The Memphis Hang

This Made-In-Memphis authentic recording is what happens when music lovers and long-time friends get together in Memphis for an unconstrained session with no preconceived notions.

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WELL, YOU NEEDN’T
(music by Thelonious Monk, lyrics by Mike Ferro)

You’re talkin’ so sweet well you needn’t
You say you won’t cheat well you needn’t
You’re tappin’ your feet well you needn’t
It’s over now, it’s over now

You’re dressin’ with class well you needn’t
You’re holdin’ your sass well you needn’t
You think you’re a gas well you needn’t
It’s over now, it’s over now

It’s over now, it’s over now
You’ve had your fun, so take a bow
You oughta know, you lost the glow, the beat is slow, the shadows grow,
the lights are low, it’s time to go, let’s close the show down

You’re taking off weight well you needn’t
You’re looking just great well you needn’t
You’re settin’ the bait well you needn’t
It’s over now, it’s over now

SEDUCED
(music and lyrics by Gary Tigerman)

I want to be seduced
Want a woman to take me out to dinner for two
Like to see her eyes get moody
Flirtin’ with the thought of what flirtin’ ought to do

Like to be real cool
Let her think about gettin’ little me in bed
As I chat about Magna Charta, Puerto Vallarta
And something that Gandhi said
I might demure politely, falter slightly,
If she tried to fondle my knee
But I’m relatively certain I’d compromise if I know me

I want to be seduced
I want a woman to talk to me suggestively
Want to hear her say she’ll be with me tomorrow morning
Drinking hot jasmine tea
Want her to make me laugh
Make a point of touching me when she talks
Leaving all the jealous men in the joint to mumble in their beer and gawk
I know it only happens when I’m nappin’,
Nodding in a reverie

That I find myself a woman who wouldn’t mind seducing me.

I want to be seduced
Want a woman to talk to me suggestively
Want to hear her say she’ll be with me tomorrow morning
Drinking hot jasmine tea
Want her to make me laugh
Make a point of touching me when she talks
Leaving all the jealous men in the joint to mumble in their beer and gawk
I know it only happens when I’m nappin’,
Nodding in a reverie
That I find a woman who wouldn’t mind seducing….
Startin’ from the moment that we’ve been introduced
I’d like to find a woman who wouldn’t mind seducing me.

MOUND BAYOU
(music by Leonard Feather, lyrics by Andy Razaf)

VERSE

Cryin’ on my pillow
Weepin’ like a willow
Feel just like a fish
That’s cast upon the shore
Waitin’ for the tide to take it home once more

Though asleep or wakin’
My poor heart keeps achin’
When you see me walkin’
With my head way down
It’s because I miss my Mississippi town

CHORUS

Mound Bayou,
I feel blue and all in
Mound Bayou,
I can hear you callin’
All my friends are lucky to be way back there
If they knew what I’ve been through they’d stay back there

Mound Bayou,
Got to cover ground for
Mound Bayou,
That’s the town I’m bound for
Wish my arms were long enough
Here’s what I’d do
I’d reach and wrap them gently round my Mound Bayou

THAT NOTE COSTS A DOLLAR
(music and lyrics by Charlie Wood)

I must have just what it takes
‘cause it keeps on taking it
‘till it’s all used up
I can survive on some luck and some jive
Mash my little buttons and rattle my tin cup

Is it grooving? Does it groove?
Do the groove cognoscenti approve
Let me give you the news,
If you want to pay your dues,
You’ve got a lot of merchandise to move

That note costs a dollar
These changes go for two, two-fifty and three
This little line run you five-ninety-nine
This chord right here is free

I must be on the top of the world
‘cause everywhere I turn I am headed downhill
Got a little chunk of soul that I promised not to part with
But make me an offer and I probably will

Is it moving? Does it move?
Is it headed for the sewer or the Louvre?
That little rhyme didn’t set you back a dime
You can check your sales receipt to prove….

That note costs a dollar
These changes go for two, two-fifty and three
This little line run you five-ninety-nine
This chord right here is free

SOLOS

Here is the bridge it ain’t no big deal
Just a little modulation but it keeps the same feel
At list price it’s a bargain, at this price it’s a steal
Throw you in another chorus just to show you I’m for real

That note costs a dollar
These changes go for two, two-fifty and three
This little line run you five-ninety-nine
This chord right here is free
This chord right here is free
This chord right here is free
Well baby what did you expect for nothing?

