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"Rock Me (Until I Cannot Stand This Rocking Any...)"
Stan Mosley
Composed by Frederick Knight
June 28, 2009: New Album Alert: I'M COMIN' BACK (CDS)
Bargain-Priced I'm Coming Back CD
Comparison-Priced I'm Comin' Back CD
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See "Tidbits" below for the latest updates on Stan Mosley.
To automatically link to Stan Mosley's charted radio singles, awards, CD's and other references, go to "Mosley" in Daddy B. Nice's Comprehensive Index.
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Daddy B. Nice's Original Critique:
Like so many worthy Southern Soul artists, Stan Mosley has recorded at least two songs of such incredible merit that it's almost impossible to choose between them. "Anybody Seen My Boo" is the more well known chitlin' circuit hit, and the one your Daddy B. Nice has personally played the most. But although it's more modest, a little slower, and perhaps a little less innovative, the Stan Mosley song Daddy B. Nice would take to a desert island is Mosley's "Rock Me (Until I Cannot Stand This Rocking Any More)" from The Soul Singer CD, Malaco, 1998.
Actually, "Rock Me's" roots go all the way back to the early days of Malaco Records, when Sam (not Stan) Mosley of the R&B songwriting team and performing duo Mosley and Johnson recorded the tune. That track and another, faster version by Stan Mosley himself can be heard on Malaco's compilation box set entitled The Last Soul Company (Malaco, 1999). But the definitive version is the slow-tempo, female-backed-up, personal and passionate rendition on Stan Mosley's The Soul Singer.
"One night after my show,
I was laying on, ready to go,
And in walked this lady,
Right through the door.
And she looked so pretty,
So pretty, pretty.
Ain't it a pity,
That she's not with me."
The words may look flat and weak on the page, yet "Rock Me" is a reminder that love exists in all its fascinating coincidence and tenderness--at least, it does to people as attentive to the world and spiritually "ready" for love as the song's hero and the "apple of his eye." Mosley uses bluesy, slow-jam, vocal inflections--perhaps first used on an obscure early track entitled "Makes You Wanna Cry"--to describe the inexorable progress of a man and woman falling in love.
"So I asked her,
If she wanted to dance.
She said, 'Stan, I'm not that good,
But I'll take a chance.'"
The composer of the song is Frederick Knight, the author of Johnnie Taylor's "Big Head Hundreds" and, more recently, Shirley Brown's "Sleep With One Eye Open." But Stan Mosley scored an even bigger Southern Soul hit with another Knight composition, "Anybody Seen My Boo" (Souled Out, Malaco, 2000). "Boo" was one of the genre's first and most successful attempts to push the boundaries of Southern Soul toward the up-tempo pace of rock and roll and the state-of-the-art arranging of hiphop.
Imagine a voice like Wilson Pickett's whipping a groove like Bobby Womack's "I'm Looking For A Love," and you've got some idea of Stan Mosley's rendering of "Anybody Seen My Boo." Yet it was also a consolidation of a classic soul sound that had disappeared with the demise of artists like Junior Walker & The All Stars and Sam & Dave.
As it turned out, "Anybody Seen My Boo" has had a considerable impact. It's considered one of the best "jams" in Southern Soul. And listening to the sincerity of "Boo" or the humility of "Rock Me" makes the music fan delight in their refreshing contrast to hiphop's tiresome "fronting". And yet, all the time it's happening musically too, with the same masterful arrangements over the same creative, undulating bass lines.
Contrast that energy with the slow, burning desire in "Rock Me (Until I Cannot Stand This Rocking Any More)," and you just about have it all in Southern Soul music.
"'Rock me, baby,
You don't have to rush it,
It's all yours,
Go on and touch it.'"
It's all in the expressive vocals of Mosley, of course. As a fan, you hear this marked simplicity--this lack of attitude--in the perfectly expressed lyrics, and tears of gratitude practically well up in your eyes. And you think, "Thank you, Stan. 'Rock Me' is the kind of music I want to hear for the rest of my life."
--Daddy B. Nice
About Stan Mosley
Stan Mosley was born in 1952 in Chicago. In 1974 he moved to East St. Louis, IL. and joined a group named The Sharpees, which later toured as a back-up band for Shirley Brown.
