The Love Doctor (The Impact Of "Slow Roll It")

Daddy B. Nice's #26 ranked Southern Soul Artist



Portrait of The Love Doctor (The Impact Of "Slow Roll It")  by Daddy B. Nice
 


"Slow Roll It"

The Love Doctor (The Impact Of "Slow Roll It")

Composed by Charles Jones


February 1, 2020:

Listen to The Love Doctor singing "Slow Roll It" on YouTube.

It's hard to overstate the importance of The Love Doctor's "Slow Roll it" to the evolution of 21st-century southern soul music. The tune didn't possess the musical or technical sophistication of the time period's masters--Johnny Taylor, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Little Milton and the like--all recording at Jackson, Mississippi's Malaco Records, but "Slow Roll It" had an indefinable newness, simplicity and relevance. The song marked the convergence of three of the fledgling genre's 21st-century pioneers: charismatic-voiced Lewis Clark (aka The Love Doctor), his gospel-music peer from his younger days, producer Senator Jones (aka Jackson, Mississippi, graveyard-shift, WMPR deejay Uncle Bobo), and a young genius and star-to-be, composer and neophyte producer Charles Jones (no relation). It's Charles' background-singing voice you hear as the tune begins. And it was more Charles' song than anyone else's--his "breakthrough" into the music business as a young unknown. He in turn raided one of the most iconic songs in traditional southern soul--the Staple Singers' "Do It Again"--for its historic and contagious bass line, simultaneously tapping into posterity and the future.

Up in Memphis, producer John Ward put out a cover of "Slow Roll It" with Sheba Potts-Wright. On "Slow Roll It" Sheba had none of the chops of the seasoned R&B/Blues singer she was to become over the next dozen years. What she had was the flirty, half-innocent precociousness of the young, and it's interesting to note, if you listen closely to her "Slow Roll It," that Sheba lets out a girlish giggle identical to the one young Krishunda Echols emits a decade later in her "Mad Dog 20-20". Young feminine sounds such as these are mesmerizing, and for a time the Potts-Wright version of "Slow Roll It" eclipsed The Love Doctor's original. (And, with only a couple of exceptions, Sheba has never had a bigger hit single.) But The Love Doctor's "Slow Roll It" with Sir Charles Jones slowly and inevitably regained its prominence as one of the primary templates of modern southern soul.

Truth be told, I expected collectible versions of the Mardi Gras Records album from which the song came--Doctor Of Love--to be selling for very expensive prices, if available at all. Just the opposite is the case. There are new copies on sale at ridiculously low rates. Adding one to your library would be a wise choice not only musically but financially, because this song will only accrue in equity as time goes on.

Buy The Love Doctor's "Slow Roll It" at Amazon.

SouthernSoulRnB.com - Chitlin' Circuit Southern Soul Music Guide

November 11, 2015:

THE LOVE DOCTOR "RETIRES"!

See Daddy B. Nice's Concert Calendar.

8 pm, Saturday, November 28, 2015. Stress Relievers Bar & Lounge, 423 Van Arsdale Road, Pickens, Mississippi. Retirement Celebration for The Love Doctor. The Love Doctor, Terry Wright, Sorrento Ussery, Pat Brown, Nathaniel Kimble, Doctor Dee, Lady Di and more. 601-941-3582.

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"In retrospect, the Love Doctor's career was like a brilliant comet streaking across the night-time sky. Even if it was restricted to the two masterpieces "Slow Roll It" and "Lies," the Love Doctor's contribution to contemporary Southern Soul would be unassailable."

--Daddy B. Nice, 2010


Listen to The Love Doctor singing "Slow Roll It" on YouTube.

Listen to The Love Doctor featuring Thomisene Anderson singing "Lies (You Said It, No I Didn't)" on YouTube.

SouthernSoulRnB.com - Chitlin' Circuit Southern Soul Music Guide

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Note: The Love Doctor also appears on Daddy B. Nice's original Top 100 Southern Soul Artists (90's-00's). The "21st Century" after The Love Doctor's name in the headline is to distinguish his artist-guide entries on this page from his artist-guide page on Daddy B. Nice's original chart.

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October 1, 2012:

Daddy B. Nice's Updated Profile:

The Love Doctor. It's still one of the most arresting and appealing artist names in all of Southern Soul, and as we approach the top twenty-five artists and songs in the Southern Soul 21st Century Countdown it's only appropriate to remember the song and the artist which in many ways started it all (the year was 2001): The Love Doctor's "Slow Roll It."

Listen to The Love Doctor singing "Slow Roll It" on YouTube while you read.

Of course, The Love Doctor and Sir Charles Jones (who wrote, sang and produced "Slow Roll It") didn't "start it all." Southern Soul had been churning along under all the mainstream musical genres with standard-bearers no less than Johnnie Taylor, Tyrone Davis, Little Milton, Marvin Sease and J. Blackfoot.

