These will be kinda brief for the next few weeks, as I’m writing them all at once before I leave the country for a bit.
1. Bob Dylan, “One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)”. In retrospect, Blood on the Tracks was the winner in the bunch of mid-70s Dylan releases, but at the time, Desire seemed just as important. Nowadays, I don’t think anyone wants to hear “Hurricane” or “Joey”. On this track from Desire, Dylan sings with Emmylou Harris. It’s hard to find the original on YouTube, so the link is to the White Stripes cover.
2. Patti Smith, “Pumping (My Heart)”. The version on Radio Ethiopia is tight … makes your heart pump. The version on the video reminds us that the chorus revolves around the phrase “total abandon”.
4. The Andrea True Connection, “More, More, More”. True was a porn star who became a one-hit wonder. This one hit #1 on the disco charts, and she did chart with a couple of other singles, but this is what she’s remembered for.
5. Boston, “More Than a Feeling”. The very thing that made it great is what made any follow-ups so unlikely. It’s a perfect record … how do you top that? Especially when what makes it perfect isn’t anything recognizably human. It’s not a feeling, it’s more than that.
7. Heart, “Crazy on You”. They weren’t The Beatles. Not a bad Led Zeppelin rip, though. They’ve lasted a lot longer than Klaatu, as well.
8. The Wild Tchoupitoulas, “Meet de Boys on the Battlefront”. They only recorded one album, less than 35 minutes of music. But it’s 35 minutes that has never grown old.
9. Johnnie Taylor, “Disco Lady”. Some songs require that you say, “They don’t write ‘em like that anymore”. “Move it in, move it out, shove it in round, disco lady.”
10. David Bowie, “Stay”. Arguably my favorite Bowie track of all time. I’ve never paid enough attention to the lyrics to know what it’s about, and I can’t tell which guitar is Carlos Alomar and which is Earl Slick. Don’t care, either.
You don’t hear it much anymore, but back in the day, a lot of people spoke of the years between 1958 and 1962 as a bit of a wasteland for popular music. In ‘58, Elvis went in the Army, and Little Richard joined the ministry, while Jerry Lee Lewis saw his career nosedive when it was discovered he was married to his 13-year-old cousin. In ‘59, Chuck Berry was arrested on a trumpted-up Mann Act charge, while Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper died in a plane crash. The main reason for this narrative, of course, is that it makes the appearance of The Beatles in 1963 seem like a moment that saved music. I’m not denying the power or importance of The Beatles, but there was a lot of great music before they arrived. Thus, a 1962 edition of the Random Ten.
1. Bob Dylan, “Freight Train Blues”. Dylan’s first album didn’t sell (5000 copies at the time). People listen to it now because they know what was to come, but that’s unfair … there is plenty to like, much of it unpretentious. Like “Freight Train Blues”.
2. Jimmy Reed, “I’ll Change My Style”. Jimmy Reed’s music was as basic as the blues could get, which may be one reason he was covered by so many rock and rollers over the years. His 1962 album, Just Jimmy Reed, is a long-time favorite, in large part because of the participation of “Mama” Reed helping out where she can. It’s a very casual album … at one point, you hear the engineer ask Jimmy to play anything that crosses his mind, and Reed concocts the song “Oh, John” on the spot. “I’ll Change My Style” is actually different from the usual for Jimmy, with its organ and horns.
3. Arthur Alexander, “You Better Move On”. Trivia note: Alexander is the only songwriter covered on record by the Beatles, Stones, and Dylan. I know it’s so, Wikipedia told me so. (I knew about the Beatles and Stones, but Dylan was a surprise to me.)
4. Gene Chandler, “Duke of Earl”. Nothing can stop the Duke of Earl.
5. Peter, Paul and Mary, “If I Had My Way”. Their first album came out in 1962. It made it to #1 on the Billboard charts, and they won two Grammies for “If I Had a Hammer”. But I’ve always been partial to this song.
