Tag: USA

Hall and Oates | Laughing Boy

“For all the success that this Philadelphia-based duo would experience later on in their career, Daryl Hall and John Oates struggled to find a commercial footing early on,” (ClassicRockReview.com). “That’s not to say that they didn’t produce interesting and creative music as demonstrated brilliantly on their second album, Abandoned Luncheonette, released in late 1973. Despite only reaching #33 on the album charts during its initial run, this album slowly grew in stature and would finally reach platinum-selling status about three decades after its release.

For Abandoned Luncheonette, the group and production team moved from Philadelphia to New York where their disparate influences of folk, rock, and soul were refined with the help of expert session players to forge the album’s musical tapestry as well as the group’s signature sound for the next decade.”

In addition to one of their breakthrough hits, “She’s Gone,” Abandoned Luncheonette featured “Laughing Boy,” a ballad which showcased Daryl Hall’s vocals and keyboard skills. An unusually high percentage of the tune’s sonic real estate features chromatic basslines; for example at 0:08, we start out with a bassline alternating between C and B; at 0:31, we’re down to Bb, then D/A before the pattern breaks. The short chorus (0:57 – 1:10) is built around F# minor, which makes the tritone jump to C Lydian at the start of the next verse quite distinctive. There’s not a strong feeling of tonality to begin with, so modulation isn’t really on the menu per se, but that tritone shift (which recurs several times) is quite the statement!

Carole King | Beautiful

“Beautiful,” featured on King’s breakout 1971 album Tapestry, became one of her best-known songs and is the title song in the 2014 Broadway musical based on King’s life. Reflecting the message in the lyric of finding hope and determination even amidst darkness and hardship, the key fluctuates fluidly between C minor and its relative Eb major. Prior to the last verse, the tune modulates up a half step to C# minor (and E major) at 1:35, where it remains till the end.

Maurice Cahen | Impromptu #1 for Flute and Guitar

Guitarist and composer Maurice Cahen was born in Saint Germain en Laye, France. He began studying classical guitar while playing jazz in the Paris area. He traveled back and forth to Spain, where he discovered his love for traditional and contemporary Spanish music. In 1982, Maurice moved to the United States to study at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, followed by studies with Charlie Banacos and Dimitri Goryachev. Since then, he’s collaborated with various Boston and New York based musicians and has published original chamber music for flute and guitar, including the Impromptu #1.

Cahen has toured Israel with The Little Big Band and later toured Brazil with his own quartet and duo. Since then, Maurice has created numerous ensembles: Reflection, Brazilian Serenade, and various duos and trios featuring his original work, improvisation, etc. and exploring many styles, instrumentations, and genres (Classical, Latin, etc.) Maurice is currently studying North Indian Classical music and sitar technique with Jawwad Noor.

Impromptu #1 for flute and guitar, featuring Cahen on guitar and MotD co-curator Elise MacDonald on flute, begins in an overarching B minor and D major, but shifts to B major at 1:03. After touching on several other keys of the moment, we return to B minor and D major at 1:44.

Average White Band | You’re My Number One

Released in 1982, “You’re My Number One” was a track from the Average White Band’s album Cupid’s In Fashion. ” … the group decided to keep things a bit funkier on this release … ” (Soulfinger). ” … they brought in some cool cats like Dan Hartman to write ‘You’re My Number One’. Say what you will about Hartman, but that man can make a fun song … AWB could do LA pop without losing their soul … “

Hartman is perhaps best known for his own release “I Can Dream About You” (which reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984 and #12 on the UK Singles chart in 1985). He wrote and/or produced many other successful tunes for other artists, including “Living in America” for James Brown (1986), as well as tracks for a wide-ranging list of artists including The Plasmatics, Steve Winwood, Tina Turner, Joe Cocker, Dusty Springfield, and Bonnie Tyler. Hartman passed away from HIV in 1994 at the age of only 43.

