music Archives - Page 103 of 268 - Ramblin' with Roger

Feb. rambling: Jealous of a dog

Republicans sending mailer labeled Census ahead of official forms

Want Your Personal Data? Hand Over More Please.

‘Barbaric’:8 Million Americans Have Been Forced to Start Crowdfunding Campaigns to Cover Medical Costs and When Medical Debt Collectors Decide Who Gets Arrested.

A new study shows Medicare for All will save Americans billions and prevent thousands of unnecessary deaths.

Is Coronavirus Panic Sending Us Back to the Days of Racist Quarantines? and COVID-19 from the CDC.

Identiﬁcation, Evaluation, and Management of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

How to Spot Fake News.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Modi and Disney blocks episode critical of India’s PM.

Facing Undeniable Reality of Climate Change, Deniers Now Argue It’s Not That Bad.

The folks on Fox & Friends really HAD referred to Fred Rogers (AKA Mr. Rogers of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood) as an “evil, evil man.”.

FBI: The Most Perpetrated Cybercrime Is Not Getting What You Paid For.

Socialists Will Never Understand Elizabeth Warren, part of a long intellectual tradition that’s gone forgotten in the West: pro-market leftism.

What’s Wrong With a Decision-Making Convention?

National Marriage, Divorce Rates Both Declined in the Last 10 Years.

John Oliver: Quest For U.S. Citizenship Culminated In An “Utterly Petrifying” Citizenship Test.

How Google Got Its Employees to Eat Their Vegetables.

Generations of Handwritten Mexican Cookbooks Are Now Online.

How to Leave Your Lover with Lemons.

World’s oldest married couple celebrates 80th Valentine’s Day together.

Hugging Is A Very Great Spiritual and Emotional Boost.

Katherine Johnson’s NASA bio and the NPR obit.

RIP Kellye Nakahara.

Donnybrook

After impeachment, passing most of the checkpoints on the way to authoritarianism and Accelerating Corruption and Autocracy.

John Kelly Finally Lets Loose.

Family Of Pardoned Felon Gave Heavily To Him and The Trouble with His Clemencies and Pardons.

Jealous of a dog and its positive press.

State Department Struggling on Diversity.

Republican Party sending mailer labeled census ahead of official forms.

Black History Month

“The past is all that makes the present coherent” – James Baldwin

Seeing Black History in Context.

Silent Work in Elmira: Letters from the Wilbur H. Siebert Underground Railroad Collection

Tulsa plans to dig for suspected mass graves from a 1921 race massacre.

The Legacy of Mildred Johnson Edwards.

Backwards, Forwards.

Now I Know

Cheese You Can Bank On and The Feud Over the Top of the Mountains and How to Brew Cleaner Water and The Fake Cold Moment of the Cold War and The Man Who Covered Up An Eruption and This Isn’t His Fight Song.

MUSIC

No Rules For Donald – Randy Rainbow.

The Jeffersons Theme Song, lyrics by Jeff Barry and the late Ja’net Dubois.

Africa by William Grant Still.

Coverville 1296: Peter Gabriel Cover Story III and 1297: The Smokey Robinson & The Miracles Cover Story II.

Hiawatha Overture by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.

Seventy-Six Trombones– Ambassadors of Harmony.

Sketches of Spain – Miles Davis.

Mama Africa featuring Andrew Tosh.

Touch The Hem of His Garment, plus pop hits by Sam Cooke.

Till There Was You – MonaLisa Twins.

Caroline – Julian Neel.

50 Drug-Addled Albums.

The 100 best guitar albums of all time.

The last of the Bubbling Under

Alright!

The Temptations circa 1965 – David, Melvin, Paul, Otis, and in the middle, Eddie

We’ve come to the last of the Bubbling Under the Billboard Hot 100 Charts. These are songs that just didn’t chart high enough to be deemed a hit. Many of them are quite familiar nonetheless, and I own all of them in some physical form.

