Duets

It seems to me, and maybe, it's just because of how old I am and the music I heard growing up, but the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s were the heyday of pop music duets.

I remember hearing the song Private Dancer sometime in the 1980s. My Mom said, "That's too bad. Tina Turner was one of my favorite rock and roll singers." I think that, propably,bthis song was in her mind when she said that. 1971 -Proud Mary - Ike and Tina Turner.

I remember hearing this song on KOIT FM back in the 1970s. What I didn't know then is that the two singers, Niel Diamond and Barbara Streisand didn't record it together. In fact their two recordings of the song were made years apart. Back about 20 years ago I met a guy on Facebook who had recently converted to Holy Orthodxy and who had been a radio DJ in, I think, North Carolina. He told me about how they splice together the two recording to make their two recordings into a duet. They probably violated all kinds of copyright laws when they did it, but the duet version was a bigger hit than the two solo versions. Here are Barbara and Niel performing the song together for the first time at the 1980 Grammy Awards.

This song was a favorite of my late brother Ken's wife. Everytime it came on the radio or teevee she would say, "Oh! Kiki Dee!" 1976 - Don't go Breaking My Heart - Elton John and KiKi Dee

I was in the 4th grade when I saw the movie Greeae. At that age (9 or 10) I didn't know what the story was about. (It was only many years later when son #3 was running the lights in his high school production of the play that I finally saw and was appallled by what it was about.) But I knew from this song that if I was ever going to have a woman like Sandi I had better "shape up". You're The One That I Want- 1978 - Olivia Newton John and John Travolta.

There is a maried couple I really want to put on this list of duets but only one of them actually sang. The other was an instrumentalist. The Capatain and Tenille had some hits in the '70s but I don't think he ever sang so I can't count them as a duet. But there is another couple who were married (Until his heroin addiction wrecked that marriage. You know there is a reason why we outlaw that drug.) This song was part of Carly Simons 1974 album Hotcakes. I remember my teacher in kindergarten teaching it to me. I didn't understand it but it was fun to sing. 1974 - Mockingbird - Carly Simon and James Taylor It is one of my favorite songs. I hope you enjoy it. And, Oh My Gosh, do you see the look of love on her face when she looks at him?

I wanted to see the movie because I was 12 years old and "in love" with Brooke Shields but my parents wouldn't let me see it. Now, having read about the film, it seems to me, thaey made the right decision. 1981 Endless Love - Lionel Ritche and Diana Ross

This song was origiinally relesased by Bob Seegar as a solo, only later was it releasd as a duet with Keny Rogers and Shiela Easton, but I din't hear it until 1985 when Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton released it. 1985 - Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers - We've Got Tonightgt

Another Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton song on this list of duets is, really, a Beegees song. (in the late 70s and early 80s I was huge Beegees fan.) This song was written by the Beegees but not recorded by them. 1983 - Islands in the Stream

in 1981 my Dad was chosen to oversee the churches of his denomination in Florida. When they first moved there I stayed in California with my sister and brother-in-law. One day I was listening to the radio and heard a song by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warrens. I loved it from the moment I heard it. All these years later I still haven't seen the movie for which it was written but in the mid-1990s I met Cocker's protoge Phil Driscoll in at a night club in San Farancisco. That is wheen I learned, if I remember correctly, that many years ago they owned, or maybe they only perfornmed, at a burlesque therater in Canada. It is hard to remember these days. Anyway - 1982 Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warrens - Up Where We Belong

I didn't even know about the exitence of Bary White until the mid 1990s but, OH HY GOSH, what an amazing phenomonon he was. Here he is singing All Around the World with Lisa Stansfield, the authhoress of the song, 1990

TELOS of this song. Though this song had been recorded by many singers between 1980 and 1989, the fullness of this song was only revealed by Neville and Rondstadt in in 1989.

