Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
Chuck Higgins
Pachuko Hop
(Specialty, 1992)
Greasy R&B platter, containing the best last drunken record of the night.
It was that high-pimped pope of the well-written word Nick Tosches who turned me on to Chuck Higgins. It was back in 2003 and I was inexpertly romancing the writer in the hope that he would forego his usual Vanity Fair rates and pen something for MOJO. Didn't matter what it was, just, you know, well, something. Tosches had a plan. He was meeting up in London with Johnny Depp to record the audiobook version of his insane, profane antinomian mob-boot-kick of a novel, In The Hand of Dante, and did I want to hook up with them later and discuss feature ideas? ".!."
I heard nothing. The next week there's was call from Tosches. "It was an horrendous experience," he said. "We started to record it but the producer seemed so shaken by what was being recorded and so threatened by the presence of Johnny and I together, the way we acted, that he just fled! He abandoned us. All our talk about letting all the demons of darkness out scared a lot of people. I was asked to leave."
No further information was forthcoming but Tosches stayed in touch, talking about features and asking for more money, time and editorial freedom than it's ever been MOJO's luxury to give out. Occasionally he would submit suggested tracks for various list pieces in the mag, and I would write the copy. Highlight of my brief tenure as Old Nick's amanuensis was hearing a sloppy 7" honk of R&B horn sleaze entitled Broke, from a man called Chuck Higgins. A Hollywood tenor-sax man and former preacher's son, Higgins had spent the mid '50s bouncing from one local label to the next, trading in low-budget jump blues and party grooves. However, the summer of 1954 saw the Indiana-born honker royally spoilt, supervised by Specialty's Art Rupe and working with pianist HB Barnum and future James Brown/Johnny Otis guitarist Jimmy Nolen on a gloriously carefree tale of high-times lived and riches squandered and available on this super cheapular '90s CD comp. There are other, sexier Higgins comps out there but none feature the brazen skid-row screw-you of Broke.
Thanks to the junkyard bark of vocalist 'Daddy Cleanhead' (aka brother Fred Higgins), Chuck's down-at-heel lyrics are transformed into a Ripple-ripped celebration of rock-bottom skintness - "Now I'm a lowdown dirty bum / Right back where I started from! / Broke! Broke! Broke!" Backed with the rocking doormat doo wop of I'll Be There, it's just the right single for the last jukebox payment at the end of the night when all the money's gone, trouser pockets are flat-empty and still no-one's going home. The rest of the CD ain't bad neither.
Andrew Male
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 09/06/2009
Further Listening
Chuck Higgins – Motor Head Baby (Combo, 1951)
Big Jay McNeely – Big Jay McNeely (Federal, 1954)
Charlie Singleton – 1949-1953 (Classics R&B)
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An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
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Landscape - From The Tea-rooms Of Mars… To The Hell-holes Of Uranus
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Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Vol 1-3
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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