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Songs about Vietnam Vol. 2

October 30th, 2014 7 comments

Songs_About_Vietnam_2

To mark the 50th anniversary of the election of Lyndon B Johnson as US President, here is the second mix of anti-Vietnam songs (you can find the first mix HERE). Nixon might have sabotaged the opportunity for peace in 1968, just to win an election, and Kennedy might have started it, but Vietnam was very much LBJ’s war, as Bill Frederick noted in his 1967 song and Tom Paxton in his song two years earlier.

Soul and folk singers were in the forefront of protesting against the war, though Motown — the voice of young America — played it safe until 1970. That year Martha Reeves and the Vandellas released the first protest sing on the label, I Should Be Proud. That opened the floodgates a little. Soon Edwin Starr had a hit with War, The Temptations with Ball Of Confusion and Marvin Gaye with a large swathe of his What’s Going On LP (and long after the fact, Stevie Wonder on his blistering 1982 track Front Line, which with Do I Do marks an end to classic Stevie brilliance).

Perhaps the most touching song here is Bill Withers’ I Can’t Write Left Handed. The opening verse lands a couple of punches the way Lennon’s thesaurus-robbing Give Peace A Chance doesn’t: “I can’t write left-handed. Would you please write a letter, write a letter to my mother? Tell her to tell, tell her to tell, tell her to tell the family lawyer, trying to get, trying to get a deferment for my younger brother…”

vietchoppers

And if it’s straight-talk you want, Gene McDaniels (who featured on Vol. 1) socks it to us via Roberta Flack in Compared To What: “The President, he’s got his war. Folks don’t know just what it’s for. Nobody gives us rhyme or reason; have one doubt, they call it treason.” Three and a half decades later, another president had his war, and his critics were called traitors.

Sensitive listeners might want to avert their ears when Country Joe McDonald does his swearwordy chant in the beginning of his Woodstock performance. He clearly isn’t impressed with the crowd’s spirited singing to his 1967 song: “Listen people, I don’t know how you expect to ever stop the war if you can’t sing any better than that. There’s about 300,000 of you fuckers out there. I want you to start singing. Come on!” With that in mind, the placing of the next song, by Pete Seeger, is no accident. Listen to it to see why.

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes covers. PW in comments.

1. Stevie Wonder – Front Line (1982)
2. Roberta Flack – Compared To What (1969)
3. Martha Reeves and the Vandellas – I Should Be Proud (1970)
4. Freda Payne – Bring The Boys Home (1971)
5. Joe Tex – I Believe I’m Gonna Make It (1966)
6. Bill Withers – I Can’t Write Left Handed (1973)
7. Kris Kristofferson – Broken Freedom Song (1974)
8. Tom Paxton – Lyndon Johnson Told The Nation (1965)
9. Bill Frederick – Hey Hey LBJ (1967)
10. Country Joe McDonald – Feel Like I’m Fixing To Die Rag (1969)
11. Pete Seeger – Bring Them Home (1969)
12. Phil Ochs – Draft Dodger Rag (1965)
13. B.J. Thomas – Viet Nam (1966)
14. Bob Seger System – 2+2=? (1968)
15. Grand Funk Railroad – People Let’s Stop The War (1971)
16. Jimmy Cliff – Vietnam (1970)
17. Terry Callier – Ho Tsing Mee (A Song Of The Sun) (1973)
18. Marvin Gaye – What’s Happening Brother (1971)
19. Johnny King & the Fatback Band – Peace, Love Not War (1969)
20. Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band – Let’s Make Love Not War (1971)
21. The Emotions – So I Can Love You (1971)
22. Johnny & Jon – Xmas In Vietnam (1965)

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Germany’s Hitparade 1930-37

October 27th, 2014 16 comments

Listening to this mix, previously posted in 2010, the other day, I thought it might be useful to recycle it, especially since with the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of WW2 the era is of heightened interest again. Obviously, if you want this mix, and the second one I’ll repost next week, because you are nostalgic for the Third Reich, you are not welcome to it. As Indiana Jones so memorably put it: “Nazis. I hate these guys.”

