SOUNDTRACK: MERRY CLAYTON-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #222 (June 9, 2021).
Merry Clayton is a woman who every music fan has heard but probably doesn’t know it.
Clayton has been making great music for almost 60 years. Clayton is one of rock’s most important backup singers (for starters, see The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” and Carole King’s Tapestry). She recorded several excellent solo albums that never broke big, but eventually received the recognition she deserved in the 2013 documentary 20 Feet From Stardom.
Clayton is not singing rock in this set, she is firmly in the gospel tradition. And her voice still sounds amazing.
Members of The Waters and Take 6 (Maxine Waters, Julie Waters, Oren Waters, Alvin Chea and Alfie Siles) provide excellent backing vocals.
Merry Clayton’s Tiny Desk concert begins with the essentials. After a brief piano intro, she begins to sing “Beautiful Scars” — the title track of her new album — in a powerful and knowing voice.
Terry Young plays the slow piano and Nathan East provides the soft bass.
In 2014, she was in a serious car accident that required months in the hospital and extensive rehabilitation. With encouragement from her longtime friend and producer Lou Adler she decided to record a new album.
“Oh What a Friend,” written by Terry Young, features soaring call-and-response vocals between Clayton and the vocalists.
Charles Fearing’s guitar is not really noticeable amid the piano and bass but Harvey Mason’s drums snap and pop on the beat.
They conclude with a stirring and joyous version of Sam Cooke’s 1956 classic “Touch the Hem of His Garment.”
This song is acapella with the backing singers providing all of the music (including the foot stomps, maybe). I love the bass notes from Alvin Chea.
[READ: July 1, 2021] “Spirit at Summer’s End”
This month’s issue of The Walrus is the Summer Reading issue and features three pieces of fiction and three poems.
The final piece is a poem. And it is summer themed.
Indeed, it is a visceral account of the end of the season:
scent
dust
bent straw
bee music
shrunken honeysuckle
It’s a beautiful ode to all of those whose
life was … one summer.
Too soon to think about, but coming in a couple of months.
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