I Shazam’d this gem not too long ago. Big Maybelle! I loved this artist. She reminded me of Etta James a lot. They both had that same feisty energy. The kind of voices that sang exactly what is on their mind. “96 Tears,” released on 1967 (interesting the writer chose the number 96, and even more of a creepy coincidence that the song peaked at #96 and there is a 96 in the year! Wow…), the song was produced by a rock band called The Mysterians. So disappointed that the song was so low in the charts, ’cause I actually think this was a great song. It’s also unfortunate that this was her only hit. Well, it wasn’t a hit, but at least it was on the charts. Then again, I’ve discovered that Billboard doesn’t have the stats to a lot of songs. Oh well.
Ok. I was never a huge fan of Drake, I only liked maybe two of his older songs. I think he made some good dance beats, but I never considered him as a “singer.” Drake’s voice is too unbearably monotone. That said, my feelings are the same concerning his new song “Don’t Matter To Me,” released on his double CD. What? Double CD you said? Yup. Back in the day, you only released a double CD/album when you’ve been in the game for awhile, and you want to put out a greatest hits album. I guess he just wanted to increase his chances one one or two songs being a hit. The background music is hot, as well as dramatic. You what? Listen to the background really close, doesn’t it remind you a little bit of Michael Jackson’s “Dirty Diana?” By the way, you know you’re making money when you can afford to put the late MJ’s voice on your song. I give this song 4/5 stars. But the rest of this double CD…. ?
Tommie Young is another one of many forgotten soul artists in the industry. Damn! Even today, when I listen to er voice, I would have sworn to you, all up and down that this was Aretha Franklin. Other than Aretha’s sister, Erma Franklin, I can’t remember hearing anyone that sounded so much like Aretha. Tommie, now in her 70’s, performed at a time when soul music was REAL soul music. I mean, it was soul because artists actually wrote more of their own songs from personal experience. Back then, artists didn’t need an arsenal of people to write one song, to a single artists, who can’t relate to what they were singing about. “Do You Still Feel The Same Way,” was not a chart topper, and it should have been. The song only peaked at #28, and this woman tore this song to shreds in my humble opinion. Also, on this same album, check out “Hit and Run Lover.” It’s a pretty decent album I think.
This is probably my most favorite song from reggae legend, the late Gregory Isaac. The song is called “I Can’t Give You My Love Alone,” released in 1981 by African Museum Records (at least at the time I purchased my LP. In the streaming world, I see a number of distributors, so I’m still not sure if another company owns it). This is another one of those songs that I rarely hear that is both romantic and club danceable (or at least in a formal party danceable). I really love the instrumental/dub version of this song (on side B), but it doesn’t seem to be available anywhere, unless you’re lucky enough to find the original LP. Gregory died on lung cancer in London on 2010.
For my older readers… ? ?.. Do you remember a song from Simon & Garfunkel called “The Sound Of Silence?” It was on the soundtrack they did for the movie “The Graduate (1967),” starring Dustin Huffman & Ann Bancroft. Wellllllllll, here is a reinterpretation done by a heavy metal rock group called “Disturbed.” Now, let me say on the record that I am NOT attracted to dark heavy metal or grunge music at all, and I certainly wouldn’t seek any just for the purpose of this blog. I listened to this not knowing what kind of band they were. Disturbed’s version of “The Sound Of Silence” had me disturbed, yet it was a beautiful song at the same time. I’m still having problems processing what I hear from this song. It draws something out of you, but I’m not sure what it is. This was an absolutely amazing performance. My heart just feels like it’s going to jump out of my throat every time I hear it. This very dark performance collected almost 258 million plays on Spotify, over 500 million views on YouTube, and shortly over 5 million Shazams. Please, take a look at Disturbed’s music video for the song The Sound Of Silence [Official Music Video].
I had to do a whole lot of researching first, to make sure this was an actual new song. Theophilus made this song as if he literally time traveled; written and produced the song in the disco 70s era; made a bunch of copies and traveled back to the future to share it with us ? ? ⏳ I absolutely love this song! Theophilus’s voice sounds amazing on this song. So, “Only You,” is a brand new song that has already received 405k Spotify plays, almost 200k views on YouTube, and about 11k Shazams! Interesting that someone who is known as a psychedelic rock performer, would turn around and produce this wonderful piece. If I saw his genre first, I probably would not had bothered to listen to it. I’m glad I did. Dropping it into my albums! Hope you’ll enjoy it too.
