Grace Jones - Williams Blood (2008)

Williams' Blood is an autobiographical song, written by Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman (formerly of Prince and The Revolution) explaining how Jones takes after her mother's, Marjorie Jones née Williams, musical side of the family rather than that of her disciplinarian father Reverend Robert Jones. According to the lyrics, Jones' mother reveals that her grandfather was a musician who traveled with Nat King Cole, womanizing and drinking from town to town. The song describes her family's lament that she isn't more of a Jones like her sister or brother Noel while she expresses her desire to be free.
In the song's introduction Jones distorts a line from the first stanza of Amazing Grace declaring, "You can't save a wretch like me". At the end of the track when Jones sings the first two lines of Amazing Grace, her mother Marjorie, a lyric soprano, can be heard singing the same hymn in church. The song's working title was Keeping up with the Joneses, an idiom heard in the lyrics.
And below, the sublime Aeroplane Remix by Vito De Luca's Belgium-based disco project.

- Facel Vega HK5000

Grace Jones - Do Or Die (1978)

Do Or Die was a single released by Grace Jones, from her 1978 album Fame. The track was the first and in most parts of the world the only single release from the album, the second of her disco outings. The 7" single featured a heavily edited version (3:22) with the French-language non-album track Comme un oiseau qui s'envole as the B-side, included as a bonus track on the Canadian edition of the album. The 12" single release saw an A-side comprised of a medley of the album A-side Do Or Die/Pride/Fame while the B-side an extended mix of the single B-side.

Do Or Die reached no.3 on the U.S. Billboard dance chart, but failed to make a chart impact elsewhere. In 1985 the 7" edit of Do Or Die was included as one of three disco tracks on the Island Life compilation album, the other being the album versions of 1975's I Need A Man and La Vie En Rose from 1977.

- Mr Fabulous

Grace Jones - I've Done It Again (1981)

One of the most misunderstood and underrated artists of our time. She can do both subtle and gross, but she's always compelling. And not for the timid. More Grace Jones tracks to come this week.
Speaking of subtle, take this track; a Barry Reynolds-penned song from her highly successful fifth studio album, Nightclubbing, from 1981. It was the last track on the album, and for me made a nice low-key ending. It wasn't released as a single and isn't that well known outside her fan base, but that doesn't stop it being as great a track as any of her more well-known material.

-FVHK5K