Rather surprising a song like Honky Tonk Women, with it's raunchy lyrics and sound, got played enough on AM radio to reach #1 and for a whole month no less. I mean, they bleeped out Christ from The Ballad Of John & Yoko but this was okay? I guess when you already have that kind of rep the standards are different. At any rate, it's a classic that continued down the path set by Jumping Jack Flash and really got R-rated with Brown Sugar but that's a song for another day. It;s one of their best singles and still works to this day. Having You Can't Always Get What You Want on the flip-side certainly didn't hurt although it really should have seen it's own release as a separate A-side single. Strange that they would treat such a great song so off-handedly.
"This style" doesn't just "seem to hang around for a few years"...gospel is a separate ongoing genre, independent of the pop Top 40. "Oh Happy Day" may have been Edwin Hawkins' only hit, but he's an institution in gospel. If you seriously believe "there's little longevity for the acts," you just don't follow gospel.
"This style" doesn't just "seem to hang around for a few years"...gospel is a separate ongoing genre, independent of the pop Top 40. "Oh Happy Day" may have been Edwin Hawkins' only pop (and soul) hit, but by now he's an institution in the gospel field. If you seriously believe "there's little longevity for the acts," you just don't follow gospel.
"This style" doesn't just "seem to hang around for a few years"...gospel is a separate ongoing genre, independent of the pop Top 40. "Oh Happy Day" may have been Edwin Hawkins' only pop (and soul) hit, but by now he's an institution in the gospel field. If you seriously believe "there's little longevity for the acts," you just don't follow gospel.
"This style" doesn't just "seem to hang around for a few years"...gospel is a separate ongoing genre, independent of the pop Top 40. "Oh Happy Day" may have been Edwin Hawkins' only pop (and soul) hit, but by now he's an institution in the gospel field. If you seriously believe "there's little longevity for the acts," you just don't follow gospel.
You mean R. Dean Taylor, although I agree that "Mr. Turnkey" reminds me of "Indiana Wants Me". R.B. Greaves sang "Take A Letter Maria," which is different in such that its protagonist gets away with sexual harassment. That was my reaction too when I first heard "Honky Tonk Women." But it grew on me soon enough and became one of my favorite Stones songs, for a while. It's one of those songs no one else can do just right, too. I love the Pogues, but their version of it is a bad joke.
I think the Stones got away with being raunchy on Honky Tonk Women because Mick is so dang hard to understand, especially coming out of a little transistor AM radio, which is how I heard most of my music at that time (if I didn't have the record.) I wasn't a big fan of the Stones until I got older and understood what they were trying to do. As a kid, you know he sang 'She blew my nose and then she blew my mind', but you don't really GET what he meant. I'm a Stones fan now, but they're not one of my favorite groups, not by a long shot. HTW, however, has become a classic over the years and has aged very well.
BTW Have the Rolling Stones ever done a country album? This is Honky Tonk (I was just watching The Blues Brothers playing in Bob's Country Bunker)
The stereo mix is fantastic. Hearing it on Through the Past Darkly after have gotten used to it on AM radio was like hearing a completely different song. Supposedly Jimmy Miller and Glyn Johns spent hours on the stereo mix then went to the pub leaving Andy Johns to do the mono.
Given that they did a variant on their Let It Bleed album called "Country Honk," that is somewhat ironic. But for years I've had the CP variant of this one . . . The "dirtiness" to the sound, I.M.H.O., had as much to do with the BBC Grampian Feedback cutterheads Bell Sound was using to cut mono records in those days, as everything else on the recording and mixing end. The other irony to @Grant's judgment of this as "too countryish" was that the biggest hit from the Man In Black, Johnny Cash, was kept out of the top pop spot by this. First, the label (CP, of course): And then, in glorious mono, the record itself (with a lead guitar lick by none other than Mr. "Blue Suede Shoes" himself, Carl Perkins):
Get Back - I like it but overplay on oldies radio killed it for me. "Don't Let Me Down" on the other hand is one of my favorite Beatles songs. In fact this was one of the first songs by them that I heard
The narrator of "Take A Letter, Maria" does sound like a butthole, but I couldn't call him a sexual harraser. His request to Maria for a date sounds too polite for that, even though he is stepping out of bounds. From what I remember, Waylon Jennings' version wasn't bad, but oddly enough he can't bring himself to sing the line "she blew my nose and then she blew my mind."
It's little longevity in pop gospel acts, that's what I meant, gospel acts that broke pop or achieved secular success. Were the Edwin Hawkins Singers a big pop act after "Oh Happy Day?" how about the Voices of East Harlem? The Mighty Clouds of Joy stayed together for 210 years but their secular success lasted from 74-75. That's what I meant, sorry if I offended or wasn't clear.
No offense taken. There's some truth to that. As sacrilegious as it sounds, it is said that scoring with a gospel song is a surefire way to become a one-hit wonder ("Spirit In The Sky," "Put Your Hand In The Hand"). As for the Voices of East Harlem, the two albums (and one single) I own by them are actually quite secular. Plenty of social consciousness songs, but very little gospel (if at all). I've always considered them the missing link between the Edwin Hawkins Singers and the Jackson Five.
I think Honky Tonk Woman was written as country and became the rocker I, at least, love during the recording process. Love the cowbell intro, love the horns, love the whole shambling mess.
More than any other Stones' record, "Honky Tonk Women" proves how much producer Jimmy Miller, in this period, was "the sixth Stone." Not only did he play the cowbell on said tune, he also was the drummer on the B side, "You Can't Always Get What You Want." Which, in its 45 version, starts with lone guitar. As heard: At this time, this side did not chart. But four years later it went to #42. Go figure. B.T.W., I prefer this to the LP version.
I'm not so sure about that. Now, I don't know if you'd call "Superstar" by Murray Head & His Trinidad Singers gospel, but he went on to have many hits (almost entirely in his home the U.K., but he had a massive worldwide hit "One Night In Bangkok afterward. Motown band Commodores got away with an R&B hit "Jesus Is Love" in 1980. The Staple Singers constantly straddled the line between secular and gospel. Glen Campbell, B.J. Thomas, Tommy James, and several country artists got away with it too. Granted, all of the ones I mentioned were already established, but it is not a surefire way to be a one-hit wonder. Several artists came from that background, went secular for a while, then went back. Some, like Philip Bailey and Denise Williams started out secular and went into it.
D'oh! I knew I should have looked that one up. Oh well, I got the first letter of his name right at least!
...and that's why I wasn't really thinking of those acts. And there are always exceptions (Rick Springfield's first hit, "Speak To The Sky," was a lowkey religious number). However, there are quite a few one-hitters whose lone Top 40 smash was a gospel tune. Besides the two I mentioned earlier, there was also Laurie London ("He's Got The Whole World In His Hands"), the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards ("Amazing Grace"), Lawrence Reynolds ("Jesus Is A Soul Man"), Teegarden & Van Winkle ("God, Love & Rock & Roll"), Sister Janet Mead ("The Lord's Prayer"). I'm not saying that gospel in the Top 40 is a bad idea, but there seem to be numerous acts who had a religious-themed hit and never followed it up.
Or, they did, and were just lower charting singles. That right there disqualifies them as one-hit wonders. Good call on Rick Springfield!
