Playing Favorites 7/16/2022

My daughter Amy is visiting today from Texas, where they recently moved.   After having them only a few miles away in Utah for three years, it is good to see her … even if two of the grandkids are still in Texas and the oldest is off with his Utah friends until Sunday.   Having her here makes me nostalgic, and given my nature, being nostalgic brings my attention to the soundtrack of my life, Amy edition.  Today’s favorite could be Jon Denver’s Sunshine which I sang for both of my kids, back when they were little and I played the guitar.  But I think I’ll choose a song that reminds me of just Amy.

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 07/30/2022

I wonder if anyone in my small cadre of readers watches Rick Beatto on You Tube.  According to Wikipedia, Rick is an American YouTube personality, multi-instrumentalist, music producer and educator. He is known for his YouTube channel, Everything Music, where he covers different aspects of rock, jazz, and popular music, and interviews well-known musicians and producers.  Watching Rick, I know he loves music like I love music … and understands it as I never will.   One of his features is What Makes This Song Great in which he dissects the performance of a song both literally by playing different instrumental and vocal parts separately and figuratively by talking about the chord progressions, playing styles, and instruments.  The latter is far beyond my limited music education but I still enjoy it and hearing the way a performance is put together is fascinating.

Playing Favorites 7/22/2022

My plan a few weeks ago was to post a song on Oldereyes-Bud’s Blog every Friday.  Good intentions?  Yes, though my Mom probably would have said, Good intentions are the road to hell.   A most peculiar saying … without good intentions would we ever do good deeds?  It just seems as I get older, absolutes like every and always and for certain seem, well, a little TOO absolute.  Posting on Oldereyes every week may become every other week or once a month.  In this case it is three weeks since I posted Playing Favorites.  But here I am, ready to grace your speakers with another one of my favorite songs.   The odds are pretty good that my weekly favorite will be either rock or jazz, depending on what playlist or what Sirius XM station has provided the current earworm as I sit down to write.

Playing Favorites 7/1/2022

So, music lovers, the question of the day is: How far down the list of songs I like (or even songs I love) can a song fall and still be regarded as a favorite?  And, in fact, Can a song that I’ve completely forgotten about but used to love qualify for Playing Favorites?  This week, as I was looking through YouTube’s list of live performances, I came across Greg Lake (formerly of Emerson, Lake and Palmer) performing From the Beginning.  So the question becomes, Can a song I’ve forgotten about but used to love … by one member of the band that originally recorded said song, a member who, by the way, died in 2016 … qualify for Playing Favorites?  Of course, while the questions sound hard, the answer is easy.   Here on Oldereyes – Bud’s Blog, my Alter Ego and I make the rules and we usually agree.  Like today.

Playing Favorites (5/20/1944)

No, that’s not a typo in the title.  In spite of my advanced age, I know what year it is (2021, right?).  But I was born on this date in 1944, making this my 78th birthday (2022-1944=78.  See?  I is still good at math).  So the question of the moment is what a music loving septuagenarian music lover will play on his birthday.  The obvious (if not original) choice is the classic Happy Birthday we been forced to sing since we were kids.  My favorite version:

Happy birthday to you,
You belong in a zoo.
You look like a monkey,
And you act like one too.

Cute but hardly appropriate … monkeys rarely life beyond forty.   Or, I could find a page like 33 Best Birthday Songs Of All Time and choose one of the dozens of birthday songs that were recorded by various artists.   I could reach back to my youth and choose The Crests Sixteen Candles, but that would be about 55 candles short (see?  I is still good at math).  Besides, the song is about heartbreak and I am a happy old goat today.   I could choose Happy Birthday songs by The Beatles or Stevie Wonder, but as much as I love both artists, their birthday songs feel like half-hearted efforts.   I could go modern with 2 Chainz – Birthday Song featuring Kanye West and the lovely lyric, All I want for my birthday is a big booty hoe.  Not a freaking chance … we’re talking music here.  And it’s crap like that that makes me feel even older.

So, I’ll pick a birthday song with a brain by one of my favorite singers, Carly Simon, who tells a story in every song.   In her Happy Birthday song, Carly talks about all the things growing old has cost her, including caffeine and dessert.  It’s a great birthday song, but it’s also a reminder of all the things you have to do make it to your seventies.  And appropriately enough, she’s also a septuagenarian.  Be sure to listen to the lyrics (or read them here).

