Ringo + Cyndi 2014-06-22 09.12

The #21 Album Of All-Time

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On December 1, 1983, my friend Bruce and I went to The Metro in Boston to see Cyndi Lauper perform. We had heard her debut solo single, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” (which would debut on the Hot 100 a couple of weeks later) and were smitten. We were more smitten after the show.

The album that produced “Girls…,” She’s So Unusual, was one of those great pop records that we got so many of in that ’83-’84 period (Thriller, Purple Rain, Born in the USA, Private Dancer and Madonna, among them – all on my all-time favorite albums list). It was the first album by a female artist to produce four top five singles – “Girls…,” “Time After Time,” “She Bop” and “All Through the Night.” Like the aforementioned albums by Prince, Bruce Springsteen and Tina Turner, it was nominated for the Album of the Year Grammy. All four albums lost to Lionel Richie’s Can’t Slow Down. No comment.

“Girls…” was nominated for Record of the Year and “Time After Time,” which Cyndi co-wrote, for Song of the Year; both lost to Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” which also won Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female over the nominated “Girls….” Cyndi did win the Best New Artist Grammy, beating out Sheila E., Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Corey Hart and The Judds.

Ringo + Cyndi 2014-06-22 09.12
Though not from the She’s So Unusual album, let’s talk about “True Colors” for a moment. The song was written by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly, the songwriting duo who also wrote Madonna’s “Like a Virgin.” Steinberg’s original lyrics were about his mother, but Kelly convinced him to make them more universal. Once they did that, they offered the song to Anne Murray, but she turned it down. Cyndi Lauper picked it up, changed the arrangement the duo presented, and a classic was born. The record went to #1 and won Lauper another Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female.

The song’s chorus, about not being afraid to let one’s true colors show, resonated with the gay population, and the song became an LGBT standard.

As June is Gay Pride month, I want to shine a spotlight on some of the work Cyndi has done on behalf of the LGBT populations:

– She’s written several songs about or inspired by LGBT lives, including “Boy Blue,” “Brimstone and Fire,” “Ballad of Cleo & Joe” and “Above the Clouds.”
– She was a member of the Matthew Shepard Foundation board. The foundation’s namesake, a 21-year-old college student, was beaten and tied to a fence, left to die, because he was gay.
– In 2007 she launched the True Colors Tour, which raised money for the gay rights organization Human Rights Campaign, who advocate for equal rights for LGBT people. Other artists on the tour included Erasure, Deborah Harry, Gossip and Dresden Dolls.
– She advocated for the Hate Crimes Prevention Act and was present at the White House when President Obama signed the Act into law in 2009. The Act expanded the 1969 US hate crimes law to include crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation or gender identity. It is the first federal law to extend legal protections to transgender people.
– She designed a t-shirt for 2009’s Fashion Against AIDS campaign.
– She is the cofounder of the True Colors Fund, created “to raise awareness about and bring an end to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth homelessness, and to inspire everyone, especially straight people, to become active participants in the advancement of equality for all.” In 2010 the Fund launched the Give a Damn Campaign to combat bullying and harassment of LGBT students as well as discrimination against LGBT people in the workplace.
– Upon learning that 40% of homeless youth are LGBT and that three times as many LGBT youth commit suicide as compared to their heterosexual counterparts, in 2012 Lauper started to Forty to None Project to raise awareness of the problems faced by LGBT youth and set up the True Colors Residence in New York City to offer shelter and aid for these kids.
– She was Grand Marshall of New York City’s Gay Pride Parade in 2012.
– She wrote the music and lyrics for the Broadway musical Kinky Boots, based on the film about a straitlaced shoe factory owner and a drag queen who team up to save the business. The 2013 musical won the Tony Award for Best Score, making Lauper one of only four women to have won a Tony, a Grammy and an Emmy.

Today one of the LGBT populations’ greatest allies, Cyndi Lauper, turns 61. Our playlist includes some of the tracks for my #21 album of all-time, She’s So Unusual, alongside some other Lauper favorites.

Ringo + Quincy 001

It’s Quincy Jones’ Birthday And I Need To Dance!

