Martin Luther King would have turned 83 today. It would be nice to think that, if he was alive, he could look toward a nation that was still progressing, that the arc of our nation’s moral universe was still bending toward justice, but when the President can openly disparage certain continents as “shitholes” while asking why we just can’t have more people from Norway come here, optimism is in short supply. Given the lack of sensitivity shown over the last year, it’s a wonder some store didn’t decide to celebrate Dr. King’s birthday with a White Sale. (What no one appears to have noticed is that, in addition to being outright racist, the reason Norway popped into Il Douché’s mind was because, earlier that day, he’d met with Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg. So we have a President whose understanding of the world is limited to the last person he spoke to.)
Esquire’s Charles P. Pierce (his angry, morally precise coverage of the Age of Trump is essential reading) demands that we take the halo off of King’s legacy, and honor him for his more radical agenda, remembering that King was in Memphis to march with striking public service workers); the Esquire.com is also running James Baldwin’s wrenching 1972 report on King’s funeral.
Here at Gloomy Tunes, he is, of course, the middle panel of “Abraham Martin and John,” a 1968 hit for Dion. But we’re not going to make you listen to his maudlin, over-produced version, replete with strings, flugelhorn, respectfully strummed acoustic guitars, and a harp (we love Dion, just not this Dion).
Marvin Gaye’s 1970 version is just as lushly produced, floating on a bed of strings and glockenspiel, but Marvin seems much more comfortable in this setting than Dion, who sounded like a hippie set down in the middle of an orchestra, lending a blue-jeaned youthfulness to buttoned-down easy listening. (The song’s writer and producer’s previous hit? The Royal Guardmen’s “Snoopy vs. The Red Barron”) Marvin’s cream tenor floats above the music, the seductive urge his voice usually carried turned into a palpable loss. The song is also first step toward the soul-protest of “What’s Going On.” Harry Belafonte, who marched and worked with Dr. King, takes things right to church, his resonant, raspy voice taking on urgency and sadness with every verse, backed by strings and a pipe organ. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles take things to a very different church, with a version that starts off plaintive before finding a percussive testifying groove.
The song quickly became something of a touchstone, a way for sixties and seventies singing to show their liberal bona fides. Which is the only reason we can come up with for Leonard Nimoy’s very odd version. He takes the song perfectly straight, but the arrangement doesn’t want you to forget he’s Mr. Spock, with steel guitar wizzing like asteroids and a honking horn section, it’s atomic cocktail folk.
Since we are celebrating Martin Luther King’s birthday, we’d be remiss if we didn’t include Stevie Wonder‘s “Happy Birthday,” a rousing demand for a King Holiday, while throwing some side-eye to then-Arizona Governor Evan Mecham, who refused to honor the holiday. Mavis Staples, who sang for Dr. King in 1963, remembers Dr. King through action, “in the march of peace/I played the drum” she sings, over a lovely, finger-picked figure.
It’s not available on Spotify, but we had to share Moms Mabley’s hit version of “Abraham, Martin & John”:
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