HOW MUSIC CHANGED PART 13-1 – THE LEGACY OF LOUIS ARMSTRONG

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Today’s show is somewhat intimidating for us. Setting out to convey the essence of the single most important musician of the 20^th century is no easy task, but I must admit that doing research has been a blast. I have always appreciated the music of Louis Armstrong, but studying his life and the way that it affected his own sensibilities has added depth to my own understanding of the man, and that is exactly what we hope to convey as we wind our way through the various phases of Louis Armstrong’s rather incredible life. It’s a Herculean task, but we look forward to it.

Naturally, we start our coverage with the earliest years of his life, covering the time period before he actually did any recording at all. For that reason, the music for today’s show is not in any chronological sequence. Rather, it is intended to convey some aspect of the information that we cover. For those very same reasons, not every track features Louis Armstrong. Songs include

1) When It’s Sleepy Time Down South

2) Louis Armstrong Monologue

3) Muskrat Ramble

4) Mahogany Hall Stomp

5) Workingman’s Blues (King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band)

6) Make Me a Pallet On Your Floor – Bunk Johnson’s Street Paraders

7) Coal Cart Blues

8) Sister Kate – (Kid Ory)

9) Black Rag – (Original Tuxedo Jazz Band)

10) Frankie and Johnny – (Fate Marable’s Society Syncopators)

Music from October 1989

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October 1989 was as full of high points and low points as much as any other era. The surprise is the degree to which music could rise and/or sink. I find it almost incomprehensible that Jive Bunny & the Mastermixers’ “Swing the Mood” could co-exist on the same planet as Bob Dylan’s “Everything Is Broken,” but in 1989, their was room on the charts for both. Now, I don’t think we need hindsight to tell the great stuff from the crap, because we knew even then which was which. What makes it a lot easier to understand, though, is that the Dylan album remains a perennial favorite, while the average person would ask “Jive Bunny who?” Thank goodness for small favors.

Here’s a list of songs featured in today’s show;

1) The End of the Innocence – Don Henley

2) Keep On Moving – Soul II Soul

3) Me Myself and I – De La Soul

4) Love Shack – The B-52’s

5) Swing the Mood – Jive Bunny & the Mastermixers (a ‘Bad Hit’)

6) Political World – Bob Dylan (“Oh Mercy”)

7) Everything Is Broken – Bob Dylan (“Oh Mercy”)

8) Crime In the City – Neil Young (“Freedom”)

9) Rockin’ in the Free World – Neil Young (“Freedom”)

HOW MUSIC CHANGED PART 137-69 –OUR LAST MOTOWN SHOW - PART 69

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We’ve spent such a long time covering Motown that it’s difficult to not see the label in anthropomorphic terms. Motown has been like a friend who lived an exceptionally active life. In its youth, it provided immense happiness for all who knew it, but things got complicated as the label aged, and we eventually grew apart. It took us 69 one-hour episodes of “How Music Changed” to adequately cover Motown’s complex history, but today we hammer the nails into the proverbial coffin.

By the mid-90’s, Motown hardly bore any resemblance to the label it once was. Rather than dwell on the wheezing wrinkled hag that Motown grew into, I find it much more appropriate to flip through the old album and remember the old girl as she was at her peak. So for our final (final!!) look back at Motown, we play a few highlights (and low-lights) from the last years, and wrap it up with a medley of over 30 Motown classics that define the reason we felt compelled to cover Motown with such love and attention to detail. Songs include:

1) Super Freak – Rick James

2) Let It Whip – The Dazz Band

3) Nightshift – The Commodores

4) Somebody’s Watching Me – Rockwell

5) Who’s Johnny – El Debarge

6) Respect Yourself – Bruce Willis

7) THE MEDLEY!!

8) End of Our Road – Boyz II Men

TWO MEGA-CLASSICS FROM OCTOBER 1969

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It was forty years ago this month, in October 1969, when two of the most important bands in the history or rock and roll released career-defining albums. For the Band, their eponymously titled album was a statement of purpose, laying the groundwork for what their intentions as a group were going to be. For the Beatles, it was a farewell statement, summarizing everything that they had come to mean to us, as both a musical and a sociological phenomenon. Those were heady days back in 1969, and it’s albums like these that made those times feel so significant to anyone who lived then.

We dedicate the first half hour of today’s show to side one of “The Band,” then we finish our program by playing side two of “Abbey Road” in its entirety. Hope you enjoy the show.

HOW MUSIC CHANGED PART 137-68 –MOTOWN'S LATER YEARS, PART 68

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Today is our 68^th episode dedicated to Motown

Records and all of its subsidiary labels. Our story remains chronological,

but we have reached a point in the mid-70s where the label’s relevancy

began to take a significant hit. For that reason, our coverage is more of a

gloss-over for this period, rather than the microscopic analysis we utilized

up until now. Since we are ‘panning back’, so to speak, we can cover the

remainder of the decade in one show.

Next week, we’ll complete our coverage of Motown entirely.

