Playing Favorites 10/14/2022

Years ago my wife Muri and I used to take a mini-vacation every Valentine’s Day.  I’d pick a place that wasn’t too far from home then search the web for things to do there: museums, concerts, tours … and, of course, restaurants.  This all stopped when our first grandson, Reed, was born on Valentine’s Day and Valentine’s Day became Reed’s Birthday.   The year before Reed was born, we spent a long weekend in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  In searching for entertainment for Saturday night, I found a group named Leahy performing at the Lensic Performing Arts Center.  I’d never heard of the group, so I navigated to their website to find that Leahy is a Canadian folk group made up entirely of family members from Lakefield, Ontario.   The eight member band features fiddle-based music that ranges from traditional jigs and reels to their own folk-rock compositions.  All the members play multiple instruments and all step dance as part of their act.   We discovered before the show that Leahy had a large following of people who had seen them before and traveled a long way to see them again in Santa Fe.  It was simply one of the most enjoyable concerts we’d ever attended, made better by the fact that it was a complete surprise.   And so, Leahy qualifies as today’s favorite.

Playing Favorites 7/9/2022

I have been putting together a playlist I titled Favorites Live.   Most of the songs are favorites performed by the performers that made them famous.  Heartache Tonight by the Eagles.  On My Own by Patti Labelle and Michael McDonald.   Moondance by Van Morrison.   There is something fresh and vital about live performances and YouTube provides a perfect medium for finding them.   But once you begin to search YouTube for songs you love, you discover something else … songs you love by singers that didn’t originally record them.  Have you ever followed Daryl’s house?   Hosted by Daryl Hall of Hall and Oates fame, Hall brings mostly lesser-known artists to his ranch in Pawling, NY to perform their own songs and well-known songs by other original artists.   What results is some interesting versions of songs you know by performers you possibly don’t.  A good example is Aretha Franklin’s beautiful Daydreamin’ by Daryl Hall and his band featuring Diane Birch on keyboards and lead vocals.   It is worth a listen, here.

Playing Favorites 8/6/22

 

I seem to have fallen into the habit of posting Playing Favorites on Saturday the tagging it a Friday Favorite. At first it was write a draft on Friday, then revise and post it on Saturday. Well, this post is written, revised and posted on Saturday, so I suppose I can’t tag it as a Friday Favorite. For the sake of honesty, I’ve dispensed with the Friday tag in favor of calling it simply Playing Favorites. This is a four-layer favorite, a beautiful song, written and performed by my favorite pianist for one of my favorite movies, which happens to have the most beautiful opening titles of any film I can remember. Add performances by Katharine Hepburn by Henry Fonda and you have a four-layer favorite with frosting. If you have not seen On Golden Pond you owe it to yourself to track it down. Yes, its old (1981) and a little dated, but if you are reading Bud’s blog, you are used to that. Henry Fonda is the perfect curmudgeon and Katherine Hepburn the ever-optimistic wife taking care of him as he slows down. The cinematography is, including the opening title, is done by Billy Williams.