Your (Almost) Daily Playlist: 8-27-23

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The Captain & Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together” was a huge hit in 1975, but not everyone agreed with its message. Ian Curtis, the leader of Joy Division and a newlywed in 1975, was one of them. His composition “Love Will Tear Us Apart” could be seen as a response to the cheerful song, expressing his disillusionment with love and life. He took his own life in 1980, a month before his song was released as a single, on its way to becoming a classic.

Daryl Dragon, better known as The Captain, a nickname given to him by The Beach Boys’ Mike Love, was born on this date in 1942. A few of his duo’s hits are included on today’s playlist.

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Your (Almost) Daily Playlist: 6-4-23

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In seventh grade Spanish class I did an oral presentation about Freddy Fender. During it I played his number one hit “Before the Next Teardrop Falls.” I wanted to play his follow-up hit, “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights,” but Señora Gluck stopped me. “Don’t play that song. I hate that song.” What’s her problema? It’s a perfectly fine single.

If you were at my presentation you’d know that the late Freddy Fender was born Baldemar G. Huerta on this date in 1937. That won’t be on the test. His two biggest hits are included on today’s playlist. That will be.

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Your (Almost) Daily Playlist: 1-6-23

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In his excellent autobiography Le Freak, Chic’s Nile Rodgers writes how his group’s record label wanted to capture the magic Rodgers and his music partner Bernard Edwards brought to their group to other acts on the Atlantic Records roster, such as The Rolling Stones and Bette Midler. Nile turned down the acts that were firmly established, as with them less attention would be paid to the song’s writers and producers. He wanted to work with a lesser known act. Atlantic Records president Jerry Greenberg suggested a group of sisters who “stick together like birds of a feather,” and so it came to be that Rodgers and Edwards wrote and produced the We Are Family album for Sister Sledge. I think you know what happened next.

Today’s playlist celebrates the birthday of Sister Sledge lead vocalist Kathy Sledge by including several tracks from that classic album.