Tag: USA

Tommy Roe | Dizzy

“In 1962, a 20-year-old Atlanta electrician named Tommy Roe hit #1 with ‘Sheila,’ a direct Buddy Holly bite that’s both good and weird enough to stand on its own.” (Stereogum). “Roe, who’d written ‘Sheila’ when he was 14, didn’t think he had a music career in him, and the bosses at RCA had to advance Roe thousands of dollars to convince him to leave his job at General Electric and go out on tour. In the years that followed, though, Tommy Roe cranked out a whole lot of simple, joyous, and delightful pop hits, proving himself to be a pro … becoming one of the handful of artists to reach the top of the charts both before and after the Beatles’ arrival. That’s a hell of a run, and it’s bookended by two extremely fun songs.”

Speaking of the tune’s multiple modulations: ” … those streamlined bits of musical disorientation are there to drive home the point of the song … The drums and strings and guitars pound away in a weirdly circular sense, effectively mirroring the idea that this kid just can’t get his feet under him … Roe and his bubblegum peers never cared the slightest bit about credibility. They just wanted to deliver kicks. And in a song like ‘Dizzy,’ a best-case scenario for a low-ambition bubblegum bop, that’s exactly what they did.”

The half-step key changes start early, at 0:24 and then just as verse 1 hits (0:28); many more follow thereafter (0:43, 1:15, 1:20, 1:34, 2:16, 2:21, and 2:35). Many thanks to first-time contributor (but longtime music educator!) Amy C. for submitting this track!

Jimmie Rodgers | Honeycomb

“Jimmie Rodgers, known professionally as the ‘Singing Brakeman’ and ‘America’s Blue Yodeler,’ was in the first class of inductees honored by the Country Music Hall of Fame and is widely known as ‘The Father of Country Music,’ (Country Music Hall of Fame). “From many diverse elements—the traditional folk music of his southern upbringing, early jazz, stage-show yodeling, the work chants of Black railroad section crews and, most importantly, African American blues—he forged a lasting musical style that made him immensely popular during his own lifetime and a major influence on generations of country artists to come. Gene Autry, Johnny Cash, Lefty Frizzell, Merle Haggard, Bill Monroe, Dolly Parton, Hank Snow, Ernest Tubb, and Tanya Tucker are only some of the dozens of stars who have acknowledged Rodgers’s impact on their music.

… Best known for his solo appearances on stage and record, Rodgers also worked with many other established performers of the time, touring in 1931 with Will Rogers (who jokingly referred to him as ‘my distant son’) and recording with such country music greats as the Bill Boyd, the Carter Family, and Clayton McMichen, and, in at least one instance, with the legendary jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong, who appears with him on ‘Blue Yodel Number 9 (Standin’ on the Corner).’ One of the first white country stars to work with Black musicians, Rodgers also recorded with the fine St. Louis bluesman Clifford Gibson and the popular Louisville musical group the Dixieland Jug Blowers.”

1957’s upbeat “Honeycomb,” written by Bob Merrill, is a blend of country and rockabilly. The track modulates up a half-step at 0:44 and again at 1:25. Many thanks to regular contributor Rob P. for sending in this tune!

Hall + Oates | So Close

“Throughout their spectacular run of hit singles in the ’80s, Hall + Oates took full advantage of emerging technology, applying layers of synths and programmed rhythms to their rock/soul hybrid sound,” (Ultimate Classic Rock). “But by the end of the decade, they were ready for a change. That restlessness manifested itself on the duo’s 14th studio album, the suitably titled Change of Season … Although it happened to arrive in the midst of an acoustic boom helped along by the popular MTV Unplugged series, Hall + Oates insisted they were simply heading back to their roots after riding the crest of pop stardom as far as it could take them.

