It's about time: Set those clocks back, and enjoy an extra hour of Black music

[Brexiter]

I’m elated that I get an extra hour of sleep today, now that we are no longer on Daylight Saving Time here in New York. I keep saying “fall back, spring forward” to remember to set a few of the windup clocks I have in the house. Thankfully, my computer and cell phone reset themselves automatically.

For today’s Black Music Sunday, we’ll be exploring songs about time.

Whether it’s tick-tock sounds, metronomes, keeping time, doing time, two-timing lovers, the changing times, or time repeating, time in some form has been a theme in popular music and across multiple genres. So take a little of your spare time today, and give a listen.

Let’s kick this journey into time off with the Chambers Brothers.

The Chambers Brothers pic.twitter.com/jmDa8ySyAN

— peterkidder (@peterkidder) November 3, 2021

First some background on the group, from music historian Richie Unterberger’s liner notes for the 2007 reissue of their 1968 LP, Shout.

Many African-American soul and rock greats came from humble origins, but few came from as humble circumstances as the Chambers Brothers did. Willie, Joe, Lester, and George Chambers were just four brothers in a family also including four other brothers and five sisters. From a young age, they worked in the fields on their father George's Mississippi farm, growing cotton and almost any form of food that could be eaten. There was time for singing, though, both in the fields and at home, as well as in church and other social occasions. According to a 1965 article in Sing Out! by folksinger Barbara Dane (whom the Chambers Brothers backed onstage and on a mid-1960s Folkways LP, Barbara Dane and the Chambers Brothers, reissued on CD in 2005 by DBK Works),"The little boys were sometimes asked to sing for well-to-do-whites, and the pay was...an apple. The traditional presentation of that apple was with one bite removed, so that everybody 'kept their places.'" As demeaning as the pay was in some ways, pointed out Willie Chambers in the same story, "That was still more than the other kids had, and besides, we had enjoyed ourselves singing so much, we just didn't worry about what we got for it." The family moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1950s, both in search of a better life and to escape the harsh prejudices endured by blacks in the pre-Civil Rights Act South. At first, George, Willie, Lester, and Joe performed gospel, often in church on Sundays, and for a while their group also included singers from outside the family, like Tommy James and Oscar Reed. "What we used to do," Joe told Goldmine in 1994, "because we had such good harmonies together, the brothers would sing all the background harmonies while we'd have other singers do the lead work. We'd just keep the harmony tight in the back. But we were always called the Chambers Brothers."

Similar to Sly and the Family Stone, the Chambers Brothers added a white drummer, Brian Keenan, thus becoming an interracial group. Their music moved into the rock realm while still maintaining roots in Black gospel and folk through the vocals.

The Chambers Brothers made psychedelic soul history with their 1967 11-minute masterpiece, “Time Has Come Today,” which is so nice, I’m gonna post it twice. First, enjoy the studio version, from The Time Has Come album.

The Chambers Brothers' 'The Time Has Come Today' continues to thrill after all these years #nowspinning #np #vinyl pic.twitter.com/mVvEkfdepL

— Robert Gilbert (@listensessions1) October 30, 2021

Here we go!

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Next, let’s enjoy a live performance from The Chambers Brothers with Joshua Light Show, which aired in June 1969 on German television. The concert was filmed three months earlier at the Jahrhunderthalle in Frankfurt, Germany. This live version clocks in at nearly 15 minutes!

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The recording of the studio version was a “very big deal,” as Steve Jennings wrote for MIX in 2013.

Through the first half of 1967, the Chambers Brothers toured relentlessly “and built up a big following around the country,” [then-23-year-old staff producer for Columbia Records named David] Rubinson says. “They would pack into a station wagon and drive from city to city and play these gigs. They’d play ‘Time Has Come Today’ live, and they developed this whole thing where it would slow down with the cowbell, and they’d have this incredible electric jam in the middle, and it would go way out there and craziness would ensue, and then they’d bring it back to the song and be done 20 minutes later. When I saw them at the Electric Circus [a hip club in NYC], it was mind-blowing; everyone went nuts over it.”

