Inspired by the passing of Little Richard and the May 9 birthdays of Ghostface Killah, Sam & Dave’s Dave Prater, Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan, Billy Joel, Andrew W.K., Hank Snow, The Housemartins/The Beautiful South’s Paul Heaton, The Crickets’ Sonny Curtis, The Ventures’ Nokie Edwards, Cyrkle’s Don Dannemann, Clint Holmes and Tommy Roe.
Inspired by May the Fourth and the May 4 birthdays of Nic Ashford, Little Boots, Sharon Jones, Dick Dale, The Angels’ Peggy Santiglia, Green Day’s Mike Dirnt, New Radicals’ Gregg Alexander, and Pia Zadora.
2020 seemed like just another year, until this week. Something mind-boggling happened. No, the president of the U.S. didn’t display empathy. Get this: The Village People are presently in the Top 40 on the Adult Contemporary chart with a ballad taken from their 2019 Christmas album. The key terms in that sentence: Village People, presently, Top 40, Adult Contemporary, ballad, Christmas. It’s 2020! The song is called “If You Believe” and it jumped from #53 to #25 this week with a 310% increase in radio airplay over last week. “If You Believe?” More like “Hard to Believe!” Am I right, people?
Today’s playlist is inspired by the May 3 birthdays of James Brown, Frankie Valli, Father John Misty, Soft Cell’s David Ball, Pete Seeger, Christopher Cross, Mary Hopkin and Napoleon XIV.
Inspired by the April 26 birthdays of TLC’s T-Boz, Giorgio Moroder, Duane Eddy, Claudine Clark, Maurice Williams, Olive’s Ruth-Ann Boyle, and Ms. Dynamite.
Inspired by the April 13 birthdays of Al Green, Louis Johnson, Nellie McKay, Little Feat’s Lowell George, Bill Conti, Future Islands’ Samuel T. Herring, Lou Bega and Flamin’ Groovies’ Roy Loney.
Inspired by the April 4 birthdays of Cibo Matto’s Miho Hatori, Muddy Waters, Major Lance, Jill Scott and Kelly Price, and the passing of Bill Withers.
Inspired by the April 1 birthdays of Jimmy Cliff, Rudy Isley, Henry Gross, Gil Scott-Heron, Tom Shipley and Rachmaninoff, and April Fools Day.
Inspired by the January 28 birthdays of Rakim, Gaslight Anthem’s Brian Fallon, Cypress Hill’s DJ Muggs, Gene McFadden and Steps’ Lee Latchford-Evans; and the January 29 birthdays of Tommy Ramone, Bettye LaVette, Aztec Camera’s Roddy Frame and Adam Lambert.
Duets. Twenty of ’em.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
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Today is the day after Thanksgiving here in the United States of America. You’re officially allowed to start listening to holiday music now. To get you started, I compiled a playlist of what I consider to be 100 of the best Christmas songs. Okay, 98 songs, a stand-up routine and a skit. It’s a mix of standards, versions of standards with which you may not be familiar, and obscure but delightful tunes.
Enjoy!
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