In 1976 Mosley returned to Chi-town, and he spent years performing on the city's extensive club circuit, garnering the Chicago Music Award for Best Male R&B Vocalist two years running (1982 and 1983). By the mid-eighties, however, like so many of his R&B peers, he found the climate for adult R&B too hostile to continue.
The turning point in his career came in the mid-nineties, when he began performing again as an opening act for Cicero Blake, for whom he also toiled as a valet/driver. That eventually took him to Malaco Records, where Tommy Couch, Sr. was so impressed with Mosley's demo tape that he immediately signed him to a contract.
Three landmark CD's resulted, one each in 1998, 2000, and 2002.
In addition to "Rock Me" and "Anybody Seen My Boo," Stan Mosley scored Stations of the South radio hits with 1998's "Ain't No Woman (Like The One I've Got)" (Souled Out) and 2002's "No Mistake" (Do Right), both on Malaco.
In 2003 Mosley moved to New Orleans-based Mardi Gras Records, where he put out one album, Good Stuff.
In 2007 he releasead Steppin' Out on independent label Double duo.
Here is the Stan Mosley discography:
1998 The Soul Singer (Malaco)
2000 Souled Out (Malaco)
2002 Do Right (Malaco)
2003 Good Stuff (Mardis Gras)
2007 Steppin' Out (Double Duo)
2008 Man Up (CDS)
Song's Transcendent Moment
"Rock me, baby,
Like you never rocked a man like me before.
Rock me, baby,
Until I cannot stand this rocking any more."
Tidbits
1. April 14, 2008. Regarding Stan Mosley's single "Man Up" (from the album of the same name): your Daddy B. Nice had never heard anyone use the phrase "man up" in casual conversation until the other night, when I happened to tune into WWE's "Friday Night Smackdown" on the TV.
The verbal jawing between the wrestlers is often more entertaining than the actual matches. 280-pound, barrel-necked Batista was "fronting" with longtime, 200-pound ring favorite Shawn Michaels. Retorting to one of Batista's barbs, Shawn Michaels said, "Let me MAN UP with you right now." (Caps mine.) The meaning was: "Let me level with you, big guy."
"Man Up" update, 4-16-08: Okay, the phrase "man up" is busting out all over. The front page of the "Rocky Mountain News" for April 16 has a full-page picture of NBA star Carmelo Anthony, after an arrest for DUI, standing at a podium with Allen Iverson in the background. The headline reads: "I'M GOING TO MAN UP". The headline is taken from Melo's quote: I'm going to man up to my mistakes." DBN
2. April 14, 2008. In "Backbone," one of the new singles from his Man Up CD (written by Floyd Hamberlin Jr.), Stan Mosley sings:
"Girl, I heard that Theodis song,
Talking about 'stand up in it,'
And I heard another song today,
'I'm going to make your monkey talk.'"
Every self-respecting Southern Soul fan knows the former song, Theodis Ealey's classic, "Stand Up In It." But what song is Stan Mosley referring to in the last two lines?
The answer is Stephanie McDee's "Monkey Talk," from the Avanti album Living The Blues (2002). It has a punching rhythm track, a brash vocal, and an arrangement with just the right mix of humor and pizzaz.
Stephanie McDee, on the basis of "Monkey Talk," was destined to be included in Daddy B. Nice's original Top 100 Southern Soul Artist Guides, but by the time your DBN had made it to the upper regions of the Top 100 Chart (a period of years in the writing), the McDee CD had already gone out of print and McDee had failed to produce any follow-ups. Thus, Stephanie never gained her moment in the SouthernSoulRnB sun. It's nice to see that her song is still on the minds of Southern Soul artists.
3. Here is the way Daddy B. Nice praised Nathaniel Kimble and his song "You Make Me Happy" in his "Best Songs Of 2007" (#18):
"This song by the always-getting-lost-in-the-crowd Kimble gets the Stan Mosley "Rock Me (Until I Cannot Stand This Rocking Any More)" award for the humility, tenderness and love of the simple pleasures shining through its every syllable."
DBN
4.
