Author: Mod of the Day

Nate Wood | Become

“Grammy nominated Nate Wood is a drummer/multi-instrumentalist and mastering engineer based in New York City,” (NateWoodMusic.net). “Nate is a founding member of the Grammy nominated quintet Kneebody, Kneebody released their self-titled debut album in 2005 on trumpeter Dave Douglas’s label Greenleaf Music. In 2007, Kneebody released Low Electrical Worker on Colortone Media. They completed an album of arrangements of Charles Ives compositions with singer Theo Bleckmann and released the recording 12 Songs of Charles Ives, which was nominated “Best Classical Crossover Album” Grammy Award (2009).

Nate has also performed or recorded with many notable artists including … Dave Grohl, Brian May and Roger Taylor (Queen), Chris Squire (Yes), Elliot Easton (The Cars), Chaka Khan, Wayne Krantz, Billy Childs, Tigran Hamasyan, Donny McCaslin, Sting, and many others. Nate was featured in Modern Drummer in March of 2014 and placed in the 2015 Modern Drummer reader’s poll among the top 5 drummers in the fusion category.” He’s since released four of his own albums “and masters records for artists from around the world.”

“Become,” from Wood’s debut solo album Reliving (2003), moves like clockwork through its first two groove-driven verses and choruses. Then 2:10 brings a soft-spoken bridge which pivots down a whole step to Ab major (2:32) as the groove returns and a guitar solo begins. At 2:45, there’s another shift to B major, but at 2:57, we drop back into the slot of the original key as the solo continues to build in advance of the vocal’s return. Wordless vocals and a huge syncopated kick on the fifth degree of the scale bring the tune to its conclusion.

Junior Senior | Take My Time

“Junior Senior were a Danish pop duo. The duo consisted of Jesper ‘Junior’ Mortensen and Jeppe ‘Senior’ Laursen,” (Discogs). “They were well known for their 2002 single ‘Move Your Feet,’ which gained worldwide success in 2003, most notably in the United Kingdom.” The track barely made a scratch in the US, peaking at #45 on the US Dance chart — the band’s most prominent release in the States. But the tune reached #4 in Denmark, #20 in Australia, #11 in France, and #3 in the UK.

The duo’s 2005 release “Take My Time,” from the album Hey Hey My My Yo Yo, sounds like an update on the sound of the US-based band B-52s because … it is: B-52s vocalists Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson are both featured on the track.

Sounding for all the world like a late ’80s/early ’90s B-52s hit with a bit less frenetic energy, a lot less intra-band banter, and a broader harmonic vocabulary, “Take My Time” is a pop/funk fête delivered by a band that brings “joyful energy … mix(ing) all kinds of genres in a melting funky pot with a big smile on their faces,” (MTV). The track features half-step modulations at 2:48 (with an uninterrupted groove) and 3:14 (after what seems like a false ending — until the decrescendo shifts into reverse and the groove returns).

Take It Up a Step (from “Some Like It Hot”)

Some Like It Hot, running in New York now and nominated for 13 Tony Awards including Best Score, is the latest Broadway musical by the MotD-favorite composing team of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman.

The show is based on a 1959 movie, directed by Billy Wilder and starring Marilyn Monroe, that is widely considered to be one of the best films ever made.

As the title of the song implies, there are key changes scattered throughout.

Gayle McCormick | It’s a Crying Shame

“Gayle McCormick’s music career had begun in the mid-60s in Missouri, where she performed with Steve Cummings + the Klassmen,” (Exclaim.ca). “She moved to California with the band, but left the group upon arriving on the West Coast. From there, she hooked up with an act called the Smiths (not to be confused with the later group from the UK), who changed their name to Smith by the release of 1969’s debut album, A Group Called Smith.

The record’s biggest hit was their cover of the Burt Bacharach-penned ‘Baby It’s You.’ While the song had been recorded by the Shirelles, the Beatles and more, the smooth, soul rock groove Smith grafted to the piece gave the tune its highest chart position, climbing to #5 in late 1969.

Smith followed up their debut with a sophomore collection in 1970, but they disbanded, leaving McCormick to start a solo career. She yielded a minor hit with ‘It’s a Cryin’ Shame’ from an eponymous solo set in 1971.” The energetic track features a mid-phrase modulation up a half-step at 2:07.

Ludwig van Beethoven | Piano Sonata 5, Op. 10 #1, Third Movement

“Beethoven was a classical musician. He used the same grammar rules that you can find in Haydn’s works,” (Jaime Kardontchik, “Modulation in Beethoven’s Sonatas“). “So why does his keyboard music sound so vastly different from Haydn’s or Mozart’s music? For one thing, he was a son of the French Revolution with its Republican ideas of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality. He was an eighteen year old teenager when in 1789 the French Revolution shattered the pillars of the old monarchical world and he enthusiastically embraced these new ideas.

