Tag: USA

Nate Wood | Become

“Grammy nominated Nate Wood is a drummer/multi-instrumentalist and mastering engineer based in New York City,” (NateWoodMusic.net). “Nate is a founding member of the Grammy nominated quintet Kneebody, Kneebody released their self-titled debut album in 2005 on trumpeter Dave Douglas’s label Greenleaf Music. In 2007, Kneebody released Low Electrical Worker on Colortone Media. They completed an album of arrangements of Charles Ives compositions with singer Theo Bleckmann and released the recording 12 Songs of Charles Ives, which was nominated “Best Classical Crossover Album” Grammy Award (2009).

Nate has also performed or recorded with many notable artists including … Dave Grohl, Brian May and Roger Taylor (Queen), Chris Squire (Yes), Elliot Easton (The Cars), Chaka Khan, Wayne Krantz, Billy Childs, Tigran Hamasyan, Donny McCaslin, Sting, and many others. Nate was featured in Modern Drummer in March of 2014 and placed in the 2015 Modern Drummer reader’s poll among the top 5 drummers in the fusion category.” He’s since released four of his own albums “and masters records for artists from around the world.”

“Become,” from Wood’s debut solo album Reliving (2003), moves like clockwork through its first two groove-driven verses and choruses. Then 2:10 brings a soft-spoken bridge which pivots down a whole step to Ab major (2:32) as the groove returns and a guitar solo begins. At 2:45, there’s another shift to B major, but at 2:57, we drop back into the slot of the original key as the solo continues to build in advance of the vocal’s return. Wordless vocals and a huge syncopated kick on the fifth degree of the scale bring the tune to its conclusion.

Take It Up a Step (from “Some Like It Hot”)

Some Like It Hot, running in New York now and nominated for 13 Tony Awards including Best Score, is the latest Broadway musical by the MotD-favorite composing team of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman.

The show is based on a 1959 movie, directed by Billy Wilder and starring Marilyn Monroe, that is widely considered to be one of the best films ever made.

As the title of the song implies, there are key changes scattered throughout.

Gayle McCormick | It’s a Crying Shame

“Gayle McCormick’s music career had begun in the mid-60s in Missouri, where she performed with Steve Cummings + the Klassmen,” (Exclaim.ca). “She moved to California with the band, but left the group upon arriving on the West Coast. From there, she hooked up with an act called the Smiths (not to be confused with the later group from the UK), who changed their name to Smith by the release of 1969’s debut album, A Group Called Smith.

The record’s biggest hit was their cover of the Burt Bacharach-penned ‘Baby It’s You.’ While the song had been recorded by the Shirelles, the Beatles and more, the smooth, soul rock groove Smith grafted to the piece gave the tune its highest chart position, climbing to #5 in late 1969.

Smith followed up their debut with a sophomore collection in 1970, but they disbanded, leaving McCormick to start a solo career. She yielded a minor hit with ‘It’s a Cryin’ Shame’ from an eponymous solo set in 1971.” The energetic track features a mid-phrase modulation up a half-step at 2:07.

Huey Lewis + The News | The Power of Love

“Back To The Future, the biggest hit at the 1985 box office, is a beautifully assembled Swiss watch of a movie, a perfect little machine full of subliminal clues that pay off much later,” (Stereogum). “Director Rob Zemeckis and his co-writer, producer Bob Gale, find small and clever little ways to convey information, and we get a lot of those in the film’s first few minutes. We also get the big, pumping jam that would become the first #1 hit for Huey Lewis And The News, a band that was already on fire …

‘The Power Of Love’ is a goofy song, but it’s a catchy one. Lewis mugs hard all through it, and he wails out nonsensical cocaine-logic philosophical nuggets about how love is tougher than diamonds, rich like cream, and stronger and harder than a bad girl’s dream. When you’re making good bubblegum, you can get away with refusing to make sense, and ‘The Power Of Love’ is good bubblegum. The track has hooks on hooks on hooks, with all the keyboard stabs and shiny-bluesy riffs in the exact right places.”