This is the first of two compilations of German hits covering the era from the rise of Nazism to its demise. The first compilation leads us through the latter years of the Weimar Republic to 1937, just before war became an inevitable prospect. The second mix will start in 1938 — the year of the Anschluß, or annexation of Austria — through the war to 1944 (there were no hits in 1945, it seems).

None of the pre-war Schlager featured here are of the Nazi propaganda sort, and even the propaganda of the war-period songs is subtle, framing national optimism and encouragement in romantic song (with sentiments such as “I know one day there’ll be a miracle” and “Everything must pass”), which was very much in line with Goebbels’ propaganda strategy which used film and song to distract the Volk’s mind from matters of war.

The careers of some of the artists featured in the first mix ended with the advent of Nazism. Marlene Dietrich (1901-92), whose Ich bin die fesche Lola comes from Der Blaue Engel (filmed simultaneously as The Blue Angel in 1929), launched her Hollywood career before Hitler assumed power on 31 January 1933. While Dietrich agitated against the Nazis from the safety of Hollywood, her sister ran a cinema near the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, frequented mainly by SS guards. Marlene renounced her sister as a result, yet after the war helped her financially. In post-war West Germany, Dietrich was long regarded by many as a traitor on account of her support for the Allies in WW2. At a 1960 concert in Düsseldorf, an audience member threw an egg at her (in fairness, other audience members gave the offender a good beating for his troubles).

Comedian Harmonists

The sextett Comedian Harmonists created many pre-Nazi classics which became German standards (such as Veronika, der Lenz ist da; Wochenend und Sonnenschein; Ein Freund, ein guter Freund; Mein kleiner Kaktus). Half of the group comprised Jewish members, and the group struggled soon after the Nazis took power. In 1934 the group was prohibited from performing in Germany; after a year of foreign tours it split in 1936. The three Jewish members emigrated, and formed a band which toured under the original name; the three Aryans formed a new group called the Meistersextett. Likewise, the Hungarian Jewish singer Gitta Alpár (1903-91) left Germany after 1933, and was divorced by her Aryan actor husband Gustav Fröhlich on top of that.

Richard Tauber (1891-1948), the Austrian tenor who was the subject of Tom Waits’ blues, was the son of a Jew who had converted to Catholicism, and had even hoped Richard would become a priest. Instead, Richard joined the stage, appearing in operas and operettas. Already a big star in Germany, Tauber was badly beaten up by Nazi thugs, presumably because of his Jewish ancestry, and left Germany for Austria. He fled his homeland after its annexation. He subsequently became a British citizen, and died in London at the age of 57.

Then there was the tragic Joseph Schmidt (1904-42), a Jewish tenor who was among the first artists to be banned from German radio by the Nazis. A few months after the release of his film Ein Lied geht um die Welt (the title track features on this set; see the video clip from the film) in May 1933, Schmidt fled Germany for Vienna, then after the Anschluß to Belgium, then after its invasion by Germany to France, and following France’s occupation to neutral Switzerland, where he arrived in September 1942. Several escape attempts had weakened Schmidt, leading to his collapse on a Zürich street. He was identified as a Jewish refugee, a category that in Swiss law was not regarded as political emigrés, and taken to the internment camp Girenbad while his residence application was being processed. While interned he fell ill and was treated in a hospital for an inflammation of the throat. The doctors refused to follow up his complaint about chest pains, and Schmidt was returned to Girenbad. Two days later, on November 16, he died of a heart attack. The following day, his approved residence permit arrived.

Just as dramatic is the story of Renate Müller (1906-37). Müller was a movie star (appearing in 1933’s Viktor und Viktoria, a movie banned by the Nazis and remade in English in 1980 as Victor/Victoria, from which the featured song comes. See video clip). After the departure of Marlene Dietrich, Adolf Hitler himself asked the beautiful, thoroughly Aryan Müller to make Nazi propaganda movies. She refused to do so, and also resisted pressure to split from her Jewish lover. Her sudden death at 31 in 1937 was attributed to epilepsy, but in reality she died after falling from a window. It might have been suicide, but Gestapo officers were seen entering the building shortly before. She might have jumped in a panic at the approach of the feared secret police, or she might have been pushed the agents. There are rumours that Müller had some incriminating information on Hitler.

