Arts and Entertainment
Song of the Day 5/12: Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton, “Dear Mr. Fantasy”
H/t to Nancy Willing, whose Traffic video posts got me listening to Blind Faith, Steve Winwood’s collaboration with Eric Clapton. The supergroup was formed after Clapton left Cream and Winwood left Traffic, but the high expectations of British music fans quickly soured Clapton on the experience. They only had one album’s worth of material, a […]
Song of the Day 5/11: The Traveling Wilburys, “Congratulations”
Bob Dylan writes so many songs he can’t use them all. Some he leaves as demos that get out and get finished by others. Some he tosses into side projects like George Harrison’s late-’80s supergroup, the Traveling Wilburys. Producer Jeff Lynne said the song was basically complete when Dylan brought it in, leaving the other […]
Song of the Day 5/10: Argent, “Liar”
Three Dog Night had the hit with it, but “Liar” was written by Argent guitarist Russ Ballard and was included on the band’s first album. I’m sure it will turn up on the soundtrack for the miniseries that will someday be made about the Trump Interregnum. Here’s the Three Dog Night version, with Danny Hutton […]
Final Call For The Suitcase Junket At Arden Gild Hall Tomorrow!
Only $20 a ticket to see this one-of-a-kind one-man band (cash or check at the door) and you get a free drink if you mention the magic words that you will find later in this piece. Here are a couple of reminders about why you should be here: As always, we’ve got an excellent opener, […]
Song of the Day 5/9: Hall and Oates, “You Make My Dreams”
MTV changed how music was promoted, but we tend to forget that when music videos were a new medium, record companies weren’t inclined to spend much (read “any”) money on them. For this single from 1980’s “Voices,” Hall and Oates apparently got just one camera, and choreographed the whole band’s performance so everyone could mug […]
Song of the Day 5/8: Wilbert Harrison, “Let’s Work Together”
This seems like as good a time as any to remind everyone that “united we stand, divided we fall,” even if it took Wilbert Harrison years to realize it. The song we now know as “Let’s Work Together” was released in 1970, but it’s the same tune he released in 1962 as “Let’s Stick Together,” […]
Song of the Day 5/7: Spirit, “Nature’s Way”
While the ongoing destruction of the American republic dominates the news, the ongoing destruction of the Earth’s ecosystem struggles for attention, as evidenced by last week’s UN report that one million species are at risk of extinction, which hit the news cycle and sank like a cinder block. We’ve can’t even claim ignorance. We’ve known […]
Song of the Day 5/6: Chicago Transit Authority, “I’m a Man”
Chicago Transit Authority, or Chicago as the band became known after the real CTA threatened a lawsuit, is remembered mostly as a soft-rock purveyor of sappy adult-contemporary material, because that’s all the band had left after the death of guitarist Terry Kath in 1978. On their early albums, Kath’s searing guitar gave Chicago a hard-rock […]
Song of the Day 5/5: Trout Fishing in America, “Pico de Gallo”
I chose this song for today because it mentions Cinco de Mayo, but I was just looking for an excuse. I’ve loved it ever since I heard it on WXPN’s “Kids’ Corner” in the early ’90s — not just for its humor, which I appreciated after listening to years of uninspired kids’ music, but because […]
Song of the Day 5/4: Pete Seeger, “Turn! Turn! Turn!”
H/t to RE Vanella, who pointed out that yesterday would have been Pete Seeger’s 100th birthday. In addition to playing a key role in the 20th century folk music revival, the Seeger composition that has aged best is his adaptation of a passage in Ecclesiastes set to a simple, plaintive melody. Most of Seeger’s overtly […]
Song of the Day 5/3: Johnny Winter And, “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo”
Everybody knows the various Rick Derringer versions of his rock standard, but its first appearance on vinyl (that’s all we had back then, kids) came on “Johnny Winter And,” the original name of which was “Johnny Winter and the McCoys,” the band Derringer (then Rick Zehringer, his birth name) fronted in its “Hang on Sloopy” […]
Song of the Day 5/2: Buffalo Springfield, “For What It’s Worth/Mr. Soul”
Back in the ’60s it took a long time for the older generation to realize that rock and roll was, as the saying goes, here to stay. As late as 1967, when this “Hollywood Palace” show was recorded, TV was still treating the new music as a passing fad. Those crazy kids with their shaggy […]
Song of the Day 5/1: The Hold Steady, “Sequestered in Memphis”
In El Somnambulo’s roundup of his favorite tunes from April, he wondered if Craig Finn was the Raymond Carver of songwriters. I’m not sure about that. I might go with John Samson of the Weakerthans for that sobriquet. He’s an actual professor of English Lit and writes the kind of lyrics that come from slightly […]
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