Miss Workman and Madame Nanette: The Two Sides Of Nanette Workman

Nanette Workman had sort of a strange career. She moved around a lot, hung out with Rock'n'Roll royalty, became a semi-star in French-speaking territories, but never truly became a household name worldwide. In some ways, her wayfaring career mirrors her upbringing. Born to a pair of musicians - he the trumpet player in Tommy Dorsett's ochestra, she a music hall and opera singer - in the Bronx, Workman was subsequently raised in the deep south in Jackson, Mississippi, something that will come abandonly into play on Grits And Cornbread, our One Buck Record of the day. But her career didn't really get going from Jackson or any other place down south. She had to move way up north, all the way to Quebec, after a short stint on Broadway. She met Antoine D'Amrosio a.k.a. Tony Roman, a Quebecois singer turned music impressario with his own record label, wo pushed Workman to sing in French, resulting in a no. 1 single with her take on Gilbert Bécaud's "Et Maintenant". 

After two years of local success in music and television, usually alongside Roman, Workman then moved to England, accompanying Dudley Moore and Peter Cook on tv comedy show Not Only...But Also. She also stayed in music, lending her voice for backup vocals on tons of classic records, among them The Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Women" and John Lennon's "Power To The People". A first English-language album in 1970 solo album went nowhere. Workman found more success by going back to French, installing herself in France and becoming involved with 'the French Elvis' Johnny Halliday both professionally (as his backup singer) and then personally (well...). From there she made a couple of funk/disco-flavored records in French before finally releasing her second English-language album, Grits and Cornbread. 

I stumbled on this record totally unwittingly, presumably like about 80% of people who listened to it, at least those who did any time after 1978 or so. And that is because Grits And Cornbread is one of the most popular (as in: replicated several times over) grey market releases. I would've thought that it's probably one of those instances were the copyright expired and the label not paying attention, thus falling into public domain (at least temporarily), allowing dozens of grey market and bootleg-based "labels" to pick this up. (The most high-profile fuck-up of this kind I've ever seen is Atlantic Records with Crosby & Nash's Wind On The Water, which I picked up on a ridiculously cheap-looking grey market release.) 

But the first variant, a tax scam label release showed up not even a year after the original release, so I imagine it was a case of the copyright not being declared correctly in the first place. And of course it wasn't released as anything having to do with Nanette Workman. The whole thing was marketed as a Peter Frampton release! To add insult to injury, the last two songs were lopped off for some reason. My (somewhat later CD) version at least had the decency to add "& Friends" to Frampton's name to indicate that some songs might have lead vocals from other artists (Spoiler: they all do). It's still a total scam, of course. The above-mentioned tax scam record credited this to 'Peter Frampton & The Heavy Metal Boys' which...is really false advertising.  

Now, look at that beautiful artwork! Oh hey, Nanette is even mentioned! As a bit player! Bravo, tax scam record...

Other than Frampton, Workman called in lots of friends in high places for this one. Ex-lover Johnny Hallyday (together with his manager/mentor/'fake dad' Les Hallyday) produced the whole thing, and the band besides Frampton isn't made up of total scrubs either: Bass is handled by Andy Bown from Status Quo, drums by Mike Kelli (Spooky Tooth). Fellow Rolling Stones alumni Jim Price and Bobby Keys on trumpet and sax bring their sound to Nanette's version of "Loving Cup", which does sound as if it could've come straight from Exile On Main Street. 

The homely kitchen with home-coooked meal (plus cat) on the cover is slightly deceiving. Workman didn't seem entirely sure which way to go for this album, so she split the difference and made half of a rock - even verging on hard rock - record and half of a country-ish album. But the original album configuration wasn't an album of halves, both types of tracks were alternating, giving the listener a bit of a whiplash. Which is why this slightly reworked version of Grits And Cornbread does what maybe should have happened in 1977. It splits the album up into a rock ("grits") and country ("cornbread") side, the way a number of albums around that time had a 'fast' and a 'slow' side. The album also has two longer cuts with long run-out grooves ("Love Taker" and "Madame", respectively) so it felt only natural to use these as the side closing numbers. 

Miss Workman shows some real grit (pun indeed intended) on these songs, shouting her way through the heavier numbers with abandon and bringing a Southern sensibility to the way she sings the title song and "Goin' Home". The sentimental "Billy" is to be taken quite literally - an ode to the childhood spent with her brother, who incidentally is also a musician and wrote album opener "There's A Man". 

Grits And Cornbread is a very fine slab of 70s album rock, satisfying both rock and country/folk listeners. In other words, both sides of me! And hopefully of you...

So give Grits And Cornbread a spin, and since it's the weekend, we celebrate with a double shot of Nanette. If you like this, be back tomorrow for some more Nanette, mais cette fois en français! Ca va être chaud! Oh là là...