"There's a time in life for Hoagy Carmichael. There's a time in life for Claude Debussy. There's a time in life for Jerry Lee Lewis. There's a time in life for Destiny's Child. All these things have their moment." ~Elvis Costello
In 1982 Michael Jackson flew to England to record the song “Say, Say, Say” with former Beatle Paul McCartney at the famous Abbey Road studio. This was the second musical collaboration between Paul and Michael, the first being 1981’s “The Girl is Mine” which was featured on Jackson’s smash hit album “Thriller”. While working on “Say, Say, Say”, Paul invited Michael to stay with him and his wife Linda at their home in suburban London. One fateful night, after the three finished dinner, Paul took out a thick leather bookl and laid it out on the dining room table. This particular book listed every song and publishing right that Paul had acquired over the last 10 years. He made it clear to Michael that owning publishing rights was the only way to make really big money in the music industry. Paul further bragged that in the last year alone, he had earned approximately $40 million off his music catalogue.
“Every time someone records one of these songs, I get paid. Every time someone plays these songs on the radio, or in live performances, I get paid.”
Paul also clarified that none of those earnings came from Beatles songs because amazingly, he did not own them. Ironically, this free advice would come back to bite Paul in the butt two years later when Michael purchased the entire Beatles catalogue for $47.5 million. Paul felt appropriately back stabbed and his relationship with Michael was damaged forever. But how on earth did Paul McCartney and John Lennon lose ownership of The Beatles catalogue in the first place??!!
The Who’s drummer, Keith Moon decided to go to the Red Lion Pub in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, UK on Jan. 4, 1970. Keith went with his wife and some other friends. Keith’s friend and driver Neil Boland, drove them in Keith’s Bentley.
The people in the pub were more working class than Rock Star class (some say it was a skin head crowd). They started giving Keith and his friends trouble so they de…cided to leave. The crowd moved outside and started throwing rocks at the car and started rocking it. Boland got out of the car to try to cool off the crowd. However, Keith got scared and decided to make a get away by driving the car himself. What he didn’t know was that the crowd had pushed Neil under the car. The car ran over Neil and dragged him for a ways, killing him.
Moon was arrested and charged with a number of crimes. 6 weeks after the incident, Neil’s death was ruled accidental.
Neil’s death continued to bother Keith until his own death.
R&B singer Natalie Cole passed away last night of congestive heart failure. She’d canceled tour dates in November and December due to an unspecified medical procedure which required hospitalization. She also suffered from Hepatitis C and had received a kidney transplant in 2009.
Hers was a rollercoaster career with a promising start in 1975 (her first chart hit “This Will Be” saw recent second life as the jingle for eHarmony dating service) followed by substance abuse issues and rehab, then a comeback in 1991 with an Album of the Year Grammy for Unforgettable…With Love.
Her early singles were made in the mold of Aretha Franklin, whose dominance in the Best Female R&B Vocal Performance Grammy category she challenged in the 70’s.
Mike Pinder, a founding member of and the original keyboardist for The Moody Blues, is celebrating his 74th birthday today. He is especially noted for his technological contribution to music. When the band was first together, Mike took a day job at Streetly Music. Streetly was the distributor of the Mellotron. The Mellotron is a keyboard that uses tapes of different sounds and ‘bends’ the sound to sound like different instruments.
Mike was able to get a used one from his e…mployer and got rid of the tapes of things like chickens and roosters and added more tapes of violins, cellos and other stringed instruments. Mike introduced the sound of the Mellotron into The Moody’s music.
Mike is also the guy who introduced the Mellotron to John Lennon and even was involved with a couple of The Beatles recordings for which he was uncredited. (For a while, The Moody Blues were managed by The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein).
Mike’s work was one of the biggest contributing factors to the sound of The Moody Blues.
Mike left the group following the recording of the band’s album, Octave, in 1978.
Happy Birthday Mike!!! Your influence was incredible!
1. Jonathan Coulton and John Roderick: ‘The Week Between’
This may be the first holiday song dedicated to the week between holidays. This one’s endearing for being a little more slice-of-life than usual:
It’s almost time to eat again/The first ham sandwich shows up
Beats some of the stilted language you’ll find in some of the classics. Let’s face it, even quaintness can’t compensate for a bizarre lyric like:
In the meadow we can build a snowman/And pretend that he is Parson Brown/He’ll say ‘Are you married’ we’ll say ‘No, man, but you can do the job when you’re in town’
1. The Bobs with Jonathan Katz: ‘Santa’s Got a Brand New Bag’
One good Jonathan deserves another. This one is also known as ‘Dr. Katz’ from his self-titled Comedy Central show of years back. Great show, by the way. And Katz is in character here, playing the Jewish dad explaining Santa to his child while a cappella group The Bobs rework James Brown behind him.
