DELUXE 3199; NOVEMBER 1948

ALSO RELEASED AS MILTONE 3199

 

When this single came out the impact of the top side was immediate because it sounded so different. For the first time in rock a woman was taking control of the gender based sexual dynamic unapologetically and the effect was liberating for female listeners, while for male listeners it was shocking and frankly quite arousing.

In the process the chastity belt rock was in danger of being fitted for was thereby loosened a little but and the guardians of morality and decency had lost another round due to that record’s impact.

By contrast this side is the sound of the status quo when it comes to the female perspective in rock ‘n’ roll up to the moment they decided “The hell with it, let’s give ‘em sex with both barrels and take our chances!”.

That the two perspectives should share a release is both ironic and fortuitous so that we can see the two paths the music had to choose from going forward.

It’s no surprise – and a great relief – that it chose the other.
 

My Heart Beats Faster When I Know You’ll Be Around
When you get right down to it history really is the study of two things. What happened and what might’ve happened.

Since we can’t presume things which would’ve been completely unprecedented that “might have happened” (if a 13th Century shoemaker invented space travel… or a 17th century farmer perfected atomic energy) what we’re really interested in is what the consequences would’ve been if something notable HADN’T happened exactly when and how it did.

THAT alternative easier to speculate about and is fascinating to consider. For instance, what if The Wright Brothers hadn’t gotten their plane off the ground, or what if they’d devoted their time and energy to making better apple cider instead of aeronautics? How would the 20th Century as a whole have changed? Not just recreational travel, but also how wars were fought and won and the subsequent fate of nations?

In rock ‘n’ roll the effects of any one decision might be far less consequential, but to the artists and the audience the aftermath of those decisions changed the landscape to the realities we now take for granted.

But what if it weren’t so? If records that altered rock’s direction significantly had not come out, then the road we’d be travelling would’ve remained pretty much the same as it had been before.

Someone, somewhere had to make a decision – maybe a risky decision – to take a different turn along the route, heading off to someplace unknown. DeLuxe Records had just done that with Chubby Newsom and the result had far-reaching effects.

But what if instead when they brought Newsom into the studio in New Orleans to lay down her debut session after she’d been making a name for herself on stage by flaunting her sex appeal and after a hasty conference between those overseeing the proceedings they collectively decided that to accentuate that saucy persona on record would have been just too dangerous – too scandalous – and instead fell back on something a bit safer and more acceptable?

Something like say… Chubby’s Confession.
 

You Had A Good Woman But Wound Up Treating Her Wrong
Since we can’t get the racier image of Chubby Newsom out of our minds, it leaves the more traditionally chaste version without the means to compete for our attention. As a result the record plays like almost a by the numbers roll call of the attributes we’ve come to expect in such a song.

The prolonged seven second siren call of the horn section tries hard to rouse our interest but without seeing the shapely figure of Newsom sauntering on stage after that build-up we remain skeptical. When Chubby does appear, vocally, not visually (unfortunately), she delivers her urgent pleas with the appropriate longing bordering on horniness, asking her man to “satisfy her soul”, she doesn’t sound as if she’s going to be fulfilled by the mildly churning riffs she rides.

What made Hip Shakin’ Mama so great was it played UP her attitude as a take-charge woman, one who could do just that because she had the good looks and potent sex appeal to expect men to fall over themselves to be with her. That confidence was intoxicating and gave tremendous insight into Newsom’s persona. She wrote the song based on her own attributes and the reactions they had always elicited from men, which because she didn’t cloak it in demure modesty made it titillating, even as she was boastfully declaring that she could hold sway over us as well.

Women no doubt cast aside their jealously when listening just to revel in the absolute POWER Newsom held over every man’s bowed head, envisioning themselves having the same effect on their own wayward fellas.

But here she’s not the same Chubby Newsom. This one is wrapped in clothing for starters, the spell her body casts over the male libido vanquished by the change in perspectives. This girl, while certainly sounding similar vocally, reasonably urgent and insistent, is delivering sentiments that doesn’t match up with her tone. She’s now the one chasing someone, rather than someone… EVERYONE… chasing her.

Musically it’s all well and good, nothing fantastic but solid all the same. The horn solo starts off pretty good but eventually goes on too long and is hampered by being mic’ed too low to take center stage, or perhaps intentionally kept out of the spotlight so as not to conflict with the lyrical sentiments being projected by Chubby, which are far less assertive than before.

By the end of Chubby’s Confession she regains her swagger to a degree, telling off her no-good man following the idiot’s neglect of her, and does leave him by the final stanza which elevates this a bit more than it would if she remained beholden to her man throughout, but you can’t help but get the feeling that this scene was taken from an earlier stage of Chubby Newsom’s life, perhaps before she umm… fully blossomed as a woman.

That earlier mindset we’re confronted with is one that she herself had just rendered outdated in three minutes on the flip side of this same record and once you’ve witnessed that attitude emerge it’s kind of hard to go back and pretend it hasn’t yet.

All of the pieces that go into this, which would’ve been more than effective enough just a few short months ago, have already been absorbed into our collective consciousness, fully processed and thus have become fairly rote by this point.

Newsom does all she can here but it’s simply that the content seems like a warmed over dish from last night’s meal. It might’ve tasted just fine when it was fresh and piping hot and the dinner party was in full swing with guests living it up that added immeasurably to the atmosphere, but tonight’s leftovers are being served up alone in the kitchen and the dish seems dried out, the spices not as tangy after being in the refrigerator and the only company is a hungry dog sitting at your feet, hoping for a few scraps.

It’s become routine in other words. Typical… average.
 

Then It’s So Long, Too Bad Baby I’m Gone
What keeps ANY cultural scene relevant is a sense of constantly moving forward, of coming up with something new, fine tuning it until the formula is perfect, then invariably churning it out for as long as it seems fresh and exciting, wringing every last drop of interest out of the formula and then just before it becomes stale somebody comes up with something ELSE that takes it all in another direction and the same process is repeated.

Once you run out of new ideas, or once the audience moves on before you can come up with an appropriate alternative, the movement stops moving and consequently dies off, or at least winds down as a relevant cultural marker.

Rock ‘n’ roll has NEVER stopped moving. Not in seventy years it hasn’t, which comparing it to the average lifespan of anything in popular culture may be its greatest achievement.

Chubby Newsom brought something new to the table that helped keep it moving forward, even if all that was really new about it were the chromosomes of the person singing that type of blatant sexual boast. But that was enough for the time to make what came before it, and what Chubby’s Confession now returned us to, seem suddenly passé by contrast.

Not worthless. Not without some merits of its own. But also not vital anymore. It was like hearing the news a week after it happened. The story was still the same, but the context had changed and people had moved on.

That we get to hear both the sound of yesterday and today on the same record cut on the same day by the same artist gives us some indication of just how rapidly all of this change was occurring and, as always, the audience intuitively turned the page and made the right choice in terms of which news was the freshest.

Tomorrow’s records would have to keep up with the other side from now on, while this side was quietly filed away and soon forgotten.
 
 
SPONTANEOUS LUNACY VERDICT:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
(Visit the Artist page of Chubby Newsom for the complete archive of her records reviewed to date)