Side Dishes

LINGERING IN YOUR EAR: CALIFORNIA SOUL

Posted 07/20/2008 at 6:30 PM  |  2 comment/s  |  Category: hip-hop, jazz, new music, old music

The 5th Dimension: California Soul

From Stoned Soul Picnic (Soul City, 1968)

Marlena Shaw:California Soul

From Spice of Life (Cadet, 1969)

Marlena Shaw:California Soul (Diplo Remix)

From Verve Remixed 4 (Verve, 2008)

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There's some kind of a generational and/of cultural divide that separates people when they hear Marlena Shaw's version of "California Soul." For spliff-smoking, Jansport-toting, sample-spotting types, the reaction is likely to be, "oh snap, that's Gangstarr's 'Check the Technique'". For wine-sipping, khaki-sporting, stock-trading folks (note: the two groups are not necessarily mutually exclusive these days), they may be more apt to say, "hey Chad, isn't that the song from that Dockers commercial?" (see this amusing series of ad remixes). Whichever camp you fall into, it's hard to deny the "classic" status of the song, by which I mean the song isn't simply awesome but also indelible; one of those examples of where a cover song >>> the original. In this case, due credit goes to Shaw's piercing vocals but they wouldn't be nearly as impressive without those signature strings, to which you have to nod to Cadet's in-house arrangers, Richard Evans and Charles Stepney - two more examples of how Chicago has been positively blessed with musical genius over the years.

At the same time, you also need to acknowledge that the song was written by none of those folks. For a long time, I erroneously thought "California Soul" was a Gerald Wilson composition, but actually, his was a cover as well. The originators behind the song are actually Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson, aka Ashford and Simpson whose career in the '70s tends to obscure their songwriting talents in the 1960s. There's some debate over when the very first version of "California Soul" appeared given that Ashford released the song as a single for Verve in 1968. However, the first big hit version of the song belongs to 5th Dimension, off their Stoned Soul Picnic LP and there's a vague consensus that says Ashford and Simpson wrote the song for them first. Regardless, Nick's own single is fairly obscure whereas the 5th Dimension had a legitimate hit with theirs, though not nearly as big as when Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell tackled it (and the list hardly stops there - the song's been covered at least a dozen times. Ashford and Simpson were prescient in coming up with this line, "it's all in the air/you hear it everywhere.")

I have to admit: when I first heard Diplo was going to remix the song for the Verve Remixed 4 compilation, I didn't really think one could do much more to a song that's been worked over so many times but I was more than pleasantly surprised by his take on it. I wrote this back in June and it bears repeating here: "instead of piling on, he pulls back, keeping the audience anticipating - but never quite delivering - the crashboombam they expect, at least until the very end where he brings back those gorgeous strings again." Indeed, this is Diplo's most unexpected move - the breakbeat is part of what made the song so appealing, especially to hip-hop fans, but Diplo chooses to downplay the drums throughout the song. He'll still kick them in when needed but he finds a way to make the rhythm on here move without relying strictly on lowering the percussive hammer. He does, however, very wisely use the strings to full effect, especially at the end of his remix where they come screaming back in (unlike the original where you only ever hear them at the very beginning). As the song goes, "no matter what you do, it's gonna grab hold of you."

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