music Archives - Page 201 of 264 - Ramblin' with Roger

May Rambling #2: New Zealand music

I rant about the JEOPARDY! Million-Dollar Tournament.

Descendants of Solomon Northup, who recounted his story in a memoir, 12 Years A Slave.

The Real Origins of the Religious Right. “They’ll tell you it was abortion. Sorry, the historical record’s clear: It was segregation.”

Dustbury points to an article about how the ineptitude of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and its predecessors, go back nearly a century.

The Worst Argument Ever Made Against Gay Marriage.

Amy Biancolli’s book: To plunge is to live. Also, her parents in love.

Judy Sanders, a former local news reporter and photographer, is dying of ovarian cancer. Confronting the long goodbye from Paul Grondahl, and a piece by her former colleague, Ken Screven.

Diane Cameron’s blog Love in the Time of Cancer has been going on since 2008, but I just discovered it.

Getting kicked out of the prom.

New York Erratic asked: “Have you ever dated anyone who turned out to be gay?” I had a serious relationship with a woman who left me for another woman, with whom she stayed for some time. About 20 years later, she married a man, an old friend of hers.

Dan writes about The Casino And All The Promises, which is both a local issue and a cautionary narrative if casinos are offered to your town.

Lisa has been having the same blog problems I have

Mr. Frog on meeting celebrities

The Good Wife is my favorite TV show. Here’s why I love it, and why I have a difficult time explaining it to others.

Dustbury reminds me why I love word processing, and wish I had a goat.

A great interview with Mel Brooks, who’s promoting the rerelease of Blazing Saddles.

Dead Man Walking, and Burying the Bentley.

Mark Evanier’s childhood, and the color orange. Sweet story of coincidence.

New Paltz Students Find $40K in a Couch; NP is my alma mater, BTW.

Luckiest Unlucky Man or Unluckiest Lucky Man?

You’re Not Here. Abbott and Costello with the famed movie tough guy, Mike Mazurki.

How did Fred Astaire literally dance on the ceiling in the movie Royal Wedding?
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The Oatmeal cartoon about irony. Is it ironic that the song Ironic is not about being ironic?

LYNDA BARRY SELLS OUT. I love her work.

Irene Vartanoff writes about Marvel Comics’ original artwork in the 1960s. And she would know.

Drawn Out: The 50 Best Non-Superhero Graphic Novels.

The Documentary “Stripped” shows the past and future of comic strips. I supported Kickstarter for this.

Arthur celebrates NZMM: New Zealand Music Month. Lots of good stuff, but I must note #14, “New Zealand’s First Record.”

Tosy: U2 – Ranked 80-71 and 70-61.

Another great review of the niece’s album: Rebecca Jade & the Cold Fact. (Hey, it’s good!)

Pantheon Songs remembers Marvin Gaye.

Muppet section: Joe Raposo and Roosevelt Franklin and Time In A Bottle. “Today me will live in the moment unless it’s unpleasant, in which case me will eat a cookie.” – Cookie Monster.

What IS a photocopier?

How do you spell the color: grey or gray?
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The local Jewish Community Center had an ad campaign many found offensive. Several others thought it was poor because they couldn’t even read what it said. In any case, the ad is gone, and a couple of people suggested my blog post on the topic may have helped.

SamuraiFrog said ‘Why Not Ask Me Anything?’ and ~~blames~~credits me for him doing so. He answers my questions about music, and specifically about Billy Joel.

Likewise, Arthur’s Internet wading was my fault, or suggestion.

I rant about the JEOPARDY! Million-Dollar Tournament.

Gladys Knight is 70

Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye) was, appropriately, one of Gladys Knight & the Pips’ last songs at Motown.

Also used for ABC Wednesday, Round 15 – K is for Knight:

Gladys Knight & the Pips, if I had thought of them, I could have put in my weekly family music groups. One of those pieces of trivia I’ve long known is that “at the age of seven in 1952, she won Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour television show contest.” In 1953, Gladys,” her brother Bubba, sister Brenda, and their cousins William and Eleanor Guest started a singing group called ‘The Pips’ (named after another cousin, James ‘Pip’ Woods). The Pips began to perform and tour, eventually replacing Brenda Knight and Eleanor Guest with Langston George in 1959 and Edward Patten in 1963.”

I felt a bit badly for Gladys and the Pips during their tenure at Motown. They were getting a lot of the same songs as the Temptations’ album cuts. Moreover, their biggest hit on the label, Grapevine, was bested on the charts by Marvin Gaye the next year. I remember reading in the press how frustrated the group was when people would ask them why they were doing Marvin’s song.

They moved to Buddah Records in 1973 and later went to Columbia.

Here’s a bit I thought was hysterically funny at the time:

In 1977, the Pips (minus Gladys) appeared on comedian Richard Pryor’s TV special that aired on NBC. They sang their normal backup verses for the… “Midnight Train to Georgia;” during the parts where Gladys would sing, the camera panned on a lone-standing microphone.