It was in the late 1980s and I was a PFC in the U.S. Army's 101sst Airborne Division when a srgeant (his name was Morrison) came in to the battlion HQ one early Monday morning and said, "PFC Karnes, you need to see Dirty Dancing. Take your wife to see it with you. That is an order." This is th on;y song I remember from that movie. 1989 Jenifer Warraens and Bill Meddly - I had the time of my life.

Finally, Beloved, I give you a duet by Al Green and Annie Lennoox. Niether claims to be ORTHODOX buth bothhave opinions of Jesus. Lennox seems to be more complicated than Green. But we should pray for the salvation of both of them. Put a Little Loe in Your Heart.

I've Got You Under My Skin x 4 (Saturday Soundtrack)

There are a lot of versions of this song. The Four Seasons had a #1 hit with it, Etta James and Carly Simon recorded it. And I've always loved this song.

Sadly, I can't find a video of Martin Short on the the David Letterman show in the early 1990s when during the interview segmaent he just took over the show with a crazy over the top parody of a 60s lounge singer. In a way it was a tribute to Frank Sinatra. It was brilliant. Nevertheless, here are the 3 I could find. .

This first one is, probably, the one with which most people are familiar. It's the first version I remember hearing. It's Frank Sinatra ( remember where I was when I heard the news that he had died.) singing Nelson Riddle's big band arragment. This concert wass in 1974 but as late as 1990 I heard Sinatra introduce the song by saying, "Here's a new arrangement by Nelson Riddle." Sometimes, while performing live Sinatra would change the words but from what I can tell, he was always spot on with the timing and phrasing. He never diviated from this arrangement. Oh, the trombone solo in this performance was played by Urbie Green. But I don't think he ever recorded with SInatra in the studio.



Around 1998 I was in Barnes And Noble bookstore sampling CD's (Remember those? I wish we could still buy them. I have no idea how to buy new music now. I guess, Apple wants me to do something with iTunes but I have no desire to learn new software.) and I came across a CD called "Love Scenes" by Diana Krall. WOW! At the time, I was living in a rehearsal room at at the Petite Trianon in San Jose (It has since been converted into a church where my brother-in-law is one of the pastors.) and would fall asleep to the CD every night. So when her 1999 "When I look In Your Eyes" came out I had to buy it, too. That CD had her recording of I've Got You Under My Skin. It totally changed the way I thought of the song. The guitar reminds me of a soft bossa nova and, as always, you can almost feel the piano keys on your finger tips. I understand she is married to Elvis Costello. I'm looking forward to getting to hear their kids sing when they grow up.



This final version of the song is by Storm Large, a singer I've seen around performing on her own and with various bands (I first heard her singing with Pink Martini) I thought she was a good singer of torch songs but not a jaw dropping amazing performer. But then I saw her audition for America's Got Talent. She wasn't just singing. She deserves acting credit too. Her reinterpretation of this song is a complete 180 from Krall's. It is astounding.

It must be love: Saturday Soundtrack.

In the mid1980s my Dad's denomination was choosing a new Superintendent for the island and they sent my Dad to chair the part of the convention when the Superintendent was to be elected.  He wound up preaching three nights and two mornings, leading all the other pastors assembled for the meeting in a seminar on 2nd Timothy, and serving as parliamentarian for the convention, too.  The meetings went from 8 a.m. until late into the night for 6 days.

The whole time we were in Jamaica this song was on the radio.  I know now it was a song written and recorded by Don Williams but this is the first version of it I ever heard.




Here is Don Williams performing his song.  I like it better than the version I heard in Jamaica.

What Arius Was Right About

When the 318 fathers at the Council of Nicea asked the heretic Arius to explain himself he didn't speak but he sang his satanic doctrine.  The holy fathers should not have been surprised by that, for song is it the medium by which the life destroying teaching spread throughout the Empire.  But it wasn't only error that travelled by song.  Generations of Christians have learned the Truth not from hearing teachers or preachers but from singing songs.

