“I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin'”

Ray Charles included two version of “I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin'” on his 2-LP box set with Cleo Laine Porgy And Bess in 1976. One was an instrumental jazz version, and one was this brassy, sassy version featuring both Ray and Cleo singing.

“I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin'” is a celebration of having very little in ones life. Ray’s Porgy and Cleo’s Bess are poor, and exult in the lack of stress such a life can reward you with. The characters imagine themselves, basically, as living out the ideas of Henry David Thoreau. The sad fact that Porgy is a disabled beggar on the streets of Charleston, South Carolina and Bess is trapped in a life of violence and a lack of choices provides a haunting backdrop, even if these harsh truths aren’t present in this song.

The liner notes of the Porgy And Bess box set mention how Ray’s “grainy” voice suits the poverty-stricken character of Porgy. He takes the first verse here, Cleo takes the second, and they trade lines on the final. This Frank DeVol-arranged version of Porgy And Bess was meant to restore elements of the original which had been dropped or altered over the years, to go back and explore what George and Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward had intended originally when they wrote this “folk opera” in 1934. Bringing Cleo back into “I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin'” was part of this process.

Through an accident of circumstance “I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin'” has generally come to be regarded as a man’s song, so that once again when we are reminded of the woman’s part in the original setting, as we are in this album, then we realise that some of the lyrics which Cleo Laine sings are not only excellent but hardly ever heard outside an opera house.
– from Benny Green’s liner notes

Indeed, it is both characters rejoicing in their situation on this version of the song, and Cleo’s own thick, earthy tone is a good match for Ray’s famous vocal instrument. (Despite the vernacular spelling in the track’s title, by the way, they singers actually pronounce the word as “nothin'”.)

Throughout this vocal version of “I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin'” a busy brass section swings and lopes about noisily; the effect really underscores the feeling of celebration and happiness that the lyrics convey. Ray and Cleo sound good, the orchestra is wild, and the song is, despite the pathos of its back story, quite a lot of fun, musically.

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