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Thank you very much for music

Sly is especially thankful

Thanksgiving is coming. To the degree that I have maintained sanity this year, it’s been from listening to recorded music. A lot.

One of my friends envies how invested I am in music. It’s not as though I made a choice. It has always been omnipresent. I still remember chunks of my father’s singles collection. I sang in school, in church, with my father and sister. I’m appreciative of that, but there’s never been a point when it wasn’t a big part of my life.

Thank you very much for music.

Some songs about thanks

Sam and Dave – I Thank You (“I want everybody to get up off your seat And get your arms together, and your hands together And give me some of that o-o-old soul clapping.”)

Led Zeppelin – Thank You “If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you.”

Sly and the Family Stone – Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) – I was a sucker for songs by artists who refer to their other songs. See Creeque Alley by the Mamas and the Papas, Glass Onion by the Beatles. This includes Dance to the Music, Everyday People, Sing a Simple Song, and You Can Make It If You Try. Thank You For Talking To Me Africa A stoned version of the above.

Boyz II Men – Thank You. The first song on their second album, and my favorite

Andrew Gold – Thank You For Being A Friend. The late son of the late, great Marni Nixon. This is the theme of the TV show Golden Girls

The Beatles – Thank You, Girl. The perennial B-side, of the single From Me to You in the UK, of the single Do You Want to Know a Secret in the US

Alanis Morissette – Thank U

John Denver – Thank god I’m a country boy

Neil Diamond – Thank the Lord for the Nighttime. My absolute favorite Diamond song.

Thoreau as a finder of things

Beck

Thoreau This, or a variation of it, happens to me all of the time.

I bought a new phone. It’s an Apple 8 or whatnot, my first iPhone ever. I open it up and start trying to figure out whatever needs to be done. Invariably, I get interrupted. A couple days later, I’m back trying to set it up. But the iPhone apparently wants some settings on my old Android phone. And, of course, I can’t find it anymore.

Then my wife comes home. She’s been to the farmer’s market. She doesn’t have enough cash, and the vendor doesn’t take credit cards or checks, But he does take Venmo. She doesn’t have Venmo, but I do, on my old phone, naturally. After she tells me she needs to make this payment, I redouble my efforts. Not in the backpack or in any drawers or in some clothing in the hamper. After an hour, I give up.

The Albany Public Library had a book sale the previous weekend, which I worked at. I bought a few items, one of which was a CD called Best of Beck. This is by Jeff Beck, not the other guy. Unfortunately, I couldn’t open it, because the plastic encasement was locked. Alas, a dollar wasted.

Wait, I’m going to try to liberate the disc without destroying it. Using a couple of pairs of scissors, I succeed. I need to put the CD in a new case. Fortunately, I have a bunch of empties. I go to that drawer. Sitting right next to that dresser, in the bay window, is my damn Android phone.

It always happens

This happens a LOT to me. When I stop looking for something – total surrender – I often find it. There is a saying attributed to Henry David Thoreau that goes, “Happiness is like a butterfly, the more you chase it, the more it will evade you.” But why is it always inanimate objects for me? it’s most often keys because I have an irrational disdain for them.

But it is also true that “if you notice the other things around you, it will gently come and sit on your shoulder.” Though the woods are never the same. Or wherever.

Favorites: Prince (2018-2020)

I blame SE and RJ

Prince Certainly, I started listening to Prince anew after he died in April 2016. But he launched into my favorite songs from my favorite band territory because of Sheila E. and the niece Rebecca Jade. Surely, I don’t have to worry about J. Eric Smith’s band requirement. Prince led, for a time, the Revolution, and other times he’s playing 27 instruments.

Sheila sang at a club in New York City in August 2017. Rebecca was one of the background singers. They performed a half dozen Prince songs, including an RJ solo on Raspberry Beret. Then I saw them at the New York State Fair in Syracuse in early September 2019. More Prince tunes.

Let’s Go Crazy: The GRAMMY Salute To Prince was filmed at the Los Angeles Convention Center on January 28, 2020, two days after The 62nd Annual GRAMMY Awards. The all-star lineup of artists performed songs from the catalog of “the 38-time GRAMMY® nominee and seven-time GRAMMY winner.” Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, and Sheila E. were pegged to be the musical directors. Rebecca Jade was a last-minute replacement for another back-up singer.

The tribute concert, originally aired Tuesday, April 21, the four-year anniversary of the superstar’s passing, and was rebroadcast on Saturday, April 25 on CBS. Rebecca Jade was singing with about half of the artists, including Earth, Wind, and Fire; Foo Fighters; Gary Clark Jr.; St. Vincent; Miguel; Juanes; and of course, Sheila E.

Songs

I own all of the Prince albums from the 1980s on vinyl or CD. 1999, Purple Rain and Sign O’ the Times are my favorites. Making YouTube links prior to 2016 was… a challenge. Song list is vaguely leading to my favorite.