The Polish-born actress Pola Negri (1897-1987), the famous femme fatale of Hollywood’s silent movies era and former lover of Rudolfo Valentino and Charlie Chaplin, had returned to Europe after her career floundered with the advent of the talkies and after losing a fortune in the Wall Street Crash. She acted in a few Goebbels-commissioned films, then fled Germany in 1938 as rumours of her part-Jewish ancestry appeared. Other rumours concerned an alleged affair with Hitler, who counted the Negri movie Mazurka among his favourites. Negri won a libel suit against a French magazine that had made the claim.

Like the unfortunate Joseph Schmidt, many artists left Germany as the horror of life under the Nazis began to reveal itself. The movie folks and writers among them, Jewish and gentile, tended to move to the US. These included the comic actor Siegfried Arno (1895-1975), who in his day was known as “the German Chaplin”. But the USA had no great demand for singers. So many of them continued their careers in Germany. Some of them surely had Nazi sympathies, or at least exhibited exceedingly high levels of pragmatism and wilful ignorance. Some, like Dutch-born singing hoofer Johannes Heesters, Swedish diva Zarah Leander or Führer-favourite Lale Andersen, would claim that they had no idea about politics, as though one needed the insights of a Chomsky to realise that very bad things indeed were happening under the swastika, even while cocooned in the protective shell of celebrity.

But it would be an error to believe that all artists were supportive of the Nazis. Hans Albers (1891-1960), one of the biggest stars in Nazi Germany, despised the Nazis. The regime forced him to officially split from his half-Jewish girlfriend, Hansi Burg, but he continued to live with her. In 1939, he arranged for her escape to Switzerland. When she returned to post-war Germany, Albers dropped his girlfriend at the time to reunite with Burg, with whom he lived until his death in 1960. His Flieger, grüss mir die Sonne is sometimes considered a Nazi propaganda anthem. It was nothing of the sort, at least not in intent. Released the year before the Nazis took power, Albers sung it in the sci-fi film F.P. 1 Antwortet Nicht.

Paul Hörbiger (1894-1981), an Hungarian-Austrian actor, became a resistance fighter against the Nazis. Arrested by the Nazis in 1945, he was sentenced to death for treason, with the BBC even reporting his death. Hörbiger lived, and enjoyed a long career on film, TV and stage which ended just a year before his death in 1981 at 86. Long revered in Germany and Austria as a grand old gentleman of stage and screen, Hörbiger’s film credits include the classic The Third Man, in which he played Harry Lime’s nameless porter.

Hans Söhnker (1903-1981) was discovered just as the Nazis took power. With some fellow actors of much courage he helped hide Jews on the run from the Nazis. Reportedly Söhnker was blacklisted by the Gestapo on several occasions because of these activities, with his celebrity presumably protecting him from the serious consequences non-famous Germans risked doing the same noble thing. He went on to have a long, fruitful career in Germany, where there was much affection for him.

Lilian Harvey (1906-1968) was born in London to English and German parents. During WW1, her father worked in Magdeburg, preventing the family from returning to England. Lilian might have become a big British star; instead her career hit the big time in Germany. After a failed attempt at breaking through in Hollywood, she drew the attention of the Gestapo in the ’30s for her refusal to disassociate from her Jewish friends. Based in France after war, she resumed her career in West Germany.

Others were apolitical. Heinz Rühmann (1902-94) was one of Germany’s biggest stars for close to six decades (he appeared in the excellent 1930 comedy Die drei von der Tankstelle, and in a 1941propaganda comedy with the entirely unfortunate title Der Gasmann, which, unusually for comedies, liberally used the “Heil Hitler” salute). Rühmann, reportedly Anne Frank’s favourite actor, presented himself in public as entirely apolitical, but after the war he was accused of having divorced his Jewish wife in 1938 so as to protect his career in the Third Reich. However, his next wife, Hertha Feiler, (with whom he remained until her death in 1975) had a Jewish grandfather, which caused Rühmann some trouble with the Nazi hierarchy. A Rühmann & Feiler duet appears on the second mix.

Willi Forst (1903-80), an Austrian actor, director and singer, was highly regarded by the Nazis, and made movies commissioned by them (including that Hitler favourite starring Pola Negri). After the war he defended himself from accusations of having been a sell-out, referring to his country’s “occupation” (for which his compatriots had voted, of course) and pointing to subtle subversion in his films. The fine actor Curd Jürgens later recalled Forst’s advice during the Nazi era to never make any political statement in case it might come back later to bite him.

