Big John Patton

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

(I can't find the John Patton corner thread, so I'm posting this as a new thread.)

Here’s a strange thing about Big John – he never had a hit album as a leader. What’s strange about this is that his BN career, in which he made what really sound (and sounded to us back in the day) like the funkiest and most commercial organ albums ever, was the period in which jazz organists were having a very good time on the pop and R&B charts.

I thought I’d check on this. It took me longer than I’d expected: from May 1962 (when “Natural soul” was recorded) to the end of 1970, 72 albums led by, or featuring prominently, jazz organists made the Billboard pop or R&B album charts. That’s about 8 albums a year. I've excluded vocals and a few doubtful ones: I don't know which Earl Grant albums were vocals and which instrumentals; and some like "Mean greens" by Eddie Harris, on which Sonny Phillips only played on a few cuts. So this is a fairly conservative list.

I’m not going to list them but here’s a summary:

Billy Larkin & the Delegates 1

Brian Auger 1

Charles Earland 2

Don Patterson 1

George Benson (feat Charles Covington) 1

Grant Green 2

Houston Person 1

Jack McDuff 8

James Brown (organ stuff) 6

Jimmy McGriff 5

Jimmy Smith 26

Johnny Lytle 1

Lonnie Smith 2

Lou Donaldson 7

Odell Brown 2

Groove Holmes 4

Sonny Stitt 1

Walter Wanderley 1

Now you’d have thought, looking at that list, that there’d be room for at least “Along came John” or “Got a good thing goin’”, wouldn’t you? "Natural soul" was a hit album and that's the nearest Big John ever came.

Anyone got any ideas about this?

MG

[sidewinder]

Yes, especially odd as I've heard that the 60s 'mods' over here were into the early BJP albums. LP availability must have been an issue.

[JSngry]

Patton didn't play "flashy" (you didn't get hit in the eye by the sweat, real or manufactured, coming off his brow) and didn't do but a few pop covers (if any one of his albums was going to be a hit based on a "groovy pop cover, I'd think it would've been Got A Good Thing Going, with that killer one-two punch on Side Two. And after that side - well, with that side, imo - Patton's groove started opening up into a more open, less "commercially obvious" direction).

Not a recipie for crossover success, and probably not something you could say about any of the albums on your list.

Somebody else who's not on that list is Freddie Roach, of whom the same could be said.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Patton didn't play "flashy" (you didn't get hit in the eye by the sweat, real or manufactured, coming off his brow) and didn't do but a few pop covers (if any one of his albums was going to be a hit based on a "groovy pop cover, I'd think it would've been Got A Good Thing Going, with that killer one-two punch on Side Two. And after that side - well, with that side, imo - Patton's groove started opening up into a more open, less "commercially obvious" direction).

Not a recipie for crossover success, and probably not something you could say about any of the albums on your list.

Somebody else who's not on that list is Freddie Roach, of whom the same could be said.

Quite right, John wasn't overtly sweaty. And it's very obvious, in respect of Freddie. But it's also true of many, if not the majority, of the albums that did hit the charts. Most, I think, though I haven't counted, didn't have a pop cover as the central hook track, either. Sometimes, as with the Willis Jackson/Jack McDuff "Together again", there doesn't seem to be any kind of hook track.

And don't forget, if you did have a hook track, you only needed one (probably not a pop cover, though) to have a hit album - like "Sidewinder" or "Song for my father". How many of the other tracks on those albums could have driven those albums up the charts? That's why all those later BN hard bop LPs just had one "Sidewinder" type tune, with the rest straight ahead material typical of the leaders. And "The silver meter", "Fat Judy", "Soul woman" and "The turnaround" seem to me all ideal material. (So is "Mustang" which also didn't make it.)

As Sidewinder says, the Patton tracks were popular with the Mods over here - I think "Fat Judy" and "Silver meter" (and "Googa mooga") were the hip 45s you could get for half a quid or more at a stall in Lisle Street when you were buying your Bobby Bland imports etc. Never any chance in those days, though, of a breakout by BN in Britain. But America? I wasn't there; that's why I asked.

MG

[Soul Stream]

Great thread MG.

I'm not sure what you are talking about when you say "Hit." You list Don Patterson as having one, and I'm curious as to what that was and what it charted at.

Interesting...

Could you post the list of songs/artists and the chart/position? I'd be interested to see what hits McDuff had.

I can't believe "The Yodel" or "Fat Judy" Or "Along Came John" didn't make it to some degree. Maybe they just weren't pushed. Many of the artists you list were on non-Blue Note labels such as Prestige or Sue, that were more geared to that sort of marketing. I guess the exception is Jimmy Smith and Lou Donaldson on Blue Note but JOS was a hitmaker from the get go and Lou really knew how to make hits such as Alligator Boogaloo, ect...

[JSngry]

I still maintain that Patton was too "subtle" to break out too much beyond the "niche market" he was in, at least here in the U.S. He didn't display blatantly dazzling chops like Smith, his repertoire was nowhere near as blatantly "funky" as somebody like Billy Larkin, & he made few, if any, concessions to "commerciality".

