music Archives - Page 101 of 265 - Ramblin' with Roger

Bridge Over Troubled Water – S&G

country, disco, soul…

Someone wrote to me this week: “Waiting on your blog post that commemorates [the] 50th anniversary of the “Bridge Over Troubled Water” single.

It is a great song, released on January 20, 1970, the title track of an album released six days later. The single hit the charts on February 7 and spent six weeks at #1 pop and the same on the adult contemporary charts.

Moreover, it was the Grammy Record and Song of the Year, Top 50 on Rolling Stones Top 500 songs, and a bunch of other accolades. It’s my second favorite Simon and Garfunkel song, after The Boxer.

If memory serves, my sister Leslie received the single from her boyfriend that winter. I bought, or was given, the album shortly afterwards. I swear that the single and the album track were in different keys. Maybe that was just the production values of the single.

Who will sing the song?

I suppose Bridge Over Troubled Water makes me sad because it was the swan song of the duet, the last song recorded for their final album. Paul Simon felt his partner, Art Garfunkel, should sing the song solo, the “white choirboy way.” Art initially declined, liking “Simon’s falsetto on the demo.”

“At the suggestion of Garfunkel and producer Roy Halee, Simon wrote an extra verse and a ‘bigger’ ending, though he felt it was less cohesive with the earlier verses.” While Paul is technically correct – the last verse is not as strong, even with Simon’s harmonies – it doesn’t matter.

Even before their breakup, Paul had his regrets over giving the song to Artie. “Many times on a stage, though, when I’d be sitting off to the side and Larry Knechtel would be playing the piano and Artie would be singing ‘Bridge’, people would stomp and cheer when it was over, and I would think, ‘That’s my song, man…”

This is one of the most covered songs, ever. These are the ones that charted in the US, to my knowledge, plus one more.

Simon and Garfunkel
Aretha Franklin, #6 pop, #1 for two weeks RB in 1971
Buck Owens, #119 pop, #9 CW in 1971
Linda Clifford, #41 pop, #49 RB in 1979; remix
Paul Simon, live in Central Park, 1991
Glee cast, #73 pop in 2010
Andrea Bocelli & Mary J. Blige, #75 pop in 2010
Tessanne Chin, #64 in 2013

Bubbling Under the Hot 100

Good Morning, Vietnam

One of the many music reference books – yes, I said BOOKS – that I own is Bubbling Under the Billboard Hot 100, 1959-2004. These are songs that didn’t quite make it to the promised land on the primary US singles chart.

There are several reasons. Some were regional hits. Some were B-sides of bigger hits but managed to nearly chart anyway. A few are re-releases that had charted higher in the past.

Since the book is nearly 300 pages long, I’m limiting myself to songs I actually own in physical form, either on compact disc or vinyl. You’ll recognize quite a few, I promise. This will take a while.

New York New York – Ryan Adams, #112 in 2002, filmed 9/7/2001. I put this on a mixed CD in my early blogger days.
Baby Please Don’t Go – Amboy Dukes – #106 in 1968
Show Some Emotion– Joan Armatrading – #110 in 1978; I LOVED her albums of that era
What A Wonderful World – Louis Armstrong with the Tommy Goodman Orchestra – #116 in 1968; #32 in 1988, due to its inclusion in the movie Good Morning, Vietnam
The Shape I’m In – The Band, #121 in 1973; B-side of Time To Kill (#77 pop)

The Beach Boys

I gave a friend their box set, and when she knew she was dying, she wanted me to take it back
Why Do Fools Fall in Love, 101 in 1964; B-side of Fun, Fun, Fun (#5 pop)
She Knows Me Too Well – 101 in 1964; B-side of hen I Grow Up (To Be A Man) (#9 pop)
Cottonfields – #103 in 1970
Marcella – #110 in 1972
Barbara Ann – #101 in 1975 rerelease; #2 in 1966
Wouldn’t It Be Nice – #103 in 1975 rerelease; #8 in 1966

The Beatles

I have some interest in this group.
From Me To You, #116 in 1963; #41 in 1964
I’m Down, #101 in 1965; B-side of Help! (#1 pop) The only B-side of The Beatles first 21 regular Capitol/Apple releases not to make the Top 100
Boys, #102 in 1965; one of a series of singles released on Capitol’s green label “The Star Line”

I Can’t See Nobody – Bee Gees, #128 in 1967; B-side of New York Mining Disaster 1941 (#14 pop)

David Bowie

I have a fair amount of his output on LPs
Space Oddity, #124 in 1969 on Mercury Records; it hit #15 in 1973 on RCA Victor
Let’s Spend the Night Together, #109 in 1973
D.J., #106 in 1979
Ashes to Ashes, #101 in 1980

It Don’t Matter to the Sun – Garth Brooks as Chris Gaines, a fictional character for a proposed movie, The Lamb, starring Brooks; B-side of Lost in You (#5 pop)
Please, Please, Please -James Brown – #105 in 1960, though #5 on the R&B charts in 1956, and a live version went to #95 pop in 1964

Next time, I’ll get much further into the alphabet.

