music Archives - Page 132 of 268 - Ramblin' with Roger

Black History Month: Skin Deep

Seven ideas to help Boston become a more welcoming place to all

Bring Black History Month to the classroom by teaching your students about the work and lives of influential African-Americans

Presbyterian Church USA resources to understand and combat racism

The arc of history bends towards justice quote originally came from Theodore Parker

Celebrating the Afro-Puerto Rican ‘Father of Black History’ Arturo Schomburg

Jimmy Durham, Victoria soldier

In 1887, African-American cane workers in Louisiana attempted to organize—and many paid with their lives

Fredi Washington negotiated bigotry and made her way in the movies; the black celebrity from Hollywood’s Golden Age who revealed the complexities of passing for white

When cops raided a hip 1970s London cafe, Britain’s Black Power movement rose up

AND EVEN TODAY

From online troll to white supremacist leader: exposing the lie behind one man’s rise

Cheap White Whine: Racism, Affirmative Action, and the Myth of White Victimhood

Racism, fundamentalism, fear and propaganda: An insider explains why rural, white Christian America will never change

Rev. Robert Wright Lee IV Statement on Leaving His Church after Speaking Out against White Supremacy at MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS

Defiance In The Cold Sunshine: The Martin Luther King March overshadowed by racist profanity

Banned – Reports of Voter Suppression Tactics Pour In From Alabama Election

I used to lead tours at a plantation; you won’t believe the questions I got about slavery

Owning My Racism: a sermon given at First Parish Church in Billerica, MA on January 14, 2018

Boston. Racism. Image. Reality. A better Boston? The choice is ours; the final installment of The Boston Globe Spotlight Team’s series on race showcases seven ideas to help the city become a more welcoming place to all

MUSIC

Skin Deep – Playing For Change and Buddy Guy; the song includes over 50 musicians from coast to coast featuring Tom Morello, Billy Branch, Chicago Children’s Choir, and Roots Gospel Voices of Mississippi

Shakedown – Valerie June

Jumpin Jive – Cab Calloway and the Nicholas Brothers; from the movie “Stormy Weather” (1943)

Black Pearl – Sonny Charles and Checkmates, Ltd.

Quincy Jones Has a Story About That

F is for the Fresh Beat Band

Yvette Gonzalez-Nacer played Cha Cha on the live Grease production.

One of the kids’ shows the Daughter watched when she was five and for two or three years therafter was The Fresh Beat Band. Before the show ever aired on Nick, they were referred to as the Jumparounds because, in the previews, they jumped around a lot.

The group consisted of
Shout (Thomas Hobson) – keyboards, vocals
Marina (Shayna Rose, replaced by Tara Perry – pictured) – drums, vocals, piano
Kiki (Yvette Gonzalez-Nacer) – guitar, violin, vocals
Twist (Jon Beavers) – turntables, beatbox, vocals

So the guys were Twist and Shout, which made me laugh. Marina was easily replaced like a soap opera actress, played by one person for a while then another.

The “Fresh Beats” are “described as four best friends in a band who go to music school and graduate together as musicians who are determined to follow their dreams…

“In 2015, an animated television series Fresh Beat Band of Spies premiered on Nickelodeon. All four members of the band lend their voices to their respective characters in the spin-off.”

Listen to the Fresh Beat Band
Theme
Go Bananas
A Friend Like You

Most of them seem to be still working actors, though Shayna Rose has no IMDB credits since the original series.

Jon Beavers is appearing as a soldier in National Geographic’s 2017 miniseries The Long Road Home, based on ABC News’ Martha Raddatz’s book, which “chronicles the events of April 4th, 2004, when a platoon was ambushed in Sadr City, Baghdad, in an attack that came to be known as ‘Black Sunday.'”

Thomas Hobson was in four episodes of the 2016 version of The Chadwick Journals, a “chronicle of stories about men of color who lead double lives,” plus a couple upcoming films.

Tara Perry played Louisa May Alcott in the 2016 TV miniseries Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party, among other things.

Yvette Gonzalez-Nacer, who rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange as Kiki in 2011, has had guest appearances on Madam Secretary and Criminal Minds, plus playing Cha Cha on the live Grease production. She’s also a recording and performing artist who performs under the name Ava Gold.

Listen to Ava Gold:
I Wish You Would
Havana

For ABC Wednesday

Music throwback: Alice Cooper turns 70

In 2011, the original Alice Cooper band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Alice Cooper, as an artist, absolutely fascinates me. This Godfather of Shock Rock, born Vincent Damon Furnier, has done shows that utilize “guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, deadly snakes, baby dolls, and dueling swords.”

The shtick seems to have developed from a need for his band to stand out. His makeup was inspired by Bette Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and other performers. “Furnier adopted the band’s name as his own name in the 1970s and began a solo career with the 1975 concept album Welcome to My Nightmare.”

Yet he is “known for his sociable and witty personality offstage, with The Rolling Stone Album Guide calling him the world’s most ‘beloved heavy metal entertainer.'” You see that in this interview just after his good friend Glen Campbell died. He was also friends with Groucho Marx, and got pied by his good buddy Soupy Sales.

At some point after getting sober in the late 1970s, he became a born-again Christian, interesting since he was raised by a preacher. He married Sheryl Cooper on March 3, 1976 and they had three children together: Calico Cooper, Dash, and Sonora Rose.” He has replaced his addition to alcohol with a near addiction to golf.

Over the years, he’s made his art mainstream, showing up in everything from the game show Hollywood Squares to the Muppet Show to the movie Wayne’s World.

