music Archives - Page 80 of 268 - Ramblin' with Roger

October rambling: doing an impression

old blogger, newish home

**From https://wronghands1.com/2021/09/21/blue-whale/**

The ivory-billed woodpecker, 22 other species extinct.

Pandora Papers: The largest investigation in journalism history exposes a shadow financial system that benefits the world’s most rich and powerful.

How decades of security blunders led to the formation of the TSA and forever changed the way we fly.

Texas’ Sweeping Abortion Ban Gives New Meaning to Oft-Misused Handmaid’s Tale Comparisons.

The Big Lie Refuses to Die.

Your gas stove, your health, and climate change.

The American West is running out of water—and Big Oil, of all things, can help fix it.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: PFAS and Voting Rights.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuf1m1VGu8Y Call Your Senator to Support the Equality Act

I saw the stories about the Facebook outage but kept reading it as the Facebook outrage. How Facebook’s Response To Whistleblower Could Make Their Crisis Worse. Incidentally, when Facebook was down, I went to Is It Down Right Now but it TOO was down. I ended up using Down For Everyone or Just Me and Is Your Website Down Down Right Now?

Why Is the U.S. Housing Market So Out of Whack?

Garbage odyssey: San Francisco’s bizarre, costly quest for the perfect trash can.

Inventions That Changed the World

Ted Koppel pays a visit to Mayberry (Mt. Airy, NC)

You’ve just been ‘ghosted’ after a job interview. Here’s how you should respond.

New York Public Library is ending fines on overdue materials forever. Albany Public Library did that a couple of years back.

Butt-dialing 911 is a challenge for police dispatchers

Why Seinfeld is the Worst Sitcom of All Time

The Peace of Wild Things – Wendell Berry (born 1934)

The medical ward

Pandemics are beaten by communities, not individuals. This describes my risk/reward calculations pretty well.

How Jared And Ivanka Botched Trump’s Pandemic Response.

Combating Anti-Vaxxers and Vaccine Hesitation.

Why Mandates Make Us Feel Threatened.

Albany Med prize winners: Coronavirus vaccine was years in the making.

Cognitive Bias Is Influencing Forensic Pathology Decisions

I had gone to the dentist this month to get a tooth uncapped because a cavity developed. It is one of those things that might have been prevented but for COVID. Anyway, they said, “We’re going to do an impression.” I knew what they meant, but my mind wandered to Rich Little doing John Wayne or Richard Nixon.

More Empathy Means Better Care, Less Medical Liability.

A Gene-Editing Experiment Let These Patients With Vision Loss See Color Again.

People with vitiligo debate whether to treat or embrace their condition

Race in America

Calls to Ban Books by Black Authors Are Increasing Amid Critical Race Theory Debates

Origin and Meaning of Critical Race Theory.

How Do We Dismantle Structural Racism in Medicine?

Manhattan Street Names Tied to Slavery Listed from A to Z.

Meet The First 2 Black Women To Be Inducted Into The National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Bruice’s Beach in California can return to descendants of a Black family in a landmark move.

Byzantium Shores, no. ForgottenStars, si!

I’ve been following Jaquandor at Byzantium Shores for well over a decade. He’s another upstater from the other end of the Erie Canal. His birthday is 45 years to the day after my late father’s.

He started blogging in 2002, over three years before I did. Eventually, he’s let the pseudonym go. Now Kelly Sedinger is blogging at ForgottenStars.net, where he promotes his books, two of which I have. He knows a ton about classical music, many of which I have linked to. I don’t quite get the pie in the face thing, but that’s OK.

Now I Know

The Problem with Space Pirates

Why the Ace of Spades is So Darn Big

The Worst Way to Get People to Watch a Movie?

Why Teams Wear Gray When Not At Home

How South Korea Massages Its Workforce

The Road Where Seat Belts are Banned

The Oldest PhD.

MUSIC

You’re Not Alone album by Roy Buchanan.

