We all know that The Age of Aquarius produced a lot of songs that mirrored the social unrest of the times. From Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" to Edwin Starr's "War," there were a helluva lot of musicians angry at The Man. One of angriest such songs came from the unlikely source of a jazzman who was previously not known for his singing. Nevertheless, keyboardist Les McCann achieved immortality for his soul-jazz classic rendition of "Compared To What."
If you're not familiar with the tune, just one verse out of it should give you a pretty good idea of the rage contained within, not to mention the vintage lingo: "The President, he's got his war / Folks don't know just what it's for / Nobody gives us rhyme or reason / Have one doubt, they call it treason / We're chicken-feathers, all without one gut (God damn it!) / Tryin' to make it real — compared to what? (Sock it to me, now.)"
The song was actually written for McCann by 60’s R&B singer Gene McDaniels, the man who also penned the 1974 hit "Feel Like Makin' Love” for Roberta Flack. Like McCann, McDaniels was not generally not known to be the rebellious type.
McCann's partner in crime for this song, Eddie Harris, was also a giant in the jazz of the greasy variety, his tenor sounding as righteous as Maceo’s alto. Benny Bailey rounds out the front line with a rather sassy sounding trumpet. Recorded live at the fledgling Montreaux Jazz Festival in the year of Woodstock, “Compared To What” is the opening track of the McCann/Harris Swiss Movement release.
There’s been scores of other versions since this original; Flack, Ronnie Law, Brian Auger, even Al Jarreau. None of those cats could give the song the edge that McCann, Harris and the rest of the band brought to it on that June day in Switzerland. But after all these years of them trying, a most unlikely source, the space rock band Mushroom finally came up with a worthy runner-up in 2000.
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Article comments
1 - gatey
Flack had the origial