I don't know about the Budos Band but this clip reminds me of something I wanted to post after watching that PBS Stax special that was on awhile ago (but that I only got around to watching last week).

Was there ever a better live performer than Otis!?!?!?!?

This "His Girl" starts out with the same bass and kick drum pattern, and 50 seconds into it, at the first chorus, it's pretty clear what source material the band is working from. This cut reminds me of those Hugo Santamaria albums from the late-60s. I think that was the artist's name.

That said, taking shots at a Pitchfork writer for lacking historical perspective seems abit too obvious, even by my low standards. Aren't the people who write for Pitchfork of the generation that considers Pavement the beginning of rock history?

Al asked:

Was there ever a better live performer than Otis!?!?!?!?

Perhaps not!

Al asked:

Was there ever a better live performer than Otis!?!?!?!?

I went out in search of documentary evidence to support my assertion that there were tons of performers from the era who smoked Otis on stage -- especially my boys Sam & Dave -- and I found *this*, which, despite the infuriating editing, blew my fucking mind. Make sure you hang out for Arthur Conley and the mystery dude at the end singing something that sounds like "Ride Your Pony." (Talking about fashion statements... check out that shirt collar!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNR1pxBlRuE

That said, taking shots at a Pitchfork writer for lacking historical perspective seems abit too obvious, even by my low standards. Aren't the people who write for Pitchfork of the generation that considers Pavement the beginning of rock history?

Once again, Mr. Mod, much like our discussion about '80s hardcore and its various subgenres and scenes, you're painting with way too broad of a brush there. I mean, you're right here in that most of the writers for Pitchfork came of age during the time when bands like Pavement and GBV were the kings of indie-rock, so naturally their tastes would be aligned there. With that said, they've done numerous features on other eras of music, like a 100 greatest songs on the '60s or 100 greatest albums of the '70s post, many of which aren't that obvious. They've also reviewed tons of reissues as well. Sure they have their share of douchebaggery (like just about any magazine or blog save for a few), but I think they get unfairly singled out when they make a historical (or other, music-related) mistake because of the snarkiness of some of their writers. At least that's always been my take on it.

matt...

thanks for venturing into this territory.

you've chosen two tunes that demonstrate quite well my feelings about the BB.

i am a sucker for the their more organic sounding stuff like "ride or die". it has a tremendous amount of space. it's certainly polished, but particular flourishes, like the up close maraccas in the left channel, and that nice clean cropper-esque guitar track leave me with a human feel.

on many tracks (usually the faster ones), however, their arrangements, recording, and mix aesthetic go so far into a polished muzak-ish realm that i forget i'm listening to people playing instruments. "his girl" is a case in point. its overlays of supermarket horns surpass amy winehouse's mark ronson produced "you know i'm no good" in terms of sheen.

i know nothing of the budos band's make up, but i've often wondered if there are two personalities pulling the band in different directions in the studio. i wonder if future efforts will see

as far as the critical end of it goes, it's a bit nitpicky isn't it? i can see why a critic would say "his girl" is based "loosely" on my girl instead of closely. as the mod says, it's not really clear that we're listening to a variation on "my girl" until the chorus. it's not just "my girl in a minor key" as your BT comrade suggests. the melody has been altered, the arrangement is *markedly different* and while the notes may follow the same rhythmic pattern as the original, but when we get to the chorus, we're not listening to the my girl melody simply transposed to fit a minor scale. it's a different melodic line.

and if you want to get nitpicky and technical about the tempo, why not go all the way with it: 'His girl" may only be a slight bump up in bpm, unless you were to read a chart for each song.

i could be wrong about this next part, and BigSteve should weigh in: i suspect that "his girl" is in what *musicians* would call "cut time". this means that the tempo is THE SAME, but the measures have been cut in half so that the downbeat is doubled. the effect is that a song *sounds* faster because it has twice the downbeats. before we get to the chorus of his girl, i'm pretty sure we're in "cut time" territory. so at 116, we're really at 232. and on top of a doubled downbeat, there's a much more frenzied approach to the percussion than what you hear in the original. lots of 16th notes stippled in there. by comparison "my girl" is RATHER unhurried. this is a radical departure from the original, and bpm's don't tell the whole story.

i think it's safe to say that the BB has really taken the original to a new place. in other words, with his girl's numerous departures from "my girl" i think it's more incorrect to say it's "based closely on the original" than it is to say "his girl" is based "loosely" on it.

picking on pitchfork is fun, but only if you're really right and they're really wrong.

