I Know Where I’ve Been (from “Hairspray”)

There’s a road 
We’ve been travelin’ 
Lost so many on the way 
But the riches 
Will be plenty 
Worth the price we 
Had to pay 

There’s a dream 
In the future 
There’s a struggle 
We have yet to win 
And there’s pride 
In my heart 
‘Cause i know 
Where I’m going 
And I know where I’ve been 

From Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman’s 2002 Broadway musical Hairspray, set in 1962 Baltimore and highlighting themes of racial prejudice and discrimination, these lyrics seem more relevant, urgent, and necessary today than ever. Just this week, the show’s creators announced that going forward, all productions of the show will be required to cast the show to accurately reflect the race of the characters as they were written. The Tony-winning score incorporates elements of rock & roll and rhythm & blues. Hairspray is widely performed in schools and other theaters across the country today. In reflecting on the genesis of this song in particular, Marc Shaiman said:

This was … inspired by a scene late in the [1988] movie that takes place on the black side of town. It never dawned on us that a torrent of protest would follow us from almost everyone involved with the show. ‘It’s too sad … It’s too preachy. … It doesn’t belong. … Tracy should sing the eleven o’clock number.’ We simply didn’t want our show to be yet another show-biz version of a civil rights story where the black characters are just background. And what could be more Tracy Turnblad-like than to give the ‘eleven o’clock number’ to the black family at the heart of the struggle? Luckily … the audiences embraced this moment, which enriches the happy ending to follow, and it is our proudest achievement of the entire experience of writing Hairspray.”

Performed here by Jennifer Hudson, who portrayed Motormouth Maybelle in the 2016 NBC Live broadcast of the show. Key change at 3:17.

Reign of Kindo | Dust

Reign of Kindo‘s music, according to AllMusic, features “the introspective Brit-pop influences of bands like Coldplay and Keane, but placing the piano front and center and mixing complex jazz harmonies and dissonances with the pop sensibilities of a Ben Folds.” The band has toured with a small central core of musicians, but makes its main impression with the sprawling instrumentation featured in this live recording session. Recording live in the studio, with no overdubs, is a feat on its own — but the band has also added the challenge of capturing the process on video.

The ensemble doesn’t fit neatly into a genre, sitting somewhere between the prog rock, pop, and jazz worlds. The band’s website explains: “It is piano-driven Alt-Jazz…Latin and R&B close by …since the debut EP hit #5 on the Billboard Middle Atlantic Heatseekers chart in 2007, this band has only just begun to emerge from their decade-long journey from rags to… better rags with resumes.”

Starting in C minor, an extended multi-key middle section runs from 1:40 through 3:19. At 3:19, there’s a clear return to C minor.

Nathaniel Dett Chorale | Abide With Me

The Nathaniel Dett Chorale, based in Canada, specializes in Afrocentric music of all styles, including classical, spirituals, gospel, jazz, folk and blues. Founded in 1998 by Brainerd Blyden-Taylor (who continues to serve as director), the group has performed across the US and in Canada, and was featured at the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama. From their website:

“The Chorale’s vision is to be a premier performer of Afrocentric composers — past, present, and future — and to be a touchstone for the education for audiences and communities regarding the full spectrum of Afrocentric choral music. The Nathaniel Dett Chorale’s mission is to build bridges of understanding, appreciation, and acceptance between communities of people, both Afrocentric and other, through the medium of music. The Chorale seeks to dissolve the barriers of stereotype, to empower humans in general, and those of African descent in particular.”

“Abide With Me,” a 19th century hymn, is featured on one of their live performance DVDs. Key change at 2:47.

Niamh Kavanagh | In Your Eyes (Eurovision 1993)

The 65th annual Eurovision Song Contest was to have been held this spring in Rotterdam. Unfortunately, like so many other live performance events, the contest was cancelled due to the worldwide COVID-19 crisis — an unprecedented move in the history of the competition. Fortunately, most of the nations originally slated to send a representative to the competition have already confirmed that they will return in 2021.

1993’s winning song, “In Your Eyes,” was performed by vocalist Niamh Kavanagh, a Dublin native. The tune became the best-selling 1993 single in the Republic of Ireland and reached #24 on the UK Singles chart. Kavanagh is still active as a musical artist with her band, The Illegals. In a 2020 interview with the Irish Examiner, when asked about her top choice of unsung hero: “I’m going to say to musicians, not specific ones, but musicians in general…who strive to create music everyday, who won’t necessarily achieve fame or fortune…who work just to create and share something that affects pretty much everyone on the planet. Music is around us all of the time…”

The huge modulation at 2:21 comes quite late, after several edge-of-the-seat opportunities.

Committed | Lift Every Voice

Ending our week with some much-needed uplift: A cappella quintet Committed, according to its site, “solidified their sound while at school at Oakwood University in Huntsville, AL…The group had the amazing opportunity to be featured on the second season of NBC’s hit singing competition The Sing Off and emerged as the season two champions.”

NPR’s Performance Today details the history of today’s feature, also known as the black national anthem: “Poet James Weldon Johnson’s ‘Lift Every Voice’ was written in 1900 for a Lincoln birthday celebration at the segregated Stanton School in Johnson’s native Jacksonville, Florida. The song became immensely popular and was passed on among students throughout the South. About 20 years later, the NAACP adopted it as the ‘Negro National Hymn.'” The tune has seen prominent covers by Melba Moore (backed up by Stephanie Jackson, Freddie Jackson, Anita Baker, Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Jeffrey Osborne, and Howard Hewett), Bebe and Cece Winans, Take 6, The Clark Sisters, Rene Marie, and Beyonce.