Yet if Change of Season … offered a measure of liberation from Hall + Oates’ pop-star past, it came with a price. After nearly 20 years of working side by side, the duo — only recently returned from a three-year mid-’80s hiatus — knew their days as a working recording act were coming to a close. ‘The essence of our working relationship hasn’t changed over the years. We collaborate the same way and for the same reasons,’ Oates told the Inquirer. ‘The only change has been with our personalities. A decade ago, we were wrapped up as Hall & Oates and our career. The individuality was defined as part of the group. You’ll see more solo projects from each of us in the future.'” The new albums indeed stopped; equally unfortunately, the touring did, too: the duo are now battling bitterly over their divergent views on the management of their shared publishing rights.

“So Close” opens in C major, with several verses and choruses leading to a bridge (3:13 – 3:57). Halfway through the bridge (3:37), there’s a whole-step shift up to D major as the sonic and lyrical energy builds: There’s a restless look in your eye tonight / there’s a secret hurt in my heart / and the dream that pulls us together, girl / is a dream that’s gonna tear us, tear us apart. Although the tune reached #11 on the pop charts, it was the duo’s last major hit. It was a great half-century-plus career while it lasted: Hall + Oates remain the most successful duo of all time, ahead of the Carpenters, the Everly Brothers, and Simon + Garfunkel (Billboard).

Todd Rundgren | Worldwide Epiphany 1.1

“Todd Rundgren has long made a career out of alternatively (and sometimes simultaneously) confounding and delighting his most ardent fans.” (MusoScribe). “Resolutely following his muse wherever it takes him … the result is a body of work like that of no other artist: rich with gems, but wildly varying and with little in the way of consistency. In fact, consistency is a quality in which Rundgren likely places little stock; for him, unexpected stylistic left turns are a feature, not a bug.

Even against that backdrop … Rundgren’s 1993 album No World Order remains among the most challenging and polarizing projects in his lengthy recording career … Then enamored of the new CD-i media format — a development that for a brief moment looked like entertainment technology’s Next Big Thing — Rundgren crafted a cache of what might be termed songlets or song snippets (the No World Order CD-i contained nearly one thousand four-bar segments). The idea of the CD-i was that users could interact with the media, creating their own mix of the music by adjusting the sonic elements … Despite the album’s dodgy reputation, Rundgren’s near infallible sense of melody — one arguably on a par with that of Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson — rarely fails him.”

“Worldwide Epiphany 1.1” is a shortened version of a tune with a full version that clocks in at well over five minutes, but the “1.1” version includes all of the track’s basic elements in a shorter form. An F# minor verse, starting with and strongly featuring a “9” tension in the melody, shifts to an E minor chorus at 0:50.

Building Momentum (from “How To Dance In Ohio”)

Composer Jacob Yandura and lyricist/bookwriter Rebekah Greer Melocik adapted the 2015 HBO documentary How To Dance in Ohio into a musical of the same name, which premiered on Broadway late last year. The story follows a group of autistic teenagers as they prepare to attend their first spring formal. It was the first Broadway show to cast autistic characters with autistic actors. A UK production is planned for next year.

“Building Momentum” comes near the end of the show. It begins in Ab, shifts up to A at 1:04, and modulates again to Bb at 2:05.

The Searchers | Needles and Pins

Jackie DeShannon was the first to record “Needles and Pins,” credited to Jack Nitzsche and Sonny Bono, in 1963. She has claimed co-authorship of the song. But the song’s big hit was scored by the British Invasion group The Searchers, released early the next year. That was their second UK #1, after “Sweets For My Sweet” from 1963. In the US, the song reached a respectable #13 on the Billboard charts. Later in 1964, their cover of The Clovers’ “Love Potion No. 9” became their best-charting song in America (#3).

According to Songfacts, “two 6-string guitars are playing in unison on the intro — it sounds like a 12-string guitar because an engineer accidentally left the echo switch on but liked the result.”

After the bridge, the third verse (1:24) lands a third up from the starting key.