May 31, 2008
I had a talk with Stan Mosley this weekend. Here are a few of the highlights.
I'd always assumed Sam Mosley (of Mosley & Johnson) was related to Stan. The duo was instrumental in Stan's career in the early years, when he was hooking up with Frederick Knight and Malaco Records. However, the last names are coincidental: they're unrelated, according to Stan.
5. I long held a theory that the hiphop-like bridge that amps up the energy on Stan's classic, "Anybody Seen My Boo"--the one in which Stan calls out the nams of Johnnie Taylor, Marvin Sease, James Brown and Bobby Womack----bore the producing mark of Timbaland, the hiphop producer famous for his work with Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliot, among others. I always thought I heard the name Timbaland after Mosley shouted out Marvin Sease, and since Timbaland didn't "deserve" to be mentioned in the same breath with those Southern Soul masters, I figured the mention had to be in lieu of a songwriting credit or payment for that fantastic bridge.
Not so, Stan told your Daddy B. Nice. Timbaland had absolutely nothing to do with the record, which was produced in its entirety by esteemed Southern Soul songwriter/producer Frederick Knight (Johnnie Taylor's "Big Head Hundreds," Shirley Brown's "Sleep With One Eye Open," etc.) and Mosley.
There are three syllables after the "Marvin Sease" shout-out that sound like "Timbaland," but they're not. And now that I've gone back and listened to the bridge a few times, I still hear the phrase. Guess I'll have to go back to Stan and ask him exactly what he was saying right after his reference to Marvin.
6. I asked Stan about his recent heart surgery and how he was recovering. He had an angioplasty at Mount Sinai in Chicago about a month ago and underwent post-operative procedures in Oak Park, near his home.
The rehabilitation has been an "experience" (read difficult), according to Stan, but the worst is over and he's on track to regain his health.
When his doctor asked him what he did for a living, and Stan replied that he was an entertainer, Stan half-expected the doctor to nod knowingly and condemn the musicians' life style.
Note that Theodis Ealey suffered a heart attack (and had "bypass" surgery, an even more critical procedure) a year earlier, and Reggie P. just had surgery for a heart attack a few days ago.
However, the doctor told Stan that in his case the entertainer life style had actually prolonged his ability to withstand a heart attack.
Although it wasn't related to the heart attack, Stan says one of the best things to come out of the crisis was that he finally gave up smoking cigarettes.
Stan's rehab continues on schedule. In fact, Mosley already has set a schedule to begin performing again. He leaves Chicago in early July to begin a new tour.
--DBN
Daddy B. Nice Postscript: June 17, 2008
Okay. Stan Mosley got back to me on the words in "Anybody Seen My Boo" that I heard as "Timbaland." The words were: "Tell The Man."
Stan shouts out "Marvin Sease" and then he says "Tell the man!" DBN
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May 30, 2008.
7.
Man Up (CDS Records) is Stan Mosley's strongest CD since--well, you'd have to go all the way back to the turn-of-the-century Malaco albums: The Soul Singer, Souled Out, & Do Right.
Mosley and writer/producer Floyd Hamberlin Jr. have never sounded "tighter."
Both "Man Up," the title cut, and "Backbone" made Top Ten Single honors on your Daddy B. Nice's Southern Soul charts, but the CD is really more of an "album" album, with a texture and continuity that is unusual in soul music.
There are lots of pulsating beats and positive thoughts, with an undercurrent of restrained energy that forms a very complementary backdrop to Mosley's tortured, whiplash vocals.
Man Up is a strong signal that Stan Mosley is back with a vengeance, intent on re-declaring a chunk of Southern Soul turf for his own.
DBN
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Author's Update: September 4, 2008
8.
It's interesting to compare songwriter/producer Floyd Hamberlin's work with Nellie Travis versus his work with Stan Mosley on Man Up . Hamberlin and Mosley click on the stupendous stomp-dance cut, "Man Up" (#2 DBN's Top 10 Southern Soul Singles for April 2008) and to a lesser extent on a couple of the other cuts ("Backbone," "I Came To Party"), but their professional match is not "made in heaven," as--so far--the Hamberlin/"Tiger" Travis connection is. Perhaps those rough, knife-cut hooks of Hamberlin's are too close to Mosley's own sandpaperish style, or maybe Travis just got the better melodies.