Laying a finger upside his nose–and this is where he loses me–up the chimney he goes…
3. The Killers: ‘Boots’
Most of these songs stand alone. This one is made more affecting by the accompanying video.
4. Nowell Sing We Clear: ‘I Saw a Maiden’
Nowell Sing We Clear are an English four-piece group who specialize in traditional English folk song and especially traditional Christmas carols. They turn in a nice a cappella performance here.
5. Over the Rhine: ‘Darlin’ (Christmas is Coming)’
From Snow Angels, Over the Rhine’s excellent 2007 collection of holiday originals. This is the rare Christmas song that straddles the sacred/secular border gracefully (though I’ll admit graceful straddling is difficult to picture).
So you look beyond Santa and Black Friday for the real heart of Christmas…but Anderson Cooper keeps reminding you Peace On Earth is a lofty, improbable ideal?
The idea here is that some of the season’s Big Picture concepts–hope, forgiveness and making a new start–often come down to two people. Maybe we’re all just responsible for Peace on our own little speck of Earth.
Anyway, nice song.
6. Aliqua: ‘O Come Emmanuel’
Canada’s choral group Aliqua blend many styles but arguably sound best doing sparely-arranged traditional music, such as this almost-a cappella ‘O Come Emmanuel’.
7. Squirrel Nut Zippers: ‘Winter Weather’
like this holiday chestnut because, unlike so many seasonal favorites, it’s never become so ubiquitous that I’ve had a chance to tire of it. It has been recorded several times though: Peggy Lee, Jo Stafford and Fats Waller all had a go at it in decades past, and it reappeared a couple years back in a rendition by Vanessa Williams. But my favorite version is by that band named after a candy bar.
8. Maddy Prior with The Carnival Band: ‘Lord, in the Morning’
It’s hard to imagine a time when even the oldest hymns we sing now were the subversive “new” music of the church–actually even illegal until about 1700 in merry old England. Charles and John Wesley helped to lead the transformation by writing music such as the Easter hymn ‘Christ the Lord is Ris’n Today’ and ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’ for Christmas, songs whose words weren’t limited to Scripture text and allowed working class churchgoers a greater freedom of expression. It was like an earlier, Anglican version of the movement toward the “Folk Mass” spurred by Vatican Council II in the last century.
‘Lord, in the Morning’ dates from the earlier pre-Wesley form, from the psalter known as the ‘Old Version’ by Sternhold and Hopkins, which dated from 1562. As Christmas songs go, you can’t get much more old school than this.
9. Half Man Half Biscuit: ‘It’s Clichéd to be Cynical at Christmas’
I appreciate Half Man Half Biscuit for so many reasons. Their references are uncompromisingly British; they don’t really care if we ‘get’ them. They have songs with titles like ‘Look Dad No Tunes’ and ‘With Goth on Our Side’ and ‘Shit Arm, Bad Tattoo’, and album titles like Trouble Over Bridgwater. (Almost as good as Kirsty MacColl’s Electric Landlady)
And only these guys are ironic enough to come up with a post-secular, counter-cynical Christmas song–and put it in the middle of a non-Christmas album. It’s rather lo-fi, so in case you have trouble hearing lyrics I’ve included them:
Now how did I guess/You were going to express
Your disdain at the crane/With the bright fairy lights
And you moan at the snow/‘Cos your car wouldn’t go
Oh it’s cliched To be cynical At Christmas
10. Mason Williams: ‘Coventry Carol’
Yes, it’s the ‘Classical Gas’ guy, doing a nice baroque arrangement of the late 15th-century ‘Coventry Carol’. The carol came from the mystery play Pageant of the Shearman and Tailors, and was originally a lament for Herod’s slaughter of the innocents.
Quoting the site Remembering the Old Songs:
The Coventry Carol…came about as close to extinction as it possibly could; the only surviving ancient copy was burned in a library fire in 1875, and we are dependent upon two very bad transcriptions from the early nineteenth century. We literally aren’t sure of either the words or the music; either may have been copied in error.
By adding the antiphonal verse for solo guitar and brass, for which the song switches to major mode before going back to minor for the ending, Williams tastefully gives a fresh twist to a familiar song.
11. Aqua Teen Hunger Force: ‘I Sure Hope I Don’t Have to Beat Your Ass This Christmas’
I don’t need to explain this one, do I? Even to someone who was never a fan of the show (me) this is damn funny.
12. L’Ensemble Choral du Bout du Monde: ‘Descend From the Heavens’
Ancient sacred Christmas music from Brittany (Celtic northern France). The language is Breton, not French, although the beauty of the music transcends language. The refrain translates as:
Every Moment Has A Song 