For any other sub-genre of urban R&B, the passing away of such giants would have spelled the death knell, but Southern Soul not only survived but flourished, and much of it had to do with The Love Doctor, teamed with a young writer/producer/would-be performer named Charles Jones, and a grizzled producer/impresario/deejay named Senator Jones/Uncle Bobo, who collectively (if not always cooperatively) as a trinity proved that Southern Soul could thrive in new hands, in a new direction, and still hit the deepest, most soulful spots in the hearts of lovers of soul music.

There were people who didn't get it, like the All Music Guide critic who called "every single thing about it (Doctor Of Love) laughable and outmoded," just as today there are are people who can't accept the raw, rustic and embarrassingly straightforward vocal style and lyrics of L.J. Echols.

The triumphs of those years, much of it recorded in these pages, led to disappointments and a fallow future (also regretfully noted here), especially for The Love Doctor.

The Love Doctor was pegged the 11th-ranked artist in the original posting of Daddy B. Nice's Top 100 Southern Soul Artists in 2004--the first time, in fact, any of these artists had been grouped together--a chart position from which he slipped only a little (to #14) in the ensuing years.

But although his subsequent work wasn't all bad, The Love Doctor never again achieved the heights of "Slow Roll It" and "Lies" (with Thomisene Anderson).

Listen to The Love Doctor and Thomisene Anderson dueting on "Lies (You Said It, No I Didn't)" on YouTube while you read.

While the Charles Jones-written "Slow Roll It" was by far the more commercial tune, "Lies"--written and previously recorded by renowned songwriter and Peggy Scott-Adams producer Jimmy Lewis--carried more heft for aficionados of Southern Soul.

Thomisene:

"You said you graduated--
Said you graduated
From Penn State."

Love Doctor:

"There you go again.
I told you I got my diploma
When I was in State Pen."

Or. . .

Thomisene:

"Said you were born in LA,
But you were born in the South."

Love Doctor:

"Where else would I be, baby,
With all this gold in my mouth?"

In the Love Doctor's hickory-hard vocal stylings the song's simultaneously poignant and witty lyrics (especially for those conversant with the blue-collar African-American culture of the South) jumped off the CD player, and with Thomisene Anderson's partnering vocal, exquisitely feminine by contrast, the song achieved the rare resonance of Southern Soul classics on the order of Ronnie Lovejoy's "Sho' Wasn't Me" and Johnnie Taylor's "Soul Heaven."

Read about "Slow Roll It" and "Lies" in Daddy B. Nice's Original Artist Guide to The Love Doctor.

The Love Doctor still performs from time to time, and he is still deemed a headliner in the Delta, where his name rings a little louder and carries a little further.

--Daddy B. Nice


About The Love Doctor (The Impact Of "Slow Roll It")

The Love Doctor was born Lewis Clark and raised in the Memphis area before moving to Illinois and becoming a disc jockey.  Under the deejay name "Blues Doctor," he gained a sizable audience and eventually transformed himself into a performer.  

He changed his name to The Love Doctor in 1997 and put out a debut disc called Midnight Recipe on a small label (Nutrition).  In 2001 he signed with Mardi Gras Records of New Orleans.  His initial CD on that label was the reputation-making Doctor Of Love, which included the smash chitlin' circuit hit, "Slow Roll It."

The album marked the emergence of a new Southern Soul star, Sir Charles Jones, who composed all the tracks for the LP and contributed back-up vocals, most notably on "Slow Roll It."  The disc also reunited Lewis Clark with his old gospel-music peer from his younger days in the South, producer Senator Jones.    

Moaning And Groaning followed Doctor Of Love in 2002.  Another Southern Soul star-to-be, Carl Marshall, took over much of the production work.

The CD Lies, with the landmark track, "Lies (You Said It, No I Didn't)," appeared in 2004, although the single had already made a sensation on Southern Soul radio in 2003.   

"There's No One Like Mama," with a chorus reminiscent of the 50's Ames Brothers, became the standout track from The Love Doctor's 2004 gospel CD of the same name (Mardi Gras, 2004).

The Love Doctor's Discography: 

    2001  Doctor of Love  Mardis Gras 
  
    2002  Moaning & Groaning  (Mardi Gras) 
 
    2004  Lies  (Mardi Gras) 
 
    2004  There's No One Like Mama  (Hep'Me) 
 
    2005  Let's Have Some Fun  (Hep'Me) 
 
    2007  Stupid  (Hep'Me) 
 
    2008  At His Best (Senator Jones)

2010 A New Beginning (Labro) (undistributed)


Song's Transcendent Moment

"I met a girl,
Much older,
And she whipped that thing
On me.

