CASANOVA WHO?

Leiber and Stoller could not possibly have imagined a version of their "Hound Dog" as Ruby Andrews did it. It sounds as if she accepted a challenge to take a well known rock 'n' roll song and give it an Isaac Hayes type treatment. But you know Hayes wasn't involved, because the thing is only about three and a half minutes long. If Hayes had been at the board it would have been one of his ten minute things, layered with all sorts of strings and shit (not that, in his case, it's a bad thing). Here, it's her vocals, horns and restrained wah-wah that drive it. And her voice is something to behold, sort of like Big Mama Thornton doing Betty Davis, if that makes any sense. Nothing like her "Casanova" from just a few years earlier. It kind of reminds me of the Supremes' treatment of "Come Together". I dig these early seventies things, where soul singers stepped it up a bit instead of relying on their well known earlier style. You know those Northern Soul types probably hated this stuff.

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Listen:
Ruby Andrews - Hound Dog mp3 at De Discos y Monstruos
Ruby Andrews - Casanova mp3 at The Love Unlimited 
The Supremes - Come Together mp3 (via Box.com) at We Are the Beat
Isaac Hayes - Walk On By mp3 at Louder Soft 
Visit: 
Ruby Andrews at Wikipedia