Jameson "Color Him In" (Verve Records), 1967
Friday, April 2, 2022
If only the walls could speak of the shadows and ghosts that walk and live within. Bobby Jameson made an album in 1967 for Verve Records called Color Him In. Not a great album, but one that haunts me like all art that fails to reach its potential. I think about failure a lot because I feel if one doesn’t fail, they miss something meaningful in their lives. Success is overrated, but to dwell on failure means one jumped in with both feet and no fear of the results. Still, it’s a strange record that keeps pulling me in.
Color Him In is co-produced by Curt Boetcher, who is another ghost in the system like Jameson. He was the brains and music heart of the band known as The Millennium, a supergroup of psychedelic musicians doing commercial (well, sort of) sunshine pop music. The context of its year 1968 is when the lightness of the Love Culture turned from light to darkness. Sunshine Pop reflects those times, where if you take just the music, it’s happy-go-lucky with gorgeous melodies and harmonies but reflects the turning of that culture into something more dark-like and scary.
The Jameson is co-produced by Boetcher, as well as Jim Bell and Steve Clark. All three producers part of the Los Angeles music scene along with Bobby. Color Him In conveys a sound of sweetness with Jameson’s soulful voice, but the songs also have slicked backup singing. There is tension between the backup singing and Jameson’s lead. It conveys a lightness but with an undercurrent of dread and anxiety. There are traces of Forever Changes by Love within the songs, and there are intense Arthur Lee-like vocalisms throughout the album. Jameson is an interesting singer, but he’s not in the same league as Lee’s genius in melody, words, and intense persona.
Still, this record refuses to leave, and layers of meaning or sounds come through repeated listening. I first discovered Jameson a few years ago due to the single All I Want Is My Baby b/w Each and Every Day. Andrew Loog Oldham put together a masterpiece single in 1964, and Oldham wrote All I Want… with Keith Richards, and the b-side is by Jagger/Richards. It’s a Stones-planet classic. One has to go on a journey to locate and hear the side-projects or off-shoots of The Stones's world, where one finds gold. Jameson is one of the gold pieces that come up after mining the rivers of sound and vision.
Jameson traveled from Surf music to Frank Zappa and the Rolling Stones. A traveler without luggage. Here are some samples of his music:
Let's Surf by Bobby James aka Bobby Jameson, 1963
Take This Lollipop by Bobby James aka Bobby Jameson, 1963
I Wanna Love You by Bobby Jameson, 1964
I'm So Lonely by Bobby Jameson, 1964
Roogalator by Bobby Jameson, Arranged and guitar by Frank Zappa, 1966