Century of Pop Music: 1900-1999

When You Were Sweet Sixteen

When I left my job in June 2019, I packed up some books I owned that I had kept in my office. One was Joel Whitburn Presents A Century of Pop Music. It is a “Year-by-Year Top 40 Rankings of the Songs & Artists that Shaped a Century.”

The book was “compiled from America’s Popular Music Charts, Surveys and Records Listings 1900-1939 and Billboard’s Top Pop Singles Charts, 1940-1999.” For each year except 1900, it lists the forty top-ranked songs. There were only thirty that first year.

Those early rankings were complicated, drawing data from The Talking Machine World periodical, record label publications, and books by David Ewen, Jim Walsh, Roger Kinkle, and Joseph Murrells.

The hits of 1900-1909 included male quartets, parlor ballads, minstrels songs, ragtime, comedy, and brass bands. George M. Cohen and Billy Murray were particularly popular.

The next section lists all of the artists. What I like is that it combines information I had in other books covering shorter time spans. For instance, Frank Sinatra had 17 Top Ten records from 1943’s You’ll Never Know (#2) to Something Stupid, with his daughter Nancy, #1 for four weeks in 1967.

The list of songs includes every version to hit the Top 10. For instance, for Alexander’s Ragtime Band, the version by Arthur Collins and Byron Harlan hit #1 in 1911. Billy Murray’s version’s got to #2 the same year. That sort of thing happened a lot in the first half-century.

The Prince’s Orchestra version went to #3 (1912) and the Victory Military Band to #4 (1912). Bing Crosby and Connie Boswell returned the song to #1 for two weeks (1938).

As far as I can tell, the book is out of print. You can find a used copy on Amazon for as little as $12.74 from a vendor.

The #1 hits of 1900

When You Were Sweet Sixteen – George J. Gaskin. I couldn’t find Gaskin’s version, but here’s a take by Harry Macdonough (1901). Listen to Gaskin singing After the Ball (1893), The Irish tenor was “one of the first vocalists to make a recording with Edison Records.”

Ma Tiger Lily- Arthur Collins. The recordings I found all refer to February 1901. Most of them are indecipherable. This is the best. Not incidentally, the lyrics are quite racist. Collins had 64 top Ten songs by 1918.

A Bird in a Gilded Cage – Steve Porter – here or here.

Mandy Lee – Arthur Collins The recordings I foundhere and here sound far too pristine

When You Were Sweet Sixteen – Jere Mahoney; couldn’t find.
A Bird in a Gilded Cage – Jere Mahoney

Ma Tiger Lily- Len Spencer. The audio I found was particularly awful.
Because – Haydn Quartet, 33 Top Ten hits through 1913, but I couldn’t find this.

When Cloe Sings a Song – George J. Gaskin. This is a much later version, with black patois and a word not acceptable these days.

Everybody owns the album 2

Only 12.5

Here’s the followup to the video about the albums that everybody owned if they had started buying vinyl in the 1970s and 1980s. He notes that if it’s not in HIS collection, it’s not on his list.

Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits. LP, CD. Not only do I have the first one, but I also have the second one. I Want You.
Aqualung – Jethro Tull. LP. Like a lot of music, this has a specific recollection. Aqualung.
Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits. CD. The nice thing about some greatest hits collections is the inclusion of some live takes, which makes you feel as though there’s a reason to buy the compilation. The Boxer.
Who’s Next – The Who. LP, CD – the CD has extra music from the Lifehouse project. Won’t Get Fooled Again.
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – the Beatles – LPs (US, UK), CDs (standard, mono box). No, I didn’t get the 50th-anniversary version. I have covers of Sgt Pepper by Big Daddy and Cheap Trick as well as a MOJO compilation. Getting Better.

Imagine – John Lennon – LP, CD. The album with How Do You Sleep AND the title track. Gimme Some Truth.
Machine Head – Deep Purple – LP. I have no recollection of buying this. Did someone give it to me? Smoke on the Water.
Graceland – Paul Simon. LP, CD. I actually sent my copy of the CD to a friend of mine because he had NEVER heard it. I bought the 35th-anniversary version hoping that it’d have the 6-minute version of Boy in the Bubble that was on a 12-inch; alas, no. The Boy in the Bubble.
Kenny Rogers Greatest Hits – do not have, and somehow was unaware of its existence. Now I do have his Greatest Country Hits that came out in 1990, a decade later, with six common songs, The Gambler being one.
Eliminator – ZZ Top. LP. I always wished I could do that spinning guitar thing they do. Or grow a beard that long. Sharp Dressed Man.

