Eva Walker
Early
Last show: Wednesday, Oct 23 2024, 5AM
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Monday, Jan 15 2024, 5AM
Good morning, welcome to the Early show with Eva! Honoring Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and his legacy.
Reverend Thomas A. Dorsey first penned this song, and the earliest known recording was made in 1937. It has been published in more than 40 languages, and was Martin Luther King Jr.'s favorite song.
In Questlove's documentary "Summer of Soul," the performances are riveting — standouts include Mahalia Jackson and Mavis Staples belting out "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" and the Edwin Hawkins Singers’ “O Happy Day” — it’s the shots of the all-ages crowd that makes this film come alive, with the vibrant fashions, the incredible faces, the excitement, the boredom and the humanity of it all packed into every frame.
bit.ly
In the band's 2005 autobiography U2 by U2, Bono wrote: "In the scriptures they talk about the blood crying from the ground. And with 'MLK' you have just that, the blood crying from the ground - but not for revenge, for understanding.
I had a conversation with Bob Dylan at that time. He said, 'We associate three kings with Memphis. Elvis, the King, of course. The great B.B. King. But then there's Martin Luther King. Where's his Graceland, where's his monument? The city had plans to tear down the motel outside of which he was murdered. That struck a chord with me."
U2's fourth album, The Unforgettable Fire, was produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. This song is the second track, and a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr.
Chrissie Hynde (lead singer of The Pretenders) sang backup. She was married to Jim Kerr of Simple Minds at the time and was thanked on the album as "Mrs. Christine Kerr."
Follow along with the lyrics in this video:
youtu.be
One of Eva's favorite albums of 2023, and KEXP listeners' #7 on the Best Albums of 2023 list! kexp.org
Check out Black Pumas' performance at KEXP from 2019 here: www.youtube.com
The class conscious lyrics of “You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks” might’ve been inspired by an old folk rhyme first published in Thomas W. Talley’s book Negro Folk Rhymes (Wise or Otherwise) in 1922:
'If you and your folks love me and my folks
Like me and my folks love you and your folks
If there ever was folks
That ever ever was poor.'
The lead vocalist here is William “Billy Bass” Nelson, the original bassist for Funkadelic. Nelson was originally going to be the group’s guitarist, but opted for the bass post instead when his pal the amazing Eddie Hazel came aboard the Mothership.
This song was released as Jimi Hendrix's first posthumous single.
"Hendrix aggressively reached out to black audiences during the last two years of his life. He grew an Afro, wrote protest-themed songs and replaced his white bandmates with two black friends to form the Band of Gypsies. The group released a live album featuring Hendrix’s classic, 'Machine Gun.'"
jimihendrix.com
In 2021, this song was #257 on Rolling Stone's Top 500 Best Songs
Catch a live video of Heat Wave here www.youtube.com
1972 single from Ken Boothe, "one of the most popular and soulful singers of the rocksteady era." - www.allmusic.com
The theme to the 1969 movie "Midnight Cowboy" was in fact a cover of Fred Neil's 1968 single.
Nilsson released this track on his 1968 album "Aerial Ballet" but became more well known as the movie gained noteriety.
From Led Zeppelin's fourth album.
According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, "The group’s untitled fourth album (a.k.a., Led Zeppelin IV, “The Runes Album” and ZOSO), which appeared in 1971, remains an enduring rock milestone and their defining work. The album was a fully realized hybrid of the folk and hard-rock directions they’d been pursuing, particularly on “When the Levee Breaks” and “The Battle of Evermore.” “Black Dog” was a piledriving hard-rock number cut from the same cloth as “Whole Lotta Love.”
NPR wrote that, “Three days after the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968, performer Nina Simone and her band played at the Westbury Music Festival on Long Island, N.Y.
They performed "Why? (The King of Love is Dead)," a song they had just learned, written by their bass player Gene Taylor in reaction to King's death.
‘We learned that song that (same) day," says Waymon. "We didn't have a chance to have two or three days of rehearsal. But when you're feeling compassion and outrage and wanting to express what you know the world is feeling, we did it because that's what we felt.’”
www.npr.org
Originally released in 1984.
The "I Want to Break Free" video parodies a popular British television soap, "Coronation Street."
The opening sequence features all the band members in drag (Mercury as a housewife, Deacon as grandmother, Taylor as a schoolgirl, and May as a housewife), confusing many people who didn't catch the reference.