My father was acclaimed as one of the greatest preachers of his denomination but I only remember a handful of his sermons.  What I remember from my youth are the songs.  To this day I remember them all: It Is Well With My Soul taught me to not despair for God reigns over the tumult of this life.  Holy Holy Holy taught me to only worship the Trinity and why.  Joy Unspeakable affirmed to me that the Christian life is the best life.  I'll Fly Away taught me that even though this life is full of joy it is mixed with suffering and there is something better waiting for us.  How Great Though Art told me what is the only right response to God's condescension.   A Mighty Fortress Is Our God proclaimed God's invincibility and the devil's defeat.  In these songs I and millions and millions of other Christians learned ecclesiology, soteriology, Christology, and eschatology.  All of the history of salvation, the most important things a man must know were taught to me by these songs.  And they called me to Holy Orthodoxy, the fullness of the Christian faith.

But in the last 30 years or so, Protestants have to a large degree abandoned these doctrine laden songs.  They have begun singing songs which though true, contain very little dogma.  I do not understand it.  Why are Protestants, who used to care so much about correct theology becoming like this? (Yes, this is true.  The last Protestant church I went to was like this.) Why are they singing songs that merely repeat one line such as this pseudo Christian narcism?!?!   You want to sing about "surrender"?  Then sing about "surrender" in words that contain TRUTH AND LOTS OF IT.  Come on Protestants!  You are better than that!  Sing dogma.  Sing theology.  Sing Bible.  If you don't your children will go to Hell.

When I was a little boy: Saturday soundtrack

When I was a little boy, of 6 or 7,  I would get my Mom's Firestone Christmas record out of the cabinet and play this song over and over.  This isn't the exact recording that was on that old promotional record, but it's the closest I can find.

Saturday Sound Track: Johnny Cash, Live@ S.Quentin - Folsom Prison Blues

I wonder, do other countries produce so many songs about prison as America does?  And if they do, are the songs as good as this one?

Blessed Assurance

I just read a story about press coverage of a Broadway revival of A Trip to Bountiful.

It made me happy to read these words again.  And if you grew up like I did that means you heard them, too.

Blessèd assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

Refrain: This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

Perfect submission, all is at rest
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

Here are two versions I love!

Alan Jackson is here is here.

Kinetra Dixon and Southside are here.

It's big in Korea, too!

Bonus Comentary:  Do you know what black choirs have that, in my experience, all other choirs don't have?  Absolute control at all times.  No matter how emotional or even boring some of the music is, the choir does what it is supposed to do.

Saturday soundtrack (shhhhh. It's Thursday): Gaye and Wilson

In 1983 Lionel Richie left The Commodores, and anyone interested in the band thought that without that very talented singer fronting them they were all over.  But in 1984, Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson died and their deaths inspired the Commodores to write and record this 1985 Grammy-winning song. 

When I first heard this song as a teenager living in Tampa (I used to listen to WRBQ FM) I didn't care for it much.  But over the years I've become more familiar with the music of the men it memorializes,

Marvin Gaye (1939-1984)

and Jackie Wilson (1934-1984)

When I was in the Army, at my class’s graduation party at the 3283^rd USARF School I convinced a group of other soldiers to sing with me Jackie Wilson's "Higher and Higher" to a bunch of female soldiers.  (One of them, a medic with the most beautiful blond hair, took care of me after I passed out in a hallway from drinking 190 proof Everclear.  I wish I could remember her name, but all I remember is her holding an icepack on my head and her hair.) Later, I would write my first college paper about Marvin Gaye's song "I Heard It Through The Grapevine".  I remember I got an A on that paper but I don’t remember what I said in it.  I wish I still had it.

I haven't heard it, but I've been told that the Commodores have added a third verse to Nightshift; in memory of Michael Jackson.

In the Ghetto: Saturday Soundtrack

I know exactly where I was on August 16, 1977.  I was in a car on my way from Visalia to Mountain View. I was on Highway 152 leading up the east side of the the Diablo Mountains, at the San Luis Reservoir when the announcer came on the air and said that Elvis Presley was dead.  My mother and my aunt Carolyn were in the car.  I was sitting on the front seat between them.  This is the first song that was played after the announcemnt.  I don't remember if they cried, but I did.