Playing Favorites 4/29/2022

I try to be scrupulously honest here on Bud’s Blog … except, of course, for those times where my tongue is firmly in cheek or my Inner Curmudgeon has taken control of the keyboard.  So I have to admit that when I decided to post my favorite duet, I knew exactly where I was headed.   That’s probably a bit surprising since I’ve been listening to pop music for over sixty years during which I suspect hundreds … if not thousands … of duets have made it to the charts.  And thousands more have appeared on duets album by artists like Frank Sinatra and Kenny G that featured an assortment of vocal stars singing with the top-billed artist.    There were duet groups like Sonny and Cher or Peaches and Herb, and one-time duet hits like Endless Love by Diana Ross and Lionel Ritchie or We’ve Got Tonight by Kenny Rogers and Kim Carnes.   One of the most famous duets, You Don’t Bring Me Flowers by Barbara Streisand and Neil Diamond was manufactured from solo performances by an enterprising program manager before it was released as a duet by 1978 … and performed live a the Grammy Awards Show in 1980.  Online there are dozens of greatest duets list:  there’s a Top Forty from Billboard Magazine (with Endless Love as number one) and a Top Fifty from the UK’s Telegraph. (with Lee Hazelwood’s and Nancy Sinatra’s Some Velvet Morning as the winner.  Those Brits.  Go figure.). Rolling Stone’s 20 Best Dramatic Duets of All Time selects Kenny Rogers’ and Dolly Parton’s Island in the Stream as number one.

Playing Favorites 4/22

Do you remember Borders? Back in the early 2000s, it was one of the three largest bookstores in America. It featured not only books but music and specialty items. You may recall the store had a coffee shop and cafe as well as comfortable chairs and sofas sprinkled around among the books, inviting you to not just buy but to stay and read. They even had light entertain on weekends. Our local store in Anaheim Hills became a hangout for my wife Muri and I. Borders declared bankruptcy in 2011 and our beloved Borders is now a Sprouts grocery store (not a good place to hang out). My favorite feature of Borders were the listening stations that were set up along the top of the CD racks. Each station had its own set of headphones and featured a new release CD. You could skip through tracks or stand and listen to the whole album. Borders sold me quite a few CDs that way.

Playing Favorites

What is your favorite song?  To a real music lover, it is a nearly impossible question to answer.   Instrumental or vocal?  What genre?  Pop? Rock? Jazz? Should I include symphonies and concertos?   I have many favorites, some because they are part of the soundtrack of my life, reminding me of life’s best moments.    My wife Muri and I have considered Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers our song since we met over 50 years ago.  In our senior years we have added Gladys Knight’s You’re the Best Thing that Ever Happened to Me.   Some favorites were written before I was born and were likely etched in my musical memory by listening to my Mom play her music collection on the stereo in the living room.  Glenn Miller’s Moonlight Serenade always put me in a romantic mood, especially as performed by Carly Simon.  Linda Ronstatdt’s  amazing verion of Patsy Cline’s Crazy always tugs at my heart strings.  Sometimes I’m drawn by beautiful lyrics and sometimes it’s a perfect melody.  Acoustic Alchemy’s Lazeez is a favorite because of the virtuosity of the guitar playing.  Sometimes, I find a live performance on YouTube that brings a new arrival to my list of favorites.  An amazing live performance by Lady Antebellum recently catapulted I Need You Now onto my must play list.

(Favorite) Friday Favorite

I know I am getting old when my nostalgic Thursday morning consists of reading the nostalgic posts I wrote between 2010 and 2014 on this blog under the title Friday Favorites. Yes, I am nostalgic over my nostalgia. (That would be nostalgia^2) (engineering humor) (not funny). There are over 200 Friday Favorites posts, most of them looking back over seven decades of life to find favorite songs, favorite vacations, favorite events … favorite you name it. I also (re)discovered that I was getting old back then. When I accidentally searched for Friday Favorties (one of my Favorite typos, apparently) there were half a dozen posts so titled. Really. Yes, I are a writer.