HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, ARETHA FRANKLIN!
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I didn’t forget the Queen’s birthday. I didn’t. It was just that right after I got off of work yesterday me, my rudeboy and some friends went skating so this got postponed. What do I have to say about her? She’s great! Plus, the bassline on this track is way tough. Enjoy!
I Say A Little Prayer – Aretha Franklin
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Strange Days.
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My sister would probably laugh if she knew I couldn’t stop listening to a Buju Banton song considering she was around during the budding of my music obsession. I won’t go into details, but I was a cheesy kid.
I was sitting listening to music and thinking about my day. Music follows me wherever I go. Well, maybe it’s the other way around. The bookstore I work at is behind a jazz cafe and on Sunday afternoons and on countless random evenings, there’s live music that fills the store by default.
Today I was standing on a stool to reach the higher shelves and I could feel the bass coming out through my calves. My brain started whirring and ticking, it was recognizing a melody. Then it clicked: “People Make the World Go ‘Round” by the Stylistics. I was overjoyed for a moment. I wish I could have been in there.
I’ve been getting disinterested in my music collection. Trying to branch out and find things that really speak to me is slow and time-consuming. Now that I have less time for that, I’ve really been searching the annals of my memory to bring up some old songs that I loved when I was younger and didn’t even have the mental access to the words that would help me articulate how and why it moved me so. All I knew was that it made some kind of innate sense to me. Now I can understand that I love the sound of horns, the crack of percussion and favor certain chord progressions and song arrangements more than others.
Because music starts my day, I usually go with the first whim I have. For the last few mornings, I have been surprising myself with the songs that have popped into my head. It’s like some weird sonic nostalgia feedback.
Hollywood Swinging – Kool and the Gang
I’m Coming Out – Diana Ross
I’d nominate this song for top ten best song intros of all time. Love the percussion and guitar.
It Finally Happened: I’m So In Love.
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I love Barry White. I’ve already made a post about him and his velvety, “walrus of love” [still so wrong!] voice that’s been pleasing fans and being played at wedding receptions for thirty years or so. I briefly talked a little bit about The Love Unlimited Orchestra and put up the only song of theirs I knew at the time.
The other day while I was at work trying to daydream the hours away I came across a Barry White and The Love Unlimited Orchestra album [a best of/greatest hits type of deal] that had six Love Unlimited tracks. Six whole tracks composed by Barry White. Now, I knew the man wrote his own songs but somehow I completely missed the fact that he also had the ability to arrange instrumental music.
Rhasody In White – The Love Unlimited Orchestra
Forever In Love – The Love Unlimited Orchestra
All the tracks sound like something Barry White could have written lyrics to for another classic song. They’re beautiful and play with an easy complexity of someone who knows how to fit sounds together. I get the feeling that he must have had a very intimate relationship with tones and pitches beyond the piano and keyboard. His compositions combine funk, disco and soul to produce what really is his own trademark sound.
“Rhapsody In White” placed on the billboard charts in 1974. It’s a mid-tempo groove with even, unobtrusive percussion , nice guitar pieces [you know that wakka-wakka sound but a little softer] and some simple lead guitar playing out the melody. “Forever In Love” plays just a little funkier and is slower. The bass drum gains some volume and the whole track just rides itself out. I’m so grateful for the violins.
Donny Hathaway Saves The Day.
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REAL QUICK: I thought yesterday was going to include an amazing moment. I found out there was a “Paper Planes” remix on The Smoking Section. And then I found out it had Bun B and Rich Boy as the featured artists. What? I listened to it anyway and it’s actually more terrible than I imagined it was going to be. Ouch. Wrong move, M.I.A.
Paper Planes [remix] – M.I.A., Bun B, Rich Boy
The Ghetto – Donny Hathaway
Sugar Lee – Donny Hathaway
Later that night, however, I was sitting in my friend’s room waiting for him to get home from work. He was pretty late, work had obviously ran longer than either one of us had predicted. I was sitting at the computer when he came in the door and the first thing he did before even taking off his shoes was put on Donny Hathaway’s Everything Is Everything. We spent the rest of the album talking about our day.
I’ve always really liked Donny Hathaway. This album in particular rings in me like Curtis Mayfield album usually does. The production isn’t subpar or muddled but it does lack some of the crispness that I think has become heralded in hip hop recently. The kind of open space that lets the percussion almost crack. I might be exaggerating, but it sounds like everything was covered in honey. The way the bass starts on the opening track is more than the fuzz of dated recording equipment.
I know everyone remembers Nate Dogg groaning over the sampled intro of “I Believe To My Soul.” I think everyone’s probably heard at least chorus of ”The Ghetto” at least once somewhere. A commercial, television show, a movie soundtrack, in passing. My favorite part of the song is close to four minutes in when the handclaps start. I’m a sucker for handclaps. I love it when the percussion gets more animated. The baby crying is cool, too. Life sounds. “Sugar Lee” is a bluesy song. It has handclaps, too. It’s more of a groove than a song as it has no lyrics but it’s still lively. It’s mostly the sounds you would imagine you’d hear in some dim, smoky room while the band is playing a song to only their friends right before the place closes for the night.
