No one listens to the lyrics.
Every songwriter worth his salt and starving-artisthood knows that. The other side of that truism is that as long as you have a good melody to back up whatever chickenscratch you managed to scrawl on a napkin at your favorite dive bar while swilling Pabst Blue Ribbon, you should be fine.
Case in point … well there are almost too many cases in point to mention. But I digress.
Realizing this grim fact, songwriters were left to find some other, more primal way of communicating their lyrical intent and personality to the audience. That method is ad-libbing.
Dictionary.com defines ad-lib as “to improvise all or part of (a speech, a piece of music, etc.).”
In other words, these are the yells, grunts, screams, whoops, animal noises and scatting that probably didn’t make it on to the lyric sheet before the artist went into the vocal booth.
Despite the fact they’re improvised and extemporaneous by nature, there is a true art to this practice. Any old wedding-band singer can put in an “Ow!” while they play “Brown-Eyed Girl,” but it takes a special talent to know when to ad-lib, what to ad-lib, and also importantly, when not to ad-lib.
So in appreciation of this underappreciated art form, I present to you the top five best vocal ad-libbers in music of yesterday and today.
Rounding out the top five is none other than David Lee Roth of Van Halen.
It’s really a shame that Diamond Dave had so many other ridiculous showmanship tricks up his sleeve that eclipsed his unbelievable ad-lib track record. People were just too distracted by karate kicks and catsuits to notice how good he was. But to this day, I can’t listen to “Hot For Teacher” without losing it at some point. The part that sounds like entirely improvised sung dialogue during the pre-verses (“I brought my PEN-cil!” “I don’t feel tardy …”) is excellent. As far as Dave’s ad-libbing goes, “Hot For Teacher” is a prime showcase. The ridiculously trashy and admittedly stupid subject is perfectly complemented by Roth’s horndog school-kid antics.
This is, of course, to say nothing of his performance during the bridge of “Panama,” wherein Diamond Dave continuously compares a car to a woman, but more likely vice-versa, breathily intoning “You reach down, between my legs / And EASE the seat back.” The innuendo per square word in that sentence is off the charts and is a quintessential VH moment.
Barely edging out Roth in terms of rock wild-man ad-libbing is the gangly frontman of Jewish blues-rockers J. Geils Band, Peter Wolf. Wolf edges out Roth on account that his ad-libs are often actual words instead of wordless coked-out screams. Wolf was a cross between a Jewish bluesman and an auctioneer, peppering his live engagements with spitfire gibberish at the beginnings of songs. But when he was actually coherent enough for you to hear what he was singing, it was unreal.
Case in point, at the beginning of the live version of “Pack Fair and Square,” Wolf uttered the immortal line, “Take out your false teeth, mama. I wanna suck on your gums.” In similar lunatic fashion, Wolf exclaims at the beginning of the live version of “(Ain’t Nothin’ But A) House Party,” “We are gonna BLOW. YOUR. FACE OUT!” For sheer unhinged intensity, and ability to carry over his improvisations to the live show, Wolf delivers.
Rising above the rock hordes of screamers is a kinder, gentler, more bitingly sarcastic ad-libber: John McCrea of Cake. Cake may be on some kind of hiatus right now, but rest assured that their output will live on forever thanks in no small part to the distinctive vocal ruminations of McCrea. Over their jazzy alt-rock, McCrea constantly throws out bon mots like “Oh no,” “aw yeah,” “hey!” “yah!” and “ho!” While this ordinarily would be commonplace in the rock vernacular, McCrea sounds so disinterested when he says them that they become something new entirely. They became an integral part of Cake’s sound. See “The Distance” for compelling evidence.
At number two is Jay Jenkins, better known as rapper Young Jeezy. Ask any rap fan about ad-libs, and the first person that they’ll mention is Jeezy. When he’s not putting-on for his city, Jeezy has been making a name for himself as synonymous with hip-hop ad-libs. Similar to McCrea, Jeezy almost has a set list of phrases, like a pull-string doll: “Yeeeeeeeeeeah,” “Ha-HA!” “Deeeeeeeeeeamn,” “‘Sco!” “Yup!” “That’s riiiiiight!” just to name a few. The combination of these mostly monosyllabic words with Jeezy’s gravelly voice make them one of the most compelling instruments in hip-hop. So much so, that Kanye West sampled Jeezy’s ad-libs for “Can’t Tell Me Nothing.” When Kanye admits that you do something well, you know you’re on to something.
I’d like to give a special dishonorable mention for ad-libbing to Dipset Capo Jim Jones. Perhaps best known for the brief hit “We Fly High” and it’s associated chant (“Baaaaaaaaaaaaaalllin’!” and fadeaway dance, Jim Jones has managed to nearly totally taint the practice of hip-hop ad-libs. The way Jones does it, he records his actual verse, and then records a second track of him jabbering away little phrases at a slightly lower volume after every one of his lines. It’s like there’s a full-size Jim Jones talking too close to your face, and then a mini-Jones on your shoulder yammering into your ear. The effect is disorienting and irritating. While this is essentially the same practice as Jeezy, Jones manages to screw it up by making his ad-libs polysyllabic. Case in point, “Fly with the stars (twinkle, twinkle).”
Finally, the man who wrote the book on impassioned, unplanned vocal outbursts, the hardest working man in show business, the godfather of soul: James Brown. James Brown managed to pioneer funk music by distilling soul music down to its rhythmic core, and managed to distill soul singing to its raw rhythmic core as well, exposing guttural outbursts and ragged-voiced exclamations. Every “Hit me,” and “Uh!” sounded like a pure expression of Brown’s passion and desire to entertain. He left blood on every track he sang on, and soul singing has never been the same since.
Ad-libs are commonplace in music, but if we look at the master, all of the best ad-libs are the ones that are genuinely felt, and the ones that hit us in the heart, mind and gut all at the same time.
If you practice your Jeezy ad-libs in the car too, then e-mail Ayres at jayres@media.ucla.edu.