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Ringo + Quincy 001
Twenty Things You Should Know About Quincy Jones:
1) He’s had a record 79 Grammy Award nominations. He’s won 27.
2) He arranged the Frank Sinatra/Count Basie version of “Fly Me to the Moon,” which astronaut Neil Armstrong played when he first landed on the moon.
3) Jones produced the soundtrack of the motion picture The Wiz. He later said he hated working on it, as he didn’t like most of the songs nor did he like the film’s script. However, on the set on The Wiz he got to know the singer who played the scarecrow, Michael Jackson. Jackson asked him to recommend a producer for his next album. Jones threw out a few names and also offered to produce it himself. Jackson took him up on his offer, though his record label thought it was a bad idea. The album, 1979’s Off the Wall, went on to sell 20 million copies and won Jackson his first Grammy Award.
4) While widely known as the producer of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Bad and Off the Wall albums, Jones is also the producer of the hit records “We Are the World” by USA for Africa; “It’s My Party,” “You Don’t Own Me” and “Judy’s Turn to Cry” by Leslie Gore; “Angel” by Aretha Franklin; “I’ll By Good to You,” “Stomp” and “Strawberry Letter 23” by The Brothers Johnson; “One Mint Julep” by Ray Charles; and “Love is in Control (Finger on the Trigger)” by Donna Summer, among others. He also worked with Bono, Stevie Wonder, Miles Davis, Little Richard, Paul Simon, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Herbie Hancock, Billie Holiday, B.B. King, Louis Armstrong, Dizzie Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Diana Ross, Dinah Washington, Peggy Lee, Chaka Khan, Tony Bennett, George Benson, Luther Vandross, Sammy Davis Jr., Johnny Mathis, James Ingram and Patti Austin, plus plenty more.
5) “Quincy Jones is one of the most versatile and potent figures of popular culture….When you listen to his impressive and monumental body of work, it’s easy to understand how and why he’s touched such a broad audience of music lovers. He’s done it all.” – Michael Jackson
6) Time magazine named him one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century.
7) In the early 1960s he became the Vice President of Mercury Records, the first African-American at a major record company to reach that executive level.
8) His middle name is Delight.
9) Along with Bob Russell, he became the first African-American to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song for “The Eyes of Love” from Banning.
10) With seven Oscar nominations, he is tied with sound designer Willie Burton as the African-American with the most Oscar nominations.
11) Jones produced the film The Color Purple, his first foray into film production. He asked Steven Spielberg to direct it, which he did. It was nominated for eleven Academy Awards.
12) Among his 33 movie scores are the ones for The Color Purple, In the Heat of the Night, In Cold Blood, and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.
13) He has a daughter with actress Nastassja Kinski as well as six other children.
14) He’s the father of actress Rashida Jones. She’s pretty.
15) In 1988 he formed Quincy Jones Entertainment, who produced the television program The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
16) He never learned how to drive.
17) Among the charities Jones supports are American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmfAR), Global Down Syndrome Foundation, Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), MusiCares, Elton John AIDS Foundation, Rape Foundation, UNICEF, NAACP, Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory, and Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes.
18) In 1974 Jones suffered a brain aneurysm. He was given a 1 in 100 chance of surviving. Family and friends, including Richard Pryor, Marvin Gaye and Sidney Poitier, planned a memorial service for him, which he got to attend.
19) Today he turns 81 years old.
20) “The thing is to find your lightning – and ride your lightning.” – Quincy Jones

As Friday is dance day at Tunes Du Jour, we’ll kick off today’s playlist with Q’s #3 club hit of 1981, “Ai No Corrida.”

#1 In Glenn’s Ten On This Day Throughout History

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Today’s playlist is made up of songs that were at #1 in Glenn’s Ten on this day, in chronological order. A few of the songs are not on Spotify, so I’ll give you YouTube links so you may experience them.

Originally intended to be the b-side of a George Harrison single entitled “This Is Love,” supergroup Traveling Wilburys’ “Handle With Care” was my #1 on this day on 1988. Per the liner notes of this album’s reissue in 2007, the word “wilbury” came from a remark George Harrison made to producer Jeff Lynne about errors made while recording – “We’ll bury ’em in the mix.”

Despite referencing Santa in its title and being a December #1 in 1991, De La Soul’s “Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa” in not a Christmas song. It’s about a girl seeking revenge on a sexually-abusive parent.

“I Got My Education” performed by New York house duo Uncanny Alliance was my #1 this day in 1992. It hit #2 on Billboard‘s dance chart. The duo released one album and neither member was ever heard from again.

My #1 on this day in 2005 was The White Stripes’ “Walking with a Ghost,” a cover of a song released just a few months earlier by Tegan and Sara.

Here are the other #1s from this day in Glenn’s Ten history, except for 1985’s entry, as I cannot locate the book where I maintained that year’s lists.

An Atheist Jew’s Guide To Christmas Music, Part 1

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Raised Jewish, I celebrated Hanukkah. For several years, my family also celebrated Christmas. We didn’t go to midnight mass, we didn’t drink egg nog, we didn’t throw a special type of log in the fireplace. (By the way, I have no idea what makes a Yule log yuley). We put tinsel and candy canes on a large potted plant my mother had in the den and bought each other small but practical gifts. For example, when I was 11 for Christmas my parents got me a salt shaker. The Christmas celebrations stopped after I innocently told Grandpa Mordechai about them. My parents were so angry with me they took away my salt shaker.

