(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher

"(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" is a hit R&B song originally performed by Jackie Wilson in 1967. The song was notably recorded by Rita Coolidge in 1977.

Overview

The backing track for "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" was recorded on 6 July 1967 at Columbia's studios in Chicago. Produced by Carl Davis, the session - arranged by Sonny Sanders - featured bassist James Jamerson, drummer Richard "Pistol" Allen, guitarist Robert White, and keyboardist Johnny Griffith; these four musicians were all members of the Motown Records house band the Funk Brothers who often moonlighted on sessions for Davis to augment the meager wages paid by Motown. According to Carl Davis the Funk Brothers "used to come over on the weekends from Detroit. They’d load up in the van and come over to Chicago, and I would pay ‘em double scale, and I’d pay ‘em in cash." Similarly two of Motown's house session singers the Andantes: Jackie Hicks and Marlene Barrow along with Pat Lewis, performed on the session for "...Higher and Higher".

Davis brought the track to New York City for Wilson to add his vocal; Davis recalls Wilson originally sang the song "like a soul ballad. I said that's totally wrong. You have to jump and go with the percussion...if he didn't want to sing it that way, I would put my voice on the record and sell millions". After hearing Davis' advisement Wilson cut the lead vocal for "...Higher and Higher" in a single take. ^[1]

The original songwriting credit for "...Higher and Higher" was to Gary Jackson and Carl Smith who'd previously been house songwriters at Chess Records. When "...Higher and Higher" reached the Top Ten, Chess songwriters Billy Davis and Raynard Miner sued claiming the song as their composition which Jackson or Smith had appropriated from Miner's briefcase while at Chess Records; Davis and Miner alleged Jackson and Smith had slightly amended the lyrics and then presented "...Higher and Higher" to Davis as their own work. Davis and Miner were awarded eighty percent of the songwriting royalties with Jackson and Smith retaining twenty percent.

Released in August 1967, "...Higher and Higher" reached #1 R&B and in November peaked on the Pop charts at #6.^[2]

In the UK Wilson's "...Higher and Higher" would be a hit in 1969 (#11), 1975 (#25), ^[3] and 1987 (#15).

The single's sales have been estimated as high as four million.

Columbia Records released a Higher and Higher album in November 1967: its chart peak was #163 (#28 R&B). ^[4]

The track was ranked #246 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.

Covers

Rita Coolidge version

Rita Coolidge remade the song as "(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher" for her 1977 album Anytime...Anywhere. Coolidge's take on "...Higher and Higher" is more mid-tempo than the driving original and largely omits the chorus which is evidenced only in the background vocals sung under the repetition of the first verse with which Coolidge closes the song.

Coolidge and her sister Priscilla Jones had sung background on a version of the song for a prospective album by Jones' husband Booker T. Jones; when that album was shelved Coolidge asked Booker T. Jones if she could cut the song using his arrangement. ^[5]

Released as a single, "...Higher and Higher" became Coolidge's first major hit in nine years of recording: the track peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 - Cash Box ranked it at #1^[6] - with appeal to light rock stations (#5 Easy Listening).

Both "...Higher and Higher" and the Anytime...Anywhere track released as the follow-up single: "We're All Alone" earned Coolidge a gold record as each was a million seller.

In the UK "...Higher and Higher" was released as the follow-up single after "We're All Alone" which had reached #6 but "(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher" only achieved a peak of #48 UK.^[7] In Australia "...Higher and Higher" reached #6 and spent 33 weeks on the chart.

Coolidge's final Top 40 hit "All Time High" in 1983 would contain lyrical echoes of her breakout hit "...Higher and Higher".

Other versions

"(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" was also recorded by the Dells whose version AMG [1] states is the original. The Dells version was first released on the group's There Is album on May 25, 1968.^[8]

A 1967 recording by Otis Redding - as "(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher" - was released in 1969, 18 months after Redding's death, as the B-side of his "Free Me" single. This version reached #30 on the R&B charts, and #103 on the pop charts.

The Move covered "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" in 1968.

In 1969 Gamble and Huff produced a version of "Higher and Higher" by the Jaggerz for the Introducing the Jaggerz album; the track - which was titled as "Higher and Higher" - was issued a single in the autumn of 1970 but did not chart (the Jaggerz were by then having more recent product issued by the Kama Sutra label).

