‘Sylvia, how you call your lover boy?’ ‘Lover boy!’
Mickey & Sylvia, Everything But the Girl, 3 bejillion viewers of ‘Dirty Dancing’, even you and I once upon a time– we have all been testifying and sleazing for 60 years on now–love is very strange indeed .
Rock and Roll
062: Martha and The Vandellas, ‘Heat Wave’
Ok, hotshot–what group of musicians played on more number one hits than the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, Elvis, and the Beatles combined?
Continue reading...SoTW 28: Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, ‘The Tracks of My Tears’
Go on, take a teenage trip. Listen to this song like a 17-year old burger-flipping cretin overdosing on hormones, cruising down the boulevard, looking for the heart of Saturday night, bouncing in the driver’s seat, pounding the steering wheel in time, shouting out “Take a goo-ood look at my face!” Nobody will know, and you’ll feel better than you have in a long time.
Continue reading...002: Buddy Holly, ‘Learning the Game’
Written and sung at 22 and a half, a month before he died. At that age, Lennon was recording ‘Love Me Do’ and Dylan had just finished his first album of original material.
Continue reading...191: The Fleetwoods, ‘Mr Blue’
Nobody talks about The Fleetwoods anymore. In my eyes, that’s a tragedy, because so often when I’m feeling like Mr Blue their songs come softly to me. They were the first group to have two records top the Billboard Hot 100 in a single year! No one can take that away from them. I hope no one would want to.
Continue reading...023: Tommy Edwards, ‘It’s All In the Game’
The only #1 hit written by a sitting Vice President.
And it wasn’t Mike Pence or Spiro Agnew.
048 Sam Cooke ‘Bring It On Home To Me’,
In which Jeff is reminded that Sam Cooke takes a back seat to no one, not even to Smokey Robinson; and that the sweetest fruits are often those closest to the roots.
Continue reading...265: Dion DiMucci, ‘Abraham, Martin and John’
Dion, from doo Wop to Dylanizer.
More swagger than Jagger.