Recorded in May 1956, Woman Love was a b-side to Gene Vincent’s signature hit, Be-Bop-A-Lula. Although it wasn’t written by him, Vincent would have been synched in to this tale of doctors’ advice for various lovesick ailments given that he had spent most of the previous year receiving treatment for a leg injury.
The performance is chock full of Vincent’s idiosyncrasies with his fluttering stutters at the start and Presley/Lewis hybridised vocals. It was originally slated to be the A-side of the single, but Vincent’s publisher, Bill Lowery took steps to ensure that Be-Bop-A-Lula garnered more airplay and exposure. It was the right thing to do given that Woman Love is a reasonable song lifted by Vincent’s personality, while Be-Bop-A-Lula works both in terms of content and form.
I don’t think Woman Love is as good as some of the other Vincent tracks which have turned up on this blog, such as Git It, but it’s interesting to listen to Vincent at the point where he first emerged and was marketed as a rougher, wilder version of Elvis Presley, albeit at a time when Elvis himself was causing the moral guardians of America to get into a panic about how he was corrupting their youth. Ultimately, Vincent was a little too left-field to enjoy sustained success in the United States, but it makes perfect sense that he went over so well in Europe given that Presley never performed outside North America, so Vincent was as close as European rock’n’ roll fans were going to get to the King.
Ian Dury included Woman Love as one of his Desert Island Discs in 1996, feeling that the song may have been quite rude, and while a case could be made that it’s a song about venereal disease, the lyrics debunk this by showing that the protagonist is desperate (and not fussy) about finding a woman to have a relationship with.
Video courtesy of Jarski. J
No comments:
Post a Comment