oh hey great

“Grits Ain’t Groceries” - Little Milton (1969)

It’s not always about the voice for me. Usually, and mostly, but not always.

Sometimes it’s about the whole package.

Look, this is a record called “Grits Ain’t Groceries.” You know, before you begin, it’s going to be good. I mean it: good. Because if grits ain’t groceries, then what the hell are they?

From those first shimmering guitar chords to the opening plaintive wail to - POW! POW! - the horns. Those goddamn horns!

Let’s get into! LISTEN!

So that’s what grits are, if they ain’t groceries. They’re the basis of the hottest call-and-response, vocals-and-horns, cymbals crashing, deep bass line riding hit me hot damn sonuvabitch ode to loving a woman walking this whole EARTH for her, telling her just how much you’ll do to prove it.

Do you hear that horn section? Are you really paying attention to it? It’s so smooth, you can barely even make out each individual horn. So crisp, the timing so tight, those horns just glide atop the cymbals, punctuate Little Milton’s every verse: YEOW! BLAAAP! You are up and then you are just so, so, so down.

And Little Milton himself, lest we forget, is pouring every ounce of his Little Miltonian self into this epic - in the truest, Homerian sense of the word - tale of self-sacrifice: He would fight for you, woman. He would dig for you, woman. Don’t you know? You KNOW, I love you baby. And if I don’t? Grits ain’t grocies. Eggs ain’t poultry. And Mona Lisa was a man.

(looking for last week’s Soul Sunday? go here.)