Time Has Come Again Chambers Brothers

I want to study my father for sexual harassment.

The incident occurred at my parents' firm last month, an hour or so before dinner. Alicia and I had come up over a couple of hours early on so that she and my mother could play chess. They love playing chess together because they have roughly equal skills and different styles of play. They also share exceptional concentration abilities and the chess-essential virtue of patience. My dad and I are too restless and too easily distracted to succeed at chess, so while maman and Alicia faced each other over a small tabular array in one corner of the room, my dad and I stretched out on pillows and carpet in the opposite corner, talking baseball, politics and music.

"And then, when are you going to outset taking requests?"

"I already am—just not from y'all, dad!"

"Come up on, there'south however some important music I call up y'all should comprehend."

"I've already said no more Dylan and no more Beatles."

"I become that, but I'1000 talking long-forgotten gems."

"Proper noun one."

"Well, at that place's Triangle. You promised me yous'd do The Beau Brummels' masterpiece."

I sighed and said, "Yep, aye, I know. I just haven't been in the mood."

He leaned over a little scrap closer to me and said, "I thought you were always in the mood." And then he winked at me.

"Maman! Dad'due south trying to hit on me!"

"He will not alive to run across the light of 24-hour interval," responded my mother, all the same gazing at the chessboard, a faint, wicked smiling crossing her lips.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa—I was just making a little joke, for christsakes," dad pleaded.

"No, you invaded my space, implied I was a slut—"

"Just you are a slut! Yous telephone call yourself a slut!"

"That's beside the point. Then you, you—winked at me! I know a hit when I come across 1 and that was a hitting!"

"Bullshit. I didn't invade your space, I was stretching to ease my aging back. I winked considering it was a joke."

"Tell it to the judge."

"Nosotros're a long way from California, sunshine. You have no case here. Look—I'll let you make it up to me."

"What? I'm the victim and I have to make it upwards to you?"

"I've been wrongly accused. I deserve justice."

"You deserve a swift kick in the nuts, you lecher!"

"I'thou wearing a cup. Listen—how about The Chambers Brothers?"

That gave me interruption. A psychedelic gospel album? That's similar putting mustard on chocolate block, but somehow they managed to pull it off.

"Oh, all correct."

Then he winked at me once more! Merely this time I didn't detect any Trump-Ivanka vibes. I smelled a rat.

"Did you just get me all riled upward to throw me off my game and give you want you want?"

Now if this had been a actually bad movie, my mother would have cried "Checkmate" at that moment. Instead she cried, "Merde" and shook hands with the victorious Alicia.

From now on, I'm letting Alicia handle all negotiations with my father.

*****

The Chambers Brothers were born into a poor sharecropping family unit in Lee County, Mississippi, a identify better known for the county seat of Tupelo, where Elvis emerged from the womb. They grew up singing gospel in a Baptist church, and might take never escaped the armpit of the south if eldest brother George hadn't received his draft notice in 1952 (funny how often bad news leads to a lucky pause). When George received his discharge, he made the wise choice not to render to Mississippi but to settle in the somewhat more enlightened simply nevertheless racist city of Los Angeles. Eventually, the other iii brothers (Willie, Lester and Joe) followed suit. They toiled in the gospel circuit for several years without a whole lot to evidence for it, and so decided to brand their music more folk-friendly to cash in on the latest manifestation of the folk revival in the early 60'southward. Gigs for folk audiences led to several connections, a trip to New York and a quantum functioning at the Newport Folk Festival, courtesy of Pete Seeger.

We're at present in 1965, the aforementioned year Bob Dylan pissed off most of that Newport oversupply by electrifying his performance. Shortly thereafter, Dylan invited the brothers to the studio where he was recording Highway 61 Revisited. Joe Chambers picks up the story here:

And then he (Dylan) asks the states if nosotros've e'er been to a discotheque. We never heard of such a thing, and he told us information technology was a place where they played records and people danced. So he takes us to this identify chosen Ordell'southward, and the announcer says at that place's some special guests in the house and he called out our name. So nosotros went up in that location, picked upward some guitars and figured nosotros'd practise our coffeehouse fix, simply speeded upwards. Brian Keenan was the house drummer. We ended up staying there for three weeks. (Bill Locey, Los Angeles Times).

