The Tale Behind The Tune ... Hold On I’m Comin’ ... Memories Of The Brass Rail

The Tale Behind The Tune ... Hold On I’m Comin’ ... Memories Of The Brass Rail

Hold On I’m Comin’ was written by the songwriting team of Isaac Hayes and David Porter. The same guys who wrote most of the big hits for Sam And Dave ... including Soul Man.

The song reached #1 on the Billboard R’n B chart in 1966 and has been covered by many artists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AREppyQf5uw&ab_channel=Inconspicuos1

One evening while they were working on songs together David Porter took a washroom break. Apparently he was gone for longer than Isaac Hayes thought he should be so he went to the washroom door and yelled at Mr. Porter to come out and get back to work to which Porter apparently responded ... Hold on, I’m comin ... and so the idea for the tune was born.

However, when the song was first released the folks at the record company were concerned that the title was too “suggestive” so it was originally released as ... Hold On, I’m A Comin’. How that would have addressed their concerns about that issue is beyond me!? My late wife used to say that the song must have been written by a woman ... because it enunciated a chronic frustration women often encounter in those intimate moments with men who seem to care little whether their partner also reaches the summit of the mountain of love!

Our recording of this song started as a demo for a duo ... Burrows And Young. The duo didn’t have any luck landing gigs ... but we had a lot of fun recording the demo. And there was something about the recording that reminded me of the old days ... playing bars. As the tune starts one gets the feeling that the band isn’t really sure what song they are playing. Sort of like the beginning of Fingertips by Stevie Wonder ... What key, what key? Until Graham starts into the signature line that pretty well defines the song ... oh, that one!

I also love the way Graham approaches playing this tune ever since the first time we played it. And on this particular recording he does a wonderful job of singing the harmony ... Dave’s part. Every Sam needs a Dave, I certainly got one here ... he did a fine job and he doesn’t like singing! So I called in the rest of the band and we fattened out what we had done and finished the tune.

We played some nice bars in the city when I was a kid ... but The Brass Rail wasn’t one of them.

The Brass Rail was located on the east side of Yonge St just south of Bloor St.

Unlike some other rooms in town, like Le Coq D’Or and The Sapphire who started us at 9 PM and wanted 3 sets a night, the folks at The Brass Rail wanted us to start at 7 PM and then it was 45 min. on, 15 off all night long until 1 AM ... the time at which all bars had to close back then. And unlike today, that was six nights a week ... Mon to Sat ... with a Saturday afternoon matinee. Although a grind in many ways one thing very positive about that was the band played a lot. You really knew your stuff very well after all that playing and the band tended to get very tight.

However, at The Brass Rail the nights seemed to go on forever and the management spent a lot of time telling us to turn down ... as if they had expected to have a string quartet or something ... and chewing us out for not going on on time ... which I must admit was a problem sometimes. They didn’t pay us well either but would hire us for two months at a time ... we had bills to pay. So it was a classic trade off ... less money but a constant supply of it to endure the down side.

In order to endure the negative aspects of the deal some of us turned to things that would assist in making the experience more bearable ... like smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol! One of the guys used to frequent a wine store down the street and come back with 2 or 3 bottles of a red wine called Challenge ... very aptly named because it was indeed a challenge to drink it! Started with wisps of mustiness finishing off with notes of cough syrup, straight out of the bottle. You certainly couldn’t afford to pay for beer at the bar on our salary at that spot so wine it was. Unless you got lucky and some nice customer offered to buy you a beer ... just part of the job! And back then marijuana came from Mexico ... there were no grow ops around at the time. So it either came from there or some other exotic location or it didn’t come at all ... dry spells!

But when we had some it was a great way to get through the night ... we shared joints back then. Often in the alleyway outside the bar ... the smell was an issue so you couldn’t smoke it indoors. And we played and we played and we played ... but we weren’t actually the stars of the show. That would have been the topless Go Go Dancers ... well almost topless but not quite. Back in Toronto The Good they wouldn’t allow dancers to show their nipples for some reason. You could look at the rest of their breasts no problem ... but not their nipples. So the girls used to have to glue pasties over the forbidden area, many of which had tassels.

It always amazed me how those women could make the tassels twirl in time to the music. Also had considerable empathy for those ladies of the night having to take them off later! Ouch. They certainly were the centre of attention at that bar as it gradually evolved into a strip club. We were playing there at the early stages of that evolution ... eventually replaced the live music. In some ways it was a lot of fun playing those nights there ... but in many other ways, it wasn’t.

