Strawberry Letter 23
 

"Strawberry Letter 23" was recorded by The Brothers Johnson with Mr. Quincy Jones producing, and released as a single in 1977. I loved this single. I hope you did too.



Hello my love
I heard a kiss from you

"I heard a kiss from you" - what an opening line.

He has just gotten a letter from his love, in a pink envelope. That letter is the 22nd letter they have exchanged. In his mind, he begins to compose his reply. The letter he sends in reply is the 23rd letter they will exchange. So, this song is his letter. Hence the title!

"I heard a kiss from you"

He has read her letter, and he describes it as hearing her kissing him. That's what poets do.

And it's turned a dreary day into a rainbow of colors:

Red magic satin playing near, too
All through the morning rain I gaze, the sun doesn't shine
Rainbows and waterfalls run through my mind

In the garden, I see
West purple shower bells and tea
Orange birds and river cousins
Dressed in green

Pretty music, I hear
So happy and loud
Blue flowers echo
From a cherry cloud

Feel sunshine sparkle pink and blue
Playgrounds will laugh
If you try to ask, is it cool?

Kinda acidy stuff. Turns out it was written in the acid years, 1971, by a cat named Shuggie Otis. And Shuggie was 17 years old, so he was ahead of his time.



In fact, Shuggie came up with almost all the tricky parts of the song. The doubled, repeating, arpeggiating guitar solo was Shuggie's invention. When Quincy Jones wanted to reproduce it, he got jazz guitarist Lee Ritenour to do it.

If you arrive and don't see me
I'm going to be with my baby
I am free, flying in her arms
Over the sea

Stained window, yellow candy screen
See speakers of kite
With velvet roses diggin' freedom flight

A present from you
Strawberry letter 22
The music plays,
I sit in for a few

Poetry. That's his love letter.

The original song has all the charm of the hit single, and it has the soaring background harmonies and guitar solo. But the one thing it doesn't have is bass player Louis Johnson (R.I.P.). The bass part on the original is plain vanilla. What Louis Johnson did was to create a sonic foundation of pure funk. I loved the song for 4 decades and played bass for 3, and I never realized what was happening underneath, until I heard this isolated bass track. (Let it kick in at about the 25th second)



Take it from any bass player: that's astounding. And the way Quincy Jones put it all into the mix, none of this outrageous bass part sticks out. It all fits perfectly.

The Bros Johnson song hit #5 on the US chart and #1 on the US soul/R&B chart.

An epiphany, happens every decade or so, and boner inducing for sure. Great find. :thumb2:

A true masterpiece of music production. All the parts fit together perfectly. If you isolate any one part you'll be impressed with the complexity, but when you put them all together you get musical magic!

Sad thing is, the technology available today should make productions like this easier, and yet tracks like this show that somehow the challenges to recording back then seemed to drive people to do better.

I would not suggest that the production quality heard here is unmatched, but I would point out that it is not often matched.

Only thing I'd add, because he played such an integral role in many of Quincy Jone's productions, is that the track was engineered by Bruce Swedien, a gifted audio engineer in his own, and the perfect partner to Quincy Jones through out their storied career together.

OK, now that tune is in my head. Its one of those songs that I never was really sure of the lyrics which resulted in many odd variations sung along in the car.

good to be back poking around the cellar, too!

Welcome back warch.