{"id":1390,"date":"2012-09-06T16:51:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-06T21:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keenerpodcast.com\/?p=1390"},"modified":"2012-10-20T08:49:46","modified_gmt":"2012-10-20T13:49:46","slug":"the-games-people-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/keener13.org\/?p=1390","title":{"rendered":"The Games People Play"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Joseph Alfred Souter got his first crack at the Top 40 in 1958 with “The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor<\/a>” the Big Bopper’s follow up to a pair of novelty hits recorded by Sheb Wooley<\/a> and David Seville<\/a>. A rather inauspicious start for a guy who would pen some of the biggest records of the 60s and 70s as “Joe South”.<\/p>\n

His cannon spans a wide array of styles.\u00a0“Walk A Mile In My Shoes<\/a>” \u00a0for Brook Benton (also covered by\u00a0Elvis Presley<\/a>,\u00a0Bryan Ferry<\/a>, and\u00a0Coldcut<\/a>).\u00a0Billy Joe Royal<\/a>‘s songs “Down in the Boondocks<\/a>“, “I Knew You When” and “Yo-Yo<\/a>” (later a hit for the\u00a0Osmonds<\/a>), and the Deep Purple<\/a>\u00a0smash\u00a0“Hush<\/a>“. His biggest commercial hit happend in 1971 when he wrote\u00a0\u00a0Lynn Anderson<\/a>‘s I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden<\/a>.<\/p>\n

South was also a prolific side man. That’s his guitar on\u00a0Aretha Franklin<\/a>‘s “Chain of Fools<\/a>“,\u00a0<\/span>Tommy Roe<\/a>‘s “Sheila<\/a>“, and (according to some sources) he was the guy Colombia Records put in a studio to add electric guitar licks to a\u00a0Simon & Garfunkle<\/a>\u00a0record that seemed to be going nowhere. Listen to “The Sounds of Silence<\/a>” and you’ll understand how a four note riff launched their career.<\/p>\n

He only hit once as a solo act.\u00a01969’s \u00a0“Games People Play<\/a>” went top ten, earning a\u00a0Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Song<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Grammy for Song of the Year<\/a>. The follow-up, “Birds of a Feather” didn’t go anywhere, but was later a hit for Paul Revere and the Raiders.<\/p>\n

So closely was Games People Play associated with South, that when the Spinners released their completely differentThom Bell single with the same name, lawyer’s requested and got a title change to “They Just Can’t Stop It (Those Games People Play)<\/a>“.<\/p>\n

Joe South was 72 when he passed away from heart failure at his home in Buford Georgia on September 5, 2012.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=iMiutrnur0c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joseph Alfred Souter got his first crack at the Top 40 in 1958 with “The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor” the Big Bopper’s follow up to a pair of novelty hits recorded by Sheb Wooley and David Seville. A rather inauspicious start for a guy who would pen some of the biggest records of the 60s and 70s as “Joe South”. His cannon spans a wide array of styles.\u00a0“Walk A Mile In My Shoes” \u00a0for Brook Benton (also covered by\u00a0Elvis Presley,\u00a0Bryan Ferry, and\u00a0Coldcut).\u00a0Billy Joe Royal‘s songs “Down in the Boondocks“, “I Knew You When” and “Yo-Yo” (later a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-keener","wpcat-2-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/keener13.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/keener13.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/keener13.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keener13.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keener13.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1390"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/keener13.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1416,"href":"https:\/\/keener13.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390\/revisions\/1416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/keener13.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keener13.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keener13.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}