Dogg Blog
Swamp Dogg | 17.09.09
Swamp Dogg given Honorable Mention by Robert Christgau
"Give 'Em as Little as You Can . . . as Often as You Have to . . . or . . . A Tribute to Rock 'n' Roll (S-Curve)
Check out: http://music.msn.com/music/consumerguide/?photoidx=11
Swamp Dogg | 01.09.09
GIVE 'EM AS LITTLE AS YOU CAN... AS OFTEN AS YOU HAVE TO... OR, A TRIBUTE TO ROCK 'N' ROLL
iTunes |
NEW YORK – S-Curve Records is proud to announce the release of Give 'Em As Little As You Can...As Often As You Have To... Or, A Tribute To Rock 'N' Roll -- the new album by the legendary Swamp Dogg, who "for decades...has bent R&B/soul traditions as far as they can stretch" (Richie Unterberger, Unknown Legends of Rock 'n' Roll).
This 12-track collection of blues, soul, and rock 'n' roll standards is the first Swamp Dogg album to consist almost entirely of classic cover songs and the first in many years to receive major-label U.S. distribution. (S-Curve Records – the label home of Diane Birch, Tinted Windows, Tom Jones, and Little Jackie – is distributed by EMI.)
On Give 'Em As Little…, Swamp Dogg reclaims "rock 'n' roll" as African-American music with his stirring and surprising renditions of songs made famous by the Beatles ("I Want to Hold Your Hand"), the Rolling Stones ("Satisfaction"), Bob Marley & the Wailers ("I Shot the Sheriff"), Bruce Springsteen ("Hungry Heart"), Jimmy Reed ("Ain't That Lovin' You Baby"), and Chuck Berry ("Johnny B. Goode"). The sole original is "Total Destruction To Your Mind 2009," a spirited remake of the title song from Swamp Dogg's 1970 debut album.
Swamp Dogg is no stranger to rock 'n' roll: He cut some of his earliest records in the style of Little Richard. "We were rock 'n' roll in the early Fifties," he told BluesCritic.com. "You had white rock 'n' rollers and black rock 'n' rollers, like Chuck Berry and Little Richard. Then one day rock 'n' roll became all white while our category kept changing around…"
For Give 'Em As Little…, Swamp Dogg and co-producer/arranger Moogstar Clemon have deployed a tight small band led by the scorching blues-rock guitar of "Lucky" Lloyd Wright and Swamp's own pumping piano. On "Great Balls of Fire," the result sounds like the Sticky Fingers-era Rolling Stones fronted by a 67-year-old soul singer; on "Johnny B. Goode," like a backstage jam between Chuck Berry and Funkadelic.
"Swamp Dogg is an American original," says Steve Greenberg, founder and CEO of S-Curve Records. "Everything he has ever recorded is sui generis. He's one of my all-time R&B heroes and it's a great honor to have him on our label. He has reinvented an album's worth of songs that we've all heard a zillion times, but made each and every one seem like a revelation."
With the release of Give 'Em As Little As You Can..., says Swamp Dogg, "again I'm standing out on a ledge, with the rock concept I chose for this CD…but then…I see Steve Greenberg is out there with me…or is this an apparition?"
This 12-track collection of blues, soul, and rock 'n' roll standards is the first Swamp Dogg album to consist almost entirely of classic cover songs and the first in many years to receive major-label U.S. distribution. (S-Curve Records – the label home of Diane Birch, Tinted Windows, Tom Jones, and Little Jackie – is distributed by EMI.)
On Give 'Em As Little…, Swamp Dogg reclaims "rock 'n' roll" as African-American music with his stirring and surprising renditions of songs made famous by the Beatles ("I Want to Hold Your Hand"), the Rolling Stones ("Satisfaction"), Bob Marley & the Wailers ("I Shot the Sheriff"), Bruce Springsteen ("Hungry Heart"), Jimmy Reed ("Ain't That Lovin' You Baby"), and Chuck Berry ("Johnny B. Goode"). The sole original is "Total Destruction To Your Mind 2009," a spirited remake of the title song from Swamp Dogg's 1970 debut album.
Swamp Dogg is no stranger to rock 'n' roll: He cut some of his earliest records in the style of Little Richard. "We were rock 'n' roll in the early Fifties," he told BluesCritic.com. "You had white rock 'n' rollers and black rock 'n' rollers, like Chuck Berry and Little Richard. Then one day rock 'n' roll became all white while our category kept changing around…"
For Give 'Em As Little…, Swamp Dogg and co-producer/arranger Moogstar Clemon have deployed a tight small band led by the scorching blues-rock guitar of "Lucky" Lloyd Wright and Swamp's own pumping piano. On "Great Balls of Fire," the result sounds like the Sticky Fingers-era Rolling Stones fronted by a 67-year-old soul singer; on "Johnny B. Goode," like a backstage jam between Chuck Berry and Funkadelic.