Hrrundi, Sam and Dave were great, but they're so choreographed. Let's see what they can do in the open field. Otis may be the best open-field runner in music. Of course, we know that none of these performances hold a candle to The Who lip-synching "Join Together".

Regarding the moves of Sam & Dave, I think there’s plenty of room for that kind of super-choreography in performance when it’s done well like that, and I definitely respect and enjoy their position as the lucha libre of rock stage presence. Other things of note in that clip: the way they positioned the only guy not moving in the band so that he’s directly between them and the hair on the guy closest to the camera when they switch to the view of the horn section.

Hrrundi, that was a great clip...but I think Arthur Conley smokes Sam & Dave who I don't think come up to Otis heights. And that snippet of Linda Carr was tantalizing.

Since His Girl opens with the exact same three-note bass riff as My Girl, and then follows it with the bass playing the exact same six-note riff the guitar plays in My Girl, I don't see how anyone who was familiar with My Girl would not recognize it.

I don't know that I've ever heard the term cut time, though I understand the explanation. I just don't think that's what's happening here. I just think the drums are played much busier in this style of music than in the original. The tempo may be slightly elevated, but there's just more hits per measure. In most Motown records, everything is very clean and precise, whereas in Afrobeat and in its primary source, James Brown's music, the drummer plays with the rhythm more and plays it much more densely. It sounds like a lot is going on in the rhythm section, and there is a lot going on, but it's not acceleration you're hearing.

I'm pretty sure that 'mystery dude' with the outrageous collar is Lee Dorsey, since Ride Your Pony and get Out My Life Woman were two of his hits, both written by Allen Toussaint.

here's the explanation from "cuttime.com":

"Cut time is a common musical term with slightly various meanings among different musicians. It is the standard symbol (shown above) in written Western music indicating alla breve (twice as fast). But to classical musicians, this symbol will mean "having a feeling of 2 beats per bar" (as opposed to 4 which is called common time) and/or that the tempo (pacing) of the music is generally fast and flowing. While jazz musicians say "cut time" or "half time" when they want the music to suddenly go twice as fast!"

so if:

-there is an acceleration from 106 bpm to 116...
-it's in cut time (which it is)
-it's (as we both say), MUCH BUSIER, so that the general effect is a radically different feel than the unhurried, majestic pace of the original.
-it's in a minor key instead of a major key, AND it's more than just a transposition of that melody to adhere to a minor scale...

...then how on earth can it be "closely based on the original?".

It's closely based on the original because, despite all the things that are different, the basic character of the original is apparent from the opening measures. It's loosely based on the original because they've changed just enough to claim co-writing credit with Mr. Robinson.

Is the end of Otis' Try a Little Tenderness a good example of cut time? Or is that just a quickening of the tempo?

Speaking of which, back in the day it was the Sam & Dave show that you always read about blowing the hippies' minds. Of course they're show was a revue, with multiple acts and a huge horn section. Otis probably carried a whole show himself just fine, but I've got to say his changes to the lyrics of My Girl bother me.

Thanks for this recommendation! I really like the two songs here. I was listening to a lot of Rufus the past few weeks, as a preface to the new Chaka Khan CD, which is slowly growing on me.

I do like "His Girl," and I caught the allusions right in the beginning.

Otis once famously said he would "never follow those two motherfuckers on stage again," of Sam & Dave, so blistering was their act. Jim and I possess a great DVD culled from the '67 Euro Stax tour that has footage of both acts that validates Otis' concern. The S&D footage is just mind-blowing. Jim knows what I'm talking about.

But if you really want to see some hyper-coordinated soul mach schau, check this out -- and don't miss the young, pimply-faced guitar slinger in the band:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2wBPix-nmg

Wow... very cool. Thanks!

http://buddytravis.com/

"His Girl" is not in cut time in any way I've ever understood it. A march is in cut time. Most polkas are in cut time. "His Girl" is just faster.

Examples of cut time? "I'm Not Your Stepping Stone" goes in and out of cut time in the middle parts. The end of "Ticket to Ride"? If the drums went along with the tambourine, that would feel like cut time.

I get the two song examples you give, but marches and polkas? Those are just in 2/4 rather than 4/4 time. That's cut time too?

