Ringo + Macca 2014-06-18

Paul McCartney And Me: Lives In Parallel

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On October 24, 1963, The Beatles were in Stockholm, Sweden on the first day of their first foreign tour.

On October 24, 1963, I was born.

Both of these events turned out to be remarkably influential on the culture.

The Beatles, who synthesized American rock & roll with various British music traditions, moved popular music to a whole new place, expanding the types of song structures and lyrical content heard in the hit songs of the day and opening the floodgates for many British bands to prosper around the world.

Using the medium of stand-up comedy, I went to blue collar towns and meetings of Catholic senior citizens and told them of my travails same-sex dating. Just like the USA and Sweden and other parts of the world were exposed to what was happening in Liverpool, so were the people of Allentown, Pennsylvania exposed to what was happening in my love life, which believe me, wasn’t much. The Beatles and I opened peoples’ minds to a world beyond their own. They delivered their message to 55,000 people at Shea Stadium, while I delivered mine to a couple dozen folks at Bananas of Poughkeepsie. I also played to sold-out crowds at Caroline’s on Broadway and StandUp NY, but it’s not my nature to brag about such things. I’m the quiet Beatle.

On October 24, 1979, I turned 16 years old. That same day, Paul McCartney received a medallion commemorating his achievements in music. Having written or co-written 43 songs that sold over a million copies each between 1962 and 1978, he was named the most successful composer of all time. While working on the Licensing departments at Sony, Zomba and Warner, I licensed recordings to 43 Now That’s What I Call Music compilations that sold over a million copies each. It’s like Paul McCartney and I are twins.

Ringo + Macca 2014-06-18
Today, Sir Paul McCartney (he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997, something we don’t have in common. I am not a British citizen, and therefore not eligible.) turns 72 years old. The Beatles’ recordings are not on Spotify, so I’ve worked around that minor inconvenience to create this playlist of some of the finest songs McCartney composed or co-composed.

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Keeping The Music Of Curtis Mayfield Alive

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In my role as the Vice President of Licensing at Warner Music Group I oversaw the licensing of “samples.” A sample is when a newer song uses a portion of an existing recording. A prominent example is Puff Daddy’s sample of The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” in his “I’ll Be Missing You.”

One of the most popular catalogues for sample licensing is that of Curtis Mayfield. Elements of his records have been used by many well-known and respected rap acts, including Kanye West and Beastie Boys. I’d run the requests by Curtis’ son Kirk, who was always a pleasure to work with.

Many complain of hip hop’s dependence on samples, and while often times samples are used in a lazy and uninspired way, there are many examples where the samples complement the new song perfectly. It can also be argued that samples keep the music of great acts of the past alive and introduce this music to younger generations. Where else might a teenager hear Curtis Mayfield or James Brown other than via a new Kanye jam?

Today, the third day of Black Music Month, we celebrate the birthday of the late, great Curtis Mayfield with some of the classics he had a hand in – as a solo artist, as a member of The Impressions, as a writer/producer, or via a sample. Click here for the playlist.

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It’s Janet Jackson’s Birthday And I Need To Dance!

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Do you ever feel like you merely exist as opposed to being alive? Does it feel like too much of your time is given to answering to what others want from you, be them your boss or your family, and too little time is given to doing what you want to do the way you want to do it? Do you know that changes are needed but don’t know where to begin?

You need to ask yourself WWJJD? What would Janet Jackson do?

Picture this – Los Angeles. 1982. You’re a 16-year-old girl from a famous family. You release your debut album, cleverly entitled Janet Jackson, with production overseen by your manager/father, Joseph Jackson. It peaks at #63 and goes on to sell fewer than 150,000 units over the next quarter-century. You follow up that album with 1984’s Dream Street. It peaks at #147 and sells fewer than half as many copies as the first album. You didn’t want to do either album but you did them for your father.

You come to a realization – you want to be the one who’s in control of your destiny. You fire your father as your manager. You have your marriage annulled. You work with new producers, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who collaborate with you on new songs about your newfound independence, from your father, from your ex-husband, and from nasty guys who objectify you and call you Baby when your first name ain’t Baby; it’s Janet.