Saturday Night Fever OST – LP, CD. My then-girlfriend’s son gave me grief about having a disco album. Teenagers! If I Can’t Have You – Yvonne Elliman.
Slippery When Wet – Bon Jovi. Never owned. I own no Bon Jovi, except tracks on a few compilation albums. You Give Love a Bad Name.
Doors Greatest Hits. A couple of odd Morrison tracks included. Break On Through (To the Other Side).
Appetite for Destruction – Guns ‘N’ Roses. Never owned. Sweet Child o’ Mine.
Band on the Run – Paul McCartney and Wings. LP, burned CD. I was happy that Paul’s post-Beatles career finally seemed assured. Let Me Roll It.

Dec. rambling: Fact-Resistant Humans

Lyn Lifshin was a great American poet

Prayer for America.

The real lesson of Afghanistan is that regime change does not work.

This is what Cambridge protesters said about Boris Johnson’s general election win. Roger Green, 73, convener of Stand up to Racism Cambridge, said the election result was greatly disappointing. He said: “It’s a knockback for people that we’ve ended up with a racist prime minister.”

Throwaway Kids: We are sending more foster kids to prison than college.

Living through the era of school shootings, one drill at a time.

My own private Iceland re: tourism.

Misusing ROMANS 13 to embrace theocracy.

Wars waged by ostentatiously Christian leaders in Washington have done enormous harm to their co-religionists half a world away in the Middle East.

Frankly Speaking: Child Marriage in the US.

Emotional Baggage. The Verge delivers an inside look at the working conditions at Away, every millennial’s favorite luggage brand. The picture ain’t pretty.

Borowitz satire, still true four years later: Scientists: Earth Endangered by New Strain of Fact-Resistant Humans.

3 Ways to Make A Difference: Changing The World With Political Awareness.

“Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom democracy and sustainable human development. ”
– Kofi Annan

CBS features the Baha’i Faith in “World of Worship” series.

Helping the homeless: Australian charity turns empty parking lots into safe pop-up accommodation.

Church says it wiped out over $5M in medical debt, but healthcare costs remain big-picture problem.

Answers from an actual lawyer: Can I use that music, image, or clip?

Hank Green reading the First Chapter of A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor.

Malcolm X.

Sesame Street characters do impressions of other Sesame Street characters.

Now I Know: The Postal Workers Who The Kid Who Wrote on the Walls and Didn’t Get in Trouble and Not Even Baby Yoda Knows How to Drive and The Day It Accidentally Rained Flying Whale Blubber.

#IMPOTUS

‘Not Mere Misers, But Actively Cruel’

With yet another Mar-a-Lago trip, the bill for his stays at his own resorts tops $118 million.

His Personal Pathology Is America’s Foreign Policy.

The Evangelical Deal with the Devil.

In his America “Christian” is no longer a religious faith.

Lyn Lifshin

Lyn Lifshin’s obituary. She was a great American poet who passed away on December 12th, 2019. The Albany Public Library Foundation honored her with a Literary Legend award in October 2019.

Please read an excerpt from LIPS, BLUES, BLUE LACE: ON THE OUTSIDE, an autobiographical essay. She was cremated in Virginia. There will be a memorial for her at the Unitarian Universalist Society in Schenectady in spring 2020.

EOY, EOD

The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2019

50 Years Ago, the First Internet Message Was Dispatched from UCLA.

What did this year mean for civil rights and liberties? Four ACLU attorneys tell us.

TCM Remembers video.

The best films of 2019 according to Wired and Vogue.

Rotten Tomatoes: The 200 Best Movies of the 2010s. I’ve seen about 80 of them, at least two of which I actively dislike.

The Decade in Content. The memes, viral videos, social media phenomenons, and TikTok zombies that defined the 2010s as much as movies, TV, or music did.

Saturday Night Live: home for the holiday.

Music

Coverville 1290 and 1291: Coverville Countdown 2019 part 1 and part 2.

When a Scandal Stinks Like a Whale on the Beach – Mangy Fetlocks

One Voice: A Holiday Presentation by The USAF Band.

How Sweet to be an Idiot – Neil Innes

Hold My Hand – THE RUTLES

Linda Ronstadt isn’t just a legendary singer. She’s also a fierce defender of migrant rights.