They're Making Milk Out of Powder
Johnny Guitar Watson - A Real Mother For Ya (1977 / Funk)
Hello internet pals of music. Today we’re celebrating mothers and funk and laughing about hard times with the flamboyant Houston-born guitarist’s biggest hit.
My mother doesn’t read this newsletter. I’ll have to do the thing where one picks up the phone and dials it, then proceeds to pace around the house holding it up to their ear until their arm starts to give out (I usually last about 5 minutes—I probably have one actual phone conversation bi-weekly, so I’m not in phone-shape).
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There are lots of songs about mothers. Celebrating them, like Hugh Masakela’s Mama, chastising them, like Jerry Jeff Walker’s Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother, spiritualizing them (Can-Mother Sky), and on and on. We may not all have good relationships with ours, or they may no longer be with us, or a zillion other complex threads that usually come out in therapy, but we all have a mother, because that’s how it works. And of course, mother ≠ mom.
Anyway, I’ve always loved this album cover. And the lyrics and his ad libs are great (“poor babies, they don’t know what that stuff is”). What I enjoy most though is how tempered Watson’s funk is. Nothing in the song overstays it’s welcome; no sound feels overbearing or out of place. So much so-called funk no longer interests me; too many horns, too much wah-wah guitar, too much over-singing… just too much.
But Johnny Guitar Watson will always rule, because really he plays the blues.
And as it’s almost the 15th…voila, currency(music) in the exchange of labour(continuing to read through this slog)!
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