SECOND GLANCE: The Betty Wright way

Betty Wright has new a CD called The Movie. She made it with The Roots, and Snoop and Lil Wayne are featured, but this isn't a hip-hop record. It's a Betty Wright album through and through.

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SECOND GLANCE: The Betty Wright way

POSTED: Friday, December 9, 2011, 2:00 PM

Filed Under: Music

Betty Wright has new a CD called The Movie. She made it with The Roots, and Snoop and Lil Wayne are featured, but this isn’t a hip-hop record. It’s a Betty Wright album through and through. In fact, on the first track, she sets the tone by praising the soul greats and criticizing the hip-hop generation’s dependency on samples. On “Old Songs,” she sings:

“When you’re thirty-five or forty / And you’re chilling with your shorty / What you gon’ listen to? / What you gon’ listen to / If you ain’t making nothing new”

In a sense, this was her chance to school younguns on game, and she took it. She continues on “Old Songs” by singing:

“You ain’t even writing one strong song / You ain’t even writing nothing to hold on.”

Wright can say what she wants about songwriting. She hasn’t just written strong songs, she’s written strong classics. But after receiving decades of royalty checks from hip-hop artists and putting out one of the most sample-ready records of 2011, does she really think it’s time for young folk to do something different?

For an old-school-soul songstress like Ms. Wright, putting out tracks that scream “sample me!” is good business. On The Movie she caters to her audience by invoking the work of soul and R&B greats. And she even seems to do some sampling of her on The Movie's “Baby Come Back” with Lenny Williams. The backgrounds vocals sound like strings on the intro to Isaac Hayes’ “Walk On By.”

The liner notes don’t credit the reference. But here’s the thing: Even if they did, they wouldn’t list the person who wrote that melody in particular. “Walk On By” was a cover. Burt Bacharach and Hal Davis wrote the Dionne Warwick original. The breathtaking orchestral arrangement that shapes the mythic proportions of Hayes’ 12-minute interpretation? Not on the original. Still, all songwriting credits of Hayes’ version go to the original composers. For example, you may remember that Biggie’s “Warning” samples the Isaac Hayes rendition. The song’s composers are listed as Biggie (Christopher Wallace,) Easy Mo Dee (Osten Harvey, Jr.), Burt Bacharach and Hal Davis.

When Betty Wright sued Color Me Badd in 1991 for illegally sampling the live version of “Tonight is the Night” on "I Wanna Sex You Up," she was awarded 35 percent of the royalties. Interestingly enough, however, WhoSampled.com lists “Tonight is the Night” for lifting a Booker T. and the MGs riff. When hip-hop first arrived on the scene, people considered sampling radical. But it looks like borrowing tracks started way before then.

(cassie.owens@citypaper.net) (@cassieowens)

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