Your father demands you record your third album in Los Angeles. You record it in Minneapolis. Your father tells a reporter “If Janet listens to me, she’ll be as big as Michael,” referring to Janet’s brother Michael Jackson, not Michael Schoeffling, who portrayed Jake Ryans in the movie Sixteen Candles, and who, with all due respect, isn’t that big. You ignore him. Your father listens to a pre-release copy of the new album and claims it will never sell. You demand it be released.

That album, 1986’s Control, sells over fourteen million copies. It goes to #1 and is nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

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Be more like Janet. Take control of your life. Today is Janet Jackson’s 48th birthday. Buy yourself some cake. You deserve it. And enjoy today’s dance playlist, inspired by Miss Jackson.

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A Talking Heads Playlist

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One of the best things about my job as Vice President of Licensing at Warner Music was working with one of the greatest catalogues in the business. I negotiated deals for many of my favorite artists under the Warner umbrella, including R.E.M., Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Joni Mitchell, Madonna, Ray Charles, the Ramones and Fleetwood Mac, to name just a few.

Another of my favorite acts whose music I got to license was Talking Heads. Just last year I did a deal for the band’s live version of “Slippery People” to be included on the soundtrack to the Academy Award-winning documentary 20 Feet From Stardom. Marrying great music to great projects makes for the most rewarding parts of my career.

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Today Talking Heads lead singer David Byrne celebrates his 62nd birthday. Here are twenty of my favorite tracks from this band.

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“I Heard It Through The Grapevine”

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By 1966, Barrett Strong, the singer on Motown Records’ first hit single, “Money (That’s What I Want),” had the core of a song based on expression that emanated from the Civil War era. Slaves in the United States passed along information via a “human grapevine.” In Strong’s time he often heard people passing along gossip, saying they “heard it through the grapevine.” With that line as the chorus and a bass line, he brought the song to Norman Whitfield, who added lyrics about someone who hears gossip that their lover is unfaithful and will leave him/her for another lover.

Whitfield produced a version of their new song, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” with Smokey Robinsons and the Miracles, but Motown chief Berry Gordy, Jr. rejected it.

In 1967, Whitfield entered the studio with Marvin Gaye. At the time Gaye was married to Berry Gordy’s sister Anna. Gaye heard that Anna was being unfaithful to him. The lyrics surely resonated with him (though in (un)fairness, he was cheating on Anna). To wring more emotion out of Gaye, Whitfield had him perform the song in a higher key than he normally used. This did not sit well with Gaye, who is quoted in his biography as saying “Norman and I came within a fraction of an inch of fighting. He thought I as a prick because I wasn’t about to be intimidated by him. We clashed. He made me sing in keys much higher than I was used to. He had me reaching for notes that caused my throat veins to bulge.”

All may have been for naught, as Berry Gordy rejected the Gaye recording as well.

In June of 1967, Aretha Franklin went to #1 with her version of Otis Redding’s “Respect.” With that record as his model, Whitfield again brought “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” into the studio later that year, this time with Gladys Knight and the Pips. This version was faster than the versions he produced for the Miracles and Gaye, with the intention to “out-funk” Aretha.

Gordy reluctantly approved the Pips version for release. It rose to #2 on the pop chart and went to #1 on the r&b chart, where it remained for six weeks. It became Motown’s biggest-selling single to that point.

The Gaye version ended up on his 1968 album In the Groove. The first single from that album, “Chained,” hit #32 on the pop chart. “Grapevine” got the attention of some radio disc jockeys, who gave it airplay. Said Gordy, “The DJs played it so much off the album that we had to release it as a single.”

Marvin Gaye’s version of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” was released as a single in fall of 1968. In mid-December it went to #1 on both the pop and r&b chart, and stayed on top of each for seven weeks, becoming Motown’s biggest hit to date. The week this went to #1 on the pop chart, Motown had the top three hits (#2 was “Love Child” by Diana Ross & the Supremes and #3 was “For Once in My Life” by Stevie Wonder.) The company held onto the top three for four consecutive weeks. “I Heard It through the Grapevine” bookended the r&b #1 slot in ’68 – the Pips’ version was #1 on January 1 and Gaye’s was #1 on Dec. 31.

By the time his “Grapevine” was released Marvin Gaye already had 23 top 40 pop hits. This was his first #1.

Gaye’s version made Rolling Stone’s list of the Greatest Songs of All Time and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

“I Heard It Through The Grapevine” was the first collaboration between Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield. The duo went on to compose “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” and “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)” for The Temptations.

