Her daddy was C.L. Franklin, a minister at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit. He was a famous preacher man, check out some of his preachings on YouTube and you’ll get an idea of the pipes he had. But his daughter Aretha, well, she was something else. When she sang in the choir, angels sat, their jaws dropped, and listened in wonder.
She pursued a life of secular recording at age 18 with Columbia Records and did what the engineers told her to do. She had some success but was hardly a star.
Five years later, when her contract expired, Aretha switched labels to Atlantic Records. She went to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and began recording with its legendary studio musicians. Aretha started doing her own musical arrangements, giving songs her vision and voice, and bada bing, the angels they shat themselves. The Queen of Soul was born and she would reign for another five decades.
You can pretty much dive anywhere into her catalog and get lost. The woman expressed emotion like a raw nerve with pipes of gold. She was a songwriter, pianist, actress, feminist, and civil rights activist.
The world lost a queen last year, but her voice will live on for the ages.
Who knew balloons and arrows through the head could be so much fun?
A palate cleanser, people. Since this challenge is about albums that were significant in your life, this one is right up there. Steve Martin was an incredible comedic force and inspiration to me. He began college as a philosophy major, then changed to a theatre major, then dropped out.
Young Steve loved making people laugh, and had a different philosophy about what comedy could be. As he wrote years later: “What if there were no punch lines? What if there were no indicators? What if I created tension and never released it? What if I headed for a climax, but all I delivered was an anticlimax? What would the audience do with all that tension? Theoretically, it would have to come out sometime. But if I kept denying them the formality of a punch line, the audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh, essentially out of desperation.”
Martin crafted his stand-up act for years, bombing more often than WW II. He persevered and eventually found his voice. Steve was the world’s biggest horse’s ass, for our amusement. A pompous prick. A jerk (“born a poor black child”). Every set up he delivered had a surprising left turn.
He was absurd. Silly. A refreshing tsunami into comedy. And people loved it. “Excuuuuuuuuuse me!” and “I’m just a wild and crazy guy” soon became catchphrases (they also became obnoxious). Martin made arrows through the head, balloon animals, even playing the banjo cool.
Then, he quit stand up. He was a guy selling out arenas, cashing easy money, and walking away because it lost its thrill.
Steve Martin has an incredible body of work–– movies, concerts, plays, and books. His memoir “Born Standing Up” is one of my favorites. It shows how his overnight success took years of pain and suffering, and his unending quest to receive his father’s approval.
Some factoids you may not know about him. At age 23, Martin received an Emmy as one of the writers on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. He has suffered from tinnitus (ringing in the ear) ever since the filming a shooting scene in Three Amigos. Only Alec Baldwin has hosted Saturday Night Live more than Martin.
If you still have an album collection, chances are there is a Steve Martin disc. Enjoy it.
Grab a match, everybody get in line, stop making sense!
Four former art school students formed a band in New York City in 1975, and in ’77, they released Talking Heads: 77. Bassist Tina Weymouth explained what ‘Talking Heads’ meant: “A friend had found the name in the TV Guide, which explained the term used by TV studios to describe a head-and-shoulder shot of a person talking as ‘all content, no action’. It fit.”
Talking Heads had incredible content, like songs about a psycho killer, worrying about the government, ‘the book I read’, having no compassion–– you know, standard rock fare stuff.
Instantly Talking Heads drew attention as one of the freshest new wave bands and became mainstays at CBGB.
After the release of their second album More Songs About Buildings And Food, I saw them at the Tomorrow Club in downtown Youngstown, Ohio. I was a writer for the Youngstown State University ‘Jambar’ newspaper and smooth talked my way into reviewing the concert and meeting the band.
I am bad with faces, and to identify the band members I relied on their portrait shots from their first album. I met three of the band members at the soundcheck–– two men, one woman. I instantly deduced the woman was Tina Weymouth, pretty good gumshoe work there! The two young guys were clean cut, as were all three male members in the band portrait.
I asked the first guy if he was “David By-run?”
“No,” he said, “I’m Jerry Harrison.”
I asked the second guy if he was “David By-run?”
“No, I’m Chris Frantz. David Byrne is coming later,” he said.
“Oh,” said I, registering the singer’s name was pronounced “Burn” not “By-run.” The three band members were nice enough not to walk away in disgust from this punk kid reporter pestering them.
When I met Byrne that night, he was aloof with a faraway look in his eyes. He was shy and introverted and spoke about as much as a mime. David Byrne was on his own wavelength. His lyrics reflected that sensibility. No one wrote lyrics or songs like Talking Heads.
That night at the concert, the band played tight. Byrne stuck to a three-foot circumference around his microphone. He played guitar and delivered his lyrics exactly as recorded on the band’s albums. The epitome of “All content. No action.”
