Cafe Nine | Music | Arts & Culture
| The cover art for Swamp Dogg's 1971 Rat On!, which he produced with Elektra Records. |
This is the latest installment on Shake N’ Vibrate, a monthly vinyl series at Cafe Nine led by musician, DJ, and filmmaker Brendan Toller. A special Independence Day Shake ‘N’ Vibrate is planned for Wednesday July 3 at 9 p.m. For more information on the event, click here.
One of my all-time favorite soul instigators that I’ve gotten hip to in the last ten years—it’s “new” if you haven’t heard it yet—has to be the one and only Mr. Swamp Dogg, otherwise known as Jerry Williams. In a double-album budget CD compilation entitled The Excellent Sides of Swamp Dogg Vol. 1, his bio is all you need to get a taste of who he is as a person and an artist.
“I was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, July 12th, 1942 and was fortunate enough to move away as soon as I became of age,” it reads. “Without any formal training, I awakened one morning to find that I was a genius and could master a number of musical instruments including piano, tambourine, sticks, finger cymbals, tweezers, washboard and bobby pin.”
Williams goes on to chronicle much of his life like this. Captain of the high school volleyball team. A dedicated husband and dad. And, he maintains throughout, solely responsible for his success, because he has stuck by, uh, himself.
Well, a little fiction never hurt anyone. And why should performing stop at the stage? Swamp Dogg did strike an Atlantic Records producing deal with legendary record men Jerry Wexler and Phil Walden. There’s a great Irma Thomas album called In Between Tears produced by Swamp Dogg in ’74, and I still get a kick seeing a Jerry Williams publishing credit as I sift through the stacks of 45s in my travels.
Like any excellent artist, Jerry Williams has rolled with the punches. Hell, he even performed a few weeks back in New York City at Le Poisson Rouge, former home of the legendary Village Gate. He regaled the audience with a set of classics. His last album Love, Loss, and Auto-tune hit last year and SD has vowed a new record of John Prine songs.
My fave tracks have to be “Total Destruction to Your Mind.” Listen to it below.
Sittin’ on a corn flake
Ridin’ on a rollerskate
Too late to hesitate
Or even meditate
And of course there’s his funkified take on Joe South’s “These Are Not My People,” from Rat On, which makes the list of worst album covers year after year. Naturally, I think the album cover is brilliant.
As we cruise into another hot July Shake ‘N’ Vibrate, I can’t help but think of Swamp Dogg’s patriotic breakdown “God Bless America For What.” This tender soul preach sums up the whirling U.S. simulacrum. Written circa 1971, it reminds us that the bullshit mechanisms of capitalism and The State still abound.
A Youtube user commented that this should be our national anthem. I say, amen. We’re only as good at the ideals we continue to hold up, and my goodness these days we got a lotta holdin’ to do.
Oh what a joke is the Statue of Liberty
When the Indians own the reservation
And black folks still ain’t free
Hate, war and distrust
Is all our forefathers took time to sow
But this new generations planting love and freedom
And peace is what they gonna grow
You see kids are tired growin’ up just to fight another war…
And singin’
God bless America
Unless they know, they know, what for
God bless America
Unless they know, they know, what for.