Marvin Gaye died at age 44 on April 1, 1984, shot to death by his father the day before his birthday. The gun used was a Christmas present from Marvin.

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Chatting With Aretha Franklin About Change

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In 2008, Senator Barack Obama was elected President of the United States. He ran on a message of hope and change.

As a memento of his inauguration, Hidden Beach Recordings decided to put together a compilation of songs that expressed these messages. As the head of licensing at Warner Music Group, they approached me about licensing some recordings from our catalogue for inclusion thereon. I suggested Aretha Franklin’s version of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.” They thought that was a great idea.

I wanted to be sure Ms. Franklin was fine with having her recording used on the album (this was before she and her hat appeared at the inauguration, so I wasn’t positive she was an Obama supporter). I told her attorney of my idea and a day or two later, Ms. Franklin called me. She liked my suggestion of having her recording included on this compilation. Unfortunately, there was a dispute about Warner’s rights to license the track so the song did not end up on the album, which came out under the title Change Is Now: Renewing America’s Promise.

In his on-line entertainment column, Roger Friedman, then of Fox News, wrote about the compilation, listing all of the artists whose songs were included. He wrote that Warner Music Group refused to make any deals for their artists to be included, which is untrue. I got permission from Wilco and Death Cab For Cutie to license tracks of theirs; they were among the artists Friedman listed just two paragraphs previously. He wrote “I’m sure, in fact, that Aretha Franklin has no idea that requests for a couple of her classic tracks like ‘A Change is Gonna Come’—were declined.” Patently untrue, as you can see from my story. It was a Warner employee’s idea (mine!) to include the track and Ms. Franklin was well aware of it. I guess, unlike me, Friedman couldn’t get Ms. Franklin on the phone. Too bad.

Today the Queen of Soul turns 72 years old. Here are twenty of her best recordings. I left out some classics such as “Respect,” “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” “Think” and “Freeway of Love” to make room for some lesser-played tracks, though you can hear those here, here, here and here. Enjoy!

Winston + Club Nouveau

It’s Friday And I Need To Dance!

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In 1967 Bill Withers moved to Los Angeles to try to make it as a songwriter. While pursuing this dream he worked at Lockheed Aircraft, making around $3.50/hour. He spent $2500 of his own money to record some demo tracks. Not one record company or publisher expressed any interest.

While working at a factory making toilet seats for 747s, he formed friendships with his co-workers and appreciated how they would help each other out. The mutual support this group of workers offered inspired him to compose a song. He titled it “Lean on Me.”

His upbringing played a large part in the song’s sentiment. “Being from a rural, West Virginia setting, that kind of circumstance would be more accessible to me than it would be to a guy living in New York where people step over you if you’re passed out on the sidewalk, or Los Angeles, where you could die on the side of the freeway and it would probably be 8 days before anyone noticed you were dead. Coming from a place where people were a little more attentive to each other, less afraid, that would cue me to have those considerations.”

He recorded the track for his album Still Bill. The single went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July 1972. He left his factory job, but retained a good perspective, telling the L.A. Times: “Even when I was working on bathroom seats, this was at least constructive. I challenge anybody: I won’t sing for a month and you don’t go to the bathroom for a month and let’s see…who comes off with less misery.”

“Lean On Me” won Withers a Grammy award for Best R&B Song … in 1987. On March 21 of that year Club Nouveau took their rendition of the song to #1, only the fifth time in the rock era that two different versions of the same song hit #1. (The first four? “Go Away Little Girl” – Steve Lawrence/Donny Osmond, “The Loco-Motion” – Little Eva/Grand Funk, “Please Mr. Postman” – The Marvelettes/The Carpenters, and “Venus” – The Shocking Blue/Bananarama.)

Winston + Club Nouveau

This week’s dance playlist kicks off with the record that hit #1 on this day 27 years ago – Club Nouveau’s “Lean on Me.”

UPDATE: For some reason, the original version of Club Nouveau’s “Lean on Me” is not on Spotify; only a cheesy re-record is there. Screw it! We’ll kick off our dance party with Aretha Franklin’s “Freeway of Love.”

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

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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.”

