Discovering 45s

by Max Conroy 

I’ve been getting into 45’s lately.  Up until about six weeks ago, I didn’t really get the idea behind buying singles.  Usually they are chewed up even though I think the fidelity is supposed to actually be better than 33 1/3 rpm records.  You pay for two songs; sometimes 45’s are free and sometimes they go for thousands, just ask The Cousins.  But for the majority of rock and soul’s existence, the single has been where it’s at, what made or broke artists.  Not until the mid-sixties did groups start making LP’s (Long Players) with the idea of making a work that had obvious continuity, with the car accident apex in the late sixties with contrived rock operas.  R & B records never really successfully mastered the album format in the vinyl era for the most part.  In the fifties and sixties, most R & B records were by and large compilation albums, consisting of a group of singles.  Often a hit would be on many different albums by an artist; see how many Wilson Pickett albums contain Midnight Hour for example or check out some Ray Charles hits.  There are definitely some exceptions to this point to be sure.  Justin recently hipped me to Millie Jackson’s Caught Up album, and the theme of that album is as subtle as a crowbar to the teeth: cheating and she’s not talking about political elections, but getting love at the dark end of the street.  Also, Curtis Mayfield records are albums.  Getting back to the point, even as records became albums, the single was king.  If an album didn’t have a hit, the record company wouldn’t provide advertising and the band or artist probably is one of your favorite cult bands now, but the artist has probably slept in a few gutters along the way.  The idea of a single has faded away and mutated over the years.  I can only remember buying a single on tape or CD a few times in my life.  But commercial radio has stayed the same over the years, playing singles, but instead of attempting to sell the single, they’re pushing album sales and concert tickets and lunch pails and everything else.  Payola has to still exist; I can’t think of any other reason for a radio station to play a song three times in an hour, which some do.  iPods, iTunes and iEverything are probably changing it all over again.  Shit, at that Sharon Jones show, Justin and I observed a DJ ’spinning’ tunes from his iPod.

I’m trying to figure out what it is about 45s that I’m suddenly attracted to.  As I write this, I’m coming to realize that I have been more into records lately that were either albums put together either entirely of singles or built around a few singles with some filler, so the jump to buying 45’s probably isn’t that large of a leap.  A 45 is the first appearance of a song, which gives it a certain cache, like somebody’s rookie card.  Also, a lot of music from the 50s and 60s is only available on 45 unless you want it digitally and if you’re reading this, chances are you’d prefer it on record.  Here’s an example that has fueled my appreciation for 45s and illustrates this point.  I got a copy of the latest Wax Poetics and read the Bobby Byrd obit. and was really interested in getting some of his music as I’ve been into James Brown heavily lately.  Byrd never released any studio records back in the day (he did put out an amazing live album called I Need Help), they were all singles produced by James Brown and so I went out and found the I Need Help single pretty cheap and was blown away. 

There are also plenty of examples where finding a bunch of singles by someone is easier and cheaper than finding the rare album that was released compiling these singles.  Case in point: Dyke and the Blazers.  

I’m working on finding the rest of the Funky Broadway album. 

Some 45s are also cool to have because they represent something historically, an era changing or the birth of a type of music or a record label.  Last Night by the Mar-Keys was the hit that launched Stax.  The record isn’t valuable, but I’m in awe of it every time I look at it for what it represents.  It’s also a great jam.

Some records have an interesting story.  Stagger Lee by Lloyd Price is a single that’s been written about in Greil Marcus’ Mystery Train and by Dave Marsh in The Heart of Rock and Soul.  It’s a traditional song that most likely dates back to the mid 19th century about a gambler named James “Stacker” Lee.  The song is essentially about a gambler getting caught at cheating and blowing his accuser’s brains out.  The meaning of the song went from a cautionary tale about leading an evil existence to one celebrating the outlaw here.  Traditionally the song would include Lee being hung for his crime, but Price cuts the song down to stay in the single format and, in turn, deals only with the crime.  After this Stagger Lee represents, to use a quote from Marsh, “a bad motherfucker not to be trifled with.”  The song went on to become a black power anthem, covered by many R & B acts.  At the time Price was kept from appearing on American Bandstand because of the message and the song was also finding difficulty getting air play, so Price went back into the studio to clean it up and it went to the top of the charts.  Here’s the unedited version where Stack pops a cap in that sucker Billy’s punk ass. 

Some 45’s can also be incredibly valuable, but you’d have to ask the Cousins about that.  I’ve only recently got the bug and am content in finding records that I dig for some of these reasons.  I’m sure greed will play a part here soon.  Most of all, I like 45’s because you have that song, you truly own it as it was marketed and how these people recorded it, and sometimes the B-side is just as good.