Tag: USA

Faith Hill | The Way You Love Me

Breathe, the 1999 album by country/pop artist Faith Hill, hit #1 on both the Billboard 200 and the Top Country Albums chart and became the second most successful album of 2000 on the Albums chart. Breathe reached top 40 album status in ten countries (Wikipedia).

“The Way You Love Me,” a single from the album, was released at first only country radio, where it hit #1 on the Hot Country Songs chart. The song later migrated to pop radio, reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and went on to spend 56 weeks on the chart. The song was Hill’s most successful single at the time, reaching the top ten in Hungary and Spain, the top twenty in the UK, and the top forty in New Zealand, Australia, Italy, Sweden, and Ireland.

Songwriters Keith Follesé and Michael Dulaney packed a lot into a tune just a shade over three minutes in length. After a start in C major, 0:42 brings the pre-chorus in D major, followed by the short chorus (1:01) in E major. The cycle continues through a second verse/pre-chorus/chorus, leading us into a bridge (1:58), which pivots a bit before landing in A major. At 2:10, we’re back to the pre-chorus in D and then the chorus and outro in E.

Lena Horne | Do Nothing ‘Til You Hear From Me

“In 1943 Duke Ellington and His Orchestra introduced ‘Do Nothin’ Till You Hear from Me’ with featured vocalist Al Hibbler.” (JazzStandards.com). “The record became a best-selling rhythm and blues hit and appeared on the R&B charts in early 1944, climbing all the way to #1, where it would stay for eight weeks … Despite the flurry of recording activity following its initial release with lyrics in 1944, this tune languished until pianist Oscar Peterson brought it back into favor in 1952. Again, the tune went into hiding for a few years when Peterson’s mentor, Art Tatum, dusted it off … Billie Holiday also revisited the number (1955).

‘Do Nothin’ Till You Hear from Me’ is considered by many as one of the high points, perhaps even a masterpiece, of Duke Ellington’s body of work. The song was created when Bob Russell fitted lyrics to the predominant theme of the 1940 Duke Ellington composition ‘Concerto for Cootie.’ … In The Poets of Tin Pan Alley: A History of America’s Great Lyricists, Philip Furia praises Russell’s ability to coax genuine sentiment out of an Ellington melody and calls it ‘probably the slangiest pledge of romantic fidelity ever written.'”

Lena Horne’s 1995 version is kitted out with full big band. The form is AABA; Horne’s version built in C major overall, with a diversion to Ab major during the first portion of the B section (0:42-0:51) before returning to the original key. Then the entire tune moves up to Db at 1:16. Even at age 78, her performance here shows her trademark range, built throughout her career with one foot in Hollywood and another in the music world. “Born in Brooklyn in 1917 … at the age of sixteen she was hired as a dancer in the chorus of Harlem’s famous Cotton Club,” (PBS). “There she was introduced to the growing community of jazz performers, including Billie Holiday, Cab Calloway, and … Duke Ellington.” No wonder she seemed so very at home with this performance!

The Debonaires | Headache In My Heart

“The Debonaires were cousins, Joyce Vincent Wilson and Telma Hopkins … there were other members who remain unknown,” (AllMusic). The group released several smaller singles in the mid-60s, but 1966’s “Headache in My Heart” b/w “Loving You Takes All My Time,” raised the group’s profile by engaging George Clinton as producer (Solid Hit Records). “Solid Hit’s typist blew the spelling and the single is credited as by the Debonairs; she missed the E, but it didn’t matter; it didn’t sell either. They tried one last time with “I’m in Love Again” before closing the book on the Debonaires.

… Wilson and Hopkins later sung with Tony Orlando, a pop group that notched three number one hits” … eventually, they became known collectively, via their work with Orlando, as Dawn. “Tony Orlando and Dawn unite from time to time for brief appearances, but the Debonaires were forgotten almost before they began.”

“Headache in My Heart” comes straight out of central casting: a minor key tune about heartache that clocks in well under three minutes, following a clear recipe for chart success at the time. Unfortunately, this tune didn’t catch fire. The two-and-a-half-minute track shifts upward by half a step at 1:43.

Free Nationals feat. Syd | Shibuya

“Stepping out of Anderson .Paak’s shadow would be a difficult feat for anyone,” (The Standard). “Thankfully for the Free Nationals — the LA prog-soul quartet who’ve backed the rapper and singer for years — they’re some of the most sublime musicians in the game, with a handy knack for laying down perfect hip-hop, R&B, and funk-inflected jams. Their long-teased self-titled debut features a host of guest stars, including .Paak himself, but sees them approach things at their own speed.”

