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Numero dose
This weekend, South Side old-timers get a second chance to bare their soul. Peek in on the rehearsal.
“I ain’t never even sang this song, other than in the studio,” Renaldo Domino says with a chuckle. “And it was never released.” The 59-year-old cable contractor removes his thick, coaster-size glasses and holds a sheet of scribbled lyrics to his face. He wears a Comcast jacket and hat. A cell phone hangs from his belt, just to the right of a fat buckle reading RENALDO.
He looks back at the Uptown Sound, a local group of retro-soul revivalists half Domino’s age, and asks, “This in the original key?” It’s been four decades since the tenor put his sweet, high voice to tape for “Nevermore.” In 1970, Domino cut three singles for Chicago’s Twinight Records. “Not Too Cool to Cry” hit No. 7 on Chicago R&B charts. With his band, the Dots, the South Side native rocked local joints and toured a little with labelmates. He even made it to the Apollo in ’69, opening for the Chi-Lites.
But fame never came. Domino settled down, had a couple of kids, got divorced and, 22 years ago, started hooking up pay TV in homes.
Old throats wear down, so the Uptown Sound drops the tune from D to C sharp. Ben Taylor, a research assistant at Playboy by day, plucks out the slow groove on his bass. And for the first time in nearly 40 years, Renaldo Domino croons, “There’s a house across the street.…” Everyone in the room, band included, excitedly holds his breath. Domino sounds beautiful. It hardly matters that he’s missing his upper front teeth.
Bright canary light shines through the windows from the Shell station across the street. Staff members from the record label, the Numero Group—Ken Shipley, Tom Lunt and Michael Slaboch—huddle in the corner of the practice space, a second-story bachelor’s flat at Lawrence and Ashland Avenues. A copy of Goethe’s Faust rests atop an antique Philco radio. In 2007, Numero reissued a two-disc compilation of Twinight recordings, which sold around five figures. The sonic archeologists had long envisioned putting together a live show to complement their records, an occasion to drag some of these forgotten soul crooners back on stage for a never-given encore, if not a second chance.
Just weeks after this first practice, on Saturday 4, the Numero Group will finally stage its inaugural Eccentric Soul Revue. There is some worry: Horns, organ, strings and backup singers still need to be worked in. Until this moment, nobody was even sure if Domino’s pipes were up for the task. Shipley had assured his partners, “I heard him over the phone.”
Also watching, awaiting his turn at the mike, is another slated Revue performer, Syl Johnson. Twinight’s brightest star and key producer from its early-’70s heyday sits on the couch, studying the band. In stark contrast to Domino’s blue-collar uniform, the 67-year-old sports a black knit cap, a plaid, quilted flannel shirt and logo-drenched Paco jeans—he’s a page ripped out of an out-of-date gangsta-rap catalog.
Domino starts to shuffle his feet, wailing, “Ooooh! Let me come within!” The funky workout comes to a sweaty end. Shipley asks, “What were you thinking when you wrote those lyrics?” Domino lowers his brow: “What you think?”
During a break in practice, we chat with Domino. The small, quiet man laughs off any question of anxiety. “I’m way beyond stage fright,” he says. Like most long-overlooked songwriters, he’s quick to hype current projects, and he remains—perhaps naively—hopeful that this performance will herald a comeback. Down in Calumet Park, in his home studio, Domino still fiddles with keyboards when not hooking up HBO. “I’ve got 30 to 40 songs in the can. I’m looking for a publishing deal.” According to Shipley, Domino and Johnson never received royalties from their music until the Numero reissues. “I was 19, 20 years old singing that shit,” Domino tells us.
Johnson starts to warm up. Decades back, the two men traveled together on touring road shows. They haven’t communicated since. Now the two stand in the Uptown guitarist’s cheap, typical-band-dude’s apartment decorated with French New Wave posters and loaded with Sonic Youth and Anthology of American Folk Music LPs.
Johnson rips the microphone off the stand and prowls the room. The old man freestyles some Wu-Tang Clan. Bouncing on his sneakers, he raps, “Shame on a nigga who tries to run game on a nigga!” Everyone cracks up. The Uptown Sound breaks into Johnson’s angry, affecting rant against ghetto life, “Concrete Reservation.” Johnson stands still, reading over the lyrics he wrote long ago, as if he were a newscaster handed a breaking report. “‘Baby cryin’ across the hall,’” he reads, shaking his head. “That’s some fucked-up shit!”
Domino, Johnson and others step back into the spotlight, backed by J.C. Brooks & the Uptown Sound, for the Eccentric Soul Revue on Saturday 4. For more on the Numero Group, see DVD reviews.
