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Carmelita

Mister lonely.

My Juke Box .........

Last addition: let’s twist again ..... Chubby Checker

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Tiny Dancer ..... Elton John




Despite being dedicated on the album to Maxime – the songwriter’s wife – Taupin would later say on a Rolling Stone interview that this song wasn’t about any woman in particular:

We came to California in the fall of 1970, and sunshine radiated from the populace. I was trying to capture the spirit of that time, encapsulated by the women we met–especially at the clothes stores up and down the Strip in L.A. They were free spirits, sexy in hip-huggers and lacy blouses, and very ethereal, the way they moved.

They were just so different from what I’d been used to in England. They had this thing about embroidering your clothes. They wanted to sew patches on your jeans. They mothered you and slept with you. It was the perfect Oedipal complex.

I've always admired the song writing skill/talent of Paul McCartney.
Having only seen him perform live once about 12 years ago when ticket prices were $250, I coughed up the money. It was the last show of his US tour and I didn't think there would be another South Florida Show after this.
I went with a friend who was a dedicated Beatle fan and the people who were behind us caught Paul's 2 previous concerts in Florida. They joked about being arrested for stalking him.
79 year old famed bassist, guitarist, pianist, singer songwriter, vegetarian, positive thinker, billionaire, grants interviews and acknowledges fans who have bought his music and followed his career for more than 4 decades.
Giving up the ghost and letting his white hair show through the dye, he's been overdue for another face lift.
In an undated interview, Paul gives out some interesting background to some of the collaborative efforts that went into Beatle and solo songs.

Have a listen...

My blog today is about vinyl LP's. It's been 40 years since digital CD's hit the market. I remember they professed it would be the kiss of death to vinyl LP's. CD's are the best and the worst in the music industry all in the same breath. When first released around 1982, people were forced to switch gears and buy new players. People weren't happy. They went through upgrades in 8-track tapes, cassettes and digital cassettes.

The good thing about CD's is you could fit more music on a CD than an LP. I knew a DJ who used to carry boxes and boxes of LP's to his gigs. When he switched to CD's it was only 2 cases.
Play a CD a thousand times and have no loss of quality. No scratching, no skipping. Physically, taking less space for storage, easy to send in the mail. Yet some people hated them.

CD's were easy to rip and download to a hard disk or digital storage. Now, DJ's only need a portable drive... or an iPhone with extended memory for hundreds of songs in their library.
Oh, if you don't have that special request, you can easily down load it from an online library through your cellphone data plan!

All these great things about CD's, but the 2 major drawbacks (that I can think of) is all the visual media is now compressed from 12" to 5" so albums selling merely because they have a cool looking cover has diminished and that warm analog sound of vinyl was replaced by a cold sterile digital representation.
Some people can hear the difference between the same music on an LP compared to a CD. For the most part, it's not important to 95% of the music listeners, so it is what it is.

That said, some artists actually have a small number of vinyl albums pressed and available for the music purists.

I know rap DJ's have CD digital turntables and emulate the 'scratch' sounds they popularized using old turntables.

I had forgotten about vinyl records for a while. Moving storage boxes last weekend I found my collection and oddly while walking through Walmart today, I found a rack of vinyl LP's as proof... vinyl ain't dead!

No specific order, but I started playing guitar in the 1960's with memories of Chet Atkins playing a Gretch. He had several different models. Big, clunky usually orange with gold plated hardware. Some had a single cutaway and some double. Very iconic!



Expensive and only one guitarist in the neighborhood had one!

This blog is not about politics. I've been formulating the idea for this blog in my mind for months. No big hurry, but two things happened this week to move it up on my list. My Rihanna blog with FF's comment about Tina Turner and Satellite Radio channel surfing that landed me on a soul station.

Somewhere in the early 1960's my dad bought a reel-to-reel tape recorder. My (older) brother borrowed 45rpm records from friends and made a 'party mix' of songs. Depending on the speed, that could run non-stop for an hour or more.

What did he record? A little of this and a little of that. Some surfing music, rock & roll, Rhythm & blues and soul music. To us, music was music... well, with the exception of Country Music. I could listen to Roy Clark, but it tapered off sharply after that.

There were a dozen guitar players in my neighborhood, a few drummers, one guy playing bass guitar, one guy playing saxophone and one guy playing accordion.
I teamed up with a duo guitarist & drummer who played on Miami Beach hotels poolside. Americans called it 'pass the hat' and the British called it busking. Either way, the music was free and we accepted donations.

To get the gig with these guys, I had to play keyboards, so my parents bought a small portable organ by the Italian company Farfisa. I quickly memorized a bunch of songs and we were playing a few hotels every morning in the summer. Too young to drive, we always had a parent schlep us and our gear to the gigs as well as acting manager/agent to see we had plenty of bookings with the entertainment directors of the hotels.

We played music the tourists wanted to hear and that often got us special events when they had the pool open at night for a BBQ or party. We were available for birthday parties, school dances, teen hop at the bowling alley and the best paying gigs... fraternity parties at the local college!

Dance music was most of our repertoire, but college kids loved Soul Music and so it was. We also did songs by The Young Rascals and on request... The Supremes song You Keep Me Hanging On was on our list.

This brings up the part of Black female singers. A generation later, I watched a documentary about Whitney Houston where she mentioned her musical beginning was singing Gospel. Look around and nearly EVERY Black female singer got their start doing gospel. Can you name 20? I probably could.

My musical taste runs fickle and I have my favorites regardless of their success. Maybe it was the songs they were singing as many sounded like fingernails across a chalkboard.

White girls were everywhere but singers like Karen Carpenter bored me to tears. Remember Leslie Gore and I'll Cry if I want to ... Waaah. I cried because that song was played 32 million times.

I wasn't 100% on Black female singers either. What I disliked most were the wailers... Great voice, but they were over-the-top and I'd turn the volume down. Aretha, Patti LaBelle, Tina make it to that list.

Patti's duet with Michael McDonald (On My Own) was 'almost' a masterpiece, until she starts that wailin' shit (on live performances) and I have to turn it down. I think you get my point.

This week, I did hear a great song by a great singer Gladys Night and I think it's perfect for my blog... The voice of a Black Woman.

Did Kurt Cobain and Nirvana really change the landscape of music?? It's been 30 years since his death. Bassist Krist Novoselic's career faded and drummer Dave Grohl's career soared.
They still play Nirvana songs on classic radio.



Drugs, sex and grunge music...

Whenever I speak to a former band mate, my opening line is from the move The Blues Brothers as we are always joking about about putting the band back together.
It's getting harder to make that statement when so many of my musician friends are gone.

Phil... disappeared.
Chuck... hasn't been seen in years.
Harold... murdered.
Bill... died of a heart attack.
Larry... died of lung cancer.
Frank... died of pancreatic cancer.
Bob... died in his sleep.
Billy... drug overdose.
Danny... heart attack.
Paul... retired, not interested.
Jay... undergoing cancer treatments, would attend a jam if possible.
Carlos... full-time job, does studio work and weekend gigs.

Interestingly, I called a cousin who recently moved to South Florida to update him on my brothers kidney transplant and we got to talking about his retirement and that he and his younger brother still play music. I got the invite as they need a bass player because they are getting a band together!

Occasional parties and social events. They don't play Rock & Roll and chances are, I'll need to buy a tuxedo!