USA – Page 22

Commodores | Funny Feelings

“Known as Zoom in the UK, the Commodores’ eponymous fifth LP (1977) was … very much a transitional work, highlighting the greasy southern funk that the group so ably practiced before pianist and saxophonist Lionel Richie firmly took centre stage,” (BBC). “The album was a huge hit in the US, setting the Commodores up for their chart-topping scene stealing as the 70s became the 80s. In the UK, the reaction was a little more muted. However, ‘Easy’ paved the way for ‘Three Times a Lady’ and ‘Still,’ and Lionel Richie’s unshakeable place as a favourite artist of millions.”

Another track from the album, the midtempo “Funny Feelings,” features an intro in F# minor. At 0:15, however, the first verse settles in with B minor. At 1:01, the chorus shifts to E major. From 1:22 – 1:36, an instrumental interlude mirrors the intro; the cycle continues from there, keeping a laser focus on the funk groove throughout.

Carole King | Tapestry

“Tapestry” is the title track from singer-songwriter Carole King’s second studio album, released in 1971 and one of the best-selling albums of all time. In 2020, the record ranked 25th on Rolling Stone’s list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.”

The track, for which King wrote the music and lyrics, begins in F and modulates up a half step at 2:15.

With One Look (from “Sunset Boulevard”)

“With One Look” is from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical adaptation of the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, directed by Billy Wilder. The story focuses on the diva Norma Desmond, an aging former film star who is living out her final days in Los Angeles. This song depicts her reminiscing about her past as a successful actress. A new revival of the show opened on Broadway last weekend.

The track begins in A and shifts briefly up to D leading into the instrumental break at 2:07. It then modulates back down to B at 2:31, where it stays until the end.

Thelma Houston | Don’t Leave Me This Way

“There is absolutely nothing in this world like what happens when disco music is operating at peak capacity,” (Stereogum). “Disco was a wave that swept all across pop music for years. It was tremendous, all-encompassing, and, when done wrong, flattening. The whole genre was more or less built around a drum pattern — a stead thump-thump-thump kick — that kept people in clubs moving and made it easy for DJs to blend one song into the next … There were people who became stars because of disco, and there were fading stars who used disco to extend or even elevate their fame. But disco, like early rock ‘n’ roll, was also a genre of fast, elusive, one-time success.

Every once in a while, when everything lined up just right, a long-toiling artist could hit just the right sound at just the right moment and make something immortal. That’s what happened when Thelma Houston made ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ … Most of Thelma Houston’s career works as a story of what happens when the starmaking machine fails. Houston — no relation to Whitney or her extended clan — was an absolute monster of a singer, one who was capable of taking her gospel training and using it to make earthly concerns sound urgent and wracked and overwhelmingly joyous. She spent years with Motown, a label that should’ve known exactly what to do with a singer of her surpassing power. But for Thelma Houston, everything clicked exactly once. Thankfully, that one time was something special.”

Starting in Bb mixolydian for the wordless (and initially grooveless) intro and verse, the tune shifts to C mixolydian for the chorus at 1:19. Billboard included the track on its list of 70 Best LGBTQ Anthems of All Time: “This Motown Hot 100 No. 1 hit in April 1977 was appropriated by the gay community as an anthem for friends lost to the AIDS epidemic. As part of a commissioned ‘public space statement,’ artist Nayland Blake juxtaposed the title of the song against an image of a bouquet of flowers with their tangled roots showing.”

Voctave + The Swingles | I Am What I Am

MotD favorite Voctave teamed up with the renowned a cappella group The Swingles to record “I Am What I Am,” Jerry Herman’s gay anthem from the 1983 musical La Cage Aux Folles. Now based in the UK, The Swingles have been active since the 1960s, when the group formed in Paris, and have released dozens of records and won five Grammy Awards.

The track begins in B major, modulates up a step to Db at 1:36, and then up another half step to D at 2:23. There is a final shift up to Eb at 3:06.

The Isley Brothers | Love Put Me On the Corner

“Continuing the foray into rock begun on 1971’s Givin’ It Back, The Isley Brothers’ 10th studio album Brother, Brother, Brother serves as yet another advancement in the Cincinnati-founded R&B/soul outfit’s signature sound, which carried it to superstardom on the following year’s 3+3,” (UnderTheRadar). “Though understated and restrained in comparison to their more bombastic masterworks, Brother, Brother, Brother is an important Isley Brothers release, its crisp Midwestern soul backbone providing ample support for the group’s more ambitious rock and funk aspirations.

While less realized than much of The Isley Brothers’ future output, Brother, Brother, Brother serves as a gateway to their ’70s golden age. The following year, the band would release its monumental hit ‘That Lady’ … In retrospect, Brother, Brother, Brother feels like a blueprint of explosive greatness to come, the Isleys joining together to function as an unstoppable whole. After five decades, the album sounds unusually fresh, The Isley Brothers having remained pioneers of their genre.”