Here’s a list of songs covered in today’s show;

1)Sir Duke – Stevie Wonder

2) Mellow Medley – Easy/Three Times a Lady/Sail On/Still – The Commodores

3) Schlock Medley – With You I’m Born Again – Billy Preston & Syreeta / Endless Love – Diana Ross & Lionel Richie / One Day in Your Life – Michael Jackson

4) Lionel’s Mellow Schlock Melody – Truly/All Night Long/Hello/Say You Say Me – Lionel Richie

5) Cruisin’ – Smokey Robinson

6) Being With You – Smokey Robinson

7) Give It to Me Baby – Rick James

8) Square Biz – Teena Marie

Music from October 1969

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Today’s show finds us returning to the year 1969, as one of the most socially tumultuous decades of the century drew toward an end. As usual, the times were so rich musically that it would be impossible to cover it adequately with one one-hour program, so we dedicate the first half of this show to hit singles, and then cover a few of the wonderful albums that were released in October of 1969. Next week, we’ll take a look at a few additional album tracks. Meanwhile, here are the tracks featured in today’s program;

1) Come Together – The Beatles

2) Something – The Beatles

3) Take a Letter Maria – R.B. Greaves

4) Is That All There Is? – Peggy Lee

5) Suite: Judy Blue Eyes – Crosby, Stills & Nash

6) Something in the Air – Thunderclap Newman

7) Victoria – The Kinks

8) Ballad of Easy Rider – The Byrds

9) Careful with That Axe, Eugene – Pink Floyd

HOW MUSIC CHANGED PART 137-67 –MOTOWN'S LATER YEARS, PART 67

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I don’t mean to be crude, but it would have been almost poetic if this was Part 69 in our Motown series, because today’s show – rather coincidentally, really – collects some of the sexiest material ever released by the label. Partly, it really is no coincidence at all; Motown simply got ‘looser’ with its quality control standards, allowing stuff that previously would never have gotten past their built-in censors. Besides, the times demanded the change. The ‘70s were not called ‘the Me decade’ for nothing, and disco was nothing if not hedonistic.

Today’s show will also be a bit different from the others in this series in that we won’t do nearly as much talking, as we’d hate to disturb the mood…

So, we start off with sexy material and ‘keep it up’, so to speak, for most of our show. Here’s what we feature today, in our 67^th (damn….) episode dedicated to Motown;

1) Touch Me in the Morning – Diana Ross

2) Let’s Get It On – Marvin Gaye

3) Boogie Down – Eddie Kendricks

4) Dancing Machine – The Jacksons

5) Harmour Love – Syreeta

6) Love Machine – The Miracles

7) Quiet Storm – Smokey Robinson

8) Love Hangover – Diana Ross

9) I Want You – Marvin Gaye

10) Don’t Leave Me This Way – Thelma Houston

11) Got to Give It Up – Marvin Gaye

12) Brick House – The Commodores

HOW MUSIC CHANGED PART 137-66 – EVERY SINGLE MOTOWN ‘A’ SIDE, PART 66

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We are finally free of our obligation to play “every single Motown A-side” from their Detroit era, but that doesn’t mean we’re done with Motown. We intend to carry this a bit further, but without the intense scrutiny that applied to the label’s ‘magical’ era. From this point forward, we switch into hyper-drive and cover most of the high points from the next 20 years of Motown’s history. That translates into ‘more hits, less obscurities” for the next few shows, as proved by the following line-up of tracks for today’s show;

1) Floy Joy – The Supremes

2) In and Out of My Life – Martha Reeves & the Vandellas

3) T.L.C. – P.J.

4) Good Morning Heartache – Diana Ross

5) Ben – Michael Jackson

6) Papa Was a Rolling Stone – The Temptations

7) Superstition – Stevie Wonder

8) Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye) - Gladys Knight & the Pips

9) Keep On Truckin’ - Eddie Kendricks

HOW MUSIC CHANGED PART 137-65 – EVERY SINGLE MOTOWN ‘A’ SIDE, PART 65

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Wow, what a ride this has been. When we decided that we cover Motown by playing each and every A-side released by the label, I don’t we understood just how long it would take us. As I recall, I originally estimated that we might need about thirty shows. Here, with our65th show (!!) we have finally completed our task. It has been a long and complex story, but we certainly learned a lot in the process and heard a LOT of music that was previously unfamiliar.

That being said, we are not quite finished with Motown yet. We will spend three more weeks covering the high points of the label’s history from 1972-1992.

Meanwhile, here are tracks from today’s show, our last that is dedicated to playing “Every Single Motown A-Side”

1) Hey Lordy – Bobby Taylor

2) I Want to Go Back There Again – Thelma Houston

3) Hey Big Brother – Rare Earth

4) Way Back Home – Jr. Walker & the All Stars

5) We All End Up in Boxes – The Rustix

6) I Can’t Believe You’re Really Leaving – Virgil Henry

7) You Make Your Own Heaven and Hell Right Here on Earth – The Undisputed Truth

8) Make Me the Woman You Come Home To – Gladys Knight & the Pips

9) Sugar Daddy – The Jackson 5

10) Sing a Simple Song of Freedom – Bobby Darin

11) The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived – Dave Prince

12) What Christmas Means to Me – Stevie Wonder