Actor Willy Fritsch (1901-73) was a member of the NSDAP, though he made no political statements in his films other than the 1944 propaganda flick Junge Adler (which featured post-war movie star Hardy Krüger and 1970s TV host Dietmar Schönherr). Fritsch’s Nazi party membership was not held against him after the war, when he was one of Germany’s most popular actors. Singing with him on Ich wollt’ ich wär’ ein Huhn, recycled from the film Glückskinder, is Lilian Harvey (video clip). Their lyric is different from the more comedic version of Die Goldene Sieben (more about whom in part 2), who draw some verses from the movie version of the song, including the notion that Mickey Mouse lives in a mousehole. In the hit version Fritsch is more interested in being a chicken so that he need not have to go to the office. And it is that everyday-man persona with which he cemented his acting career.

In some of these post-war roles he played the father to young Romy Schneider’s characters. The ill-fated Romy was the daughter of the committed Austrian Nazi actor Wolf Albach-Retty and Magda Schneider (1909-96), of whom it is said that she had been close to Adolf Hitler. Like Heesters and Fritsch, her post-war career was not inhibited by the taint of Nazi associations. Another performer with a dodgy Third Reich record could never be taken to task: the Viennese crooner Luigi Bernauer (1899-1945) died in Oslo while on a tour entertaining German troops in occupied territories.

TRACKLISTING
1. Marlene Dietrich – Ich Bin Die Fesche Lola (1930)
2. Comedian Harmonists – Ein Freund, Ein Guter Freund (1930)
3. Siegfried Arno – Wenn Die Elisabeth Nicht So Schöne Beine Hätt (1930)
4. Richard Tauber – Adieu, Mein Kleiner Gardeoffizier (1930)
5. Paul Hörbiger – Das Muß Ein Stück Vom Himmel Sein (1931)
6. Lilian Harvey – Das Gibt’s Nur Einmal (1931)
7. Gitta Alpar – Was Kann So Schön Sein Wie Deine Liebe (1932)
8. Hans Albers – Flieger, Grüß’ Mir Die Sonne (1932)
9. Die Weintraubs – Wenn Wieder Frühling Ist (1933)
10. Joseph Schmidt – Ein Lied Geht Um Die Welt (1933)
11. Renate Müller – An einem Tag im Frühling (1934)
12. Comedian Harmonists – Gitarren spielt auf (1934)
13. Herbert Ernst Groh – Ein Walzer für dich (1934)
14. Hilde Hildebrandt – Liebe ist ein Geheimnis (1934)
15. Eric Helgar – Wir wollen Freunde sein für’s ganze Leben (1934)
16. Erwin Hartung – Kannst du pfeifen, Johanna (1934)
17. Luigi Bernauer – Nachts Ging Das Telefon (1935)
18. Jan Kiepura – Ob Blond, Ob Braun, Ich Liebe Alle Frau’n (1935)
19. Pola Negri – Wenn Die Sonne Hinter Den Dächern versinkt (1936)
20. Hans Albers – Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb eins (1936)
21. Willy Fritsch & Lilian Harvey – Ich wollt’ ich wär ein Huhn (1936)
22. Die Goldene Sieben – Ich wollt’ ich wär ein Huh (1936)
23. Die Metropol Vokalisten – Buh-Buh (1937)
24. Hans Söhnker & Magda Schneider – Wem gehört Ihr Herz am nächsten Sonntag, Fräulein? (1937)
25. Heinz Rühmann & Hans Albers – Jawohl, Meine Herren (1937)
26. Johannes Heesters – Ich werde jede Nacht von Ihnen träumen (1937)
27. Willy Forst – Kapriolen (1937)

RUNTERLADEN

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Any Major Halloween Vol. 1

October 23rd, 2014 7 comments

Halloween_1

A few years ago I posted a couple of Halloween mixes. Neither exists any longer, so it seems good to revisit the project. So, for this Halloween, the first new mix.

There are spooky and unnerving songs — The kind of stuff that might freak out Bart, Lisa and Milhouse in their treehouse. — as well as a few more light-hearted novelty tracks, and a pretty funny comedy song by a young Jimmy Fallon. None of them are The Monster Mash.