Shortly after that appearance, in early August 1967, the band went into Columbia New York’s Studio E with Rubinson and engineer Fred Catero and cut the epic psychedelic version of “Time Has Come Today” that would appear on The Time Has Come, completely live—trippy sound effects included—in just one take.[...]

Rubinson was so excited he had Clive Davis come down to the studio at midnight to hear the track, and that is what finally convinced Davis to commit to putting out a whole Chambers Brothers album. Rubinson made an edited single version of the song, eliminating the long psychedelic section, “but an engineer at KFRC in San Francisco made his own edit, which was frankly better than mine, and [Columbia released] a second single based on the KFRC edit and it swept the country, beginning in San Francisco, where it was a Number One record.” Between the single and the album version, “Time Has Come Today” was inescapable in the summer and fall of 1968.

I had the good fortune of being a member of a girl group back in the 1960s; we opened for the Chambers Brothers at the Cheetah Club in New York City, so I got to hear them, see them, and briefly get to know them. They were mesmerizing live, and though members of the group have since passed on, whenever I hear “Time Has Come Today,” I always think of what a warm and unpretentious group of brothers they were.

A younger generation of folks, even though they may not know who the Chambers Brothers were, have likely heard their iconic tune in this commercial for Hoka running shoes.

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Going back a few years to 1964, it’s about time to set the record straight on some confusion about the song “Time Is On My Side,” recorded by the Queen of New Orleans soul, Irma Thomas.

Born as Irma Lee in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, in February 1941, Thomas uses the last name of a former husband, Andrew. Carol Brennan wrote an undated biography of Thomas for Musician Guide.

The story of R&B singer Irma Thomas seems the ideal candidate for a film biography, one that would pick its leading lady from the younger generation of soul divas that carry on Thomas's legacy. "Honey, my story sounds like a black version of the Loretta Lynn story," Thomas joked with a writer from the New Yorker once. A native of New Orleans, Thomas cut her first record while a teen single mother in the late 1950s, and went on to have a nominally successful recording career--although she never made as much money from it as those behind the scenes. The British Invasion and cataclysmic weather put her career under water in New Orleans, so she packed up her four children and moved to California, alternating performing gigs with her sales clerk job. Returning to New Orleans in the mid-1970s was the beginning of a change of fortune for Thomas, and since then she has enjoyed a successful recording career on Rounder Records as well as the support of a loyal local fan base. A celebrity in her hometown, Thomas puts her good Grammy-nominated name to use in charity work and as the proprietor of her own club.

Thomas recorded “Time Is On My Side” in 1964, but for decades, she stopped singing it live because people thought she was covering a hit by the Rolling Stones, but the truth was that the Stones were the ones doing the cover—of Irma Thomas. But as Brennan notes:

Thomas also tours extensively, and does not shy away from performing "Time Is On My Side" any longer in her well-attended club appearances. Contemporary singer Bonnie Raitt convinced her to start singing it again one night at the Hard Rock Cafe in New Orleans. "Go ahead on and sing it regardless of what people think," Thomas recalled Raitt saying when she spoke with the Advocate. "Just sing it! You do it better than they do anyway."

Give Thomas’ original a listen.

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Thomas tells the story of how the Stones came to overshadow her performance of the song, written by Jerry Ragovoy, in this short 2019 documentary for Dutch Public Television.

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For more on Thomas’ career, pay a visit to The History Makers, where you can find a series of oral histories. Be sure to check out a new film about Thomas and her music, dropping at the end of November.

Premiering Sunday, Nov. 28: WLAE’s “Irma Thomas: The Soul Queen of New Orleans — A Concert Documentary Film” https://t.co/eF92bCAnBa

— 102.1 THE VILLE (@1021THEVILLE) November 3, 2021

Let’s go back a couple years further in time to 1962, when doo-wop music was still popular. The Jive Five were from my old stomping grounds in Brooklyn. Michael Jack Kirby tells their story for Way Back Attack.

