MAY 8, 2017
“I CAN’T PLEASE YOU” (WRITER: JIMMY ROBINS)
ARTIST: JIMMY ROBINS
RELEASED 1966 ON 7” 45; REACHED #21 ON BILLBOARD R&B CHART
“I Can’t Please You”
(or, as it is sometimes known, “I Just Can’t Please You”) certainly has the
emotional chips for high-stakes poker. Rip-roaring hard urban R&B, it’s the
last cry of a man racked by frustration. It’s as if B.B. King found a higher
gear while being backed by the hardest, tightest soul band in the world. Or if
Otis Clay revved it up 50%.
Sounds like textbook southern-influenced
electric Chicago soul. But its provenance is unusual; there’s more here than
meets the ear.
The late Jimmy Robins
was actually based on the west coast for much of his career. If he is known
today, it is mostly for “deep soul” ballads, though of his records this is still
the most craved. I hear aggressive guitar, blaring horns, a steady dance beat,
and a shredding vocal full of righteous anger, desperation, and disappointment.
The way he lists the things he’s done for his lover…it’s genius, and almost
painful to listen to.
And while this is an
authentically great group performance, Robins is the only true R&B
performer on the record. According to Chris Bishop on the Garage Hangover
website, three of the players on this record (drums, trumpet, and trombone)
were white Los Angeles high school kids who later formed the soft pop
aggregation The Peppermint Trolley Company!
Robins, a keyboardist
by trade, hammered the piano and sang, while Sonny Jones—a co-owner of the
Impression label with his brother Al—played guitar. The Jones brothers were
older country music performers looking to make it big in mid-60s L.A.
Perhaps because it
featured an odd mix of musicians, “I Can’t Please You” inhabits its own musical
universe. And it turned heads. Shortly after the Jones brothers issued it on
their tiny Impression label out of L.A., a man named Bob Lee saw its potential,
bought the master, and reissued it on a new imprint, Jerhart, based in Chicago.
The 45 began to
receive substantial airplay on R&B stations in Chicago and also broke out
in Cleveland, St. Louis, Oakland, New York, Los Angeles, and Miami. Eventually
the record hit the R&B charts, but it was Robins’ only hit and Jerhart’s as
well.
The writer credited
on the Jerhart issue of the record is Jimmy Robins himself. No production
credit is given. But on the first release, on Impression, the writer is listed
as a “B. Horton” and the record produced by “Jones, Jones, and Fisher.”
Sonny and Al Jones
are easy enough to figure out, while Dave Fisher was a singer and arranger
who’d worked on Terry Stafford’s 1964 hit “Suspicion.” But nobody seems to know
about “B. Horton.” Some have posited that “B. Horton” is either
Brenda Lee Horton (widow of singers Johnny Horton and Hank Williams, who had
her own music career) or a member of the Silhouettes.
It’s probable that
when Lee purchased the master recording from Impression Records, the deal included
buying the production and writing credits, which he then passed on to Jimmy
Robins, more than likely keeping a cut of the publishing royalties. That’s the
way the business was then (and it’s the way the business is now).
As is true for many
other great records, the origins and details of “I Can’t Please You” are
swamped in mystery. But the song can speak for its own self.
Finally getting back to the beginning of your project! How do you find out all these details? You talk about the record being a mystery, but you've managed to unwrap more than a few.
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