Maxine Brown: Funny (1961)

 |   |  1 min read

Maxine Brown: Funny (1961)

There's something very satisfying about don't-care-anymore songs. The world is awash with the luvvy stuff but every now and again a song comes along which says, "Yep, but I'm over you".

An Elsewhere favourite is Solomon King's exceptional Happy Again which really put that grand passion into perspective.

Yeah, I loved and I lost and am hurt. But jeez, life goes on . . .

They should make that one compulsory listening for those who think their world has ended because the love has gone. Life goes on.

And also this one by the soul/rhythm and blues singer Brown who later had the Sweet Inspirations (who famously went on to work Elvis) as her back-up singers. She had a big hit in '64 with the Goffin-King-penned Oh No, Not My Baby which was a hit again for Rod Stewart a decade later.

She also delivered the exceptional We'll Cry Together (below). 

But Brown never really cracked the charts in any meaningful way although has always been much respected for her ability to cross from pop to soul and then on to r'n'b . . . and back again.

Word was her career at the Wand label was overshadowed when they decided to focus on someone called Dionne Warwick. But did Dionne ever deliver a don't-care-anymore song like this?

Funny how you can just get over someone, innit? 

For more oddities, one-offs or songs with an interesting backstory use the RSS feed for daily updates, and check the massive back-catalogue at From the Vaults.

Share It

Your Comments

Jeffrey Paparoa Holman - Aug 24, 2011

Hi Graham.
What s soul singer - thanks again for letting me listen. She's wonderful-ain't fate cruel in the music business, that she is not as well known as Dionne Warwick? She sings as strongly, and the lyrics are great.
Cheers
Jeffrey

post a comment

More from this section   From the Vaults articles index

Dinah Washington: Evil Gal Blues (1943)

Dinah Washington: Evil Gal Blues (1943)

Written by Lionel Hampton and Leonard Feather, Evil Gal Blues perfectly captured the independent spirit of black women at the time, and was the first recording by Dinah Washington and started her... > Read more

Yoko Ono: Nobody Sees Me like You Do (1981)

Yoko Ono: Nobody Sees Me like You Do (1981)

Marlon Williams has sometimes picked up unusual songs to cover – not the least being Billy Fury's I'm Lost Without You – but to hear him do Yoko Ono's Nobody Sees Me Like You Do in... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

ODD MODELS AND MAD MANNEQUINS, PART ONE (2023): They walk among us

ODD MODELS AND MAD MANNEQUINS, PART ONE (2023): They walk among us

If we believe what we see and read, in the very near future – if it hasn't happened already – we'll share the planet with human-like robots who will take our order, bring us our dinner... > Read more

MAN ON WIRE by JAMES MARSH (Madman DVD)

MAN ON WIRE by JAMES MARSH (Madman DVD)

Anyone who ever stepped out onto the roof of one of the Twin Towers would have been struck by three things: the view from that height; that height when you looked directly down; and the power of... > Read more