On this recording Burrows And Company are ...

Drums ... Al Cross

Bass ... Dennis Pendrith

Guitar ... Graham Young

Hammond B3 ... David Chester

Piano ... Bob Burrows

Harmony Vocals ... Graham Young

Lead Vocals ... Bob Burrows

The recording was made at Chalet Studio ... www.chalet.com

Recording Engineers ... David Chester, Drew Chester

Mixing Engineer ... Josh Bowman

Promo Image ... Mike Raines

Caricatures for the Promo Image ... David Flett

LISTEN TO HOLD ON I'M COMIN' HERE:

Thank you for taking the time to read this tale ... we hope you enjoy our music.

Bob

The Tale Behind The Tune ... Gnostic Serenade

Gnostic Serenade was originally a beat poem / song written by the late William (Bill) Hawkins who was a highly respected poet and songwriter from Ottawa.

In my less than humble opinion the best recording of the tune was included in a wonderful collection of his material called Dancing Alone ... Songs Of William Hawkins in 2008, sung by Brent Titcomb in a haunting beat type style ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAZ_-a1r1RQ&ab_channel=BillStevenson-Topic

Gnostic Serenade was also recorded by several other artists in a more folk rock song kind of style ... initially by a band from Ottawa called 3’s A Crowd in 1968 ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDHivPtXlho&ab_channel=3%27saCrowd-Topic

Later and probably most successfully by American folkie Tom Rush in 1970 ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsB5bQa-dhw&ab_channel=TomRush-Topic

And earlier by Brent Titcomb, a former member of 3’s A Crowd, in 1977 ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhf6ru2l7nA&ab_channel=CanadianCultClassics

There was some reminiscent chatter about the song in media a couple of years ago ... started me thinking about the tune again one day when I was messing about on my keyboard, so I began to figure out the chord changes and to experiment with it. In that process I started playing some of the changes with chords often used by jazz musicians ... ninths ... they worked really well and they seemed to reflect the vibe of Bill Hawkins himself as a human being ... with a beat feel and in that style. Led me to believe we could approach the song as a jazz tune and worked on that.

The first time I ever heard the song it was performed by Bruce Cockburn when he came to Toronto from Bytown (Ottawa) in the mid 1960’s and made off with half the band I was in at the time which I obviously wasn’t too happy about ... until I heard Bruce play, at which point I wanted to be in his band too ... and almost was. Bruce was and remains a remarkable musician songwriter ... one of Canada’s best. The band he put together was called Flying Circus ... included my ex band mates drummer Gord MacBain and keyboard player Marty Fisher ...

Sometime thereafter I drew Gord and Marty’s attention to the bass player I was playing with at the time ... Dennis Pendrith ... who was much better than the guy playing bass with Bruce then ... and Bruce hired Dennis to replace that guy. Ironically Dennis is the bassist in Burrows And Company today and has played bass on everything I have ever recorded with the exception of Walk On By 1965. As a result I became a friend of the band and hung out with them now and then. I was able to attend and take in a rehearsal or two and sometimes we would gather in Bruce’s basement and just listen to him playing tunes ... lovely memories. Bruce usually brought along a binder of his material, all written out in full music score, which was very unusual in the world of rock / folk music at the time! Having grown up in the nation’s capital he often played gigs in Quebec, so all of the lyrics for all his songs were written out in both English and French.

It doesn’t get more Canadian than that!

Not long after, for some reason or other Bruce decided that he needed a singer for his band and so they auditioned several vocalists for the gig ... including me. When the auditions concluded Marty and Gord came out to my place and told me that I had won the audition ... that if anyone was going to sing Bruce’s songs other than Bruce it would be me ... but unfortunately they also told me that the people around him had convinced Bruce that he should sing his own songs, a decision with which I reluctantly agreed fully ... but I had really wanted that gig! On the upside however I became a better friend of the band and hung out with them even more ... was eventually invited to go to New York City with them where Bruce and his band opened for American vibes jazz musician Gary Burton at Steve Paul’s “The Scene” for a week ... a magical and wonderful experience.

