Somewhere between his tenure as the tenor banshee frontman of Led Zeppelin and his recent role as rock’s elder statesman in his collaborations with Alison Krauss, Robert Plant assembled The Honeydrippers, which recorded just one EP. While the group formed in 1981, it did not have a fixed membership. Members on the 1984 EP included guitarists Jimmy Page (Plant’s Zep bandmate), Jeff Beck, Nile Rodgers, keyboardist Paul Shaffer (yes, that Paul Shaffer), and drummer Dave Weckl.
“Sea of Love” was written by and originally recorded by Phil Phillips. Released on a small Louisiana label at first, and later on Mercury, the single was a considerable success, reaching #2 on the Billboard pop chart and #1 on the Billboard R&B chart in 1959. The spartan arrangement features a doo-wop chorus with dubious pitch, piano, and brushed drums.
The Honeydrippers’ version uses a more complex soundstage, with a string section providing an elaborate intro and accents throughout, and subtly-present female background singers. The groove drops out for an upward half-step modulation (1:40) introduces a tasteful guitar solo (Page, maybe?).
“This deservedly heralded contralto is — in some cases literally — the poster woman for the ‘quiet storm’ radio format, personifying all that that term would represent: seemingly a private person, most assuredly a dignified one, but someone who lets forth with deep-felt bursts of emotion and perhaps sexuality in appropriate moments.” (LA Times).
” … Had it been coined earlier, that format could have been home to Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan or Nancy Wilson, of course. Baker’s sound is very much ‘black,’ and quite at home on modern R&B stations, but its debt is more to the black tradition of jazz singing than any strain currently dominating the charts. Her appeal is as multiracial as anyone’s, and stretches across the board from easy listeners to funk fans, giving cynics occasion to celebrate the infrequent triumph of voice over formatting.”
One of Baker’s tunes with a relatively strong jazz influence is “Lead Me Into Love” (1988). Starting in F major, the track shifts to F minor for the chorus (first heard from 1:11 – 1:36). After an unusual chromatic side-step, there’s a return to F major for the next verse; the pattern continues from there.
” … music, most often, didn’t just materialize from nowhere. Most urgent, especially, when confronted with an album or a band that sounds as if they arrived on the wings of some unseen miracle, like someone holy opened their palm somewhere, and out came the Meters, fully formed and already spiraling through a series of immersive grooves, each of them sounding like the birth of a new universe,” (Pitchfork). “But the reality is that someone beat a drum somewhere once. Someone sounded an alarm with a voice that summoned another voice and then another. The reality is that the drums and the voices and the dancing might have taken place in American streets or in American fields, but these traditions were carried over by a people who were forced to be here, forced to work and build and care for land that wasn’t their land, families that were not their families. Their music and celebration was a reaction to that series of ongoing thefts.
… The self-titled Meters debut was released in May of 1969 and was steered by its opening track, “Cissy Strut,” which was honed for a couple of years as the band’s opening song … Their second shot, Look-Ka Py Py, was released just seven months later, before the year kicked its last bit of sand down the hourglass. And it is here that the miracle of the Meters flourishes: the band that was on stage tearing the Ivanhoe apart night after night found a way to become that same band on record. It is sort of a reverse effect, their debut album free of pressure, imagined or real.”
The title track of Look-Ka Py Py is so much about groove that its two-chord harmonic vocabulary doesn’t seem minimal in any way. But its two chords also outline two separate keys: G mixolydian is in effect throughout most of the tune, but there’s also a shift to F mixolydian (first heard between 0:27 – 0:38).
“A song starts out as a dark, sneering joke. A dying man sings goodbye to the world — his friends, his pastor, his wife,” (Stereogum). “But as he sings goodbye, he also sings that he knows about his wife’s affair with one of his friends … (but) the song changes over the years, as other people cover it. It loses things in translation, both musical and literal. And when it hits #1 in the US and across the world more than a decade later, it becomes a soft, sad farewell, one with no lingering meanness. The affair, which was maybe the whole point of the original song, is gone. It’s just a song about death. There’s nothing funny about it, except maybe in the story of what happened to the song in the first place.