She taught me how
To take my time,
And do it right.

She taught me
How to be
A certified lover

And do it well
Under the covers.

Slow roll it,
My baby told me,
Stroke it with the motion."


Tidbits

1.

September 23, 2012: YouTube offerings for The Love Doctor and "Slow Roll It":



Listen to The Love Doctor (with Sir Charles Jones on background) singing "Slow Roll It" on YouTube.

Listen to Roy C. singing his version of The Love Doctor's "Slow Roll It" on YouTube.

Listen to Sheba Potts-Wright singing her version of The Love Doctor's "Slow Roll It" on YouTube.

Listen to The Love Doctor and Thomisene Anderson dueting on "Lies (You Said It, No I Didn't)" on YouTube.

Listen to The Love Doctor singing "There's No One Like Mama" on YouTube.

Listen to The Love Doctor singing "Make It Do What It Do" on YouTube.

Listen to The Love Doctor singing "Can The Love Doctor Rock You" on YouTube.


Honorary "B" Side

"Lies (You Said It, No I Didn't)"



5 Stars 5 Stars 5 Stars 5 Stars 5 Stars 
Sample or Buy Slow Roll It by The Love Doctor (The Impact Of 'Slow Roll It')
Slow Roll It


CD: Doctor Of Love
Label: Mardi Gras

Sample or Buy
Doctor Of Love (Mardi Gras, 2001)


5 Stars 5 Stars 5 Stars 5 Stars 5 Stars 
Sample or Buy Lies (You Said It, No I Didn't) by The Love Doctor (The Impact Of 'Slow Roll It')
Lies (You Said It, No I Didn't)


CD: Lies
Label: Mardi Gras

Sample or Buy
Lies


4 Stars 4 Stars 4 Stars 4 Stars 
Sample or Buy Can The Love Doctor Rock You by The Love Doctor (The Impact Of 'Slow Roll It')
Can The Love Doctor Rock You



4 Stars 4 Stars 4 Stars 4 Stars 
Sample or Buy Everyday Woman by The Love Doctor (The Impact Of 'Slow Roll It')
Everyday Woman


CD: Doctor Of Love
Label: Mardi Gras

Sample or Buy
Doctor Of Love


4 Stars 4 Stars 4 Stars 4 Stars 
Sample or Buy Make It Do What It Do by The Love Doctor (The Impact Of 'Slow Roll It')
Make It Do What It Do


CD: At His Best
Label: Senator Jones/Hep'Me

Sample or Buy
At His Best


4 Stars 4 Stars 4 Stars 4 Stars 
Sample or Buy Moaning And Groaning by The Love Doctor (The Impact Of 'Slow Roll It')
Moaning And Groaning


CD: Moaning And Groaning
Label: Senator Jones

Sample or Buy
Moaning And Groaning


4 Stars 4 Stars 4 Stars 4 Stars 
Sample or Buy My Forever Love by The Love Doctor (The Impact Of 'Slow Roll It')
My Forever Love


CD: Doctor Of Love
Label: Mardi Gras

Sample or Buy
Doctor Of Love


4 Stars 4 Stars 4 Stars 4 Stars 
Sample or Buy The Good, The Bad & The Ugly by The Love Doctor (The Impact Of 'Slow Roll It')
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly


CD: Lies
Label: Mardi Gras

Sample or Buy
Lies


4 Stars 4 Stars 4 Stars 4 Stars 
Sample or Buy There's No One Like Mama by The Love Doctor (The Impact Of 'Slow Roll It')
There's No One Like Mama


CD: There's No One Like Mama
Label: Hep'Me

Sample or Buy
There's No One Like Mama (Hep?Me, 2004)


3 Stars 3 Stars 3 Stars 
Sample or Buy Baby Don't Stop by The Love Doctor (The Impact Of 'Slow Roll It')
Baby Don't Stop


CD: Moaning And Groaning
Label: Senator Jones

Sample or Buy
Moaning And Groaning


3 Stars 3 Stars 3 Stars 
Sample or Buy I'm Through With You by The Love Doctor (The Impact Of 'Slow Roll It')
I'm Through With You


CD: Let's Have Some Fun
Label: Hep'Me

Sample or Buy
Let's Have Some Fun


3 Stars 3 Stars 3 Stars 
Sample or Buy Let's Have Some Fun by The Love Doctor (The Impact Of 'Slow Roll It')
Let's Have Some Fun


CD: Let's Have Some Fun
Label: Hep'Me

Sample or Buy
Let's Have Some Fun


3 Stars 3 Stars 3 Stars 
Sample or Buy Short Skirts, Tight Jeans by The Love Doctor (The Impact Of 'Slow Roll It')
Short Skirts, Tight Jeans


CD: Lies
Label: Mardi Gras

Sample or Buy
Lies


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