The legendary disco group, Sister Sledge! Best known for their iconic 1979 hit anthem “We Are Family.” Still don’t remember them? Well, how about another major hit from 1979, “He’s The Greatest Dancer.” another major hit ” Sadly, sister Joni Sledge has recently passed about a year ago. You can read more about it on WXPN‘s website.
Yeah, I know I’m late with the first song! But…. What the hell, I’ll just stick this in with 2018 before the year is out. I forgot where I first heard this new comer. His name is Niall Horan, and in 2017 he released a song called “Slow Hands,” under Capital Records. I really love the sexy beat of this song. I guess by today’s standards, this song would be considered modern day “baby making music.” ? ? ? It is rare that I hear music that I consider both danceable and romantic; usually they are “either,” “or.” He also released another song I like this year called “On The Loose,” acoustic version. I think we may hear a lot more from this guy, because he has a new song on the soundtrack album for the animated movie “Smallfoot.” The song is called “Finally Free.”
Oleta has one of the most distinctive voices in music today. She is best known for the biggest song of her career called “Get Here,” released in 1990 under The Island Def Jam. The song was written by Brenda Russell, and produced by Roland Orzabal, and David Bascombe. “Get Here” reached the fifth position on the Top 100 Charts, and unfortunately, it appears to have been her one and only hit world wide. However, there was another great song on the same album that didn’t receive much traction. It was the first song on the album called “Rhythm Of Life.” Oleta, both singer and pianist, is now about 65 years of age and still performing.
This is a very rare photo of the legendary Smokey Robinson. I’m not sure what year this is from, but my guest guess would be mid 70s. Did you know that this legendary singer also had a major cocaine problem? I didn’t. It’s funny, now that I think about it, I was always shocked of the physical changes I saw in Smokey’s photos over the years. Now that I know he struggled with addiction, it makes sense. It’s so amazing to see and hear these talented people, and with all that money, they still turned to drugs. Such a shame….
I have so much great classic music to share, it is not humanly possible to share them all! That’s not a complaint, it’s actually the good kind of stress, of just how much fun I am having with my blog (despite the tremendous manual labor involved) ? ? ? . Did you guys know that Lisa Stansfield released a new album recently? Yup she did! It’s called Deeper+. Some of the songs on this album is definitely different from the kinds of music she used to do, yet, it’s the same Lisa. I love three songs from the new album very much. The first is “Deeper (2018) Snowboy Extended Version.” It has the kinds of rhythms you’d hear in some of Maxwell’s old music; that jazzy groovy mix. The second song that can get me on the dance floor is called “Never Ever,” which was mixed by another DJ master….. Mike Cruz. I also like the second version of “Never Ever,” remixed by Robert Hardt. It has more of a disco & R&B sound. This song is almost 9 minutes long, and it has a really nice xylophone solo. We really don’t hear that instrument anymore.
Damn, Chuck Jackson was gorgeous when he was young, wasn’t he? It’s unfortunate that Chuck never had a number one hit (according to what I was able to find on Billboard). However, the one song I remember hearing all over the radio growing up (even though I wasn’t born yet, it was still popular long after its release, I still heard it a lot on the radio, and my grandpa used to play it a lot too), it was called “Any Day Now (My Wild Beautiful Bird),” released in 1962. The song only peaked at #23, but it still was a very, very popular song, and it has remained one of my favorites all these years. It’s a beautiful song, asking the one he loves not to leave him in the form of a poem. This music I would put in the category of true soul music! Hardly anybody knows about this kind of music, unfortunately.
This as a rare photo of the late Dick Clark & a very young Janet Jackson. This photo was taken on the set of Dick’s popular TV show, American Bandstand. It was a long running show that featured not new artists. It was something like Soul Train. In the photo, Dick examines Janet’s large hoop earrings. I actually remember watching this on TV, Dick was genuinely surprised at how large Janet’s earrings were, he never seen anything like that. I laughed because, where I come from, women used to wear big name earrings all the time. Goes to show you the differences in cultures. Janet was promoting her then new single “Young Love,” released in 1982.