That business firm drummer would air current upwardly a total member of The Chambers Brothers, an act that blew a lot of minds way dorsum when. The concept of a white guy drumming for iv blackness guys violated a series of cherished god-given racist assumptions nigh the order of things. White = boss/Black = worker. White = front end/Black = dorsum. White = impuissant/Black = rhythmic. Fifty-fifty open up-minded hippies had a hard time getting their heads around the terminal i until they heard Brian Keenan play. Keenan'due south ability and command was exactly what The Chambers Brothers needed to cross the divide into the globe of rock, and presently The Chambers Brothers' live performances became must-see events.

At present nether contract to Columbia Records, the brothers besides constitute themselves under the thumb of Clive Davis, the studio caput who contaminated American ears with Donovan and later (with Arista) brought Ray Davies' artistic ambitions nether heel, turning The Kinks into a run-of-the-mill arena rock band. Clive Davis lived by certain rules that the business world of today refers to as "best practices," which in plain English ways, "the shit that's worked in the past so therefore it must piece of work in the future because nosotros lack the imagination and intelligence to come up upwards with annihilation better."

Clive's all-time practice with new bands was to go them to produce singles, and if the singles sold well plenty, he would grant them permission to do an album. This best practice did not work with The Chambers Brothers, who released an early, shorter version of "Time Has Come up Today" to no fanfare whatever. That they recorded the vocal later Clive Davis specifically told them non to should tell you that The Chambers Brothers were committed to their music, and not afraid of bravado their shot at distinction by standing up for what they believed in. Eventually, word got through Clive's thick head that anthology-oriented stone was becoming the true cat's pajamas later on the release of Sgt. Pepper in 1967, and later that year, The Chambers Brothers recorded their start album, The Time Has Come.

Equally for the mix of gospel and psychedelic . . . well, information technology'southward there, sort of. The only true psychedelic number is "Time Has Come Today." There are psychedelic touches in the other tracks, but the anthology is actually a mix of gospel, soul, funk and one of the well-nigh honored long-form songs to come out of the psychedelic era. That'south not a bad thing: The Chambers Brothers were very good in multiple genres, and there are only a couple of tracks that qualify every bit anthology filler–an impressive ratio for a debut album.

Things get smokin' right away with "All Strung Out," an exuberant, loftier-speed number that came to The Chambers Brothers via Rudy Clark, the human being who gave us "It'due south in His Kiss (The Shoop Shoop Vocal)" and the Young Rascals' "Good Lovin'." Now, I suppose you could say that the heavy reverb on the handclaps echoed in the heavily-reverbed cymbal in the introduction kinda sorta hints at something psychedelic, just once Lester Chambers and his brothers step up to the mike, it's articulate that we're into pure soul, delivered with a bear on more than roughness than you lot hear in the Motown hits of the era. And I suppose you could say that the opening lines ("I got a addiction/Only I can't kick it") is a faint nod to the target audience of Timothy Leary acolytes, but once Lester really gets going it's obvious that his addiction is to one hot broad who's threatening to drop out and turn on with another guy. The production mode certainly reflects the era'south obsession with creative panning, especially noticeable on the bass, which opens at a spot slightly to left of center, disappears, then reappears on the right channel. While I prefer the bass in dead center where it can expand to cover the entire soundscape, I'll ignore the period fetish and pronounce "All Strung Out" an exciting functioning and a great way to open the album.

There is no psychedelic influence on the next cut, The Brothers' version of Curtis Mayfield's modern gospel piece, "People Get Ready." I have a rather strong aversion to any vocal that celebrates whatsoever religion, simply I accept a slightly greater tolerance for gospel music, specially when delivered with luscious, multi-layered harmonies and sincere feeling. They grab me as before long as the vocals come in, a layering of hums and oohs in perfect harmony spanning a couple of octaves. They continue to hold my attention throughout the verses with a well-crafted vocal arrangement mixing solo and harmonic singing that allows room for spontaneous expression when one of the brothers is feeling it. Throughout the song, Brian Keenan supports the vocalists past solidifying the swaying rhythm and cuing the vocalists through short builds on the fills to further inspire their passion. The finish is zip less than fantastic, moving from Keenan's high tom roll to elongated vocal harmony, followed by the brothers raising their voices on high to create a thrilling decision. Human, if someone promised me I could hear these guys in church every Sunday, I might have temporarily suspended my agnosticism for an hour a week just to let the sound of those voices send tingles up and downwards my spine.

