Micah's Read of the Week, Vol. 53
Leon Bridges' new album, David Ruffin, Woodstock '99, the story behind Mary Carillo's legendary badminton rant, more Texas-OU fallout, and Recipe Corner.
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Leon Bridges’ Gold Digger’s Sound is an instant classic
As promised last week, I am prepared to discuss the new album. I love it. It really is a cohesive album to be listened to in full, not just a selection of tracks.
It starts out with “Born Again,” and it sets a serious tone. Lyrically, it’s certainly open to interpretation, but to me, it’s a perfect distillation of a feeling we all shared during the past year fighting the pandemic.
Sit still, take it slow
Soak it in, even though
I miss the people that I love
But it feels good to be alone
Musically, it’s dramatic and cinematic. The arrangement features lots of horns and lush instrumentals. Combining elements of jazz with modern R&B, it introduces listeners to Bridges' evolving style.
“Motorbike” is the second single off the album and it’s a great example of Bridges’ evolution. Modern instrumentation with a classic feel, he paints a vivid picture of a couple’s escape.
“Steam” is the best song on the album. It’s a party song with an infectious groove that makes you want to get up and dance. I love it.
Shouldn't complain, but this function's dry
Don't wanna small-talk or socialize
What are you doin' tonight?
Are you alone by yourself?
What are you doin' tonight?
Come on overLet yourself in
You got the key
You know, you know you got a hold on me
Let yourself in
You got the key
You know, you know you got a hold on me
“Why Don’t You Touch Me,” is the third single off the album and it’s the most heart-wrenching track I’ve heard in a long time. Bridges displays emotion in his vocal and vividly paints a picture in the lyrics.
Can you be honest, is you just running out of thrills?
'Cause every time you put me second, yeah
Girl, make me feel wanted, don't leave me out here unfulfilled
'Cause we're slowly gettin' disconnected, yeahIf you're still in love, oh, like you're sayin'
Thеn why don't you touch me? Yeah
I'm dressin' to thе nines and your eyes strayin'
Oh, why don't you touch me? Yeah
The range of emotion in the first four songs lets you know you’re into something special.
“Magnolias” stands out as a departure from Bridges’ past work. As he said in a recent interview, “There’s this like beautiful kinda-guitar thing happening in the beginning. And then, when the beat drops, it’s like this whole trapped-out thing, which is an unprecedented thing for me.”
“Details” focuses on, well, the details.
How you look in the car when I'm driving a little fast
How you pause when you talk when you tryin' not to laugh
It's the littlest things about you that I don't forget, no-no
The way that you move, baby
They don't need ya, need ya like I do
They don't see the details of you
Who gon' please you, please you like I do?
And love every detail, detail of you
It also features one of the coldest beats on the whole album.
“Sho Nuff” is a tribute to Houston rap. From an interview with Apple Music, “I wanted to take a page out of Houston culture. I love when you look at artists like UGK—I love the fact that those guys incorporated soul music within their songs. And so that guitar part is definitely reminiscent of that. I wanted to have this very minimalistic, soulful guitar and juxtapose that with a sexy vibe.”
Bridges released “Sweeter” ahead of the album last year in the midst of the protests surrounding the murder of George Floyd. It’s long been a favorite of mine, but upon further review, it’s even more powerful. He sings from the perspective of a black man taking his last breath. Throughout the song he reflects mournfully on racism against Black people and its effect on Black men specifically.
I thought we moved on from the darker days
Did the words of the King disappear in the air
Like a butterfly?
Somebody should hand you a felony
Because you stole from me
My chance to beThe tears of my mother rain, rain over me
My sisters and my brothers sing, sing over me
And I wish I had another day, but it's just another dayHoping for a life more sweeter
Instead I'm just a story repeating
Why do I fear with skin dark as night?
Can't feel peace with those judging eyes
Hoping for a life more sweeter
“Don’t Worry” is a duet featuring singer Ink. It’s a classic R&B jam about a past relationship that never burns out.
If you read the epic profile we featured last week, you know Bridges is a complicated man. “Blue Mesas” is the most vulnerable song he has ever recorded. Look past the string-heavy intro and you’ll hear a folk song reminiscent of something by Townes Van Zandt.
Ain't no peace at the top
I don't know how much air I got
I won't ever get used to this
'Cause it ain't what it seems
And don't nobody check on me
It's a slow way to go, all aloneHow you get lonely even though
You're surrounded by the ones you know?
Killing myself, saying these words
There's a hurting deep down in my soul
But I learn not to let it show
Do I need help?
No
The album is a masterpiece and you should listen to it now.
And with that, it’s time to talk about another complicated R&B star…
David Ruffin, reconsidered: 30 years after the Temptations singer’s death in Philly, a look at his complicated legacy
Ruffin — the voice of Motown classics like “My Girl” — died at age 50 in 1991. His family believes his legacy was distorted by media attention on his struggles with addiction.
This piece from the Investigative team at The Philadelphia Inquirer blew me away. First of all, the writing is terrific.
