music Archives - Page 111 of 265 - Ramblin' with Roger

A song you’d love played at your wedding

I will catch your fall

At_Last_-_Etta_James The next music prompt is “A song you’d love be played at your wedding.” I assume they’re really talking about the reception – among other things, we had Bach during the ceremony – so I’m operating on that premise.

We had a keyboard player that played a number of songs. I believe my father, sister and niece Rebecca likely sang; I might have as well, but it’s a bit a blur. I specifically recall, because there’s a photo, my niece Alex singing Yellow Submarine with one of her young cousins.

My wife and I first-danced to At Last by Etta James. I’m sure the first time I owned it was from the Rain Man soundtrack. I know the choice is now cliched. But we went out for 18 months (1994-1996), broke up, then got together at the end of 1998 and married in May 1999.

When I was wooing her again, I made her a mixed tape. Such a quaint device. I no longer have any idea what put on that collection. Knowing me, it probably had God Only Knows by the Beach Boys.

She only remembers one song, I believe, and that is Have A Little Faith in Me by John Hiatt, my favorite song by him.
And when your back’s against the wall
Just turn around and you will see
I will catch, I will catch your fall baby
Just have a little faith in me

What else might I have put on? I Only Have Eyes for You by the Flamingoes is highly probable.

The rest is speculation. How about Betcha By Golly Wow, maybe by Aaron Neville rather than the Stylistics, because I didn’t have the latter on CD.

Finally, a song I doubt I put on, but would now: Let’s Make More Love by Nat King Cole, from the Billy May Sessions, released in 1993. Oddly, the composer is listed as Unknown.

May rambling: lost in the crowd

Hating what you don’t understand

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UN report details humans have pushed one million species to the brink of extinction

China takes the lead on global climate policy and the U.S. steps back

Why You Can No Longer Get Lost in the Crowd

Physicians Get Addicted Too

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Lethal Injections

Southern newspapers played a major role in racial violence. Do they owe their communities an apology?”

Hating what you don’t understand

Riley Howell’s Parents Say He Was Shot 3 Times While Tackling the UNC Charlotte Gunman – eight minutes from my sister’s house

A California teacher on medical leave for breast cancer has to pay for her substitute

What should “electable” mean?

10 U.S. Towns Stuck in Time – I’ve been to 4 of them

The fact that I’m in front of you means that I was here first

Where the US’s Foreign-Born Live Has Changed Over Time

Kid’s ‘Wow’ reaction to hearing Mozart

How I Read and Why

Doris Day dead at age 97

Tim Conway, RIP

May Chris Farley’s memory be a blessing

“Behind the scenes” visit to Sesame Street done by 60 Minutes Australia

Roosevelt Franklin – Muppet of Sesame Street

The Tony awards are June 9 on CBS

Inside the World’s Only Museum Dedicated to Ventriloquism

Tennis star Hans Redl

Albany Patroons basketball game day

Binghamton Rumble Ponies get first no-hitter in 13 years

Afterlife in New Zealand

Now I Know: The Dancing Plague and Why You Shouldn’t Take Advice From a Board Game and Why These Windows Don’t Have Windows and When a Truck Driver Had a Very Delicious Meltdown and The Cars that Karaoke and Why Do I Keep Getting Calls from Slovenia?!

Hyper-Casual Games Gone Viral

Australian $50 note typo: spelling mistake printed 46 million times

She was the ‘queen of the mommy bloggers,’ then her life fell apart

Will this WordPress theme allow me to make money?

Funny goats: screaming like humans; an inside joke from staff training in Ithaca

MUSIC

Que Sera Sera – Doris Day

Mama – Clean Bandit

Believer – Bigfoot & Puddles

Everybody Wants To Rule The World – Mackenzie Johnson

Ottorino Resphigi’s The Pines of Rome

Grow – Sabrina Lentini

Danzas de Panama by William Grant Still

StillSane – Carolyne Mas

Alassio (In the South) – Sir Edward Elgar

I Eat Dinner (When the Hunger’s Gone) – Kate and Anna McGarrigle

Coverville 1261: Cover Stories for Billy Joel and Echo and the Bunnymen

The Story Behind The Twilight Zone Theme Song

The Simpsons’ “Upstate New York” song

When TWO bloggers, one who started in 1996 and the other in 2005 post this separately, who am I to argue?

The Beatles off-white album

Songs from my preteen years

Music from my 10th birthday until I was 11 1/2.

Doris Troy.Soul Legend I struggled to find a way to narrow the list of songs from my preteen years. Would it be Elvis before his ’68 comeback? The Everly Brothers? The entire American Graffiti soundtrack? The entire West Side Story soundtrack? Take Five by Dave Brubeck?

With some help, I think from Jaquandor, I picked the songs that I remember from when I was 10 to 12, meaning 1963-1965. Or in this case, from my 10th birthday until I was 11 1/2, because the list was still too long.

I avoided artists for which I had LOTS of their music in this blog, such as The Big Three of my growing up: Beatles, Supremes, Tempts, who dominated 1964 in any case. Or the Rolling Stones, Beach Boys, et al.

And I’ve avoided what I foolishly thought was “old people music” at the time. So no Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, or Louis Armstrong, all of whom had hits in that period. I appreciate them NOW, but I didn’t then.

