Song of the Day: You Are So Beautiful (R.I.P. Joe Cocker)

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Arleigh

A rock legend passed away today. Joe Cocker had one of those very unique voices which most everyone recognized. A blues and soul rock singer who performed with some of the rock legends of the 60’s and 70’s, he would become a mainstream hit with songs such as “Up Where We Belong” and his covers of Beatles songs.

It was in 1975, covering a ballad written and composed by Billy Preston, Bruce Fisher and Dennis Wilson that he truly burst into the mainstream scene. The song was “You Are So Beautiful” and while the album it was a part of never truly took off the single itself reached No. 5 on the Billboards chart of that year.

Cocker’s version was much slower in tempo than the original song and this worked well in concert with his gritty, bluesy voice where each word and lyric felt full of emotion that blues and soul singers have become well-known for.

Joe Cocker might have faded away from the mainstream consciousness after the 80’s but rock and blues aficionados always remembered and admired him right down to his last days.

Time for the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame to heed the words of Billy Joel and induct the man in it’s hallowed halls. He’s more than earned it.

You Are So Beautiful

You are so beautiful to me
You are so beautiful to me
Can’t you see
Your everything I hoped for
Your everything I need
You are so beautiful to me

Such joy and happiness you bring
Such joy and happiness you bring
Like a dream
A guiding light that shines in the night
Heavens gift to me
You are so beautiful to me

Song of the Day: Make It Rain from Sons of Anarchy (by Ed Sheeran)

Posted on December 2, 2014 by Arleigh

Tonight was the penultimate episode of Kurt Sutter’s Sons of Anarchy on FX. It was an episode that truly earned it’s label of being a modern Shakespearean tragedy (a label many shows have been given but rarely live up to). It also unfolded like some of the best Coppola and Scorsese gangland epics with accounts being settled in disturbing, bloody fashion.

SAMCRO was a group that for some reason legion of fans have taken a ride with and despite the man downs the show took with it’s many highs people didn’t get off the ride (or couldn’t). They wanted to see how this outlaw band of brothers and their loved ones will survive (or who will survive) to the end.

We now know that three more names have been struck off the show’s ledger. With one more episode left in the series it’s either going to go out in a blaze of glory or end in a whimper.

To make tonight’s episode even more memorable we got to listen to Ed Sheeran drop his latest song that perfectly encapsulates the events of Sons of Anarchy tonight and all the way back to the beginning.

Make It Rain

When the sins of my father
Weigh down in my soul
And the pain of my mother
Will not let me go

Well I know there can come fire from the sky
To purify pure as the canes
Even though
I know this fire brings me pain
Even so
And just the same

Make it rain
Make it rain down low
Just make it rain
Make it rain

And the seed needs the water
Before it grows out of the ground
But it just keeps on getting hotter
And the hunger more profound

Well I know there can come tears from their eyes
But they may as well be in vain
Even though
I know these tears bring me pain
Even so
And just the same

Make it rain
Make it rain down low
Just make it rain
Make it rain

Make it rain x8

And the seas are full of water
That stop by the shore
Just like the riches of grandeur
That never reach the port

So let the claps fill with thunderous applause
And let thy death be the veins
And fill the sky
With all that they can drop
When it’s time
To make a change

Make it rain
Make it rain down low
Just make it rain
Make it rain

Make it rain x4

Make it rain
Make it rain down low
Just make it rain
Make it rain

Song of the Day: The Last Goodbye from The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (by Billy Boyd)

Posted on December 1, 2014 by Arleigh

It’s been 13 years since the first film in what will ultimately become Peter Jackson’s Middle-Earth Saga and now we’re in the stretch run. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is set to arrive in North America this December 17. The film premiered in London on December 1, 2014.

Kids who first saw The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001 are now young adults. For adults who have returned time and time again to the world Peter Jackson built for over a decade of limitless imagination and hard work of thousands this final film will be the culmination of watching what many in years past have called unfilmable.

So, it’s with both joy and sadness that the book finally closes on Peter Jackson’s Middle-Earth journey and what better way than the final end credits song “The Last Goodbye” written and recorded by Peregrin Took himself, Billy Boyd.