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The Twelfth Best Album Of All-Time, Subject To Change

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I’m creating a list of my top 100 albums of all-time. I’ve been working on it for a couple of years. I need to get it right. I’ve whittled the list down to 112 nominees, which I listen to repeatedly, moving albums around as I assess their impact on my ears and emotions. Presently sitting at #12, between The Beatles’ Rubber Soul and the Phil Spector Christmas album, is Carole King’s Tapestry.

Released in 1971, Tapestry was a huge success, staying at #1 on the album charts for 15 weeks and remaining on Billboard’s album chart for 300 weeks, the longest run of any album by a female solo act. The album won King the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, its track “It’s Too Late” was named Record of the Year, its song “You’ve Got a Friend” won Song of the Year (as well as a Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male for James Taylor for his cover version), and its title track won King the Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female award.

The album includes new songs written or co-written by King, including “I Feel the Earth Move” and “So Far Away,” as well as covers of songs she wrote or co-wrote that had already been hits for other acts, such as “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” a smash for Aretha Franklin, and “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” which The Shirelles took to #1 ten years earlier.

Other King compositions you may know are “Up on the Roof,” a hit for The Drifters, “One Fine Day,” a hit for The Chiffons, “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” a hit for The Monkees, “Go Away Little Girl” a hit for Steve Lawrence and later Donny Osmond, “I’m Into Something Good,” a hit for Herman’s Hermits, “It’s Going to Take Some Time,” a hit for The Carpenters, and “The Loco-motion,” a song which holds the distinction of going top ten in three different decades – in the sixties for Little Eva (King’s babysitter), in the seventies for Grand Funk and in the eighties for Kylie Minogue. In the forty years between 1959 and 1999 King made the Billboard Hot 100 118 times as a songwriter.

Tunes du Jour honors the classic work of Carole King, who turns 72 today.

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This Will Be A Natalie Cole Post

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In 1967, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences split the Grammy Awards category for Best Rhythm & Blues Solo Performance into two – one for men and one for women. The first recipient in the female category was Aretha Franklin, for “Respect.”

The 1968 winner of Best Rhythm & Blues Solo Performance, Female, was Aretha Franklin, for “Chain of Fools.”

The 1969 winner of Best Rhythm & Blues Solo Performance, Female, was Aretha Franklin, for “Share Your Love with Me.”

The 1970 winner of Best Rhythm & Blues Solo Performance, Female, was Aretha Franklin, for “Don’t Play That Song (You Lied).”

The 1971 winner of Best Rhythm & Blues Solo Performance, Female, was Aretha Franklin, for “Bridge over Troubled Water.”

The 1972 winner of Best Rhythm & Blues Solo Performance, Female, was Aretha Franklin, for Young, Gifted and Black.

The 1973 winner of Best Rhythm & Blues Solo Performance, Female, was Aretha Franklin, for “Master of Eyes.”

The 1974 winner of Best Rhythm & Blues Solo Performance, Female, was Aretha Franklin, for “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing.”

The 1975 winner of Best Rhythm & Blues Solo Performance, Female, was Aret…wait! It was NOT Aretha. Who broke Ms. Franklin’s chain chain chain? It was a young singer named Natalie Cole, whose debut single, “This Will Be,” won her that Grammy and also earned her the award for Best New Artist, making Natalie the first African-American to win in that category.

“This Will Be” is one of my favorite records of all-time. The music is festive, as a song celebrating the discovery of an everlasting love should be. Cole’s performance is letter-perfect. The part where she sings “huggin’ and squeezin’ and kissin’ and pleasin’ together forever through rain or whatever” works me into a frenzy still, almost forty years later. In addition, the record is under three minutes, so there is not time to get sick of it. It ends while your heart is racing. If it came out two years later there likely would have been an extended version but it didn’t so there isn’t.

By the way, Aretha Franklin was not nominated for Best Rhythm & Blues Solo Performance, Female for 1975. After that year off, she returned to that category in 1976 with “Something He Can Feel.” She lost to Natalie Cole, who took home the award for “Sophisticated Lady (She’s a Different Lady).” Both women were again nominated for Best Rhythm & Blues Solo Performance, Female for 1977, but they lost to Thelma Houston. That’s one for another blog post.

Today Tunes du Jour celebrates Natalie Cole’s 64th birthday. Here are three of my favorite Cole performances.