One artist features twice: Dr John with 1968’s unsettling Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya, and nine years before that as Morgus & The 3 Ghouls, riffing on a popular TV character of the time.

Stan Ridgway’s Camouflage is as spooky a song as they come with the story of a ghostly soldier in battle; Warren Zevon has a similar theme, with some politics thrown into the stew for good measure.

For a truly sad tale, read the tragic story of Jackson C Frank, who was produced in the mid-‘60s by Paul Simon and went on to influence artists such as Nick Drake and his ex-girlfriend Sandy Denny. He might well be the most luckless man ever in music history.

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-scared covers. PW in comments.

1. The Go! Team – Phantom Broadcast (2005)
2. Rob Zombie feat. The Ghastly Ones – Halloween (1998)
3. The Pogues – Turkish Song Of The Damned (1988)
4. Tony Joe White – They Caught The Devil And Put Him In Jail In Eudora, Arkansas (1971)
5. Dr John – Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya (1968)
6. The Box Tops – I Must Be The Devil (1969)
7. Donovan – Wild Witch Lady (1973)
8. The Who – Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1968)
9. Fleetwood Mac – The Green Manalishi (1970)
10. Golden Earring – The Devil Made Me Do It (1982)
11. Squirrel Nut Zippers – Hell (1996)
12. Sam the Sham – Haunted House (1964)
13. The Duponts – Screamin’ Ball (At Dracula Hall) (1958)
14. Soupy Sales – My Baby’s Got A Crush On Frankenstein (1962)
15. Big Bopper – Purple People Eater Meets The Witch Doctor (1958)
16. Morgus & The 3 Ghouls – Morgus The Magnificent (1959)
17. The Moon-Rays – Blues For Vampira (2004)
18. Hoodoo Gurus – Hayride To Hell (1985)
19. Stan Ridgway – Camouflage (1986)
20. Warren Zevon – Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner (1978)
21. Jackson C Frank – Halloween Is Black As Night (1960s)
22. Tim Curry – Anything Can Happen On Halloween (1986)
23. Nancy Dupree – Fankenstein (1970)
24. Jimmy Fallon – Happy Halloween (1998)

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A Life In Vinyl: 1979

October 16th, 2014 8 comments

A Life in Vinyl 1979.

As 1979, the year I turned 13, began I tried to fast-track myself to serious popfanship. The previous year I had started to investigate the pop music of the past. I had read up about the rock ‘n’ roll of the 1950s in a fanzine, and I had been particularly taken with the 1960s. The Box Tops’ “The Letter”, released ten years earlier and therefore in another lifetime altogether, was a particular favourite. For Christmas I asked for and received the three essential Beatles double album compilations: 1962-66, 1967-70 and Love Songs.

And in 1978 I had dabbled in punk. Now I flirted with the other side. I listened to Al Stewart, whose music I still like but who didn’t really aim for 13-year-olds. I pompously expounded on the “brilliance” of Barclay James Harvest’s XII album, which I neither understood nor actually liked. It is, indeed, quite awful. I soon became sick of the pretense. That didn’t stop me, however, from getting Supertramp’s Breakfast in America album later in the year.

By the time my birthday in April arrived, I had reverted to eclectic record-buying. LPs by Status Quo and Queen, and singles by artists as diverse as Thin Lizzy, Hot Chocolate, Billy Joel and the disco outfit The Richie Family. With that in hand, Barclay James Harvest and their prog-rock noodling was soon passé.

I was not immune to questionable musical choices. I would hesitate to describe ownership of Olivia Newton-John’s Totally Hot LP or Suzi Quatro’s Smokie-produced If You Knew Suzi…  album as evidence of musical sophistication. Still, I knew the real horrors of 1979, the songs which are forgotten by the nostalgia that recalls the year  as a highwater mark in pop — which, of course, it was..