DBN
(The above piece ran on Daddy B. Nice's Corner in July & August of 2008 under the title "Solid, Very Solid, But Not Spectacular.")
9. **************************
July 19, 2009 STAN MOSLEY: I'm Comin' Back (CDS) Three Stars *** Solid. The artist's fans will enjoy. Stan Mosley trades the hottest current songwriter in Southern Soul music, fellow-Chicagoan Floyd Hamberlin (who produced his last CD), for the hottest current producer in Southern Soul music, Carl Marshall, on his latest CD, I'm Coming Back. Most artists wish they had such choices to make, but Mosley's longtime fans probably are holding their collective breath.
Will the absence of hook-master Hamberlin (Nellie Travis's "If I Back It Up," Charles Wilson's "Mississippi Boy," Artie "Blues Boy" White's "I Can't Afford To Be Broke," Tyrone Davis' "Come To Daddy," not to mention Mosley's own "Ain't No Woman" and "Man Up") deprive the CD of top-notch material?
Will the collaboration with seasoned funk-master Carl Marshall result in a rejuvenation of Mosley's career at mid-point, and build on the momentum attained by the third Mosley CD in three years?
Mosley, now in his fifties, knocked around the Midwest and South without major success in his twenties and thirties, came into his own with a series of CD's in the late 90's and early 00's, and then, after a hiatus of a few years, returned to album-making in '07, '08 and now '09. He's most beloved amongst Southern Soul fans for his powerful-yet-humble love ballad, "Rock Me" (The Soul Singer, Malaco, 1998), although he's also a fiery and eminently capable singer of scorching dance jams.
The good news is that the infusion of New Orleans-seeped Carl Marshall's musical dexterity is everywhere evident in the flawless arrangements, and none more so than the unexpectedly brilliant treatment of Curtis Mayfield's "So In Love" (recently done by another Southern Soul throwback artist, Maurice Davis). Before Mosley has uttered a syllable, Marshall has set the table in as grand a fashion as any soul producer ever has.
Here Mosley, by way of a very different route (a vintage cover song, a rare falsetto vocal), approaches the heights he once attained with "Rock Me," and Marshall proves once and for all that he can take classic soul and knock it not only over the center-field fence but out of the park.
The bad--or mixed--news is that the obligatory funk tracks you knew Marshall would bring to the proceedings don't translate as well to the Mosley oeuvre. "Why You Won't Leave" (a subject much better done by Karen Wolfe in the Omar Cunningham-written "Man Enough"), "Shake It Off" and "Love Touch Up" feature unrelenting, one-chord funk that has grown familiar if not tiresome to any one who has gotten his or her buzz tramping the dance floors to Parliament-Funkadelic and its progeny.
Although Mosley more than proves he can deliver the required, tough and nasty vocals, the results equate to working-out in the local gym rather than (as Van Morrison once sang) dancing to marvelous melodies under the moonlight.
But the album is much, much more than either one of those two extremes. In fact, I'm Coming Back is constructed very much like a concert set, with Mosley showcasing a variety of musical styles, even--on the last couple of tracks--a middling stab at reggae and gospel.
The centerpiece of the CD is the first track, "Change (Family Reunion)," complete with a voice-over of President Barack Obama in the manner of the musically-oft-used Martin Luther King "I Had A Dream" speech. It's safe to say that if you love Obama, you're going to be predisposed to like the song and the album. It's also safe to say that if you have mixed feelings about Obama or about politics in music or politics in general, you may feel like a spectator who opted out of jumping on the bandwagon.
Stan seems to be asking to have it both ways. That is, he wants you to pick up on the euphoria of the Obama presidency, but on the other hand, he wants you to take the song as an everyday story about a family reunion--something we're all familiar with. The trouble is, the humble way to present the song (the "Rock Me" way, shall we say) would have been to just make a song about a family reunion.
That's the dynamic, and it will be interesting to see if fans get behind the song or find it a bit prideful. The atmosphere (very professionally done) is all "good times," but I confess to having a less than whole-hearted acceptance.