6. Claudine Clark, “Party Lights”. A one-hit wonder who deserved better. Clark is a triple threat here: she wrote the lyrics, wrote the music, and sings the hell out of the song. On paper, it just seems like a plaintive attempt by a teenage girl to get her mother to let her go out to a party. But Clark sings those lyrics like her life is on the line. Rarely has more passion been poured into a song. If you only click on one video link, make it this one.
7. Dick Dale, “Miserlou”. Now and forever known as the Pulp Fiction song, “Miserlou” was an old, Middle-Eastern folk song (Dale had Lebanese heritage) that sounded different coming from the King of the Surf Guitar.
8. Barbara Lynn, “You’ll Lose a Good Thing”. Barbara Lynn was an anomaly in many ways. She was an R&B singer-songwriter who was also a fine, left-handed guitarist. “You’ll Lose a Good Thing” was her biggest hit, making #1 on the R&B charts.
9. Little Eva, “The Loco-Motion”. For a long time, I thought Little Eva was a fake name to hide the fact that Carole King was the vocalist. Listening to it now, I can’t hear King, and I don’t know why I ever had the notion.
10. Sam Cooke, “Twistin’ the Night Away”. Is this the greatest record that refers to The Twist in the title?
[I wrote this in 1998. I still think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever written.]
"'Round about 1953 I went down to New Orleans Perhaps I should say, many years ago"
Ramblin' Jack Elliott had just turned 22 in the summer of 1953, when the events took place which he chronicles in "912 Greens" (assuming they did take place, which is somehow both irrelevant and crucial). To be honest, I'm not sure he was "Ramblin' Jack Elliott" yet, 'round about 1953. He first recorded the song for the album Young Brigham, which was released in 1968. Thirty years later, the song is as timeless as when it was recorded. The story Elliott relates always happened "many years ago."
In "912 Greens," Elliott tells the tale of his trip south with some buddies to look up Billy Faier, "a 5-string banjo picker" who lived at 912 Toulouse Street. The vocals are casual; Elliott doesn't sing until the very last stanza, instead he just talks over a lovely guitar accompaniment, and the lyrics feel made up on the spot. It is impossible to imagine Jack sitting down with a pencil to put the words on paper. At times he stumbles a bit, repeats himself, and chuckles under his breath as he remembers some moment from his adventures. Even as he spins his story, adding just the right detail to bring matters to light, he suggests that there are hundreds, thousands, millions of other stories he could tell if he only had the time. As he says about Billy Faier,
"And the way we found him, well that was a whole 'nother song Let's just say we found Billy Faier"
Elliott was born in Brooklyn in 1931. His name at the time was Elliott Adnopoz. Apparently he wanted something different than might be expected for a young Jewish boy from Brooklyn, and so (depending on which story you believe, and there are many) he ran off to join the rodeo when he was still a teen. Somewhere along the way he changed his name to Buck Elliott; later he became "Jack" and later still, "Ramblin' Jack Elliott" (by which time he had indeed rambled). Also along the way he switched from traveling with a rodeo to traveling with Woody Guthrie, who was nearing the end of the "healthy" years that preceded his succumbing to Huntington's Disease. Woody and Jack had adventures; Elliott later became known as the premier interpreter of Guthrie's work, and for much of his early career he was perhaps known as much for being the heir to Guthrie's folk tradition as he was for anything. Clearly, Elliott Adnopoz had reinvented himself.
You could only get to 912 Toulouse Street by climbing over a fence. Once you got over, you found a concrete patio, in the midst of which was a banana tree. "Although I never did see no bananas hanging on it, as they said, it was a banana tree." Elliott is reinventing himself; his friends are reinventing reality. And succeeding: "as they said, it was a banana tree" is good enough for Jack. The house itself featured a balcony "that connected all the various different musicians' different various pads." That balcony is where reinvention takes place.