When he was a kid in rural Mississippi, living, for a time, in a house with no running water, he dreamed of being a famous performer. He might as well have imagined walking to the moon.
There weren’t many paths to wealth and stardom for Black people in Southern states that were still trapped, in the 1940s and 1950s, under the oppressive weight of Jim Crow laws and segregation. But David Ruffin could sing like a hurricane, and possessed an innate sense of how to connect with people, how to make them smile and laugh and feel what he felt. He just needed a stage.
The Temptations invited Ruffin to join them in 1964, replacing a fellow tenor, Eldridge Bryant. Ruffin had made a compelling case for the position after he climbed onstage with the band in a Detroit lounge, and began “throwing the microphone up in the air, catching it, doing full splits, plus singing like a man possessed,” Williams wrote.
The Temptations soon reached a higher plane, the stage that Ruffin had fantasized gracing when he was still in Mississippi. Millions tuned in to CBS on Sunday nights to watch Ed Sullivan, and the band was rattled before they performed for his audience — except for Ruffin, who didn’t break a sweat.
“It ain’t nothin’ but another television show,” he told them.
Ruffin was a special talent
Ruffin’s ability to embody the ecstasy and agony of songs about love gained and lost cast an unbreakable spell on countless admirers who once watched, slack-jawed, as he and the Temptations, and other Motown legends, dazzled crowds. The performances at the Uptown in the 1960s compelled a young Daryl Hall to finagle his way backstage, where he was befriended by his idols.
“Crying in tune, that’s how I hear David’s voice,” Hall said during a recent interview. “He didn’t write those songs, but he owned them. He had a haunting, soulful voice, and that was an extension of his personality. He was a very complicated person.”
Despite being one of the greatest singers ever, his death marred his legacy because of the way it was covered at the time.
David Ruffin died in Philadelphia on June 1, 1991, the victim of what doctors determined to be an accidental overdose of cocaine. He was 50. News coverage of his death veered toward the sensational. “David Ruffin Collapsed at Crack House,” blared one headline from the Washington Post; “Overdose Called Massive: He Must Have Built Up Strong Tolerance in Past, Doctor Says,” read another, from the Philadelphia Daily News.
For three decades, Ruffin’s friends and family have mulled the what-ifs that haunt anyone who has lost someone they love to drug addiction, which has only recently come to be treated as a health epidemic, instead of a crime. But there’s something else, too, a gnawing sense that Ruffin’s legacy was shortchanged by media narratives that focused more on his flaws, and the way in which he died, than his talents.
“It wasn’t called a disease. It was just called a bad habit. People figured you can stop a bad habit, but they don’t understand addiction,” said the soul singer Candi Staton, a longtime friend of Ruffin’s.
“But there was more to him than that.”
Can you imagine how different the headlines would be today? Did anyone attack Mac Miller in death?
Cheryl Ruffin-Robinson said her family has long believed that there was foul play involved in her father’s death, and many questions they have about his final hours are still unanswered. Their grief was compounded by stories that they felt “tore his character down,” she said. “They blamed the person, instead of the disease.”
“It’s so sad,” she said, “how people can zero in on one negative thing about your life. And that becomes your life. But that is not your life.”
Read the rest and enjoy the tributes from Philly’s own Daryl Hall and John Oates.
Go Watch the Woodstock 99 Documentary
It’s not a fun watch, but it is truly riveting.
My thoughts in no particular order:
Man, there was a lot of very popular and very terrible music in this period. Limp Bizkit’s music was truly awful. “Break Stuff” is just atrocious. It has childish and unimaginative lyrics built on a repetitive musical track that is totally devoid of melody. It’s just a vehicle for rage. That’s the whole song. It was terrible at the time, and it’s shockingly bad in hindsight.
You have to admit though, Fred Durst is an impressive frontman. His presence (in retrospect a textbook example of toxic masculinity) is all power. This is a pudgy white dude in a backward Yankees cap. He’s not Robert Plant or Roger Daltry, and he sure isn’t Freddie Mercury, but he clearly had full command of that crowd.
Wow, the Clinton years were weird, huh? Kid Rock anointing the most powerful person in the world as “a pimp” for scoring a blowjob from his intern seems beyond parody in 2021. Yet in 1999, this crowd eats it up.
Despite the performances by Durst and Kid Rock, the worst person in the entire film is clearly the co-promoter who blamed everyone but the organizers while downplaying any negativity. He blamed MTV for covering the event like the disaster it was. He blamed Durst and the Chili Peppers. He was rude and petulant to reporters at the time and showed absolutely no remorse. Congratulations to John Scher on the title of the Worst Person Associated with Woodstock 99. There was a lot of competition, but it wasn’t really close.
It’s really shocking that many people weren’t seriously injured as a result of the riotous violence and destruction. This video is absolute apocalyptic madness. Mob mentality is a scary thing.
‘It devolved quickly’: Mary Carillo and her epic Olympic badminton rant, 17 years later
Every few years around the Olympics, Carillo’s rant goes viral. If you haven’t ever seen it, please, stop what you’re doing and watch now.
