Monday, February 4, 2013

Barry White..."Let The Music Play"...

I had been listening to some old Issac Hyaes tunes, when another icon came to mind...
  Barry White.
  Remember Barry?  He of "Love Theme" and "Sweetness is my Weakness" fame?
  I remember that he died in 2003, but I can;t remember reading his obit.   So I reprinted it got you.
  You can buy "Barry White's Greatest Hits" on amazon.com.

 

July 05, 2003
Velvet-voiced singer Barry White, the two-time Grammy winner who inspired millions to get in the mood with such hits as "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe," died Friday, his manager told CNN. He was 58.
The crooner died at 9:35 a.m. (12:35 p.m. EDT) at Cedars Sinai Hospital, said White's manager since 1973, Ned Shankman. He was alone when he died.
"It was just a series of things brought on by his high blood pressure, which triggered kidney failure and a mild stroke and ongoing low-grade infections that they just couldn't get on top of," Shankman said.
Advertisement
White had been on dialysis, but had been doing some studio work.
"He had a most unique voice, a most unique appearance," Shankman said. "He was just a very unique guy."
Once, he said, researchers played his music to whales. "It absolutely made them mate more," he said.
The singer's bass, sultry tones graced such hits as "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe" and "You're My First, My Last, My Everything."
White, his songs sensual, was the love machine to millions of fans.
His biggest hits came during the disco days of the 1970s, with hits like, "I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More, Baby," which he referred to as "my anthem."
During the 1980s and 1990s, he converted subsequent generations into admirers, too.
White credited the fact that he wrote and produced the songs, and worked long and hard, for his staying power.
"I sleep music, I eat music, I'm never without it, I'm never without music, that's my first lady," he once told a reporter.
White insisted he was a homebody, happiest in the studio he had built in his house. "I am passionate, I am romantic, I am thrilled throughout my soul to be creating music," he said.
White, who married and divorced twice, leaves eight children.
 
 
Originally Printed on cnn.com

Monday, January 28, 2013

Rita Coolidge...

Back in the day I heard a song called "You" and I was captured.
It was something about her voice...almost like a cross between Linda Ronstadt and Anne Murray.
Well I found "The Best Of Rita Coolidge" on Amazon.com the other day and as I listened to it, I was surprised at the hits I didn't fully realize was by her.
Songs like a cover of Jackie Wilson's hit, "Your Love Is Lifting Me Higher", "All-Time High", a Tempations cover, "The Way You Do The Things You Do", and the lilting "We're All Alone."
She is married to the great song writer Kris Kristofferson and he contributed on several of her hits.
Good stuff and I only paid $2.66 for it...

Monday, January 21, 2013

A Flock Of Seagulls...

I remember back in the good old 80s a band that had a runaway hit called, "I Ran."
The song was basic 1980 music...a little synthesizer and a keyboards, but I remember it was the hottest song, at the time, that I had ever heard.
The band was A Flock Of Seagulls (catchy, huh?) and the lead singer had a hairdo that rivaled Donald Trump's. It sorta looked like a truck rode down the middle of his head...or as someone once said, two dolphins at play.
The song hit the top of the charts and was the only hit they mustered, but it remains a classic. I even heard a rap song using the melody lately.
I hear that the lead singer still performs this song to this day, but he hates it.
Go figure.
Reprinted from 2009

Monday, January 14, 2013

I Touch Myself...

Remember the pop group "The Di Vinyls." They had that song , "I Touch Myself?..."
When I first heard that song, I didn't know what to think. Being a young dude, I thought it was the coolest thing EVER, and being a fan of Prince, at first I thought it was him...
(Ahem)
It was very controversial at the time with a lyric that went, "I don't want, anybody else. When I think about you I touch myself..."
What?...what?...
You didn't have to be a genius to figure out what they were talking about, did ya?
(Republished from 2010)

Monday, January 7, 2013

"Some Girls", By The Rolling Stones...

In the year I graduated from high school, 1978, I was really getting into rock music.
Being brought up solely around black folk and rhythm and blues music, this "new" music was refreshingly shocking to me.
One of the bands I grew to love were The Rolling Stones.
The first album I heard by The Stones was the classic "Some Girls."
This a;bum featured the big hit, "Miss You," but I was more drawn to cuts like "Far Away Eyes", "When The Whip Comes Down", and "Shattered."
The Cd is in my player even as we speak.
It also featured the classic "Beast Of Burden."
To this day the Mick Jagger and the boys remain one of my faves. I have also purchased "Steel Wheels", "Tattoo You" and the greatest hits, "40 Licks."
Ut just doesn't get any better than that, does it?

(A Rerun From 2009)

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

"Cream"...

I was dating this girl back in the mid-eighties and she was a knock-out.
  Tall, blond and blue eyes...she even had a "Marilyn Monroe" type mole...
...but I digress.
  We used to go out to various clubs and I noticed immediately that she couldn't dance...not a bit.
  She couldn't even do the Electric Slide.
  But she was gorgeous.
  I remember on the way home one night, I popped in a copy of Prince's "Diamond and Pearls" CD and when the song "Cream" came up.the chick started to gyrate and move seductively and moan and
 sound like Donna Summer on "Love to Love You Baby."
  After I got turned on and stated sweating...the song came to an end and she straightened up fixed her lipstick and said...
  "Damn, I LOVE that song!"
  I thought to myself "No S&%^."

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Nile Rogers...

Back in the mid 1980s, Nile Rogers of "Chic" released an album called "Adventures InThe Land Of The Good Groove."
  I fell in love with this album!
  I remember when my first wife, Lynn and I went to Kings Island along with her sister Barbara and her boyfriend Wendell, we played this cassette over and over and over again and never got tired of it.
  It only has 8 songs (The title track, "Yum Yum", "Beet","Rock Bottom", "All In Your Hands", "Moist Down", and ""Get Her Crazy  and "My Love Song For You". but all of them are excellent.  I would have to say this is one of the best compilations of music I have ever heard in my life,
  Trouble was, as I got older I eventually lost the cassette and it wasn't available for purchase in any form...
  Until lately.
  The MP3 versions of all the songs are now available on good 'ol amazon.com so I purchased the LP for only $6.99!
  Are you kidding me???
  You guys need to purchase this LP and you tell me what you think...