In 1970 the song was recorded - under the title "Higher and Higher" - by Canada Goose a group from Ottawa who'd been discovered by Jerry Ragovoy: this version with a shared lead vocal by Barbra Bullard and John Matthews became a hit in Canada (#44) and reached #92 on the Record World 100 Pop Chart.^[9][10]

"(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher" was also recorded by Bobby Darin and Gene Pitney; Pitney's version entitled "Higher and Higher" was a non-charting single in 1971.

The Greg Kihn Band remade the song for their 1982 album Kihntinued; entitled "Higher and Higher", the track featured the group's drummer Larry Lynch on lead vocals.

The Contours performed "Higher and Higher" (under that title) in the Dirty Dancing: Live in Concert Tour in 1988; their rendition was featured on the cast album.

Jimmy Cliff cut a reggae version of "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" in 1994 and charted in Germany (#52) and New Zealand (#31).

Sam Moore - who as half of Sam & Dave succeeded the Jackie Wilson original at #1 R&B with "Soul Man" - sang "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" in a concert tour by the Funk Brothers in 2004.

In 2008 the song became a #9 Adult Contemporary hit for Michael McDonald who'd remade it for his Soul Speak album of classic soul songs: it was McDonald's 16 year old daughter Scarlett who suggested he sing "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher".^[11]In 1999, McDonald had been brought in as a sideman to sing lead on Chicago's Chicago XXVI: Live in Concert album, which closed with this studio track.

2008 also saw the song - as "Higher and Higher" - chart in Sweden due to Kevin Borg the eventual winner of Idol Season 8 performing it in the competition: downloads of Borg's version secured it a #29 ranking.^[12]

Rod Stewart included a version of "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" on his 2009 Soulbook album which comprised classic soul songs.

Overall "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" has proven more popular with female vocalists: besides Rita Coolidge, "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" has been recorded by Erma Franklin, Barbara Mandrell, Esther Phillips, Dolly Parton, Maria Mendiola (as "Higher and Higher"), Martha Reeves and Dana Valery.

Bette Midler sang a radically re-invented version on her 1973 Bette Midler album: Midler utilized "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" as the finale for each performance of her 1975 Broadway show Clams on the Half Shell Revue, singing the song while dancing atop a giant spinning record player. ^[13]

In 1976 Séverine had a single release of the German rendering "Heißer Als Feuer".

Kate Ceberano recorded the song - as "Higher and Higher" - in 2003 for her album 19 Days in New York, a January 2004 release which marked the return to the studio of Billy Davis, a veteran of the classic Chicago R&B sound who coproduced with Leonard Caston Jr.[2] (19 Days in New York was the final production of Davis who died 2 September 2004). Ceberano's "Higher and Higher" was released as a promo single to Australian radio.

A dance version—listed as both "Your Love is Lifting Me Higher" and "Your Love is Lifting Me (Higher and Higher)"—by Gioia was released in 2007.

A rendition of ("Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" by Dusty Springfield which she sang on a BBC radio broadcast on 5 January 1970 was issued on the 2007 Mercury Records compilation Dusty Springfield Complete BBC Sessions.

Bruce Springsteen has covered the song in concert more than a dozen times between 1977's Chicken Scratch Tour and 2009's Working On A Dream Tour, using it almost exclusively to close sets.

A radically different Ambient House version was recorded by the Newcastle based Electro pop band Moira Stewart. It features on their second album 'Whatever We Do Is Love'.^[14]

In popular culture

• To change their corporate image of their clothes being only for formal wear, the Arrow Shirt company commissioned an award winning television commercial campaign which uses this song. In this commercial, a male choir, all dressed in formal white shirt and tie, sings the song in tight harmony, but quickly changes a joyous gospel music ensemble singing the song freeform while wearing the company's colorful line of casual wear.

• At the victory rally for U.S. President Barack Obama in Grant Park in Chicago, "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" was the third and final of three songs played to warm up the audience for the speeches. The song was also used frequently during Obama's 2008 Presidential campaign stops.

• "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" was featured in the 1989 motion picture Ghostbusters II. It was presented in its original form and in a new version performed by Howard Huntsberry. In the movie, the song is used to make the Statue of Liberty move, under the influence of psychokinetic slime.

• The song is heard in the final musical sequence of the 2002 dark comedy film Death to Smoochy.

• The song is also played in the final scene of the 2000 film Disney's The Kid.

• The song was used in a Verizon Fios commercial.

• The song was used during the credits in the comedy film Date Night.

• Comedy/parody band Big Daddy used the song as the basis for an arrangement of the song "Hold On" (by Wilson Phillips).

References