{"id":327,"date":"2018-08-11T21:30:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-12T01:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/?p=327"},"modified":"2018-08-11T21:30:00","modified_gmt":"2018-08-12T01:30:00","slug":"music-review-get-a-little","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/?p=327","title":{"rendered":"Music Review: Get a Little"},"content":{"rendered":"

G. E. Smith<\/a> and the Saturday Night Live Band<\/a> released Get a Little<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>on Liberty Records<\/a> in 1992, while performing as the house band on the long-running late-night comedy show. Fans who enjoyed the band\u2019s instrumental segues into and out of commercial breaks will find plenty to enjoy in this collection of music, including some solid lyrics rarely heard by the television audience.<\/p>\n

A rhythm and blues style dominates this recording from the first cut, which is also the title track.\u00a0 Winding in and out of a very basic blues rhythm set with drums and piano, the band\u2019s very good horn section alternates between helping keep the beat and dueling with Smith\u2019s eloquent guitar.\u00a0 As Smith sings \u201cLong legs, tight dress, whoo baby, I\u2019m impressed\u201d to the lucky lady from whom he wishes to \u201cGet a Little,\u201d he implores her further with rich but urgent solos.\u00a0 This song opens the effort strongly, hooking blues and rock fans alike to listen further.<\/p>\n

Listeners get an eclectic mix of blues, a little jazz, rock, and even a ballad. \u00a0Besides the title track, the band offers a sad, piano-heavy bluesy tune, \u201cMight as Well Get Drunk,\u201d with Smith singing in an intentionally raspy voice, backed up by a despondent saxophone, and \u201cWilly d\u2019s Blues,\u201d an instrumental blues tune that allows the horn section to demonstrate the beautifully mournful sound skillful musicians can coax from trumpets and saxophones.<\/p>\n

This horn section also brings a bit of jazz to their take on the blues.\u00a0 Lenny Pickett and Earl Gardner fill \u201cGin Blossoms,\u201d an otherwise standard mix of blues guitar and drums, with long jazzy sax and trumpet solos that show the versatility required of a band that plays its biggest gig on television.<\/p>\n

The Saturday Night Live Band rocks as well, particularly on the only two tracks written by someone other than Smith.\u00a0 \u201cMonkey Hips and Rice,\u201d a humorous tale of a very strange dinner (ultimately enjoyed) written by Lowman Pauling, offers Jerry-Lee-Lewis style piano riffs layered within a strong backbeat.\u00a0 And \u201cFattenin\u2019 Frogs for Snakes,\u201d written by Edgar Sneed and Willie Perryman, rocks all the way out, with Mickey Curry playing the most powerful drums on the record, and Smith on lead guitar dancing madly around the beat set by Curry and by Marshall Crenshaw on rhythm guitar.<\/p>\n

This worthy, and unfortunately only, effort misses a couple of beats. \u201cForgotten Songs,\u201d the ballad that closes the album, features delectable backup vocals by Roseanne Cash, but this record begs for a crescendo finish of horns and guitars.\u00a0 Closing with a deep sigh leaves the listener hungry for one more song.\u00a0 A better spot for this one might have been between \u201cGin Blossoms\u201d and \u201cHelldrive,\u201d one of the album\u2019s two weak tunes.\u00a0 \u201cHelldrive\u201d offers a dark, instead of simply sad, sort of blues, elsewhere missing on this record \u2013 but the horns in the song get repetitive, and the entire thing sounds enough like the song before it to leave the listener wondering.\u00a0 And the longest song on the album, \u201cFat Girl\/Last Month of the Year,\u201d is also the weakest.\u00a0 The very interesting Native American style drumbeat rhythm does not save the repetitive and incomprehensible lyrics.\u00a0 \u201cFat girl, fish belly, fat girl, fish head\u201d makes sense only to Smith, and even a solid sax solo carries few listeners along while Smith and his backup vocalists sing the calendar.<\/p>\n

These minor distractions aside, Smith\u2019s collaboration with engineer Rich Travali resulted in a selection of solid blues recordings with a touch of jazz and rock tumbled in.\u00a0 Smith writes good songs, and mostly chose well for the inclusion on this album.\u00a0He has a versatile vocal style, and cleverly matches it with the lyrical and musical content of each song.\u00a0 The members of the Saturday Night Live Band, session musicians all, show on this record why Lorne Michaels\u00a0<\/a>chose them to play on a popular television show.\u00a0 They make up a powerful and versatile rhythm and blues band that can also rock out a bit.<\/p>\n

Sadly, this particular group made no other recordings.\u00a0Some of these performers joined Smith on a later effort, Incense, Herbs, and Oils<\/a><\/em>, released in 1998 by Green Mirror Music.\u00a0 And G. E. Smith can be heard playing with a variety of stars, from Jimmy Buffet (Six String Music<\/a><\/em>) to Mick Jagger (She\u2019s the Boss<\/a><\/em>).\u00a0 But someone should bring these souls together again to see if they can Get a Little\u00a0<\/em>more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

G. E. Smith and the Saturday Night Live Band released Get a Little\u00a0on Liberty Records in 1992, while performing as the house band on the long-running late-night comedy show. Fans who enjoyed the band\u2019s instrumental segues into and out of commercial breaks will find plenty to enjoy in this collection of music, including some solid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[120],"class_list":["post-327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-music-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":328,"href":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions\/328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}