1980s LA pop could hardly have a better standard-bearer than this track. Its funk foundation, nimble horn section, glossy production, and an entire instrumental verse devoted to a sax solo all belie the fact that Average White Band is from … Scotland! The modulation kicks in at 1:46.

Liz Story | Things With Wings

Pianist Liz Story studied music at Hunter College and at Juilliard. “Although she was an accomplished pianist, (she) lost interest in a music career until she saw Bill Evans play one night at the Bottom Line in New York,” (MusicianGuide). “That concert opened up performance possibilities that she had never considered. ‘What hit me was the improvisation. I had the impression that improvising music had died in the 18th century, that it was a musical feat people knew about in some other time,’ she told DownBeat. ‘All these lights went on. I had, for the first time, a clear idea of what I would do in music.’

The timing of Story’s entrance onto the music scene was fortuitous. She arrived when a new form of music, popularly dubbed New Age, was gaining wide acceptance. William Ackerman helped pioneer New Age music through his Windham Hill label, which he formed in 1976 to release his first album of guitar music … Story recorded her first solo album, Solid Colors, for Windham Hill in 1983. High Fidelity reviewed the album: ‘ … a virtually flawless technical capacity, a fine gift for melody, a great sense of creative passion … a performer-composer with the melodic power to move an audience.’ Story claims that she desires simplicity in her compositions. ‘When I sit at the piano, complexity dissolves. I want music to somehow move me, simple and stripped down as it may be. I wonder at the possibility that a melody of three notes can turn the heart.'”

Story’s 1983 track “Things With Wings” begins in F major; at 1:03, there’s a modulation to F# major, then a reversion to the original key at 1:46.

Gin Blossoms | California Sun

“An homage to the surf music the Beach Boys helped make so popular, this song is certainly one directly from the depths of Gin Blossom Jesse Valenzuela’s heart,” (Songfacts). “Jesse’s original role with the Gin Blossoms was as lead singer. He switched to guitar with the introduction of vocalist Robin Wilson to the band. Yet he was – and is – one of the band’s most prolific songwriters. While some artists may have a rough time of it allowing someone else to sing their words when they themselves are perfectly capable of doing it, Jesse says it doesn’t bother him.”

InnerEarMedia‘s review of the band’s 2006 album Major Lodge Victory has this to say about “California Sun,” the album’s closing track: “The easy-to-the-ears pop of the Gin Blossoms is like a warm blanket surrounding you and keeping you safe. That blanket only gets warmed more by ‘California Sun’ as the sweet pop song brings this great album to an appropriate end. Gin Blossoms leave us with a folk/pop song that could’ve come straight from the 70s (Eagles, America, etc.) and it makes you smile.”

Starting in E major, a bridge at 2:03 begins with a vocal section but then settles into a guitar feature. We’re led into a key change at 2:49 with an emphatic, extended V chord in the new key of F major, complete with richly textured backing vocals echoing the Beach Boys’ style. At 3:00, the final chorus is firmly established in the new key.

Caterina Valente and Danny Kaye | Bossa Nova Medley

Consummate entertainer Caterina Valente debuted her recording career with “The Hi-Fi Nightingale”, which was issued in 1956, with a career that lasted until 2003. That LP contained her version of “Malagueña’, which begins her routine here, which appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1969.

Born into a musical family in France, of Italian heritage, Caterina spoke six languages, and sang in eleven. You can find videos online of her interviews in French, Italian, German, and Portuguese (and probably in other languages). Her routine here shows off her choreographed dancing skills; she was also an accomplished tap dancer.

While she sang in many styles, she was especially accomplished in singing bossa nova, accompanying herself on guitar. She recorded an entire LP with bossa innovator Luiz Bonfa in 1963, “Poco e tutto.” On Danny Kaye’s early-1960s variety show, she and Danny performed a whimsical suite of nursery rhymes reimagined as bossa tunes.


