Where the singer/songwriter preambles the song with a short story about how the song came about. EXAMPLES: Betty Wright’s live version of Tonight is the Night, Wyclef Jean in Gone Til November, Bill Wither’s Liza.
Where the singer of a stops singing to do a lengthy spoken word performance talking directly to the subject of the song or the audience, and resumes with the song. EXAMPLES: Temptations’ Papa Was A Rolling Stone, Boyz II Men End Of The Road, Lenny Williams in Cuz I Love You.
I hear this done mostly in R&B and some-hip hop. Apologies if you’re not familiar with my examples. (Everyone should know “Papa” though.)
I think this just came about as a result of artists introducing songs when they perform them live. Most performers will engage in some “inter-song banter” between numbers, and good showmen might offer a little introduction, such as “Here’s an old favorite of mine, and I hope you like it too,” or “I was bitch-ass drunk in a motel room in San Diego when I came up with this next number.” The short-lived VH1 concert series Storytellers focused on artists talking between their songs, providing background information and interacting with the crowd. My favorite artist, Tom Waits, is a master of inter-song banter. (Seriously, his album *Nighthawks At the Diner * borders on stand-up comedy.) It was just a natural progression for these intros to start being recorded in the studio as actual parts of the songs.
Most likely another performance style taken from live shows. I’m always reminded of Elvis’ “All the world’s a stage…” segue in “I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You,” but jump blues masters like Louis Jordan and Cab Calloway would have spoken segments of their songs as well. I’d guess it to be a blues music tradition, but it’s not limited by genre–Jim Morrison broke in the middle of “The End” to go off on spooky, poetic tangents while the Doors continued playing behind him.
The ultimate in rambling monologues is Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant,” which is basically just a long, funny story with a few bits of music tucked in.
But those aren’t official techniques with technical-sounding names. They’re just individual quirks that lend to more unique performances. And a “segue” is just one thing flowing into another, or at least that’s how I meant it.
