“It’s all about that groove! You can’t make that groove exactly in New Jersey. That’s all there is to it. Everybody’s like ‘No, that’s too slow! That’s too slow!’ He comes down, he sits in that groove, man, and all of a sudden – oh my God, your sexual organs are stimulated, that’s what happens! That’s exactly what happens.” — Bruce Springsteen after Dr. John exits the stage, April 29, 2012
Today’s team-up brings together two musical icons for a cover of an elusive New Orleans classic that had long been associated with both of them.
“Something You Got” was written and originally recorded by the great New Orleans R&B singer-songwriter Chris Kenner. Although he scored a major hit that same year with “I Like It Like That,” which went all the way to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, Kenner never achieved any chart success with “Something You Got.”
Kenner may not have had any chart success with his own version, but remarkably in the span of eleven months from the summer of 1964 to the summer of 1965, no less than three covers of “Something You Got” made the Billboard Hot 100–although none of them managed to crack the Top 40.
First up was fellow New Orleans singer-songwriter Alvin Robinson, who took “Something You Got” to #52 in July 1964.
In November, The Ramsey Lewis Trio took a run at it with a live, uptempo instrumental version and got as high as #63.
And then in 1965, Chuck Jackson and Maxine Brown turned “Something You Got” into a sultry duet. For a moment, it looked like that might be the breakthrough arrangement Kenner’s song needed, but it stalled at #55 in June.
That’s a lot of attempts without much success–and over the years that followed, there were even more: Fats Domino, The Searchers, The Moody Blues, Them, Wilson Pickett, The Righteous Brothers, and Eddie Floyd were just a few of the artists who covered “Something You Got” in the 1960s, but Kenner’s song remained under the radar.
At least one of those many attempts (probably the original, based on a comment Bruce made on a ’74 radio show) managed to catch the ear of a young Bruce Springsteen, because he started covering “Something You Got” with his eponymous band in his now-legendary stand at The Back Door in Richmond in February 1972.
There are two known performances of “Something You Got” from that stand, and since set lists were sparsely documented back then, we can safely assume there were more.
Unlike most of his Bruce Springsteen Band material, though, Bruce brought “Something You Got” with him into the E Street Band era, starting (as far as we know) with the band’s stand at Max’s Kansas City in the summer of ’73.
If that performance sounds as improvisationally jazzy as the ’72 performance, that’s probably because both featured largely the same players: David Sancious, Garry Talent, and Vini Lopez all made the transition to E Street with Bruce.
Bruce and the boys played “Something You Got” a few more times through the early months of 1974, including this loose, fun acoustic version from an in-studio radio appearance in Houston, featuring notable spotlights for Danny (on the funky accordion) and Clarence.
Bruce and the band played “Something You Got” in concert the very next night–and that was the very last time the song appeared in Bruce’s set list for 38 years.
But while Bruce may have moved on from it for a while, “Something You Got” continued to inspire other artists, particularly musicians on the New Orleans music scene. And no one was bigger on the New Orleans music scene than Dr. John.
Dr. John covered “Something You Got” in a decidedly uptempo arrangement on his 1979 album, Tango Palace, and he covered it in concert from time to time in the 1980s.
Throughout all that time and a couple of decades beyond, Bruce never crossed paths with Dr. John on stage (except for a brief guest appearance when Dr. John was a member of Ringo Starr’s All Starr Band in 1989). But in 2012, Bruce and Dr. John both happened to be playing Jazz Fest, and their stars finally aligned.
Bruce brought Dr. John on stage in the middle of his set, and of course the song they played was “Something You Got.”
It might be my imagination, but Bruce looks more than just tickled to be on stage with Dr. John–he looks like he very much remembers those early ’70s performances, even though four decades separate them.
They played it slow that night–slower than Bruce and the band would likely have played on their own (as Bruce admitted afterward)–but Dr. John had the superpower to summon the groove.
“Something You Got” turned out to be a highlight of the evening… a highlight forty years in the making.
Bonus: Bruce played “Something You Got” once more since that night with Dr. John, and this time was a team-up too. At the Asbury Park Music & Film Festival in 2017, Bruce joined Southside Johnny, Little Steven, and a host of local legends in a one-time-only Upstage Jam Band to celebrate the legacy of the long-defunct club. Southside Johnny had covered “Something You Got” himself (on album with The Poor Fools and on stage with The Asbury Jukes), and he and Bruce were the focal points for that particular number.
Something You Got
First performed: February 25, 1972 (Richmond, VA)
Last performed: April 21, 2017 (Asbury Park, NJ)