Elvis holds the record for most songs charting on the Billboard top 40 (104 sogns) and the Bilboard Top 100 (151 songs). To this day, The King of Rock and Roll makes hits.  Several of his pothumously released recording went to the top of the charts, and rereleases and remixes have have continued to reach the top ten all over the world as recently 2004.  In 2010 Cirque du Soleil released the music from their show, Viva Elvis, as an album.

Even though Elvis was a Rock and Roll and Country music star, arguably the brightest of them all, his three Grammy Awards were won in the Gospel category.  I hope I meet him someday.

Saturday Sandtrack: Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger was born in 1919, and everyone knows his name and what he is done. But even if they don't, Wikipaedia does.  If you like Peter Paul and Mary, The Kinston Trio, or thought the Lion King had the best movie soundtrack ever, you like them, in part, because of Pete Seeger.  Pete Seeger is even the force behind Bruce Sprinsteen finally making music worth listening to.    


As best as I can remember, the first Pete Seeger song I ever heard was "If I Had A Hammer", though at the time I thought it was a Peter, Paul, and Mary song.  And this brings me to something that makes me very sad, since he is such an important part of America, but Pete Seeger was and remains a Communist.   


I like to think he is merely deluded and not truly malevolent, but I don't know.   It is hard for me to think anyone can still be a Communist after the events of the 20th Century, but he is.  He joined the communist Youth League in 1936 and the Communist Party in 1942. In 1945 Seeger became head of People's Songs, Inc.  A report by a fact finding committee of the California Senate said of People's Songs that was 

"a vital Communist front … one which has spawned a horde of lesser fronts in the fields of music, stage entertainment, choral singing, folk dancing, recording, radio transcriptions and similar fields. It especially is important to Communist proselytizing and propaganda work because of its emphasis on appeal to youth, and because of its organization and technique to provide entertainment for organizations and groups as a smooth opening wedge for Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist propaganda."

In 2000 he affirmed that he is still a Communist, saying the Soviet union wasn't real Communism.  In 2008 he performed the anti-property verse of This Land is Your Land at the "We Are One" pre-innaugural concert for President Obama.  I pray for his salvation.
  
This is my favorite Pete Seeger song.  My first experience of the song was in 1982 when the Tokens version of it came over the Florida airwaves from WRBQ to my bedroom.  This mash-up version of the song, containing references to at least three other songs, is by an acapela show choir called Straight No Chaser. 

Hedge and Donna: Saturday Soundtrack

Update 5/24/2012:  I have been in correspondence with Donna Carson.  She left the music industry in 1977 and became an emplyoyee of the California Superior Court in Los Angeles County, from which she retired as Supervior of Advocates for Abused and Neglected Children in 2010.  She did not share with me any information about Hedge Carson.

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Originally Published on 3/19/2011

Hedge Carson and Donna Capers released several LPs from 1968 to 1973 (most of them on Capitol Records) and were popular touring artists.   Most interesting to me is hearing the melesmatic quality of Donna's voice.  It is the same powerful tremor heard in Annie Herring's earlier music, the stuff she recorded in the mid 70s with 2nd Chapter of Acts.  I wonder if Annie Herring got it from listening to Hedge and Donna. A big mystery is what ever happened to them.  After their last album release in 1973 (I think "Guava Jelly" was the only good song on that record.) they disappeared from the public eye.

My favorite Hedge and Donna song was released this this song the year I was born (Album: All The Friendly Colours. Publisher: Capitol Records).  I have no idea what it is about, but it seems like a congeries of two songs.  Here it is:

Saturday Soundtrack

Like much of the music that forms the soundtrack of my life, I first heard this song because of my brother Mark.  Interestingy, I didn't even know it formed part of my soundtrack until earlier tonight when I heard some of the cast of Garison Keilor's show singing it, and sang along with them.  I was surprised that I knew all the words.  This version of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" is really cool because it isn't only Al Green, but lots of other amazing musicians, such as Tito Puente, Carlos Santana, and Toni Childs all working together under the direction of Paul Shaffer (he is a musical genius.) during Letterman's 7th anniversary show.    