The verses are in C minor, but the choruses (first heard from 3:12 – 3:30) shift to C major. Between 4:11 – 4:33, the bridge transitions to Eb major. True to HL+TN’s trademark sound, there’s plentiful helpings of everything: the generous guitar solo, the wall-to-wall huskiness of Lewis’ lead vocal, the up-in-the-mix drums, and synth kicks just about everywhere. The band might have been somewhat less delicate than a Swiss watch, but it was nonetheless one of the most perfect pop machines of its era, scoring 19 top ten hits overall. “Power of Love” reached #1 for two weeks in August 1985 and was later nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Haley Reinhart | The Letter

“The Letter,” originally written and recorded (and a #1 hit) in 1967 by the American rock band The Box Tops, is featured on Hailey Reinhard’s 2017 album What’s That Sound?

Reinhart, whose career jumpstarted with her third-place finish in the 10th season of American Idol in 2010, said in an interview with Variety that the song “is such a cool, timeless tune. One of my earliest memories is crowding around my grandma’s piano listening to my Aunt Janice and Uncle Tom sing and play it. My uncle can sound just like Alex Chilton and the Box Tops with his guttural, sandpaper-like tone, while my aunt would harmonize with her soulful pipes. I thought it would be really neat to bring it up a couple of keys and give a woman’s take on the tune. It’s such a unique, upbeat song with gritty vocals, horns and sweeping strings. It’s become a pop standard to many and I’m so happy I got to put my own spin on it.”

Reinhart has performed and toured with Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox, and is preparing to tour on her own later this year.

The track is in D minor and briefly shifts up to Gb major at 1:41 for the outro.

Safer (from “First Date”)

“Safer” is from the 2013 Broadway musical by Austin Winsberg (book), Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner (music and lyrics). The song comes about halfway through the show, as Casey is wondering if she is getting in her own way in looking for a relationship. The track, performed here by original cast member Krysta Rodriguez, begins in Ab and modulates up a half step to A at 2:25.

Hall + Oates | She’s Gone

In an interview with American Songwriter, John Oates, songwriter/guitarist/vocalist for Hall and Oates, spoke about “She’s Gone,” from the band’s 1973 album Abandoned Luncheonette (re-released to larger acclaim in 1976): “I don’t know if it’s the best song we’ve ever written, but it’s certainly one of the most enduring songs. I think it’s a song that is certainly emblematic of our collaborative relationship … We knew it was a good song. We knew it was unique. But really that song – don’t confuse that song with the record. The song was the thing that happened in our living room with him on the piano and me on the acoustic guitar. The record is what happened when we went into Atlantic studios with the legendary producer, Arif Mardin, and this incredible collection of musicians who he surrounded us with and his string arrangement and the chemistry. I call it the perfect storm of creativity. It turned that song into a classic record that has really stood the test.”

From Songfacts: “This is one of the duo’s favorite Hall & Oates songs. Daryl Hall told Entertainment Weekly: ‘It’s very autobiographical. What we wrote about was real, even though it was two different situations. And it’s very thematic with us: this soaring melody and uplifting chord progression, but about a very sad thing.'” In Songfacts‘ 2011 interview with John Oates, he explained: “‘We started out as songwriters. And both Daryl and myself, individually and collectively, have a wide variety of musical tastes. Just because the music we made may have fallen into a certain category doesn’t mean we weren’t aware of and interested in other kinds of music. When Hall & Oates got together, I brought a traditional American folk-y approach, and it was something Daryl wasn’t really even aware of. And Daryl brought a lot more of the urban R&B side. And when we blended those together, we eventually created a sound.'”

