The Steve Reynolds Program - 99 1/2 Won't Do
Good morrow, Noble Sirs and Mesdames!
Remember this thing? Sort of? I as well! I pinned an easy sign up button (thanks, Revue and suck it, substack!) on my Twitter profile and got ZERO new subscribers from it. I think I was unconsciously waiting for that email alerting that someone subscribed as a reminder to write one, but nary a one came in. I was left in resigned defeat.
A couple of days ago, I put the button back up and tweetpleaded for people to sign up. And by gum, a few did! Maybe I should promote on Facebook (a place I spend far less time thanks to a failsafe system I explain below), but that's where the normies are! Oh wellz. This will be just our little secret, you and I.
Since I've last sent this out, I've set out on writing a few projects. Mainly, I've been editing and rewriting this book that is shaping up to be a crazed genre-blending meditation/rollicking tale/po-mo novel. It seems a distinct entity from me (let's call it Wampus's Monster) that demands more and more, then it decides it wants less filler and more killer.
Earlier this year, I enrolled in a workshop on literature and was surprised to find out we had to submit our own work to actual strangers (some call them "classmates") to read and review. I pusillanimously submitted the tentative prologue of Wampus's Monster for critique with no idea what the response would be, but these sweet classmates' points were insightful and encouraging enough to compel me to soldier on this endeavor that I put aside for months to work on another unfinished and crazed mess.
But now, THE BIG CHANGEUP! The old description for this newsletter was:
Four random recommendations and/or thoughts sent with no malice aforethought. With a postscript of self-promotion when applicable.
(Wow! With such a catchy and simple slugline, I can't imagine why more people haven't subscribed!)
The new description is:
A defense and/or celebration of Wampus's choices of top 100 songs in the form of prose around 500 words
(Ah, that's much better!)
Here's the story of the new format. A few months ago, someone posted a Spotify playlist of their top 100 songs and then a couple of people responded with their own lists. All were interesting and had songs I both loved and puzzled at. I decided to have a go at it. I made my own list rather quickly, going back and putting in and taking out songs, mainly on the sudden memories of me loving songs or what it looks like I played a lot on my computer.
I put it up as soon as it looked like a feasible approximation of what could be my top 100 songs. Of course, moments later I wanted to tinker with it and keep adding and subtracting, but age has taught me that it's better to leave a moment be. You know, accept what you've set forth isn't perfect, but it comes from the you of that moment. So let that momentary person be remembered!
After putting the list up, I forgot about it until last week when I put it on shuffle for a drive to the city. As each song played I defended it to an invisible judge I placed in the car ahead of me in traffic (I hope people didn't see me in their rearview mirrors emphatically pleading my case why a certain song was worthy of such an illustrious title of One Of Wampus's 100 Favorite Songs). I defended on diverse grounds of cultural history, thematic importance, personal relationship and history with said song, and musicality.
The idea then came to make a podcast with one hundred episodes, each one dedicated to a different song. I wrote up the first song and recorded my words, but I didn't like it. One, it's just me reading an essay and people can read. I don't need to do it for them. Why not just give you the damn essay? Besides, I'm doing the loosest podcast now (so niche I barely mention it) with a friend and don't want to put out two podcasts at a time. That sounds tacky!
So I'm now going to share my writeups on the songs here through this newsletter. I'm going to keep them around five to seven hundred words each and release them regularly.
Don't worry; I'm still gonna hyperlink a whole lot. Hope you enjoy. Feedback is welcome!
***HOW TO WEAN YOURSELF OFF FACEBOOK***
One year announce you are going to only post in ALL CAPS. When a friend replies that you will fail, be stubborn and do it.
A following year, announce you will only write in Esperanto, the unfairly misunderstood auxiliary language no one cares about. Since you've done the Facebook resolution before, you have to do this one, right?
Do a countdown of days, hours and minutes in Esperanto to New Year's Day as a tease that you will post in English again.