… “Shibuya” (2019) boasts the talents of The Internet’s Syd on vocals,” (Stereogum). “It’s a smooth, sensual, characteristically groovy ode to staying in bed with your romantic partner on the weekend: “You should stay until Saturday / ‘Cause you ain’t gotta work tomorrow anyway / Do you babe / Sweet Saturdays/ I got you all to myself on Saturdays.”

Starting in B minor, “Shibuya” shifts to an alterating C major/Eb major vamp during the chorus, first heard between 0:41 – 1:02, before returning to the original key for the next verse.

Young Gun Silver Fox | Midnight in Richmond

“Soulful pop-rock combo Young Gun Silver Fox … the brainchild of British singer/musician Andy Platt and prolific London-based American expatriate producer and multi-instrumentalist Shawn Lee, the project first came together in 2012,” (CBS). “Both men already had well established careers, with Platt fronting the acclaimed soul-pop group Mamas Gun that he had co-founded, while Lee has put out dozens of albums and break records since he began his professional career in the ’90s … Drawn to each other by their mutual love for the warmth and melodicism of ’70s pop, soul and rock — Steely Dan, Hall & Oates, and latter-era Bill Withers were touchstones — the two talented musicians began working on original material … YGSF showcased their knack for crafting immaculately produced, breezy soul-pop confections driven by taut drum grooves and Fender Rhodes electric piano licks that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on AM radio during the late ’70s.”

The duo’s music is “timeless in one sense, while also referencing a very particular era,” (Grammy.com). “Over four albums, YGSF reflect ‘an apex of analog record-making’ that occurred between 1977-1982. ‘One of the things that was unusual about that whole West Coast scene was that you had these really talented people, but they all worked together in different capacities. One day they were working on a Michael Jackson record and another day they were doing their own record — or maybe sometimes the same day,’ says YGSF co-founder Shawn Lee, an American multi-instrumentalist with credits the length of some of his idols. ‘That’s why the music sounds so money, because everybody was at the height of their powers. Everybody had craft.'”

Released in 2018 on the album AM Waves, “Midnight in Richmond” starts in A major with a keyboard hook. 1:23 – 1:40 brings a short bridge in the closely-related key of B minor before the next chorus returns us to A major. Between 2:12 and 2:28, we head into another short bridge — this one in D major but leaning into its relative B minor at times. The sections alternate to the end as the hook continues to haunt the choruses.

Marshall Crenshaw | Someday, Someway

“Punk and New Wave was only one way of taking rock back to basics. Marshall Crenshaw took an altogether different approach, stripping back to three-chord songs about girls, delivered by a tight three piece and earning comparisons to Buddy Holly,” (Aphoristic Album Reviews). The Detroit native’s eponymous 1982 debut album “features his brother Robert on drums, while Crenshaw handles all the guitar parts. The simplified arrangements of these songs are invigorating; the songs are snappy and intelligent, and even though the production places the album in the early 1980s, these melodies could have easily come from an earlier era. Crenshaw’s persona is so likeable that he can get away with a song simply about cruising around checking out girls, and make it innocent and laudable rather than seedy and leering. In a just world, half of these songs would be radio staples, and that these accessible songs didn’t make Crenshaw a superstar is almost unfathomable.

The lack of success of this album is magnified by the strong triple punch at the beginning; ‘There She Goes Again’, the power-pop standard ‘Someday, Someway’ and the exuberant ‘Girls…’ … superlative examples of 1980s pop. Any fan of intelligent guitar pop will cherish songs like ‘Someday, Someway’ and ‘Mary Anne’, and play this refreshingly sincere album often.”

After a start in A major for the groove-driven, hook-free intro, two short verses and choruses follow. At 1:02, a bridge in D major follows, differentiated not only by its new key but also a shift into a simpler texture centered by the walking bass. At 1:11, we’re back to an interlude which mirrors the intro, another verse, and another chorus, all in the original key. 1:41 brings another D major bridge, followed by another pass through A major: an echo of the intro, then a final verse and an extended chorus/outro. The outro’s looping lyrics are so relentless it’s a wonder that Crenshaw didn’t keel right over.

Jason Robert Brown | Sanctuary

“Coming From Inside the House (A Virtual SubCulture Concert), Jason Robert Brown’s first-ever album to be released on vinyl, was originally recorded for a one-night video streaming event on April 27, 2020. The concert was originally presented as a benefit for the SubCulture staff and musicians from the Jason Robert Brown Artist-in-Residence concerts during the COVID-19 pandemic,” (Concord.com). The musical theatre composer’s lyrics show the absolute depths of the worldwide crisis, at that time still in its opening stages.

From Brown’s website: “… And so began a feverish two weeks of singing, playing, recording, mixing, and editing, all of us learning how to turn our apartments into television studios and soundstages, moving lamps, hiding laundry, shooing the dogs out of the shot, getting our kids to hold the iPhone while we played, sweating through takes because the air conditioning was too loud, getting yelled at by neighbors for playing the drums all afternoon, frantically re-recording when we had to change one song’s key after everyone had already finished, apologizing to our wives and husbands and children for being lost in GarageBand and ProTools and Final Cut sessions, culminating in the broadcast on April 27th.”

