ALADDIN 211; MAY 1948

 

The differences between his last effort and this one couldn’t be more striking if one was done by a yodeler from the Swiss alps and the other played by a ukulele and kazoo duo with a children’s choir backing it.

Whereas Bye Bye Boogie was all manic energy, this is dreamy calm. The former was molten fire, while this is as cool as ice. Yet what they both have in common is the underlying passion of the performer himself. It may be hard to discern that particular similarity when just looking at the delivery, so disparate are they on the surface, but in each case Milburn conveys a palpable sense of urgency, it’s simply expressed differently.

Bye Bye Boogie found him boisterously kissing off a former love, not angrily, and not trying to cover his true feelings of sadness by projecting a cocky assurance that he’s better off without her, but rather he gave the impression of someone who was glad to be free from a relationship that had clearly reached the end of the line. In it he extracted himself from a tangled romantic web without getting tied up in that web somehow and he’s downright elated about his good fortune, conveying an ebullient sense of joy while celebrating his freedom and that mood couldn’t help but be contagious to the listener, propelling the song like it was shot out of a cannon.

I Still Love You on the other hand turns that scenario on its head completely as it finds him on the receiving end of an impending break up, yet by the end of the record, after simply sitting back and calmly working his magic over her, utterly cool, relaxed and confident, he’s back in the driver’s seat and you wonder how in the hell he pulled it off so effectively.
 

I Know You Love Me
The whole concept of this record is a brilliant flipping of the situation it presents as well as being a mirror image of the first record, and just for good measure it works just as well as a look into the male-female dynamic itself.

What strikes you most about I Still Love You is just how great a PERFORMANCE it is… musically, yes, but more than that even, how effective it is psychologically.

By showing he’s hurt, but not wallowing in it or begging for sympathy, he maintains his façade of inner emotional strength that is bound to make himself seem more appealing, no matter what led up to this decision by his girlfriend to kick his ass to the curb. By confessing his feelings openly he’s showing vulnerability which undoubtedly will help to soften her heart and weaken her resolve. Yet most ingeniously of all, by taking his time in all of this, never sounding desperate, he’s maintaining enough emotional distance to make his position all the more intriguing – to us as listeners, but most importantly to the girl he’s addressing this to.

Throughout all this Milburn’s piano is played with an almost serene calm while a guitar (possibly Johnny Brown) weaves its way in and out of the arrangement hypnotically, taking the place usually held down by Davis’s saxophone. The decision of Maxwell Davis to step aside altogether here was an inspired one. By leaving his ego at the door and offering up another option for the benefit of the song, he gives this a totally different feel, one more earthbound and resigned to its fate than he’s shown before when the sax his main support system. Instead the guitar’s unique textures makes Milburn’s vocals sound all the more weary, almost giving the impression of the entire performance being delivered in a half-realized dream-state just before dawn.

The effect is mesmerizing all around, causing the listener to want to crawl inside his mind to uncover his true feelings. But Milburn gives the simple sentiments an enormous amount of added heft in just the way he drags out each line to their absolute breaking point, stretching out the words as if in a drug-induced haze, yet conveying the deepest feelings in the WAY he delivers them.
 

My Soul Needs You
The more you listen the more fascinating it becomes to consider the multitude of possibilities inherent in his persona based on the skeletal information he gives us. Is he really heartbroken? A lovesick sap lacking in experience, mournful over seeing his one true love depart? He sure doesn’t seem to be, even though he’s using words that would be entirely in line with just such a position.

Is he hurt and confused, unsure of how to respond to being dumped, knowing he’s done wrong, but not quite sure how, and therefore is he allowing that uncertainty to affect the way he presents his case to her? Maybe not wanting to come on too strong and reinforce the negative image she currently has of him. I suppose it COULD be, but I don’t think it’s that either, there’s too much knowing confidence in his voice to have me believe he doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing.

Or is he SO good at this game that he’s simply lying through his teeth, the whole thing an elaborate well-rehearsed act designed to turn the tables on her state of mind until she forgets she’s the one who pulled the plug on this relationship herself. If so it’s surely an approach he’s used – and succeeded with – before, an experienced Svengali manipulating her emotions by knowing exactly what buttons to push, and how hard or gentle to push them, all so that SHE is the one who returns to him, probably apologetic and more determined than ever to do right by him.

If so it’s utterly devious but completely effective.

That’s the perspective I get from I Still Love You, which is also the most complex and skillful on Milburn’s part, as well as the one trickiest to pull off without delving into their backstory in the scant two and a half minutes he has to present this. But when really studying this it’s the one scenario that makes the most sense.

He’s a seducer, and by the sounds of it a first rate one at that. He very likely has a string of equally enchanted girls under his spell, probably spread all over town, and this one had enough of his carousing finally and quit him, determined to walk away with her self-respect intact.

This isn’t stated, or even hinted at lyrically, but from the languorous piano opening and the snake charmer guitar wrapping itself around his words to the way he handles this impending split with calm self-assurance reveals more about the character he’s embodying than all of the descriptive lines in the world possibly could.

Everything is done by mere suggestion, nothing is pushed too hard, but by the end of the record you’re so captivated that you actually sympathize with him, not her, thinking this girl would be a fool if she doesn’t forget every conceivable thing he put her through and simply go running back to him. It’s a virtuoso performance in that regard, even if we’re left a little unsettled by his reptilian methods.

All of which makes this record a field day for those in psychology classes studying manipulative interpersonal relationships because this appears to be a textbook case. There’s no anger shown in his approach, no self-serving defense of his reasons for whatever actions along the way led to this breakup, but while he smartly doesn’t shift any of the blame to her, there’s also no mea culpa offered up in his forlorn plea to her. He’s not taking an ounce of responsibility for any of the missteps along the way, in fact he doesn’t even address the problems they’ve had, calculatingly treating them as if they didn’t exist.
 

Don’t Say We’re Through
In a world full of insecure guys who try to control the girls they’re with by physical force and verbal brutality the charges levied here aren’t quite so easy to prove because they’re far less obvious in their intent. The guy Milburn is portraying is even more dangerous because of it, albeit in a different way, because he’s a tactical manipulator who deftly sidesteps any direct accusations, leaves no visible residue of the emotional toll he puts her through, and subtly shifts the balance of power in his favor in the most sinister ways possible.

By offering up the ideal image of himself, well-crafted over weeks and months of tedious labor, he changes her impressions of him and causes her to doubt her own instincts, thereby turning her heart against her brain until she no longer trusts her own intuition.

In the end, if he’s successful, and guys like him usually are, the girl always goes back willingly and it takes on the appearance of being completely understandable to any neutral observer, after all how could you resist his honeyed tones, his deft touch with a phrase, his well-acted sincerity? When he applies pressure in the song it’s an internal pressure that the girl will feel strongest when she starts thinking of him at his best, convincing herself that it’s the “real” him, the one she’ll get if she gives in and goes back to him.

As we listen to I still Love You unfold we cringe with a sense of knowing dread because we know all too well how this will likely end.

For awhile she’ll be right I’m sure, but before long he’ll be back on the prowl, carousing from dusk ’til dawn while her battered psyche endures yet another round of self-torment. If she listened to him this time and went back in spite of her misgivings we won’t expect her to wise up next time around either. The most we can hope for is to get another song out of the whole messy ordeal, because this one was simply riveting.
 
 
SPONTANEOUS LUNACY VERDICT:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
(Visit the Artist page of Amos Milburn for the complete archive of his records reviewed to date)