That’s the story of ‘Seasons In The Sun,’ which went from bleak comedy to sentimental mush over the course of 13 years. Before ‘Seasons In The Sun’ was ‘Seasons In The Sun,’ it was ‘Le Moribond,’ a bittersweet 1961 death song from the Belgian poet and composer Jacquel Brel. Brel, a layered songwriter, wrote it as a chanson about warmth and despair and anger, letting them all sit comfortably next to one another.” In recording his 1974 version of the song, Canadian singer (formerly of the Chessmen) Terry Jacks “rewrote it, taking out all the cheating-wife stuff and replacing it with uncomplicated declarations of love: ‘Goodbye Michelle, my little one / You gave me love and helped me find the sun’ … Even without its complicated malevolence, the twice-removed lyrics of ‘Seasons In The Sun’ have a certain power. It becomes a song about pure heartbreak, about knowing you’re going to die and realizing that you really liked being alive: ‘Goodbye my friend, it’s hard to die / When all the birds are singing in the sky’ … in an America that was still reeling from the Vietnam War, when a whole lot of people had dead friends, those lyrics struck an extra chord.”
Regular contributor JB submitted this track; he included a note detailing the love/hate relationship with the song which many people seem to share: “The key changes are like a dump truck grinding through its gears as it climbs a hill: no warbles, no ambiguity … just slam the song into a new key.”
Even as it moves from its tiny intro to its first verse, “Seasons in the Sun” plays some harmonic mischief, providing a piccardy third-like a shift from F# minor to the verse’s entrance in F# major. 1:52 brings a minor third shift up to A major, but 2:03 provides an even shorter echo of the intro’s side-step, pulling us back down into F# major for the next verse. At 2:55, we climb up to A major again; finally, we have yet another step up to Bb major for only a scant 20 seconds (as the song fades, in peak 1970s fashion).
“In 1841, at the height of his mastery, Mendelssohn wrote three variation cycles for piano in quick succession,” (Long + McQuade). “The first of them, the ‘Variations Serieuses’ Op. 54, should probably be regarded as his most important piano work. It formed part of an anthology of works by renowned composers of the time, proceeds from the sales of which were intended for the erection of a monument in Bonn” for Mendelsossohn’s German colleague, Beethoven.
“At that time there was something of a production line of so-called “Variations Brillantes” for piano; Mendelssohn gave his seventeen Variations in D minor op. 54 the title ‘Variations Serieuses’ to distance himself from these. The beautiful main theme has an earnest, poignant character that is sustained throughout all the transformations.”
Beginning in D minor, the tonality flips over to the relative F major after the completion of the first eight measures (0:20). Continuously shifting variations on the theme continue from that point.
“The tongue-twisting term ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,’ sung by magical nanny Mary Poppins, is like much of Robert B. Sherman’s work — both complex and instantly memorable, for child and adult alike,” (Today.com). “Once heard, it was never forgotten. Sherman, an American who died in London at age 86 (in 2012), was half of a sibling partnership that put songs into the mouths of nannies and Cockney chimney sweeps, jungle animals and Parisian felines.
Robert Sherman and his (lyricist) brother Richard composed scores for films including The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. They also wrote the most-played tune on Earth, ‘It’s a Small World (After All).’ … Son Jeffrey Sherman paid tribute to his father on Facebook, saying he ‘wanted to bring happiness to the world and, unquestionably, he succeeded.’ Jeffrey Sherman told The Associated Press that his father had learned the craft of songwriting from his own father, Tin Pan Alley composer Al Sherman. ‘His rule in writing songs was keep it singable, simple and sincere,’ Jeffrey Sherman said. ‘In the simplest things you find something universal.'”
The half step key changes in “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” (1964) certainly take a back seat to the wall-to-wall lyrics and exquisite dancing of Julie Andrews and Dick van Dyke, but nonetheless take place at 0:48 and 1:16. Many thanks to our contributor Scott R. for this submission — his third!
“Vox One’s evolution from talented Berklee College of Music students to one of the best vocal jazz a cappella groups in the world (and now Berklee professors, all) is one of rock solid jazz chops, experimentation, and a commitment to the music, the listener, and to each other,” (group website). “Founded in 1988, members Jodi Jenkins-Ainsworth (soprano), Yumiko Matsuoka (alto), Paul Stiller (tenor/vocal drums), Paul Pampinella (baritone) and Tom Baskett (bass) have clearly honed their sound and their stage presence through the years, only improving with time. At times, one member or another has gone off to pursue their individual passions, but they’ve come back together with the same lineup, and the listener is luckier for it.
