(Boom!Boom!Boom!) Are you rea-dy???
The evolution of the first 4 seconds of Laura’s masterpiece.
Rock and Roll
103: Little Stevie Wonder, ‘Fingertips’
Little Stevie Wonder recorded ‘Fingertips’ at the age of 12 – a fledgling perhaps, but certainly not innocent.
There’s a fervor brewing here that may have begun on the altar in the church choir, but reached its pitch afterwards up in the balcony with some willing young soprano.
176: Chuck Berry, ‘Too Much Monkey Business’ (Bob Dylan, ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’)
Who da daddy of rap?
Who da grandaddy?
070: Buddy Holly, ‘That’ll Be the Day’
Buddy Holly’s great song and the night The Grateful Dead backed me singing it. Yeah, for real.
Continue reading...042: Leiber & Stoller, ‘Yakety Yak’ (The Coasters)
“Just tell your hoodlum friends outside you ain’t got time to take a ride.”
The great L&S and their incredible shaggy hound dog story.
054: Mickey & Sylvia, ‘Love is Strange’
‘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 .
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...