Search - King Curtis :: Hot Sax Cool Licks

Chicken scratch yakety sax

Pitoucat | UK | 08/30/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The first lyrics to be heard on this CD say it all: 'Did you ever hear a tenor sax/ swinging like a rusty axe ...', as perfect a description of King Curtis's Yakety Sax or 'chicken-scratch' style as you're likely to find. The words are from the Coasters' 1959 recording 'That Is Rock & Roll', and define perfectly Curtis's solo on their hit of the previous year, 'Yakety Yak'. Curtis began to appear as session saxman on Atlantic/Atco dates in 1956. His first recordings for the company under his own name were made in February 1958 with 'Jest Smoochin'' and 'The Birth Of The Blues', both minus the chicken-scratch trademark sound that Leiber and Stoller persuaded Curtis to introduce the following month on 'Yakety Yak'. This CD gathers together all of his own-name Atlantic/Atco recordings from 1958 and '59, including several tracks not previously released, the two Coasters songs already mentioned, and Chuck Willis's 'What Am I Living For?'.



Curtis's chicken-scratch sound had become so popular that much of his output from this period seems to have been obliged to feature it, if only as a 30-second solo, sometimes overdubbed after the event. Significantly, perhaps, a more jazz-inclined session from December 1958, resulting in 'Train Song' and 'Splankin'', was not issued at the time, but shows Curtis to have been a proficient jazz musician, in a precursor session to those of his excellent Prestige albums of 1960, with Nat Adderley, Wynton Kelly, and Paul Chambers.



By the early 1960s Boots Randolph had taken on the 'Yakety Sax' yoke, leaving Curtis free to experiment with other styles. A demonstrably talented musician, King Curtis went on to become Aretha Franklin's musical director, and studio producer for her and others before his untimely death by stabbing in 1971. Earlier this year he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Sideman category. This CD presents a useful slice of his music from one of the most popular, if type-cast periods of his career.

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