1963

Walk Right In – Rooftop Singers, #1 for two weeks pop, #1 for five weeks AC, #4 RB, #23 CW
On Broadway – the Drifters, #9 pop, #7 RB
Easier Said Than Done – The Essex, #1 for two weeks both pop and RB
Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport – Rolf Harris, #3 pop, #1 for three weeks AC, #19 RB

Just One Look -Doris Troy, #10 pop, #3 RB
So Much in Love – the Tymes, #1 pop, #4 RB
If I Had A Hammer – Trini Lopez, #3 pop, #12 RB

I’m Leaving It Up To You – Dale & Grace, #1 for two weeks both pop and AC, #6 RB
Dominique – The Singing Nun, #1 for four weeks pop and AC
Louie Louie – the Kingsmen, #2 for six weeks pop, #1 for six weeks RB

1964

The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss)– Betty Everett, #6 pop, #1 for three weeks RB
Don’t Let the Rain Come Down – Serendipity Singers, #6 pop, #2 for six weeks AC
(Just Like) Romeo and Juliet – The Reflections, #6 pop, #3 for two weeks RB

Chart action per US Billboard charts. CW- country; RB – soul; AC – adult contemporary

Singer/songwriter Billy Joel turns 70

“Mr. Joel has encountered some resistance from rock critics.”

I saw Billy Joel perform at New Paltz in 1974, as I recounted here. I wondered how one could get lost from Long Island unless the group came up the wrong side of the Hudson River.

I thought he was a bit stiff. Four and a half years later, he had his debut at Madison Square Garden, “three shows there that had sold out almost as soon as they went on sale.”

The reviewer noted the singer seemed unusually nervous. Also, “Mr. Joel has encountered some resistance from rock critics.” To say the least.

Someone gave me a book – I wouldn’t have bought it myself – entitled The Worst Rock ‘n Roll Records of All Time (1991). At the end, Jimmy Guterman and O’Donnell picked The Worst Rock and Rollers of All Time. After dissing Paul McCartney, Duran Duran, and Phil Collins, the “winner” was Billy Joel.

Now, he’s been performing sold-out shows at MSG once a month for over five years, always changing them up. He goes on the road about once a month, “even though the man hasn’t released an album of new pop songs since 1993.”

A couple dozen shows per year gives him time to help clean up beaches in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Given some of the travails of his career and life, I’m happy that he seems content.

Some songs – chart action US Billboard pop charts

Captain Jack (1973)- my first favorite song of his
Scandinavian Skies (1982)- overly earnest attempt to write a Beatles song
Baby Grand (#75 in 1986)- duet with Ray Charles, Alexa Ray, Joel’s daughter was named partly for the icon
Uptown Girl (#3 in 1983) – one of my wife’s favorites

You May Be Right (#7 in 1980) – “I MAY be crazy”
The River of Dreams (#3 in 1993) – title song of his last album
New York State of Mind (1976) – his Sinatra song, and I mean that in a good way
The Longest Time (#14 in 1984)- I love that doowop stuff; the song of his I’m most likely to sing along with

Goodnight Saigon (#56 in 1983) – I developed a greater regard when I saw it performed on the Kennedy Center Honors
Piano Man (#25 in 1974) – gets undervalued because it’s like McCartney doing Hey Jude, with everyone singing along
Scenes from an Italian Restaurant (1977) – I didn’t appreciate this song nearly enough when it came out
Big Shot (#14 in 1979) – quasi-punk self-referential piece

Allentown (#17 in 1983)- we’re STILL living there
Pressure (#20 in 1982) – I relate
Big Man on Mulberry Street (1986)- this appeared on the TV show Moonlighting
Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel) (#77 in 1994) – I heard an a cappella group perform this in Binghamton, NY in the mid-1990s

War protest songs, just a few

Business Goes On As Usual was originally performed by the Chad Mitchell Trio back in 1965.

For some, May 4 has that Star Wars thing going. But for me, it’s always about Kent State, at least since 1970, when four young people were killed at a university in Ohio for conducting a war protest. I’ve written about it before, most extensively here.

Since it’s Saturday, and I usually write about music then, I thought I’d include some songs about war protest. There are SO many of them, covering several wars, or war in general.

I limited my list to songs of which I own a physical copy and those I thought of without picking through the list. I left off the irritating Student Demonstration Time by the Beach Boys, which I described here.

I skipped Give Peace A Chance by John and Yoko because I’ve linked to it plenty of times. Ditto some of the general protest songs; What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye I linked to this spring.

War – Edwin Starr,#1 for three weeks pop, #3 soul in 1970. One of the most successful protest songs commercially. It was recorded by the Temptations first, but Motown decided to withhold their version from single release, fearing a conservative backlash. Bruce Springsteen recorded a live version. I own both of those versions too.

Waist Deep in the Big Muddy – Pete Seeger, 1967. Even though the reference is to 1942, I remember quite well the controversy over Pete banned from performing this on the Smothers Brothers show in September 1967. But CBS relented and allowed him to sing it in February 1968.

Alice’s Restaurant Massacree – Arlo Guthrie, 1967; shortened studio version #97 pop in 1969. A Thanksgiving favorite. Every year for at least the past decade, someone posts on Facebook a newspaper clip showing the littering charge REALLY HAPPENED.

I-Feel-Like–I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag – Country Joe McDonald and the Fish, 1967. Famously performed at Woodstock in 1969 with an augmented Fish cheer.

Unknown Soldier – the Doors, #39 pop in 1968. Vietnam was the first television war.

Fortunate Son – Creedence Clearwater Revival, double-sided single with Down on the Corner, #3 in 1969. Class warfare as well as the military kind.

Business Goes On As Usual – Roberta Flack, 1970. This was originally performed by the Chad Mitchell Trio back in 1965, which I had never heard. This version is from the great Chapter Two album.

Talking Vietnam Potluck Blues – Tom Paxton, 1971. I’m high just thinking about it.

I’ll finish with the obvious, and its B-side:
Ohio – Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, #14 in 1970.
Find the Cost of Freedom – Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, 1970.

There are a couple more which I am withholding because tho artists are turning 70 this year, and I’ll mention the songs then.