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Robert Parker: Barefootin' |
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New Orleans
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Saturday, 31 December 2005 10:35 |
Barefootin'
Robert Parker
Night Train International Records
By John Sinclair
Few songs out of New Orleans are better known to the general public than "Barefootin'," Robert Parker's ebullient mid-60s hit for NOLA Records. This infectious Wardell Quezergue production opens with Parker's truly moving exhortation, "Everybody get on your feet / It makes me nervous to see you in your seat," and goes on to delineate the many pleasures of dancing without no shoes on to the utter delight of radio listeners and record buyers all across the country.
"How "Barefootin'" came about," NOLA Records president Clinton Scott recalls, "how we actually came to record it: He just walked into our office one day and said, 'I have a song I wanna record.' Wardell listened to it, but we liked the other side, 'Let's Go Baby (Where The Action Is)'. That was the side. But the jocks flipped it. That's the side we were going with, 'Where The Action Is'. Since then, 'Barefootin'' has gone on to be recorded at least forty times--forty covers."
While Parker failed to dent the charts and create new dance crazes with great follow-ups like "The Scratch" (NOLA 726), "Tiptoe" (NOLA 729), and "Everybody's Hip Huggin'" (NOLA 735), his musical output continued to match the high mark set by his first NOLA release. (Even the B-sides were terrific, starting with "Let's Go Baby (Where The Action Is)" (721), "Happy Feet" (726), "Soul Kind of Loving" (729), and "Foxy Mama" (735). "C.C. Rider" (NOLA 730) at once evokes both Mitch Ryder and Shorty Long, while the coupling on NOLA 733 of "Secret Service Makes Me Nervous"--a funny lament out of the "Mother-In-Law"/"Trick Bag" school--with "Yak Yak Yak," a funky complaint which descends from Joe Jones' "You Talk Too Much," made for a two-sided slab of vintage New Orleans R&B.
These scintillating 45 rpm single releases are supplemented here by a number of cuts recorded for Parker's sole NOLA LP. "Mr. Pitiful" and "I've Been Loving You Too Long" are heartfelt, beautifully sung tributes to Otis Redding, "In The Midnight Hour" salutes Wilson Pickett, "Directly From The Heart" is a passionate reading of Little Richard's great blues ballad "Directly From My Heart To You," and "I Can't Help Myself" introduces Motown to the Crescent City. "Heading For A Fall," "Boss Lovin'," "Bowlegs," and "Soul Sister" are splendid original tunes which fleshed out the album in fine style, and "Barefootin' Boogaloo" is, of course, a bald-faced attempt to cash in on the title of his one hit by linking it with the popular dance of the day but it sure sounds good just the same.
The unbeatable combination of excellent songs, the singer's distinctive voice and delivery, a superb New Orleans studio band, and the arrangements and production genius of the Creole Beethoven, Wardell Quezergue, made for a series of timeless recordings which are assembled here on CD for the first time. Quezergue, who was also one of four owners of the NOLA label (along with modern-day WWOZ program producer Clinton Scott), clearly took a personal interest in Parker's sessions for the label and put his magic touch on every track.
Listening to Wardell's carefully-tailored charts here brings to mind the apocryphal tale--detailed variously by Earl King, Johnny Adams, Harold Battiste and other participants--of the legendary visit to the Motown studios around the time of these recordings by a Crescent City contingent which included Wardell Quezergue, Joe Jones, Earl King, Johnny Adams and drummer Smokey Johnson. Nothing came of the trip due to previous contractual entanglements with various New Orleans labels on the part of the principals, but local myth has it that the cats from New Orleans showed the Motor City people how records were supposed to be made but never got credit for their part in the evolution of the Motown sound.
It is certainly apparent throughout this program that both artist and producer were attuned to all the popular R&B trends of the day and did their best to emulate every kind of sound that caught their fancy--or, better put, that they felt would capture the attention of the record-buying public. Parker sings his heart out in every setting, putting the stamp of his personality on everything he touches and mining the depths of the New Orleans rhythm & blues tradition for all it's worth.
"Robert Parker was an instrumentalist before a singer," Clint Scott remembers, "played with different groups around town. Before 'Barefootin'' he was very much in demand as a tenor player. To tell the truth, the people that knew Robert when he came out with 'Barefootin' knew more about him than we did, because on the gigs he was booked on, they demanded that he play his tenor saxophone. Whoever booked the gig, most of 'em wanted that tenor saxophone. So he had to bring his horn with him, for a long time. He worked the road for at least three straight years, and that second round, goin' to those same places, then they got out of the horn thing. But it took a long time, man, before that really caught on with people: 'Hey, man, this guy's a vocalist too,' you know?"
Born October 14, 1930, Parker was in his mid-30s when the NOLA recordings were made. He first emerged in the late 1940s as a teen-aged saxophonist featured with Professor Longhair and his Blues Scholars, also known variously as the Four Hairs Combo, the Shuffling Hungarians and the New Orleans Boys on recordings and in the nasty little neighborhood joints they played around New Orleans. Parker was in Fess's band for the historic Atlantic Records sessions in 1949 which produced such classic 78 rpm singles as "Mardi Gras in New Orleans"/"She Walks Right In" (Atlantic 897), "Walk Your Blues Away"/"Professor Longhair Blues" (Atlantic 906), and "Hey Little Girl"/"Willie Mae" (Atlantic 947).
During the 1950s Robert Parker played alto and tenor saxophone on recordings with Eddie Bo ("I'm Wise"), Huey 'Piano' Smith & The Clowns, Earl King, James Booker, Ernie K-Doe, and others in the Crescent City, and backed up visiting stars like Solomon Burke, Lloyd Price, Sam Cooke, Jerry Butler, Amos Milburn, Otis Redding, and many others in concerts stretching into the 1960s.
Parker emerged as a vocalist and frontman in 1959-60 with a pair of 45s for the Ron label. Cut with a band led by Eddie Bo and produced by Larry McKinley, "All Night Long" (Ron 327) and "Across The Tracks" (Ron 331) are exciting late- 50s New Orleans funk masterpieces which never made much of an impression beyond the city limits but seem to have gained him a position as leader of the house band at the fabled Club Tijuana, fronting a quintet comprising Eddie Bo on piano, Albert Scott on guitar, bassist Billy Tate and the seminal funk drummer Charles "Hungry" Williams.
Dave Bartholomew tried his hand at creating some hits for Parker during the last days of his tenure with the Imperial label, but the demise of the Los Angeles-based R&B imprint short-circuited any real chance of success, and it remained for Parker's lucky association with Quezergue and NOLA to break him into the big time at last. While his window of opportunity opened only once with the national airplay and sales garnered by "Barefootin'"--Number 2 R&B and #7 Pop in the late summer of 1966--Robert Parker's NOLA recordings demand their rightful place in the rich history of New Orleans popular music as some of the finest documents of the period.
Well, they're all here at last, ready to be heard, and if you're not a Robert Parker fanatic when you pick up this disc, you're sure to be joining the ranks once you've given it a spin.
New Orleans
February 24, 1999
The author would like to thank Aaron Fuchs, Clinton Scott, and Sam Henry for their help with researching these notes.
(c) 1999, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.
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