Brian May was asked in an interview with Q magazine March 2011 whether each band member's character in the video was an accurate reflection of their personalities? He replied: "Of Course!"
bit.ly
Watch the video!
youtu.be
"Original Sin" is a song by Australian rock group INXS, originally released in December 1983 as the first single from the band's fourth album, The Swing, from 1984. The chorus features vocals from Daryl Hall (recruited by producer Nile Rodgers).
Fear of a Black Planet explores the still relevant themes of institutional racism, white supremacy and the power elite.
Chuck D. said of this song, "We had been to a lot of places on the planet and we had seen similar stories of oppression and similar stories of the rich trying to beat down the poor.
Our philosophy is that black people suffer from white supremacy because we're easily identifiable, therefore we've been used as the easiest pawns in the game. But there's also other pawns in the game.
In places where they don't have black people, they find a way to make people the scapegoat based on their religious or cultural differences, so that the rich can get richer and the poor can get poorer."
Read his comments about each of the tracks on this seminal album: www.billboard.com
Chuck D reflecting back on writing this one: "I was writing a lot of songs. My anger was focused on Arizona and New Hampshire refusing to honor the King holiday. It was so much of a smack in the face that I said, well, this needs to be addressed."
Read more from Public Enemy about this song here: www.spin.com
Released in 1986, 'Raising Hell' was Run‐D.M.C.'s third album, and became the first rap album to go multiplatinum.
'Raising Hell' was added to the National Registry of Recordings in 2017.
Read all about the album in this interesting essay:
www.loc.gov
Cypress Hill sampled this for "Insane in the Brain."
First released in 1968, James Brown penned this song with his bandleader Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis.
Here's James Brown performing it live on "Soul Train": www.youtube.com
Not only is it MLK Day but Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on this day in 1929 and would have been 95 years old today.
Did you know that Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday” originally served as an unofficial commercial to call up people to sign the petition for a Martin Luther King Jr. Day.?
"That there ought to be a time
That we can set aside
To show just how much we love you
And I'm sure you would agree
What could fit more perfectly
Than to have a world party on the day you came to be...."
"SassyBlack is a space aged singer, songwriter & producer. This Goddess of “electronic psychedelic soul” & “hologram funk” explores the concepts of sound through deep compositions. With roots in classical & jazz, her voice is often compared to Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Erykah Badu & Georgia Anne Muldrow."
sassyblack.bandcamp.com
On this day in 1969, Creedence Clearwater Revival released Bayou Country featuring the amazing "Born on the Bayou" and the classic "Proud Mary," later covered by Tina Turner.
This tribute to Martin Luther King was written by Livin' on a High Note producer M. Ward. The recording of it was an emotional experience for Mavis Staples.
She recalled to Uncut: "I got so wrapped up in that I almost didn't finish it. The first time I choked up and started to cry, as I could see Dr. Martin Luther King as I was singing. It just hit me and I almost broke down. But I held it together and I finished, and then I broke down: you have to take your heart into the studio."
www.songfacts.com
From the 1972 live album, Amazing Grace, ranked #154 on Rolling Stone's best albums of all-time.
“I don’t think I’m alone in saying that Amazing Grace is Aretha’s singular masterpiece,” Marvin Gaye observed.
Recorded in an L.A. church with her father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin, on hand and Mick Jagger dancing in the back of the congregation, this return to Aretha Franklin’s gospel roots remains the bestselling album of her career, containing, arguably, the greatest singing she recorded.
Part of this is because it didn’t sound like it took place in a church; Franklin approaches sacred songs as if they were soul standards, and delivers Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend” like it’s a hymn. “How I Got Over,” her fervent thank you to Jesus, must have made the Lord blush.
www.rollingstone.com
Marvin Gaye’s recording of this song was a top ten hit in the UK in 1970, although it was never released in the US as a single.
It is said to be one of his first experiments with social messaging in his music which would culminate in his 1971 album, What's Going On.
Read an oral history of the story behind the song here: www.tennessean.com
Coming on Feb. 7 - International Clash Day 2024: Don't Stop, Give It All You Got!
Read the story of the band's complicated and powerful fifth album:
pitchfork.com
'Born in the U.S.A.' is the seventh studio album by Bruce Springsteen, released in 1984.
A misunderstood classic - most people thought this was a patriotic song about American pride, when it actually cast a shameful eye on how America treated its Vietnam veterans.
Springsteen considers it one of his best songs, but it bothers him that it is so widely misinterpreted. - bit.ly
brucespringsteen.net