The Athletic spoke with Carillo and got the full story behind the most entertaining Olympic studio moment in history.
A general concept had been devised to help introduce badminton. A network runner was sent out to buy a standard-issue badminton racquet and accompanying birdie. Carillo said a top-level player lent one of their top-level racquets for the segment.
“It was supposed to be instructional,” she said. “It devolved quickly.”
Carillo was not reading off prepared notes, and she was not reading from the teleprompter. She started by comparing an elite racquet to the one found in backyard matches. There was no hint of what was to come, even when she described the better racquet as the one the “bad boys of badminton play with.”
She described the elite birdie, with its feathers all coming from the same side of the goose, apparently to promote a good contour. Then she held up the backyard birdie. The one with the “tree-seeking” device.
Her producer came out for a visit during the commercial break.
“I’m there like, ‘That worked pretty well — a little off-script, maybe,’” Carillo said. “Bill Kunz walked out of the studio and comes over to my desk. Just very quietly, he looks at me and says, ‘What the hell was that?’”
Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC, continued
Last week, we linked to my conversation with Texas blogger and Finebaum caller Curry about the major implications of the latest round of college realignment.
This week, I joined our friends at Too Much Dip for an emergency podcast to discuss everything in further detail. We went for an hour, and I had a lot of fun. You can watch the entire thing below.
As always, you should check out my other sports podcast, Back Door Cover. Brad is back in the country, football season is almost here, and we’ll be ramping up soon with our professional handicapper, Can't-Miss Mitch. Subscribe now and get new episodes as soon as they are released.
And while we’re at it, check out Mind of Micah. Last week we took an extended look at Bitcoin and the people that worship at the altar of cryptocurrency. Trust me, it’s fascinating.
Recipe Corner
Five-Spice Spatchcocked Grilled Chicken
Let’s grill some chicken this weekend. BTW, don’t you dare skip out on the MSG.
2 Tbsp. five-spice powder
2 Tbsp. Diamond Crystal or 1 Tbsp. plus ½ tsp. Morton kosher salt
1 tsp. MSG
1 Tbsp. plus ½ tsp. freshly ground white or black pepper
1 Tbsp. plus ½ tsp. light brown sugar
1 3½–4-lb. whole chicken
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil, plus more for grill
2 scallions, roots trimmed
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 red Thai chiles or jalapeños, thinly sliced
¼ cup unseasoned rice vinegar
3 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 Tbsp. toasted sesame oil
Mix five-spice powder, salt, MSG, 1 Tbsp. white pepper, and 1 Tbsp. brown sugar in a small bowl.
Place chicken, breast side down, on a cutting board and, using kitchen shears or a large knife, cut along both sides of backbone to remove (you can ask a butcher to do this for you if you prefer); discard (or save for making stock). Open up chicken and turn breast side up. Press down on center of breast to flatten chicken—you should hear the breastbone crack. Tuck wings behind breast, then tuck in legs so bottoms of drumsticks are pointed away from body and chicken is as flat as possible. Sprinkle spice mixture all over chicken. Let sit at room temperature 20 minutes, or cover and chill up to 1 day. If chilling, let sit at room temperature 1 hour before grilling.
Prepare a grill for medium-high indirect heat (for a charcoal grill, bank coals on one side of grill; for a gas grill, leave one or two burners off). Lightly oil grate. Grill chicken, breast side up, over indirect heat, undisturbed, until browned and lightly charred underneath, about 20 minutes.
Turn chicken breast side down and move over direct heat. Grill, turning often and returning to indirect heat as needed, until well-browned, cooked through, and an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of a thigh registers 165° and into thickest part of breast registers 160°, 15–20 minutes. Transfer chicken to a cutting board and let rest 5 minutes.
Brush scallions with the remaining 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil and grill, turning occasionally, until charred in spots, 6–8 minutes. Transfer to a cutting board and thinly slice.
Mix scallions, garlic, chiles, vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, remaining ½ tsp. white pepper, and remaining ½ tsp. brown sugar in a small bowl.
Carve chicken and arrange on a platter. Serve with charred scallion sauce for spooning over.
Tomato Watermelon Salad With Mint Vinaigrette
By now you know the deal. Grilled meat, a fresh and cooling salad.
1 bunch fresh mint
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon (or more) honey, agave syrup, or maple syrup
2 teaspoons finely grated lime zest
2 teaspoons (or more) fresh lime juice
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Flaky sea salt
1 pound heirloom tomatoes (about 2 large)
1 pound chopped or sliced watermelon
1 handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
Warm bread, for serving
Reserve a small handful of mint leaves for garnishing, then finely chop the remaining mint leaves.
In a small bowl, mix the chopped mint, oil, honey, lime zest and juice, red pepper flakes, and a pinch of salt. Taste and adjust the honey, lime juice, and salt as needed.
Slice the heirloom tomatoes.
Arrange the watermelon and heirloom and cherry tomatoes on a platter. Season with salt, then drizzle with the mint dressing. Garnish with the reserved mint leaves. Serve with bread for sopping up the juices.
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