The video itself mixes in scenes from both The Battle of the Five Armies and the previous five films. We also get some behind-the-scenes footage of the cast making their final farewells as filming closes to an end.

Damn people cutting onions.

The Last Goodbye

I saw the light fade from the sky
On the wind I heard a sigh
As the snowflakes cover my fallen brothers
I will say this last goodbye

Night is now falling
So ends this day
The road is now calling
And I must away
Over hill and under tree
Through lands where never light has shone
By silver streams that run down to the sea

Under cloud, beneath the stars
Over snow one winter’s morn
I turn at last to paths that lead home
And though where the road then takes me
I cannot tell
We came all this way
But now comes the day
To bid you farewell
Many places I have been
Many sorrows I have seen
But I don’t regret
Nor will I forget
All who took the road with me

To these memories I will hold
With your blessing I will go
To turn at last to paths that lead home
And though where the road then takes me
I cannot tell
We came all this way
But now comes the day
To bid you farewell

I bid you all a very fond farewell.

27 Days of Old School: #27 “The Sweetest Days” (by Vanessa Williams)

Posted on November 27, 2014 by Arleigh

“So we whisper a dream here in the darkness
Watching the stars til they’re gone
And when even the memories have all faded away
These days go on and on”

We’ve finally reached the end of 27 Days of Old School and I think it appropriate that I choose a heartwarming and life-affirming song from 1994 by the incomparable Vanessa Williams.

While Madonna courted controversy on the other side of the ledger was the classic beauty and soulful talent that was Vanessa Williams. She may not have had the mega-success that Madonna had in the music business, but she still left quite a mark on her own terms.

She’s been on top of the charts as an R&B and pop singer. She really hit her stride with her second full-length album which includes the memorable ballad “Save The Best For Last”. She would follow this ballad with “The Sweetest Days” which is also the name of her third album.

While she hasn’t been making music these past years she has branched out into becoming a successful actress both on the big and small screen and even doing some time on Broadway.

So, for those who feel down and out and who think the world is crashing down around and on them I recommend they sit down, relax and listen to this song. It might just help lift things up even if just a bit.

27 Days of Old School

27 Days of Old School: #26 “I’m Still In Love With You” (by New Edition)

Posted on November 26, 2014 by Arleigh

“‘Cause I know in my heart
That my life ends and starts with you”

It took almost til the end but we finally get some New Edition in here.

Yes, it’s hard to talk about old school music without mentioning the premiere boy band (though pretty much grown ass men by the time of this song) of the 1980’s right up to the start of the 90’s.

Whether it was their first album when they were actually teens to their follow-up when they replaced Bobby Brown with Johnny Gill right up to the time of this song when the band brought Bobby Brown back to make it a six-man group, the group has always been the go-to R&B group. For those younger generation who grew up on One Direction and earlier than that with Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync, this group was our version of that and they were real and spectacular.

“I’m Still In Love With You” was sort of their last major hit which came out in 1995. A year that I’ve arbitrarily picked as the end of the Golden Age of Old School music (hey, it’s my list so there). It’s an R&B pop ballad that’s classic New Edition.

They don’t make groups like this anymore.

27 Days of Old School: #25 “Voodoo Child” (by Stevie Ray Vaughan)

Posted on November 25, 2014 by Arleigh

“Well, I’m standing next to a mountain, chop it down with the edge of my hand”

To close out the night we have Stevie Ray Vaughan at #25 with his excellent cover of the classic Hendrix track, “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)”.

The blues wasn’t a genre of music that I had much experience growing up during the 80’s. It was during a senior retreat that I was introduced to one of the blues rising stars during that era of my life. He was Stevie Ray Vaughan and I only got to know him after he had already passed into legend after he died in a helicopter crash.

Since then I’ve become not just a major listener of blues and blues rock music, but I would say I’ve become a connoisseur.

While I’ve since listened to Jimi Hendrix’s original of the song and consider it the best version, I will always have a special place in my musical library for the one and only SRV.

27 Days of Old School: #24 “Here and Now” (by Luther Vandross)

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Arleigh

“One look in your eyes and there I see
Just what you mean to me”

Those opening lyrics are instantly recognizable to anyone who grew up during the late 80’s. Whether one was in junior high, high school, college or already settled down. It’s a song with not a single cynical bone in its making.