Imagine my surprise when I saw the movie Talking Heads Stop Making Sense, the best concert film ever IMHO. Byrne is a masterful showman (the big suit? Come on!). The band is tight, fun, and fluid. Content finally had action. I would pick that album as my favorite since they play cool renditions of some of their greatest songs, but that pick would be too easy.
Instead, I’ve selected 1983’s Speaking in Tongues, with the band’s only legitimate hit, Burning Down The House. This disc includes Making Flippy Floppy, Slippery People, Girlfriend is Better (where the phrase “Stop making sense” is used), Swamp, I Get Wild/Wild Gravity, This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody) and more. The sound is a fresh mashing of rock, funk, and get your groove on, baby. The music would sound just as original if released today. Give it a go for a good time.
I’m telling you, that ‘David By-run’ is something else. And if you haven’t heard it, Remain In Light is a close second for me as their best work.
It’s a gun in his pocket and he’s happy to see you.
I know it’s only rock and roll but… had to happen, the Stones on my list.
For me, the band was at its best in the Mick Taylor years. While Keith Richards is undeniably great, and Charlie and Bill laid down a foundation upon which rock cathedrals were built, it was Taylor who took the band to new heights with his playing. This album is a classic example.
The cover concept was created by Andy Warhol. On the original release, the zipper worked and the belt buckle had perforations. No, the model did not go commando. He was a tighty whitey dude.
Remember the days when album covers were special? When you not only received the album, you also got cool gimmicks like The Beatles Sgt. Peppers insert card containing a genuine Pepper mustache, sergeant stripes, badges, and the Sgt. Pepper band stand-up (with perforation for easy assembly!), Beatle pics suitable for framing in The White Album, and the trippy lenticular cover of Their Satanic Majesties Request from the Rolling Stones? Those were glory days (what were your favorite album gimmes?)
With Sticky Fingers, you got an operational zipper, and the classic songs Brown Sugar, Wild Horses, Can’t You Hear Me Knocking, Bitch, Sister Morphine, Dead Flowers, Moonlight Mile–– you get the drift. Great cheese, and lots of it.
Much of the album was recorded at the famous Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Alabammy. The backstory of Moonlight Mile is that Keith had created a guitar riff on tape (he called it Japanese Thing). Mick Taylor worked with Jagger (playing acoustic guitar) on developing that riff into the song heard on the album. Taylor had the idea for strings. After all that creating, Taylor received no songwriting credit. It was another Jagger/Richards song in the publishing world.
The Glimmer Twins are notorious for being stingy with sharing credits. They even took credit for Robert Johnson’s Love In Vain Blues, which Mick and Keith claimed as their own when they recorded it as Love in Vain on Let It Bleed. The Johnson estate sued and won. The blues legend got his credit. Oh, those boys–– bad, bad, bad!
Carnival barker, huckster, hip philosopher–– pull up a bar stool and let’s go!
I didn’t discover the wonders of Tom Waits until the mid-’80s, but once I got my head out of my ass, I dove deep into his catalog.
Discovering an artist late is good because you can sample his wares and gorge on the buffet he’s produced. This baby is his second album, the title track a tribute to Jack Kerouac.
When you drop a diamond on this disc, it’s clear Waits is one way gone daddy–– balling the jack on his piano pedals and taking listeners on a journey through sweaty smoke-filled bars stinking of cheap booze and desperation. He understands lonely crushed souls nursing tender heartaches, and he does it with sweet beat poetry and woozy jazz sensibilities.
Waits is a fine aged whiskey to savor. He’s an incredible songwriter, profound poet, charismatic performer, sideshow barker, and emotional huckster.
Pour me another, buddy–– it’s going to be a long night, and I’m loving every moment.
Should you ever have the chance to catch Waits live, which is about as rare as a dodo bird riding a unicorn, grab a ticket fast. The guy is a masterful performer.
The mutant clone of Buddy Holly, a force to be reckoned with.
His birth name is Declan Patrick MacManus, but that moniker doesn’t have the rock buzz of Elvis Costello. His debut album in 1977 solidified this mutant clone of Buddy Holly as a songwriting force to be reckoned with. The band backing him on this disc is Clover, an American west coast band. Costello would soon form The Attractions and later The Imposters to back him.
When the Sex Pistols bagged on playing “Saturday Night Live”, Elvis and The Attractions got the nod. Lorne Michaels forbid the band to play “Radio Radio” because NBC corporate owned a shit ton of radio stations and the song was critical of commercial airwaves. Costello agreed not to play the song. When the show was live, the band started playing “Less Than Zero”–– Elvis yelled “Stop, stop!” and kicked them into “Radio Radio”. Michaels was royally pissed and put the hairy eyeball ban on the band for the next 12 years.
