"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
Peter Wolf’s “There’s Still Time” is a grown up rock song about reflection and re-centering.
The man who presided over the sweaty house party that was the J. Geils Band sounds like a guy quite a few miles down the road on his 2010 offering, Midnight Souvenirs.
Some rockers don’t know how to settle down or get on with the next phase, and nothing’s sadder than seeing geriatric rockers trying to maintain an image, or songwriting POV, suited to a 25-year-old.
Brazilian singer-songwriter Maria do Céu Whitaker Poças’ 2021 release Um Gosto de Sol (A Taste of Sunshine) featured a tasty take on a song originally done in 2001 by Grupo Revelação.
The chorus translates from Portuguese as:
Let it happen naturally I don’t want to see you cry Let love find us Our story will last forever
From the 1998 album Vincent Laguardia Gambini Sings Just for You, in which Joe Pesci sings as the lead character from 1992’s brilliant comedy My Cousin Vinny.
Pesci’s early life included a stint as a barber, an association with Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, connections to the mob, and a bit of a career as a singer and guitar player.
This was Vinny’s first album, but not Pesci’s first foray into singing.
Donnie Iris: “That’s the Way Love Ought to Be” (1981)
Pittsburgh legend Donnie Iris was effectively a one-hit wonder twice–although the story is a bit more complicated.
The writer and singer of the Jaggerz’ sole, idiosyncratic 1970 hit “The Rapper”, he later joined Ohio funk band Wild Cherry, though his tenure came after their one megahit, “Play That Funky Music”.
From his first solo album, 1980’s Back On the Streets, came Iris’ most enduring solo hit, “Ah! Leah!”. Interestingly, it wasn’t quite his highest-charting hit, but sometimes chart performance doesn’t tell the whole story. Despite the appreciation locals show for much of his catalog, “Ah! Leah!” is the biggest reason a national audience knows the name of Pittsburgh’s beloved “Dohnie”.
Having said that, after 1981’s King Cool, which was just loaded with pop rock bangers, things, uh, cooled.
Though he never again cracked the top 100 with an album release, Back On the Streets and King Cool are both essential, and full of the retro pop vibe and call and answer song structure which were the specialty of Iris and songwriting partner Mark Avsec.
Even as an octogenarian the bespectacled belter still boasts one of the great high-register wails in the game and still plays his hits in mostly local concert appearances. He’s deservedly a Pittsburgh institution.
Listening to 2024’s Viva Tu is a bit dizzying: Spanish, French and English, all within the first three songs of Manu Chao’s 2024 release. A half-dozen languages across an album that mixes the personal and the political, the intimate and the anthemic.
Remarkably, it was the singer’s first studio album in 17 years, but his unique formula remained intact, much to the appreciation of fans he’d kept waiting for new material.
