Mercy, Mercy, Mercy
| "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Cannonball Adderley from the album Mercy, Mercy, Mercy! Live at 'The Club' | |
| Released | 1966 |
| Recorded | Capitol Records (Los Angeles), October 20, 1966 |
| Genre | Soul jazz |
| Length | 5:10 |
| Label | EMI |
| Writer(s) | Joe Zawinul |
| Producer(s) | David Axelrod |
| "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Single by The Buckinghams | ||||
| from the album Time & Charges | ||||
| B-side | "You Are Gone" | |||
| Released | March 1967 | |||
| Recorded | Columbia Studios, New York, NY | |||
| Genre | Sunshine pop, pop rock | |||
| Label | Columbia | |||
| Writer(s) | Joe Zawinul | |||
| Producer(s) | James William Guercio | |||
| The Buckinghams singles chronology | ||||
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"Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" is a song written by Joe Zawinul in 1966 for Julian "Cannonball" Adderley and his album Mercy, Mercy, Mercy! Live at 'The Club'. The song is the title track of the album and became a surprise hit. "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" went to #2 on the Soul chart and #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
"Mercy, Mercy, Mercy has been re-recorded numerous times, most notably by The Buckinghams, who reached # 5 in August 1967, adding lyrics to the tune. Musicians on the Buckingham's version included James Henderson, Lew McCreary and Richard Leith on trombone, Bill Peterson, Bud Childers on trumpet, John Johnson on sax, Lincoln Mayorga on Wurlitzer electric piano, Dennis Budimir on guitar, Carol Kaye on bass, and John Guerin on drums.
The first part of the theme is played two times and is completely made of notes from the major pentatonic scale of the first degree.
The tune is in the key of B-flat major and has a 20-bar structure with four distinct sections. The chord progression is mainly made of dominant-seventh chords on the first, fourth and fifth degrees, giving the song a bluesy feeling although it does not follow a typical blues progression. The subdominant (IV) chord in the beginning section emphasizes this bluesy feeling. In the second section, the tonic chord alternates with a second-inversion subdominant chord, creating a parallel to the I-IV-V progression (in which the tonic moves to the subdominant).
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