But what made in the end his keyboard music so distinctive is that papa Haydn and the younger Mozart grew up with and perfected the technique of playing and composing for the 4.5-octave harpsichord … Mozart died prematurely in 1791. The young Beethoven grew up together with this new and different keyboard instrument, the forte-piano. He extracted from the forte-piano every new sound possible as the piano makers were improving the instrument and expanding its range up to the present 7.5-octave piano as it is known today. Beethoven loved its sound, however imperfect the instrument was in his time; he understood the almost unlimited possibilities it opened for the expression of new musical ideas, took the risk, and bet on it. And two hundred years later, we are happy he did so. But historical circumstances and technical developments are clearly not enough to explain the individual and his contribution: he was simply Beethoven.”

After a start in C minor, a modulation into the relative major key (Eb) is in effect between 0:33 – 1:11). The 1798 sonata’s sprightly prestissimo movement continues to transition between the two relative keys throughout, passing through other keys (C major included) in the process.

Huey Lewis + The News | The Power of Love

“Back To The Future, the biggest hit at the 1985 box office, is a beautifully assembled Swiss watch of a movie, a perfect little machine full of subliminal clues that pay off much later,” (Stereogum). “Director Rob Zemeckis and his co-writer, producer Bob Gale, find small and clever little ways to convey information, and we get a lot of those in the film’s first few minutes. We also get the big, pumping jam that would become the first #1 hit for Huey Lewis And The News, a band that was already on fire …

‘The Power Of Love’ is a goofy song, but it’s a catchy one. Lewis mugs hard all through it, and he wails out nonsensical cocaine-logic philosophical nuggets about how love is tougher than diamonds, rich like cream, and stronger and harder than a bad girl’s dream. When you’re making good bubblegum, you can get away with refusing to make sense, and ‘The Power Of Love’ is good bubblegum. The track has hooks on hooks on hooks, with all the keyboard stabs and shiny-bluesy riffs in the exact right places.”

The verses are in C minor, but the choruses (first heard from 3:12 – 3:30) shift to C major. Between 4:11 – 4:33, the bridge transitions to Eb major. True to HL+TN’s trademark sound, there’s plentiful helpings of everything: the generous guitar solo, the wall-to-wall huskiness of Lewis’ lead vocal, the up-in-the-mix drums, and synth kicks just about everywhere. The band might have been somewhat less delicate than a Swiss watch, but it was nonetheless one of the most perfect pop machines of its era, scoring 19 top ten hits overall. “Power of Love” reached #1 for two weeks in August 1985 and was later nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Haley Reinhart | The Letter

“The Letter,” originally written and recorded (and a #1 hit) in 1967 by the American rock band The Box Tops, is featured on Hailey Reinhard’s 2017 album What’s That Sound?

Reinhart, whose career jumpstarted with her third-place finish in the 10th season of American Idol in 2010, said in an interview with Variety that the song “is such a cool, timeless tune. One of my earliest memories is crowding around my grandma’s piano listening to my Aunt Janice and Uncle Tom sing and play it. My uncle can sound just like Alex Chilton and the Box Tops with his guttural, sandpaper-like tone, while my aunt would harmonize with her soulful pipes. I thought it would be really neat to bring it up a couple of keys and give a woman’s take on the tune. It’s such a unique, upbeat song with gritty vocals, horns and sweeping strings. It’s become a pop standard to many and I’m so happy I got to put my own spin on it.”

Reinhart has performed and toured with Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox, and is preparing to tour on her own later this year.

The track is in D minor and briefly shifts up to Gb major at 1:41 for the outro.

Petula Clark | I Couldn’t Live Without Your Love

“The most commercially successful female singer in British chart history,” (AllMusic) Petula Clark spent her childhood “entertaining British troops alongside fellow child stars Julie Andrews and Anthony Newley … by the dawn of the ’50s, she was a superstar throughout the UK, with a résumé of close to two dozen films” and released several charting pop tunes … “Riding the wave of the British Invasion, Clark was finally able to penetrate the U.S. market in 1964 with the Grammy-winning ‘Downtown,’ the first single by a British woman ever to reach number one on the American pop charts.”

‘Downtown’ was also the first in a series of American Top Ten hits … that also included 1965’s ‘I Know a Place’ and 1966’s ‘I Couldn’t Live Without Your Love,’ and the number one smash ‘My Love.'” Over the years, she’s acted in multiple stage productions and movies. During the 1960s, she released popular singles in French, German, Italian, and Spanish, building a strong fanbase across Europe. In January 2023 at age 90, she appeared in Stephen Sondheim‘s Old Friends concert on the BBC, where she performed “I’m Still Here” from Follies.

“I Couldn’t Live Without Your Love” (1966), heard here on French television with Clark chatting with the host in French, does a quick harmonic sidestep during the verses (heard for the first time from 0:58 – 1:05). But it permanently modulates up a half step at 2:20.

Safer (from “First Date”)

“Safer” is from the 2013 Broadway musical by Austin Winsberg (book), Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner (music and lyrics). The song comes about halfway through the show, as Casey is wondering if she is getting in her own way in looking for a relationship. The track, performed here by original cast member Krysta Rodriguez, begins in Ab and modulates up a half step to A at 2:25.