The Best Music on Letterman

The Best Music from The Late Show with David Letterman 

 

The Late Show with David Letterman ended this week. Letterman has presented late night TV shows on NBC and CBS for 33 years.

Letterman has always divided people, there are plenty of fans, hence his 33 year stint in a tough market. But there are almost as many detractors, who don't get his humour and find him unfunny. I must admit I've always found the show very hit and miss, with plenty of misses. But he always got the big names and segments from the show often made the headlines.

One large section of the show that I always found hard to swallow was Letterman and the producer's penchant for giving screen time to rank amateurs. A huge cast of stage hands, costume ladies, cue card holders and the like were given lengthy and frequent on air presentation duties. This usually resulted in awkward, disjointed segments.

The frequent visitor Jack Hanna, who brought along an endless parade of wild animals from his zoo, also lacked on air skills and always looked very uncomfortable.

But all that aside, I was something of an addict and probably watched significantly more Late Shows than I missed in recent years.

As Mr Letterman said on the last show and regularly before that, the best part about the show was the music. Mostly he was referring to Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra, who were great. The guest musicians, like the comedy, was hit and miss. Much of it was missable, or dismissable, but often there were gems and thank god we live in an age where these performances are preserved and can be re-watched at will.

Thank you for your time David Letterman, but most of all, thank you for the music.

Tom Jones – Burning Hell

As we said earlier, the Late Show often made the headlines and this one made big ones. Because Joaquin Phoenix showed up in a heavy beard and dark glasses and announced that he was giving up acting to become a rap artist and very little else. It was like trying to draw blood from a stone for Letterman to get him to talk.

But the real reason this show should have hit the headlines was for the amazing performance by Tom Jones, singing the bluesy gospel song Burning Hell. Backed only by a drummer and an excellent slide guitarist

Foo Fighters with Zac Brown - War Pigs

The Foo Fighters are reportedly Dave Letterman's favourite band and they closed out the final show. But that was behind a montage of archive footage.

Only last year the Foos did a week's residency on the Late Show, adding guest musicians to their line up each night. This was one of my favourites of those performances, where they were joined by Zac Brown to cover the Black Sabbath classic War Pigs.

Sam Moore and David Sanborn – I Got News for You

The 'Soul Man' legend Sam Moore had guested on the equally legendary saxophonist David Sanborn's album Here and Gone and consequently joined him on his Letterman performance. Sanborn wailed on the sax and Sam Moore showed he had lost nothing, despite his advancing years.

Sam Moore was of course best known for his partnership with Dave Prater, in the duo Sam and Dave. So he saw the irony of appearing on the David Letterman show with David Sanborn, as a result he had a special Tee shirt made up which he flashes in the clip.

Janelle Monáe – Tightrope

 

This was my first ever glimpse of Janelle Monáe and she blew me away.

At first sight, I thought this was another rap act, of which there were far too many featured on the Late Show, in my opinion. But this performance was so full of energy and theatricality, you can not help but love it. 

The Strypes – What a Shame

The was a lot of hype about The Strypes around the time of this performance. All the rock royalty were singing their praises, from Elton John to Dave Grohl. They were not wrong. Their rawness and energy was a breath of fresh air.

St. Paul and The Broken Bones - Call Me

I'd seen St Paul and the Broken Bones previously on the Craig Ferguson show and they were awesome. I had not seen their earlier performance on Letterman, that he refers to in the clip. He asks them to blow it away and they totally delivered. 

St. Paul and The Broken Bones - Call Me [Live... by eidurrasmussen

Darlene Love - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

Letterman always finished his pre-christmas show with Darlene Love singing Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) and although it's not Christmas now, I think we should too. It was always great to see how much Paul Shaffer enjoyed creating that Phil Spector wall of sound.

Well that's it... for now.

I'm sure that we have missed plenty of great performances from the show. If we've missed any of your favourites, please let us know in the comments, if we agree, we may update the page.

Death of the Poet

Soul Legend Bobby Womack Dies at 70

I was shocked and stunned to hear about the death of Bobby Womack this morning. I knew he had had health problems in recent years, but I thought that he had recovered.

The mainstream press will tell you that he wrote It's All Over Now, which was a huge early hit for the Rolling Stones and that he played with Sam Cooke. But that is only a very small part of the story.

Bobby Womack, The Poet

For me, Bobby Womack epitomised soul music, with his deep brown soulful voice, fantastic songs and sweet guitar sound.

Bobby's career spanned seven decades. Beginning in a gospel quintet with his brothers, when he was only nine years old. The Womack Brothers supported Sam Cooke and numerous other leading gospel acts of the day. But it was the association with Cooke which prompted their cross over to RnB. Cooke signed them to his own label and changed their name to The Valentinos. When their father found out that they were going to sing secular music, he kicked them out of his house.

The Valentinos had an RnB chart hit with Lookin' for Love, in 1962, which Bobby re-recorded and turned into a pop chart hit in 1974. The Lookin' for a Love Again album, on which it was included, also contained the hit You're Welcome, Stop on By - later covered and made a hit, all over again, by Rufus featuring Chaka Khan.

Things took off for Bobby in 1964, he joined Sam Cooke's backing band as a guitarist and wrote It's All Over Now, a single for The Valentinos, but a much bigger hit for the Rolling Stones, in fact it was their first UK number one. Incidentally Rod Stewart also recorded a great country style version on his 1970 album Gasoline Alley

Bobby played guitar and wrote for some amazing artists. But he probably first really appeared on my radar in the 80's. His lead vocal on on Jazz Crusader Wilton Felder's 1980 solo album, Inherit the Wind brought him back on many people's radar, having spent some years in the wilderness, dealing with personal and addiction issues. There will surely, one day, be a film made about the Womack family, their story has more drama, marriage, death and divorce than any daytime soap opera.

Inherit the Wind was followed by, arguably, two of Bobby's best albums, The Poet and The Poet II. The latter featured Pattti Labelle on three tracks. Her parts were taken by Alltrinna Grayson in Bobby's UK shows in the 80's, but Alltrinna's defining moments were her duets with Bobby on No Matter How High I Get.

A moment I will never forget was Womack's show at London's Hammersmith Odeon, as it was in those days. My seat was in the centre of the theatre, just over half way back from the stage. While the house lights were up I couldn't understand why everyone in the audience appeared to be looking in my direction. After a few moments, I realised that Stevie Wonder was sitting a couple of rows behind me. Bobby, of course, talked him into joining him on stage for a couple of songs. 

Bobby Womack and Stevie Wonder

RIP Bobby Womack, the world is a poorer place without you, but thanks for the wealth of music that you left us.