The sense of community in "912 Greens" is overpowering. Ramblin' Jack Elliott ... it sounds like the moniker of the last of the independents, a man with no home except the horizon. But when Jack sets off to ramblin', it's with his friends Frank and Guy, and they meet up with Billy Faier, who lives in a house where all the people and all the pads are connected. What makes this adventure so enticing is the ease with which Jack and the rest become friends, comfortable with each other and their different various pads. After a "tropical rainstorm" (I could talk about the three-legged cat, but that's a whole 'nother essay) in which Jack and "this girl there that had once been an ex-ballet dancer" (a bottomless phrase, to have once been an ex-anything) dance naked around the banana tree, everybody commences to "drinkin' Billy Faier's wine and gettin' acquainted." As Elliott talks and picks his guitar, gradually we realize that "gettin' acquainted" is the most important thing in the world. The various different people have different various pads, but the best part comes when we move onto the balcony and see our connections.
The sun comes up, everyone goes home over the back fence. "Stayed around 3 weeks in New Orleans," Jack tells us, "Never did see the light of day." It was many years ago. It could have been last month. And then he rambles. "And I never have been back," he adds. But every time Ramblin' Jack Elliott sings "912 Greens," everytime he comes to new people, everytime he "gets acquainted," he is indeed back in New Orleans.
As are we, back in New Orleans, when we listen to the song. There is no more beautiful ode to getting acquainted.
I’m still enjoying this return to the old format, but I’m pretty sure I’m repeating myself a lot. In fact, if a song has shown up on a Random Ten before, I’m repeating myself on purpose, using cut-and-paste. Call it Random Ten’s Greatest Hits, and see if you can figure out which are new for this list.
1. k.d. lang and the Reclines, “Pullin’ Back the Reins”. Lang has one of the finest voices in contemporary music. Absolute Torch and Twang was the culmination of her country period, and to this day my favorite of her albums. This is my favorite song from that album.
2. Faith No More, “Epic”. You want it all but you can’t have it. Influential precursor to rap metal, with a killer riff worthy of Jimmy Page. I’ve never quite grasped that this is the same group that recorded “We Care a Lot” with a different vocalist.
3. Beastie Boys, “Sounds of Science”. There are albums you play over and over because of the pleasure they give you … you just have to hear that song one more time. And then there's Paul's Boutique. You could play this album a thousand times and never get to the bottom of it. Partly this is because of the astounding depth of the album, in particular its use of sampling. But what made Paul's Boutique especially unique in subsequent years was Grand Upright Music, Ltd. v. Warner Bros. Records, Inc., aka Gilbert O'Sullivan sues Biz Markie. That decision was handed down 2 ½ years after Paul's Boutique, and effectively ended the bottomless well of sampling as a legal artistic outlet. OK, that's an interesting legal note in music history, that helps explain why you don't hear albums like this anymore. But the prevalence of mashups on the Internet remind us that messing around with sound bytes isn't hard at all … what's hard is getting it right. And no one ever got it more right than the Dust Brothers and the Beasties on Paul's Boutique. While the title "The Sounds of Science" might suggest a confrontation between bratty rappers and mellow-folkie singer/songwriters, in fact the primary source of samples for the song is the Beatles, in particular "When I'm 64" and "The End." Both of those songs are used in a sore-tooth manner, such that you can't quit running your tongue over the spot that hurts. The "64" rip takes two notes from the oboe-y musical intro to the original and loops it over and over … there isn't a baby boomer alive who won't want to scream at the stereo, "PLAY THE REST OF THE LICK, DAMMIT!" There wouldn't seem to be anything more entrancingly aggravating … and there isn't, until they rework a guitar riff from Abbey Road in a similarly annoying way. It's guitarus interruptus, as the first chords of the guitar rave up at the end of Side Two of Abbey Road get repeated over and over and over and over … and they never resolve the moment, so all you can do is listen to the song again, hoping this time they'll finally get to the gee-tars. And they never do ... it's like an old vinyl album that gets stuck. Hurts so good.