CAN’T TAKE YOU NOWHERE
(music by Tiny Kahn, Al Cohn & Dave Frishberg, lyrics by Dave Frishberg)

You knock back the schnapps
You talk back to cops
You walk in the room and conversation stops
I can’t take you nowhere
No I can’t take you nowhere
You stager you sag
You’re half in the bag
One glass of beer and you’re a total drag

I can’t take you nowhere
No I can’t take you nowhere
I buy three or four
You mooche plenty more
The check comes around and you are out the door
I can’t take you nowhere
No I can’t take you nowhere

SOLOS

You’re loud and you’re lewd
You tend toward the crude
My friends are disgusted with your attitude
I can’t take you nowhere
No I can’t take you nowhere
You gripe and you groan
You grouse and you moan
You called Honolulu on my telephone

I can’t take you nowhere
No I can’t take you nowhere
I hear people say
You don’t go away
You drop by for breakfast and you stay all day
I can’t take you nowhere
No I can’t take you nowhere

That’s right I cannot take you nowhere
I’d like to take you somewhere
But I don’t know a place
Where you can show your face
And anyway, I’d just like to say
so sad to see you must be on your….

way… I’d like to take you somewhere
But I can’t take you nowhere
‘cause I don’t know a place
Where you can show your face
And anyway I’d still like to say
so sad to see you must be on your way!
What a pity to say so long….

WHEN I’VE BEEN DRINKIN’
(music and lyrics by Big Bill Broonzy, additional lyrics by Jim Schwall)

I don’t need no money
Long as I’ve got my hands
I don’t need no woman
That’s always raising sand
Not when I’ve been drinkin’
No not when I’ve been drinkin’
If I can make it home to you tonight
Honey won’t you please let me lay down and rest

Well, I don’t want no lady
That wants a superman
I don’t need no lady
Wants me to do more than I can
Not when I’ve been drinkin’
Not when I’ve been drinkin’
If I can make it home to you tonight,
Honey won’t you please let me lay down and rest

If I can somehow get home to you tonight
Won’t you please let me lay down and rest
Better bring me a couple aspirins and stick a pillow behind my head
When I’ve been drinkin’
Yea, when I’ve been thinkin’
If I can make it home to you tonight
Honey won’t you let me lay down and rest.

BLUE TURNING GRAY OVER YOU
(music by Thomas “Fats” Waller, lyrics by Andy Razaf)

My, how I miss
Your tender kiss
And the wonderful things that you do.

I run my hands
Through silvery strands
You left me blue turning gray over you.

You used to be
So good to me
That’s when I was a novelty

Now, you’ve new friends in view
You’ve found someone new
And left me blue turning gray over you

GOODBYE PORKPIE HAT
(music by Charles Mingus, lyrics by Joni Mitchell)

When Charlie speaks of Lester
You know someone great has gone
The sweetest swinging music man
Had a Porkie Pig hat on
A bright star
In a dark age
When the bandstands had a thousand ways
Of refusing a black man admission
Black musician
In those days they put him in an
Underdog position
Cellars and chittlins’

When Lester took him a wife
Arm and arm went black and white
And some saw red
And drove them from their hotel bed
Love is never easy
It’s short of the hope we have for happiness
Bright and sweet
Love is never easy street!
Now we are black and white
Embracing out in the lunatic New York night
It’s very unlikely we’ll be driven out of town
Or be hung in a tree
That’s unlikely!

Tonight these crowds
Are happy and loud
Children are up dancing in the streets
In the sticky middle of the night
Summer serenade
Of taxi horns and fun arcades
Where right or wrong
Under neon
Every feeling goes on!
For you and me
The sidewalk is a history book
And a circus
Dangerous clowns
Balancing dreadful and wonderful perceptions
They have been handed
Day by day
Generations on down

We came up from the subway
On the music midnight makes
To Charlie’s bass and Lester’s saxophone
In taxi horns and brakes
Now Charlie’s down in Mexico
With the healers
So the sidewalk leads us with music
To two little dancers
Dancing outside a black bar
There’s a sign up on the awning
It says “Pork Pie Hat Bar”
And there’s black babies dancing tonight!

COOL
(Music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim)

Boy, boy, crazy boy,
Get cool, boy!
Got a rocket in your pocket,
Keep coolly cool, boy!
Don’t get hot,
‘Cause man, you got
Some high times ahead.
Take it slow and Daddy-O,
You can live it up and die in bed!

Boy, boy, crazy boy!
Stay loose, boy!
Breeze it, buzz it, easy does it.
Better turn off the juice, boy!
Go man, go,
But not like a yo-yo schoolboy.
Just play it cool, boy,
Real cool!