Classic Stax Single of the Week
May 26th, 2007 byJohnnie Taylor: “Jody’s Got Your Girl and Gone”
From the Album: One Step Beyond
Originally released 1970
#1 R&B, #28 Pop
“Jody’s Got Your Girl and Gone” by Johnnie Taylor was co-written by Kent Barker, James Wilson and Don Davis, who was by this time quite entrenched in working with Al Bell at Stax, with venerable label stalwart guitarist Steve Cropper either leading or putting the finishing touches on the supporting instrumental ensemble. “Jody” is probably the only soul song with its chorus based on the “call and response” of typical military marching cadence, as Taylor barks out “Ain’t no sense in going home” and the backup singers reply “Jody’s got your girl and gone,“ each in lockstep with each other’s, and with the band’s, rhythm.
Like a genuine street-smart dealer, Taylor plays both ends against the middle in this torrid soul stomp. The song is mostly but not exclusively sympathetic to the hard-working man who got his girl ripped off by smooth operator called Jody: “Jody leaves ashes in your ashtray/ Footprints on your carpet while you work all day/ He even got the nerve to sleep in your bed/ Sit down at your table and eat your bread/ When you get home after working hard all day/ Jody’s got your girl and he’s gone away…” The instrumental backup churns out thick and hot, equal parts hurting soul and throbbing funk, right on time.
Taylor chose “Jody” to close his performance Live at the Summit Club in Los Angeles, a live version that has probably proved longer-lived than the original single. Whatever problems Taylor might have had with his backup band throughout this show seem completely hammered out and smoothed over by the time they erupt into this “Jody” finale, which stays ferociously in the pocket of its dense jungle groove, through which Taylor prowls and roars like a soul tiger.
In this live version, Taylor also riffs on the virtues of this Jody cat, who simply took advantage of the opening that the other man left because he was always at work, away from his woman at home, and raps to the crowd to bring the curtain down: “You know what I like about Jody? He had enough sense to express himself: He told her how good she looked, he told her how pretty she walked, he told her how cute she talked, ooowww!”
The complete performance Live at the Summit Club clocks in at nearly nine minutes; six-minute edits appear in the Wattstax documentary and soundtrack and on “Disc Four - Live” of The Stax Story 4-CD box set. The original, studio version of “Jody’s Got Your Girl and Gone” was the last single Stax released in 1970; it ascended to #28 Pop single and stayed at #1 R&B single for two weeks in 1971.