In this 2015 version, Committed starts in Eb major with simple textures; a wordless bridge emerges at 2:25, building in intensity. There’s a whole-step modulation at 2:42 as the verse returns, adding a few piquant re-harmonizations and some spectacularly broad voicings.

Whitney Houston | I Believe In You and Me

Originally released and recorded by Four Tops on their 1982 album One More Mountain, “I Believe In You and Me” was covered in 1996 by Whitney Houston and included the 1996 flick The Preacher’s Wife. Much more successful than the original, Houston’s rendition became a top 5 R&B hit in the US and topped many charts worldwide. The key change, in Whitney’s customary dramatic fashion, is at 2:52.

Genesis | Can-Utility + the Coastliners

In its first iteration with Peter Gabriel on vocals, UK prog rock pioneers Genesis released the 1972 album Foxtrot. The album showed the group hitting its stride, including the 20+ minute long prog classic “Supper’s Ready.”

From AllMusic.com’s review: “Foxtrot is where Genesis began to pull all of its varied inspirations into a cohesive sound — which doesn’t necessarily mean that the album is streamlined, for this is a group that always was grandiose even when they were cohesive, or even when they rocked, which they truly do for the first time here…This is the rare art-rock album that excels at both the art and the rock, and it’s a pinnacle of the genre (and decade) because of it.”

“Can-Utility and the Coastliners” might as well be titled “Don’t Get Too Comfortable” … harmonically, at least. The track was primarily written by the band’s guitarist, Steve Hackett, whose site explains that the tune is “based on the legend of King Canute, who supposedly ordered the seas to retreat to mock the sycophancy of his followers.” It centers around D until 3:59; around F# at 3:59; and C from 4:56 to the end. Within each key center, the “tonic” chord can be heard as major, minor, compound … they’re all in the mix. In addition, short excursions away from those respective key centers abound, often accompanied by quick shifts and fillips in the meter. There are no epic modulations, but as this track respects no cliches whatsoever, it will keep listeners on their toes from start to finish. Thanks to MotD regular JB for this contribution!

Sisqo | Thong Song

“Thong Song” was the second single released from American R&B/pop artist SisQó‘s 1999 debut studio album Unleash The Dragon. The track was nominated for four Grammys, and peaked at #1 on the Billboard Rhythmic Top 40 chart. It was a major success worldwide as well, reaching the top ten throughout European charts, number three in the UK, Netherlands, and Denmark, and #1 in New Zealand.

The key change at 3:16 comes out of nowhere, leading the listener to believe we’ve moved to a distant key, when it is in fact only a half-step away.

Bill Evans | Diane Schuur | Some Other Time

The most prominent image of Leonard Bernstein tends to be his dynamic presence as the conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. But his career also included his extensive composition for Broadway, including West Side Story, Candide, Wonderful Town, and many others. His tune “Some Other Time,” from the 1944 musical On the Town (lyrics by Betty Comden and Adoph Green), subsequently became one of the select few which made the leap from show tune to jazz standard.

One of the most noted instrumental versions of the standard is by pianist Bill Evans. His version includes an intro that approaches the musical equivalent of liturgy, serving as an intro across a broad variety of ballads by other artists. Pitchfork explains that “Evans’ art has endured in part because he has a brilliant combination of formal sophistication and accessibility; critics and his fellow musicians heard the genius in his approach to chords, his lightness of touch…while listeners could put on his records and simply bask in their beauty, how Evans’ continual foregrounding of emotion made the sad songs extra wrenching and the happy ones extra buoyant.”

On the Evans version, the intro and start of the melody are in C major. 1:30 brings the middle 8, which are in Ab major. There’s a return to C major at 2:04, completing the AABA cycle at 2:38 as the solo section begins.

Since the lyric is a very powerful one, we’re also including a vocal version by vocalist and pianist Diane Schuur. Her website details that she learned “‘What a Difference a Day Makes’ while she was still a toddler (and) developed her own rich, resonant vocal style at a very young age…(winning) two Grammy awards and three additional Grammy nominations” via her solo work and collaborations with the Count Basie Orchestra, B.B. King, Ray Charles, and Jose Feliciano.

Owsley | Oh No the Radio

Owsley had a brief but distinguished career as a band member, solo artist, and session/touring musician. Sadly, he apparently took his own life at age 44 in 2010, but his short discography is memorable. AllMusic reports: “Alabama-born multi-instrumentalist Will Owsley followed a career path not unlike Sheryl Crow‘s, by backing up big mainstream pop artists, collecting the rewards and channeling them into his own solo work. Owsley plied his wares in the bands of Shania Twain and Amy Grant in the mid-’90s, then recorded his own material at home, and offered the finished product to record companies on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.” Owsley’s early-90s band, The Semantics, briefly featured a young Ben Folds on keyboards; AllMusic describes the two musicians’ “likemindedness” as “hard to miss.”

“Oh No the Radio” (1999) is an account of the hold that radio had on music fans’ lives during a time when that medium was the primary way that music reached our ears. The tune seems to describe a music fan’s love/hate relationship with a medium so omnipresent that going to a drive-in movie provides a welcome but brief respite.

The intro and verse, both in C# major, feature the guitar’s crunchy, relentless battery of eighth-note seventh chords in a I7 – bVII7 vamp. This rock-solid foundation frees up the bass to intermittently depart from covering the roots, going airborne and adding harmonic context from the rafters. The chorus shifts to C# minor (for the first time at 1:47), bringing with it a far smoother and lyrical feel, before returning to the original C# major.