Vox One has toured the US and internationally, opening along the way for Ray Charles, Chicago, the Persuasions, The Bobs, The Woody Herman Orchestra, and The Count Basie Orchestra. Jazz is in the DNA of all they do, but you’ll also hear elements of blues, funk, gospel, and folk. Beloved classics and sparkling originals are all done a la Vox One. While lush voicings and complex reharmonizations are stock in trade for the group, improv is also a staple of the Vox One show, where the group deftly creates full songs on the fly. Each improv is a one-time performance, something shared in the moment between audience and performers.”
Vox One’s 1999 release Say You Love Me included “Whisper When I Speak” runs in D major for two verses and choruses, harmonically sidesteps quickly during a short bridge (1:54 – 2:03), then returns to D major for another chorus. At 2:27, the track shifts up a half step for another chorus, growing from a whisper indeed to the quintet’s full sound.
“In 1982, Paul Weller disbanded The Jam at the height of their popularity, citing a desire to pivot toward using a more soulful approach to his music,” (Albumism). “He felt The Jam were stuck in a rut and not growing as a band. Bassist Bruce Foxton and drummer Ric Buckler did not share this opinion and the split took them by surprise. To this day, Buckler and Weller are not on speaking terms.
In 1983, Weller enlisted keyboard player Mick Talbot, who previously had stints in Dexys Midnight Runners and The Merton Parkas to form The Style Council. To round out the lineup, The Style Council used a rotation of studio musicians and guest stars like Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt from Everything But the Girl, forming a unit known as the Honorary Councilors. With this new group, Weller was able to branch out and experiment with soul, jazz and pop in a way which was not possible with The Jam.
‘You’re the Best Thing’ is The Style Council’s homage to the ‘70s soul, slow jam era. It borrows themes from popular R&B songs from the previous decade and puts Weller’s spin on it.” After an intro and two breezy verses in E major, 1:18 brings a whole-step shift upwards to F# major. At 1:41, an interlude returns us to E major. The pattern continues from there.
When asked to name the Soul Music supergroups of the ’70s and early ’80s, folks tend to gravitate to familiar names such as Earth, Wind and Fire, the Spinners, the Commodores and the Isley Brothers,” (Soul Tracks). “However, five brothers from New Bedford, Massachusetts – Ralph, Tiny, Chubby, Butch, and Pooch Tavares – created some of the most consistently high quality soul music of that period.”
Tavares’ hits (“It Only Takes a Minute,” “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel,” and “Don’t Take Away the Music”) are all likely more familiar to listeners than the name of the group that recorded them. But a cover of the Bee Gees’ “More Than A Woman” was included on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, “giving the group its greatest exposure ever (as well as its only Grammy award) but bringing with it a label that Tavares would spend years trying to shake – that of ‘Disco Group.’ … In a decade that highlighted so many groups, from the last Detroit days of Motown to the arrival of hot sounds in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, the Tavares brothers proved themselves to be incredibly versatile, effectively covering all of those sounds … Their wonderful harmonies and consistently strong selection of material made every one of their albums a keeper.”
The Cape Verdean-American group released “Don’t Take Away the Music” in 1976. The brothers’ vocal blend takes center stage throughout the tune. The track’s 6:12 run time was unusually long, even during a period of influence of disco sensibilities over pop music; the leisurely length of the track results in a mid-point half-step key change rather than an outro at 3:04.
Hard to believe, but an American band at the heart of the Beatles sound-alike trend of the mid-60s received a substantial favor from Sly Stone (later the frontman of the Sly and the Family Stone band). “Sly Stone’s first taste of national notoriety began at the tender age of 19 when he produced the moody 1965 pop single, ‘Laugh, Laugh,’ for the San Mateo folk-rock band the Beau Brummels.” (Rolling Stone Australia). “As a teen guitarist, Stone’s various gigs around San Francisco lead him to cross paths with Autumn Records’ Tom Donahue, who gave the budding talent a shot at producing. ‘Laugh, Laugh’ was one of Sly’s first efforts; by early 1965, it had climbed into the Top 20.
As Ben Fong-Torres said of the single in 1970: ‘Sly had produced the very first rock & roll hits out of … a city then known for little more than Johnny Mathis and Vince Guaraldi.’ The ‘San Francisco Sound’ would soon be in full bloom, but here Sly was planting the seeds early on.”
“Laugh Laugh,” which Sly co-wrote with Ron Elliott, begins with a verse in G# minor. At 0:45, the pre-chorus works its way through a segment of the circle of fifths, landing in E major for the very short chorus (1:00). The pattern continues with another verse at 1:07. Many thanks to regular contributor Rob P. for submitting this music time capsule!
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