That's my understanding, BigSteve. I mean, very rarely are you changing chords after just two beats (one kick-drum hit and one snare hit) in a fast polka.

But I could be wrong. I also could be right and there could be exceptions that are also right. As I always say, this stuff is a lot less cut and dried than most people think it is.

I guess I was thinking, after reading saturn's explanation, that cut time involved a part of a song that had that double time feel different from the rest of the song, like Stepping Stone.

I believe this is the 'rave up' technique that the Yardbirds perfected and the Count Five borrowed for Psychotic Reaction.

Right. That's more like it. A whole song can be cut time; it doesn't have to be just a part.

This is a response from Steve Holtje, my fellow Big Takeover writer, who originally wrote the piece critical of the Pitchfork reviewer, after I forwarded this thread to him the other day.

Steve's response:
Changing a melody from major to minor is not "transposition."

Transposition is moving from one key to another, or from one clef to another. That's not what's going on in this arrangement. Of course the
melody was altered – it had to be fitted to a different scale. You
can't move a melody from major to minor without changing some notes.

I do have a tendency to look at music primarily from a structural POV, as does practically everyone who has studied music theory extensively, so harmonic rhythm is how I calculate tempo, not how many notes people are playing. So saturnismine's "cut time" observation, even if it had
been correct (I think he means "double time" - and "half time" is the opposite), wasn't really addressing my point. I consider changes such as that to be surface-level rather than structural. It seems like the
poster Big Steve looks at things the same way I do.

Ultimately, my main point was that the original Pitchfork reviewer
didn't even know it was the same song until he read the writing
credit. That level of musical obtuseness is pathetic.

Thanks, Townsman Berlyant and thanks Steve Holtje for the response! Although Steve wears his Pince Nez even more proudly than most of us, I think his basic premise was correct.

Sorry i've been out of this thread for awhile...

it's been a busy few days at work...

Steve, and others, thanks for responding to my points....

i still don't think it's wrong for the pitchfork writer to say that that "his girl" is based "loosely" on "my girl".

that was my only point.

i suspect that if you had read a review consisting of the same passage which has you so morally outraged in a media outlet other than pitchfork, one you don't disdain, you might not have been so inclined to take such umbrage. i was only suggesting that his words, "loosely based", are certainly not as wildly off base as your outraged tone -- which seems petty and over the top to me -- would suggest.

your disdain for pitchfork is again palpable above ("pathetic"? lighten up). this only confirms my suspicion that this is really about an indie rock critic pissing contest, not the songs themselves. that's what it smells like from here. i could be wrong about this, so forgive me if i'm off base.

picking on pitchfork is, like, so 2005 where i'm coming from.

while it may indeed be "pathetic" for a reviewer of rock music not to know "my girl" (although I personally tend to reserve such harsh language for crimes against the helpless), you don't actually *know* that the pitchfork reviewer "didn't even know it was the same song until he read the writing credit", as you say.

nor is this what his words, ("I was initially surprised to see SMOKEY ROBINSON’s name in the credit for ‘His Girl,’") necessarily mean. it's likelier that he was trying to make clear to the reader that the song contains considerable differences from the original, which it does. he next comments, that they "could have gotten away with calling it an original", which suggests that this is what he meant. was he hamhanded about it? sure. but that's no reason to get all righteous and claim that he's never heard "my girl".

as for the songs themselves, "his girl's" relative proximity to "my girl" -- "close" or "loose" -- is a subjective point, one that could be argued either way.

let's get down to it, in an unhurried, deliberate fashion. let's really examine these points, now that i have some time.

sure, we hear the "my girl" signature bassline at the beginning. but as soon as the rest of the instrumentation comes in, we're listening to a song that doesn't resemble "my girl" in the least until we get to the chorus.

i mistook this section, "his girl's" verse, for being in "cut time" because i was listening on small computer speakers, and thought i heard a doubled kick drum down beat.

but the fact that i was wrong about that doesn't change my point: we hear a mishmash of percussion that evokes a frenzied vibe, in marked contrast to the relaxed, contented pace of "my girl". it's *quite a departure*.

*in fact*, noone in this thread, not you, steve, not berlyant, not BigSteve either, has pointed out that "his girl" has a much longer verse passage "my girl", one that is structured and written much differently than the song on which you claim it is so "closely" based:

"my girl" goes right from the intro, to the signature guitar riff, to four lines of lyrics that go from Cmaj to Fmaj on EVERY MEASURE. 8 measures of verse with a chord change on every measure, and then, *bang*, right to the chorus.

