Arts and Entertainment
Song of the Day 10/13: Angela Lansbury, “Beauty and the Beast”
Angela Lansbury, who died at age 96 on Tuesday, always played older than she was. MGM frequently cast her as a 40-ish woman, usually a villain, while she was still in her 20s. When she was nominated for an Oscar for her role as a villainous mother in “The Manchurian Candidate,” she was only three […]
Song of the Day 10/12: The Flamingos, “I Only Have Eyes For You”
I always thought of this as a quintessential doo-wop song, because the Flamingos version is the only one I had ever heard. That’s because I was never a fan of old movies, so I had never seen the 1934 Busby Berkeley musical “Dames,” in which Dick Powell sings it to Ruby Keeler. Several big bands […]
Song of the Day 10/11: Audience, “You’re Not Smiling”
Audience was a short-lived British band that got lumped in with progressive rock because of the their unusual instrumentation. Formed in 1969, they had no lead guitarist — their rhythm section was fronted by vocalist Howard Werth, who played an amplified nylon-string acoustic guitar, and Keith Gemmell, who played tenor sax and flute, often supplemented […]
Song of the Day 10/10: Link Wray & His Ray Men, “Rumble”
In honor of Indigenous Peoples Day, let’s put a dime in history’s jukebox to play the only instrumental ever banned by American radio stations. Link Wray, a Shawnee from North Carolina, changed rock guitar forever in 1958 when he strummed some power chords and poked a pencil through the speaker cone on his amp to […]
Song of the Day 10/7: Cab Calloway, “Have You Ever Met That Funny Reefer Man”
Cab Calloway recorded this in 1932, before cannabis was banned nationwide. Joe Biden didn’t undo that 1937 all by himself yesterday, but pardoning everyone convicted of simple possession is widely seen as a big step towards legalization. You can tell because stocks in marijuana companies went quite a bit higher.
Song of the Day 10/6: Sinéad O’Connor, “All Apologies”
With all the attention to mental health these days, it would seem like a perfect time for a critical re-evaluation of Sinéad O’Connor, whose public behavior had people calling her crazy when Britney Spears was still in the Mickey Mouse Club. “Nothing Compares,” the new documentary on O’Connor’s rise and fall, covers O’Connor’s early history, […]
Song of the Day 10/5: Loretta Lynn, “The Pill”
It’s hard for those born later to understand the profound change the oral contraceptive pill brought to society in 1960. Some Christian conservatives haven’t gotten over it yet. Loretta Lynn, who died yesterday at 90, was a conservative Christian, but in 1972 she recorded this paean to The Pill, and she sang from personal experience […]
Song of the Day 10/4: Jean-Luc Ponty, “New Country”
Maybe you recognize his name from his time playing with Frank Zappa and Elton John 50 years ago. Or maybe you heard him with John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra, or Chick Correa, or Bela Fleck, or on his LPs and gigs with Stanley Clarke and Al DiMeola. Jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty sure has gotten around, spreading […]
‘Bulo’s Fave Tunes For September, 2022
Fewer songs this month. Why? Because several really good songs are on albums that won’t be released until 2023. Since I make the rules and enforce the rules, I’ve ruled those songs as out-of-order until then. Lesser quantity doesn’t mean lesser quality, though. So here goes: Not an easy month to predict Nathan’s fave. Gonna […]
Song of the Day 10/1: Lizzo, “About Damn Time”
I have to admit that before this latest right-wing freak out I had very little idea of who Lizzo was. I heard her name enough to know she was famous, but what little I’d heard of her music didn’t make a deep impression. I like dance music just fine, but at my age I don’t […]
Song of the Day 9/30: The Zombies, “Time of the Season”
Guest post by Nathan Arizona You could say the Zombies saved their best song for the end. Actually, past the end. The British band had already broken up when “Time of the Season” came out in 1969. Nobody had paid much attention to the song or the few other tunes that been been released from […]
Song of the Day 9/29: Bob Dylan, “High Water (For Charley Patton)”
I know people in Naples, Fla. I feel even sorrier for them than usual today. Most blues songs about high water trace back to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, but Bob Dylan has contributed his share to the canon, from “Down in the Flood” on the Basement Tapes to this tune from 2001’s “Love […]
Song of the Day 9/28: Michael Martin Murphey, “Geronimo’s Cadillac”
As the link in today’s open thread illustrates, we never do right by native Americans, even though we’ve admitted the injustices for a long time now. For example, it was almost exactly 50 years ago when this title track and lead single from Michael Murphey’s debut LP reached the charts. Murphey wrote the song after […]
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