A small, obscure, heartbreaking song

 

The Players' "He'll Be Back" (1966) is an odd inclusion in the soundtrack I've created for my class. It's not instantly recognizable or even widely known; it made #24 on the R&B charts that summer, hardly stratospheric fame. I first encountered it on Felix Hernandez's radio show The Rhythm Revue back in the late 90s -- an episode I had the good sense to record on a cassette tape -- where it was immediately followed by Curtis Mayfield's uptempo "We're a Winner" (1968). And indeed, The Players are also singing about the prospects for its lonely GI protagonist "comin' back/with victory in his hand"... But for us, listening with the benefit of hindsight, it is a song about losing.

 

It's a terrible recording -- the first bars are oddly distorted, as if by a damaged tape reel, and the overall sound quality is bad. Even so, that tremulous harmonica and plaintive guitar instantly pull me into its frame of mind, and as soon as the lead vocalist opens his mouth to sing, it's impossible for me to stop listening.

"He'll Be Back" and The Players themselves were a product of Chicago's near North side, according to Robert Pruter's Doowop: The Chicago Scene. The song's writers, Collis Gordon and John Thomas, formed the group in 1966 and shopped their song around to different record companies for a while before some A&R men took an interest. In short order, the two found themselves working under a new manager, with the lead vocals delegated to a new band member, Herbert Butler, fresh out of the Army himself, as well as a few other talents recruited from The Dells. The "sequel" song on Side B -- "Glad You Waited" -- recorded without The Dells and without Gordon and Thomas' songwriting, only made it to #32 on the charts. After "He'll Be Back," the band managed to put out two more singles in 1967 before disappearing.

The never-resolved national trauma over Vietnam can be read off of the comments left by viewers of the various YouTube videos in which "He'll Be Back" appears.

 

7,243 Black soldiers never came back.