October 21, 2022

Luckiest Music Generation: EWF - Boogie Wonderland

Because it's Friday, and Fridays need party music. Earth Wind and Fire gets it that parties are nothing without plenty of people to have fun with. They only have, what, 17 people on stage in this one?

October 19, 2022

Luckiest Music Generation: Barbra Streisand - Stony End

I mentioned yesterday that a diverse array of artists covered songs written by Laura Nyro. A couple of those renditions are quite famous, but Barbara Streisand's version of "Stony End" has sorta slipped through the cracks of time. Maybe because the idea of Streisand and a more rock-oriented sound was too weird or jarring in 1971, given that her fame came from Broadway and American Songbook roots.

It is on the strange side to hear her in a more "rock" song, but I don't think she does a bad job at all with it. I do think she was a little too stylized and restrained, when she needed to trust her voice and really cut loose. She would get the idea later in the 70s, but maybe she was still too young here to be as sure of herself in a new genre as she would be then.

On a shallow note about the video itself, am I the only one that thinks Babs had an uncanny gift for choosing hairdos that were both forward-thinking and flattering to her? Save for that 70s frizzy abomination, her hair choices have been fantastic.

October 18, 2022

Luckiest Music Generation: Laura Nyro - Wedding Bell Blues

Between 1966 and 1971, Laura Nyro dazzled the music world with an array of brilliantly crafted pop songs. Artists as varied as Barbra Streisand, Three Dog Night, Blood Sweat and Tears, Peter, Paul and Mary, and The 5th Dimension recorded covers of her compositions.

Then in 1971, at all of 24 years old, she walked away from it all, rather than let the music industry turn her into a "celebrity." She would return later, after her marriage fell apart, but she wasn't quite able to recapture that magical first five years again, although she certainly never starved.

Laura Nyro died in 1997 of ovarian cancer. If she had lived, she would have been 75 today.

The 5th Dimension is more famous for their version of "Wedding Bell Blues," but I've always preferred the original version from Ms. Nyro's first album, More Than a New Discovery for its warmth and intimacy.

RIP Laura. You are missed.

October 18, 2022

Luckiest Music Generation: Elton John - Bennie and the Jets

The relentless piano and the airtight rhythm section make this song epic for Elton John, at the peak of his career.

If Silly Love Songs is that song most people hear when they think, "Summer 1976," then Bennie and the Jets is that song for Spring 1974. It was everywhere.

And I do mean everywhere.

The grade I was in had a major school trip that spring, the first "official" overnight trip I'd ever taken. Our parochial school wasn't big enough to rate a bus, so parents drove us down in their own cars. The mom driving our group was cool enough to let us listen to Top 40, and this song played constantly as we drove into and out of each low-watt local AM station along our route. For four hours. Both ways.

I hear it, and I'm in the back of that station wagon once again, glad to be there when it was still too cool for AC, and heat vents were only in the front of cars then. And weak. The electrifying beat of this song and the warmth from the sun shining on me through the back windshield was plenty to keep me from turning into an icicle.

October 16, 2022

Luckiest Music Generation (makeup): The Eagles - Take It Easy

I forgot to post a tune yesterday, so here's one to make up for it.

Is it just me, or does most of modern country now sound like 90% of the 1970s Eagles catalog?

Just wondering if I'm the only one who's noticed it?

October 16, 2022

Luckiest Music Generation: Stone Poneys - Different Drum

I go an earworm with this song the other day. So now maybe you get to have it, too:

I don't know why I like this song. I just do.

Maybe it's the "earworm-ness" of it.

October 14, 2022

Luckiest Music Generation: 10CC - I'm Not in Love

No words to describe the auditory magnificence of this song:

October 14, 2022

Luckiest Music Generation: Todd Rundgren - I Saw the Light

He's super-weird, but a pop music master who has racked up at least a dozen iconic songs on his songwriting resume.

Go figure.

An amazing musician as well, who was doing the "I'll do everything for the album--instruments, vocals, producing, and more," when that wasn't much of a thing. Example: The 1978 album, Hermit of Mink Hollow. Still love the album tracks even more than its hit, "Why Can't We Be Friends."

Those of us who were there in the 70s know his greatness, but he doesn't get much love these days.

And that's a shame.

October 13, 2022

Luckiest Music Generation: Paul Simon - Kodachrome

When I moved to "the city," I lived across the road from a park with an Olympic-sized swimming pool. My mom got us kids season passes to it, and of course we spent hours there nearly every day. Nobody had heard of SPF anything, I don't remember using even Coppertone back then, so it's a wonder my brothers and I don't all have skin cancer now. But we don't. Go figure.

Anyway, the pool had the PA system hooked up to a radio that always played Top 40, so we'd get to hear all the latest hits, all day.

When I hear or think 1973, I'm back at that pool and this is the song I hear, because it played so much that summer:

Is it the greatest song? Maybe not, but it's fun and the light, upbeat vibe screams, "SUMMER."

October 12, 2022

Luckiest Music Generation: Blue Oyster Cult - The Reaper

AKA "Don't Fear the Reaper."

Because it's moody and weird and it has MOAR COWBELL:

And of course, the glorious MOAR COWBELL sketch from SNL, when the show still had a clue about funny: