What song are you loving right now?

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Now a timeless recording so sloppy it's perfect, from the drifting tempo to the half-baked sax solo. Sometimes I think the guitar is slightly off as well. I can't imagine they did more than one take. But it's inimitable and exactly as it must be--if it had been polished up, we'd probably have forgotten it like so many other pop songs from 1960.

Rosie Hamlin was an undercover Mexican-American teenager (real name: Rosalie Méndez Hamlin) at Mission Bay High School here in San Diego when she recorded this classic on a two-track tape machine. She also wrote it.
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I would love to have heard and seen her reaction when John Lennon referred to it as one of his favorite songs and recorded it in the '70s.
 
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So, I finally learned why the sax solo on "Angel Baby" is so odd--the sax player's mom wouldn't let him leave the house because he had yardwork to do, so the bass player had to play the sax solo! From an interview with Rosie: "The guy that was on the 45, that played on the record, was not our horn player, Alfred Barrett. He was Tony, who actually played bass guitar. We ended up going to the only recording studio we could find within a 100 mile radius. It was on the outskirts of San Diego, on a farm. He was an airplane mechanic. He'd taken part of his hanger and was gonna have a studio when he retired. So, we were there all day, playing it over and over, trying to get it sounding just right. I was playing piano on it. We called Alfred 'cause he wasn't there yet. He said he couldn't get out of the house. His mother wouldn't let him leave 'til he finished mowing and raking the yard. He didn't make the session, so, that's how the terrible horn solo got on there, 'cause nobody knew what they were doing."
 
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Don't understand why Free aren't more widely recognized as one of the finest hard rock bands of their era. Minimalist and stark where so many of their peers indulged in macho melodrama, Rodgers is one of the finest blue-eyed blues/soul rock singers in the genre, Kossof restrained and expressive, the rhythm section dead on.

 
I have an album of Cole Porter demos...I find it much easier to work out the changes when it's just his piano and voice.
 
I'm loving Camila at present.
Not sure if it's her music, or just the fact that she's a hot young latino chick, heh heh :grin:



 
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Don't understand why Free aren't more widely recognized as one of the finest hard rock bands of their era. Minimalist and stark where so many of their peers indulged in macho melodrama, Rodgers is one of the finest blue-eyed blues/soul rock singers in the genre, Kossof restrained and expressive, the rhythm section dead on.


Free are one of my Desert Island disks. Free Live is an absolute masterpiece and their studio albums, especially Fire and Water, are among the rare albums where every track is a classic.
 
"Night Out" from the 1979 LP of the same name:

I knew Ellen Foley sang with Meat Loaf way back when, but I only recently realized she also starred on the 1984-1985 first season of Night Court.
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She also has an album called Spirit of St. Louis (1981) which is almost entirely comprising songs written for her by Mick Jones and Joe Strummer and Clash associate Tymon Dogg. The Clash, plus Dogg on violin, is her backing band on the LP.
 
I loved watching The Dukes of Hazzard as a kid, and I still love the theme song.



Also, I love this song. Even with the meme factor taken out of the equation.

 
These guys look about 14 years old but they deliver:


 
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Viola Wills tackling Gordon Lightfoot = :music: Great voice, great phrasing, really understated for a disco track.

 
Now here are some real pros taking to the stage to entertain and loving every minute of it:


For a long time when I'd see their name on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack credits, I assumed they were Puerto Ricans or maybe Cubans, possibly Mexicans who somehow changed Tavarez to the Portuguese spelling. Or Brazilians.
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Turns out Tavares is five brothers (Ralph, Chubby, Pooch, Butch, and Tiny--no joke!) of Cape Verdean background originally from from Rhode Island of all places, and their drummer went on to be in Aerosmith!
 
Also, I love this song. Even with the meme factor taken out of the equation.
Heh heh yeah this worked pretty well spreading the vote on gay marriage in Australia around the rest of the world.
The funniest part was that lots of foreigners got hung up on 'this screaming cowboy guy' not even realising Jimmy Barnes was having a lark for a good cause - he has huge pub rock icon status back here in Australia - this is akin to if Bruce Springsteen and Steve Earle threw their support behind the Pride Movement in the USA.
Once Barnesy has done it here, everyone was like, yep go for it.
Its a cheesy fun song with a big message :shade:

(But we also enjoyed some of those Screaming Cowboy memes that did the rounds :grin:)
 
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I'm a guitarist. I've known the name Devin Townsend for years now. Never listened to him until I thought I'd check hos stuff out. Holy shit! Converted!

 
The great Lou Johnson doing a song he originated in 1964 but unfortunately is probably better known as a Naked Eyes song. Their version is pretty good, too, but they don't have his magical voice. His backing singers on this are Doris Troy, Dee Dee Warwick, and Cissy Houston (the Apple recording artist who also sang on The Dark Side of the Moon, Dionne Warwick's sister, and Whitney Houston's mother, respectively).

 
Such a fantastic pop song, catchy from start to finish, with unusually bleak lyrics for a massive pop hit*. Thinly veiled threats from a sort of Pygmalion who got the kiss-off from his creation. More songs should be so inobvious and creative.



Also, I look forward to these fashions and hairstyles coming back into vogue.

* Reminds me of the creepy possessive stalker narration of "Every Breath You Take," which many listeners mistook for a romantic love song.
 
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The best Canadian pop song of all time.
Huh, I thought they were British. I was probably thrown off by all the maypoles. It's definitely a genuine classic.

I bought the sophomore album at the urging of a friend at the time who I thought was really cool. It was...not indelible. Very delible, in fact.
 
Such a fantastic pop song, catchy from start to finish, with unusually bleak lyrics for a massive pop hit*. Thinly veiled threats from a sort od Pygmalion who got the kiss-off from his creation. More songs should be so inobvious and creative.



Also, I look forward to these fashions and hairstyles coming back into vogue.

* Reminds me of the creepy possessive stalker narration of "Every Breath You Take," which many listeners mistook for a romantic love song.

Bring back the New Wave & New Romantics I reckon :thumbsup::shade:
 
Excellent parody take on '70s soft rock in the vein of Seals & Crofts and their ilk:
 
Take Hold of the Flame - I 100% endorse the message. I 100% endorse the musicianship. And Geoff Tate's vocals are insane.
 
Something a little different, I found this linked off something a year or two ago - Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain. This is the most British thing I've seen in a long time. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly played on Ukeleles, plus a couple of others. Plenty more available with a little google-fu.

It has a certain je ne sais quoi.





 
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The great Lou Johnson doing a song he originated in 1964 but unfortunately is probably better known as a Naked Eyes song. Their version is pretty good, too, but they don't have his magical voice. His backing singers on this are Doris Troy, Dee Dee Warwick, and Cissy Houston (the Apple recording artist who also sang on The Dark Side of the Moon, Dionne Warwick's sister, and Whitney Houston's mother, respectively).



Didn't realize the Naked Eyes song was a cover, this original is lovely.
 
Didn't realize the Naked Eyes song was a cover, this original is lovely.
I'd guess they were probably most familiar with the version Sandie Shaw had a hit with in England in 1964:

But the original arrangement was so good nobody really seems to mess with it much. Here's Dionne Warwick's cover, which was also a hit in 1967:

Interesting fact: Dionne Warwick sang on the demo for Bacharach & David in 1963, so in a way she's the original singer.
 
Similar to Naked Eyes' "Always Something There to Remind Me," another "New Wave" hit most folks don't realize was first recorded almost two decades earlier by an American artist is "Tainted Love," originally recorded by Gloria Jones in 1964 and released as a single in 1965:

The Soft Cell version is pretty good. They slowed it down and it works.
 
One of their best albums ever. I'm going deep. I think I owned this on cassette and vinyl, like five-times and they kept getting stole- err... "borrowed" and never returned. When everyone else was listening to Rush... I was having my Tangerine Dreams...

"Kiew Mission" - by Tangerine Dream
 
I'm a guitarist. I've known the name Devin Townsend for years now. Never listened to him until I thought I'd check hos stuff out. Holy shit! Converted!



Devin Townsend Project's Deconstruction album is one of my very favourites. A concept album about a vegetarian who goes to hell and is offered the meaning of life in the form of a cheeseburger. Opeth's Mikael Akerfelt, Isahn, and Between the Buried and Me's Tommy Rogers all guest on it.
 
Micky Dolenz is way, way underrated as a singer and performer. His voice is immediately recognizable, which is a valuable commodity in pop. There was at one time a plan for a double-LP by the Monkees wherein each member of the band would get one side of a disc to do his own thing and Micky's was going to be blue-eyed soul. It's too bad he never pursued it as these tracks, some unreleased or hardly known, show he had a special handle on the material and style of his own.









 
As far as I'm concerned Blur was at their best when they weren't doing the cutesy "Britpop" songs that always seemed overly self-conscious and strained. This, on the other hand, is just a fantastic song that hasn't dated at all:
 
The other day it was in the 90s and so bright the sunlight reflecting off the sidewalk hurt your eyes even in sunglasses. The past couple of days it's been pissing down cold rain. I have a waterfall at my front door as the gutters are overflowing.
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I also have been greenlit to work from home most of the week since October so yesterday I was home and today is a holiday; therefore I have been indulging in British music that fits the British weather. Digging into the superior bits of Britpop. Parklife is quite excellent if you don't look at the awful music video corniness and patronizing visual image and just listen to the record. Came across this concert performance of the title track: the added horns are a really cool touch.

The original is a great track as well, though I can't stomach Blur music videos of that era.

Observation: just imagine the cardiovascular shape you'd have to be in to bounce around on stage like that for a couple of hours, particularly in middle age.

Edit: those are dangling skeleton legs in case you were wondering. The kids have not yet taken down the Halloween decorations, my wife doesn't want to do it alone, and I've declined since the three of them are the ones who put them up. Naturally I'll probably end up being the one to do it this weekend assuming the rain lets up as I have to clear out the gutters anyway.
 
Pehaps I can force the sun to break through by listening to mariachi music.

My first guitar was a nylon-string 3/4-size one from Tijuana. I could listen to this all day. If my kids and wife would let me.
 
I remember first hearing this one at a dance in the high school auditorium.

 
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