop group in town now that uses "Big Bird" as the basis of their most crowd-pleasing song. I talked to them about it yesterday and then this thread pops up.

I wrote this before on some other Stax v. Motown thread, but I think Motown peaked higher but Stax is more consistently interesting and has more great obscurities/non-hits/B-sides

― chris herrington (chris herrington), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 19:26 (twenty-one years ago)

amateur!st, it's in "The Heart Of Rock & Soul", which is a great book btw (not because of its main ideological argument or anything, he just writes very well about Soul and Doo Wop and stuff.)

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 23:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Here's something on "Big Bird" from the Stax box liner notes:

"Booker plays virtually all the instruments on the record, including the winding duo guitar parts." Doesn't sound like Al Jackson Jr. on drums, either. I'm sure there's more on this in Bowman's Stax book, but it's Booker T.'s record.

― eddie hurt (ddduncan), Thursday, 19 August 2004 02:04 (twenty-one years ago)

wow!

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 19 August 2004 12:24 (twenty-one years ago)

next stax classik to discuss: "i forgot your lover" -- william bell

― amateur!!!st, Friday, 20 August 2004 16:12 (twenty-one years ago)

next stax classik to discuss: "i forgot to be your lover" -- william bell

― amateur!!!st, Friday, 20 August 2004 16:12 (twenty-one years ago)

let's talk about how far the rhythm section drags behind the vocal. about as far as it can. oh and the string section. this is like the mid-period stax sound distilled to its essence.

― amateur!!!st, Friday, 20 August 2004 16:53 (twenty-one years ago)

CHRIST! I FORGOT TO BE YOUR LOVER is one of my absolute favorite ballads of all time. What a gut-ripper

Booker told me most of the track there was just him as well

― rumple, Friday, 20 August 2004 17:04 (twenty-one years ago)

really?!?! those drums sound awful al jacksonish. and the guitar awful steve cropperish.

― amateur!!!st, Friday, 20 August 2004 17:57 (twenty-one years ago)

well don't you have the box with credits, big boy? All I know is what he told me. Of course I was beside myself when I met him (briefly) simply because of that single song--which I couldn't stop yammering on about to the point of embarrassment--so maybe I misunderstood. Duck was there, too, and when I asked what his favorite session of all time was, he said Wilson Pickett's 'I'm Not Tired.'

― rumple, Friday, 20 August 2004 18:06 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm really tempted to come up w/my top ten stax tracks, but that's haaaard.

i really like "i've been lonely (for so long)" which is an unbelievably weird record.

i don't have a copy of the box set to check the notes. but i'm taking donations.

― amateur!!!st, Friday, 20 August 2004 18:07 (twenty-one years ago)

then there are the non-Stax records cut at Stax, like the stuff Sam Baker did there. WOW

― rumple, Friday, 20 August 2004 18:22 (twenty-one years ago)

i really like "i've been lonely (for so long)" which is an unbelievably weird record.

It's sort of comical, isn't it? That bass voice reminds me of The Coasters.

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Friday, 20 August 2004 19:26 (twenty-one years ago)

i can't quite explain what accounts for its strangeness--each instrument (incl. the vocal) seem to be in a different key. is that true or is that just the effect? if so what is the cause?

also the vocal phrasing in the last lines of the verses before the chorus (before the "coasters" voice) is odd--he slows down really stridently, and the rhythm track follows suit.

the whole thing is so spare, too. just that occasionally sitar-like thing, a tambourine, a slide guitar (played v. softly), an acoustic guitar, the lead vocal (either double-tracked or with a harmony vocal, i think the former), and the aforementioned "coasters" bass voice.

such a strange way to approach a song about loneliness. but oddly it does seem to make you sit up and pay attention to the lyrics.

― amateur!!!st, Friday, 20 August 2004 19:33 (twenty-one years ago)

i mean that intro is def. out of tune somehow. in a nice way.

― amateur!!!st, Friday, 20 August 2004 19:34 (twenty-one years ago)

oh yeah and the brief recitational part. which is in the guy's normal voice while the rest is in falsetto.

― amateur!!!st, Friday, 20 August 2004 19:36 (twenty-one years ago)

it all sounds kind of bubblegum to me, in a way that few other stax records do.

― amateur!!!st, Friday, 20 August 2004 19:38 (twenty-one years ago)

"Knock on Wood" is death metal. "Born to Be Wild" sounds like bubblegum in comparison.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Friday, 20 August 2004 19:49 (twenty-one years ago)

do you have to sign a "pump one record, denigrate another, even if it makes no sense" policy statement when you get a job as a rock critic?

