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Aww…some Monday’s Music Moves Me
Aww Mondays
Cocker Quartet
Monday’s Music Moves Me
The musical theme this week is Musicians born in March. A quick search reveals that there are plenty to choose from, regardless of your musical preferences. I am going to go into the “Wayback Machine” and pull out a couple of oldies. I was barely a teenager when some of these artists were popular which means several of you probably were not born yet. First on the list is Lloyd Price.
Lloyd Price was one of the early rock ‘n roll artists that brought a R&B influence into pop music. Several artists covered this song later but my first recollection of “Stagger Lee” was this 1958 recording. Price was born Mrach 9, 1933. Lloyd Price had several R&B hits make it on to the pop charts and he is a member of the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame.
Shifting gears and genres, brings me to the incomparable James Taylor. The folk rock era of the late early ’70’s was lead by James Taylor, Carol King, and Gordon Lightfoot among others. Sweet Baby James is one of the best folk rock albums of all time. James Taylor was born March 12, 1948. Taylor’s first hit was “Fire and Rain”, followed by “You’ve Got a Friend”. Fire and Rain is a song about his early battle with depression, drug addiction and the suicide of his friend. James Taylor’s career has spanned five decades and he is still performing limited engagements.
Slipping back into R&B brings me to Mr. Wilson Pickett. Wilson was born March 18, 1941. The high water mark of his career was from 1965-74 and his biggest hit was none other than Mustang Sally…ride Sally ride. I have a personal affection for this song because I owned a ’68 Mustang and it remains one of my favorite cars to this day.
Closing out the March birthday celebs is Ms. Carrie Underwood. Everybody knows that Carrie burst onto the music scene as a contestant on American Idol. I remember watching her audition and thinking, this girl can win it all…which is exactly what she did. One of the reasons I was pulling for Carrie to win AI is that we are both from Oklahoma. To date she is still the biggest star to come from American Idol and now she is an established country music superstar. The song I’ve picked is “Mama’s Song”. It speaks to how fast our children grow up and how soon they leave the nest. The same is true for the grand kids. It seems like only yesterday that we were attending our oldest grand daughter’s U8 soccer matches. This past December she got married and now has her own life and career. Next week she celebrates her 23rd birthday. Hold them close cherish every moment with your little ones. They will be adults long before you are ready to let them go. Have a blessed week.
Wordless Wednesday
Spring Soccer
So far this season the team has scored 9 goals in three matches and the grand daughter has scored 7 of them! YES…I am a proud grandpa.
First goal of the day.
Prepared to launch another goal.
Second match of the day and once again the ball slips past the goal keeper as the lady in black scores again.
The defender becomes merely a spectator to the last goal of the evening.
Aww…Monday’s Music Moves Me
Nap Time
Monday’s Music Moves Me
The theme this week is your choice, so I am going to take this opportunity to share music that is close to my heart and soul, gospel/inspirational music. The very purpose of gospel music is to honor the God of all creation and rejoice that heaven is the eternal destination of believers.
The Bible gives us the history of mankind. Genesis tells us where we came from and Revelation tells us where we are going. The truth is man has a soul and that soul will spend eternity somewhere. All of us are going to step into eternity some day and the only question is, “Are we prepared to step into the everlasting and where will we spend eternity.” Scripture tells us that those who refuse to believe that Christ is the only Son of God and will not accept Him as Savior will spend eternity in a place called hell. Those who acknowledge that Christ is the Savior, repent of their sinful behavior, and seek His forgiveness will depart this life and step into eternity to a place specially prepared for them by Christ Himself. In the third verse of the fourteenth chapter of the book of John, Christ tells the disciples, “…I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” A few verses later Christ declares, “I am the way, the truth and the life, and no man comes to the Father except through Me.” So by the mouth of the Savior Himself, there is only one way to heaven, and that is the truth. The unique thing about the truth is that it does not require us to believe something in order for it to be true. The truth is the truth, whether we believe it or not. God has provided us with the gift of eternal life and salvation through Jesus Christ and the choice is ours to accept that gift and spend eternity with the Creator and the promise that we will never shed another tear! Okay, I’m through preachin’ now. I’m going to let the most uplifting music in the world take it from here. Have a blessed week.
Wordless Wednesday
SLAM…Dunk!
Aww…some Monday’s Music Moves Me
Aww…Mondays
Lucy, our American Cocker Spaniel and house princess, makes us say “Aww” on a regular basis. She is smart, funny, energetic, and always wants to know where her two humans are located. She prefers that we are in the same room so she can keep an eye on both of us with minimum effort. From her favorite chair in the den, she can keep track of activities in the front of the house too. Yes, Lucy is an awesome 2 year old cocker spaniel.
Monday’s Music Moves Me
It has come to my attention that I have completely blown this week’s theme. I’m not even sure where I got the following theme, but I can assure you I didn’t make it up. Oh well, it’s posted and comments are coming in, so it’s too late to retract the content now. I’m just going to chalk this one up to a “senior moment.”