“Here and Now” was the song that introduced the velvet-voiced crooner Luther Vandross to the general public. He was already a favorite singer for those who followed the R&B and soul music scene, but for the rest of the world he was an unknown. After the release of “Here and Now” in 1989 he was not an unknown to the rest of the world.

It’s a song that’s become a staple at proms and formal dances. The song soon became at weddings and continues to this day.

27 Days of Old School: #23 Mama Said Knock You Out (by LL Cool J)

Posted on November 23, 2014 by Arleigh

“Just like Mohammad Ali, they called him Cassius
Watch me bash this “

This song came out in early 1991 and went through like wildfire through pretty much the final half of my senior. One must realize that LL Cool J was a major presence in the rap I listened to growing up during the 1980’s. But as wont kids then and now, we listened to what was big at that time and it was mostly gangsta rap that dominated booming systems in the late 80’s.

LL Cool J was beginning to fade into the background as N.W.A. and Ice Cube and the rest of the West Coast gangsta rap scene was ascending. Yet, it was foolish to count out LL who people should’ve learned by then as a survivor of the rap game and he came out hard and strong the single off of the album of the same name: “Mama Said Knock You Out”.

In anime, there’s a character trope called “gar”. It’s a term reserved for anime characters so manly that they eclipse all males for as far as the horizon. This song was just that. It made LL Cool J reach the level of “gar” and the accompanying video helped in making it so. It was a shot to the new rap youngbloods and old-standing rivals (song was literally taking shots at Kool Moe Dee). The song also shoots down critics who have been calling LL as washed-up and a has-been. He sure told them all in the hardest way possible.

So, coming in at #23 and starting the stretch run to #27 is LL Cool J coming in so “gar” with “Mama Said Knock You Out.”

27 Days of Old School: #22 “Here I Go Again” (by Whitesnake)

Posted on November 22, 2014 by Arleigh

“An’ I’ve made up my mind, I ain’t wasting no more time
but here I go again, here I go again.”

Previous entry to our 27 Days of Old School I mentioned something about how hard rock and metal music videos were mostly the realm of hair metal bands. Videos all about loud, over-the-top costumes and personalities. bands such as Motley Crue and Poison just to name a few. Other bands would mimic the long, over-teased and hairsprayed look which gave hair metal it’s name. Coming in at #22 is a rock band from England that took on the look of your typical hair metal band, but had some deep roots in old school blues rock.

“Here I Go Again” by Whitesnake is a great song of the 80’s and part of it was due to an even more awesome video which included a young Tawny Kitaen, white lingerie and the frontman’s Jaguar XJ. Yes, the car used in the video is David Coverdale’s own car. Kitaen would later marry David which just took the whole thing full circle.

While Whitesnake and Coverdale made sure to take advantage of the hair metal look of the 80’s he definitely channeled Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant more than he did Vince Neil or Bret Michaels. And for that the world was and continues to be grateful.

27 Days of Old School: #21 “One” (by Metallica)

Posted on November 21, 2014 by Arleigh

“Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please God, wake me”

Yeah, my taste in music see-sawed back and forth from one end of the spectrum to the other. Yesterday, I reminisced about one of the best R&B ballads from my time as a teenager in high school during the late 80’s. Today, I focus on one of the songs on metal end which remains (in my opinion) one of the best metal songs ever put out there.

“One” was the final single released from Metallica’s fourth album, …And Justice For All.

The song also had the distinction of being the first ever Metallica song which was accompanied by a music video shot for it. Metallica had avoided making music videos of their songs for years. Their success as a band never needed the assistance that MTV could provide. They saw it as a badge of honor that they’ve never made a music video, but that change in January 1989 when the single for “One” was released and a music video followed soon after.

A music video that combined elements from the 1971 anti-war film Johnny Got His Gun and the band playing inside a warehouse. It was an effective video that more than convinced many skeptics that when done properly a metal music video was possible. This wasn’t a video using garish colors, over-the-top imagery of hair metal music videos. It was a video that was just as heavy and through-provoking as the song it was made for.