William Hawkins was a mentor of Bruce in some ways and had a profound impact on his development as a songwriter ... indeed one of Bruce’s first experiences writing songs was helping put some of Mr. Hawkins’ poetry to music for him after they met at Le Hibou Coffee House, where Bill and his wife then were managers. They were also band mates in a group called The Children and around that period of time Bruce lived with Bill Hawkins at his house in Ottawa for a while. For a deeper understanding of their connection and relationship please have a look at an article from Bruce’s web site and listen to the interview on CBC Radio there. https://brucecockburn.com/2016/remembering-bill-hawkins-the-poet-who-became-a-songwriter/

For more insight into the turbulent life of William Hawkins have a look at this article in The Walrus ... great read! ... https://thewalrus.ca/how-canadas-bob-dylan-ended-up-a-taxi-driver/

Our band, Burrows And Company gathered together for a recording session at Chalet Studio near Claremont ON on March 15, 2021 in the midst of the pandemic. We planned to record two songs that day ... Morning Hymn and Gnostic Serenade. I had encountered both of those songs in the same period of my life. While for some tunes the guys in the band have come in to record individually or a couple at a time ... like we did for Walkin’ The Dog ... on this occasion I felt it was very important to have everyone in the same room at the same time. We had never played either of these songs as a band so it seemed essential to explore how we would approach and play them together ... to share ideas, the feel. As in the basic notion of Gestalt ... the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Musicians bounce off each other when they play together as a band in ways they would not and cannot do when they are playing to and with a prerecorded track. In retrospect I am very glad that we chose to do that ... played an important role. And besides it was great to just see each other and play together again ... first time we had done that since our last live gig at Burdock in Toronto in October 2019.

We recorded Morning Hymn first ... the most magical experience I have ever had in a recording studio ... then we took a break and had some buttered scones and tea. We visited about all sorts of stuff together, caught up with each other personally. Then we went back into the studio to work on Gnostic Serenade and had a chat. The guys had all received a very rough demo of the song with the chord changes. We talked about the overall groove and feel we were after, how to start and end the tune, solos in the song, the extended improvised ending (outro) and stuff like that.

Then Al counted the song in and we took a run at it for the first time. When we were done there was absolute silence in the room ... no one said a word! We were all just sitting there looking at each other ... when Dennis finally said ... I feel a bit like a lounge lizard over here ... and we all had a good laugh about it. Some things had gone well, others had not, the overall groove didn’t feel “right”. After talking over a couple of things, Al counted it in again ... we recorded take 2. None of this is unusual in any way ... you seldom get what you want the first time. Then we decided to go to the Control Room and have a listen to what we had done. Thereafter we all agreed that, although there were some nice moments, on the whole the jazz groove wasn’t working as well as we had hoped it would. So Al ... who tends to lead the band musically much of the time ... came up with some suggestions as to how to approach the rhythm pattern in a different way. He was talking about something to do with bossa nova and samba and all that. All the guys seemed to understand where he was going with that ... I just sing! So everyone enthusiastically went back into the studio to give his ideas a try. It did seem to go better but it still didn’t feel quite right ... Al thought he knew why and suggested a couple of tweaks ... and then we took another run at it.

Once again we all felt we needed to go back to the Control Room and have a listen. It still wasn’t working the way we all believed it could and you could sense discouragement descending upon us ... indeed I was just about to say something like ... You can’t win them all, sometimes things don’t quite work out as planned. But just before those words came tumbling out of my mouth, Al said he had another idea that might do the trick if we just did this and that differently. To my amazement everyone seemed reinvigorated and we all headed back. However, the underlying understanding at this point was this was our last shot.

Al counted us in one more time ... and suddenly, voila ... there it was ... in spades! It was a wonderful feeling of triumph that filled the room at that juncture. We then joyfully headed off into the Control Room to have a listen to what we had. All of us felt very pleased at how the tune had come together ... joy reinforced. So we went back in and did the song one more time in the same groove so we had everything we might need to back us up moving forward through the process. If you find some minor issues or problems with a performance later it’s good to have another similar take you can go back to for bits / pieces you may need to edit. We were all very grateful for Al’s leadership in getting us to The Promised Land!

