baby Don't You Weep - Silly Question probably

[Swifty]

Was looking at Fred Bridges - Baby Don't You Weep and obviously thought of Edward Hamilton and they are different records but Edward Hamilton in the credits has F.Bridges ?

is this the same bloke ? By the way remember paying £6 or £7 for Edward Hamilton at Soul Bowl + Harold Melvin - Get Out - £5 and Mighty Lovers - Mighty Lover £4 but was on about £12 a week lol . Fook knows where they are now !!!! 

 

Swifty

[Kevinkent]

Definately the same person.

I remember reading the details surrounding this before. Check out "The Fred Bridges Story" courtesy of the Soulful Detroit website as the details should be there somewhere - certainly scans of both 45's are. Would dig deeper for you but I'm in a bit of a rush at the 'mo.

- Kev

[Robbk]

Yes, Fred Bridges, of Bridges, Knight & Eaton, also wrote and sang "Baby Don't You Weep" (co-written with his friend, Harrison Smith) which was recorded at Wilbur Golden's Correc-Tone Studios in spring 1962, by Robert Bateman, and leased to New York's Versatile Records.  Bateman later recorded Wilson Pickett singing it in 1963, and leased it to Lloyd Price and Harold Logan's Double-L Records in New York.  But, probably due to Price's suggestion, the song was retitled "I'm Coming Home".

As assistant A&R man at Lou Beatty's and James Hendrix's La Beat Records, Bridges wrote Edward Hamilton's "Baby Don't You Weep"(co-written with Richard Knight) in late 1966, giving it the title, "I'm Coming Home".  However, it was NOT a case of the songwriter forgetting that he had written another song with that title only 4 years before.  Beatty, changed the title of the song title from "I'm Coming Home" to "Baby Don't You Weep" (unaware that Fred Bridges had previously written a different song, which had that same title. 

In any case, Bridges now has a situation, in which he has written 2 different versions of "Baby Don't You Weep".

There are several instances of other songwriters (usually with long careers) writing 2 different songs using the same title.  "Action Speaks Louder Than Words" written by Berry Gordy for Mable John in 1960, released on Tamla Records, and then a different song with that same title, written by Berry, together with his writing partner, Roquel (Billy) Davis in 1960 or early 1961, released on Davis' Check-Mate Records in late 1961, comes to mind.  Again, this might be a case of a person other than the writer of the first song to use that title, changing the title of the second song, without having known that that same writer wrote a song with the same title used by the second song's changed title.  In the case of the Berry Gordy song, Gordy was no longer involved, when Billy Davis released the David Ruffin song on his Check-Mate Records.  The song had been co-written while Davis and Berry Gordy were both working with Davis' and Berry's sisters' Anna Records.

Edited December 5, 2015 by RobbK

[Kevinkent]

I was wondering if you would step in and give us the details. Well done Robb!

- Kev

[Chalky]

Fred Bridges also one of the Brothers Of Soul. 

[Robbk]

4 minutes ago, chalky said:

Fred Bridges also one of the Brothers Of Soul. 

Yes.  Fred was actually the main artistic driving force of that trio.

[Robbk]

To add even more confusion to the "I'm Coming Home"/"Baby Don't You Weep" saga, another Detroit artist, Buddy Lamp, recorded a song titled "I'm Coming Home" for Detroit's Peanut Records, in 1963, that was also published by Lloyd and Logan Music, Double-L's music publishing company, who had gotten half of the publishing rights to "Baby Don't You Weep" sung by Wilson Pickett when Double-L had leased Wilson Pickett's production from Bateman in that same year.

Bateman also leased productions he had done on Buddy Lamp to Double-L.   BOTH were Detroit productions involving artists whose recordings were being leased from the same source (Robert Bateman).  I don't think Bateman was involved in Lamp's Peanut Records productions, but Double-L bought a share of "I'm Coming Home's" publishing, nevertheless (which Lamp had recorded before his work with Bateman ("My Tears", which was leased to Double-L).  I wonder how that came about?

