WAR – The World is a Ghetto (United Artists – 1972)
By A. Scott Galloway
Introduction
“To us, the whole concept of the musical idol and the fan has become passé. We are street people. Our music often comes from the street level. It’s an extension of The People. Those people identify most heavily with us.”
– Sylvester “Papa Dee” Allen (Conguero y Percussionist of WAR) If Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” in 1971 was the eternal QUESTION about the state of the planet and human relations, then WAR’s “The World is a Ghetto” from 1972 was the eternal ANSWER. It is a stark statement of universal truth. The music feels like a hazy shade of sundown.
The Impact of the Song
The song serves as an equalizer. It is a musical lighthouse of earth blues wisdom. It struck a mystic nerve for a pan-cultural constituency. In its full uncut 10:10 glory, it is the centerpiece and title track of the band’s third album. This album is viewed as both the critical and commercial highpoint of WAR. It is the crystal distillation of their all-natural essences.
Recording Process
Following the breakthrough success of their second album, All Day Music, which included the serene summer chill of the title track, WAR hunkered down in Crystal Industries Studio in L.A. They had a now-fabled 30-day lockout. During this time, they jammed, composed, edited, and assembled what would become a mind-altering master stroke of `70s Soul. They spent 30 days to cut a 6-song diamond.
Track Highlights
The album opens with what would be selected as its lead-off single for radio, “The Cisco Kid.” This song was largely composed and sung by guitarist Howard Scott. It is a tribute to his childhood TV western serial hero, played by Duncan Renaldo. Howard embellished the character with the superpower of being able to ride into town. He would blast away the bad guys with a pistol in one hand while swigging whisky or port wine in the other!
Musical Composition
The song is deceptive in its perceived simplicity. In fact, it is a funky 16-bar blues with Latin and Reggae crosscurrents. Lyrically, it regales the listener with multiple episodes in Cisco’s travels. There are six catchy, highly repetitive verses. The verses are filled in with the group’s infectious background vocal camaraderie. There is a Greek chorus of harmonica and clarinet, even snatches of Spanglish dialogue. Overflowing with fun, the song performed better at Top 40 radio. It peaked at #2 on Billboard’s Top Pop Singles chart and #5 R&B.
Where Was You At
Next up is “Where Was You At.” This song is a serious admission of abandonment in the hour of need. It is made light by drummer Harold Brown’s bouncy New Orleans beat. Keyboardist Lonnie Jordan adds a rollicking piano and organ – “real Baptist church stuff,” as Howard Scott describes it.
This song was mostly penned and sung by sax man Charles Miller. It is eerily prophetic when one listens now, knowing the tragic fate Miller met. He was stabbed to death 8 years later in a harrowing ambush/robbery in a motel room. Throughout The World is a Ghetto and all of WAR’s albums until his departure, Miller brought nothing less than the composite, abstract AND absolute Truth to every contribution he made.
Musical Legacy
That Truth begins in the next selection that closed Side 1, “City, Country, City.” This sprawling 13-and-a-half-minute instrumental began life as a wistful melody. Danish-born harmonica master Lee Oskar brought it in, inspired by Bobby Hebb’s `66 Soul-Pop hit, “Sunny.”
Collaboration with Fred Williamson
After WAR met football-star-turned-actor Fred Williamson on Don Cornelius’ “Soul Train” TV show, the band was asked to write music for his upcoming western, “The Legend of Nigger Charley.” WAR used Lee’s melody as the foundation for an audio travelogue. This travelogue would mirror Charley’s freedom ride through the old west and rapidly developing urban environments.
Hollywood Challenges
In stereotypical Hollywood fashion, when the film’s producers weren’t offering money or credits that were right, the band made spiked lemonade out of the bitter citrus. This became WAR’s first “Jazz” classic. Without the confining subtext of the film’s storyline, the evocative instrumental became a movie for the mind. To this writer, the opening of Howard Scott’s tender acoustic guitar against keyboardist Lonnie Jordan’s reverent organ was like the birth of the mythical Seventh Son. This boy was destined for a life of epic ups and downs.
The harmonica melody becomes the recurring theme of purity and nobility. It is constantly challenged by shape-shifting demons and the slaying of dragons. This is set to the soundtrack of Charles Miller’s wailing saxophone lines over a relentless bass-driven groove.
Charles’ hot house horn conveys the hellish evils of mankind. It also conveys the strength of our underdog’s perseverance to prevail! Then the horn dovetails into a boiling cauldron organ solo. There is a percussion breakdown that sounds like an underwater pursuit through Far East Mississippi. This leads back to The River Niger, where our golden child emerges on the bank: a man with a stone-cold story to tell in Howard Scott’s now electric guitar blues.
(Note: WAR was not alone in their Hollywood movie music debacle. Billy Preston snatched his theme song “The Legend of Nigger Charley” back. He shortened the title to “Nigger Charlie” and slapped it on his Music is My Life LP (A&M-1972). He rode off into the sunset, telling everybody to kiss his happy Black ass!)
The movie made do with a genre score by John Bennings and songs by Soul man Lloyd Price. Side 2 of The World is a Ghetto opens with “Four Cornered Room.” The seed of this song was brought in by bassist B. B. Dickerson. He conjured it from the meditative state he fell into the first time he smoked hashish.
Spoken Word and Background Vocals
Drummer Harold Brown handles the spoken word offering early in the piece. B. B. sings the verses while the background soul shouting comes from keyboardist Lonnie Jordan.
Engineer Chris Huston used a lot of phasing on the track. This lent a hazy, somewhat spooky vibe to the music. This is especially true for Lee Oskar’s mournful harmonica ad libs and WAR’s signature unison/harmony vocals. Most terrifyingly, there is the “zoom-Zoom-ZOOOOOM” line.
