Jody Sticker

Daddy B. Nice's #99 ranked Southern Soul Artist

"Five Minutes"

Jody Sticker

Composed by Gerry Roberts

November 19, 2010: NEW ALBUM ALERT

Bargain-Priced Make It Move CD

Comparison-Priced Make It Move CD

Read Daddy B. Nice's Review of Jody Sticker's Make It Move CD (Scroll down to Tidbits #5.

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See "Tidbits" below for the latest updates on Jody Sticker.

To automatically link to Jody Sticker's charted radio singles, awards, CD's and other references, go to "Sticker, Jody" in Daddy B. Nice's Comprehensive Index.

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Daddy B. Nice's Original Critique:

It's about time, as we near the end of our journey through Daddy B. Nice's top 100 Southern Soul artists, to celebrate the R-rated side of Southern Soul. To "fess up" to the mainstream masses that yes, sometimes a chitlin' circuit song is just too full of objectionable material to get played on commercial radio.

To even consider adult material an issue in the age of rap, when the problem of R-rated language is solved by censoring certain words and phrases, seems absurd. But Southern Soul music is less about obscene language than it is about adult themes: entire verse-and-chorus songs built around a sexual metaphor, the most obvious example, of course, being Clarence Carter's seminal Southern Soul hit, "Strokin'," a no-holds-barred testimonial to "doin' it," as LL Cool J would say.

What does one censor in "Strokin'"? There is no graphic language per se. You'd have to censor the entire song, because it's a lewd, unrepentant and unashamed celebration of a graphic subject, graphic theme and graphic image.

Don't misunderstand. Southern Soul music professionals as a whole do hold themselves to a higher moral standard than their hiphop counterparts. Graphic violence and misogyny, for example, are unheard of.

Much of Southern Soul's ambivalence about its own "wild side" has to do with Gospel. The huge majority of Southern Soul performers grew up going to church and excelling at gospel music, and once they become secular performers, most Southern Soul artists still want to be associated with God and the Deity's friends here on earth, even as they ply the Devil's side of the tracks called rhythm and blues. They don't call it the "Bible Belt" for "nothin'."

But even as Southern Soul as an "industry" stresses the humanity and balanced nature of its adult themes, its practitioners--from the old masters like Carter, Marvin Sease and Bobby Rush to the young guns like Sheba Potts-Wright and Theodis Ealey--offer sex on stage every night in small, steamy rooms on the chitlin' circuit. It's everything you'd dream about in your fantasies of finding the ultimate "hole in the wall": sweating dancers, smoke, liquor and hormones all swirling around a larger-than life performer unafraid to front for sexual healing.

On any given night that performer might be a two-hundred-pound-plus man butt-ass naked except for a gold satin diaper. It might be a sexagenarian diva like Dorothy Moore spewing profanity that would make a construction worker blush. Or it might be Jody Sticker, with his lewd performing name, flanked by giant phallic symbols.

You can look at this from a moral point of view, or you can look at it from an economic point of view. The economic reality is that people are poor on the chitlin' circuit. They work hard for what they get, and that is often very little. And when they put down precious dollars to blow off a little steam on a Friday or Saturday night, they want to be entertained, and the more humorous and scandalous the performance, the better to tell one's friends and neighbors about later. ("You know what that crazy so-and-so did? . . . ")

Which brings up an interesting cart-before-the-horse question. Was it the isolation forced upon it by the mainstream music industry that fostered the "stroking" and "candy-licking" and "cheatin' in the next room" of Southern Soul music? Or was it the chitlin' circuit lewdness that brought about the isolation?

Chitlin' circuit R&B has been marginalized for more than thirty years--since (roughly speaking) Bobby "Blue" Bland's last great pop hit, "Ain't Nothin' You Can Do," Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" and Brook Benton's "Rainy Night In Georgia". So long, in fact, that hardly anyone today remembers when adult R&B was an integral part of mainstream pop in America.

Yet, believe it or not, today's Southern Soul is the stronger for it musically. Why? Because the apartheid forced Southern R&B artists into a tight-knit community. A community, it might be added, that was already unified and culturally isolated by its relative poverty (a glimpse of which modern Americans finally saw in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina). That isolation created a lot of musical freedom for those musicians tough enough and fortunate enough to keep their careers going. Thus, one could argue that adult R&B (which has blossomed into today's Southern Soul) actually benefited--artistically, at any rate--by its marginalization.