Sure, he was "greasy". But his was a most organic form of grease, & it didn't necessarily call attention to itself unless you were predisposed to hearing it. I myself had the first few BN albums (at a time when I was more about the "uncompromising sounds of freedom" and all that stuff), and was basically underwhelmed until I got Accent On The Blues & Understanding. Then I went back & re-heard what I had missed the first time around. I suspect that my experience of not fully "getting it" was not all that uncommon.

There's a big difference between cats like Patton & Roach and people like Smith & Patterson. With the latter group, it's all there for you, you can't miss it. With the former group, it's not so easy, unless, like I said, you're predisposed to where they were coming from in the first place (and perhaps tellingly, I discovered Roach after my Patton conversion, and "got" him immediately).

What (almost?) all those "hits" have in common is a strong beat, a beat aimed at the feet of dancers. Either that, or a level of overt emotionalism that hits you upside the head. Or both. Big John wasn't ever about any of that, and that's why I think he didn't have the big breakout tune.

But we all love him now, so hey.

[Soul Stream]

Certainly...from "That Certain Feeling" onward, there was absolutely no hint of commerciality. Albums like Understanding are nothing but hard and fast jazz in the mode that was popularized by Trane, ect. Sure, they did "Soul Man"...but it was barely anything but a launching pad for a spiritual exploration. Of course, Scott Yanow made us all aware that Patton was no trailblazer. Patton cared nothing about being commercial and his career paid the price. Too bad he gets thrown in with the "funky licks" organ grinder crowd.

[Noj]

Certainly...from "That Certain Feeling" onward, there was absolutely no hint of commerciality. Albums like Understanding are nothing but hard and fast jazz in the mode that was popularized by Trane, ect. Sure, they did "Soul Man"...Too bad he gets thrown in with the "funky licks" organ grinder crowd.

It's cool, Patton's in good company either way!

[JSngry]

Sure, they did "Soul Man"...

I'm still not convinced that that's not a mis-titling or a mis-crediting of composer credits. I've listened long and hard, and damned if I hear any connection to Sam & Dave's hit, other than a very loose referencing of the rhymic outline of the horn lick.

[Soul Stream]

Sure, they did "Soul Man"...

I'm still not convinced that that's not a mis-titling or a mis-crediting of composer credits. I've listened long and hard, and damned if I hear any connection to Sam & Dave's hit, other than a very loose referencing of the rhymic outline of the horn lick.

Yeah, that was his idea of a "hit." Even "Chitlins Con Carne" on that LP is damn near unidentifiable.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Great thread MG.

I'm not sure what you are talking about when you say "Hit." You list Don Patterson as having one, and I'm curious as to what that was and what it charted at.

Interesting...

Could you post the list of songs/artists and the chart/position? I'd be interested to see what hits McDuff had.

I can't believe "The Yodel" or "Fat Judy" Or "Along Came John" didn't make it to some degree. Maybe they just weren't pushed. Many of the artists you list were on non-Blue Note labels such as Prestige or Sue, that were more geared to that sort of marketing. I guess the exception is Jimmy Smith and Lou Donaldson on Blue Note but JOS was a hitmaker from the get go and Lou really knew how to make hits such as Alligator Boogaloo, ect...

OK, here's the data file. (Too big for one post. This is 62-66)

It sets out which albums were on the pop or the R&B album chart from May '62 - the end of '70. You get the usual details, the year of entry, the date of entry, highest pos, weeks on chart, and weeks at #1 or #2, for the pop chart, then the same for the R&B chart, then the name of the co-artist (where there is one). The R&B album chart didn't start until '65, so there are no entries before then.

You'll see that Don Patterson got in, quite high and fast, with his Christmas record. But like all Christmas records, only stayed a short time.

I had a look at the BN discography to see which Patton tracks were issued as 45s.

The silver meter came out as a double sided single.

Along came John/I'll never be free

Fat Judy was also a double sided single

Amanda/Ain't that peculiar

Ain't that peculiar/The yodel was issued as a coupling on the L series, which was a 7" 33rpm series.

I think BN made a mistake with the single issues from "Got a good thing goin'". I stil think "Soul woman" was the hook track. However, "The yodel" was very popular over here. There were at least two British versions of the tune in the late '60s: one by a band called Spirit of John Morgan and the other I've forgotten who it was by.

I don't think I agree with Jim about the way the grease comes at you off a Patton record. In the mid '60s, we were picking up on these cuts immediately as stuff for dancing. Maybe it wasn't the same in the US, but these were very hot with the trendies over here (er - I was one of those, then, don'tcha know?). But we were a kind of hip minority who THOUGHT we liked the same things that people over there liked. But maybe there were slight differences.

But anyway, not all of those hit albums were greasy. And a lot of the non-organ jazz hits weren't terribly greasy. It certainly isn't an adjective I'd attach to Monk's "Criss cross" or "Search for the new land", "Song for my father", "A new perspective", or Wes', Getz and Herbie Mann's hits, for example. So I don't know, which is why I started the thread

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Here's part 2 of the data file.

MG