How James Brown and Johnny Cash inspired a classic song by The Stone Roses
While later eclipsed by the anthem-churning Britpop sensation Oasis, the rise of the Madchester movement was undoubtedly attributable to The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays. Of course, all roads lead back to New Order and their hand in founding the legendary Haçienda club, but from their “loose fit” garb to rave scene flirtation, the Roses and the Mondays truly set the tone for the musical landscape of 1990s Britain.
The Stone Roses formed in 1983 and traversed the decade with a series of name changes and lineup shuffles before settling with Ian Brown front and centre, John Squire on guitar and Mani and Reni on bass and drums, respectively.
It wasn’t until the close of the decade, in May 1989, that the group released their eponymous debut album. The seminal release saw the band rise from the obscurity of a swell of aspiring Manchester groups to become the cream of British rock music heading into the 1990s.
While The Stone Roses wasn’t an immediate success, by the early ’90s, after a fruitful touring campaign, it received due reverence, both commercially and critically. Crucially, the album gave Oasis a pair of shoes to fill as the decade progressed. Noel Gallagher famously said of The Stone Roses: “Without that band, there would not have been an Oasis”.
Before, during and after The Stone Roses, the band dropped a total of five singles (six on the US version) taken from its hit-laden ranks. In November 1989, they issued the double A-side ‘Fools Gold’/’ What the World Is Waiting For’. The funky ten-minute classic, ‘Fools Gold’, regrettably missed the last call for the debut album roster but has been included in later overseas issues and reissues.
‘Fools Gold’ garnered unprecedented commercial attention upon its release, and it remains one of the band’s most popular hits to this day. It was their first single to reach the top ten in the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number eight and remaining in the top 75 for 14 weeks.
The epic single combines Squire’s signature wah-wah-laden guitar lines with a more funky rhythm section than previously heard from Mani and Reni. As it turns out, the danceable drum beat on the track was derived from a loop heard on James Brown’s ‘Funky Drummer’.
“We were signing copies of our single, ‘She Bangs The Drums’, in a Manchester record shop called Eastern Bloc,” Squire once told Q magazine of the song’s inception. “The owner said we could pick a couple of albums as a thank you, and I picked out a breakbeats album because I liked the cover and I wanted to see what it was all about. That’s where I heard the ‘Funky Drummer’ loop that we built ‘Fools Gold’ around.”
Instead of simply sampling the source track, Reni took it upon himself to learn the beat and incorporated some of his own flourishes while he was at it.
“The construction of that single was completely different to anything we’d written before. It wasn’t something that was knocked out and arranged on an acoustic guitar, then taken into rehearsals and kicked around with a drummer and a bassist,” Squire added in his conversation with Q. “I just put it on a portastudio and started playing guitar over it. The main riff was partly inspired by Johnny Cash’s rockabilly plucking sound, that muted guitar sound you get when you just play on the bass strings.”
‘Fools Gold’ joined Happy Mondays’ rave-heavy catalogue as a Manchester club scene essential in the 1990s and still gets the masses moving to this day. Listen to the full-length track below.
