Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (5-3-20)

2020 seemed like just another year, until this week. Something mind-boggling happened. No, the president of the U.S. didn’t display empathy. Get this: The Village People are presently in the Top 40 on the Adult Contemporary chart with a ballad taken from their 2019 Christmas album. The key terms in that sentence: Village People, presently, Top 40, Adult Contemporary, ballad, Christmas. It’s 2020! The song is called “If You Believe” and it jumped from #53 to #25 this week with a 310% increase in radio airplay over last week. “If You Believe?” More like “Hard to Believe!” Am I right, people?

Today’s playlist is inspired by the May 3 birthdays of James Brown, Frankie Valli, Father John Misty, Soft Cell’s David Ball, Pete Seeger, Christopher Cross, Mary Hopkin and Napoleon XIV.

Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (2-18-20)

I’m experimenting here at Tunes du Jour. Yesterday I started including multiple songs by the birthday performers who inspired that day’s playlist. As of today I’m not limiting myself to twenty songs. My thinking is that by removing that restriction I can posts playlists (almost) dailier and you get a deeper dive into some of the artists. I’m living on the edge!

Today’s playlist is inspired by the February 18 birthdays of Regina Spektor, Yoko Ono, Styx’s Dennis DeYoung, John Travolta, Randy Crawford, Juelz Santana, Irma Thomas, Juice Newton, and Space’s Tommy Scott.

The Story Of Eric Clapton And Layla

In the latter half of the 1960s, Eric Clapton and George Harrison developed a close friendship. Clapton also developed a crush on Harrison’s wife, Pattie Boyd. The two started having an affair, but Pattie didn’t want to leave her husband.

Clapton wrote a song about his feelings for Pattie. He called the song “Layla,” after a title character in the book The Story of Layla and Majnun. The book told of a man, Majnun, who was madly in love with a woman, Layla, but was forbidden to marry her. His longing for her drove him mad.

Clapton’s band Derek and the Dominos released “Layla” in 1971. Pattie and Eric started living together in 1974. They wed in 1979. George Harrison, along with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, played at the wedding. Clapton left Pattie for another woman in 1985.

Today Eric Clapton turns 71. Here are twenty tracks that feature the musician.


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Blondie + Ringo

Throwback Thursday – 1979

Blondie + Ringo
Blondie’s hit single “Heart of Glass” was written by band members Debbie Harry and Chris Stein and had the working title of “The Disco Song.” Drummer Clem Burke said his part was inspired by the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive.”

Said Harry “When we did ‘Heart of Glass’ it wasn’t too cool in our social set to play disco. But we did it because we wanted to be uncool,” with the band’s keyboardist Jimmy Destri adding “We used to do ‘Heart of Glass’ to upset people.”

The song was included on Blondie’s Parallel Lines LP “as a novelty item to put more diversity into the album,” per Stein. The novelty song became the group’s first charted single and first #1, in 1979. Its success prompted John Lennon to send Ringo Starr a postcard advising to write songs like “Heart of Glass.”

Today’s Throwback Thursday playlist spotlights twenty of the best tracks from 1979, kicking off with Blondie’s upsetting disco novelty.


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