At the time that one of Rare Essence’s all time greatest hits, “Take Me Out to the Go-Go” was written and recorded, Rare Essence was a much different band than it is today. In light of the fact that Rare Essence has had a variety of incarnations over the years, one could be understandably confused as to who was actually on the recording of this song. When “Take Me Out to the Go Go” was recorded, the band actually consisted of Quentin “Footz” Davidson on drums, David Green on roto toms and timbales, Tyrone “Jungle Boogie” Williams on congas, Michael “Funky Ned” Neal on bass, Andre “Whiteboy” Johnson on guitar, Benny “Little Benny” Harley on trumpet, Rory “DC” Felton on saxophone and cow bell, John “Big Horn” Jones on trombone, Marky Owens and Mark “Godfather” Lawson on keyboards. The vocals were covered by Williams, Harley and Green.
According to Andre “Whiteboy” Johnson, the only original member remaining of the Rare Essence machine that cranked out original hits consistently, “although some of the early Rare Essence hits were recorded at Sigma Studios in Philadelphia, ‘Take Me Out to the Go-Go’ was recorded at Bias Studios in Springfield, Virginia. It was recorded in the studio, and mixed, but it was never mastered and therefore is not on any of the Rare Essence Cds. It can only be found on PA tapes. Mike Hughes produced the studio version of the song and it has been one of the classic Rare Essence hits.”
Johnson continues, “We just never released it. That song has been a mainstay on the Rare Essence play list and the catalog for thirty years. When we play it at a club, regardless of the era that the crowd came up in, they know the song. Some may not have even been born yet, but they do know the song.”
Mark “Godfather” Lawson emphatically states, “I came up with the music. Then, Benny, Jungle Boogie, David Green and I all sat down and started seeing what rhymed with what and we came up with the words. The melodies came from songs from our childhood- nursery rhymes, TV commercials and snippets. The part ‘What do you do when you’re home doin’ nothing’, came from a Cracker Jack commercial. We didn’t really get radio play on “Take Me Out to the Go-Go”, but it was one of our favorite songs to play. This song had the percussion breakdowns in the middle of the song that the RE percussionists added themselves and put their signature on. The song shows how you can use snippets, incorporate them into a song and have fun with it. This song was basically a medley of melodies, most coming from the playground. There was the 1950’s rhyme ‘There’s a soldier in the grass with a bullet in his ass’, a child’s taunt, ‘Cry baby, Cry baby’, nursery rhymes ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ and ‘London Bridge’ and then the Christmas song, ‘Do you hear what I hear?’ the music from the circus and of course, ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’ to name a few.”
“The part of the song that asks ‘Where you wanna go? Where you wanna go?’ was started by some guys from Uptown, 9th and Westminster- Gene Bean, Nevellon and Harvey Cooper. They used to come up to the Maverick Room, anywhere uptown. They just started the call and response ‘where you wanna go? Take me out to the Go Go’”, Lawson adds.
“Mark (Lawson) started off every song that Rare Essence did back then, really”, saxophonist Rory “DC” Felton confirms. “He wrote his own part. He never got credit for it. I don’t know why. People don’t know this, but Mark plays horns too. Mark used to give us our parts- me, Benny and Big Horn. We would go over to Ms. Lawson’s house and we would practice all night. The horns were tight! Mark was very creative. We made most of our songs right at the shows. Mark would start something and then maybe Funky Ned would come in with his part and then someone else. We would just ride with the crowd. The next day we would go down in the basement and make it into a song. The people gave us our songs. We were really connected to the crowd.”
Johnson agrees, “We have always been lucky with that. If it’s something the crowd responds to, then we keep going, but if not, we just move on to something else. We need to see what works.”
Felton explains at the time of the release of “Take Me Out to the Go Go” his life was going against everything he had been taught as a country boy. “At that time, my interests were girls and the music. I’m from the country so everything I was taught against was being thrown in my face- and I liked it! I came up here from rural Virginia when I was 16 and I went to Ballou. The first day that Footz invited me to practice, it took me four hours to get there. I was so lost! Practice was on Xenia Street SE and I lived four blocks away on Horner Place SE. I just didn’t know DC. By the time I got there, practice was over. But, I’ll tell you, looking out there and seeing people smiling and laughing- that was my happiness.”
Over the years, “Take Me Out to the Go Go” has spawned many different versions depending on who was in Rare Essence at the time. But, regardless of who was on vocals, the song still had the whimsical childlike essence to it.
The song also precipitated the very popular online magazine, TMOTTGoGo, which is dedicated to urban music and culture in the DC Metropolitan area. Kevin “Kato” Hammond, owner and creator of TMOTTGoGo explains, “When I first heard the song, I thought it was really catchy. Of course I immediately recognized ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’ but to hear it in the format that RE put it in, to me, was clever. It was such an excellent demonstration of the call and response activity that played such a prevalent part in Go-Go during that time. Benny would yell out to the crowd ‘Where you wanna go? Where you wanna go?’, and the crowd would sing back ‘Take me out to the Go-Goooooo’.”
He continues, “As time went on, the song just grew and grew. Different parts and sections were added to it until, in my opinion, the song was eventually complete. It had become such an ingenious creation, like a wonderfully written novel. I mean, it had an intro that went straight into the rising action. By the time it got to the lyrics, ‘Take me out to the Go-Go’, the song has reached its climax straight into the Tip-Top. But, it wasn’t over then. From there, it swiftly glided into its falling action and ending with the ‘Take the time out’ part. By the time it reached the end of the song, heck 20 minutes had gone by, yet not one boring or dead element in it!! Without a doubt, it had become my favorite Go-Go song ever, actually, to the point that when I created TMOTTGoGo back in 1996, I named it after that song, with the frame of mind to gracefully build on it the same way that the song was built- one piece at a time.”
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