I honestly thought that the musical theme this week is body parts. Well, that could go a lot of different directions but the first thing that crossed my mind was the mind. There is Georgia on My Mind and Always on My Mind that come from classic country music and this song, Do I Ever Cross Your Mind. One of the first “vinyls” that I ever purchased was the classic Modern Sounds in Country Western Music by Ray Charles and I was a Ray Charles fan from that moment on. One of his last releases was a duets effort titled Genius Loves Company and one of my favorite tracks is Ray and Bonnie Raitt singing “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind.
I have several favorite female vocalists. Linda Ronstadt, Trish Yearwood, Carol King, Karen Carpenter, Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, and the ladies of Heart are among my personal favorites. One artist that seems to get overlooked in the list of favorites is Anne Murray. While this is a signature Willie Nelson song, Anne had a hit with “Always on My Mind”.
Too much stress on the mind can cause headaches and heartaches and it appears that some people are a walking around looking to be an intentional heartache in someone else’s life. One of my favorite country artists of the 90’s was Dwight Yoakam. Dwight and Buck Owens championed the Bakersfield Sound in country music which brought a little hillbilly and a little rock and roll into mainstream country. While this may not have been a huge hit for Dwight, I love this video.
Okay, okay, let’s close this out with another Ray Charles classic, from his appearance on Midnight Special in 1976 “Georgia on My Mind.” Have a blessed week.
Wordless Wednesday -B&W
Aww…Monday’s Music Moves Me
Aww…Monday’s
I See My Favorite Treat!
Monday’s Music Moves Me
A couple of weeks ago I featured one of my hometown’s favorite sons, Leon Russell. While I love a lot of rock music, I guess my tastes have always leaned a little toward the blues side of the genre. I like the keyboard and guitar work usually found in blues music and there is no substitute for a little gravel in the voice. So today I am featuring another voice from my late sixties favorites. Today we will hear from Mr. Joe Cocker. One thing I have noticed about the music from the late sixties is that major artists seemed to be willing to collaborate on each other’s albums. If you read the credits on Joe Cocker albums you will find musicians like Leon Russell, Eric Clapton, Dickie Betts, Billy Preston, Jimmy Page, Rita Coolidge and Paul McCartney playing back-up roles. I suspect that doesn’t happen as often any more because of contract obligations. Joe started his musical career singing covers of Ray Charles and other blues artists. Several of his hits were cover songs. Paul McCartney said that Joe turned “With a Little Help From My Friends” in to a blues anthem and Paul was forever grateful. Joe hit the U.S. music scene with his appearance at Woodstock in 1969. Some of you younger readers may have to look that up. So, let’s get this party started “With a Little Help From My Friends”.
One thing you will notice that is a carry over from the blues influence is that the songs have a tendency to be longer than the typical top 40 radio hits. This next video comes from late in Joe’s career. You can tell that Cocker has returned to his blues roots and this is the sound that most Joe Cocker fans came to hear.
Another classic blues song that I have heard sung by Delbert McClinton and others gets the Cocker makeover and the results are showstopping.
One of my favorite Joe Cocker albums is “Organic” and one of my favorite songs from that release is “Into the Mystic”.
The last entry in this post is a song that speaks to a desire that most of us have. All of us would like to be understood and when we speak we may be thinking, “Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”. Have a blessed week.
Encore performance. No overview of Joe Cocker would be complete without “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window.” As Elvis would say, “Thank you, thank you very much.”
Wordless Wednesday
Cold Morning – Busy Feeder
Aww…some Monday’s Music Moves Me
Aww Mondays
Two heads are better than one!
Monday’s Music Moves Me
The theme this week includes the words smoke, alarm, battery, and charge. For me the first tunes that popped into my head were “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” and “Smoke on the Water”. While the word battery is neither in the title nor the lyrics, my initial reaction to the prompt was “Start Me Up”. My mind drew another blank when trying to think of a song that featured the word charge. So I resorted to word association. Charge implied positive/negative which implies electric and that can only mean one thing… Electric Light Orchestra, right? Alarm left me in a similar place…so there was a group called Strawberry Alarm Clock back in the 60’s. I guess that will have to be close enough. Here we go.
Let’s start with alarm. Strawberry Alarm Clock was a group straight out of the 60’s hippie movement, except they didn’t look like real hippies and their music was a little too clean and contrived to be true to the true Haight-Ashberry crowd. You younger readers may have to look up hippie movement or “flower children” to get a better idea of what I am talking about. For lack of a better description this group might be classified as “Bubble Gum Hippie”.
Okay, let’s get back to smoke and some more serious music. Deep Purple projected an image much closer to the hippie/Woodstock crowd. Their music was also on the edge of what was described and heavy metal.
A group that has been active, popular and legendary in rock music for over 50 years is The Rolling Stones. They were among the first groups to put a hard edge to their songs. The Beatles were still in their boy band phase when The Stones came on the music scene. They started life as a cover band playing blues songs from other artists like Chuck Berry so their early music always had a little more bite to it than the Fab Four.
ELO’s biggest hit might be “Don’t Bring Me Down”, but while going through some of their catalog I found “Rock and Roll is King” and I really like it, so you get both today. Have a blessed week.
Driller's Place 