When Something Is Wrong With My Baby – Otis (Redding) and Carla (Thomas), #109 in 1969
Crush with Eyeliner – R.E.M., #113 in 1995
Louie Louie – Paul Revere and the Raiders, #103 in 1963, the SECOND version of the song on the list
Like a Rolling Stone – Rolling Stones, #109 in 1995

Linda Ronstadt

Her box set gleaned all of these
Skylark, #101 in 1985,
Heartbeats Accelerating, #112 in 1993
A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes, #101 in 1995

More Than This – Roxy Music, #102 in 1983
Watch Your Step – Carlos Santana, #107 in 1983
Put Your Lights On– Santana featuring Everlast, #118 in 1999
When I Meet Them – Seals & Crofts, #104 in 1972

Sock It To Me, Baby – Bill Minkin as Senator Bobby, #128 in 1968, unfortunately, released just before the RFK assassination
My Kind of Town – Frank Sinatra, #110 in 1964
When Somebody Loves You – Frank Sinatra, #102 in 1965
Kind Woman – Percy Sledge, #116 i 1969
Black Coffee in Bed – Squeeze, #103 in 1982

Bad Sneakers – Steely Dan, #103 in 1975
I Love My Dog – Cat Stevens, #118 in 1966
Matthew and Son – Cat Stevens, #115 in 1967
Brand New Day – Sting, #103 in 2000

Once in a Lifetime – Talking Heads, #103 in 1981; a live version went to #91 in 1986
Road to Nowhere – Talking Heads, #105 in 1985
Carolina in My Mind – James Taylor, #118 in 1969; reached #67 in 1970

The Temptations

Their 5-disc box set gleaned most of these
Paradise, #122 in 1962
The Girl’s Alright with Me, #102 in 1964, RB #39; B-side of I’ll Be in Trouble (#33 pop)
You’ve Got To Earn It, #123 in 1965, RB #33; B-side of Since I Lost My Baby (#17 pop)
I Truly, Truly Believe, #116 in 1968, RB #41; B-side of I Wish It Would Rain (#4 pop)

Try Jah Love – Third World, #101 in 1982
A Dime A Dozen – Carla Thomas, #114 in 1968
You Don’t Miss a Good Thing (Until It’s Gone)– Irma Thomas, #109 in 1965
I’m Gonna Cry Till My Tears Run Dry – Irma Thomas, #130 in 1965
Something in the Air – Thunderclap Newman, #120 in 1970; hit #37 in 1969, reissued because of its inclusion in the movie The Strawberry Statement

Wordy Rappinghood – Tom Tom Club, #105 in 1982
Talk To Ya Later – The Tubes, #101 for two weeks in 1981
River Deep-Mountain High – Ike and Tina Turner, #112 in 1969; original issue on a different label initially reached #88 in 1966
Love’s Gone Bad– the Underdogs, #122 in 1967

Need Love – Vanilla Fudge, #111 in 1969
Since I Fell for You – Lenny Welch, #134 in 1967; reissue of #4 1963 hit
The Kids Are Alright – The Who, #106 in 1966
MacArthur Park – Andy Williams, #102 in 1972

Night Train – Steve Winwood, #104 in 1982
I Call It Pretty Music, But the Old People Call It the Blues – Little Stevie Wonder, #101 in 1963
Generals and Majors – XTC, #104 in 1981

“Weird Al” Yankovic

I have a LOT of Al
Another One Rides the Bus, #104 in 1981
I Love Rocky Road, #106 in 1983
Headline News, #104 in 1994
Gump, #102 in 1996

Yup, that’s the last of the Bubbling Under experiment. What will be the next theme?

Bubbling Under #3: #101 or less

Goin’ Down

Here’s a third list from the book Bubbling Under the Billboard Hot 100, 1959-2004. These are more songs that I own that didn’t get above #101 on the primary US singles charts.

My Male Curiosity – Kid Creole & the Coconuts, #110 in 1984, from the movie Against All Odds, starring Rachel Ward and Jeff Bridges
20th Century Man – the Kinks, #106 in 1972
A Whiter Shade of Pale – Annie Lennox, #101 in 1995
Straight Shooter – the Mamas and the Papas, #130 in 1967, B-side of Twelve-Thirty (#20)
Hey Girl – the Mamas and the Papas, #134 in 1967, B-side of Glad to Be Unhappy (#26)

George Martin and His Orchestra

All are from The Beatles’ A Hard Days Night soundtrack on United Artists
And I Love Her, #105 in 1964, B-side of Ringo’s Theme (This Boy) (pop #53)
I Should Have Known Better, #111 in 1964/
A Hard Day’s Night, #122 in 1964