Much of the charts were infected by some of the worst music ever made. There were some post-disco horrors around in Europe: Snoopy, Luv and Luisa Fernandez (couldn’t sing, couldn’t dance) were among the most talent-free offenders, and the Vader Abraham Smurfs song cannot be redeemed even by the most indulgent childhood nostalgia (Holland, you nearly fucked up 1979!).

covers79_2

But I reserved my most virulent bile for two particular songs which, with hindsight, I acknowledge to be quite brilliant. First there was Patrick Hernandez “Born To Be Alive”, which blighted every German school disco (where I lived, it was “danced” to by jumping with legs closed from one side to another, if possible with the beat). The song still evokes the taste of cheap cola and peanut twirls, and the anxiety of relating to girls who suddenly had become romantic notions.

The other musical nemesis was Cliff Richard’s “We Don’t Talk Anymore”. It’s a very good song, but it was ubiquitous in the summer of 1979. Besides, I had taken a dislike to Cliff Richard before I ever knowingly heard a note he sang. I was not going to surrender my antipathy to that song.

Cliff scored my unhappy summer of 1979, on which I was sent on a church youth camp, as I had been two years before. In 1977 the camp group had been great. I had fallen “in love”, we had great outings and fantastic leaders. In 1979 the group was populated by creeps, and I didn’t like any of the girls other than those older than I was, and therefore unattainable. On top of that, the camp leaders ignored my complaint of theft, the sort of commandment-violation one might think would require some sort of reaction in a church-run jam.  I never went again.

Things picked up in autumn. And what an autumn it was — indeed, the stretch from autumn 1979 to early summer 1980 produced a fantastic run of singles purchases. It started with The Knack’s “My Sharona”, the cover of which, I must confess, excited my hormones the way the girls in my age cohort on summer camp didn’t (I liked the song, too. Still do). There were some new kind of sounds. Gary Numan’s Tubeway Army, with the synth sound that seemed more musical to me than the robotic Kraftwerk, set the scene for the New Romantics which would arrive within a year and a bit. “Video Killed The Radio Star” sounded very unusual too.

But my favourite act of 1979 was the Boomtown Rats. I had liked them before, of course, but “I Don’t Like Mondays” was a few cuts above “She’s So Modern” or “Like Clockwork”. I loved their The Fine Art Of Surfacing LP. It has not really stood the test of time, but I’ll stand by the trio of singles — “Mondays”, “Diamond Smiles”, “Someone’s Looking At You” — and closing track “When the Night Comes” .

And as 1979 ended, I started to get into AC/DC — just in time for Bon Scott’s death in February 1980.

covers79_1

For those who really need to know, songs with a green asterisk I owned in 1979 on Single, red on LP (track 7 on a compilation album), blue on tape.

1. Status Quo – Accident Prone **
2. Thin Lizzy – Rosalie (live) *
3. Hot Chocolate – I’ll Put You Together Again *
4. Patrick Hernandez – Born To Be Alive
5. Ritchie Family – American Generation *
6. Billy Joel – My Life *
7. Gerard Kenny – New York, New York *
8. Elton John – Return To Paradise *
9. George Harrison – Blow Away *
10. Art Garfunkel – Bright Eyes *
11. Clout – Save Me *
12. Amii Stewart – Knock On Wood *
13. The Knack – My Sharona *
14. Tubeway Army – Are ‘Friends’ Electric *
15. Electric Light Orchestra – Don’t Bring Me Down *
16. B.A. Robertson – Bang Bang *
17. The Buggles – Video Killed the Radio Star *
18. Thom Pace – Maybe *
19. Boomtown Rats – Diamond Smiles *

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Not Feeling Guilty Mix Vol. 3

October 9th, 2014 15 comments

Not Feeling Guilty Mix Vol. 3

After two recycled mixes in this series, here’s a brand-new collection. This one is at least as good as the other two, with some glorious songs one doesn’t hear often today, even on radio stations that specialise in retro stuff. And because I have relaxed the no-duplication-of-artists rule, some acts return with tracks that are as good as those I picked for the first two mixes — Ambrosia are one example; Boz Scaggs, Dan Folgelberg and Player others. And there is Kenny Loggins, a man who is unjustly maligned by some people.

His “Heart To Heart” is mighty, with its great bridge leading to the punchy chorus.  The thing was co-written with David Foster and Michael McDonald, who does backing vocals and keyboard duty. David Sanborn, operating in an era before he was the Kenny G it was sort of OK to like, adds a nice sax solo. It’s good to be alive when one hears that song.