Al Green, as you probably know, became a Christian minister and left show business.  He has since returned to show business.  Toni Childs still has an intersting voice and is still recording and performing.  Carlos Santana is still performing and doing works of philanthropy.  Melissia Etheridge is still a musician, but, sadly, she has allowed her homosexual activities to eclipse her music-making.  Tito Puente the greatest percussionist ever to come out of Puerto Rico died of old age in 2000.  He was a decorated veteran of WWII (he served on a U.S. Navy warship) and a lifelong performer.  In 1997 he was awarded the National Medal for the Arts, the United States' highest award in the name of the people (That is what distiguishes it from the Kennedy Center Honors, which is more of an honor in the name of the cutural eites.) In 2003 he was posthumously awarded a Grammy for lifetime achievement. Paul Shaffer (he is a musical genius) still works as David Letterman's music director, but also is the musical director for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, and has released to albums of recorded work.

Saturday Soundtrack: My Ten Least Favorite Christmas Pop Songs and my Favorite Christmas Pop Song

10.  Jingle Bell Rock - Really?  This is the best thing you can think of doing on Christmas?
9.  My Grown Up Christmas List - Wow! What a self-righteous trip this song's writer must have been on.
8.  It's a Marshmallow World - except for the live version with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin)
7. Christmas by the Bay - Well, yes, it is the best City in the world, but really, can't we think about someone other than ourselves on Christmas?
6. Santa Clause is Coming to Town  - What is a "rooty-toot-toot"?
5. Feliz Navidad - The is my son Basil's favorite Christmas song, and I dig the the whole South of the Border thing, but I think it's too repetitive.
4. Wonderful Christmas Time - Paul McCartney's worst song ever.  Someone, please, unplug that synthesizer.
3. My Favorite Things -  The Sound of Music is one of my all time fave plays, but this song isn't about Christmas.
2. Happy Christmas (War is Over) - What a dismal song.  It's like the opposite of Paul McCartney's Christmas song, but not in a good way.
1. Last Christmas - Isn't a song about the sex life of that guy from Wham! what you wan't to sing about on Christmas?

This is my fave Christmas pop song.  It contains the whole Gospel plus you can dance to it!

Saturday Soundtrack: 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

At the age of 7 I didn't really understand what this song was about, or how silly the advice given in the song was.  I guess I was a teenager before I understood what the song was about.  I just liked the chorus

Just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan 
You don't need to be coy, Roy
O, you hop on the bus, Gus 
Don't need to discuss mucth
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free

In a way, it's a very 1970s song, isn't it?  Very selfish.  Admittedly, I do not know Paul Simon, but I always pick up this very sefish vibe from his songs.

Anyway, I remember, like with so many other songs, first hearing it while riding in my brother Mark's car.

The album, Still Crazy After All These Years, was the fourth released by Simon after his break up with Art Garfunkle, and produced three top 40 hits.  (Interestingly, one of those hit songs, though not the subject of this blog post was written and recorded with Garfunkle.)  And the album was noted then and now for certain unusual and innovative musical techniques.  On this song it is Steve Gadd's drumming.

Cecelia: A Saturday Soundtrack Post

Some people think this song is about a songwriter's relationship with St. Ceclia, a patron saint of musicians.  I have no idea if that is true, or not, but I've always liked the song.  In the spring of 1986 I and a few other of Drill Sergeant McCain's privates in 1st platoon, B-4-5 at Ft. Dix New Jersey began singing it, and before we knew it, the whole platoon was marching around us in circle.  Yes, we had turned a Simon and Garfunkel song into an Army marching cadence.

It's not Saturday but, what the heck, here's part of the Soundtrack.