I suppose I’m less interested in his body of work, though I do enjoy the anthemic quality of those early hits. In 2011, the original Alice Cooper band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Still, I’ll have to record and watch him playing King Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar – Live! on April 1 – Easter Sunday! -on NBC.

Listen to (chart action on US Billboard charts):

Eighteen, #21 in 1971

School’s Out, #7 in 1972

Elected, #26 in 1972

No More Mr. Nice Guy, #25 in 1973

His birthday will be February 4.

Music throwback: Super Freak – Rick James

Rick James would have been 70 on February 1, 2018

The odd thing about Super Freak by Rick James from 1981 is that I read ABOUT it a lot, but I didn’t actually HEAR it very often, due in part, I was led to believe, by its then-controversial subject matter.

And while it’s #481 in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame list, it wasn’t his highest charting single. He had several hits starting with 1978’s You and I. Of course, what gave Super Freak a second life is when M.C. Hammer used it, with permission, as the basis of U Can’t Touch This. James got a Grammy out of the deal.

He collaborated with fellow Motown artists such as Smokey Robinson (Ebony Eyes), and The Temptations. The Temps sing background on Super Freak. James is featured on Standing On The Top, from their REUNION album, when the group briefly had seven members rather than five.

Rick James, born James Ambrose Johnson, Jr., was an upstate kid, born in Buffalo, New York. He was in various bands before joining the Navy Reserve, mostly out of fear of being drafted. But he took off to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where he formed the rock band the Mynah Birds, which, for a time, featured Neil Young.

His music career ground to a halt when the “military authorities discovered his whereabouts and eventually convicted James on a one-year prison term related to the draft charges. After being released, James moved to California where he started a variety of rock and funk groups in the late 1960s and early 1970s.”

Unfortunately, success did not bring joy. He reportedly spent $7000 a week on cocaine for five straight years. He was convicted of assaulting two women in the early 1990s, and spent a couple years in jail. “After divorcing his first wife, he married Tanya Hijazi on December 24, 1997 and they divorced in 2002.”

Then he died of a heart attack on August 6, 2004 at the age of 56. He would have been 70 on February 1, 2018.

Listen to:

You and I – #13 pop, #1 soul for two weeks in 1978 (long version)

Mary Jane – #41 pop, #3 soul for two weeks in 1978

Super Freak – #16 pop, #3 soul for five weeks in 1981

Standing On The Top (Temptations featuring Rick James)– #66 pop, #6 soul in 1982 (long version)

Cold Blooded (long version) – #40 pop, #1 soul for six weeks in 1983

Ebony Eyes (Rick James featuring Smokey Robinson) – #43 pop, #22 soul in 1984

Loosey’s Rap (Rick James featuring Roxanne Shante)– #1 soul in 1988, looking very Prince-like

U Can’t Touch This (M.C. Hammer) – #8 pop, #1 soul in 1990 but it felt WAY more ubiquitous than that

C is for Carol Kaye of the Wrecking Crew

It was good money for gigs that might be Henry Mancini in the morning, the Beach Boys in the afternoon, and Ray Charles at night.

Carol Kaye was the bass player on a lot of songs you’ve heard, even if you don’t know her name. She was part of a group of about 25 or 30 studio musicians from the Los Angeles area who played on records by artists ranging from Andy Williams to Frank Zappa. They were mostly men whose services were constantly in demand in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Only after the fact were they dubbed The Wrecking Crew. Most of them you’ve never heard of, though a few became successful recording artists in their own right.

For Christmas 2017, I received a massive book, which I’ve already finished, called The Sound Explosion by Ken Sharp (2015), from which I’ll introduce you to Carol Kaye. She’d been a professional jazz guitarist from the age of 14, in 1949. She, like several others, could see that the rock and roll revolution was eating into her live gigs, but offered opportunities for studio work.

She first worked with Sam Cooke, who she had never heard of at the time. Initially, she played guitar on a number of sessions from 1957 to 1965, but by 1963, she had “tired of playing fills and rock stuff. When the bass player didn’t show up for a date, someone elected me to lay Fender bass. I liked the bass role better and everybody liked my sounds and creativity and started hiring me. By 1964, I was the number one call on electric bass.

“Most early ’60s dates had no music… Your brought your own pencil to write your own chord charts with the licks and phrases you made up on the spot so you’d remember them for the take. we were fast because we were experienced musicians with great ears we developed from years of experience…”

The most famous story I know is that she took the boring bass line for The Beat Goes On by Sonny and Cher and created the iconic hook that defines the song.

Was it tiring? “Yes, you drank a lot of coffee.” But it was good money for gigs that might be Henry Mancini in the morning, the Beach Boys in the afternoon, and Ray Charles at night. “We were not interested in becoming stars. We were part of the process… to make people into stars.

“If I had time between my 2-5 PM date and my 8-11 PM date, I’d always make it home to North Hollywood. I’d check up on my three kids,help them with their homework, and eat dinner with them and our live-in nanny/housekeeper, and maybe take a quick 15-minute nap. Then I was back to Hollywood for date number three.”

She said there was no racial prejudice among the musicians, although she and others would push reluctant record producers to hire more blacks when they knew they were right for the part.

Here’s the massive list of her credits. She played bass on 3/4s of the classic Beach Boys album Pet Sounds. Just a handful of Some of her guitar credits:
La Bamba – Ritchie Valens
Summertime – Sam Cooke
Johnny Angel – Shelley Fabares
Unchained Melody AND You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling – Righteous Brothers
The In Crowd – Dobie Gray
Surfin’ USA – the Beach Boys (electric rhythm guitar, Billy Strange on solo lead)

Here’s a 70-minute Carol Kaye: Session Legend Interview

For ABC Wednesday