As far as I can see, only one song here is a cover, Carly Simon’s version of The Doobie Brothers’ “You Belong To Me”, later covered to good effect by soul singer Anita Baker.

As previously noted, the genre which some call yacht rock (I’ll watch the satirical series of the name one day, but, the cover above notwithstanding, I hate the moniker) or adult contemporary (yeurgh) was underpinned by top class session work, its practitioners often coming from the world of jazz fusion. Two songs here are in fact credited to fusion people: Lee Ritenour’s “Is It You”, with Eric Tagg on vocals, and Stanley Clarke & George Duke’s “Sweet Baby”. The Internet tells me some people don’t like the latter; I think it has a lovely vibe.

There will be a fourth mix. In the meantime, this lot is timed to fit on a CD-R, and includes home-knitted covers. PW in comments.

1. Boz Scaggs – Lido Shuffle (1976)
2. Hall and Oates – Say It Ain’t So (1983)
3. Kenny Loggins – Heart To Heart (1982)
4. Lee Ritenour with Eric Tagg – Is It You (1981)
5. Eddie Rabbitt – Suspicions (1979)
6. Ambrosia – The Biggest Part Of Me (1980)
7. Jim Messina – Seeing You (For The First Time) (1979)
8. Stanley Clarke/George Duke Project – Sweet Baby (1981)
9. Bill LaBounty – Never Gonna Look Back (1982)
10. Player – Givin’ It All (1980)
11. Dan Fogelberg – Missing You (1982)
12. Robbie Dupree – Steal Away (1980)
13. Carly Simon – You Belong To Me (1978)
14. Gino Vanelli – I Just Want To Stop (1978)
15. Bertie Higgins – Key Largo (1982)
16. England Dan & John Ford Coley – We’ll Never Have To Say Goodbye Again (1978)
17. Orleans – Dance With Me (1975)
18. Nicolette Larson – Give A Little (1978)
19. Elvin Bishop – Fooled Around And Fell In Love (1975)
20. Andrew Gold – Lonely Boy (1976)

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Not Feeling Guilty Mix Vol. 1
Not Feeling Guilty Mix Vol. 2

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Any Major Summer Vol. 4

October 2nd, 2014 6 comments

Any Major Summer Vol. 4

The title of a rather peculiar Beach Boys instrumental once announced that “Fall Breaks And Back To Winter”. And so it is for the northern hemisphere. Summer’s gone, and here is a fourth summer mix to say farewell till next year. For us in the southern half of the globe, of course, summer is still coming.

This mix brings the summer comps to a full cycle: I posted the first summer mix during the northern winter, to warm you up. The second mix was in spring, by way of anticipation. The third mix was posted during summer, which made sense. And now the fourth goes out in the autumn.

There’s still enough for a fourth mix (yes, with The Doors closing the series).

summer-covers

As always, the mix fits on a CD-R and includes bright, summery covers. PW same as always.

1. Meat Loaf – You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth (1977)
2. The Cars – Magic (1984)
3. The Go-Go’s – Vacation (1982)
4. Bananarama – Cruel Summer (1983)
5. Wham! – Club Tropicana (1983)
6. Windjammer – End Of Summer (1982)
7. Chairmen Of The Board – Summerlove (1983)
8. Billy Paul – July, July, July, July (1975)
9. Brighter Side Of Darkness – Summer Ride (1972)
10. Spanky Wilson – The Last Day Of Summer (1969)
11. The Beach Boys – The Girls On The Beach (1964)
12. Lesley Gore – Sunshine, Lollipops And Rainbows (1965)
13. Connie Francis – Vacation (1962)
14. Pat Boone – Love Letters In The Sand (1957)
15. Robin Ward – Wonderful Summer (1963)
16. John Tavolta & Olivia Newton-John – Summer Nights (1978)
17. Stray Cats – Lonely Summer Nights (1981)
18. The Kinks – Sitting In The Midday Sun (1973)
19. Elvis Costello – The Other Side Of Summer (1991)
20. Belle & Sebastian – A Summer Wasting (1998)
21. The Alarm – Rain In The Summertime (1987)
22. Foo Fighters – Summer’s End (2007)

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Any Major Summer Vol. 1
Any Major Summer Vol. 2
Any Major Summer Vol. 3
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