Sunbeam Rec.
J.J.Light : Heya! (US,1969)***°+*
The very interesting liner notes by Tim Forster explain very well, with all the deeper lying backgrounds, how Jimmy Stallings career started, when supported by Bob Markley who invented his fictive and more native Indian sounding artist name, “JJ Light”, giving also a green light that he should focus on his personal experiences with his native backgrounds. Also explained is how little true native influences had come through at that point.* JJ.Light’s first song, the 7" “Heya” immediately gave him a huge foreign success (especially in Germany and France, while it was printed in 9 countries). Therefore he was sent to England to open up his career, but he failed to make this on his own, and they didn't release his LP in the UK, so therefore never released anything in the US, while in Germany the pressing of his full LP was supported. There also exists a second LP full of unreleased material, which now could be included in this first reissue, from the surviving acetates.
I listened a couple of times to the album and I can feel its strength with well hanging together conceptualized ideas about someone becoming consciously part of the world, with a few songs on dealing with the idea of a love affair. “Silently Sleeping” is a bit Dylanesque in style ; “Until it snows” fits well with Tim Hardin’s songs and singing ; “It’s Wednesday has a more mainstream R&B approach for the accompaniment ; while most songs are driven with a rock approach and often, heavy rock & fuzz guitars. “Heya” is indeed one of his strongest songs & approaches, with the native chant to the front and in the context of being confronted with his own origins while growing up. Technically and musically, “Yey Yo Hanna Wa” repeats this successful mix and formula. A song that could have been a risk was “Indian Disneyland” about the wish for his origins to be taken seriously, but is especially provokative for the sentence “give us back all our land”.
The bonus tracks fit a bit less with the idea of the originally intended personal concept, and are often more mainstream in arrangements, like more upbeat easy rhythms, additional brass, gospel-like vocal arrangements.., a more popular rock approach, which seems also to have more generalizing song lyrical ideas, while globalizing himself further. However within such a mainstream approach some lyrics feel much more easily controversial. For creating a new red skinned Dylan it needed more than just facing one’s own disappointments. The concluding track is a slightly more upbeat rocking version of “Heya”.
* There is mentioned Jim Pepper’s song “Watchi Tai To”, also covered by Buffy Saint-Marie, how clichés images of red Indians made it to a few songs, with a song around the subject, by John D Loudermilk’s “Indian Reservation” (covered and made to a hit by Paul Revere & The Raiders), and the mainstream rock bands Redbone and Xit.
