THE MAKING OF...
OUT of all the classic funk and soul 45s to come out of New Orleans in the 1960s, none sound like Betty Harris’s “There’s A Break In The Road”. From the opening bars, horns audibly hiss and distort, the guitar is wreathed in feedback and instruments leak all over each other. But at the back of the track, the rhythm section reaches exceptional levels of funkiness while over the top comes Harris’s powerful voice, close to breaking point. She sounds angry and resilient, desperate and defiant as she rails against the no-good man who left her. Betty Harris has had enough – and perhaps fittingly this would be her final single. It was released in 1969; in 1970 Harris, tired of the lack of success and money, quit music to focus on raising her family.
Hitting the road:
Betty Harris, early 1960s
CHARLIEGILLETT/REDFERNS;BENGABBE/GETTYIMAGES; TIMMOSENFELDER/WIREIMAGE
“There’s A Break In The Road” was New Orleans funk, born and bred. It was written by Allen Toussaint and recorded in a makeshift building on the site of what would one day become his famous Sea-Saint Studio. The backing band included members of The Meters –guitarist Leo Nocentelli and bassist George Porter Jr, supplemented by James Black on drums after Toussaint decided the jazz drummer had a better feel for the material than The Meters’ own Ziggy Modeliste.