Third Reprise | Somewhere That’s Green (from “Little Shop of Horrors” feat. Sarah Hyland + Andrew Barth Feldman)

Third Reprise, a band founded by Daniel Rudin to cover musical theatre showtunes, recently released a funk arrangement of “Somewhere That’s Green” from the 1986 musical Little Shop of Horrors by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman. “The key to Third Reprise’s early success,” the group’s website says, “has been pairing the virtuosic, luminous artistry of the best singers and instrumentalists in NYC with a highly specific body of songs that mean a lot to people, while never losing the joy and sense of humor that’s core to the concept of a musical theater cover band.”

Sarah Hyland and Andrew Barth Feldman are currently playing the leads in a revival of the show running Off-Broadway in New York. The track starts in C and shifts up to Eb for the second verse at 0:40. There is another modulation up a step to F at 1:32.

The Band | Stage Fright

After a wait of too many years, MotD is happy to finally feature a tune by a legendary band whose name likely created more than a few promotion challenges: “After many tours of duty backing the rockabilly legend Ronnie Hawkins and providing the muscle behind Bob Dylan’s move towards electric rock, the four Canadians and one Arkansan comprising the Band were pedigreed to a legendary extent even before making their first album,” (Pitchfork). “By the time they issued the twinned masterpieces Music From Big Pink in 1968 and The Band in 1969, their polymathic command of multiple genres, and self-conscious embrace of traditional American folk, country, bluegrass, and zydeco had established them as the thinking fan’s alternative to the diminishing returns of psychedelia and the counterculture … For critics, audiences and no-lesser peers than the Beatles, they had come to represent authenticity personified. So. How do you follow that up?

The answer came in the form of Stage Fright (1970), a charming, loose-limbed collection that elides the chore of living up to the previous records by basically not even trying. If their first two LPs inspired the Beatles and Stones to return to basics, Stage Fright connotes an entirely different sphere of influence: it’s a nonpareil boogie album, whose in-the-pocket playing establishes the Band as the equal of groovemaster peers like Booker T. and the Meters and sets a predicate for followers like Little Feat and NRBQ … What Stage Fright lacks in history lessons it makes up for in palpable joy. They would never seem so happy again.”

The album’s title track shows off the group’s unique songwriting sense; at times it’s often difficult to predict what might be coming next in terms of either overall form or harmonic progressions. G major holds sway overall, but between 1:47 and 2:41, there’s a clear shift in emphasis to the tune’s relative minor, E minor.

Take Me As I Am (from “Jekyll & Hyde”)

“Take Me As I Am” is from the 1990 Broadway musical Jekyll & Hyde, featuring a score by Frank Wildhord (music), Leslie Bricusse and Steve Cuden (lyrics). Wildhorn in particular is known for his ballads, most of which include a dramatic key change or two. This tune begins in Bb major and shifts up to B at 2:12.

Frank Sinatra | Strangers In the Night

In the midst of rock’s mid-60s domination of the pop music charts, Frank Sinatra’s treacly 1966 rendition of “Strangers in the Night” was a major hit. The music was written by Bert Kaempfert, with English lyrics by Charles Singleton and Eddie Snyder. In the US, the song reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and on the Easy Listening chart. The same-named album containing the single, with arrangements by long-time collaborator Nelson Riddle, was also a US #1 release. That album also contained “Summer Wind,” another Sinatra staple, though that song fared less well as a single.

Sinatra disliked the song, and wasn’t shy about mentioning it. See this dedicated Sinatra fan page for some of his very colorful commentary about the tune!

The scat-singing that starts at 2:20 gave rise to innumerable sophomoric bathroom graffiti quoting Sinatra’s do-be-do-be-do and the pithy wisdom of various philosophers.

There’s a whole-step modulation, from F major to G major, for the final verse at 2:01. According to the Wikipedia page for the song, referencing The Billboard Book of Number One Adult Contemporary Hits, Sinatra had trouble nailing the modulation, so the two sections were recorded separately and spliced together.