Friday 7 March 2014

Get Out Business


Hold up, wait a minute !

Don't worry, it's not time for another one of your boy Flair's rants, far from it this time around.
(I'm not trying to give my girlfriend any hints either).
This here bit is about a track that is possibly one of the most influential of all time, a piece of music that has been loved by generations & is as classic as classic could possibly be.

Written by the legendary Allen Toussaint & first recorded by Lee Dorsey way back in 1965, produced by Marshall E. Sehorn & Toussaint (& quite possibly backed by the then recently formed The Meters) "Get Out Of My Life Woman" was obviously a winner of a track to begin with, it is ridiculously hard to find any information on it's origins, but the song's sentiments seemed to strike a chord with people who had been through relationship problems at some point (pretty much everybody then), but I doubt that Toussaint or Dorsey had any idea of the legacy that their work on that particular joint would leave over the next (almost) 50 years, & beyond.


Lyrically simple, but very effective. The actual lyrics are gender specific (lesbians excluded), but i'm fairly sure that just as many females have been sympathetically nodding their heads over the years to this one.
But as nice as those lyrics are, this one is very much about the drums.

Now, here at Strictly Business we love our drums, very much so, very bloody much, very bloody much indeed, blahblahblah-e.t.c.e.t.c.e.t.c....
But we are far from what could be described as your actual drum experts (We can leave that to the ©Cold Man), but we know the odd nugget.

One of those nuggets is the fact that the style of drumming on that track definitely doesn't seem to sound like what the average drummer was playing back in '65, again, it's simple, but it's clearly got that boom bap shit going on which you generally didn't hear coming through until a few years later. We would not be surprised at all if it was Zigaboo Modeliste on the drums, as it could definitely be interpreted as an early version of the style he would become known for with The Meters.

And that's where the beauty of the whole shit lies...........

It didn't take long to take a hold, & within a year of it's original release, "Get Out Of My Life Woman" had already been covered by many different artists & was well on it's way to becoming a standard.
But something particularly sweet happened along the way, these artists seemed to recognise the prominence of the drums, they all took this on board one way or the other, & without knowing it at the time, gave hip hop heads a bountiful source of funkiness.

"Ba Boom - Bap, Ba Boom Boom Bap" - Repeat.

The original track has been sampled well over 100 times, & that's just the drums. But as you will hear, that really was just the beginning, we can't be bothered to look it up properly right now, but we think that it's fairly safe to say that if you include all the cover versions, there are at least 230 examples of samples used from this one song.

The versions by the blues & jazz heads are pretty much all absolute classics, but those crazy rock/garage/psych/mod/hippy/whatever freaks also did some awesome work with the track, most of these covers (with a few exceptions) were recorded in the mid to late 60s when everything was lovely & the funk started creeping into the room.

One interesting note is the fact that on a large amount of the rock/genre versions the vocalists seem to fuck the lyrics up quite a lot, but the jazzier dudes hold it down nicely, some even add their own extra verses.

Also, not all these tracks are actually named "Get Out Of My Life Woman". Other titles are "Get Out My Life Woman", "Get Out Of My Life", the amazing "Get Off My Life Woman", & "Yeter Artik Kadin" in the case of the psychedelic Turks Bunalim.

Another thing to note is that some of these tracks are covers of the original, but some are actually covers of covers, if you get our drift.


But as important as those drums are, the musical variations in the cover versions are really something special too, the horns, the pianos, the guitars.....
& those extra female vocals on the Solomon Burke version are ridiculously nice.

Really hope this doesn't come across as racist in any way, but a lot of the singers lacking in eumelanin on a few of these joints don't really sound particularly nice, in fact some vocals are rather painful, but the rest of the band usually make up for it, but those singers blessed with natural vocal ability are beyond superb on some of these versions.

There seems to be at least 100 'official' cover versions out there, & that's not including all the other shit loads of live versions by bands all over the planet floating around the net.
But as you should already know, Strictly Biz always keep it quality over quantity, so what you get here is what we consider the top 30 recordings of this classic song.

Along the way you will notice many a recognisable sample from such classic tracks as "Ill Street Blues", "How My Man Went Down In The Game", "I Got Cha Opin", "Dre Day", "Back To The Grill", "Extra Abstract Skillz", "Memory Lane", "Now I Gotta Wet 'Cha", "Funk Is Back" & "Bloodshed Hua Hoo" amongst many others.

Muggs is a repeat offender & Cypress in particular have caned it on the various versions.
And at a guess we reckon that most of you beatmakers out there have rocked at least one of these versions at some point.

Some of these open drum breaks are supremely fonky, but a few sound like Chestwigz's Nan could have rocked the same shit on her empty tins & ashtrays, but generally they all stick to the original structure.
Not every included track starts with an open drum break, but most of them do.
These drums vary heavily in quality, but some of the better ones are unbelievably good.

This certainly isn't some last word shit on the subject, the included tracks are just the ones we like the most out of the ones we've actually heard, but there are many many more out there so do your own hunting. We would love to hear more versions in any other language than English, there must be at least one Japanese version out there, but we are yet to find it. If we missed any particularly good versions then please let us know in the comments.

Well, it's been almost 50 years, Lee Dorsey is sadly long gone, but Allen Toussaint is still very much with us & still performing his timeless classics, In fact he will be playing Ronnie Scott's in Soho, London on the 15th of April, so sling that in whatever tech reminder systems you currently rock & grab some tickets.

So, in the words of DJ Run & DMC - "There It Is", Some of the finest versions of one of the greatest tracks of all time, shout out to Lu Cipher on this one, coming up next is something rather special, keep it locked right here.

OK, nuff rambling, head nodding time.

Strictly Business presents
Get Out Business


Albert King - Get Out Of My Life Woman
Allen Toussaint - Get Out Of My Life Woman
Bill Cosby - Get Out Of My Life Woman
Bunalim - Yeter Artik Kadin
Dee Dee, Barry & The Movements - Get Out Of My Life Woman
Freddie King - Get Out Of My Life Woman
George Semper - Get Out Of My Life Woman
Ginger Ale - Get Off My Life Woman
Grassella Oliphant - Get Out Of My Life Woman
Hu & The Hilltops - Get Out Of My Life Woman
Ian & The Zodiacs - Get Out Of My Life Woman
Iron Butterfly - Get Out Of My Life Woman
Joe Williams & Thad Jones With The Mel Lewis Orchestra - Get Out Of My Life Woman
Lee Dorsey - Get Out Of My Life Woman
Les Blackburds - Get Out Of My Life Woman
Les Marquis & Harry Brent - Get Out Of My Life Woman
Mountain - Get Out Of My Life Woman
Q65 - Get Out Of My Life Woman
Solomon Burke - Get Out Of My Life Woman
Tags - Get Out Of My Life Woman
The Boots - Get Out Of My Life Woman
The Fireballs - Get Out Of My Life Woman
The John Schroeder Orchestra - Get Out Of My Life Woman
The Kingsmen - Get Out Of My Life Woman
The Leaves - Get Out Of My Life Woman
The Mad Lads - Get Out Of My Life Woman
The Mourning Reign - Get Out Of My Life Woman
The New Apocalypse - Get Out Of My Life Woman
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band - Get Out Of My Life Woman
Wilmer & The Dukes - Get Out Of My Life Woman

Password - defandstupid


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