Inspired by the October 24 birthdays of The Rolling Stones’ Bill Wyman, ANOHNI, Drake, Monica, The Big Bopper, V V Brown, and Lipps Inc.’s Steve Greenberg.
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (10-16-20)
Inspired by the October 16 birthdays of Nico, Hüsker Dü’s Bob Mould, Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir, Angela Lansbury, Kelly Marie, John Mayer, Aswad’s Brinsley Forde, and Oscar Wilde; and the October 15 birthdays of Richard Carpenter, The Dead Milkmen’s Joe Genaro, The Orb’s Alex Paterson, Ginuwine, Marv Johnson, Barry McGuire and Jessie Ware.
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (4-25-20)
Inspired by the April 25 birthdays of ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus, Erasure’s Andy Bell, Ella Fitzgerald, Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band’s Cory Daye, Albert King, Hank Azaria, Los Bravos’ Mike Kogel, and Renee Zellweger; and the passing of Bohannon.
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (4-5-20)
Inspired by the April 5 birthdays of ABBA’s Agnetha Faltskog, Pharrell Williams, The Hollies’ Allan Clarke, The Platters’ Tony Williams, Three 6 Mafia’s Juicy J, Wall of Voodoo’s Stan Ridgway, Paula Cole, Crispian St. Peters and Bette Davis.
A Hint Of Mint – Volume 52: Moms
Happy Mother’s Day! This week’s A Hint of Mint playlist consists of songs about moms from a host of genres and decades. It’s a little bit country, it’s a little bit rock-and-roll, it’s a little bit pop, it’s a little bit hip hop, it’s a little bit show tune, it’s a little bit rhythm and blues, it’s a little bit girl group, it’s a little bit singer-songwriter, it’s a whole lotta lovin’.
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100 Greatest Artists
Last week my close friend Laura forward to me a link to Rolling Stone magazine’s “100 Greatest Artists” and asked for my impression.
My 100 Greatest Artists list includes many of the same acts as Rolling Stone’s list; however, there is a large handful of acts on my roll that are not on that publication’s slate.
I won’t disparage their choices (but seriously, Aerosmith at #59?). Instead, I will share with you music from twenty artists that made my roster but are not among Rolling Stone’s top 100.
Feel free to share your choice acts in the Comments section.
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Throwback Thursday – The Hits Of 1977
An instrumental performed by then new Eagles member Don Felder was submitted to his bandmates Glenn Frey and Don Henley to add lyrics. The first working title the guys gave the song was “Mexican Reggae.”
Henley was determined to create the perfect song, spending eight months in the studio working on “Mexican Reggae,” which came to be called “Hotel California.” A lyric referring to the band Steely Dan was added (“They stab it with their steely knives but they just can’t kill the beast”) after Steely Dan included the lyric “Turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening” on their song “Everything You Did.”
In 2009, music critic John Soeder asked Don Henley about the lyric “So I called up the Captain / ‘Please bring me my wine’ / He said, ‘We haven’t had that spirit here since 1969’,” pointing out that wine isn’t a spirit, as wine is fermented whereas spirits are distilled. Soeder asked the singer/composer “Do you regret that lyric?” Henley replied “Believe me, I’ve consumed enough alcoholic beverages in my time to know how they are made and what the proper nomenclature is….My only regret would be having to explain it in detail to you, which would defeat the purpose of using literary devices in songwriting and lower the discussion to some silly and irrelevant argument about chemical processes.” Insert steely knife here!
This week for Throwback Thursday, Tunes du Jour listens to the hits of 1977, kicking off with Eagles’ “Hotel California.”
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Scaramouch! Scaramouch! It’s Freddie Mercury’s Birthday!
In October of 1975, the band Queen played for their manager, John Reid, a song they recently finished recording that they wanted to release as their next single. Reid told them the track would not get any airplay. He played it for another artist he managed, Elton John, who reportedly said “Are you mad? You’ll never get that on the radio!”
Queen stayed firm, not relenting when their record company begged them to at least edit the song down from its nearly six-minute duration.
To promote the song, the band was invited to play on England’s hugely popular Top of the Pops television program. They were unable to appear due to tour commitments, so they did something that wasn’t very common in 1975 – they filmed a videoclip. Top of the Pops aired the clip. As the song rose up the charts, the video was shown repeatedly. Soon other artists in the UK made videos for their records, which is why when MTV launched in the United States in 1981, many of the clips they aired were of UK acts.
The single, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” went to #1 in England in December of that year, where it stayed for nine weeks. It got knocked from the top spot by a song whose title consisted of a phrase used in “Bohemian Rhapsody” – ABBA’s “Mamma Mia.” “Bohemian Rhapsody” hit #1 again there in December of 1991, a few weeks after the death of the band’s lead singer and the song’s composer, Freddie Mercury.
In the United States, the song didn’t go to #1, but it did hit the top ten in 1976 and 1992.
Today is the birthday of the late, great Freddie Mercury. Here are twenty of Queen’s finest.
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A Hint Of Mint – Volume 16: Madonna
Celebrate Madonna’s 57th birthday with this 20-song playlist of songs performed by Madonna, songs about Madonna, songs covered by Madonna, covers of songs made famous by Madonna, and songs sampled by Madonna.
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A Hint Of Mint – Volume 7: Summer
Twenty songs with “summer” or some variation thereof in the title, performed by friends of Dorothy and friends of friends of Dorothy
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