Now, this is my kind of old school rap! I almost placed this in my disco category, because I feel it to be more of a dance mix. But, I said what the hell, technically it is of the rap genre technically. I tell you, the deeper you get in to music culture, the harder it becomes to categorize certain music. If I was working for a record company, or a retail music manager, I would not want to be tasked with the responsibility of figuring out what category goes with which artist. It’s really difficult especially when it came to rap of this era, because many of our biggest rap acts were using disco samples. So having said that, it was hard for me to see certain songs as actually rap. Then again, rap was still commercially new in the seventies, we were still trying to figure it out. Rappers were just happy to get finally noticed and acknowledged.
So, the song called “Catch The Beat,” by T-Sky Valley (aka Tyrone Cox) as a huge hit when I was growing up. According to sources I’ve looked up, the song came out in 1982. For some reason it felt older than that. But then again, maybe that’s because I associated him with the end of the “Sugar Hill Gang” era. I can’t find any chart numbers, but what I can tell you, it was a HUGE hit in the Black community. He is indeed on of the forgotten great rappers, a time before rap music went south. The song received only 20.4k Shazams, and forget YouTube, I don’t even think he reached 1k on there. A little fun fact, Tyrone used to play guitar in high school, and after he graduated, he worked for reggae producers at Clocktower Records.
You know, these lawsuits against Spotify are really f***ing stupid. Now, I know I’m late with this particular story, but sometimes it’s just hard to keep up with all these hater lawsuits! In 2013, GEEK.com, published an article about a music label called “The Ministry Of Sound,” or “MoS,” took Spotify to court over playlists! I lost my mind! I just kept saying to myself just how RETARDED that lawsuit was. So in short, the label was alleging copyright infringement on the order of songs in a playlist. Are you f***ing kidding me? These dumb ***** actually took them to court over a playlist that existed, where the exact contents of a CD was curated. Now get this…… What the plaintiff argument was…. The exact order of the songs within the playlist violated their copyrights!! When you read that article, you’ll clearly see that MoS does not like Spotify, and I’ll bet you those guys are from old school, and still doesn’t understand how music streaming works. A lot of these old, old, old music business men treat Spotify as tho they were in the same league as the old Napster/Kazaa. But the only difference is….. Spotify can’t turn a profit, because it tries to do the right thing and pay their greedy *sses the royalties they demand! This is why Spotify can’t make money, because you have opportunists that can’t see an awesome company like Spotify succeed. Meanwhile, you have the “beloved” Apple/iTunes that takes away 70% artists revenue (worth of fees and whatnot), and no one says s**t. I just don’t understand how Daniel Ek could emotionally handle all these dumb *ss lawsuits left & right. Well, It’s been 13 years since Spotify was launched, and their still kicking. Just know that your fans love you… Thank you.
Wow!! I must have played this song about 6 times already! The first thing I was attracted to was the sick rhythms in the bass. “Without You” is a new single release by Justin de Mari. In addition to this song definitely being a head popper, I like the lyrics as well. In essence, this is an upbeat dance/pop song that describes how he doesn’t want his girl to worry about anything. If she’s tired, he’ll take over things in life she’s unable to finish. This is song is both sweet and groovy at the same time. Definitely something you can play for the dance floor (in my opinion).
At the almost end of the seventies, “I Love The Night Life (Disco ‘Round)” by Alicia Bridges released in 1978, has been one of my many ultimate 70’s disco favorites. Unfortunately, this was Alicia’s only major hit record in her entire career. It’s a shame because she really had a good voice. But, as I listened closely to her songs, her voice appeared to be all over the place. As if she and her producers were still trying to find where to place her voice. I really think she should have continued with the disco genre. There’s no doubt that if she had better song writers, her career would have continued to sore. Then again, the other probable factor was, she was already much older by the time she came out with her first record. It’s very possible they really didn’t know how to market her; and that “I Love The Night Life,” may have been one damn lucky hit!
