Some of the accolades earned by Lucinda Williams (b. January 26, 1953):
Seventeen Grammy Award nominations resulting in three wins – Best Country Song (1993) for “Passionate Kisses,” Best Contemporary Folk Album (1999) for Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, and Best Female Rock Vocal Performance (2002) for “Get Right With God”
Made VH-1’s ranking of the 100 Greatest Women in Rock and Roll
Named America’s best songwriter by Time magazine
Appears on Rolling Stone’s list of the greatest songwriters of all time
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road named the best album of 1998 in the annual Village Voice poll of nearly 500 music critics
Is included on Glenn’s list of his 100 favorite artists
Today Tunes du Jour pays homage to Neil Diamond (b. January 24, 1941). Included in today’s playlist are hits Diamond had as a performer, songs of his that were hits for other artists, and “The Pot Smoker’s Song” and “Reggae Strut,” because I think you need to be aware of them, the latter sounding like it wasn’t written by the guy who espoused the views of the former.
Today Tunes du Jour celebrates the birthday of Anita Pointer, born January 23, 1948. Along with her sisters Ruth and June and, in their early years of making records, Bonnie, The Pointer Sisters racked up more hits than you may name off the top of your head. Check out today’s playlist and see how many songs you recognize. It kicks off with their version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Fire,” featuring Anita on lead vocals.
There’s the voice. In its 2008 survey of the greatest singers of all time, Rolling Stone placed Sam Cooke (born January 22, 1931) at number four.
There are the songs. “You Send Me,” “Wonderful World,” “Cupid,” and many others are classics, known to generations. Cooke not only sang these songs; he composed them as well. I think that when you listen to the Sam Cooke playlist below, you’ll recognize a lot more songs of his than you realized.
There’s the business acumen. Cooke was among the first African American entrepreneurs in the music business, starting his own record label, SAR Records, in 1961. Artists signed to the label included Bobby Womack, Johnnie Taylor and Mel Carter. He founded a song publishing imprint. He created a management firm.
There’s the civil rights activist. Cooke took an active role in the civil rights movement. Inspired by Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Cooke composed and recorded “A Change Is Gonna Come.” Released as a single in December 1964, less than two weeks after he was shot to death at age 33, the recording is considered by many to be his finest work and a classic protest song.
There’s the legacy. Sam Cooke was among the charter inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He’s actually in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice – once as a solo artist and once as a member of the gospel group The Soul Stirrers. He’s in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He’s a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner. He has a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. In addition to his ranking on their Greatest Singers survey, Rolling Stone also placed him at number sixteen on their Greatest Artists of All Time list.
Today’s playlist pays tribute to the great Sam Cooke, with two dozen of his best recordings plus covers of a few of his hits.
Madonna! Prince! Bruce! Michael! Chaka! Cyndi! Rockwell! Boy! The best of 1984’s pop stars/hits made a mark that remain part of our consciousness nearly forty years later. The influence of upstarts who didn’t crack the Hot 100 – The Smiths, The Replacements, Run-D.M.C. – has been acknowledged in the years since. For those who wish to relive those days, for those who wish they were living then, and for those who wish to associate 1984 with something other than a misunderstood piece of classic literature or the most recent Wonder Woman movie, this playlist is for you. Happy Throwback Thursday!
“You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. 1963
“He had a dream now it’s up to you to see it through, to make it come true” – “King Holiday”
Inspired by the January 17 birthdays of The Rolling Stones‘ Mick Taylor, Calvin Harris, Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs, Kaiser Chiefs’ Ricky Wilson, Steve Earle, She & Him’s Zooey Deschanel, The Delfonics’ William Hart, Kid Rock, Paul Young, The Slits’ Ari Up, Muhammad Ali (nee Cassius Clay), Chris Montez, Shabba Ranks and Lil Jon.
Nineteen eighty eight was, on the US pop music chart, one of those in-between years. The “New Wave” British invasion had greatly subsided and England wasn’t as much of a presence on the charts as it was a few years earlier. Rap was increasing in popularity and hitting the top 40 more frequently, though it was still a far cry from the dominant position it holds today. Of the hip hop song’s on today’s playlist, only two made it onto the Billboard Hot 100 – LL Cool J’s “Goin’ Back to Cali,” which peaked at #31, despite selling a million copies, and Rob Base & D.J. E-Z Rock’s “It Takes Two,” which peaked at #36, despite selling two million copies. Alternative music lived up to its genre name as an alternative to the music on the pop chart, so if you wanted to hear Sonic Youth or The Dead Milkmen or The Primitives, you had to tune into college radio or the stations on the left side of your FM dial. Those artists, alongside U2, R.E.M. and INXS, could be found on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart, which premiered in September of 1988. New Jack Swing tracks from artists such as Keith Sweat remained popular on Black radio and crossed over, while Black artists such as Tracy Chapman and Living Colour failed to make much of an impression on Black radio. So-called Hair Metal was a presence on the pop chart; grunge would help fix that in a few years. Configuration-wise, CDs outsold vinyl LPs for the first time in 1988, though cassettes outsold both.