We shift back to soul with the outset original composition on the anthology, Lester Chambers' "I Can't Stand It." It's a damned solid slice of soul reminiscent of the more upbeat numbers from The Temptations, but y'all might not recognize how good this vocal is if yous listen to it in stereo. That crazy obsession to dabble with the panning knob wreaks havoc on the piece, placing the drums in a narrow ring of sonic territory on the left where Brian Kennan's energetic drums are transformed into fuzzy mush. Meanwhile, the cowbell is far, far away on the contrary channel, again sopping with reverb, and seems disconnected from the residual of the action. The singing is fabulous, particularly on the high-notation groundwork vocals, so if your equipment allows information technology, switch to mono, adjust the EQ appropriately and I guarantee you'll have a much improve experience.

Lester also wrote the "Romeo and Juliet," a slick doo-wop number where his vocal versatility comes to the fore. In the a cappella intro and in the opening lines of the verses, he sings in a shine, warm voice I'll call "romantically engaging." In the closing lines, he adds some grit to the vocal that transforms the bulletin from romantic to something more lecherous, making his play for Juliet much more realistic. Yes, sweet is dainty, particularly when information technology'southward short-and-sweet and gets to the fucking bespeak! Lester oscillates between the 2 voices, indicating a homo who senses some reluctance on the role of the lady, requiring him to gently nudge her past any her hangup is while introducing the promise of masculine delights in a measured manner. In the cease, both Lester and his supporting brothers throw all caution to the air current and engage in an extended burst of unbridled passion. Shit, if Juliet doesn't answer to that, he should dump her prissy ass and come over to my place! I leave "Romeo and Juliet" wondering what the hell is wrong with Juliet and why people don't talk most Lester Chambers equally i of the best pb vocalists of the era.

Peradventure it's because too many Chambers Brothers efforts contained too much filler in the form of covers, and our get-go slice of evidence of this tendency comes in the class of "In the Midnight Hour." I don't know what they were thinking, just trying to outdo the Wilson Pickett original is a pretty tall guild. Once they get past their attempt at placing their own stamp on the song via an extended rock introduction that foreshadows the style of "Time Has Come up Today," they wind up giving the states a pretty straightforward and rather uninspired copy of the original version that goes on style, mode too long. Side one ends with a dearest song featuring heavy gospel overtones, "So Tired." The voices are lovely just the song drags and never reaches a truthful emotional peak. With a piddling more work and maybe a touch of piano, this one coulda been a contendah.

Flipping over the disc, nosotros encounter "Uptown," an early slice of funk spiced with a precipitous horn section arranged by composer Gary Sherman. The vocal was written by Betty Mabry, model, vocalizer and (briefly) the spouse of 1 Miles Davis, renowned for introducing Miles to Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone, strewing the seeds that would lead to Bitches Mash. The vocal celebrates a jaunt upwards to Harlem for the purpose of letting the hair down and indulging in large quantities of soul food, giving off the feeling of going home after a long stretch on the route. It's a solid, upbeat performance that helps get the album dorsum on runway.

We really get back in the groove with "Please Don't Leave Me," a George Chambers composition anchored in his agile bass blueprint and featuring an extended guitar counterpoint courtesy of Willie Chambers. Willie doesn't limit himself to fills, playing correct through the vocals as if they're recording the instrumental version simultaneously. This is a place where the panning actually works, with Willie prissy and clear in the right channel while the brothers deliver their clean harmonies only slightly left of eye (just not and then far every bit to interfere with George's engaging bass runs). One of the smoothest performances on the album, "Please Don't Leave Me" would accept been a nice segue to "Time Has Come Today" . . . but alas, information technology was not to exist.

What we get instead is one of the worst songs ever conceived, the Burt Bacharach-Hal David stinker, "What the World Needs Now Is Honey." I don't know who believed that this completely soulless song was a good fit for The Chambers Brothers, simply Gary Sherman'south melodramatic arrangement makes information technology an even lousier fit, forcing the band to perform style outside of their condolement zone. What I loathe nearly this song is that it doesn't brand whatsoever fucking sense! Mind to the words, people!