Sike! Announce your resolution is to do another year of posting in Esperanto.
Everybody hates it and no one engages with your posts so you don't show up in people's algorithms and you realize what a terrible interface that thing is. No more lurking!
Song One
99 1/2 Won't Do
by Sister Rosetta Tharpe
This song, the oldest song of my choices and the only one in the gospel genre, technically tops the alphabetical list of one hundred songs here. My preference would be the number written out then filed in the N's, but streaming services use arabic numerals. Serendipity is I’m setting out to write one hundred essays, so it’s gotta be completed or I fail. Here’s the first step in trying to make a hunnert.
The first time I heard 99 ½ Won’t Do was on the sole African-American owned station in Oklahoma City, AM radio 1140. The station is a daytimer station—one that has to stop broadcasting at sunset as not to interfere with the signals of other stations. The stations it defers to in this case are in Richmond, Virginia and Monterrey, Mexico. What a bum deal they can’t keep fostering community because of giant metal towers hundreds of miles away.
It was a late Sunday morning and broadcasting was a church service with the preacher firing up a crowd with the help of a joyous band and choir behind him. I cannot find that version now, but it boasted the later way of doing this song-- the lead singer shouting out ninety, ninety-one, etc., with the choir answering versions of “too slow” “won’t go” or things like that until they get to the refrain of ninety-nine and a half won’t do.
No modifier, noun or verb, is affixed to the 100. Is it a speed, percentage or amount? For Wilson Pickett, 100 is the percentage of commitment he demands from a woman. If you want to cringe, listen to John Fogerty’s affected singing on the CCR cover/imitation of Wilson Pickett. It’s got less soul than a podcast. Hezekiah Walker implies it’s the commitment to Jesus via the church. Others speak to life or love.
On the New Orleans Gospel At The Crossroads version, a commenter’s mom said it was a work song in her childhood and it signified 100 pounds of cotton, implying that you had to turn in a 100 pound bag to get paid. It was the minimum. No money for a 99.5 pound bag. Damn, capitalism is brutal.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe lays it on the line the best. Robert Darden in People Get Ready!: A New History of Black Gospel Music likens Sister Rosetta Tharpe to Madonna in her challenge of social mores, Dolly Parton in her irrepressible personality, resistance to negative criticism and country gal sexiness and Queen Latifah in her larger-than-life personality. If you want to hear a clear demonstration of her outsized talent and charisma, listen to her live 1960 recording available where you stream music. It’s incredible.
Unlike many in the gospel world, she recorded on a major label, Decca. She played nightclubs and theaters, expanding her audiences to include whites, the middle class and the secular world. Hey, white, middle class and secular? That’s me!
Seven years earlier, Tharpe did this as a duet with her mother, Katie Bell Nubin. It’s more churchy jump blues. Her mom wails and vamps all over the song in what looks like a more disturbing rivalry with her offspring than Murry Wilson with Brian.
I don’t know if Sister Rosetta backs herself up on vocals on the 1956 one – the voices are very similar, all nasal and brassy. I was tempted to choose Delores Terrell Dowling’s mid-70’s version, but it’s slower and since this appears first on my list, I wanted to start with more energy.
99 1/2 and This Little Light of Mine are my favorite gospel songs, because they barely mention God or his dawgs in the bible. I call them existentialist gospel – you can assign your own meaning to them. To me, the little light in This Little Light of Mine is the part of the soul that is imprinted on your DNA that compels you to survive, to interact with the world around you. And since that is demonstrably in your DNA, why not interact in bright, wonderful ways?
For me and this song, I hear Sister Tharpe admonishing not to half-ass it when doing something. I ignore that voice too much, but sometimes she gets through. Now I want to use this for my alarm clock.
Outro
One down. Ninety-nine to go! Forward to people who like tunes. I'm going for weekly releases so I won't pester your inbox too much.
This week's song that I omitted and am mad now: Waiting Room by Fugazi. An all-timer.