Take Two
Work Song
Breaking rocks out here on the chain gang
Breaking rocks and serving my time
Breaking rocks out here on the chain gang
Because they done convicted me of crime
Hold it steady right there while I hit it
well reckon that ought to get it
been working and working
but I still got so terribly far to go
The song was recorded by Astrud Gilberto and became a hit, but it also popularised the music of Bossa Nova and its jazz interpretation with saxophonist Stan Getz on the recording. Here is a video reminder from 1964.
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Since then there have been countless recordings of the song, but for our Take Two feature we choose two different jazz approaches to the tune. Our first take is by guitarist Pat Metheny who included the song on his album What's It All About. Here is a video of the number.
When it comes to our second take we need to include the lyrics. It is a shame that a video was not made of the charasmatic Oscar Brown Jr singing the song when he first released his album Sin & Soul. There is a fine video of him singing it (here) with his bass player son, BoBo, in 1996 shortly before Bobo died in a car accident that August. Oscar died in 2005.
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Less successful, I think, was Nina Simone's daughter, Lisa, singinging Work Song in Marciac, France in 2015 (here), but then it would be difficult to replicate her mother's performance. For our second take we can see a video of Nina Simone singing on the Merv Griffin Show in 1966. The video is 'available for licence' which presumably means one can pay to see it without the 'reelinintheyears' addrtess on the screen, but despite that, it is a moving performance:
Gonna see my sweet honey bee
Gonna break this chain off to run
Gonna lay down somewhere shady
Lord I sure am hot in the sun
Hold it right there while I hit it
well reckon that ought to get it
been workin' and workin'
been workin' and slavin'
an' workin' and workin'
but I still got so terribly far to go
09.2024