Inspired by the February 26 birthdays of Johnny Cash, Fats Domino, Erykah Badu, Sandie Shaw, Mitch Ryder, fun.’s Nate Ruess and Sharon Van Etten.
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (2-25-20)
The Beatles’ lead guitarist, George Harrison, wrote the song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” which appears on the band’s self-titled album, the one you call the white album. Harrison’s friend Eric Clapton plays guitar on the track. Clapton had a crush on Harrison’s wife, Pattie Boyd. Boyd inspired the Harrison composition “Something” and Clapton’s “Layla” and “Wonderful Tonight.” Boyd and Harrison divorced in 1977. In 1979, Boyd and Clapton were wed. Top that, Shania Twain!
Today’s playlist is inspired by the February 25 birthdays of George Harrison, X’s John Doe, Faron Young, Afro B and Jim Backus.
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (2-18-20)
I’m experimenting here at Tunes du Jour. Yesterday I started including multiple songs by the birthday performers who inspired that day’s playlist. As of today I’m not limiting myself to twenty songs. My thinking is that by removing that restriction I can posts playlists (almost) dailier and you get a deeper dive into some of the artists. I’m living on the edge!
Today’s playlist is inspired by the February 18 birthdays of Regina Spektor, Yoko Ono, Styx’s Dennis DeYoung, John Travolta, Randy Crawford, Juelz Santana, Irma Thomas, Juice Newton, and Space’s Tommy Scott.
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (2-13-20)
Inspired by the February 13 birthdays of New Order’s Peter Hook, Peter Gabriel, Robbie Williams, Feist, Black Flag’s Henry Rollins, Freedom Williams, the Monkees’ Peter Tork, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and songwriter Boudleaux Bryant, who, sometimes with his wife Felice, composed many of the Everly Brothers hits, including “Bye Bye Love,” “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” “Bird Dog,” “Devoted To You,” and “Love Hurts.”
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (2-9-20)
Today is the birthday of Carole King, one of the greatest songwriters of the pop era. Chances are you know songs she had a hand in writing: “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” “So Far Away,” “You’ve Got a Friend,” “One Fine Day,” “The Loco-motion,” “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” “I Feel the Earth Move,” “Up on the Roof,” “It’s Too Late,” and “I’m Into Something Good” among them.
King isn’t the only rock era songwriter celebrating a birthday today. It is also the birthday of her contemporary Barry Mann, who is not the same person as Barry Manilow. As a performer, Mann had one hit – 1961’s “Who Put the Bomp (In the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp).” As a writer, he’s charted nearly 100 times in the US. His credits include “Here You Come Again,” “Bristol Stomp,” “Only in America,” “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” “Make Your Own Kind of Music,” “On Broadway,” and “Sometimes When We Touch,” many written with his wife, Cynthia Weil.
King and Mann feature in today’s playlist, as do others who share their birthday: The Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt, Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Holly Johnson, Barbara Lewis, and Major Harris. I also threw in some folks who had birthdays yesterday: Daft Punk’s Guy Manuel, England Dan, and James Dean.
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Your (Almost)Daily Playlist (2-4-20)
Inspired by the February 4 birthdays of Alice Cooper, Cam’ron, James’ Tim Booth, and Natalie Imbruglia; the February 3 birthdays of The Temptations’ Dennis Edwards, The Kinks’ Dave Davies, Melanie, and Daddy Yankee; and the February 2 birthdays of Graham Nash, Honey Cone’s Edna Wright, Shakira, Howard Bellamy and Stan Getz; and the February 3 anniversary of the passing of Buddy Holly.
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Your Daily Playlist (1-17-20)
Inspired by the January 17 birthdays of Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs, Steve Earle, Kaiser Chiefs’ Ricky Wilson, Calvin Harris, Kid Rock, the Delfonics’ William Hart, She & Him’s Zooey Deschanel, Lil Jon, Muhammad Ali, Paul Young, and Chris Montez, and the recent passing of The Left Banke’s Steve Martin.
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The Ultimate Christmas Playlist
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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Throwback Thursday – 1965 (Part II)
No other pop song so thoroughly challenged and transformed the commercials laws and artistic conventions of its time, for all time.
– Rolling Stone, naming Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” the greatest song of all time
If it came out now, it would still be radical. For 1965, it was mind-blowing, as was its success. Six minutes long, sung by a guy who sounded nothing like the other singers on the radio, with confrontational often insulting lyrics. Somehow, it went all the way to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, kept from the top spot by The Beatles’ “Help!” As Rolling Stone wrote, “Just as Dylan bent folk music’s roots and forms to his own will, he transformed popular song with the content and ambition of “Like a Rolling Stone.”
Thanks in part to “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Help!” and Motown and Stax and the Rolling Stones and other British Invasion acts, 1965 was one of the best years for pop music. Tunes du Jour celebrates Throwback Thursday with a second playlist of tracks from this stellar year (the first playlist can be found here), kicking off with a Bob Dylan record that changed the rules.
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Throwback Thursday – 1975
It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap
You gotta get out while you’re young
New Jersey does not have an official state song. There have been attempts to adopt one since at least 1939, when the state’s Board of Education held a contest to find a suitable number. They named Samuel F. Monroe’s “The New Jersey Loyalty Song” as the contest’s winner, but it was not good enough to be the official state song.
In 1972, the state legislature proposed that Joseph “Red” Mascara’s “I’m from New Jersey” be the state’s song, but Governor William Cahill vetoed the measure, stating succinctly about the song “It stinks.”
In March of 1980, radio d.j. Carol Miller started a petition to have “Born to Run,” written and recorded by New Jersey’s favorite son, Bruce Springsteen, be named the state song. Three state assemblypersons drafted a resolution declaring “Born to Run” “as the unofficial *rock* theme of our State’s youth.” I’m confused to as to how an official resolution can name an “unofficial” theme, just as the state’s senate was confused as to how a song that includes the lyrics that open this post expresses pride in where one’s from. The bid died.
The song also includes these lyrics that tickle my friend Audrey so: Someday, girl, I don’t know when, we’re gonna get to that place where we really wanna go.
Oh, that place!
By the way, I got out of New Jersey when I was 24.
This week’s Throwback Thursday playlist spotlights some of the best tunes from 1975, kicking off with what is unofficially New Jersey’s unofficial state song, Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.”
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