Friday Forgotten Song: Watch Your Step by Anita Baker
Having run across this LP at last week’s Pasadena City College Flea Market and Record Swap, and added it to my vinyl collection, seemed a good…
Having run across this LP at last week’s Pasadena City College Flea Market and Record Swap, and added it to my vinyl collection, seemed a good…
Admittedly, many I’ve spotlighted in this forgotten song series, which honestly began on a lark, are of the way-back-when variety. Rarely heard by later generations. I’ve stuck with those that somehow clicked…
My hometown colleague Sal Gomez reminded me that the great Roy Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988) celebrated a birthday this week. He’d have been 78, so I…
There’s a reason the above movie poster is affixed to my closet door. Well, two actually. The second is it covers a crack on said door…
There are songs, if I happen to catch them on the radio or the web, that can instantly transport me back to another time. To begin…
Just so readers don’t get the idea that I’m all about the old and forgotten music, I submit the following:
Many moons ago, I made a friend online, simply by the effortless act of starting a weblog. His name being Corey Wilde and he was the founding…
Sharing similarities in key and melody with the famous Phil Spector-produced work, Don’t Worry Baby was primarily about duos. The singer about to race a rival, drag racing in relevance to his girlfriend, and the heart and soul relationship existing between the girl and singer. It’s why, after a good number of years, the song continues to work well with lovers. In this case, Wilson’s longtime hit from 1964 was used in a tender, harmonious context for two different movies, song versions, and the manner deployed in a pair of scenes.
I, for one, fully understand that not all readers of this post will appreciate smooth jazz as a musical genre in general terms, or this artist in particular. If you’re not into one and/or the other, it’s quite alright. For those who are, or are at least a little curious, please, read on.
* My marriage to this lovely woman will soon reach a quarter century this year. It’s funny how life obliges you to realize the things that…
Greetings all and sundry! Having successfully gotten the Holiday and New Year season safely ensconced in my rear view mirror. I’ve decided to take a little…
Some years ago, while channel surfing one Saturday night, I stumbled upon a local station in these parts, probably one of the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), showing…
“The fresh sounds revealed on Life in the Tropics are sure to please you because of their melodic elements, rhythms, brass, and great guitar of Russ Freeman.”
In honor of the New Year now upon us, I selected another song from the Ye ‘Ol Decade of the 1970s to christen 2014. Wake Up Everybody (1975) was Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes’ last Top 40 hit. The smooth and soulful lead vocal was performed by none other than Teddy Pendergrass, in one of last numbers with the group.
Through the years I’ve gravitated to different songs for the holiday season. I even have a playlist I spring on my family members when I have…
I thought I’d end the holiday week with a forgotten song post for the last Friday in November. Since I mentioned it on Thanksgiving Day, I’ll…
Back to the vital things in life. Besides movie-watching and reading, it’s music for me. A shared facet that my colleague Kevin highlighted last week. Though I’ve put a turntable back into my life (thereby forcing me to re-collect those LPs I thoughtlessly let go more than two decades ago, to my wife’s consternation), listening to my Compact Disc collection has taken up much of my non-work-movie-book listening time.
Built almost entirely around Roeser’s stellar guitar riff — it being the one song I taught my children how to air guitar as toddlers (much to their mother’s chagrin) — the track has gathered fans from each subsequent decade thereafter. Certainly, enough to collect movie acclaim over the years. If you listened to the lyrics carefully, that is. Two of which utilized the driving barre chords and the poetry of the lyrics to great effect from two distinct and contrary decades. The tune reverberated best in a pair of films from the 70s and 90s in striking backdrops by two wholly different directors dealing with death in their films.
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
I know why I think of this old song. Usually, the month of March does it to me. Since 1978, it is the month when I…