Talking Heads’ excellence as a band didn’t translate into many hits on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. Only “Burning Down The House” made it into the Top 10 in late 1983. Perhaps it was the success of that song that led the music programmers at KQIZ (Z-93) in Amarillo Texas to add “Take Me To The River” to the playlist.
“Take Me To The River” peaked at number 26 on the chart in 1978, but I didn’t hear it on the radio until I was in my high school years. It was a few years after that when I discovered it was a cover of a song by an artist named Al Green. I looked around for other songs Green did, and when I heard them, I instantly became a fan. If it wasn’t for Talking Heads covering that song, I may have never discovered my favorite soul singer of the 1970s (sorry, Marvin). So thanks to David Byrne, to that unknown Z-93 program director, and of course, to the Reverend Al.
Here’s Talking Heads performing the song at a 1983 Rome concert:
And Al Green getting funky with it at the 1999 Montreaux Jazz Festival.
