Music Monday 2/27/17

After a couple of weeks off, I’ll take the time to use this #MusicMonday as a tribute to Al Jarreau, who passed away just over two weeks ago. His lasting mark is probably “We’re in This Love Together” or the theme to the 80’s TV series Moonlighting, but this man was a masterclass of vocal jazz. I didn’t even know what to pick here. He has such a wonderful library. Here in “Roof Garden” we party with some good friends as Al invites us to what is sure to be a rockin’ celebration. With some wonderful scat as we near the end, it is absolutely uncontrollable to not at least want to tap a foot.

Hump Day Hit 2/8/17

As the Grammy’s draw closer, we take today’s #HumpDayHit to look at a Record of the Year winner. As a drummer and lead singer following Peter Gabriel’s departure, Phil Collins lead Genesis to some great hits in the 80’s such as “Invisible Touch” and “Land of Confusion.” During all of this however, he also had a wildly successful solo career as well, with such classics as “In the Air Tonight” and “Against Al Odds.” Here we look at his final US #1 hit, “Another Day in Paradise.” A song that touches upon the heartbreaking issue of homelessness, an issue that still persists to this day, it’s rather touching whether you’ve stopped for someone or not. The song had some rather tough competition in 1991 to win RotY, beating out “Vision of Love” and “U Can’t Touch This”, and “Nothing Compares 2 U”; all former #1’s as well and all monster hits. While Phil hasn’t had another #1 since, he did a bit more, including the soundtrack to Disney’s “Tarzan”, and remained relatively silent in the music world. One hopes his live shows in London in June are a smashing success.

Hump Day Hit 2/1/17

I liked #HumpDayHit so much, I decided to do it again this week. In these tumultuous days we’re living in, I know you don’t get a chance to take a break this often. Daft Punk feels your pain too. Two Frenchmen with a penchant for electronic music teamed up 24 years ago, and have made an everlasting relationship that has birthed an amazing array of pioneering music. Their music is one I’d call transcendent; with many of their songs providing an escape to another world. While “Discovery” is probably their most critically acclaimed album, and for good reason, “Random Access Memories” is their most commercially successful, their first #1 album and winner of the Album of the Year Grammy in 2014. Teaming up Pharrell, pioneer for his work with The Neptunes, and Nile Rodgers, pioneer from his work with Chic, for two songs on the latter, this song, “Lose Yourself to Dance”, feels like a precursor to the other collaboration, “Get Lucky”. Both going hand in hand for what I’d consider an unforgettable night. One where there are no worries. Where friends and I just click, and build those random access memories as we lose ourselves to dance.

Hump Day Hit 1/25/17

I bet you think I forgot about Music Monday this week, and you’d be half right in that I practically slept through Monday after an early start to the day. So this week, let’s have a #HumpDayHit! The week can be long and arduous, so as we head downhill to the weekend we look at a song lamenting how hard it can be out there. The Spinners are an outstanding group who found a way to capture that wonderful Philly sound after they moved to Atlantic Records following a six year run with Motown. They had an array of hits with Atlantic. A wonderful time period where the songs were on point and Philippé Wynne was at his peak as one of the primary leads. In “Games People Play” however, he only provides background as Bobby Smith and Pervis Jackson give us that tired feeling of the daily grind the world throws at us. Evette Benton joins in to segue us into the chorus. All of it, including a wonderful piano break, adds up to another million seller for the group, and a top 5 hit on the pop charts. 

Music Monday Follow-Up 1/17/17

Follow up to yesterday's #MusicMonday. I love me a good crossover, and so did Motown, having quite a few acts team up for various albums. The Four Tops teamed up with The Supremes—post Diana at this point—for three different albums in two years, with the super-pairing (and 1st album) being referred to as "The Magnificent Seven". Quite fitting as they did some pretty good work covering "River Deep, Mountain High" and yesterday's selection, "Without the One You Love"; with "Without the One You Love" seeing a more typical funk production of the label at the time. Glad they kept the strings. It allows the lifting feeling of the original to remain here.

Music Monday 1/16/17

After starting off #MusicMonday with two female artists, let’s switch to four men! The Four Tops were an amazing group from Motown’s classic era, lead by the outstanding, late Levi Stubbs. They had a litany of hits over the course of their time with Motown, which ended for the first time in 1972 when the label moved to Los Angeles. This isn’t one of those hits. “Without the One You Love (Life’s Not Worth While)”, released in 1964, only peaked at #43, but the emotion they pack in it is present aplenty. As a follow up to their previous hit “Baby I Need Your Loving”, it continues along the lines of expressing how important the subject’s love is to the group. It’s a simple song with so much to give; with the echo sound, strings, and use of session vocalists The Andantes giving this a heavenly, rising feeling. And with the superb Levi Stubbs giving it his all as he always did, you can hear the emotion pouring out, even if to a melodramatic effect. So much so, that I just can’t help but sing along. While there isn’t much to the song, I wish it ran longer that its 2:47 runtime. A wonderful listen.

Music Monday 1/9/17

It’s around this time of year that an annual tradition would start and millions would enjoy it numerous nights a week. I’m talking about American Idol, and for the first time since 2002, really 2003, that won’t be happening as the show concluded its run last year. A tradition of the show was the winner of the season singing and releasing a “debut” single referred to as their “coronation song”. In the beginning, as the show exploded in popularity, many of those songs charted high, even going to #1. Today, I present my favorite, and what I think is the best, of the coronation songs, Fantasia’s “I Believe”. Fantasia is probably one of the best winners in the of the show. She performed amazingly well, and consistently, week after week as she competed in Season 3, with her performance of “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess being one of the greatest singular performances in the show’s history. By the time it came down to the end, it was no competition between her and Diana DeGarmo as to who would win. The #1 debut of the song made Fantasia the first female artist to have such a debut with her first record and for good reason. The song is such a journey of hope and inspiration, I find it hard for me to not sing along as builds towards the end and Fantasia delivers its spirit as only she can. It was a high watermark to start of an amazing, yet understated career. Fun side note, Season 1 finalist Tamyra Grey was the writer of this song. It’s so great that she could be given this opportunity and come through exceptionally. I could go on about Idol for ages as it was a favorite of my family for years. I shan’t, but enjoy this wonderful song.

Music Monday 1/2/17

So, I’ve decided to do something to express myself here on Facebook/online a bit more than I did in 2016. So let’s try to do a weekly #MusicMonday bit and see where it goes. To start things off, let’s go with one of my all-time favorite singers. While people will go out “stanning” for Rihanna, Lady Gaga, or Beyoncé (and I have no problem with any of them, cool your jets), I’m also out stanning for Ella Fitzgerald. Now, I love me some Sarah Vaughn or Lena Horne, but I consider Ms. Fitzgerald to be the Queen of Jazz. Given a voice sent from high above, she used it to the greatest of her ability in a career that spanned over 50 years. I often consider her to be the greatest singer of the 20^th century. Here we listen to her cover of “How High the Moon” from the late 40s. Oddly enough, while Ella had a few songs that were introduced by her, her strongest suit was having a superb arrangement of an already established song as she belted it out as only she could. This song was introduced in a Broadway play called “Two for the Show” back in 1940. You could probably consider the most famous version to be that by the great Les Paul and Mary Ford. I can get into a whole other paragraph about how great an impact Les Paul had on music, but not today. In that version—seriously, go listen to that version—the music break is handled by seamless guitar playing from Paul and wonderful, groundbreaking multi-track effects of Ford’s voice. Here, Ella eschews the structure of the song to just guide us through with the skill of scat, her specialty. I guarantee this will not be the only time Ella Fitzgerald gets a mention from me.