Why? It sounds naggingly derivative, and I've been scratching my thinning hair over its predecessor, if any. The best I can come up with is that "Change (Family Reunion)" sounds like the Fifth Dimension's "Stoned Soul Picnic" (a Laura Nyro-written tune on Johnnie Rivers' Soul City label) from 1968. It also has some of the ambience of Sly & The Family Stone's "(It's A) Family Affair."
Perhaps my ambivalence about the double meaning of the first cut carries over into the second (title) cut, a nicely-written tune about coming back to a mate, "I'm Comin' Back." Does Mosley intend a "higher" metaphor here, also--that he's "coming back" as an artist?--because I don't consider Stan Mosley as having "left." And if he doesn't intend the double meaning, isn't "I'm Comin' Back" a little light to headline the album?
The musical, "soul-singer" heart of I'm Coming Back, and the reason for Mosley fans to rejoice in this release, is in the body of the disc, beginning roughly with the mood-setting "I Can't Live Without 'Cha," through the Marshall-style domestic drama,"I Need You To Fight For Me" and ending roughly with the Marshall-style talkie, "So Called Friends." That stretch of inner-disc, soul heaven includes the deep yet pretty "So In Love" and the classic-in-waiting, "Lockdown."
"Lockdown"--on first hearing and maybe even second hearing--doesn't sound extraordinary. The melody isn't anything to write home about. The rhythm track, the chords, the stuttering guitar fillip all seem pretty straightforward. Been there, done that.
But the song will slap you on the back side of the head if you dare listen to it three times. The first thing you notice is the vocal. Wonderful soul. Easy and comfortable. But easy from someone whom you know is strong and rock-hard--namely, Stan Mosley.
And then you notice what makes the vocal stand out even more--the background singing by Mr. X, who wrote the tune. Mosley met Mark Safford, aka Mr. X, at the wake for Senator Jones last year in Jackson, Mississippi, and they are dynamite together.
It cements the deal. Once you get hooked by this casual-sounding song, you'll play it again and again, and all the ordinary-sounding musical components mentioned above will glow with an aural quality like streetlights after a midnight rain.
"I'm on lockdown," Mosley sings. That is followed by a long pause. The pause is so long, you wonder what it is that he's being locked down for. And even after you've heard it many times, the pause always brings that echo of a doubt. Is he in jail? Is he in trouble at home?
Finally, Stan adds, "Staying home with my baby." And the way he says it, you know everything's okay.
Soul music. That's what Stan Mosley does best.
--Daddy B. Nice
Bargain-Priced I'm Coming Back CD.
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If You Liked. . . You'll Love
If you liked Bob Dylan's beautiful ballad, "She Belongs To Me," you'll love Stan Mosley's "Rock Me (Until I Cannot Stand This Rocking Any More)."
Honorary "B" Side
"Anybody Seen My Boo"
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Rock Me (Until I Cannot Stand This Rocking Any...)
CD: The Soul Singer
Label: Malaco
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Anybody Seen My Boo
CD: Souled Out
Label: Malaco
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Man Up
CD: Man Up
Label: CDS
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Ain't No Woman
CD: Souled Out
Label: Malaco
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Backbone
CD: Man Up
Label: CDS
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Lockdown
CD: I'm Comin' Back
Label: CDS
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No Mistake
CD: Do Right
Label: Malaco
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You Gonna Make Me Cheat
CD: Steppin' Out
Label: Double Duo
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Sample or Buy
Steppin' Out |
Change (Family Reunion)
CD: I'm Comin' Back
Label: CDS
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Do Right Woman, Do Right Man
CD: Do Right
Label: Malaco
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I Came To Party
CD: Man Up
Label: CDS
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I Want You
CD: Steppin' Out
Label: Double Duo
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Sample or Buy
Steppin' Out |
Startin' 2 Stop
CD: Man Up
Label: CDS
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Juke Joint
CD: Good Stuff
Label: Mardi Gras
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Makes You Wanna Cry
CD: Celebration Of Blues
Label: Celebration Of Blues
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Rockin' Slide
CD: Ultimate Southern Soul
Label: Mardi Gras
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