― amateur!!!st, Friday, 20 August 2004 19:52 (twenty-one years ago)

When shopping for wallpaper once - with a friend who's cut out for that sort of thing - I remarked, "That's slightly more sea-green than green, don't you think?"

She screamed, "GREEN IS GREEN, YOU ASSHOLE ROCK CRITIC" and stormed off. The salesman took my side.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Friday, 20 August 2004 19:57 (twenty-one years ago)

sorry, that was rude. but i don't see the connection between the two records.

― amateur!!!st, Friday, 20 August 2004 19:58 (twenty-one years ago)

"I've Been Lonely for So Long" is indeed one weird record. One of my favorites, though. Emo? That's funny, "Knock on Wood" as death metal--the most relaxed death-metal song I know for sure...

― eddie hurt (ddduncan), Friday, 20 August 2004 20:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, your thread asks whether a particular Eddie Floyd song could be considered "heavy metal," and "Born to Be Wild" is widely known as the first record to invoke "heavy metal" in name, giving rise to the popular use of the term; much the way Bark Psychosis are inextricably linked with Simon Reynolds' fortuitous use of "post-rock," Steppenwolf are often considered the first "heavy metal" band (there's also the Iron Butterfly album, Heavy, but, let's not get all complicated). Does my comment make sense to you now?

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Friday, 20 August 2004 20:05 (twenty-one years ago)

ok. i just think "big bird" shares a few salient formal qualities with some heavy metal records. but calling it heavy metal as i did was an exaggeration. i don't really hear any heavy metal affinity in "knock on wood." nor is "born to be wild" really heavy metal either. i like all of these records btw. i get a little wary of the meme where someone compares a "black" record to a "white" one and says the former rocks harder, as if they're upsetting someone's canon or something by doing so. it seems to happen a lot around here. ok.

― amateur!!!st, Friday, 20 August 2004 20:08 (twenty-one years ago)

also "knock on wood" does not mention elves or entrails (that i can hear).

― amateur!!!st, Friday, 20 August 2004 20:09 (twenty-one years ago)

The other day at band practice, I came up with this chord-riff thing and was playing it over and over and everyone else was like, that sounds really familiar, and we were trying to figure out what it was, and eventually realized it was the horn intro from "Knock on Wood." So we did what all good rock bands do: took the whole thing, reversed it, and used it anyways.

― n.a. (Nick A.), Friday, 20 August 2004 20:10 (twenty-one years ago)

and wilson pickett covered "born to be wild"...

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Friday, 20 August 2004 20:10 (twenty-one years ago)

But it does mention Thunder. Lightning. (the way you love me is) frightening. And knocking on wood is a superstition, so, we're pretty close to Cannibal Corpse here when you think about it.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Friday, 20 August 2004 20:11 (twenty-one years ago)

ok. now let's talk about "soul finger"

― amateur!!!st, Friday, 20 August 2004 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

oh yeah and the brief recitational part. which is in the guy's normal voice while the rest is in falsetto.

I was thinking the other day about how when I was like twelve I played some of my friends some Soul track with falsetto in it, and they just thought it was hilarious bcuz of the voice (I was outraged, because it was a very heartbroken track and I was very hung-up about these kinds of things back then);lead me to think about how odd it is that one grows sort of used to taking thse very odd voices seriously in music...I think that the move from falsetto singing to normal voice recitation sort of explores that, because obv if he had done the recitation *in falsetto voice* it would've turned into straight comedy, which this track (despite being funny) isn't.

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Friday, 20 August 2004 20:40 (twenty-one years ago)

grrr, you're going too fast dude!

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Friday, 20 August 2004 20:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't hear "Soul Finger" without thinking of Spies Like Us. That's what I get for growing up in the 80s. Great song, though.

― Monetizing Eyeballs (diamond), Friday, 20 August 2004 20:48 (twenty-one years ago)

well I mean stax was a great comedy-record label--really. instrumental versions of beatles songs quite funny, as is wendy rene's "barb-b-q." rufus thomas. and richard pryor was on a stax subsidiary, wasn't he? laff? so i hear fred knight's record in that tradition. and of course, estelle axton's "disco duck."

good comment above amateur! about the black/white music meme. i mean i admit, i think heavy metal music is really useless for the most part, and i love stax...amusing to me to see the two conflated.

― eddie hurt (ddduncan), Saturday, 21 August 2004 16:33 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 5 December 2005 00:05 (twenty years ago)

The big bird was Peter Garrett.

― 'Twan (miccio), Monday, 5 December 2005 00:11 (twenty years ago)

haha

― howell huser (chaki), Monday, 5 December 2005 00:52 (twenty years ago)

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