Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

Once upon a a time, there was something called an album... a big vinyl disc that had music on it that you could listen to. This was before CD's and long before downloading music onto I-Pods was in vogue. Anyway, while listening to my albums, I always enjoyed the artwork or the photography on the cover. I also liked to read the credits. I wanted to know who wrote the song, who produced the song, what musicians played on the song, and where it was recorded. Nobody I knew cared about that stuff then or now but, that was just me. When cassettes and CDs came along, you could still get those details... and, for those who download music, you can go to the artist's website and get that information.

The thing is... when I look at the credits for today's music, I noticed that there are more engineers than musicians. Technology is part of the reason for that... with the keyboards they have today and the use computers in music, you can be a one man band with very little talent. You don't need a band such as Philly International's "M.F.S.B." (Mother Father Sister Brother), Motown's "Funk Brothers", Stax/Atlantic's "Bar-Kays", and the famed "Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section" to make a great record. One guy can play and mix all of the instruments together... again, with little or no talent.

This brings me to another point... you would think that the art of songwriting would've elevated over the years but, it hasn't. Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff, and others wrote timeless classics. You have songs that are being written by "committee" today. The typical writing credit for one song will boast about ten writers... seven of the ten are dead and never met the three living writers. This is because a song written for an artist today is sampled several times over and they have to give credit to the writers they sampled it from... writers who have never met them or would've liked them if they did! Did you ever wonder why every "new" song sounds a little bit like something you heard years ago? Because originality is gone... people just take a groove and add a couple of new lyrics, a couple of new beats, and call it a day. Laziness or lack of talent? You tell me.

Listen to Mariah Carey's new song, "Touch My Body"... then, listen to Janet Jackson's new song, "Luv"... after that, listen to a couple of Beyonce's songs from last year. Do you hear any difference? That's because they all use the same songwriting "committees" and producers. I could always tell the difference between a Motown song, a Philly International song, or a song from Stax/Atlantic. I always knew the sound of Earth, Wind, & Fire from say, War or Tower of Power. I knew a James Brown record from an Al Green record. You can't do that now. Remember when people wanted to sound different?

It's a shame that the freshest and best R&B record in a long time came out of London last year by a white girl who has probably never had fried chicken, greens, sweet potatoes, and potato salad. I'm talking about Amy Winehouse. Do you know why her record sounded so good? It had real songs, real musicians ("The Dap-Kings"), and real emotion. Nobody was singing about "bling" or asking you to touch their body just for the hell of it. She was singing about going through the ups and downs of a real relationship.

We used to know how to make a good soul record here in the U.S. and I pray that we learn how to do it again. Until then, I'm dusting off my Motown, Philly International, Stax/Atlantic, and funk CD's so I can listen to the "real"!