Tell Them How You Really Feel

On the train I was listening to Bobby Womack's "If You Think You're Lonely Now (Wait Until Tonight Girl). It's one of my favorite 70's black guitar man songs, and Bobby Womack is probably the best black soul guitarists of that era. I love the opening the most; that first guitar lick, the gravel in his voice during the monologue, and his ability to mix angst and frustration that boils over into anger. And the background singers are just heavenly. It's clear that he loves his lady but he also makes it clear that he's fed up with her contradictions, her constant nagging. But instead of finding a more constructive way of dealing with their problems, he leaves. He tells her how he really feels, in all its complexities and in the process reveals his own failings.
I'm certainly reading too deep into this song- but I can imagine the circumstances from the story of greater Black America, a little bit after the Civil Rights movement. He feels ashamed about not being able to give his wife/woman/girlfriend the things she wants- his has little in the way of job prospects. I think about him, living in Detroit or Cleveland, his plant shutdown, what can he do? Travel for work? Perhaps, but then he's never home, then she's lonely. But doesn't it feel a little bit refreshing to be away from all that- nagging and anger and frustration. He could travel for work and send back the money- leaving little for himself. He could stay home, try and look for work, and be berated for being unsuccessful. Or..... he could leave for work and keep his money. More money for him, less money for the wife- for my kid?

The problem with male soul/R&B music today is that they cannot display their vulnerability while retaining their ability to come hard with it. For the most part it's an either or proposition. Part of it is the dominance of hip-hop in the Black community. Our current soul/R&B singers were weaned on the cockiness of hip-hop and it is reflected in what and how they sing. You tell a woman/girl/bitch/ho how you're gonna dick her down, break her back, or how she's ain't nothin but a ho/bitch. In the song at least, you are an all powerful sex god able to both that no woman can resist. There's a place for that in music, but there's also a place for something a little more honest and it's tough to find, particularly in the popular stuff.
But Bobby Womack still came hard while revealing his softer side. The anger inside his voice was just as palpable- but it was grown man anger, anger built around trying to build a household. You don't have to be lame to be honest, and you don't have to say things like "she gone let me beep/beat, beep/beat, beep/beat, beep/beat" from that awful Bobby Valentino song. The chorus goes way past playfulness into silliness and undermines the sex god archetype- it's the worst of both worlds really.

I blame Marvin Gaye for the current state of male R&B. Yeah I said it. I blame Marvin Gaye for the current state of R&B in the same way that I blame Michael Jordan for the isolation-revolution that took over the NBA in the mid to late 1990's. It's not their fault personally. Because he had the best combination of skill, intelligence, and savvy, Michael Jordan increased his teams chances of winning by being isolated at times (although he also worked in the triangle offense). It was not isolation in and of itself that was key, it was the man doing it. But coaches thought that putting your best player at the top of the key to go one-on-one was a great strategy. It wasn't and it's extremely boring for players under MJ's stature.
Marvin Gaye with "Let's Get It On" showed how being candid could be a selling point in a more open and permissive age. Not that there weren't other artists who were candid before (blues artists, both men and women had always been upfront about sex in their songs), but because Marvin Gaye was so popular it became acceptable. But Marvin Gaye was also a great great song interpreter, made one of the best (concept) albums in music history, was an accomplished drummer and lyricist (even if he didn't always show it), and was both critically and commercially acclaimed. My point is, that in the hands of an all-time legend like Marvin, the candidness (which is positively tame now) works well. It was one of the tools in his ever evolving arsenal, one that he leaned on very heavily in his later years, but one, because of his extraordinary gifts, he wielded quite capably. Too often for today's R&B artists, it just comes off as arrogant and nasty- and unfortunately that's the only tool in the box for them. Just because it worked for Marvin and some other artists (of the newer R&B artists, Usher's Confessions comes to mind) doesn't mean it works for you. A&R's, please tell your artists to get some different tools, you don't need a sledgehammer for everything.