At the end of a session like this the recording engineer usually puts together a very quick rough mix of what you have recorded for listening purposes thereafter. By the time we are finally ready to release any song I will have listened to it a great many times ... dozens and dozens of times ... as we evaluate what we have and what needs to be done to carry the track forward before sending it to be mixed. After listening to that rough mix for a while with considerable pleasure and confidence that it had come together well, I still thought something was missing. That something turned out to be alto sax ... thought it would embellish the feel. Talked to a couple of horn players I admire and have played with previously about sitting in on this track but neither of them was available for one reason or another. Then I remembered a guy I have known of for a great many years ... since I was a kid ... but that I have never heard play or worked with ... Russell Strathdee. Russ is a bit of a legend in Toronto music in the sixties ... played with Dunc and Judy And The Regents, then The Silhouettes with Steve Kennedy and Diane Brooks and later with Shawne And Jay And The Majestics ... he has been around!

Although I had never met Russ before we have several mutual friends and he has commented online regarding some of the songs we have released previously.

Then I checked out his web site at ... https://www.rstrathdee.com/

Decided to give him a call to see if he would like to sit in with us on this song. What a sweetheart! ... first he wanted to know if I had asked anyone else if they would come and play sax with us ... I replied that I had indeed spoken to a couple of other prominent local sax players ... every time I mentioned who that was he would say ... “Oh man, he’s at the top of his game, you should hire him” etc etc.

He finally told me he hadn’t played much during the pandemic ... however, it must be said, neither had anyone else! ... and he didn’t know if his chops were any good. Knowing that he was a very good saxophonist I told him that I thought his chops were probably just fine and made him a deal ... that if I didn’t like what he had done I wouldn’t use it but he would still get paid and that he wouldn’t be offended. He replied he thought that was a great deal and agreed to come and sit in with us. I sent him the rough mix for Gnostic Serenade from March 15 so he could prepare. I asked him to explore the tune but to not try to come up with a specific part as such ... but rather to just become familiar with it and then play in the moment.

On May 24, 2021 Russell came out to Chalet Studio with his alto sax to play. From the moment I heard that sax in the intro, a huge smile came over my face. Everything he did embellished the recording it seemed ... worked like a charm! When I later played the tune to my stepson, who had heard it previously, he responded that he couldn’t imagine the recording without the sax now ... me too! We are indeed very grateful to Russell for taking that leap of faith and sitting in. His chops were just fine ... it was a wonderful experience working with him.

So, on this recording Burrows And Company are ...

Drums ... Al Cross

Acoustic bass ... Dennis Pendrith

Keyboards ... David Chester

Guitar ... Graham Young

Alto sax ... Russell Strathdee

Vocals ... Bob Burrows

Recording Engineers ... Justin Meli, David Chester

Mixing Engineer ... Josh Bowman

Graphic Art ... Mike Raines

Recorded at Chalet Studio, Claremont ON ... www.chalet.com

Produced by ... Bob Burrows

And finally ... to quote the opening lyric of the song ... here’s the tune ...

Freedom From the NRA

TITLE: Freedom From The NRA

DATE: February 2013

LOCATION: Wanted S & P Studio … Toronto

MUSICIANS:

Percussion … Al Cross

Vocals … Bob Burrows

SONGWRITER: Bob Burrows

RECORDING PERSONNEL:

Recording Engineer: Scott Campbell

Mixing Engineer: Scott Campbell

Producer: Bob Burrows

NOTES:

I wrote this song in response to the response of the American Congress to Barrack Obama’s effort to create legislation to require background checks for prospective buyers at gun shows, that was supported by 85% of Americans yet was still defeated in the Senate because of lobbying by the NRA … after the massacre of twenty 5 and 6 year olds and six of their teachers at Sandy Hook P.S.

Unfortunately this horrendous event has been followed by a great many other similar massacres of all sorts of totally innocent human beings in the USA.

Because the song was written so long ago the lyric is somewhat dated at this time.

But the central theme of the song still has merit and validity in that the NRA still exercises enormous control over any debate or discussion of this topic in government because they fund campaigns for a great many politicians in that flawed country, who then vote as instructed on any efforts to improve the situation.

It seems to me that the only way to change this circumstance would be to circumvent the control that the NRA exercises over politicians they own by holding a national referendum to ask the American people directly what they want.

I believe that the results of such a plebiscite would be surprising and that the average American would support reasonable gun laws, but no one ever asks them.

Contrary to the myth many have of gun loving and gun toting Yankees, Americans likely want what we all want … safer streets for their kids and their families.

This recording was a duet between myself and our drummer Al Cross who did not play on a traditional drum kit but used found objects around the studio … like a cardboard box we discovered in the back … bass drum … and a toy tambourine!

LISTEN TO SONG HERE