Review: The Drifters - Clyde McPhatter & The Drifters (1956)
Tracks: 1) Without Love (There Is Nothing); 2) Someday (You’ll Want Me To Want You); 3) Treasure Of Love; 4) I’m Not Worthy Of You; 5) Bells Of St. Mary’s; 6) White Christmas; 7) I Make Believe; 8) Seven Days; 9) Warm Your Heart; 10) Money Honey; 11) What’cha Gonna Do; 12) Such A Night; 13) Honey Love; 14) Thirty Days.
REVIEW
As was usual for the times, this LP is not a proper «album» as such but rather just a collection of singles which were originally released from 1953 to 1956 and credited both to the Drifters and to Clyde McPhatter — honestly, at this point there is not much difference, since Clyde McPhatter takes lead vocals on most of the Drifters’ material and the Drifters sing backup on Clyde McPhatter’s material (at least, I presume that they do — there is not enough information on that in the liner notes). And although some of the B-sides end up omitted, while the other songs are presented in shuffled rather than chronological order, this is still a first rate overview of what was arguably the best period in the history of American R&B’s first truly great vocal band.
Because, you see, before there was Smokey Robinson, there was Clyde McPhatter — a singer of the same quality and caliber, if nowhere near Smokey’s level as a songwriter and stage presence. His was generally the crooner type, tender and sentimental in the well-established doo-wop tradition; but the songs that the Drifters sang were only occasionally doo-wop, otherwise ranging from old-fashioned standards and vaudeville to newer and edgier forms of soul and R&B: after all, the boys were recording for Atlantic Records, who in the early 1950s unquestionably stood on the cutting edge of popular African-American music. And Clyde obliged accordingly, not getting pigeonholed into a single slot but being able to convey an impressive spectrum of emotions and theatrical gestures — making him R&B’s first truly memorable solo superstar, even if the prefix of «super-» might seem way hyperbolic for that infancy period of post-war commercial pop.
The Drifters first broke through to the public conscience with ‘Money Honey’, a song whose playful and sarcastic nature is probably begging to associate it with the likes of the quirky Coasters than the romantic Drifters — yet it gives us ample opportunities to appreciate McPhatter at his most revved-up and theatrical (and that scream he lets off in the middle of the sax break must have been the loudest scream in 1953’s popular music!). More importantly, the song was just so catchy that its memory was still strong in some people’s heads when Elvis covered it three years later — and although my subjective sympathies lie with the King because (a) naturally, I heard the Elvis version earlier and (b) I like guitar breaks more than I like sax breaks, the production here, with the Drifters’ backing vocals perfectly merging with the sax parts and all, marks a rare occasion when a three years’ difference in the 1950s did not make the older version obsolete at all.
More typical on the whole of the Drifters’ sound is the second hit single ‘Such A Night’ (also eventually covered by Elvis), a perfect example of synergy between lead and backup singers — the song as a whole is driven by the repetitive spiral hook of the Drifters’ "da-doo-bee-doo-bee-doo", but it is also the first showcase for the greatness of Clyde’s tenor-cum-falsetto voice as he pushes the boundaries of what we might call «sweet sexuality» (as opposed to the rough one of, say, Chicago bluesmen) to fairly risqué territory for 1953. Just be sure to stay around for the end, as the happy lover rises higher and higher and higher and finally spills it all in one almost literally orgasmic final "SUCH A NI-I-I-I-IGHT!" On this occasion, by the way, he does it overtly sexier than Elvis, whose own "SUCH A NI-I-I-I-GHT!" sounded a bit too... I dunno, patriotic in comparison?
After that, the hits just keep coming — the calypso-influenced ‘Honey Love’, copies of which were allegedly seized by Memphis police for being too suggestive; the gospel-influenced waltz ‘Someday You’ll Want Me To Want You’, which gives McPhatter a great opportunity to stretch out his cords in slow mode; the playful and danceable version of ‘White Christmas’ with unforgettable interplay between Clyde’s tenor and Bill Pinkney’s bass voice; finally, Clyde’s solo hits after his official departure from the band — of which ‘Treasure Of Love’ and ‘Without Love (There Is Nothing)’ are the best known; while the former is a bit too syrupy for my tastes, ‘Without Love’ is a clear attempt at a pompous, chivalrous anthem, straining Clyde’s potential to the extreme — the man has a lot of expression, but he isn’t exactly the epitome of power when it comes to belting out anthems, yet on ‘Without Love’, I think, he gives a stellar performance, in which the relative frailty of the voice only strengthens the spiritual effect.
Funny enough, though, my personal favorite song on here is precisely the one that failed to become a hit. Coming at the tail end of the album, ‘Thirty Days’ is a rather brave stab at a completely different genre — the Western — with a simple, but prominent electric guitar riff, a thin layer of echo, and an aching, vulnerable delivery which, for the first time on the album, conveys a feeling of loneliness and pain, instead of overarching joy which was the main emotion of most of those hits. Clyde is clearly playing out of his usual character here, and it is easy to understand why a song like that could alienate his usual audience and fail to bring in a new one, but I think he handles the task admirably, producing a simple and effective forgotten gem with a vocal delivery every bit as convincing as any from our usual white guy country-western heroes.
Many, if not most, of these hits are available on comprehensive compilations such as Atlantic Rhythm’n’Blues 1947–1974, so special ownership of Clyde McPhatter & The Drifters is not required to learn of the band’s place in history or appreciate their lovable greatness (you do miss out on ‘Thirty Days’, though). But the album, like quite a few other releases for Atlantic artists, stands out as good testimony for the label — they placed their trust into the medium of the single, without typically forcing their contract workers to release dozens of copycat versions of their big hits, or saturating the market with inferior LPs containing two hit singles and a pool of fodder filler. The policy of having one LP in three years and filling it to the brim with first-rate material works fine for me, I’d say — even if, perhaps, it is not the most commercially viable strategy in the world.