Tag: USA

Tony Bennett | Steppin’ Out With My Baby

20-time Grammy winner Tony Bennett passed away last week at the age of 96. With his release of Love For Sale in 2021, a collaboration with Lady Gaga, he broke the Guinness World Record for oldest person to release an album of new material.

His 1993 album Steppin’ Out, a tribute to Fred Astaire, won the Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance. “Steppin’ Out With My Baby” is the lead track, and the music video featured here was aired on MTV.

After a long, winding intro that quotes “Fascinatin’ Rhythm” among other tunes, we ultimately land in D minor for the start of the song. It modulates subtly to D major for the 8 bar “B” section at 1:00, then returns to D minor at 1:12. The tune continues alternating between these two keys throughout, and also briefly detours to C major for 8 bars at 1:40.

Fee Waybill | Tall, Dark and Harmless

“Wild, wacky, weird and wonderful are just a few words that would appropriately fit but still fall short of fully describing the unclassifiable theatrical rock enigma and fabulous freak show known as The Tubes,” (ChicagoConcertReviews.com). “The San Francisco-based band started in the 1970s by turning underground upside down with cult favorites ‘Don’t Touch Me There’ and ‘White Punks On Dope,’ accompanied by technologically-advanced productions, outrageous characters, over the top costumes and comedy that all seemed to jump straight out of a scene from The Rocky Horror Picture Show crossed with a Saturday Night Live sketch.”

After many years with the band, Waybill decided to go solo. “It was the good, bad and the ugly of David Foster. He was a brilliant producer and a brilliant arranger, but he wanted to make hits. When we did the first album with him, he put me together with [Toto’s] Steve Lukather and we all wrote ‘Talk To Ya Later,’ which was a big hit. Then we wrote ‘She’s a Beauty’ on the second album and that was an even bigger hit. He wanted big hits on the radio and that’s what the record company wanted, but it kind of flew in the face of a band that had been together 15 years and he’s telling us, ‘no, I want to do this. I want to do that. I want to do a whole side of just hits with Lukather and Fee.’ The band couldn’t handle it and I understand it.”

Waybill released several solo albums, including 1996’s Don’t Be Scared of These Hands. “Tall Dark and Harmless” features all of the harmonic complexity and layered textures of later Tubes material. The uptempo rocker features a buzzing, ascending chromatic guitar line on the chorus — as complex as the repeated one-note title line is simple. Overall, the architecture of the tune is ever-changing: after an intro in E major, 0:17 features multiple two-chord pairs (suggesting several keys, none of which is E major). At 0:49, a pre-chorus leads back into the static E major of the chorus.

Wild Uncharted Waters (from “The Little Mermaid”)

A live-action adaptation of Disney’s beloved 1989 animated film The Little Mermaid, starring Halle Bailey, was released this past May. Alan Menken, who wrote the music for the original film, collaborated with Lin-Manuel Miranda on some additional songs, including the one we are featuring here. Menken’s trademark soaring melody is performed by Jonah Hauer-King, who portrays Prince Eric.

The track starts in F minor and modulates up a 4th to Bb at 2:08

Livingston Taylor | I Will Be In Love With You

“Livingston Taylor picked up his first guitar at the age of 13, which began a more than 50-year career that has encompassed performance, songwriting, and teaching,” (Taylor’s website). “Born in Boston and raised in North Carolina, Livingston is the fourth child in a very musical family that includes Alex, James, Kate, and Hugh. Livingston recorded his first record at the age of 19 and has continued to create beautifully crafted, introspective, original songs as well as sparkling interpretations of the classic songbook that have earned him enthusiastic listeners worldwide.”

Taylor has released several Top 40 hits, including “I Will Be in Love with You” (1978). He’s collaborated and toured with a wide range of artists, including Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Fleetwood Mac, Jimmy Buffett, and Jethro Tull. “For over three decades, Livingston taught at the Berklee College of Music, where he created a course on Stage Performance.” Taylor’s former students at Berklee include Charlie Puth, John Mayer, Gavin McGraw, Susan Tedesci, and many others.

“I Will Be In Love With You,” which reached #30 on the Pop chart and #15 on the Adult Contemporary chart, clearly presents Taylor’s phrasing and musical vocabulary as parallels to those of his big brother James. At a distance, his vocal timbre is also much like his brother’s — but upon more careful listening, it’s easier to differentiate. The tune alternates throughout between C major and D major; the first unadorned modulation hits during the intro (0:19) and others follow at 1:58 and 2:11. All of the sections with vocals are in D major.

Start of Something New (from “High School Musical”)

The TV movie High School Musical premiered on the Disney Channel in 2006 and was the most-watched premiere in the network’s history; there have since been two spin-offs. “Start of Something New,” written by Matthew Gerrard and Robbie Neil, is the first track on the film’s soundtrack, which was the best-selling album of 2006.

