BOTHERED BLUE ONCE MORE:

The Barrett Rude Jr. and the Distinctions Story

NOTES BY D.EBDUS

The singer’s role is deceptive; in identifying and exploring disintegration and other potentially destructive aspects of black American life he or she is performing an integrative function . . . the sense of identity is built not only into the performer-audience relationship . . . but into the very relationships between the sounds he or she makes—the musical techniques themselves.

—CHRISTOPHER SMALL, MUSIC OF THE COMMON TONGUE

People don’t recognize the importance of call-and-response. This is because most songs are now written by the people who plan to sing them, and for them the picture is normally complete when they’re in it. But a listener likes more than this. The backing vocals, the response, are the voices of society: whether gossiping (as in “Is she really going out with him?”) or affirming (as in “Amen!” and “Yeah, yeah, yeah”) . . . I would like to do a systematic study of hit songs over the last 30 years. I am sure that at least 80% of them have second vocals in some form or another. But I would bet that not 30% of all recorded songs use backing vocals . . .

—BRIAN ENO, A YEAR WITH SWOLLEN APPENDICES