"his girl", on the other hand, lingers on Cmin for 12 whole measures, 8 of which feature a completely different melody than anything in "my girl". "his girl" then *MODULATES UP* to Fmin only ONCE, staying there for 4 measures, before going back down to Cmin for 4 more measures. then the chorus plays.

so "his girl" verses are not "closely based" on "my girl". not at all.

"my girl" also has a bridge that "his girl" doesn't have, and modulates up to a new key (and stays there) after the bridge.

regarding the music theory points i raised and you discuss: "transposition", as it relates to music, is indeed defined as a change from one key to another. but this does *not* exclude changing a song in a major key to its minor.

and you are correct when you write that you cannot switch to a minor key without changing some notes.

however, when any song is changed from a major to a minor, the composer / arranger has the option of keeping the melodic structure the same, while making that melody adhere to the minor scale. *that* would be basing the song "closely" on its original.

as i point out above, this is not the case with "his girl's" verses.

finally, pitchfork aint my favorite place to read about music, either. so i've got no dog in this fight.

but do i think your moral outrage is better spent somehwere else? shit yeah, i do.

I may disagree with a few of saturn's finer points, but I don't want to flog them anymore.

Regarding the outrage though ... I do think it's easy to forget that we're coming up on the 43rd anniversary of My Girl's release. When you consider what the average age of a Pitchfork writer might be, we really shouldn't be surprised that today's crop of 'critics' is just not going to have a song like My Girl woven into his or her DNA like most of us.

A more appropriate response might be a wan smile and the quiet realization that out time is passing.

thanks for keeping the flame alive, Big.

i really do think steve h. is off in his assessment that the pitchfork kid "didn't even know it was the same song until he read the writing credit".

first of all, as i went to great lengths to point out, they're not the "same song".

but read the pitchfork passage again. the kid was expressing surprise that the budos band credited smokey, not because he didn't hear the "my girl" in "his girl", but because they didn't have to. it's a way of making clear to his reader that the songs are alot different.

and Big, i know you don't want to flog a dead horse, but i beg of you to read and consider the part of my post above where i point out the MAJOR differences in the verses of both songs. it's the kind of detailed analysis you often bring to the table, and which i'm always glad to read.

matt intones at the beginning of the thread " I think the writer in the piece linked above is being way too hard on the guy from Pitchfork, though."

then he asks us what we think.

I second Matt's emotion. and my analysis backs my sentiments.

Saturn, there's no way to quantify the differences. I still say that the song opens with two direct quotes, the bass line and the guitar lick, one after the other. To anyone with any familiarity with 60s music this would trigger the My Girl memory cells.

We lack clarity on exactly what the Pitchfork writer knew and when he knew it. So it goes. I'm just saying it's no longer a given that Motown memories are a prerequisite for being a music writer, and we should get used to it.

ugh.

grumble.

Saturnismine writes:

and Big, i know you don't want to flog a dead horse, but i beg of you to read and consider the part of my post above where i point out the MAJOR differences in the verses of both songs. it's the kind of detailed analysis you often bring to the table, and which i'm always glad to read.

My man, your analysis was so fine that I printed it out to give it some old-school printed paper credibility! I agree with just about everything everybody has said on this point. I think I even agree with a few Townspeople who have not yet posted on this subject. I think we all agree that the guy writing the review probably said what he said as a way of complimenting The Budos Band for their work in writing a piece around the framework of an old chestnut.

your'e not reading what i wrote very carefully. i know i wrote a lot, but if you had read it, you wouldn't be responding the way you are.

i'm making objective points about the details of the song.

and i also point out that it can be argued both ways. that, in fact, IS my point.

and where you write that the quotations in "his girl" would "trigger the memory cells", and that we "lack clarity" on what the pitchfork writer knew, you're agreeing with me, not the person who is certain that the pitchfork writer couldn't recognize "my girl" in the budos band song.

you don't have to argue with me...because we're not arguing about this.

but really, and i mean this: forget about whatever point it is you think i'm trying to make, and read my analysis of the part of the song after the bass intro. there IS a way to quantify SOME of the differences between "my girl" and "his girl". and i have done it.

thanks mod.

i'm still pondering your off list helms / nunez question.

grumble....