Starfish and Coffee – it’s a song I saw on The Muppets
It’s Gonna Be a Beautiful Night – live, and it does that Wizard of Oz thing
Kiss
Uptown

The Cross
Raspberry Beret
Controversy
Purple Rain

Delirious
Little Red Corvette
When Doves Cry
I Would Die 4 U/Baby I’m a Star -I always hear these together

Nothing Compares 2 U, featuring Rosie Gaines
1999
Sign o’ the Times
Let’s Go Crazy. I have the 12″ of this, too.

Legendary New Orleans musician Allen Toussaint

Naomi Neville

Surely, I understood. For his November 1 piece, Casey Seiler, the editor of the local newspaper the Times Union, was looking to write about almost anything except the election. November 10 “marks five years since the death of Allen Toussaint, a true renaissance figure in American popular music.”

As an avid reader of liner notes, I know the musician more as a producer and songwriter of great renown than as a performer. He once said, “I always take forever to do an album, because when I do an album, I don’t plan to do another.”

Allen Toussaint worked with the legendary Meters. He produced, arranged, and/or played piano for artists such as Etta James, Albert King, Elvis Costello, and Joe Cocker. His horn arrangements for the Band, Paul Simon, and Little Feat greatly enhanced their work.

“A blessing”

Seiler interviewed Toussaint “in 2014, as a preview of his appearance at Mass MoCA… He talked about losing his home in Hurricane Katrina nine years earlier, a catastrophe that forced him to leave New Orleans and resettle for an extended period in New York City. He spoke of the collaborations and friendships he had made during his exile as ‘a blessing.’

“Near the end of our interview, I asked the 75-year-old Toussaint if new songs and compositions were still occurring to him as readily as when he was younger.

“‘Now more than ever before! I wake up in a hurry to get to the pen and page,’ he said. ‘Yes — I’m inspired because I move around more than I used to, and inspiration is every door I open, every corner I turn, every other way I turn my head to look. And I enjoy inspiration all the time; it makes life so wonderful… All the new things that happen around me — everything is a surprise.’

“I’ve interviewed a lot of people, including artists whose work has inspired me immeasurably. But I don’t think I’ve ever gotten an answer to a question that has stayed with me like Toussaint’s.”

The music

He wrote these songs, some under the name Naomi Neville (his mother’s given name)

Everything I Do Gonh Be Funky (From Now On) – Madeleine Peyroux
Fortune Teller – Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
Freedom for the Stallion – the Oak Ridge Boys
From A Whisper To A Scream – Elvis Costello

Get Out of My Life Woman -Butterfield Blues Band
Java – Al Hirt
Lipstick Traces (On A Cigarette) Benny Spellman
Mother-in-Law – Ernie K-Doe

Play Something Sweet (Brickyard Blues) – Three Dog Night
Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley – Robert Palmer
Southern Nights – Glen Campbell
What Do You Want the Girl to Do? – Lowell George,

What Is Success – Bonnie Raitt
Whipped Cream – Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass
Working in a Coal Mine – Devo
Yes We Can Can – The Pointer Sisters

And more

He produced or co-produced these and many, many more

Lady Marmalade – LaBelle
Ooh Poo Pah Doo – Jessie Hill
Right Place, Wrong Time – Dr. John
Ya Ya – Lee Dorsey

In his induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, his page notes, “A rare talent forged in the fires of New Orleans’ red hot music scene.

“Few people can produce, arrange, write songs or perform—Allen Toussaint did it all and then some with expertise and aplomb.”

The live album Songbook (2009) was the last one he released. He died in Madrid while touring. “A few weeks prior to his passing, Toussaint reunited with Joe Henry to cut material for a new record. Those recordings, combined with some solo 2013 sessions, were packaged as the posthumous American Tunes, released in June of 2016.”

American Tune – Allen Toussaint

Halloween music 2020

It’s the pelvic thrust That really drives you insane

Now that my daughter doesn’t do Halloween anymore, it’s difficult for me to get worked up over it. Yet I do like to see the costumes of the little kids and not so little kids coming to my door.

Still, some of the teenagers REALLY need to make even a modicum of effort to at least feign the idea that they’re doing some sort of outfit. Many’s the time I’ve said, “What are YOU supposed to be?” The response was an inaudible mumble.

And I have this Halloween music CD I like to play. It has generic spooky tunes, interlaced with screams, groans, and other presumably horrifying sounds. The atmosphere is everything.

I decided to pick some vaguely Halloween/spooky/scary/sinister/weird songs for the post. If you Google, you’ll find tons of similar lists. For instance, 66 killer songs for your Halloween playlist and 50 Spooky Halloween Songs You Need to Play at Your Costume Party. There is, inevitably, some overlap with each other.

But there’s only one song on my list that’s on either, or in this case, both lists. That’s Time Warp from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which I love more than is justifiable. In part, I think it’s Susan Sarandon, who later became a Serious Actor, as Janet.

Classical

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor – Bach

Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary – Purcell

Pictures at an Exhibition – Gnomus – Mussorgsky

Pictures at an Exhibition – Catacombs – Mussorgsky

Night On Bald Mountain – Mussorgsky

The Isle of the Dead, Symphonic poem Op. 29 – Rachmaninov

Requiem – Gy Ligeti from 2001

Tag: music