The song begins in C, modulates to D after 8 bars at 0:28, and shifts up to E for the last chorus at 2:26.

Billy Joe Royal | Down in the Boondocks

Great artists steal, they say. And so Billy Joe Royal’s 1965 hit (Billboard #9) “Down in the Boondocks” shamelessly lifted the scratch guitar lick opening from Gene Pitney’s recording of the Bacharach/David song “Twenty-four Hours From Tulsa” from a couple of years before.

The song’s theme, a boy of lower socioeconomic status is troubled by his circumstances, which carry over to his relationship with a girl, was common in popular song of the day. Think of the Four Seasons’ “Dawn” (1963), or Johnny Rivers’ “Poor Side of Town” (1966).

Billy Joe Royal never had as big a hit again, though he came close with “Cherry Hill Park” (Billboard #15) in 1969. He continued recording for many years, with several songs registering on the country charts in the 1980s.

The verse pitches up a half-step at 1:27.

A Tribe Called Quest | Check the Rhime

“If A Tribe Called Quest had stopped with their first album, People’s Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm, they’d still be regarded as a seminal hip hop act (BBC) … The laid back style of Q-Tip and Phife Dawg over the jazz sampleology of Ali Shaheed Muhammad, along with the daisy age raps of De La Soul, almost single-handedly defined the alternative rap scene … So when they followed it up with as close to a perfect album, The Low End Theory (1991), their place in history was assured.

Low End… pushed the jazz connection even further with a sparse but not quite minimal selection of grooves built around some exquisitely chosen upright bass samples, and in the case of ‘Verses From The Abstract’ actually utilising the real-time skills of legend Ron Carter … Like its predecessor, it combined humour with insight to show the world that ‘rap’ needn’t be equated with the worst aspects of the American dream. Q-Tip and Phife’s posse flows were, by this point, honed to perfection, with most tracks seeing them bounce off each other like some funked-up game of table tennis … this is another feel-good mix of smart grooves and the wittiest rhymes this side of Noel Coward. Acclaimed as one of the best 100 albums of all time by Rolling Stone, The Low End Theory remains one of hip hop’s defining moments and deserves to be in everyone’s record collection. Probably now more than ever…”

The track opens with an angular, heavily processed sax line that outlines C major and Bb major chords and doesn’t settle easily into any key, but shifts into a much clearer E minor as the first verse starts at 0:28. The two-chord vamp (A/B -> E) that underlies most of the tune is more complex than you might expect: the B bass note hits on beat one, but the A chord is delayed until the “and” of beat 2 and bleeds into the E bass note on beat 1 of the next measure. From 1:49 – 2:08 and again for the outro at 3:28, the C major intro riff returns.

Many thanks to Mark B. for this submission!

Tommy Boyce + Bobby Hart | Alice Long

“The 1960s has the duo of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart to thank for some of the biggest pop-rock hits to come out of the decade,” (American Songwriter). “The hit songwriting duo is behind some of The Monkees’ greatest hits including ‘Last Train to Clarksville.’ But they had multiple claims to fame before and after they were topping the charts with The Monkees and were even singers in their own right.

Both born in 1939, Boyce was a native of Charlottesville, Virginia, while Hart was raised in Phoenix, Arizona. Though they were from opposite ends of the country, the two came together through their mutual love of music and desire to make it a career that brought them to Los Angeles. After high school, Hart entered the Army, later moving to LA to pursue a career as a singer where Boyce was living and trying to make it as a songwriter.”

Along the way, the duo collaborated with Fats Domino, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Jay and the Americans, the aforementioned Monkees, etc. “Their success with The Monkees served as a launching pad for their own career as artists. From 1967 to 1969, Boyce and Hart released seven singles off three albums. Their most famous hit was ‘I Wonder What She’s Doing Tonight’ in 1967, which reached the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.”

The duo released “Alice Long (You’re Still My Favorite Girlfriend)” in 1968. After starting in G major, the uptempo pop track jumps up chromatically and lands in Bb major at 2:00.

Many thanks to MotD regular Rob Penttinen, who has developed an uncanny ability to find half-forgotten ancient pop tracks on obscure AM radio stations!

O-Town | Baby I Would

O-Town is an American boy band that formed in 2000 as a result of the reality television series Making A Band. After releasing two albums, the group disbanded in 2003. “Baby I Would” is the last track on their eponymous debut record, written by MotD stalwart Diane Warren.

The song alternates between Bb for the verses and C for the choruses; coming out of the bridge, it subverts expectations by appearing as if it will modulate as usual up to C, but after a false start shifts up another whole step to D at 2:48.