Rescued From The Fire: Dave Tompkins
An ongoing series in which we ask artists the record they’d risk life and limb to save from a burning inferno
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The incorrigible record collector, vocoder expert and author of How To Wreck A Nice Beach: The Vocoder From World War II to Hip Hop cheats the system and picks two of his favorite pieces of soul instead.
\n\nThe Springers “(I Want You) Every Night And Day” & The Sisters Four “Nobody Loves Me”
\n\nSince I have a choice of not choosing a vocoder thing, I’ll go with two of my favorite soul 45s. It’s by The Springers, and it’s called “(I Want You) Every Night And Day”. The title leads with a parenthetical – which adds a weird sub-level before even hearing it. It sounds really sombre, despite the nice sentiment. It’s from, I want to say, the early 70s. There is no information on the label in terms of the year. It just has this incredible haunted harmony to it, and this weird kind of busted RZA accidental blurty piano loop. I like the way the piano kind of stumbles on itself. It goes so many different places, the time is deceptive. He only had two minutes 45 seconds for every night and day.
\n\nCan I make this a two-fer actually? The Springers goes really well with “Nobody Loves Me” by Sisters Four, which sounds like an old school rap group. It’s two minutes, 11 seconds long but goes everywhere. It's from Nashville but there are hints of Detroit and New Orleans in there. The title leads you on with its despair. The full chorus actually goes, “Nobody loves me like my baby loves me”. Sneaky. They should've borrowed the Springers' parentheses.