As band logos go, the Average White Band's is, shall we say, not very subtle. The line drawing*of a naked woman's bottom forming the 'W' is very route one. A single entendre. But what else were a bunch of horn players from north of the border going to come up with in the early 1970s? At a time when the very sound they were trying to emulate was essentially James Brown, or to be more precise his backing band - the JBs. Blaxploitation? Not really, more Jocksploitation.When thy wrote Pick Up the Pieces in 1974 they used the JBs Hot Pants Road as their template. And why not, it had pedigree: the JBs had scored with variations on that groove - Pass the Peas, for instance, had given them a sizeable hit earlier in '72.
The JBs - Hot Pants Road (1972)
Average White Band - Pick Up the Pieces (1974)
And by way of thanking the Scottish sextet, the JBs under the moniker AABB (Above Average Black Band), repaid the compliment and came back at them with this. Touché.
AABB - Pick Up the Pieces One by One (1975)
* However, she did come to life briefly:
Last summer, at the Rip It Up Exhibition in Edinburgh, I discovered that in 1975, the Average White Band was the first Scottish band to get to No. 1 in both the US Singles and Album Charts simultaneously.
ReplyDeleteJocksploitation - Love it!
There've been others?
DeleteGood point - I'm sure there must have been. Simple Minds? They did love them over there.
DeleteI see I've visited this post before so should have remembered - would have left the same comment this time as well.
ReplyDeleteDoing a compare and contrast, I do think the AABB (great name) version has the edge but maybe because the AWB version is so familiar now. It definitely sounds more 'white' if that can be a thing.