4. Indigo Girls, “Closer to Fine”. From the beginning, the Indigo Girls had the great harmonies, and they were cultural icons almost on the level of Martina. They were also prone to heartfelt but awkward lyrics. The link is to a video with a Buffy connection … I know, who’da thought? It’s from a show they did a couple of weeks ago … they are joined by the guys from Common Rotation, who had opened for them. Buffy fans will recognize the one in the vest with his shirt-sleeves rolled up: it’s Warren, the evil bastard who killed Tara. I know, I know … those were fictional characters, not real people.
5. The B-52’s, “Roam”. It occurs to me that the B-52’s are one of the more remarkable pop acts of our time, given their roots, their loyalty to those roots even as the mainstream discovered them, their recovery from the great loss of Ricky Wilson, and their general oddness … despite, or perhaps because of all of this, they are beloved.
6. Biz Markie, “Just a Friend”. Still one of the most endearing rap hits of all time, with a tip of the cap to Freddie Scott.
7. Madonna, “Like a Prayer”. The video for this, my favorite Madonna song, is famously controversial, but I’m far more bothered by the link provided here, to the Pepsi commercial that offered the worldwide debut of the song.
8. Public Enemy, “Fight the Power”. For all of this songs enduring greatness, I still think of the video link when I hear it.
9. Janet Jackson, “Rhythm Nation”. Janet Jackson, Jimmy Jam, and Terry Lewis were an historically good team. The Rhythm Nation 1814 album served up seven Top Five singles.
10. Fine Young Cannibals, “She Drives Me Crazy”. They had two nice singles, but were never as good as their predecessors, The English Beat.
I’ve posted this picture before. I got my teeth cleaned this week, and when I arrived, the woman doing the cleaning said, “Hello, handsome!” I replied, “You shoulda seen me when I was 28.” I don’t have any pictures that I am sure come from that time, so I’ve posted one from right after I turned 29, and used it to give me a year for this week’s Music Friday post.
1. Michael Jackson, “Billie Jean”. The video link takes you to a live performance of the song from March 25, 1983. It was telecast on American TV on May 16 of that year. You might recall the following day, May 17, 1983, one of the biggest dates in pop culture history. On that date, millions of young people across the country were moonwalking.
2. Au Pairs, “Sex Without Stress”.Wikipedia on Sense and Sensuality, the album on which this song appears: “No singles were released from the album. The album cover wasn't approved by the band. There were errors on the recording, including it being recorded at too fast a speed.”
3. The Weather Girls, “It’s Raining Men”. Co-written by Paul Shaffer. The video is mindboggling.
4. Bonnie Hayes with the Wild Combo, “Girls Like Me”. Hayes and the band were very popular in the Bay Area, and this song’s appearance in the movie Valley Girl brought them some wider attention. For a variety of reasons, they never really broke out. But late in the 1980s, another Bonnie, Raitt, discovered Hayes’ music and recorded two of her songs for Nick of Time, the huge hit that remade Raitt’s career.
5. George Clinton, “Atomic Dog”. Bow wow wow, yippie yo, yippie yay! I lost track somewhere past 50, but this one has been sampled many, many times over the years.
6. The Waitresses, “I Know What Boys Like”. Released in 1980, made its biggest impact in 1982 as part of the album Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful?. Singer Patty Donahue died at 40 of lung cancer.
7. Lou Reed, “Waves of Fear”. Fans of Lou Reed’s guitar work suffered through a lot in the first years of Lou’s solo career. He had some fine guitar on albums like Rock n Roll Animal, but he wasn’t the one doing the playing. Reed gradually began playing again, but he didn’t find a proper guitar companion until Robert Quine joined his band. Toss in Fernando Saunders, one of the finest (and most recognizable bass players) ever, and you had what was probably the best band of Reed’s solo career.
