“What we were doing was just out of vogue,” says Don Was. “Nobody was saying, ‘Yeah, keep going.’ It felt like we were lost. I once read this quote in a Bob Dylan interview: He was saying sometimes it’s just not your time, and there’s no sense in fighting it. You don’t want to compromise what you’re doing and chase fashion.”
The breakthrough happened when Dylan was in the studio cutting a vocal. “It was all right — not bad.” Weiss says. “Don says, ‘Great vocal, Bob.’ Bob says, ‘Great? You thought that was great?’ And Don hedges. ‘Well, you could do it again…but yeah, some good stuff on there.’
“A silence descended,” David says, “and what seemed like 100 years passed. I said these words: ‘Yeah Bob, there was something special in the air here tonight. I got the feeling, while you were singing, that had Al Martino walked in here, the two of you could have created a very special magic together.’
” ‘Al Martino?’ Dylan said. ‘Al Martino?’ Then: ‘Al Martino wouldn’t walk into a room unless it had a ceiling fan in it.’ ”
“At the Birchmere, the set was occasionally weakened by stereotypical arrangements with obligatory guitar solos and generic saxophone interludes. The combo sounded best when the focus was on the vocalists: the raspy soul of Sweet Pea Atkinson, the middle range of Sir Harry Bowens, and the falsetto of Donald Ray Mitchell. Mitchell’s lead made the new tragic ballad “From the Head to the Heart” work, while the three added church-rooted harmonies on several cuts.”
“So Friday night at World Cafe Live, where a reactivated Was (Not Was) kicked out the Motor City jams for a loyal, if not quite teeming, crowd of revelers, I walked in persuadable and walked out persuaded.”
Philadelphia Show review from Jonathan Valania In The Inquirer
ok saw was not was in philly last night
i saw the show at the trocedero in 2005 and this show was just as good. having seen the band 7 or 8 times now i went with some trepidation due to the missing david mcmurray and james gadson no worries these guys are probably the tightest funkiest band on the road right now. great song choices a medley of older songs was awesome, i never expected to hear wheel me out again live. with 3 lead singers i was hoping for anytime lisa i truly love this band. if you can please go see this band they are well worth any price. i am going to see them in virginia on tues so i am twice as excited to see them again.
WHEN A BAND takes off 18 years between albums and then the members try to recapture in their 50s the magic they had in their 30s, the results are usually embarrassing. But “Boo!,” the first Was (Not Was) album of new songs since 1990, is full of improbably catchy songs.
“But it stuns me that there are people - not people I went to high school with, they’re strangers! - who know intimate things about these songs and have really listened to them. It really blows my mind.”
You gotta love an album that starts with the line ‘Monday I was tryin’ ta get my freak on, with a coupla twins from Washington DC’ with absolutely no shame.
This is the new album from the seminal Detroit funk collective – back out of semi-retirement since 1992 – Was (Not Was) also known as Don & David Was and it feels like they were never away.
Weekend Edition Saturday, April 12, 2008 - For almost 30 years, David Weiss and Don Fagenson, along with a rotating cast of musical pranksters, have melded funk and absurdity as the band Was (Not Was).
The group has just released a new album, Boo!, its first new release in more than 15 years. Bandleaders Weiss and Fagenson — a.k.a. David Was and Don Was, respectively — joined Weekend Edition Saturday’s Scott Simon from the studios of NPR West to discuss their unique music.
Boo!
The new album from Was (Not Was) is now available from Amazon BUY NOW
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Boo!
The new album from Was (Not Was) is now available from Amazon BUY NOW
