Tuesday, May 26, 2015

I feel a tropical vacation this year

Funny, I always thought that this was the novelty song.



But the band of many names, under yet another name, backed Steve Martin's "condo made of stone-a."

But I heard this track all of a sudden a few nights ago and was instantly delighted.

Maybe it was the chronological proximity to another weightless rum-drink daydream--the last Billboard Number One of the 70s, naturally--that draws/drew me to it (and, re: that video - who knew that an Apple programmer moonlighted as a pop star?).

I also wonder if Jimmy Buffett ever called since The Dirt Band lifted the opening of "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes."

No; it must be the rum that has me drop everything and turn up for these three. And I am booking my summer beach vacation travel today.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Still wandering through the night

If Warren was still around, he'd surely be close to the sign-off, if not the last musical guest, for Dave.



I saw that last interview happen in 2002, and Dave's remembrance, in which he remembered the music:

“The music itself was just exciting,” Letterman said. “It was just thundering and exciting and rhythmic and complicated. … It was not the kind of rock ‘n’ roll you’d hear much of. And then the lyrics … were so vivid. Each song was like watching a motion picture. He was a poet and a storyteller and a good friend of ours.”
e: The History of Warren Zevon on David Letterman | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/warren-zevon-on-david-letterman/?trackback=tsmclip
“The music itself was just exciting,” Letterman said. “It was just thundering and exciting and rhythmic and complicated. … It was not the kind of rock ‘n’ roll you’d hear much of. And then the lyrics … were so vivid. Each song was like watching a motion picture. He was a poet and a storyteller and a good friend of ours.”

Read More: The History of Warren Zevon on David Letterman | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/warren-zevon-on-david-letterman/?trackback=tsmclip
“The music itself was just exciting,” Letterman said. “It was just thundering and exciting and rhythmic and complicated. … It was not the kind of rock ‘n’ roll you’d hear much of. And then the lyrics … were so vivid. Each song was like watching a motion picture. He was a poet and a storyteller and a good friend of ours.”

Read More: The History of Warren Zevon on David Letterman | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/warren-zevon-on-david-letterman/?trackback=tsmclip
“The music itself was just exciting,” Letterman said. “It was just thundering and exciting and rhythmic and complicated. … It was not the kind of rock ‘n’ roll you’d hear much of. And then the lyrics … were so vivid. Each song was like watching a motion picture. He was a poet and a storyteller and a good friend of ours.”

Read More: The History of Warren Zevon on David Letterman | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/warren-zevon-on-david-letterman/?trackback=tsmclip
“The music itself was just exciting,” Letterman said. “It was just thundering and exciting and rhythmic and complicated. … It was not the kind of rock ‘n’ roll you’d hear much of. And then the lyrics … were so vivid. Each song was like watching a motion picture. He was a poet and a storyteller and a good friend of ours.”

Read More: The History of Warren Zevon on David Letterman | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/warren-zevon-on-david-letterman/?trackback=tsmclip
“The music itself was just exciting,” Letterman said. “It was just thundering and exciting and rhythmic and complicated. … It was not the kind of rock ‘n’ roll you’d hear much of. And then the lyrics … were so vivid. Each song was like watching a motion picture. He was a poet and a storyteller and a good friend of ours.”

Read More: The History of Warren Zevon on David Letterman | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/warren-zevon-on-david-letterman/?trackback=tsmclip
“The music itself was just exciting,” Letterman said. “It was just thundering and exciting and rhythmic and complicated. … It was not the kind of rock ‘n’ roll you’d hear much of. And then the lyrics … were so vivid. Each song was like watching a motion picture. He was a poet and a storyteller and a good friend of ours.”

Read More: The History of Warren Zevon on David Letterman | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/warren-zevon-on-david-letterman/?trackback=tsmclip

Monday, May 11, 2015

Your eyes won't believe what your mind can't conceive

I like B-music. What's B-music? You know what B-movies are. B-music's the also-ran, the didn't-quite-make-it, the one-hit-wonder or, in its most piquant form, never-was-gonna-make-it-but-they-followed-the-dream-anyway (aka Anvil).

I fell down a Spotify k-hole and found some sweet late-disco/early Quiet Storm B-music.

The Jones Girls had been plying their trade for most of the 70s. They were Detroit-born sisters, forged in gospel singing, discovered first by Curtis Mayfield and later, after backing Diana Ross on tour, re-discovered by Gamble and Huff. Stars aligned then, and though they didn't become stars, dancefloors pulsed in '81 with this track.



I'm aching to find a good 12- or 7-inch copy of it, and in this week's obsession with it I've figured out its A-list sonic cousin.



Chaka's track is clearly more sophisticated, and there's a good reason why there's a gulf way wider than the Mediterranean Sea that separates "Tunisia" from "Egypt." Chaka's single "Night" in Tunisia is a cover that came from the mind of an actual genius who's genetically incapable of creating something as rustic as the unnecessary Middle Eastern-sounding keyboard riff in "Nights Over Egypt."

The Jones Girls can sing. But what they didn't have is access. The saying in the creative world is that you have to work with artists who are at least a little better than you so that your craft is raised. Access is based on timing, and the Girls' timing was not good, seeing as it was situated on the back-end of the (post-payola) Gamble and Huff juggernaut and given writers from the Philadelphia International stable that were maybe on the downslope of creating hit soul music.

After 1984, while Chaka found the third act of her career, The Jones Girls never got back on track.

Unequal songs, unequal careers, unequal access. But I (and probably only I) respond both songs with equal enjoyment, despite the unfair outcomes for the singers. But maybe they didn't want any more than that -- someone's ears being pleased at the sound of their song.

I best return my ears to simply listening before I embark on a master's-thesis rumination about the post-80s diminishing returns of Patrice Rushen.