Crazy with sweat, spittle on my jaw What's that funny noise, what's that on the floor Waves of fear, pulsing with death I curse my tremors, I jump at my own step I cringe at my terror, I hate my own smell I know where I must be, I must be in hell
8. Flipper, “The Old Lady that Swallowed the Fly”. My cousin used to sing this to me when I was a little boy. She was, and is, a beautiful singer. Flipper is not my cousin. (Oft-told tale: when I bought the first Flipper album and put it on the turntable, my wife came from upstairs after a few minutes and told me it was the worst record I had ever brought into her house.)
9. Mission of Burma, “That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate”. Quoting Wikipedia again: “In 1983, after the release of Vs., the group disbanded due to Miller's worsening tinnitus, attributed in large part to their notoriously loud live performances—during their farewell tour, Miller took to augmenting his usual small foam earplugs with rifle-range earphones onstage.”
10. The Pop-O-Pies, “Truckin’”. I find myself at a loss to explain the Pop-O-Pies. I can tell you that I was a big fan for awhile, and that once I met someone who was friends with Joe Pop-O-Pie. The idea that Joe Pop-O-Pie existed in the real world fascinated me.
Ray Manzarek’s death has led to a lot of online discussion about The Doors, who Manzarek co-founded. It’s typical that even in death, Manzarek is overshadowed. And not only does he kick off memories of The Doors, memories of The Doors inevitably turn into discussions about Jim Morrison.
“Light My Fire” is a fine example of Manzarek and our relationship to The Doors. It kicks off with drummer John Densmore’s snare shot, after which the band appears, with Manzarek’s seductive, Bach-inspired organ inviting the listener in. After a couple of verses, Manzarek lays out an atmospherically appropriate solo for a few minutes … that’s followed by an equally fine guitar solo by Robby Krieger. Finally, the band returns to Morrison and the song ends. The chorus is catchy … I imagine most people who have heard it know “come on baby, light my fire” by heart. But Manzarek’s opening organ theme is equally iconic.
But his solo (and Krieger’s)? The song was so popular that AM radio stations wanted to play it, so a shorter version was released that edited out the two solos from the middle. Thus, the version many people heard was dominated by Morrison to a much larger extent than was the original.
The 45 version was a big deal in the Bay Area, where “underground radio” was starting. I can remember my older brother telling me there was this new station on FM that I should check out; I also remember him telling me there was this really amazing song on the first Doors album, called “The End”. Thus began my decades-long-and-still-counting obsession with the underground radio of those days. Again relying on memory, once, Tom Donahue said he didn’t want to play “Light My Fire” because it was being played to death on the AM dial. Someone pointed out to him that we no longer listened to AM, so it wasn’t played out for us.
“The End”, like “Light My Fire”, desperately needs what the musicians bring to the table, and Manzarek’s keyboards are essential. But, as was regularly true for The Doors, the musicians’ contributions were overwhelmed by the presence of Jim Morrison. “The End” wasn’t remarkable because of the music, it was remarkable for the Oedipal lyrics from Morrison (“Father? Yes, son. I want to kill you. Mother? I want to …. ARRGGRGAJHGRHHGH!).
The Doors released five more studio albums during Morrison’s lifetime, some better than others. None of them startled us the way the debut did, but that’s always the case with startling debuts. Each album went Top Ten, as did three singles. If anything, the band got better as time went on. But what got noticed was Jim Morrison, with his poetic lyrics and outrageous stage presence. He was arrested several times, he had problems with alcohol and drugs, and about the time he exposed himself on stage, if not long before, it was clear that if you asked the average fan what they knew about The Doors, they would reply “Jim Morrison”. (Anyone who thinks Morrison’s stage shenanigans were over-the-top are invited to check out GG Allin on YouTube. No, I’m not offering any links.) Morrison overdosed, and while the band released another couple of albums, their time in the spotlight was gone. They still pop up occasionally, but not for their music … Oliver Stone’s movie may have been called The Doors, but it never would have been made if Stone hadn’t made Morrison the focus of his film.