In what might be a high water mark for the duo’s vocals, lead vocal duties are shared and harmonies alternate with octave unisons. Although the single peaked at only #7 on the Billboard Hot 100, it also placed in the top 10 on the Canada Top Singles chart and both the US and Canadian Adult Contemporary charts. It only reached #93 on the US R&B chart. Though the duo’s unprecedented run of early-80s hits almost entirely arose from the pop genre, this earlier outing was textbook blue-eyed soul. Between 4:08 – 4:34, a late instrumental bridge brings three half-step modulations, ushered in with a IV/V compound chord in each new key.

Heart | Crazy on You

The first song on Heart’s debut 1975 LP, Dreamboat Annie, is the epic, “Crazy On You,” (American Songwriter). “The song, which begins with an acoustic riff that sounds like it’s being plucked by five or six hands (not just by one of guitarist Nancy Wilson’s) leads into one of the most stalwart guitar licks of all time. Borne out of fits of passion amidst troubled political times (see: War, Vietnam), the track describes the desire to forget everything happening outside one’s windows and succumb to passion. With this song as the band’s introduction to new fans, it’s no wonder that Heart would later make the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame.

… Guitarist Nancy Wilson spoke about her sister’s songwriting process: “When Ann was writing the lyrics, I know that she was – the times were very troubled, kind of like today. Very much like today. And, you know, it was kind of a call to your partner to be like, ‘I know the world is just insanely crazy here right now. But I just want us to go crazy together. To let it all just fall away so it’s only just you and me here!’ So, I think that’s a really cool thing that she did in those words for sure.”

Built in A minor overall, the tune features a bridge in A major (2:25 – 2:52). In addition to the new tonality, the shape of the melody also shifts in comparison with the balance of the song. Between 4:00 and 4:20, an instrumental section echoes the earlier vocal bridge.

Sleeping At Last | Rainbow Connection

Sleeping At Last formed in 1999, originally including Ryan O’Neal (vocals, guitar), his brother Chad (drums) and Dan Perdue (bass). The Illinois-based group released four albums before Chad and Dan left and Ryan continued on his own.

O’Neal has released three compilations of covers, and “Rainbow Connection” appears on Volume 2, released in 2016. The song, written originally in 1979 by Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher for The Muppets Movie, has been named one of the greatest movie songs of all time by the American Film Institute.

The track begins in D and modulates up to Eb at 2:01.

Frank Zappa | Night School

“Released in November 1986, the fully instrumental Jazz From Hell was technically the last studio album that Frank Zappa released in his lifetime, despite having finished two others,” (UDiscoverMusic) … “Fittingly, Jazz From Hell was every bit as uncompromising and groundbreaking as the composer’s best work, giving a tantalizing glimpse of how Zappa might’ve continued to harness cutting-edge technology were it not for his untimely death.

Zappa had been an early adopter of the Synclavier Digital Music System – one of the first digital samplers and synthesizers – using it throughout the mid-’80s” on several albums. “The equipment opened up a world of possibilities for Zappa, allowing him to push the boundaries of his music beyond the capabilities of human players, as he told Keyboardist magazine in 1987: ‘The moment you get your hands on a piece of equipment like this, where you can modify known instruments in ways that human beings just never do, such as add notes to the top and bottom of the range, or allow a piano to perform pitch-bends or vibrato, even basic things like that will cause you to rethink the existing musical universe. The other thing you get to do is invent sounds from scratch. Of course, that opens up a wide range.’

Jazz From Hell arrived at a time when Frank Zappa’s profile had rarely been higher, thanks to his ongoing battle against censorship in music and the Parents’ Music Resource Centre (PMRC) in particular. Hilariously, his efforts in advocating for free speech meant that Jazz From Hell – an instrumental album, lest we forget – was given a Parental Advisory – Explicit Content sticker on release.”

“Night School,” the album’s opening track, starts in C lydian, departing from and returning to it multiple times throughout (the first example: a shift to C# minor from 0:55 – 1:07). The multi-layered electronic groove is so dense and relentless that when it finally disappears during the outro (4:37), we’re left with a feeling of relative restfulness — even though the melody is a lone sustained siren of a #11 note, leaning hard into C lydian.