"Swamp Dogg is an American original," says Steve Greenberg, founder and CEO of S-Curve Records. "Everything he has ever recorded is sui generis. He's one of my all-time R&B heroes and it's a great honor to have him on our label. He has reinvented an album's worth of songs that we've all heard a zillion times, but made each and every one seem like a revelation."
With the release of Give 'Em As Little As You Can..., says Swamp Dogg, "again I'm standing out on a ledge, with the rock concept I chose for this CD…but then…I see Steve Greenberg is out there with me…or is this an apparition?"
Swamp Dogg | 01.09.09
QUOTES
"This CD pays tribute to some of the recording artists that influenced the direction of my life and career. I dropped out of college because the music professor thought that classical music was the only legitimate music. In his book, people such as Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, and Little Richard were musical frauds who weren't contributing anything to our culture. I was interested in studying highbrow music, but I also wanted jazz and rhythm 'n' blues."
"Ain't That A Shame" (wr. Antoine "Fats" Domino & Dave Bartholomew)
"I used to get a whooping every time Fats Domino came to Portsmouth, Virginia. I would deliberately stay out past my curfew, climb up on the roof of the Petite Ballroom, and watch Fats. My grandmama tore my ass up, but it was well worth it!"
"Ain't That Loving You Baby" (wr. Jimmy Reed)
"Jimmy Reed, the world’s greatest folk blues singer…I saw him on stage with his wife, Mama [Mary] Reed, who used to sit behind him and hold the strap of the harness that kept him standing up because he was so inebriated. In spite of this he put on an encore performance: blowing his harmonica, playing his guitar, and inaudibly singing his little Leland, Mississippi heart out. He wrote songs like he sang them. Sometimes they rhymed, sometimes they didn’t. When you listen to ‘Ain’t That Loving You Baby,’ you’ll see what I’m talking about."
"(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction" (wr. Mick Jagger & Keith Richards)
"I’d never heard a record like ‘Satisfaction’ in my life. When it came over the radio in Philadelphia, it gave me chills…The Stones have made me confident that no matter how ancient, wrinkled and crinkled I become, with some energy I will always be able to go out on stage and entertain the people to a good measure of ‘Satisfaction.’"
"Hungry Heart" (wr. Bruce Springsteen)
"Bruce Springsteen…can bring a song home with a small aggregation, something I utilized on this album. I almost used a sax on ‘Hungry Heart’ but…knowing me, if I used a horn on one song, I’d find a reason to use them on all of the songs, thus revisiting Muscle Shoals all over again and drastically changing the texture of this CD."
"I Want to Hold Your Hand" (wr. John Lennon & Paul McCartney)
"‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ has been recorded by everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to Frank Sinatra to Blowfly to you name it. Again I wanted to make this song Swamp Dogg while keeping it Fab Four. I love my rendition of this song and if you don’t, please keep it to yourself…Somebody asked me if I thought Paul McCartney would institute legal proceedings because of my recording. Damn – did I sing it that bad?"
"Ain't That A Shame" (wr. Antoine "Fats" Domino & Dave Bartholomew)
"I used to get a whooping every time Fats Domino came to Portsmouth, Virginia. I would deliberately stay out past my curfew, climb up on the roof of the Petite Ballroom, and watch Fats. My grandmama tore my ass up, but it was well worth it!"
"Ain't That Loving You Baby" (wr. Jimmy Reed)
"Jimmy Reed, the world’s greatest folk blues singer…I saw him on stage with his wife, Mama [Mary] Reed, who used to sit behind him and hold the strap of the harness that kept him standing up because he was so inebriated. In spite of this he put on an encore performance: blowing his harmonica, playing his guitar, and inaudibly singing his little Leland, Mississippi heart out. He wrote songs like he sang them. Sometimes they rhymed, sometimes they didn’t. When you listen to ‘Ain’t That Loving You Baby,’ you’ll see what I’m talking about."
"(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction" (wr. Mick Jagger & Keith Richards)
"I’d never heard a record like ‘Satisfaction’ in my life. When it came over the radio in Philadelphia, it gave me chills…The Stones have made me confident that no matter how ancient, wrinkled and crinkled I become, with some energy I will always be able to go out on stage and entertain the people to a good measure of ‘Satisfaction.’"
"Hungry Heart" (wr. Bruce Springsteen)
"Bruce Springsteen…can bring a song home with a small aggregation, something I utilized on this album. I almost used a sax on ‘Hungry Heart’ but…knowing me, if I used a horn on one song, I’d find a reason to use them on all of the songs, thus revisiting Muscle Shoals all over again and drastically changing the texture of this CD."
"I Want to Hold Your Hand" (wr. John Lennon & Paul McCartney)
"‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ has been recorded by everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to Frank Sinatra to Blowfly to you name it. Again I wanted to make this song Swamp Dogg while keeping it Fab Four. I love my rendition of this song and if you don’t, please keep it to yourself…Somebody asked me if I thought Paul McCartney would institute legal proceedings because of my recording. Damn – did I sing it that bad?"