I also like very much the version of Baby Don't You Weep" by Luther Ingram, which Robert Bateman record in Ingram's first session in 1964.

 

 

Edited December 5, 2015 by RobbK

[Benji]

Robb, maybe i'm just misreading it, but are you saying that Wilson Pickett's version of "Baby don't you weep" was actually released as "I'm coming home"? Because on all 45 and LP releases I've seen of it it's always titled "baby don't you weep"?

[Robbk]

17 minutes ago, Benji said:

Robb, maybe i'm just misreading it, but are you saying that Wilson Pickett's version of "Baby don't you weep" was actually released as "I'm coming home"? Because on all 45 and LP releases I've seen of it it's always titled "baby don't you weep"?

You were reading correctly.  You are correct that Pickett's version was always listed as "Baby Don't You Weep" on the Double-L LP (which I never owned), and also on the Liberty re-issues.  I stand corrected.  I must have been thinking of Mack Rice's "Baby, I'm Coming Home".  Must have been "a senior moment".

[Swifty]

Thanks for Info everyone

 

much appreciated

 

Swifty

[Ljblanken]

On December 5, 2015 at 9:33:33 AM, RobbK said:

 

There are several instances of other songwriters (usually with long careers) writing 2 different songs using the same title.  "Action Speaks Louder Than Words" written by Berry Gordy for Mable John in 1960, released on Tamla Records, and then a different song with that same title, written by Berry, together with his writing partner, Roquel (Billy) Davis in 1960 or early 1961, released on Davis' Check-Mate Records in late 1961, comes to mind.  Again, this might be a case of a person other than the writer of the first song to use that title, changing the title of the second song, without having known that that same writer wrote a song with the same title used by the second song's changed title.  In the case of the Berry Gordy song, Gordy was no longer involved, when Billy Davis released the David Ruffin song on his Check-Mate Records.  The song had been co-written while Davis and Berry Gordy were both working with Davis' and Berry's sisters' Anna Records.

didn't Bobby Womack have this situation with the title "what is this" (Keyman and Minit)

[Robbk]

6 hours ago, ljblanken said:

didn't Bobby Womack have this situation with the title "what is this" (Keyman and Minit)

Isn't "What is This" on Minit basically the same song as the Keyman version, just "modernised" and reworked into a different, updated style?  Whereas, Fred Bridges' and Edward Hamilton's two songs titled "Baby Don't You Weep" are totally unrelated in any way other than the titles and being written and co-written by Fed Bridges.

[Sunnysoul]

1 hour ago, RobbK said:

Isn't "What is This" on Minit basically the same song as the Keyman version, just "modernised" and reworked into a different, updated style?  Whereas, Fred Bridges' and Edward Hamilton's two songs titled "Baby Don't You Weep" are totally unrelated in any way other than the titles and being written and co-written by Fed Bridges.

No Robb, they really are two different tunes:

The Keyman recording :

 

The Minit recording :

 

 

 

 

[Sunnysoul]

1 hour ago, RobbK said:

Isn't "What is This" on Minit basically the same song as the Keyman version, just "modernised" and reworked into a different, updated style?  Whereas, Fred Bridges' and Edward Hamilton's two songs titled "Baby Don't You Weep" are totally unrelated in any way other than the titles and being written and co-written by Fed Bridges.

Robb,  I would have thought the "Baby Don't You Weep" releases by Fred Bridges and Edward Hamilton  owe their genesis to the traditional gospel standard "Mary Don't You Weep". There have been a  multitude of  songs over the years with the title "Baby/Mary Don't you Weep " ,  certainly well before the  Fred Bridges and Edward  Hamilton records, done as slow ballads as well as rousing uptempo and often with the title and lyrics altered in any number of ways. It's a bit clever really of Fred Bridges and Harrison Smith  to claim authorship of the song but to be fair to them they weren't the first to claim authorship of such standard gospel tunes. Very much like the numerous versions of that other standard "Wade In The Water".  Admittedly Edward Hamilton's record uses the title "Baby Don't You Weep"  but the lyrics  bear little resemblance to the gospel standard.