And now Ray Manzarek is dead, and people like me offer hundreds of words filled with talk about the Doors, which is to say about Jim Morrison, which is to say, not about Ray Manzarek. But if you listen to the “long” version of “Light My Fire”, you’ll hear Ray. You’ll notice him.
Mixing it up by revisiting the old Friday music tradition. My son had his 38th birthday yesterday, so I’ll choose 1975 for this week’s Random Ten. The links go to YouTube … times have changed some since I used to do these Random Tens, lots of people use YouTube as a jukebox nowadays. (For reference, here’s a link to the last time I did a 1975 Random Ten.)
1. Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, “Don’t Leave Me This Way”. Of course, despite the billing, it was Teddy Pendergrass who people remember from this group. And while this track went to #3 on the disco charts in 1975, I’ve linked to a video from Thelma Houston, later made the song her own, forever, hitting #1 in the process. Her version is probably my favorite disco record of all time, so, with respect to the Blue Notes and with the understanding that this is supposed to be 1975, Thelma gets the video.
2. Emmylou Harris, “If I Could Only Win Your Love”. It seemed like she’d been around forever, but this is from her major-label debut. It was her first single to make the Billboard charts. It’s a cover of a Louvin Brothers song; the album, Pieces of the Sky, also included covers of artists ranging from The Beatles to Dolly Parton to Merle Haggard. The link is to Emmylou singing with Charlie Louvin.
3. Bonnie Raitt, “Your Sweet and Shiny Eyes”. My favorite Bonnie Raitt song, from my favorite Bonnie Raitt album, Home Plate.
4. Eric Carmen, “All by Myself”. The Raspberries made the Top Five with one of their first singles, “Go All the Way”, but never returned to those heights, at least on the charts. In 1974, they gave us “Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)”, a track that very much deserved what the title asked for. It only made #18. The band broke up in 1975; by the end of the year, Carmen had released his first solo album. The aptly-named “All by Myself” was as good as any of his Raspberries hits. I hope I’m forgiven for the video link, which features Jamie O’Neal rather than Carmen. Halle Berry was great and her win was historic, but I woulda voted for Renée Zellweger, anyway.
5. Led Zeppelin, “Kashmir”. Back when Physical Graffiti came out, I don’t remember that “Kashmir” was considered the album’s peak, although as always, my memory is suspect. I know I always loved “Trampled Under Foot”, and basically what was at the time the first two sides (the first record of the two-LP set) was my favorite in general. Whatever … over the years, it seems like “Kashmir” has become one of the most standard of Zep songs, perhaps best exemplified by Puffy’s “Come with Me” for the Godzilla soundtrack. And I know that it has always ranked among my top two or three Led Zep songs. (When I saw them in 1977, “Kashmir” kicked off the final, overpowering part of the show: “Kashmir,” “Trampled Under Foot,” “Achilles Last Stand,” “Stairway to Heaven,” “Whole Lotta Love,” and “Rock and Roll”.) No, I don’t know what Robert Plant is babbling about in this song, but that’s true for most of their songs.
6. War, “Why Can’t We Be Friends?”. War was a top act throughout the first half of the 70s, and the Why Can’t We Be Friends? album marked the peak of their work. The next year, they released their first greatest hits album (and they weren’t kidding, they were hits and they were great), and while they released several hits packages in later years, all of the vital stuff was on that first hits album.
7. Earth, Wind & Fire, “Shining Star”. George Clinton reportedly said they were earth, hot air, and no fire. He was unfair, but I’ve never been able to get that quote out of my head. This is one song that shows he wasn’t entirely correct.
