10 Seconds: Mike Ladd
"These are the songs and sounds that came to me the moment George sent me an offer to participate. It's what’s living with me right now, with no headphones or speakers. Three things I’m a sucker for: basslines, excessive reverb, hymnals, and a good crescendo."
1. Odetta - Sail Away, Ladies (0'00" - 0'10")
from Odetta - One Grain of Sound (1963)
“I’m starting with Odetta because that’s where I started. I feel like I knew this song before I could even speak; it has been with me all my life. It’s 100 percent utilitarian for me: it’s a life raft and has saved my life more than once. Odetta is playing that line at the top like it’s a bass. I’m hooked by the end of the first measure. Then her voice gets you out of bed with “Ain’t no use in sittin’ cryin’.” Not much more to say than that.
I cite the top of the song because that’s what pulled me in as a child, before I could articulate (or, for worse, pontificate) on what I liked about a song. Thirty-odd years later, Marvin Tate had a similar effect on me with the same execution. Family Swim took me right back to being a child with Odetta."
2. Marvin Tate - The Family Swim (0’00” - 0’10”)
from Marvin Tate - Family Swim (2007)
"Bassline, check. Excessive reverb, check. But it’s when Marvin’s voice arrives that you hear his uncanny mix: someone gruff, hidden deep beneath a silky crooner. Actually, both ride just below the surface. He’s talking to you like he just shook your hand. However, behind his pedestrian tone is a voice that could shatter a mosh pit, blended with a crooner who will make you pull off the road just outside a sundown town - and all he did was say hi.
“Where do Brothers go, y’know, when they leave this world?” That line alone can launch a listener into a lifetime of searching, sonically, through archives, through the spirit."
3. Sonny Sharrock - Once Upon a Time (1'49" - 1'59")
from Sonny Sharrock - Ask the Ages (1991)
“Once upon a time has 3 out of 4, (It’s a Bill Laswell mix so the reverb is meticulous). But the mallets have set the stage for our anticipation, Sharrock’s gospel chords kick in at 1:13 and illuminate the stirring spirt awakened by the drums, but it’s at 1:49 the song begins to crack open its chest and the light peeks out. From there it just gets bigger and I’m a streak of tears."
4. The Dells - Wichita Lineman & By The Time I Get To Phoenix (1'52" - 2'02")
from The Dells - Love is Blue (1969)
“Not everyone loves a parade or a medley, but I’m a sucker for this one. It’s The Dells and Charles Stepney. Can’t go wrong.
I love the arrangement. Stepney cuts the drums, and there’s a flourish of harp deep in the mix. Marvin Junior’s phrasing and the chorus behind him feel like skimming over a pond. But the full impact still comes from Glen Campbell’s text, when he turns the lyric into the Most Serious Love: “I need you more than I want you” (my wife literally rolled her eyes when I sang that). But milliseconds later: “And I want you for all time!” Blaaaam!
Also, at 1:14, it has one of the hardest deliveries of the “babababa” riff in all of the ’60s and ’70s."
5. Elucid - Impasse (1’30” - 1’40”)
from Elucid - I Told Besse (2022)
“Sebb Bash obliterates this track. There are zero bad choices in this production. Like Odetta’s “Sail Away Ladies,” this is one of those songs that’s more of a survival tool for me.
With this track, it’s really the whole thing: Elucid’s lyrics, his winding chorus, which signifies and simultaneously revolves around pain as a requisite of the tradition. But, man, I love that production. The song opens up, so I’m going to have to pick 1:30 - 1:40 - the break."
6. Deem Spencer - There Was Plenty Time Before Us (1’09” - 1’19”)
from Deem Spencer - We Think We Alone (2022)
“I don’t know where he got the strings from. I don’t want to know. It’s probably famous and obvious, but the way he flows into the break is crazy. He’s flowing through some love story at high speed along a garden path; the break is the destination at 1:09. The rest of those 10 seconds is spent sitting on a bench, staring at the sun. (The end is a secret “fuck you” to hippies. Love that.)
Elizabeth Bishop has a way of leading you down a curious path to some destination in the middle of nowhere, where you may end up terrified. This song does the same thing for me during those 10 seconds - but then it picks you up again."
7. Stravinsky - The Firebird, No2 Finale (2'13" - 2'23")
from Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring : The Firebird - LSO, NY Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein (1957)
"This might be an easy one. I don’t care, it’s dope.
When it kicks into halftime after the crescendo of sublimity. It’s as if the angels have thrown all your emotional defences to the ground, straddle said defences and are angelically punching them repeatedly in the face. It could stop at 2:55 and I’d still think I got into heaven for free."
8. Rotary Connection - Respect (1’29” – 1’39”)
from Rotary Connection - Songs (1969)
“First, Aretha Franklin, some covers are better than the original but you can’t do that with Ms. Franklin. But this homage is one of my favourite covers of all time. Charles Stepney (second time
he’s mentioned) is one of my favourite producers and arrangers of all time. How he orchestrates his dream band Rotary Connection is mind boggling. Many of my heroes have paid beautiful tribute to his work but to me he remains untouchable. These 10 seconds though, It’s not just Phil Upchurch’s solo, It’s the bones of the song revealed as if the masterpiece wasn’t already exposed by time Stepney accents his homage by pulling back almost everything but Tom Donlinger on drums holding it down like he was Morris Jennings... Tough."
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