Do you guys remember Maxine Nightingale? She had a disco hit called “Right Back Where We Started From,” released in 1976. The song peaked #2 position on the Top 100 Charts, and stayed relevant for 20 weeks. This song has became such an anthem, I’m surprised that the song dropped off the Top 100 so soon. Even today, the song has been Shazam’d almost a third of a million times! This was not only a fun and danceable record, it was one of the few positive “let’s get back together” songs we had in the 70s. Maxine was musically immortalized because of this song. Maxine also had one more major hit, however this one was a slow jam. The song is called “Lead Me On.” “Lead Me On,” peaked at the fifth position on the Top 100 charts. You know it was interesting, as I was researching the music stats, I discovered that this song was written by David Lasley and Alle Willis. This surprised me quite a bit, because for some reason, I could have sworn one of the BeeGees written this song. It sounds exactly like the kinds of music they had written and performed.
This 3M ad was published in c. 1981, and I feel that Michael should have stopped his surgeries right here! This was at a time when even though he had a little work done, his face still looked natural, and it was a great look for him. I always found it interesting that the media talked about all kinds of “Michael Moments,” but very rare has the media talked about his addiction to plastic surgeries. I guess the media found it more interesting talking about his strange relationship between “Bubbles the chimp” and himself.
Yes, I know that I put this in the 2018 category 😀 Although this was released last year, there is a new remix released this year. However, I like the original better 😀 Way better. I absolutely know nothing about this band, other than the fact that they came from Evergreen, Colorado. They appear to be a new band starting out, I can’t find a stitch of anything written about them. They do have a facebook page tho. They call themselves Vox Eagle. I stumbled upon their song and I really like it, it’s called “No Sleep,” released last year in 2017. The song has a young pop and young country boy sound. I mean REAL country. I mean, out in the woods catching crocodiles and feeding the pigs country 😀 Now, I say that not to mock them, I’m simply trying to explain what I hear in the music. This is actually a very cute song, and I’ve actually added it to my library. In fact, I would imagine if the great music mixer Calvin Harris wasn’t doing club mixes anymore, I think his music would probably sound very closely to this song. If you’re curious about the 2018 remix of this song, check it out here. The song is not bad, it’s a cute song as well. I just feel comparing them side to side, the 2017 is a much more fun song.
Ok. This morning I decided to randomly sync some of my personal music to my Spotify. The first classic that popped up was from Adina Howard! Now, I’m not a huge Adina Howard fan because she was way to explicit for my taste. However, I do acknowledge the fact that she is a very talented singer. But sometimes I used to think she didn’t think so. A lot of artist use explicitness or profanity when their producers think it’s the only way their going to sell records. Then again, I also used to think both her music and persona lowered the standards for younger females (but I digress). Regardless of how I felt about Adina then, I couldn’t deny the awesome grooves of her song “Freak Like Me,” released in 1995, recorded for Elektra Records. Funny thing about this song is that, everything about it was so perfect (melody and composition), I didn’t even realize how explicit it was until I started listening to the words 😀 So many people had a hand on writing this song, and that includes (you’d be surprised to know) the legendary William Bootsy Collins. With so many people collaborating to write this one song for Adina, who would even believed it would hit #2 on the charts!! Well desired though. Very nicely put together! Adina has not had another hit since then. Well, after about 12 years, she has a new album out now called “Resurrection,” looking like a big o’l drag queen if you ask me. Let’s see how it does, but personally I’m not impressed.
Now, judging from the kinds of music I’ve posted in the past, many of my readers may be quite surprised to know that I love “Blinded By The Light,” recorded by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band in 1976. I’m not sure what was it about this rock song I loved so much. Maybe it was the mixture of rock & space age sound effects? Sometimes I wasn’t sure whether or not I was listening to actual music, or listening to an actual alien invasion! 😀 This was their only major hit throughout their career. “Blinded By The Light” hit #1 on the Top 100 Charts in 1977, and stayed at #1 for a week. People still love their music tho. On Spotify, this song reached 20.5M plays, 2.2M Shazams, and about 16M additional plays throughout YouTube. By the way, did you know that “Blinded By The Light” was actually a Bruce Springsteen song, released in 1973 (I believe)? Wow, they almost sound like two completely different songs.