Your pity won't help me....

I've made an alteration to my rule concerning newly bought 45s. Instead of: 'Always Listen To Both Sides', it's now: 'Always Listen All The Way Through Both Sides'.

A friend handed me this record while I was in the middle of cashing out at a shop. He said, "Buy it". The guy has similar taste to mine so I said, "sure".

When I got home I put the 45 on the turntable and it sounded nice enough, I mean, after all it is by Ray Agee...and how bad could that be? I doubt Agee ever made a truly horrible record. But ya know, nice is as nice does and the up-tempo side just didn't crank me in the way I expected.

So I flipped the record over to this side.....and after listening for a bit I decided it too was running low on natural crank factor, so I didn't even listen all the way through. Not that this side sounded bad, it's got a very cool horn thing going on, it's just that it sounded like one of those songs where once you've heard the first verse, that's about all there is to it.

This left me wondering why my friend was so insistent that I buy it, 'cause I really do trust his opinion.

Anyway, over the last couple of years I've pulled the 45 out several times and given it a few more spins, apparently doing exactly the same thing each time that I did when I first played it. Listen to the up-tempo cut, stifle a slight yawn, and then flip it over, only to pull the record off the turntable after a minute or so.

What a stupid move. Ya see, it's not till after the second verse, more than half way through the record, that one of the female backup singers [along with Agee at one point] starts to screaming and moaning....and that's when the tune shows itself to be anything but simple.

From 1967, although it sounds like it could've been cut much earlier.

Hope ya'll enjoy......

In my heart...

I'm sure I've seen a Ray Agee discography around, but can't seem to find it at the moment. Anyway, the man had a long career, recorded quite a few singles, most of them for small labels.

This is probably the easiest to find of the lot...luckily it's also one of his best. I keep running into info saying the record was released on the Sahara label, but I'm almost certain that's just a typical All Music Guide screw-up that's been repeated/copied by seemingly dozens of sites.

There's a comp of Agee's deep blues sides available on CD. It's called "Black Night Is Gone". Unfortunately, there is no collection I'm aware of that covers his more upbeat R&B related output of the late 50's, early 60's.

....from 1963.