Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due Volume 1 - TAKE IT!

The idea for Credit Where Credit Is Due (the newest road-tested JOKONKY-FIED series) came about because of my childhood love of Ringo calling out to the other Beatles when he was featured on lead vocals.  So it’s only fair that he starts off Vol. 1 with his classic Rock On George, One Time For Me from Honey Don’t.  The song’s author, Carl Perkins, was in the studio when they recorded it, and Carl is next up handing things over to everyone’s favorite Stray Cat during a live version of Blue Suede Shoes: Here's Mr. Setzer!  Staying in the rockabilly wheelhouse for one more track Big Jim Wheeler calls out to his guitarist Billy!

Lucinda Williams gives Credit Where Credit Is Due by explaining that her friend Randy Weeks wrote Can’t Let Go during her live intro to the song.  Rosie Flores calls for her own solo with a Let Rosie Play That Guitar, and Mick Jagger tells his songwriting partner: Alright Keith, C'mon! during Little By Little.  No lesser bluesmen than Muddy Waters with Johnny Winter are up next as Muddy mutters; Play That For Me Johnny, sounding like he has a mouthful of grits.

Possibly the most famous use of band member’s names is how The Sweet’s Ballroom Blitz kicks off: Ready Steve? Andy? Which dovetails nicely into Poison’s Talk Dirty To Me & it’s C.C. Pick up that guitar, & TALK to me!  

Vince Taylor & His Playboys’ high-water mark Brand New Cadillac contains the jublilant Scotty, Here We Go!   Stevie Wonder gives The Jackson 5 their props in his excellent You Haven't Done Nothin’.  The Smothers Brothers are a shared passion of Jon & I’s, and we both laugh every time  Dickie Smothers (who mom always liked best) tells Tom Smothers to Take it! 

Ringo makes another appearance with the final track off his self-titled solo album—during which he thanks everyone involved in the making of it--except whoever made the coffee.  

Who among us wouldn’t have thought of Soul Man’s Play It, Steve! cueing guitarist Steve Cropper to take a solo.  The Blues Brothers would later do the same on their version—which Steve also played on—but on the next track Hey Bartender, Jake cries out simply ELWOOD!  Cub Koda follows suit, calling to action one of The Points; Alright Freddie, Let's Do It! 

As luck would have it, as I started to run low on ideas off the top of my head, an internet search provided a string on a forum that supplied about a hundred more examples—many that hadn’t occurred to me like Louis Armstrong’s Take It Mr. Jackson in A Monday Date.  My thanks to the jazzbo who came up with that one!

A similarly obsessive friend suggested Canned Heat’s Fried Hockey Boogie on which he introduces the whole band who--then each take a solo—which was also done by gnarly guitarist Rick Derringer who invites you to Meet The McCoys!

There are two more volumes already in the can, so watch this space for another installment.