Feeling Good – Nina Simone.

Eine Alpensinfonie by Richard Strauss.

Coverville 1374: Cover Stories for John Mellencamp, Bob Geldof, and Chrissie Hynde.

The First Moonwalk? Bill Bailey tapping to an instrumental version of the Larks’ hit “The World is Waiting for Sunrise” performed by the Paul Williams Quartet

Autumn Leaves – Ebene Quartet.

Stuck in the Middle with You -MonaLisa Twins

Capriccio Italien by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Robert Russell Bennett’s Selections from Camelot. (Lerner and Loewe)

I Am Waiting – Ollabelle, a cover of The Rolling Stones song

The Final Act. 60 Minutes story on Tony Bennett.

Dave Koz and Friends Christmas Tour 2021 will be on the road, maybe in a town near you, between Nov 26 and Dec 23 with Richard Elliot, Rick Braun, Jonathan Butler, and… Rebecca Jade!

Rhymin’ Paul Simon turns 80

Simon covering Simon

Paul Simon turns 80, and I needed to find an angle. Ten years ago, on this date, I wrote about my favorite Paul Simon solo cuts. And ten years ago on November 5, on Art Garfunkel’s birthday, I noted my preferred Simon and Garfunkel tracks.

There are some artists whose music I tend to continue to buy because I’ve enjoyed their body of work. Not necessarily every album but most: Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen come to mind.

I continue to buy Paul Simon-related albums. Paul Simon Songbook is the 1965 album of solo Paul, most of which ended up on early S+G albums. It didn’t come out on CD until 2006.

Two Teenagers – The Singles 1957-1961. This includes many of the recordings of the duo BEFORE they were Simon and Garfunkel, both as a duo (Tom and Jerry, e.g.) and solo artists, (Jerry Landis, Artie Garr, et al.) Worthwhile.

In 2012 (I think), I sent my copy of Graceland (1986) to a friend of mine Who Had Never Heard It. Then I bought another copy with a few remixes of songs, though NOT the 12″ inch version of Boy In The Bubble, alas.

I got Stranger to Stranger in 2016, when it came out. It took a few plays for it to “take” in my ear, but I like it.

Do it again

The most interesting concept is 2018’s In The Blue Light , a “fresh perspectives on 10 of the artist’s favorite (though perhaps less-familiar) compositions drawn from the five-decade span of his illustrious solo career.” Four songs are from You’re The One (2000), but none are from Graceland.

“Jesse Hassenger of The A.V. Club gave the album a B- and wrote, ‘It would be easy to get bogged down in treating Blue Light as a compare/contrast exercise, but what’s most impressive about is the way that it sounds more or less of a piece as its own record.'”

Nevertheless, here are a couple of examples:

One Man’s Ceiling Is Another Man’s Floor from There Goes Rhymin’ Simon (1973), In The Blue Light

Some Folks’ Lives Roll Easy from Still Crazy After All These Years (1975), In The Blue Light

Some John Lennon Beatles songs

The Beatles in Italy

Sometimes, I just want to play some Beatles music. And since it’s what would have been the 81st birthday of John Lennon today, I opted for some of my favorite Fab songs I associated with him. I described all of these more fully here. But as an exercise, I’m not going to look at what I said at the time.
–
I Want To Hold Your Hand – this is the archetypical Lennon/McCartney song. Lennon told Playboy magazine in 1980; “We wrote a lot of stuff together, one on one, eyeball to eyeball… I remember when we got the chord that made the song. We were in Jane Asher’s house, downstairs in the cellar playing on the piano at the same time. And we had, ‘Oh you-u-u/ got that something …’ And Paul hits this chord and I turn to him and say, ‘That’s it!’ I said, ‘Do that again!’ In those days, we really used to absolutely write like that—both playing into each other’s noses.”