Though I no longer celebrate Christmas, I still have a major jones for Christmas music. I own many more Christmas records than any atheist Jew probably should. We’re talking in the hundreds.

I eschew Christmas classics performed by well-known middle-of-the-road acts such as Celine Dion, Michael Bublé, Kenny G (sell-out Jew), Neil Diamond (sell-out Jew) or Barbra Streisand (sell-out Jew). Frank Sinatra shows up only in a duet with Cyndi Lauper and Bing Crosby shows up only in his duet with David Bowie.

Including the Crosby/Bowie version, I have 15 renditions of “The Little Drummer Boy” in my iPod, by a diverse list of artists including Johnny Cash, The Temptations, Joan Jett, Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop and RuPaul.

I have ten versions of “Winter Wonderland,” and that’s not counting the cross-dressing parody “Walkin’ Round in Women’s Underwear,” not performed by RuPaul.

I have “Christmas in Hollis,” “Christmas in Harlem,” “Christmas in Washington,” “Christmastime in the LBC,” “Christmas in the City,” “Christmas in Heaven,” “Christmastime in Hell” and “Christmas at the Zoo.”

I have Christmas songs by most of my favorite artists of all-time, including The Beatles, Prince, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Stevie Wonder, R.E.M., Elvis Presley, The White Stripes, Kanye West, Ike and Tina Turner, Chuck Berry, and Radiohead.

Some Christmas songs aren’t Christmas songs at all. “Frosty the Snowman,” “Let It Snow Let it Snow Let It Snow” and “Winter Wonderland” don’t mention the baby Jesus or Santa Claus or presents or a bullied reindeer with a skin ailment.

Some of the Christmas songs I have are a bit odd. “I Found the Brains of Santa Claus,” a smooth jazz version of “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer,” C3PO and R2D2 singing “Sleigh Ride.” I have Liberace reciting “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” though his version doesn’t hold a candle to Aretha Franklin’s version, in which the Queen of Soul took a few liberties with the words: “A bundle of gifts he had and what did I get? / As I squealed, opening the package, the same old shit!” Her lyrics are downright Disneyesque compared to Snoop Dogg’s reading of the famous poem. If you’re interested, Google the lyrics because I’m not going to print them here.

I have John Denver singing “Please Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas).” Verse one opens with a couplet for the arithmetically-challenged: “Just last year when I was only seven / Now I’m almost eight you can see.” Santa needs to bring John some flashcards. The next two lines create a holiday image that is less Norman Rockwell and more John Waters: “You came home at quarter past eleven / And fell down underneath the Christmas tree.” Someone needs to get him to a 12-step group. He can attend a meeting with the title character of Fishbone’s “Slick Nick, You Devil You,” who came down the chimney with a keg of brew and spilled Jack Daniels all over the drapes.

I have Sarah Silverman singing “Give the Jew Girl Toys,” in which she taunts Santa by singing “You have a list / Well, Schindler did to / Liam Neeson played him / Tim Allen played you.”

Then there’s the classic “Fairtytale of New York” by the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, which evokes the holiday spirit with the line “You scumbag, you maggot / You cheap lousy faggot,” something yelled at me every year by those Salvation Army Santas.

Better still is “Macarena Christmas.” I LOVE “Macarena” and I’m betting you do to though you probably won’t admit it. “Macarena Christmas” celebrates the birth of our lord and savior Baby Macarena by taking the chorus from the hit single and uncleverly inserting it repeatedly into a medley of Christmas songs, so it goes “Joy to the world, the Lord has come / Da le a tu cuerpo alegria Macarena, Que tu cuerpo es pa darle alegria y cosa Buena / Da le a tu cuerpo alegria Macarena / Eeeeeh, Macarena – ay / Jingle bells jingle bells jingle all the way.” Sound effects of what sounds like an infant with the hiccups are thrown in. It makes no sense, y me gusta mucho.

My favorite holiday album and one of the greatest all-time albums period is Phil Spector’s A Christmas Gift for You, featuring tracks he produced for The Ronettes, The Crystals, Darlene Love and Bob B. Soxx and The Blue Jeans. Every cut on it is classic and can be enjoyed by the whole family, except Grandpa Mordechai.

World AIDS Day

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Today Tunes du Jour observes World AIDS Day with a playlist of diverse genres – pop, hip hop, rock, dance, r&b, gospel and whatever you call what Ween does.

Thematically there are songs of reminiscence, reunions, safe sex, politics, pride, goodbyes and whatever you call what Ween does.

Give it a listen and let me know what songs you discovered and if there are any great ones I missed.