Anyway here's a short history of the gospel tune Mary Don't You Weep:

The song tells the Biblical story of Mary of Bethany and her distraught pleas to Jesus to raise her brother Lazarus from the dead. Other narratives relate to The Exodus and the Passage of the Red Sea, with the chorus proclaiming Pharaoh's army got drown-ded!, and to God's rainbow covenant to Noah after the Great Flood. With liberation thus one of its themes, the song again become popular during the 1950's and 1960's American Civil Rights Movement. Additionally, a song that explicitly chronicles the victories of the Civil Rights Movement, "If You Miss Me from the Back of the Bus", written by Charles Neblett of The Freedom Singers, was sung to this tune and became one of the most well-known songs of that movement.
The first recording of the song was by the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1915. The best known recordings were made by the vocal gospel group The Caravans in 1958, with Inez Andrews as the lead singer, and The Swan Silvertones in 1959. "Mary Don't You Weep" became The Swan Silvertones' greatest hit, and lead singer Claude Jeter's interpolation "I'll be a bridge over deep water if you trust in my name" served as Paul Simon's inspiration to write his 1970 song "Bridge over Troubled Water". The spiritual's lyric God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water the fire next time inspired the title for The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin's 1963 account of race relations in America.
Many other recordings have been made, by artists ranging from The Soul Stirrers to Burl Ives. Pete Seeger gave it additional folk music visibility by performing it at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival, and played it many times throughout his career, adapting the lyrics and stating the song's relevance as an American song, not just a spiritual. In 1960, Stonewall Jackson recorded a country version of the song, where Mary is a young woman left by her lover on the wedding day to fight in the civil war, and he died in the burning of Atlanta; the song became a hit when it peaked at #12 in Country charts and #41 in Pop charts. In the 1960's, Jamaican artist Justin Hinds had a ska hit with "Jump Out Of The Frying Pan", whose lyrics borrowed heavily from the spiritual. Paul Clayton's version "Pharaoh's Army" appears in "Home-Made Songs & Ballads", which was released in 1961. James Brown rewrote the lyrics of the original spiritual for his 1964 soul hit "Oh Baby Don't You Weep". Aretha Franklin recorded a live version of the song for her 1972 album Amazing Grace. An a cappella version by Take 6, simply called "Mary", received wide airplay after appearing on the group's eponymous debut album in 1988. The song is sung briefly at the beginning of the music video for Bone Thugs N Harmony's 1996 "Tha Crossroads".

[Robbk]

10 hours ago, ljblanken said:

didn't Bobby Womack have this situation with the title "what is this" (Keyman and Minit)

Both songs by Womack have his name as songwriter, the same as fred Bridges.  but Bridges didn't give them both the same title.  His second song with that title, sung by Hamilton, was renamed in his absence.   I doubt that happened with Womack.  I doubt that his Minit recording was renamed by Imperial Records people without his knowledge.  Could he have forgotten that he wrote a song only 1 or 2 years earlier, with that same title?  When he submitted the song to BMI to have it published, wouldn't the processing people notice that?

I, myself, have noticed a similar problem in my own work.  I have been writing stories since 1984, and noticed that I wrote two stories with the same title.  But, fortunately, I submitted them to the same publisher, the second one 16 years after the first.  They informed me of my oversight, and I promptly changed the title of the second story to an alternate one, which sufficed just as well.  It only mattered in my host country, The Netherlands, as the titles in all the translations would have been different from the first story's in those languages.

[Ljblanken]

not sure about the copyright issues, but they seem like two different tunes (and there is almost no lyrical overlap other than repeating the title in both songs). maybe a "musical" person could comment on the song structure, key, etc. that's beyond my knowledge.