Soul Mine - The Greatest Hits LP

Lee Dorsey was a guy with a pretty strong work ethic -- when he wasn't cutting R&B hits, he ran a body and fender repair business in New Orleans, and proudly proclaimed himself to be "The best body man in the Ninth Ward." Because of (or in spite of ) this, Dorsey sang more than a few songs about the indignities of holding down a job, and the best known was "Working in the Coal Mine," written by the great New Orleans pianist and songwriter Allen Toussaint. Held in place by Chuck Badie's bass line and punctuated by some clanking percussion, Roy Montrell's stinging guitar interjections, and soulful but subtle punctuation from the horn section, "Working in a Coal Mine" may be the ultimate working stiff's anthem, with its lyrics about some poor guy who works from break of day to gloom of night hauling coal out of the ground, leaving him too tired to go out when Saturday finally comes. However, Dorsey's fatigue has a pretty lively feel for a guy who's supposed to be running on fumes, and his frequent exclamations of "Lord, I'm so tired! How long can this go on!" are more comic than anything else, all in the great tradition of New Orleans R&B, where very little is taken seriously beyond having a good time. "Working in a Coal Mine" was, with the exception of "Ya Ya," Dorsey's biggest hit, though he wasn't the only artist to tackle Toussaint's classic; Devo cut the tune for the animated sci-fi epic Heavy Metal in 1981, and mother-and-daughter country stars the Judds put their own stamp on the number when they cut it on their 1985 set Rockin' With the Rhythm. - allmusic.com