8. Fleetwood Mac, “Say You Love Me”. I saw Fleetwood Mac at my second-ever rock concert, at the Fillmore West, on a bill that also included Ten Years After and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. That was the Peter Green version of the band, and I can still remember how nastily lecherous Jeremy Spencer was as he sang “Shake Your Moneymaker”. Those days were long gone by 1975 … there was the Bob Welch era, and Christine McVie had been around for awhile. But when Buckingham Nicks joined the band, the result was the Fleetwood Mac everyone remembers now. “Say You Love Me” is one of McVie’s best. (There are higher-quality, more recent videos of this one performed live, but I like this because it’s from 1977, and McVie still plays keyboards.)
9. Bob Dylan, “Shelter from the Storm”. I made a short film when our son was still a little tyke, carrying him around to various locations where his mom and I had done stuff in high school and beyond. I used this song as the soundtrack, taking the title as a message about how I felt about Robin: she gave me shelter. Of course, the song looks back after the end of a relationship; maybe I should have listened more closely.
I mean, Google Play Music All Access doesn’t roll off the tongue, does it? (Not to mention the “Listen Now” angle.)
Longtime readers know that I lust after streaming music services, and am willing to pay if they do what I want. I don’t mean Pandora, although that has its uses. I mean services that give you access to enormous catalogs, while also allowing you to integrate your own music into the mix. (This is still the only way to get the Beatles or Led Zeppelin whenever you want them.) I want to be able to pick a song and here it, right now. I want to make playlists that mix the online catalog with my tunes.
I’ve gone with Rhapsody more than once, and in terms of total time being subscribed, they are probably still #1. But their desktop software always sucked, and (perhaps correctly) they gradually lost interest, moving to improving their web version. I tried Microsoft’s Zune for awhile … it wasn’t bad. I loved MOG, still do, but the absence of integration with my own music files is a dealbreaker. Like many people, I’m now on Spotify. I pay the extra to avoid ads, and so I can take advantage of all mobile functions.
And now, here comes Google. The new Google Music (I’ll call it that until they come up with something better) has a large catalog good for streaming. It allows you to put your own files in the mix. It has playlist-creation capabilities, and the kind of “smart radio” stuff that’s pretty standard now. The main difference, at the moment (and I’ve only been messing with it for a few hours), is that there is no desktop software. You access the music via a web browser. OK, it’s 2013, I can handle that. But it means something particular for the part where they integrate your music with theirs. Spotify just plays tracks off of my hard drive. Google Music uploads my music to their servers, and plays it from there. They seem to have a matching service (if they have the track in question, they won’t upload yours but just play theirs), but whatever … it’s a long process to get thousands of MP3s to the cloud.
I can’t tell yet if I like the interface, and it’s too soon for me to say how solid their catalog is. So this is a very preliminary post. Some of the other Google changes today have made a more instant impact on my regular computing … Google+ looks entirely different, now, for instance. If nothing else, Google Music will hopefully goose their competitors to do better, as well. Meanwhile, the price for all the good stuff is $9.99/month, like most of the services, but if you get in now, it’ll be $7.99.
Carla Thomas was singing in public by the time she was 10 years old, thanks in part to the fact that her father was Rufus Thomas, who had been recording since at least the 1940s.
“Gee Whiz (Look at His Eyes)” was written by Carla, and made the top ten in 1961. It brought Stax Records to the nation’s attention.
“I’ll Never Stop Loving You” was recorded in 1963, and resurrected three decades later as a Northern Soul classic:
This video is a mashup of “B-A-B-Y” with Cyd Charisse dancing in Party Girl. Charisse deserves a post of her own; the mashup works surprisingly well.
In 1967, Thomas and Otis Redding recorded a duets album, King & Queen, that hit #5 on the R&B charts, and spawned Carla’s biggest hit, the irresistible “Tramp”:
“Tramp” has inspired many songs over the years, some covers, some a bit more than that. Salt-n-Pepa kept the title in 1985:
Prince even got into the act, sampling “Tramp” for “7”. He has someone scouring YouTube, deleting all the Prince videos, so I can’t link to anything, but since I can barely hear the sample, perhaps it doesn’t matter.
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