The ringing gong was a recurring WAR effect dating back to their first album, Eric Burdon Declares “WAR.” This album boasted the psychedelic effect of a gong being struck. The sound would slowly dissipate in real time to silence. Then the tape was played backwards, growing louder until it exploded at the original striking point. This led into the street corner ballad “You’re No Stranger.”
“Four Cornered Room” is a headphone masterpiece. It is about climbing inside one’s own mind for a clearer understanding of his or her “higher” inner self. This leads into the centerpiece/title track “The World is a Ghetto.” This concept and lyric were brought in by Percussionist Papa Dee Allen. It essentially states that all people on the planet have the same basic desires and struggles, regardless of race, culture, or economic status.
Vocal Performance
B. Dickerson sings this one with passion and connection unparalleled. Matching him emotion for emotion is the peerless Charles Miller on tenor saxophone.
Miller, a June 2 Gemini, practiced his woodwinds and other instruments faithfully for 5 hours a day. He never merely blew his tenor sax. He breathed through it. This circular, lyrical approach made his sound another “voice” within the group. Also happening on this recording are two things: Charles overdubbing subtle answers to his own solo in the track. Engineer Chris Huston panned between one take of a solo with another. This sculpted one of the greatest saxophone statements ever recorded. It is as singular and brilliant in its genius as a Charlie Parker or John Coltrane solo.
So much emotion and blues flow from the horn. Charles animates every word of the lyric into musical form. The lines are soft and long-winding. They evoke the wonder of looking at the sky starry-eyed to crying in the night. It is more about howling at the moon, teary-eyed. Stopping time to build and subside, the solo is a story within the story. Charles Miller had been wailing such profound musical statements since his “Mr. Charlie” solo within the “Blues For Memphis Slim / Mother Earth” suite on their debut, Eric Burdon Declares “WAR.”
Cover Versions and Influence
Fittingly, “The World is a Ghetto” was covered by jazz legends James Moody (hauntingly on flute) and pianist Ahmad Jamal. In tandem with arranger Richard Evans, they integrated elements from his own classic “Poinciana.” Guitarist George Benson bumped up the tempo on his version to make it a more driving yet no less blues-based rumination. When WAR morphed into its The Music Band incarnation in the `80s, they picked up on B. ’s tip and rocked it faster, too.
In 2017, Lowrider Band (the name Howard Scott, Harold Brown, and Lee Oskar now tour and record under due to ongoing litigation) performed “The World is a Ghetto.” Current saxophonist Lance Ellis took a fiery solo that built to a shattering climax. This was handed off to Lee Oskar on harmonica, who took it to Pluto. It was a beautiful new arrangement that extended the legacy with poignance and glory.
Additionally, vocalists Phil Perry and Will Downing cut club covers. Hardcore Houston rap trio Geto Boys covered it with a funk reggae flip. Unlike “The Cisco Kid,” which did better on the Pop chart, a severe radio edit of WAR’s “The World is a Ghetto” hit Black listeners in a deep place. It peaked at #3 R&B and #7 Pop.
Album Artwork and Cultural Significance
The riveting album cover artwork for The World is a Ghetto was created by Howard Miller (no relation to Charles). It was based on a sketch by Lee Oskar, who doubled as Art Designer for most of WAR’s album packages. The artwork brilliantly encapsulated the statement being made within the lyrics.
The smoggy L.A. street scene depicts everyday people on the avenue and behind windowsills. They are rapping, eating, fussing, loving, and otherwise getting through the day the best they can. This includes the wary, well-to-do Black man whose Rolls Royce has the misfortune of catching a flat tire in the hood.
That brother, his ride, and his chauffeur are the only elements in color on this otherwise blue-tinted black & white painting. Yet his blues are the same blues as everybody else’s. This gets to the essence of what this song and album are about. It also reflects WAR as a manifestation of it.
Conclusion
We are One and The Same. Still, in all its too often underappreciated conceptual depth, WAR was always good for a WTF moment on its LPs. On The World is a Ghetto, that ditty is “Beetles in the Bog.” This closes an otherwise mind-blowing album on a confounding and quizzical note.
This oddity was brought in by Lee, with lyrics penned by his then-wife Keri. It feels like a folk song – from what “folk” only they could tell you! The music takes this listener to a crackling campfire in a clearing surrounded by thick forest. Darkness falls upon the land, and spirits are awakened to get buck wild and free to the soundtrack of a fevered gypsy round rumpus.
Moral: All WAR parties come to a carnivalesque conclusion! WAR would take you to the deepest, darkest truths but always leave you with light and hope. WAR’s The World is a Ghetto reached #1 and was on the chart for 68 weeks in industry Bible Billboard Magazine. It was also named Album of the Year.
It sold over 3 million copies. This month – November 2017 – marks the 45th anniversary of its milestone release. SEE MORE OF A.
SCOTT GALLOWAY’S REVIEWS HERE
I leave the last word to one of my greatest musical heroes, Charles Miller. He is quoted from an interview within the new book “Slippin’ Out of Darkness: The Story of WAR”: “…what he had in mind when we chose (WAR) as a name for our group was the fact that ‘war’ has deeper, more universally pertinent meanings. It encompasses the personal and exterior forms of violence we have all felt. It includes the internal, emotional war raging within us. It speaks to personal, spiritual war and wars of mental and spiritual nature(s) which are personal and idealistic.”
– A. Scott Galloway (The writer dedicates this essay to the 27th wedding anniversary of Howard & Jennifer Scott, the memories of Sylvester “Papa Dee” Allen and Charles Miller, and in homage to the 2017 transitions of L.A.-based percussionists Darrell Harris and Bobby Matos. Respect and Love.)