Ticket To Ride – I was at a program for the Albany Institute of History and Art which featured the Fab Four almost 20 years ago. I even had some of my records on display, such as my Japanese singles (I think) and the 1965 album The Beatles in Italy (for sure). That LP title suggests a live performance, but it was just the songs that were not yet on albums. In other words, singles, B-sides, and the four tunes from the Long Tall Sally EP. Ticket To Ride, of course, would subsequently appear on the Help! album.

In the beginning, I misunderstood

The Word – my favorite three Beatles songs in a row on an album are on the US version of Rubber Soul: You Won’t See Me, Think For Yourself, and The Word. (The UK version has Nowhere Man between the McCartney and Harrison tunes).

Day Tripper – one of the great hooks in all of pop music.

Twist and Shout – one of the greatest covers, ever.

Good Morning Good Morning – I did not know for the longest time that McCartney, not Harrison, played the guitar solos.

A Hard Day’s Night – in some ways, I think the whole album is their greatest, done in the midst of Beatlemania, touring, making a movie. And the title song was done on deadline.

I Want You (She’s So Heavy) – I bought the Abbey Road box set in 2021. It’s interesting to hear the Billy Preston organ explode. It’s much more subtle in the final mix.

Help – my daughter has sung it publicly. I relate to it greatly.

Tomorrow Never Knows – a much better title than The Void.

Musician John Mellencamp is 70

Blood on the plow

In the late 1970s, I heard about a singer named Johnny Cougar. Without having heard a single note from the musician, I had immediately dismissed him. I later learned that a “suit” insisted that John Mellencamp change his name because the Germanic surname was too hard to market.

When he achieved some commercial success, he could get his record company to list him as John Cougar Mellencamp in 1983. But it wasn’t until 1991 that the Cougar went away.

Mellencamp claims to have invented alt-country, and perhaps he did. For sure, he helped organize the first Farm Aid benefit concert with Willie Nelson and Neil Young on September 22, 1985. It’s now an annual event that has raised over $60 million for family farmers who are struggling financially.

Big Daddy

I’ll admit I haven’t heard that much of Mellencamp’s music since the late ’80s. I did listen to some recommended cuts on his Wikipedia page and liked quite a lot of them. He doesn’t seem to have the rock star instinct, though. When he released Big Daddy in 1989, which he said at the time was his best album, he decided not to tour. He was heavily involved with painting at the time.

John Mellencamp has been lauded by folks such as John Fogarty, the late Johnny Cash, and Bruce Springsteen, who has played with him occasionally. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008. A decade later, he got into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Rolling Stone contributor Anthony DeCurtis said: “Mellencamp has created an important body of work that has earned him both critical regard and an enormous audience. His songs document the joys and struggles of ordinary people seeking to make their way, and he has consistently brought the fresh air of common experience to the typically glamour-addled world of popular music.”

On CBS Sunday Morning, he told fellow Indianian Jane Pauley that smoking got him the voice he wanted. He’s riding her on this motorcycle but where are their helmets?

Some songs

Chart action per Billboard pop charts

Rumbleseat, #28 in 1986
Save Some Time To Dream. This is from his 2010’s lo-fi CD No Better Than This, the only album of his I actually own save for a greatest hits collection.
R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A. (A Salute to ’60s Rock), #2 in 1986 – if a little cheesy, I got what Mellencamp was going for. And I appreciate the ocarina, which I associate with “Wild Thing” by The Troggs
I Need A Lover, #28 in 1979. It’s a very long intro
Cherry Bomb, #8 in 1988

Paper’s In Fire, #9 in 1987. Lisa Germano’s fine violin
Authority Song, #15 in 1984. He says it’s his band’s version of “I Fought the Law”
Lonely Ol’ Night, #6 in 1985
Jack & Diane, #1 for four weeks in 1982. I’ve become a sucker for this song for the past quarter-century because my wife’s cousin Diane married a guy named Jack a while before I met them. I was really fond of Jack, as he, my late FIL Richard, and I talked about baseball at length, especially from the 1950s and 1960s, every family reunion. Jack was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. When he died in 2021, dear Diane made sure some of Jack’s books were sent to me.
Rain On The Scarecrow, #21 in 1986. “Do you want to buy a farm?”