• "What the world needs now is love, sugariness love/That's the only thing that there's just too little of"—Sure, if yous're a well-fed white person living in the beginning earth. Because Americans are so ethnocentric, Burt and Hal may have been oblivious to cyclical famines in the Horn of Africa, but I don't know how they could have missed that LBJ had been waging a State of war on Poverty "with the goal of eliminating hunger, illiteracy, and unemployment from American life." Likewise little love? What about fucking food? Jobs? Education?
• "Lord we don't need another mountain/There are mountains and hillsides enough to climb/There are oceans and rivers enough to cantankerous/Enough to last till the finish of time."—I had no idea that the lord was busy creating then many mountains in the 60's that people had to enquire her to stop, and so I asked my dad exactly how many anti-mountain, anti-hillside, anti-ocean and anti-river movements popped upward during this decade of protest. "Uh, let me retrieve . . . yeah . . . that would be a g total of zero." And then while Burt and Hal were intent on dissing Female parent Nature, Angelenos were choking on smog, Eye Americans sat on the banks of their ample rivers watching the oil scum flow towards the Gulf of Mexico and the just people crazy enough to swim in the ocean were surfers with wetsuits. "Lord we don't demand any more than air/water/body of water/mount/hillside/pesticide pollution" would have been far more apropos.
• "Lord, we don't need another meadow/There are cornfields and wheat fields plenty to grow." Hey Burt! Hey Hal! What was your problem with nature? Or with feeding people? Jeez, talk almost privilege! Tell us the truth—were you guys really saboteurs implanted in the music business to feed the American people a steady nutrition of right-wing propaganda cleverly disguised as patently harmless pop songs? Insidious!
• "In that location are sunbeams and moonbeams enough to smoothen." Okay, now you're just blathering. Yeah, yeah, the earth needs beloved. Tin can't agree more. Become the fuck off the stage.

I've heard the vocal defended as "one with squeamish sentiments." Exactly. Sentiments are what you feel when you want to acknowledge something that would be overnice but you really don't care plenty to actually make it happen. Fuck sentiments.

Maybe . . . maybe the strategy here was to place a really crappy song but earlier the album opus to brand that opus seem even more impressive. If that was the strategy, it was a wasted strategy. "Time Has Come up Today" is one of the great musical achievements of the era, and information technology didn't need a lick of help from Burt, Hal or Jackie DeShannon.

The psychedelic period confirmed the commercial viability of long-class songs, and for the next several years, nigh anybody who was anyone shifted to longer songs in lodge to remain relevant to the burgeoning album-oriented rock crowd. Some attempts worked ameliorate than others. There is no reason on world why "Cowgirl in the Sand" (a song I love) had to final ten minutes and seven seconds, but plenty of reason why "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" (a song I loathe) had to go 7 plus. Long-grade songs are great when you take a strong musical statement underpinning the composition; they suck when the length consists of little more than time-filling jams. "Light My Fire" is a practiced example of a song that works in either format, but one time you've heard the uncut version, you feel tremendous disappointment when yous don't hear Ray Manzarek's organ take  the lead after the 2d verse. That's because The Doors had a strong theme to work with and they created a marvelous build in the instrumental department that completely holds your interest. I tin actually "sing" the unabridged middle passage of "Light My Fire" considering the secondary melodies they create extend the continuity of the main theme, intensifying its penetration into your retentiveness banks.

"Fourth dimension Has Come up Today" takes a different path, using the longer form to create a meditation on the mystery of fourth dimension itself. The original song was substantially the shorter version, an ode to the phenomenon of generational change. While the single flopped, co-writer Willie Chambers couldn't let it go. What was nagging at him was the feeling that at that place was still an creative vision that had yet to be realized:

"I was in my room one evening only lying there, and all of this psychedelic music was trying to happen," he said. "Only it didn't make whatsoever sense. Information technology had no rhythm, it had no significant. It was just a bunch of noise, and they chosen it psychedelic music.

"I was lying in that location and that long extended version came into my head. I got excited. I jumped up, I ran to everybody and said, "I've got an idea. This is going to exist our contribution to psychedelic music. When nosotros go to that one chord correct there we'll only stay at that place. We're going to scream. Nosotros're going to have a clock." (Songfacts)

The selection to remain on a single chord opened up endless possibilities for variation, and for several months they played the extended version on stage, experimenting and wowing crowds in the process. In August 1967 they entered the studio to put their masterwork on tape, technically and emotionally supported by producer David Rubinson and engineer Fred Catero, who were just as committed to the realization of Willie'due south vision as the ring members were. Incredible equally it may seem in our globe of multiple takes, tracks, patches and post-production effects, the operation you lot hear on the anthology was recorded with virtually no rehearsal in a single take. All the ring members wore headphones during the recording, assuasive the musicians and the guys in the booth to react and respond to spontaneous ideas and in-the-moment energy. David Rubinson recalled the experience:

Every bit the furnishings started coming the through the band's headphones, they reacted spontaneously with their ain screams, shouts and laughs "and I reacted to what they did with the speed of the tape car. Besides, if I flicked the tape, it would go in and out of phase and make these weird sounds, and it just got crazier and crazier. But from having seen them live so much, I knew exactly when the crazy role was going to stop—Brian was going to play this big drum fill and it was going to come dorsum to 'At present the time has come up…' then I was able to close everything off exactly on cue. We grabbed lightning in the bottle—nail! When they finished, they were screaming and yelling and came running into the booth and nosotros played it back and it felt and then skilful." Mix, March 3 2013

The echoing cowbells of the introduction lead us to the almost symphonic theme with its powerful peel-and-cymbals crashes and timeless guitar riff. The longer form placed Lester Chambers' commanding, expressive vocal in the proper context: the verses now serve as a frame to the piece, expanding the bulletin from a trite ode to the Generation Gap to one concerned with the inevitability of change. The music of the opening verses is driven by a rhythm best described as determined, expressing acceptance of change while besides recognizing its power to displace those impacted by information technology:

Time has come today
Immature hearts tin can go their style
Can't put information technology off another solar day
I don't care what others say
They say nosotros don't mind anyway
Time has come today

The rules have inverse today
I have no place to stay
I'm thinking about the subway
My love has flown abroad
My tears have come up and gone
Oh my Lord, I take to roam
I accept no abode
I have no home

Now the time has come (Time!)

There's no place to run (Fourth dimension!)

I might get burned upwardly by the lord's day (Time!)

But I had my fun (Time!)

I've been loved and put aside (Fourth dimension!)

I've been crushed past the tumbling tide (Time!)

And my soul has been psychedelicized (Fourth dimension!)

Alter has set people free, but has also placed them in an uncertain world, disconnected from old relationships and the comforts of a identify called domicile. I believe they're using "dwelling house" in both the physical sense (the dual phenomena of runaway teens and inveterate hitchhikers) and psychological sense (the loss of the familiar). The disharmonize betwixt the freedom of living in the moment and being "crushed by the tumbling tide" of likewise much change coming too damned fast is brilliantly established. It is within that context that nosotros movement into the extended instrumental passage and accept what is literally a journey through the unknown.

The rhythm gradually slows to something far below the normal heart rate over shouts of "Time!" until George Chambers starts moving the clock hands forrad with an insistent bass rhythm, soon joined by the eerie sound of echoing cowbells gradually forcing the song into overdrive. The shouts of "Time!" turn into compressed echoes fading into something approaching white noise until we hear a lengthy modal guitar solo on the right channel, pounding and rolling drums on the left and the continual pressure of the echoing cowbell slightly off-center. Lightening the space with "A Little Drummer Boy" makes me smile, but the air soon dissolves into the darker modal pattern of the first part of the solo. The boys accept it downwardly a notch to permit the sounds of screams and insane laughter come to the fore over stronger bass punctuation and synthesizer-similar effects. Eventually screams become more siren-similar, the percussion more wooden and arrhythmic, and in deep groundwork a persistent, pounding build of guitar, bass and pulsate is building up steam equally the overall book diminishes. Before long the build approaches total strength, and with an elongated shout from Lester and a final rolling assault from Brian Keenan, we come full circle to the repetition of the final verse. And human, do I experience psychedelicized! Fucking reborn! One more descent into slow fourth dimension follows, then Lester cues the stirring finale with a grunt, and the Brothers stick the finish similar a ten.0 gymnast.

Short Version:

Long Version:

What amazes me most the song is that it still sounds fresh and powerful today, fifty-fifty to a psychedelic skeptic similar me. But what amazes me even more is how The Chambers Brothers accept virtually disappeared from the conversation about great music from the era. People know "Time Has Come Today" and maybe "Love, Peace and Happiness," but shit, there isn't even a Wikipedia page devoted to this album. When I was considering albums for my Psychedelic Series, I eliminated The Time Has Come from consideration early on on, in large part considering it wasn't psychedelic enough. The Time Has Come is what many albums of the era should have been—a cornucopia of different styles and sounds that reflected the period'south emphasis on expanding the limits of mind and morality.

I had a keen time listening to The Time Has Come,and I hereby forgive my begetter for his sins, reminding him that if he tries it again, his daughter is a skilled practitioner of the martial arts who has no qualms whatsoever almost attacking a human where information technology hurts the most.

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Source: https://altrockchick.com/2018/06/07/the-chambers-brothers-the-time-has-come-classic-music-review/

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