The Spinners: It's A Shame
single (Motown, 1970)
Alton Ellis: It's A Shame
Jamaican single (1973)
Stevie Wonder wrote and co-produced “It’s A Shame” for the Spinners, and why he chose to join such an ominous lyric to such a merry arrangement we’ll never know.
Alton’s Ellis’ rendition isn’t a reinvention of Wonder’s song. He doesn’t alter the instrumentation or switch the verses. He doesn’t change the melody. It would have been easy for Ellis to do a sunny rocksteady translation of “It’s A Shame” that retained the original’s major chords and brisk bounce. Reggae loves its horns, but Ellis ignores convention and delivers a slow-cooked reduction of what everybody else thought was a Motown-Philly soufflé. All that remains is a succulent skeletal groove and a throbbing pulse.
There is an idea here; there is skill; there is execution. Cat Power’s “Aretha” is like watching someone throw ingredients on pan without heat. Ellis patiently simmers the Spinners over low flame until something new emerges. He climbs inside the song and extracts from within it a brooding blues that only he could hear. Not just cookery, but pure chemistry.