The short “Malagueña” segment starts in D; at 0:40, the transition to “The Look of Love” shifts to B♭. For the swingin’-Mozart, breakneck-tempo “Turkish Rondo” segment at 2:40, the key shifts to D♭; with a modulation to E♭ at 4:01. (This piece is also known as “Turkish March,” but one wonders if Turkish (or any other) soldiers could march at this speed!)

For the last segment, Caterina is accompanied on clarinet by her older brother Silvio Francesco, very talented in his own right. He was her musical director on her tours, and appeared on some of her albums. He achieved some fame on his own as a pop singer in Germany.

Leslie Odom Jr. (feat. Sia) | Cold

A solo version of “Cold” was first included on Odom’s 2019 album “Mr,” the singer/actor’s third studio album and first comprised of original material. The track proved to be the standout song of the album, and a new cover was released in 2020, featuring the Australian, nine-time Grammy nominated singer Sia.

“Sia has been a friend for a few years now after I met her backstage at Hamilton,” Odom said. ” As I look at making that foray into the pop world and pop music, she’s been a really great mentor and friend. I sent her the album and asked if there was anything she would want to collaborate on. She said, ‘I’ll sing on Cold,’ which was her favorite song from the album, so we recorded a new version of it that I think you’re really going to like.” Due to the pandemic, the two artists conducted the recording and producing of the track virtually.

The tune begins in C and modulates up to Db at 2:32.

Richard Marx | Heaven Only Knows

Cleveland.com describes songwriter and performer Richard Marx as a “supremely talented, instinctual songwriter who rode the wave of MTV fame for a decade or so and then, when the heat dissipated, reinvented himself as a producer and songwriter for others. ‘It was just about 10 years straight where everything I put out had success. And then I put out a record that I joked went double plywood instead of double platinum.’ … He says it took a year for him to grasp the change. ‘I started to think, well, you know what? I had a really great turn for about 10 years. And it’s not my turn now. It’s somebody else’s turn.’”

Marx has had 14 #1 songs as a writer. Cleveland.com continues: “He and Luther Vandross’ ‘Dance With My Father’ won the 2004 Grammy for Song of the Year. He’s written or performed hits on Billboard’s country, adult contemporary, mainstream rock, holiday and pop charts.” Marx’s earlier run as a performer centered around his own material, best known for hits like “Right Here Waiting,” “Hold On to the Nights,” “Hazard” and “Angelia.” Some up-tempo tracks, such as “Should Have Known Better” and “Don’t Mean Nothing,” also hold a place in his repertoire, but Marx has a particular gift for harmony-saturated power ballads.

“Heaven Only Knows,” a fastidiously constructed track from Marx’s eponymous debut album (1987), wasn’t even a single — giving some idea of the overall quality and detail of his songwriting, right out of the gate. The verses and choruses, built with plenty of inverted and compound chords, pivot all over the place. The tune’s short phrases traverse one blind alley after another, with questioning and longing the only common factors. The bridge (3:08), built around major chords, finally transitions the forecast to partly sunny, but it leads to a key change to C# minor (4:00) for the last chorus and extended outro.

Reba McEntire | Somehow You Do

“Somehow You Do,” from the 2021 film Four Good Days, was nominated for Best Original song at the 2022 Academy Awards and performed at the ceremony (and in the film) by country star Reba McEntire. It marks the fifth consecutive best song nomination for composer Diane Warren and her 13th overall — she has yet to win.

McEntire’s performance was introduced by Mila Kunis, who stars in the film as a young woman recovering from heroin addiction. “[The song is a] story of hope, perseverance and survival that celebrates the strength of the human spirit,” Kunis, who was born in Ukraine, said. “Recent global events have left many of us feeling gutted. Yet when you witness the strength of those facing such devastation, it’s impossible not to be moved by their resilience. One cannot help but be in awe of those who find strength to keep fighting through unimaginable darkness.”

Starting in C, the song dramatically modulates up a half step to Db at 1:56.