Lee Dorsey - Disc of the day

Lee Dorsey
Holy Cow: The Very Best Of...

(Charly compilation, 2005)

Allen Toussaint, The Meters and one laid-back dude align on the perfect “sick day” soundtrack.

There’s a well-worn, slightly off-colour joke about a Spaniard and an Irishman. The Spaniard asks the Irishman: “Have you a word in your language that means ‘mañana’?”. To which the Irishman replies: “No. Nothing so urgent.” The gag always makes me think of Lee Dorsey, the N’Orleans R&B singer who sounded like whatever was, it’d wait till next Wednesday. Work Work Work is only the most obvious example. Lee’s been searching night and day for employment (a likely story) but finds nothing he fancies. No matter, since he’d rather gigolo around or ponce cash off his mates anyway. All the while, the Allen Toussaint-led band drag their heels in a hilariously hammed-up approximation of exhaustion. In fact, Dorsey plays the bum so well that even Working In A Coalmine (the perfection of those “dinks”, of fake pickaxe hitting fictitious seam!) sounds disingenuous.

In life, Dorsey had had his share of graft – as a talented light-heavyweight dubbed “Kid Chocolate”, as a sailor in the US Navy and as a motor mechanic with his own garage. As an artist, he never tried so hard, with his best tunes – Can You Hear Me?, Ya Ya, Everything I Do Gohn Be Funky, recorded for Fury and Toussaint’s own Amy label – alternately feckless and languid, like the wise old bull in that other ancient joke, the one that ends, “I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t we walk down that hill and fuck all of those cows”. In 1967 Dorsey headlined an Atlantic soul review as a last-minute replacement for Wilson Pickett, but though the latter ’60s would hook him up with the rising Meters and a 1970 Polydor album with Toussaint, Yes We Can, would prove his best all-round, he had peaked commercially, and whilst 1980 saw him supporting The Clash in America he died of emphysema in 1986 without ever receiving his due.

We don’t normally settle for a Best Of in Disc Of The Day, but this time we’ll make an exception. Hail Lee Dorsey. We trust he’s got his feet up.

Danny Eccleston

Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 6:00 AM GMT 07/04/2008

Further Listening

Various Artists – New Orleans Funk (Souljazz)

The Meters – The Meters (Sundazed)

Allen Toussaint – Southern Nights (Reprise)

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Any Lee Dorsey comp is worthy of inclusion here, but I would draw readers' attention to a 1980s collection called Everything I Do Gohn Be Funky with sleevenotes by Joe Strummer. It contained a real gem called Freedom for the Stallion

Posted by Jon Dennis at 9:56 AM GMT 07/04/2008 Report Abuse

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Good call, Jon. But this one has Freedom For The Stallion, too. I’d still say this is the best start point – I literally replaced three other Lee Dorsey comps with this one. Then I’d get the Yes We Can/Night People twofer to catch up on the later stuff.

Posted by Danny E at 5:24 PM GMT 07/04/2008 Report Abuse

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