Not too long ago I was in the bathroom of a certain establishment on Hwy 9.  The walls and ceilng of the the bathroom were covered with album covers from the late '60s and early '70s, which was a very amazing time in the music business.  It seemed like everyone knew everyone else.  For example, Delaney and Bonnie, who  were connected to Eric Clapton (Clapton said Delaney taught him how to sing.), Rita Coolidge, George Harrison, Joe Cocker, and many others worked as backup musicians for Delaney and Bonnie, and their concerts were known as some of the best parties in the world.

For a band that was so deeply enmeshed in the music scene of the time, that was so influential in the later careers of so many, Clapton and Harrison especially, you'd think more people would know about them, that their songs would get more airplay on the "oldies" stations.  Well, you know how there are bands that can only make records but flop when they perform live?  Delaney and Bonnie had the opposite problem.  Jerry Wexler said the studio album they recorded for him "didn't quite catch the fire of their live performances".   None of their albums did.

Delaney and Bonnie divorced in 1973.  Their daughter Bekka Bramlett joined Fleetwood Mac in the 1990s.

This song, Never Ending Song of Love, has been recorded by everyone.  And almost everyone's recording of it is better than Delaney and Bonnie's original.   It is part of their 1971 album Motel Shot, which was recorded "live" in the studio with only acoustic instruments.  It was an attempt to catch the fire of their live performances.   The album cover was stapled above and to the left of the wash basin in the bathroom.

Saturday Soundtrack: Freaked out by an "older woman"

More than 30 years ago, when I was 9 or 10 years old, there was a girl a couple of years older than me who sang this this to me.  She just walked up to me in front of God, the 4th grade, and everybody, and sang this song, which totally embarrassed me and overwhelmed me.  I mean, what little 4th grade boy is ready to hear words like this from a 6th grade girl?   I could have died!  Especially since I had the world's biggest crush on her and could barely stand to be in her presence.  Later, I figured out that she must have known about my crush on her, and was just teasing me.

Since then I've come to like the song.  Actually, I don't think I ever didn't like the song.  It's by a Floridian named Roland Kent Lavoie, better known as Lobo, and was his biggest hit (#2 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart) in 1972.  I don't think of the song very often, but, for whatever reason, I found my self humming the tune while walking from the train station to my office yesterday.

Saturday Soundtrack: Kiki Dee

Though I like some of the songs he has written, I've never been a big Elton John fan.  But I've been a Kiki Dee fan ever since I heard her sing with John.  In this video David Cassidy says the record came out in 1976 but other sources say 1974.  I don't know.  I just know I've always loved this song, which was recently brought into contact with a whole new audience via the teevee show Glee:

 

But as excellent as that song is, she recorded others.  I've Got the Music in Me, my all time fave KiKi Dee song, was recorded by The Kiki Dee Band in 1974. It was written by the keyboard player.

Down by the Riverside

About 12 or 13 years ago I saw three homeless guys at the Montgomery BART station singing this song.  They didn't have a tenor so I stepped up and sang those high notes.  Here is a version I just recently heard.  It becomes a rap and expands on the theme, ending with an excellent statement of the Theology of Baptism.  And this guy can rap almost as fast as the Bob Parent, the choir director at Holy Trinity Cathedral can chant the Trisagion Prayers.

Saturday Soundtrack: Who is Daddy Claxton?

When I was a kid in Florida I used to play this song on my mom's old martin guitar. The Carter Family used to blast this song into the U.S. from across the Mexican border back before the big radio networks would play country music. I've heard that early version of the song, and it seems just a little bit too tame for a song about a steam locomotive burning up the tracks on a cross-country drive to deilver the body of Daddy Claxton to Dixie. I think this version reveals the true nature of that thrain: Wild, too fast, almost ready to jump the tracks. And who was Daddy Claxton? Maybe Roy Acuff knows, since he was the first to ad thatverse to the song, the earlist recordings of the song by the Carter Family do not know Daddy Claxton. Nevertheless, "may his name forever stand."