Sting of The Police turns 70

Think

Sting_in_April_2018 — **By Raph_PH – QueenbdayRAH210418-34, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76810661**

As the 40th anniversary of MTV, not to mention mark Knopfler’s 72nd birthday, was being celebrated in early August 2021, I started listening to the intro to Dire Straits’ Money For Nothing. It was only then that I heard the similarities between the vocal of Sting on the “I Want My MTV” segment and the Police song Don’t Stand So Close To Me. It’s SO obvious in retrospect.

Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner CBE has been an enormously successful and well-regarded musician and songwriter. As Wikipedia noted, the initial sound [of the Police] was punk-inspired, but they switched to reggae rock and minimalist pop.” He had had a lengthy solo career, influenced by everything from jazz to madrigals over the years. Sting also has a strong activist bent over many years, participating in myriad events.

But I’ve always been amused how much an ex-girlfriend absolutely HATED his voice. I couldn’t play any of his music while she was in the room, and I had/have a lot of his tunes.

The Police were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. Solo and with The Police combined, Sting has sold over 100 million records and received 17 Grammy Awards.

Songs

All songs by Sting and chart action are the Billboard pop charts unless otherwise indicated.

Murder By Numbers – The Police. This song used to irritate me greatly, but it’s not the tune’s fault. It’s that I bought the LP of Synchronicity and it did not appear, only on that new-fangled compact disc technology the music was trying to force down our throats in the early 1980s. It WAS on the B-side of the massive Police hit Every Breath You Take. Rick Beato notes why this song is fantastic.

King Of Pain – The Police, #3 for two weeks in 1983. Do I love this because Weird Al did a great early parody, with King Of Suede? Maybe.

I Hung My Head. Johnny Cash done stole this song from him, but JR just does that.

Every Breath You Take – The Police, #1 for eight weeks in 1983. Beato spends nearly an hour breaking down the power of this song.

Why STING is Uncopyable

Fortress Around Your Heart, #8 in 1985. Lyrics of love as war. Beato explains the intricacies of the song here, starting at 2:07.

Spirits In The Material World – The Police, #11 in 1982

Gabriel’s Message. From that first A Very Special Christmas collection.

The Bed’s Too Big Without You – The Police. I suppose I related to this in my younger, lonelier days.

Fields of Gold, #23 in 1993.

Message In A Bottle – The Police, #74 in 1979.

Can’t Stand Losing You – The Police.

Fragile. I’ve related to this a LOT over the years.

Cueca Solas

They Dance Alone. A heartbreaking song about the survivors of the Disappeared.

If I Ever Lose My Faith In You, #17 in 1993. There’s a modulation here that always knocks me out

Don’t Stand So Close To Me – The Police, #10 in 1981; ’86 version, #46 in 1986. Someone on Quora suggested that the Police were a band with a happy ending. Maybe a couple of decades later

Roxanne – The Police, #32 in 1979. The first hit.

Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic – The Police. #3 for two weeks in 1981. Such a joyful song. Beato loves it. Shawn Colvin does a nice cover.

If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free, #3 for two weeks (#17 soul) in 1985. Sting was way ahead of me linguistically with this. Not only did I buy the album this appears, but the 12-inch with three different versions.

Synchronicity II – The Police, #16 in 1983. I have repeated these lyrics to this very angry song more than once. “And every single meeting with his so-called superior Is a humiliating kick in the crotch.” Musically, Beato at 8:13 touts it.

On Show #8359, Thursday, March 18, 2021, Sting was a category on JEOPARDY! And at the end, he recreates the Think music.

Coverville 1373: The Sting and The Police Cover Story IV