Waterfalls– Paul McCartney, #106 in 1980

Roger Miller

Roger is such a GOOD name
It Happened Just That Way, #105 in 1965, AC 26; B-side of One Dyin’ And a Buryin’ (#34)
I’ve Been A Long Time Leavin’ (But I’ll Be a Long Time Gone), #103 in 1966, CW #13; B-side of Husbands and Wives (pop #26)
Me and Bobby McGee, #122 in 1969, CW #12

Why Do Fools Fall in Love – Joni Mitchell with the Persuasions (live), #102 in 1980
Goin’ Down – the Monkees, #104 in 1967; B-side of Daydream Believer (pop #1)
Nights in White Satin, #103 in 1968; longer edit made #2 in 1972
Gypsy – Van Morrison, #101 for two weeks in 1973
Bright Side of the Road – Van Morrison, #110 in 1979

I Used to Be A King – Graham Nash, #111 in 1971
Open My Eyes – Nazz, #112 in 1968, featuring Todd Rundgren!
Over You – Aaron Neville, #111 in 1960, RB #21 (spelled as Arron Neville, co-written by Allen Toussaint )
I Love L.A. – Randy Newman, #110 in 1983, an MTV staple in the day

You Can’t Do That – Nilsson, #122 in 1967
Everybody’s Talkin’ – Nilsson, #113 in 1968; rerelease reached #6 in 1969 thanks to its use in the movie Midnight Cowboy
Wedding Bell Blues – Laura Nyro, #103 in 1967
It’s Gonna Take a Miracle – Laura Nyro with LaBelle, #103 in 1972

Outside of a Small Circle of Friends – Phil Ochs, #118 in 1968
Looking for Clues – Robert Palmer, #105 in 1980
Alive – Pearl Jam, #120 in 1996, #107 in 1998
American Girl – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, #109 in 1994; first released in 1977, when it did not chart

See Emily Play – the Pink Floyd, #134 in 1967
29 Palms – Robert Plant, #111 in 1993
Steam Heat – Pointer Pointers, #108 in 1974
Suspicion – Elvis Presley, #103 in 1964
(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear – Elvis Presley, #105 in 1978, originally #1 pop in 1957

Louie Louie – The Pretenders, #110 in 1981
Uptown – Prince, #101 in 1980
Peach – Prince, #107 in 1993
Me and the Boys – Bonnie Raitt, #109 in 1982
Right On – Rascals, #119 in 1971

We’ll finish next time.

Feb. rambling: Love Me Again

A Touch of Glee

Rebecca Jade.Elton John Unaccountable Accounting in the Pentagon.

Facial Recognition Technology and AI Are Tainted With Racial Bias.

Jared’s Plan for Mideast Peace.

Homelessness Czar Seeks to Further Criminalize the Homeless.

Politifact has looked into 42 of Limbaugh’s controversial statements, and found zero of them to be entirely true. Thirty-five were rated Mostly False, False, or Pants on Fire.

BUT… Let’s Talk Each Other Down.

Sir Nicholas Winton, the hero who rescued 669 Jewish children on the eve of WWII.

Son rebukes his racist dad who asked immigrant, “Why didn’t you stay in Mexico?”

We can become more prosperous while taking better care of our planet.

Amy Biancolli on Daniel P. Richardson.

Lin-Manuel Miranda gives us a lesson in the slang of Broadway.

Science and technology

TED talk: “Bonk” author Mary Roach delves into obscure scientific research to make 10 surprising claims about sexual climax.

What it’s like to live without a sense of smell.

Concussion risk in youth football.

The color of your clothing can impact wildlife.

Key challenges, collective insights, and possible futures for the music industry.

Verizon’s latest dirty trick. Planned obsolescence.

Teevee

James Corden: The late-night TV host sees his job as a chance to spread joy and he “comes clean” on the subject of whether he drives the car in his “Carpool Karoke” segments.

John Oliver: asks questions and is interviewed by Ali Velshi and Push Notifications.

In response to a Facebook meme about putting up pictures of sci-fi shows, I posted one from The Wild, Wild West, which we decided was steampunk. Just a couple days later, Robert Conrad had died at 84.

RIP Gene Reynolds.

