ES7139 seven-inch features Scritti Politti
‘WOOD BEEZ (PRAY LIKE ARETHA FRANKLIN)’
The A-side of our latest seven-inch is ‘Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin)’, a magnificent slice of state-of-the-art synth-funk that scored Scritti Politti their first UK Top 10 hit in early 1984. It was one of no less than five singles on ‘Cupid & Psyche 85’, the band’s hugely successful second album.
The lyrics of ’Wood Beez’ work on multiple levels, with Scritti main man Green Gartside simultaneously delivering a slick love song and some wry observations on the mechanics and power of pop music. The title of the track pays homage to Aretha Franklin’s 1968 recording of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s ‘I Say A Little Prayer’. It’s also a nod to one of the many stellar R&B artists associated with ‘Cupid & Psyche 85’ co-producer Arif Mardin.
Although he was fascinated by black American R&B when he made ‘Wood Beez’, Green acknowledges he was a tourist in that world and was working from a more European melodic sensibility.
“There were certainly a lot of contemporary influences to the song, but it came from a different place harmonically,” he says. “I mean, I didn’t really have contemporary R&B roots.”
Green ascribes the song’s sublime blend of funk and pop dynamics to his two main collaborators on ‘Cupid & Psyche 85’, American musicians David Gamson and Fred Maher, who both had broad transatlantic tastes.
“A lot of it was the genius that David Gamson brought to the group,” says Green. “He had grown up with the funk, but also with lots of countercultural English music, so he was steeped in English stuff. He liked Soft Machine as much as he liked Parliament and Funkadelic. And Fred Maher had the most incredible presence and energy. His vibes in the studio were indispensable to making the whole thing happen. The two of them deserve equal credit for everything on that album.”
One interesting piece of trivia about ‘Wood Beez’ is it features a Roland TR-808 drum machine that belonged to Brian Eno.
“I think we got it through somebody that Fred and Eno both knew,” notes Green. “We wanted to use an 808 and we couldn’t get one, so Fred ended up borrowing Eno’s. Whether he borrowed it with or without Eno’s knowledge, I really don’t know.”
‘PERFECT WAY (VERSION)’
‘Wood Beez’ is backed by ‘Perfect Way’, a fleet-footed electro-funk track with featherlight vocals, heavily processed guitar squalls and pristine programmed drums. It’s one of the smoothest, sleekest and most unabashed pop cuts on ‘Cupid & Psyche 85’. The version on our seven-inch, which is taken from the Japanese pressing of the album, is a slightly longer and much rarer edit.
‘Perfect Way’ was issued as a single in the summer of 1985, but it was only a minor hit in the UK, barely scraping into the Top 50. It was a different story in America, though, where it peaked at Number 11 in the Billboard charts and spent almost six months in the Hot 100. Four decades on, it’s probably still the record that Scritti Politti are most famous for in the US.
“Yeah, it was the big single in America,” affirms Green. “It was one of the songs that David and I wrote together in Westchester County, in New York State. Those tracks were studio creations and were painstakingly assembled. I’m not sure I thought they would ever be performed live, but in recent years I think we’ve found a way of doing them justice. They’re astonishingly good fun to play too.”
‘Perfect Way’ was subsequently covered by Miles Davis on his 1986 album ‘Tutu’. The jazz legend was introduced to the song by bassist Marcus Miller, one of several high-calibre session musicians on ‘Cupid & Psyche 85’, who was also working with Miles at the time.
“We didn’t actually know that he had covered it until his album came out,” says Green with a laugh.
He even became friendly with Miles, visiting his apartment on numerous occasions. In turn, this led to Miles making an appearance on Scritti’s next album, ‘Provision’, playing on the 1988 hit single ‘Oh Patti (Don’t Feel Sorry For Loverboy)’. Their collaboration, Green recalls, was remarkably low-key.
“David Gamson and I were in a studio in Manhattan at the time,” he says. “It was just the two of us there and we were expecting Miles to turn up with a bunch of minders, but he came completely on his own. I was aware of his reputation, but he was always perfectly charming and diffident, if sometimes a bit oblique.”
