By David Renard
Dear listeners,
Happy April Fools’ Day, when you can’t believe anything you read on the internet! Trust that this playlist is a prank-free space, though: We’re just gathering up some of the many fools who have been immortalized in song over the years, by soul singers (Aretha Franklin), blues legends (Bobby “Blue” Bland) and new wavers (Bow Wow Wow). Country and classic rock are in the mix, too — there’s a little something for everyone who’s ever fooled around and fell in love. So hit play, give those dubious corporate social media posts a miss and we’ll try to ride this out together.
Everybody plays the fool sometime,
Dave
Listen along while you read.
1. Aretha Franklin: “April Fools”
Dionne Warwick sang this Burt Bacharach-Hal David theme song for a 1969 romantic comedy starring Jack Lemmon and Catherine Deneuve before Aretha Franklin covered it on her “Young, Gifted and Black” LP three years later. The intro to the Queen of Soul’s arrangement is giving “Jingle Bells,” but it quickly settles into a soulful boogie with a soaring chorus where new love is trailed by doubt: “Are we just April fools / who can’t see all the danger around?”
2. The Doobie Brothers: “What a Fool Believes”
What a chorus on this one: Michael McDonald’s blue-eyed soul swoops upward into a falsetto that’s almost Bee Gees-level. Does it matter that absolutely no one can tell what they’re singing on the high part? It does not. (For the record, it’s “No wise man has the power to reason away.”)
3. Led Zeppelin: “Fool in the Rain”
My interest in Led Zeppelin has waxed and waned; I needed an extended post-high school detox after years of hearing the St. Louis classic rock station “get the Led out” every afternoon at quitting time. But listening with fresh ears — and digging deeper than what you’d find in a Cadillac commercial — it’s undeniable that Led Zep has dozens of slappers, like this cut from “In Through the Out Door” (1979). Maybe I need to catch that “Becoming Led Zeppelin” movie after all.
4. Drugdealer: “Fools”
If the Doobies are the sensei of yacht rock, Drugdealer is the young grasshopper learning at their feet. I first encountered “Fools” at a live show in 2018, the 10th-anniversary concert for the Brooklyn record label Mexican Summer, and had never heard Drugdealer before. (I was there for Dungen and, ahem, Ariel Pink.) These vocal harmonies made me a fan on the spot.
5. Junior Brown: “Doin’ What Comes Easy to a Fool”
Junior Brown is half traditionalist and half iconoclast. Much of his music fits squarely into country’s long honky-tonk lineage, but a couple of things set him apart: a distinctive baritone voice and a custom-made instrument, the double-necked “guit-steel,” that pairs an electric guitar with a lap steel. This track from “Guit With It” (1993) is a self-deprecating tale of self-diagnosed foolishness.
6. Bobby “Blue” Bland: “I Pity the Fool”
Was Mr. T a Bobby “Blue” Bland fan? The blues great does his best to warn any potential new suitors about a troublesome ex on this 1961 hit.
7. The Main Ingredient: “Everybody Plays the Fool”
The main ingredients to this 1972 single were a catchy piano-and-flute lick and a lead vocal by Cuba Gooding Sr. “Everybody Plays the Fool” shot up the pop charts and earned the Main Ingredient a Grammy nomination for best R&B song, although it lost out to the Temptations’ “Papa Was a Rolling Stone.”
8. Candi Staton: “I’d Rather Be an Old Man’s Sweetheart (Than a Young Man’s Fool)”
“You may think I’m silly to love a man twice my age,” the Southern soul singer Candi Staton sings on her first hit, from 1969. Let’s hear her out: An old man will just sit and talk, “but a young man is somewhere busy doing the camel walk.” (Dancing like James Brown sounds like a plus in a relationship, but to each her own.)
9. Isis: “April Fool”
It’s unfortunate to name your band after an Egyptian goddess only to later have the word come to be associated with … other things. I’m not going to let it stop me from highlighting this funky, horn-heavy track from the all-female rock group’s self-titled 1974 album. That drum break deserves to be sampled somewhere other than on an obscure De La Soul rarity.
10. Bow Wow Wow: “Fools Rush In (Where Angels Fear to Tread)”
I intended to put Ricky Nelson here, but then ran across this fun cover by Bow Wow Wow, the new-wave band formed by Malcolm McLaren and best known for “I Want Candy.” (That one almost made my Halloween Amplifier playlist.)
11. The Stone Roses: “Fools Gold”
As essentially a rock kid who was dance-music-curious, when I heard “Fools Gold” and tracks by the Stone Roses’ contemporaries like the Happy Mondays and Primal Scream, I at least caught a glimpse of what the 24-hour party people were up to. This 1989 single stretches to almost 10 minutes, and I could groove on it for twice as long. No fooling.
The Amplifier Playlist
“A Pack of April Fools” track list
Track 1: Aretha Franklin, “April Fools”
Track 2: The Doobie Brothers, “What a Fool Believes”
Track 3: Led Zeppelin, “Fool in the Rain”
Track 4: Drugdealer, “Fools”
Track 5: Junior Brown, “Doin’ What Comes Easy to a Fool”
Track 6: Bobby “Blue” Bland, “I Pity the Fool”
Track 7: The Main Ingredient, “Everybody Plays the Fool”
Track 8: Candi Staton, “I’d Rather Be an Old Man’s Sweetheart (Than a Young Man’s Fool)”
Track 9: Isis, “April Fool”
Track 10: Bow Wow Wow, “Fools Rush In (Where Angels Fear to Tread)”
Track 11: The Stone Roses, “Fools Gold”
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