Saturday, August 24, 2013

Won't somebody tell me what Diddy Wah Diddy means? (The Blues Band) #76

The Blues Band  1 Maggie's Farm 2 Ain't It Touch (sic) / Diddy Wah Diddy 2 Back Door Man (Arista AEP 1,  1980)

More crap misspelling of a title by sloppy NZ EMI people. How could they mislabel Ain't It Tuff with Ain't It Touch? Weird.

The Blues Band contains Paul Jones (you'll remember him as the voice on those old Manfred Mann hits). He's great. Really Paul Jones could sing any old tosh (Ain't It Tuff - a Blues Band original which doesn't work) and it would sound amazing - he has that great a voice - so imagine the quality if he's given some Dylan and some Willie Dixon to sing.

Having said that - in this instance the choice of Dylan song is a little weird. I've never really rated Maggie's Farm as a song. It seems to me to be a minor Dylan song that has been invested with more meaning than it possesses. It's the Rolling Thunder era Dylan recasting of the song as a shambolic romp that works the best for me. Here The Blues Band take a light  hearted approach that gives the song a lighter, different, sheen.

Hidden gems: The B side is mos def the better side. The EP's covers recipe is complete if we throw in an old Blind Blake song (Diddy Wah Diddy) and then round it off with some Willie Dixon genius. Back Door Man is done low down and dirty with some genuine menace. Creepy in a groovy kind of way.




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