“Love Put Me On the Corner,” a ballad track from Brother, Brother, Brother, starts with a piano intro in F# minor, accompanied only by gentle mallet cymbal, that sounds like it could have been part of a Joni Mitchell interlude. At 0:22, there’s a shift to F lydian, then another (0:42) to G major with the addition of a gentle groove and a widely dynamic Hammond organ for the verse. The chorus, arriving at 2:46, pivots through 2:46-3:15 with several pairs of compound chords. The pattern continues from there.

Creedence Clearwater Revival | Lookin’ Out My Back Door

“Before we begin, let’s just take a moment to pay respect to John Fogerty’s voice. It sounds like sunshine through a rusted pipe,” (American Songwriter). “Okay, now that we have that behind us, let’s check out one of Fogerty’s most memorable tunes, ‘Lookin’ Out My Back Door,’ which he wrote with his influential California-born rock band, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and released on the group’s 1970 LP, Cosmo’s Factory … The gravelly rock single hit #2 on the Billboard charts.” It’s #1 “in the hearts of many fans of the 1998 cult classic The Big Lebowski, a movie that mixes the mundane with the psychedelic, much like the Creedence song at hand.

Since its release, many have speculated that the lyrics are about drugs … But, if you ask Fogerty, it’s not … In interviews and in Bad Moon Rising: The Unauthorized History of Creedence Clearwater, Fogerty is quoted as saying the song was actually written for his then three-year-old son, Josh. He’s also said that the reference to the parade passing by the door was inspired by the Dr. Seuss story, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street … More than anything, though, it’s just an epic example of Fogerty’s inimitable scratchy-snarly voice that will live forever long past the view out any of our back doors.”

After a start in B major and a mid-song suspension of the tune’s very catchy groove for a few measures, there’s a downward chromatic bass line journey, counterintuitively ending in a higher key — C# major — at 1:46.

Gavin Creel & Aaron Tveit | In His Eyes

Tony-award winning actor and singer Gavin Creel passed away suddenly from cancer last year at age 48. Creel was beloved by the Broadway community, and recognized as one of the best voices in the business. In 2020 he performed Frank Wildhorn’s ballad “In His Eyes” with fellow Broadway actor Aaron Tveit. The track begins in C minor and modulates to Bb at 0:45.

Bruce Springsteen | Jungleland

“’Jungleland’ is the album-closing track of Bruce Springsteen’s career-making third LP Born to Run,” (American Songwriter). “The album features three of Springsteen’s most iconic songs: the title track, ‘Thunder Road,’ and ‘Jungleland,’ an operatic nine-and-a-half-minute ode to hope and innocence’s attempt to survive the city’s mean streets.

This was an important transition for Springsteen, who had initially built his appeal around the live show. The dramatic, rafter-raising approach was part of the design, to create something memorable but also to attract an audience united by the feelings the music evoked. ‘I had to have songs that could capture audiences who had no idea who I was,’ he wrote in his 2016 autobiography, also called Born to Run. ‘As an opening act then, I didn’t have much time to make an impact. I wrote several long, wild pieces that were basically the soul children of the lengthy prog-rock music I’d written with [early band] Steel Mill. They were arranged to leave the band and the audience exhausted and gasping for breath. Just when you thought the song was over, you’d be surprised by another section, taking the music higher. It was what I’d taken from the finales of the great soul revues. I tried to match their ferocious fervor.'”

(The American Songwriter article is expansive and informative: please read it all if you have a few minutes!)

Starting in C major with a soft-spoken piano accompaniment, the palette grows stronger gradually until Springsteen sings the title word (1:54) and the groove suddenly kicks in. At 3:54, the feel shifts completely as the key moves to Eb major under a Clarence Clemons tenor sax feature. At 7:45, the tune returns to its initial key via an unexpected mid-phrase leap. Casual fans who first tuned in during the 80s “Born in the USA” era might be surprised by the rawness and vulnerability of early-career Springsteen — particularly as seen during his live performances.

Barbara Mandrell | The Midnight Oil

“The most important thing to understand about Barbara Mandrell is that she was a musical prodigy,” (UDiscoverMusic). “Prodigy is, after all, the term most people would use to describe an 11-year-old who played pedal steel guitar (hardly a forgiving instrument) alongside adult professional musicians. Within a few years, she was joining Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline onstage to flaunt her skills.

Mandrell’s musical ability tends to get ignored because of just how commercially successful she was in the 1970s and 1980s, making songs that decidedly leaned toward the pop side of the country-pop spectrum … Her skill and casual, agile voice made it easy for Mandrell to dabble in several different pop styles. But she never abandoned playing music … she played not just pedal steel, but banjo, dobro, mandolin, and even saxophone. In light of that versatility and her seemingly unstoppable run of hit songs, it’s no surprise that she became the first artist to win the CMA’s Entertainer of the Year award in back-to-back years.”

Her 1973 release, “Midnight Oil,” was “a liberated woman’s anthem – not only is the narrator in this Barbara Mandrell song working late instead of running home to her beau, but she’s also actually lying about working late to continue a torrid workplace affair. A gentle, almost folksy instrumental backs Mandrell as she croons some (fairly risqué) sweet nothings to her unsuspecting partner. The song was a hit on the country charts …” An early half-step modulation hits as the second verse begins at 0:51. Many thanks to Rob P. for yet another great submission!