Dust Off Those Grooves (Chapter Five)

Curtis Mayfield is, of course, incredibly well known as being one of the great figures in soul music history. His work with the Impressions as well as the solo career he launched in the early 70's is legendary but his work as a producer is at times overlooked and undervalued.
One of the finest albums that Mayfield composed and produced is the soundtrack to the wonderful 1974 film Claudine. The group that performed Mayfield's songs was none other than Gladys Knight and The Pips at the height of their power.
The film, which centers on a single mother raising her children, garnered an oscar nomination for its star Dianne Carroll and is widely regarded as one of the finest African American films of the 70s.
Claudine, the album, while a success upon initial release as since slipped into obscurity and is hard to come by. It had a brief cd release in the late 90s but now fetches high prices on Ebay and Amazon. The quality of the cd was poor compared to the original vinyl copies and it's an album that screams for a remastering and re-releasing.
The album kicks off with one of Mayfield's most politically charged and impassioned songs, Mr. Welfare Man. Knight establishes herself as on the great soul vocalists on this cut as she totally inhabits the songs raw anger and frustration. Mayfield would later perform this song himself but it's this original that has the juice, it's simply put one of the most important socially aware tracks of the period.
The heartbreaking To Be Invisible follows with Knight delivering another definitive performance, the Pips continue to show throughout the album that they were one of the great back-up groups. The harmonies and intelligence of the arrangements really shine through throughout this album.
Side one closes with perhaps Knight's two greatest performances with the funky On and On followed by the gorgeous The Makings of You. The Makings of You had already been done in a hard to top version by Curtis on his first solo LP but Knight nearly outdoes him here. The song here becomes the woman's response to Mayfield's original and it stands as one of the great love songs ever written. The biggest hit from the album is On and On and it really smokes. Knight's vocal performance on this one is as funky as it gets and the songs final over the top declaration is one of the 70's most exhilarating moments.
Side two consists of only three songs, the sublime title instrumental, Hold On and Make Yours A Happy Home. The vocal tracks here perfectly echo the films message of family and solidarity against the powers that be that the film focuses on. They are a dare as much as advice and the message Mayfield delivers is still as viable today as ever.
The film, Claudine, features several different vocal takes not available on the album. Including these would be an ideal way to flesh out a deluxe re-issue, as well as including the single mixes that were released. It's a splendid soulful record from two of modern music's finest voices, it's also a socially important document confronting issues that are still as relevant today as they were 30 odd years ago.

Classic Song Chronicles: Kris Kristofferson’s "Help Me Make it Through the Night"

Simultaneously erotic, lonely and altogether heartbreaking, Kris Kristofferson’s landmark “Help Me Make it Through the Night” has been recorded by hundreds of major artists ranging from Kris himself, to Johnny Cash, to Gladys Knight, to Elvis Presley.
The legendary and influential singer song-writer wrote the song in a highly unusual place, as Kristofferson recalled in the essential book on Elvis Presley songwriters, "Writing for the King" with, “I wrote the song when I was still flying petroleum helicopters out in the Gulf of Mexico. I wrote it out there on one of those lonely oil rigs where we lived at for a week at a time. It was a good way to deal with the loneliness out there…” It is that loneliness that comes through the most in the song’s haunting lyrics of a man so desperate for a night of human contact that he is literally willing to ‘let the devil take tomorrow’ for it.
Kris’ version first appeared on his seminal self-titled 1970 album that would alert the world to his considerable skills as an interpreter of his own material. "Help Me Make it Through the Night", ironically and controversially, first became a hit for a woman when country singer Sammi Smith recorded it for her album named after the song also in 1970. Smith’s version was a smash hit and landed at number one across the country charts and was seen as a major leap forward for many conservatively minded radio stations and listeners, as it helped correlate country music with the sexual revolution that was sweeping the country in the early seventies.



Kristofferson’s favorite version of the song was recorded shortly after Smith’s when Elvis Presley recorded a splendidly laid back and chillingly heartfelt take in
1971. Kris said of Elvis in "Writing For The King" that, “I found out that Elvis recorded it when I was on the road” and that even though “all my heroes were recording my stuff” that “To have Elvis record your song was amazing.” Kris recalled the first time he heard Elvis’ eerie take later with, “I was in Bob Beckham’s office at Combine Music in Nashville when I first heard Elvis’ version of "Help Me Make it Through the Night", We played it and it was just like being at church…the fact that it was Elvis singing your song was an honor…I like everything that Elvis did. I just liked his approach.” Not totally sure why Elvis picked the song, Kris finally decided that, “Certainly it’s a situation he could have identified with. I mean, 'Help me make it through the night', I’m sure he could have identified with that emotion.”



The song became one of the most recorded of the seventies and appealed to country, pop, soul and rock fans. It even appealed to director John Huston, who used it to great effect in his 1972 feature Fat City, a film in which Kris appeared.
Some of the most notable version include this wonderful rendering by Gladys Knight and the Pips for the mid seventies:



And here is Johnny and June Cash singing the song famously as a duet:



Kris himself has continued to make the song a staple of his own live shows and this performance of it on the Old Grey Whistle Test with Rita Coolidge remains a particular favorite:



A humorous anecdote about the song came out recently courtesy of Criterion’s excellent Two Lane Blacktop set, on which director Monte Hellman interviews Kris. Kris recalled that during Bob Dylan’s recording session of his legendary Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid Soundtrack, a film in which Kris starred as The Kid, director Sam Peckinpah drunkenly interrupted it one night telling Dylan he wished he would stop what he was doing and lay down something like “Help Me Make it Through the Night.”
Despite all of the versions, Kris seems to remain proudest of Presley’s and would say in Writing for the King that, “It’s one of the highlights for me to have had Elvis cut one of my songs…I would have never dreamed that Elvis would sing one of my songs (and) with so much soul. I feel a lot of gratitude for that.” Elvis would record two other Kris Kristofferon songs in the seventies, “For the Good Times” and “Why Me Lord” before his untimely death in 1977. The mind boggles at the kind of collaborative work the two could have done as songwriter and interpreter had things worked out differently.

Operation Screenshot (Films Of The Seventies) John Berry's Claudine (1974)