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Anyone Remember This One?

No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach's In) by the T-Bones

https://youtu.be/thobjyBX1lEhttp://

I used to hear this song a lot on an oldies station that did not give song titles or artists. It wasn't until the Shazam app that I ever found out the name and the artist. I vaguely remember hearing the riff in the Alka-Seltzer ads back in the day.

For some reason I always liked this song even though I never cared for 'surf' music. The strange things is that to me this song has a sinister feel to it. I know that sounds crazy. But during the chorus when the girls are singing my mind goes to some strange Quentin Tarantino-esque scene where something dark and awful is happening that is incongruous to the "happy" music with the slightly sinister undertone.
n80
lak's avatar
lak
4,715 posts
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SH2V8BLfUs
djones51
4,947 posts
 
Is there a musician that didn't play on a Monkees album? I still liked them. 
n80 OP
2,133 posts
 
Sounds like the T-Bones were the West Coast version of The Swampers at Muscle Shoals.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,096 posts
 

Exactly @n80, except the other way 'round. The Wrecking Crew came first! There is also a documentary on The Swampers, whom I like even more than The Wrecking Crew. Drummer Roger Hawkins was (he's still alive, but no longer playing) a VERY special drummer, with a feel like no other. Wilson Pickett said when Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler took him into Fame Studios, he saw all these white crackers sitting around, and though "Damn, what have I got myself into?" (he had fled Alabama to escape the racism, as did many other black artists). Then they started playing, and he couldn't believe what he was hearing; he said they were the funkiest band he had ever heard.

Hawkins and bassist David Hood created a smoldering fire under a singer, the hottest rhythm section I've ever heard. The only guys who came close were Levon Helm, Rick Danko, and Richard Manual (on drums, bass, and piano, respectively) of The Band. After The Band didn't ask Eric Clapton to join, he went to Muscle Shoals to record with The Swampers. So did Duane Allman, Boz Scaggs, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, and hundreds of others.  

n80 OP
2,133 posts
 
I saw one documentary that centered on the guy who owned Muscle Shoals (FAME). Not sure if that's the one you're talking about but it was a good one and focused on the Swampers as well.

I particularly liked the part where Aretha was in the studio and they were trying to make something of I Never Loved a Man that wasn't developing when Spooner Oldham played the chords that opened the song and it took off from there. Wikipedia says Aretha played those chords initially and Oldham picked them up but I didn't think that was the way they recounted it in the documentary. Either way, it was cool.
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