Saturn, what the *fuck* are you smoking?! First of all, "My Girl" and "His Girl" are functionally identical, no matter what kind of muso-pince-nez chord structure apeshit you care to fling in BigSteve's direction. If you check the Budos number, leaving out the *specific* number of times the band plays the Cmin vamp, or the *specific* number of BPM the band employs, or whether the band plays this riff or that riff, or bit of melody, or whatever, in a minor vs. a major key, the *important* melodies and song chunklets are copped quite plainly, in the right sequence, and so forth. I mean, come ON, dude. I am frankly baffled by your assertion that the song is substantively different; you must pay more attention to less important substance than I do.

And stop busting BigSteve's balls for getting wrapped up in this Pitchfork shit. *You're* the guy who found the time to write a Master's thesis on the song's purported differences from the original, and I think you've got rocks in your head for undertaking that fool's errand. And here I thought we were starting to get along!

I didn't think I was disagreeing with you, saturn. I just think we're interested in different parts of the issue.

One thing I do disagree with is the contention that "you are correct when you write that you cannot switch to a minor key without changing some notes." If you switch to the relative minor you don't necessarily have to change the notes (of the melody, that is, which is what I Steve was talking about.) In other words, if My Girl was in the key of G, the Budos version was in E minor, not G minor, right?

Anyway I think transposition is the right word for this kind of major to minor thing, I don't care what Steve says.

woah woah woah....

hvb, you're misreading me, too.

I was the one who got wrapped up in the pitchfork shit first.

i wasn't busting BigSteve's balls for that. but he's clearly not reading my posts.

i'm aware of the similarities.

and i'm only arguing for the differences because i hear them.

i know i'm the only one who has pointed out that there is NOTHING identical about the verse passages of these two songs.

nor is there anything identical about the pacing,

or the instrumentation,

but i didn't think i was the only one who actually heard these differences.

so stop being so disingenuous.

the point isn't whether or not it's easy to identify "my girl" in "his girl". it is. i think the pitchfork writer knows that.

my point is that where he expresses surprise that they credited smokey robinson, he's not naively admitting he didn't know it was based on "my girl",thus exposing himself as a neophyte.

he's making a point to his readers that the song contains several departures from the original. WHICH...IT...DOES.

andif you have the patience to actually read my post, your ears might hear those differences the next time you click on the song and listen to it.

the thread begins with matt's question about whether or not the big takeover writer was being too hard on the pitchfork kid. i think he was.

BigSteve, thanks for the response!

in context, I'm responding to Steve H's contention on that one. and I know what you're talking about regarding maintaining the notes when switching from major to minor. but that doesn't apply here.

in the bigger picture, perhaps we aren't interested in different parts of the song, but are interested in emphasizing different parts in our conclusion.

this is exactly what i mean when i say that "his girls" relationship to "my girl" could be argued as "loose" or "close", and therefore, Steve H. is way out of bounds for claiming, definitively, universally, that it is based closely on it, espeically if he's arguing from the premise that the pitchfork writer's words are an admission that he didn't know the song was based on "my girl".

if he didn't know that, then how would he have known that smokey robinson's name signified "his girls" indebtedness to "my girl"?

Well, a day late and a dollar short, I'll weigh in. First, His Girl sounds very obviously like a cover of My Girl to me. That's my territory, though, the fucking with songs in that way. One thing that I've done several times is to keep the melody exactly the same, but change the chords underneath to the relative minor. You can do a lot without the original song disappearing. I think we are used to too many people being far too uninventive in their cover ideas.

Cut time? Cut time, on paper, is exactly the same as 2/4, except that you write 4 quarters per bar instead of 4 eighths. Either way, there are 2 beats in feel per bar. People use it, as in polkas, so that when things get fast, you don't end up crowding th epage with a bunch of 32nd notes. "Double time" is when you actually speed the song up, a thing Mingus did a lot of. This song is simply in four with a "double feel." The congas and all that are just playing faster per beat, but the speed set up by the opening bass riff stays as is.

Overall I'm with Otis in that debate, though if the question is "most smoking performer" I would still say, look at all that footage of '67 and '68 James Brown. Jesus. I don't prefer it to what Otis was doing overall, but as a performer, I think JB makes everyone else look like they're just warming up.