Stephen Mejias

One of the records we listened to at the Monkeyhaus last week was Sonny & Linda Sharrock's Paradise—a powerfully uplifting record, in my opinion. Sonny Sharrock, however, did not feel the same. In a 1989 interview with WKCR's Ben Ratliff, Sonny dismissed Paradise as being "not a good album," and attributed the album's failure to his own incompetence as a bandleader.

As a sideman, Sonny Sharrock appeared on three records in 1966: Pharaoh Sanders's Tauhid, Marzette Watts's eponymous album, and Byard Lancaster's It's Not Up To Us. Also around that time, Sharrock, like many of the more adventurous jazz musicians of the era, kept busy by touring and recording with the hairy-chested flautist, Herbie Mann. It's a thrill to hear Sharrock's spiraling, searing guitar riffs writhe like demons within some otherwise innocuous tracks. Check him out, for instance, in "Hold On, I'm Coming," on Mann's Memphis Underground.

It was in 1969 that Sharrock delivered Black Woman, a daring solo debut, with his beautiful wife Linda on vocals. Produced by Herbie Mann and featuring an all-star cast of free-jazz musicians (Dave Burrell on piano, Milford Graves on percussion, Teddy Daniel on trumpet, and Norris Jones on bass) Black Woman is a crazily important record. The recent reissue from 4 Men With Beards boasts 180gm vinyl and liner notes by Byron Coley.

One year later, Sharrock released Monkey-Pockey-Boo through the BYG Actuel series. At a time when American free-jazz musicians found little support in the United States, BYG became a sort of refuge, inviting these musicians to record in Paris. It is not difficult to find a copy of Monkey-Pockey-Boo; it has also been reissued recently by Italy's Get Back label. Interestingly, for much of the album, Sharrock sets aside his screaming skronk guitar, choosing to wield pocket whistle instead.

In 1975, Sonny and Linda Sharrock released Paradise with a band of young players: Kenny Armstrong (piano, keyboards, synths), Dave Artis (bass), Sonny Bonilla (percussion), Buddy Williams (drums). A different lineup is documented as The Savages, and was captured on tape for WKCR on March 21, 1974. You can hear that performance at WFMU's On The Download. (Highly recommended!) This may be the band's only lasting document. When KCR's Ben Ratliff commented that Paradise was a tough record to find, Sharrock quickly responded, "It should be." And in 1993, shortly before his death, Sharrock told WPKN's Ed Flynn that Paradise "should stay a collector's item, should never be re-released."

I found my copy of this poor, underrated album at Iris Records in Jersey City. I paid ten bucks, but I've seen it going for as much as $150 on eBay. If I could, I would let Sonny Sharrock know how much I love Paradise. I would tell him that I usually listen to it late at night, loud, before I go to bed, and especially after long days at work. I would tell him that it never fails to make me smile, and I would tell him that I've shared it with many of my friends. I would tell him that it helped ease me into his other albums, which tend to be a bit more challenging, that it allowed me to better understand Black Woman and Monkey-Pockey-Boo, and, most important, that it introduced me to his Ask The Ages, a phenomenal piece of work that I'll write more about some other time. I would also probably mention that it sounds pretty fucking amazing on the hi-fi, and I would ask if he would like to sit down and listen.

It opens with "Apollo." You notice Sonny Sharrock's guitar, the ruddy tone and the honest touch, but the opening measures of this track really belong to Linda. She's all gentle sighs and disco moans until, about thirty seconds in, she lets loose an extremely loud and wonderfully present deep-throat howl. Yow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow! And on and on, and you're like holy shit, what the hell is happening here? Sonny plays a soulful riff while bassist Dave Artis and drummer Buddy Williams lock into a solid groove. And before you're ready, before you even know what's happening, the band erupts into a blistering fusion with spaced-out Moog darts and lasers by Kenny Armstrong and frenetic Latin percussion from Sonny Bonilla. Sharrock, by this time, has soared into an all-out skronk freak-fest, as if the neck of his guitar is twenty feet long and he's sliding and slicing along the frets with razors. Just as suddenly as this all began, it quits—and we're left with Linda moaning and mewing and gargling.

"End of the Rainbow" is a sun-swept reprieve, all tapped crash and sizzle ride and tasteful leads. "Miss Doris" is a funky, playful jingle that could have easily been the theme song for some '70s spy flick, and features Linda doing a sort of Cowboys and Indians wah-wah-wah, and neighing like a demented horse. There's also some outrageous interplay between Armstrong's electric piano and Linda's high-pitched squeals; they weave in and out like Duane Allman and Eric Clapton, until they become almost indistinguishable from one another.

By this point, Linda hasn't uttered a single intelligible bit of English, or any other spoken language, so it's refreshing and, in a way, painfully, ironically jarring, when she cries, "Oh, peaceful," on the second track of the B-side, which steadily churns and churns and sounds like legions of angels taking flight into the sun. It all ends with "Gary's Step," sadly, always sadly, but with something as close to perfection as humanly possible—a combination of the unbearably sublime and the terrifyingly ferocious—Sonny Sharrock's tantalizing, soothing riffs and Linda Sharrock's defiant cries. It ends, it ends, and it's impossible to be ready for it—like falling out of the sky or saying good-bye.

In a 1991 article printed in the New York Times, Sonny Sharrock sounded determined: "I've been trying to find a way for the terror and the beauty to live together in one song. I know it's possible. I want the sweetness and the brutality, and I want to go to the very end of each of those feelings."

I would tell him that I think he succeeded, time and time again. It probably wouldn't change his mind, but I hope it would at least make him smile.