Pushing Daisies – the great show that never got a fair shake.

Cookie Monster crashes The Washington Post.

One Second from Every Muppet Show Episode.

Mark Twain Award: Jonathan Winters (1999) and Bob Newhart (2002) and David Letterman (2017).

Actor and game show panelist Orson Bean, born Dallas Frederick Burrows, has died. He was the correct response that I got on my first JEOPARDY! appearance. Later, one of the competitors I did not play was happy for that fact, because he had no idea who Orson Bean was.

Now I Know

The Anti-Labor Origins of the Oscars and Why Are There Random Colored Squares on My Box of Almond Milk? and A Creative Way to Pay the Czechs and A Frank-ly Kind Act and The Drones With Brains of Their Own.

MUSIC

Rebecca Jade, the niece: (I’m Gonna) Love Me Again – Elton John at the Oscars, 9 Feb 2020. In the video, Rebecca Jade is screen left, in the middle. Also, listen to Miss You.

Overture to Hector Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini.

Coverville: 1294: Covering the 2020 Inductees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and 1295: The 40th Anniversary Tribute to London Calling.

Hoopla: A Touch of Glee by George Walker.

Everybody Wants To Be Sondheim – Alan Chapman.

Non nobis domine by Patrick Doyle from Henry V.

Hooked on a Feeling– Swedish Royal Guards.

That time Johnny Rotten called me a “stupid, filthy sod.”

Musician Peter Gabriel turns 70

Peter Gabriel Melt Peter Gabriel is one of my 25 “island” albums. Hmm, I suppose I should specify. There were three or four eponymous albums of his, depending on the country.

I’m talking about the THIRD Peter Gabriel album, the one originally released on Mercury Records in the US in May 1980. “The album is also often referred to as Melt owing to its cover photograph by Hipgnosis.”

At FantaCo, where I started working that very same month, many of the tracks were on heavy rotation on the radio station WQBK-FM, Q104, which was on in the store constantly.

I also heard songs from his first two albums. From Car, Solsbury Hill and Here Comes the Flood. Scratch featured On the Air. And from the last Genesis album featuring Gabriel, the title track of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.

Melt

Intruder uses the “gated drum” sound of Phil Collins, Gabriel’s former bandmate on Genesis.

No Self Control is well described on a blog about the music of Kate Bush by Christine Kelley.

Start is a snippet leading to I Don’t Remember. “Gabriel jokingly summarised the album’s themes as ‘The history of a decaying mind.'”

Family Snapshot was inspired in part by An Assassin’s Diary (1973). Gabriel said it was “a really nasty book” by Arthur Bremer, who had attempted to assassinate George Wallace in 1972.

And Through the Wire the closest to a straight-up rocker, but with a distorted vocal.

Side Two starts with Games Without Frontiers, also well described by Kelley. We knew the line was “jeux san frontières” but the FantaCo running joke was that it was really “she’s so funky, yeah.”

Not One of Us is another song of alienation.

Lead a Normal Life – “Atlantic Records (the label for the first two albums) didn’t want to put [Melt] out at all…” Atlantic head Ahmet Ertegun wondered “‘Has Peter been in a mental hospital?’ They thought I’d had a breakdown and recorded a piece of crap … I thought I’d really found myself on that record, and then someone just squashes it. I went through some primordial rejection issues.”

Biko – I was vaguely aware of the murder of South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko in 1977. But this haunting track gave the incident the worldwide attention it deserved.

Deutsches

For Christmas 1980, our boss Tom at FantaCo gave us each a foot-long cube, which turned out to be six LPs. One of mine was Ein deutsches Album, “released in July 1980… Gabriel sang German vocals on top of completely new recorded instrumental and backing vocal tracks.” I loved it.

After that, I became a big Peter Gabriel fan, buying the first two albums, then Security and ITS German counterpart (1982), with the hit Shock the Monkey. Plays Live came out in 1983. The massively successful So album was released in 1986.

In October 2001, my wife and I were in Cherry Valley, NY, trying to get away from the world. A store was playing Afro Celt Sound System’s Volume 3: Further in Time. I recognized vocals by Gabriel (When You’re Falling) and also Robert Plant. I bought it.

Peter Gabriel turns 70 today. Links to songs throughout.