Too Hard To Handle

Intro:

Today we’re looking at a song by Otis Redding, an artist underappreciated in his own time but celebrated after his death, and the Blacks Crows, a group who were perhaps outside of their own time and deserved to be bigger than they were. Let’s take a look at the historic context in which each hit came out in.

The scenes:

1968 was a tumultuous year with the assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy. The Tet offensive marked the beginning of the end of the Vietnam War. The Apollo 8 mission circled the moon ten times. African American Athletes Tommie Smith and Johnny Carlos raised their black gloved fists as a protest against racial discrimination at the Mexican Olympic Games.

In 1990 Operation Desert Shield began with America sending troops to Saudi Arabia after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.  The Simpsons airs on TV for the first time. The first web page is published on the World Wide Web and a hole in the Ozone layer is discovered.

The Original:

The original was released as a B-side to Amen in 1968 (Redding died tragically in 1967). It only reached No.38 on the R&B charts and No.51 on the pop charts. However, Redding is one of those common tragic figures in artistic culture, which became far more successful after their death than alive. The songs inclusion on the album The Immortal Otis Redding meant it would be a song always associated with the singer songwriter. 

From the rock solid drum beat, iconic piano opening, echoed seconds later by the horns, To Hard To Handle is an upbeat snippet of joy.  The groovy  bass holds everything together, alongside a funky guitar riff all accompanied by those sweet, sweet horns (why don’t brass instruments appear more in modern music?).

Lyrically To Hard To Handle is a good old fashioned bed skills boasting seduction song. I bet the youngsters think that rappers had cornered the market there.  Unlike the rappers this doesn’t come across as false bravado. 

“Action speaks louder than words
and I'm a man of great experience”

But my favorite line is:

“I'm advertising love for free
So you can place your ad with me”

And of course the tongue twister chorus, opening with that wonderful coin put down, for all you shower singers to up your game to:

 “Boys will come along a dime by the dozen
That ain't nothing but ten cent lovin'
Pretty little thing, let me light your candle
'Cause mama I'm sure hard to handle now, yessir'am”

This is an R&B masterpiece from one of the masters. Covering it well would require a formidable group of talented musicians…

The version:

The fact the Black Crows had a number one with this song in 1990 kind of amazes me. You’ve got to think about the rock scene of the 80’s. The stadium rock dinosaurs roamed the Earth, whilst beneath their relentless album release and tours, big hair bands soloed relentlessly with some punk and metal hiding in the shadows. Large swathes of the charts were dominated by electronic and pop music. What’s more, Nirvana would drop Nevermind the following year, changing the scene completely. The blues drenched rock that The Black Crows specialized in seems out of place in the music culture environment of the time. To survive, the crows would have to come out charging, and that’s what they did.

The track opens on drums just like the original, but the piano and bass take over the role of the brass section. There is a radio remix with a horn section, which I really don’t like, I’ll be discussing the album version. The guitar riff from the original is spread out over the fretboard, in power chords with crunchy distortion. Also there’s the organ and boogie-woogie piano playing, placing little subtle frills all around the track (which is lost a little on the horn remix). Rich Robinson’s tackles the vocals with more than enough swagger, and does a great job on the tongue twister chorus at a faster tempo. The screaming guitar solo comes in at just the right moment, and doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, to finish on a riffing crescendo.

Conclusion:    

Two classics, it’s impossible for me not to love both. If you liked this please drop a comment or recommendation for a song you’d like me to write about below.