“Sanctuary” features a first section that flips between E minor and its relative major, G — tied together by a constant, insistent G ostinato throughout all sections other than the choruses. 3:21 brings a feverish bridge in G. A new chorus, introduced at first by an a cappella choral section, this time in Bb major, enters at 4:04.

James Taylor | Sweet Potato Pie

“Since his debut album in 1968, James Taylor has created a casserole of countless combinations packed with tasteful hints and familiar flavors; sounds that are a satisfying, addictive, delicious, traditional, memory-inducing musical meal, inducing an emotional warmth and pleasing, happy tingle,” (Backstage Ravinia). “Taylor standards such as the tender, nostalgic lullaby ‘Sweet Baby James’; the loving, adoring ‘Something In The Way She Moves’; the wistful, promising ‘Shower the People’; the dreamy, longing ‘Carolina In My Mind’; the joyful, grinning ‘Your Smiling Face’; and so many other favorites enforce this metaphor.

… Yet, while his musical lineage maybe be founded on solid pop hooks and structures, his legacy is deceptively diverse. Taylor’s muse often expands and expounds into myriad influences of folk, blues, gospel, soul, Motown, and country. Taylor’s quiet, introspective songs seductively speak of pain, ease the heartbreak, and sprinkle spices of surprise into the mundane … His selfless sharing of all his struggles and triumphs through music and actions struck cohesive chords with individual listeners and made universal connections with a mass audience.”

Alongside the hits are Taylor’s album tracks; for many artists, these often constitute filler, but not for JT. “Sweet Potato Pie” is one of the lighter-weight tunes on Taylor’s 1988 Never Die Young, one of his three platinum-selling 1980s album releases. But this earworm of a song is driven by the infectious shuffle groove and sunny mood that pervade the entire track. Beginning in F major, the key climbs to F# major at 1:55 and G major at 2:02 during the interlude.

Sly + The Family Stone | Everybody Is a Star

“Sly + the Family Stone brought funk to the party during what many consider the most fertile period in music history: 1969-1971,” (Songfacts). “This was an eclectic time when hard rock, bubblegum pop, Motown soul, and singer-songwriter tunes were all on the charts, and it was also the heyday for Sly + the Family Stone. They landed three US #1 hits during this time: ‘Everyday People,’ ‘Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),’ and ‘Family Affair.’ All three also topped the R&B chart.

With two white members (drummer Gregg Errico and sax player Jerry Martini) and a female trumpet player (Cynthia Robinson), the group broke from convention defied expectations. Robinson was particularly influential, encouraging girls to play the trumpet at a time when it was a very male-dominated instrument.

‘Everybody is a Star’ (1970) was released as a double-A-side single with ‘Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).’ The single went to #1 in the US, so under Billboard methodology at the time, the chart position is attributed to both songs combined. Like many Sly & the Family Stone songs of this era – ‘Everyday People’ and ‘Stand!’ among them – ‘Everybody Is A Star’ has a message of togetherness and self-worth. These songs were set against joyful melodies that kept them from sounding preachy. They went over very well at live shows where a sense of community formed.”

The intro and verse is in Bb major; the chorus, featuring various wordless vocal solos and groups, (heard for the first time from 0:54 – 1:15), is in C major. Clocking in at just over three minutes, the tune features the second chorus as an extended fading outro as well.

Shelby Lynne | Bend

“Following her somewhat belated Best New Artist Grammy award (six albums and 13 years into her musical career), Shelby Lynne’s follow-up to the truly heartbreaking and spectacular I Am Shelby Lynne finds her reaching out to a more rock-oriented audience with mixed results,” (AllMusic). “After some last minute retooling from the record label, Love, Shelby proves Lynne can still write a hook, but much of what makes or breaks the finished results ultimately falls in the hands of her producer.

… In all honesty, this would actually be a more successful album if her previous work hadn’t been so strong. It seems as though the singer had such artistic success with her ‘rock-tinged’ record that she thought it would be a good idea to push the envelope further into an almost strictly rock environment … The few songs that embrace her rough, soulful edge are pretty terrific, and (hopefully) smarter choices in the future will bring about another strong album along the same lines as I Am…“

“Bend,” a non-single album track from Love, Shelby (2001), is built around a polished shuffle feel. This mid-tempo track provides an attractive showcase for Lynne, who covers both lead and backup vocal duties. Starting in C major, the chorus (first heard from 0:42 – 1:04) shift into Eb major.

Many thanks to Ari S. for yet another wonderful contribution!