Eugene Pitt hailed from Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, musically influenced by his father, a gospel singer, who taught Eugene and his sisters how to harmonize; they performed gospel songs in churches until about 1950, when he entered his restless teenage years. The atmosphere of Brooklyn's streets, with doo wop singers everywhere, stirred a desire for rhythm and blues stardom and by mid-decade he had joined a group called The Akrons with brothers Ray and Charles Murphy (father of future comedian and movie star Eddie Murphy). A little later Eugene sang with a group headed by Claude Johnson, but they separated when Johnson left for Long Island to join The Genies, the outfit that later scored a national hit with "Who's That Knocking."

In 1959 Pitt put together his own group, The Jive Five, with friends from the neighborhood. He and Jerome Hanna sang tenor, supported by Richard Harris, Thurmon "Billy" Prophet and bass singer Norman Johnson.

What’s always stuck in my head was the refrain of their hit “What Time Is It?”

(Tick-tock, tick-tock) (Tick-tock, listen to the clock) (Tick-tock, listen to the clock)

[...]

(Tick-tock, tick-tock, better hurry up) And put my tie on (Better hurry up) It's almost time (Tick-tock, listen to the clock) (Tick-tock, listen to the clock)

Take a listen and see if it becomes an “ear worm” for you!

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Rock, soul, and doo-wop aren’t the only music genres to address time. Probably one of the greatest folk ballads of all time was written by Bob Dylan, released in 1964 as the title track of an album with the same name: The Times They Are A Changin’. It would go on to become an anthem for a generation, covered by a long list of artists.

As a point of personal preference, I’ll be honest: I love Dylan the writer, but I can’t stand to listen to him sing. I very much prefer it when other folks sing his songs. With that in mind, let’s enjoy Tracy Chapman’s version of “The Times They Are A Changin’,” performed live at the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration at Madison Square Garden, in October 1992.

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Times are indeed always changing, and my time is running out today, though I’ll have lots more in the comments section below. I’d like to close with a duet that never fails to move me emotionally. I first watched this remarkable performance when it was televised on the Patti Labelle Special in 1985.

Lauper wrote “Time After Time” in 1983; its genesis was documented in 2018, by Mike Hobart for The Financial Times.

Cyndi Lauper didn’t plan to write “Time after Time” at all. The New York-raised singer had already left the recording studio after — she thought — completing her first solo album, She’s So Unusual. Released in 1983, it went on to produce four top-five singles, and a Grammy in 1984 for best new artist. But before any of that, Lauper’s producer reckoned the album was coming in one number short, and could she please turn in another track?

She and her co-writer, keyboardist Rob Hyman, returned to the studio. Lauper flicked through a TV guide hoping that some title or other might jump out and kickstart a new song. One of them did: a listing for Time after Time, a 1979 film starring Malcolm McDowell as H.G. Wells in pursuit of Jack the Ripper, who has hijacked his time machine.

Lauper and Hyman dispensed with the film's plot, coming up instead with a 1980s-defining romantic ballad that distilled the contradictory emotions of an unwinding relationship into four minutes of brilliantly conceived narrative pop. Here, a young woman moves on — not dumped — from a relationship that she still treasures: “If you’re lost you can look — and you will find me / time after time / if you fall I will catch you, I’ll be waiting, time after time.”

“Time After Time” went on to become a truly iconic tune; jazz trumpeter Miles Davis did a version, and new covers emerge regularly.

But what moves me in this duet is the palpable connection and care shown between LaBelle and Lauper as they hold hands and hold space for each other to show off, and as their voices come together. That deep connection was real, and persists offstage: LaBelle is godmother to Lauper’s son Declyn, and she even sang "Come What May" at Lauper’s wedding. Get ready to have your heart soar.

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I hope you’ll find some time to join me in the comments for more music on time. I also look forward (even though we’ve fallen back) to hearing some of your favorites.