The group, which broke up in 1989, when Gladys decided to be a solo artist, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

My favorite songs; LISTEN to all:

15. Every Beat of My Heart (US #6 in 1961) – that early hit; it’d be a while before their next one
14. The End of Our Road (US #15 in 1968) – one of those songs also recorded by the Tempts
13. Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me (US #3; UK #7 in 1974)
12. Friendship Train (US #17 in 1969) – might even be the Tempts’ same musical arrangement
11. The Nitty Gritty (US #19 in 1969)

10. I Don’t Want to Do Wrong (US #17 in 1971)
9. You Need Love Like I Do (Don’t You) (US #25 in 1970) – another Tempts song
8. It Should Have Been Me (US #40 in 1968) – the variation on the Wedding March in the beginning always tickled me
7. Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye) (US #2 in 1973). Appropriately, one of their last songs at Motown.
6. Take Me in Your Arms and Love Me (US #98; UK #13 in 1967) – can’t believe this didn’t do better in the States

5. Daddy Could Swear, I Declare (US #19 in 1973). I even forgive the rhyming of write and right.
4. If I Were Your Woman (US #9 in 1970)
3. I’ve Got to Use My Imagination (US #4 in 1973)
2. Midnight Train to Georgia (US #1 in 1973; UK #10 in 1976)
1. I Heard It Through the Grapevine (US #2 in 1967) – I suppose it’s sacrilege to say, but I’ve always preferred this version to Marvin’s, or Smokey’s, or CCR’s…

T is for Talking Heads

The album Speaking in Tongues had come out only a couple months before the SPAC concert, featuring their only American Top 10 hit, Burning Down the House.

One of the two greatest concerts I ever saw was the August 1983 performance of Talking Heads at the Saratoga Performance Arts Center, which someone put online; actually, here’s another recording. It starts with David Byrne by himself on guitar and percussion. He’s joined by Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, who were married in 1977, on drums and bass, respectively, for a song or two, before Jerry Harrison joins on guitar. That was the core band, but then the additional players are added in; the process was so organic.

This is the same tour from which the classic Jonathan Demme film Stop Making Sense was taken, but this is the complete concert, not just a truncated show.

The album Speaking in Tongues had come out only a couple of months earlier, featuring their only American Top 10 hit, Burning Down the House. LISTEN to the whole album. I always associated that album, along with a few others of that period, as forerunners of the compact disc, for the versions of several songs on the CD, which I got a number of years later, were longer than the versions on the LP, which I had purchased soon after it came out.

The new wave band Tom Tom Club was founded in 1981 by Frantz and Weymouth as a side project. Their big hit Genius of Love [LISTEN], which is in the Talking Heads concert, has been sampled by several artists , including Mariah Carey on her hit single Fantasy.

LISTEN to Psycho Killer from Talking Heads ’77, and the parody Psycho Chicken by The Fools.

ABC Wednesday – Round 14

Patti LaBelle is 70

Also used for ABC Wednesday, Round 15. B is for Blue Belles.

Patti LaBelle was born Patricia Holt, in Philadelphia. She formed a group the Blue-Belles, with Nona Hendryx, Sarah Dash, and Cindy Birdsong. The group had a Top Twenty single, “I Sold My Heart to the Junkman”, but it was actually sung by another group. (Most confusing.)

The redubbed Patti LaBelle and her Blue Belles had some minor hits, such as Down the Aisle (The Wedding Song) and You’ll Never Walk Alone. But then Cindy Birdsong left the group to replace Florence Ballard in The Supremes. They ended up musically adrift and got dropped by their record label.

The trio got a new record label, and changed its name to Labelle, with songs that “mixed harder-edged soul music with rock music elements”, to limited success. They had more luck singing with the late Laura Nyro. LISTEN to The Bells, and I Met Him on a Sunday, and You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me and It’s Gonna Take A Miracle.

Their big hit was Lady Marmalade, #1 in 1975. But within two years, the group broke up, and Patti went solo.

While she had a couple hits, notably New Attitude (#17 in 1985) and On My Own (with Michael McDonald, #1 in 1986), she continues to be a working artist, touring regularly, and putting out albums, with some success, especially on the R&B charts inspiring a whole generation, or two, with her voice. She put out a decent Christmas collection that is apparently out of print. She can even sing the alphabet.

Diagnosed with diabetes in 1995, she has been a spokesperson for awareness of the disease. Recently, she commented on the notion of the diva.

Bring back the bad weather!

The Daughter has almost exactly the same symptoms.

Mother’s Day, May 10, was absolutely beautiful. Blue skies, decent temperatures, no rain, flowers in bloom. Had a nice dinner with an extended troupe of in-laws in Catskill, an hour south of Albany. Got home that evening, went to bed with a hacking cough, which led to a sore throat, in lieu of sleeping. This was not a cold or the flu; this was an allergy, to trees, and grass, and pollen. There are conflicting theories as to whether a long and harsh winter could lead to an equally irritating spring allergy season because it postpones the budding.

All I know is that I was miserable, despite getting injections every four weeks for several months. Now I’m on Fluticasone (nose spray), Advair (an inhaler), and am taking Zyrtec tablet (actually the OTC equivalent); the latter makes me tired, so I take it only at night. I’ve been sleeping sitting up for most of last week and a half. Oh, yeah, The Daughter has almost exactly the same symptoms.

Saturday night, The Wife and I went to the concert of the Albany Symphony Orchestra at The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in nearby Troy. EMPAC is a technological marvel, but more than that, it is really cool. Inside the glass enclosure, it reminds one of a ship, in a good way.

I was so looking forward to the concert. ASO highlights living composers. But shortly after the beginning of the first piece, by John Harbison, I felt a coughing jag coming on. Since I was smack dab in the middle, I had to quickly climb past several people, and leave the theater. Couldn’t stop coughing for about ten minutes. Finally, the hacking subsided, and I caught, outside the doors, most of the second piece, also by Harbison.

But I was happy to sit in the back while catching Scattered, a “Concerto for Scat Singing, Piano & Orchestra,” written and performed by Clarice Assad. Here’s the second movement, performed a couple of years back; that section is much slower than the first or third movements.

After intermission, composer Joan Tower, who is quite funny, introduced her piece that featured famed percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie in her return to the Albany Symphony; she played on the ASO’s Grammy-winning recording, awarded this year. Glennie, not incidentally, has been deaf since the age of twelve.

The concert was not a total bust, as I did to hear more than half of it. Still, I want this lousy feeling to GO AWAY.