Certainly, the Southern Soul audience benefits. You won't find much red-blooded, American sex in "disco" or "cool jazz" or "adult-alternative" or what passes for "rock" these days.

Jody Sticker's "Five Minutes," ironically enough, is a very tame version of this sexual prevalence. Indeed, "Five Minutes" may be the most "suburban" Southern Soul record pressed to date (about which, more in a minute).

A more fitting example of the Sticker emphasis on sex is "Hickory Log" (also from Sticker's debut CD, 5 Minutes). Here the subject is exactly what the title suggests, a big piece of "wood" capable of rendering a willing woman speechless. It's a "slow-burning" log.

"Hickory log can burn all night,
And still be smoking hot
In the morning light."

The song will remind Southern Soul aficionados of Vickie Baker's "Tootsie Roll" (modified to "Tussy Roll" to avoid trademark issues), another graphic metaphor that leaves nothing to the imagination. And the vocal by Sticker will remind fans of Sorrento Ussery's breathy, sinuous singing style--a crooner's medium very different from the bafflingly flawed yet perfect-for-the-song technique Sticker uses in his signature hit, "Five Minutes."

So what is it about "Five Minutes"? This is a song that works on so many different levels it's hard to say whether it's more about sex or today's merciless bondage to the clock.

"I said I want to make love,
You say we didn't have time.
Say your friends will be here in an hour.
You don't want to get caught."

"Five Minutes" goes by faster than a track by the Ramones. You're amazed to find the time of the record lasts three-plus minutes. Interspersed with the understated melody (buttressed by a fine horn chorus) is the banter of two suburbanites arguing about whether there is time for a "quickie" before the company arrives.

"Baby, why don't you call 'em?"

"We ain't got enough time."

"You know they got to come all the way across town. And you know they're going to stop and get some chicken wings."

"We ain't got enough time."

"We got a little time. It'll be a whole hour before they get here."

Jody sings the track in the off-hand, understated style of an Adult-Alternative star like Beck or Tricky, which both adds to the recording's charm and reinforces the atmosphere of 9-to-5 monotony, commuting and fragile social ties that form the couple's life.

At the end Jody's woman, exhausted by the arguing, finally gives in with a sarcastic reply.

"If you think you can get it,
Come on and get it."

And everything suddenly is all right in the Jody Sticker household.

--Daddy B. Nice

About Jody Sticker

Jody Sticker (Gerry Roberts) was born in Montgomery, Alabama. His debut disc, 5 Minutes, was released by Mardi Gras Records in 2005. The album boasted first-rate production and arrangements distinguished by outstanding keyboard and horn riffs. The vocals were understated and muted, lending an air of street-wise authenticity to the songs.

"Five Minutes" was the undisputed hit from the CD. It gained widespread airplay on all chitlin' circuit radio outlets. "Hickory Log" was the follow-up single on most Stations of the Deep South, although it didn't gain the notoriety and popularity of "Five Minutes."

"Five Minutes" was honored with the lead-off track on the Mardi Gras sampler, Down South Party Mix (2005). A new Jody Sticker track, "Jump Up In It," was featured on the 2006 Mardi Gras sampler, Southern Soul Now!

Song's Transcendent Moment

"Let me kiss you real quick.
Let me lick it just a little bit.
Let me stroke it for a minute.
Stand up in it for two minutes.
All I need--five minutes."

Tidbits

1.

"Stand up in it," from the "Five Minutes" chorus, is yet another reference to Theodis Ealey's hit song, "Stand Up In It," which is quickly becoming the most ubiquitous phrase in the Southern Soul lyrical lexicon.

2.

September 17, 2007. I'm informed by a fan that Jody Sticker did release at least one other CD prior to Five Minutes. No other information on it as yet. DBN.

3.

(Reprinted from Daddy B. Nice's CD Reviews Page)

September 29, 2009:

JODY STICKER: Mr. Booty Do Right (CDS) Four Stars **** Distinguished effort. Should please old fans and gain new.

If You Liked. . . You'll Love

If you loved Dr. John's "Right Place, Wrong Time," you'll love Jody Sticker's "Five Minutes."

Honorary "B" Side

"Mr. Booty Do Right"