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0 15 Songs: Instrumentally Yours
- Commentary
- by Kingsley H. Smith
- 02/19/2025
Today, music tracks without lyrics used by media outlets are often a staple of talk radio or podcasts. Sometimes called bumper music, these rhythmic element lead into or out of commercial ad breaks. This brand of music vanished over time from contemporary radio playlists as a standalone feature. These tracks were played just like vocals. For the Instrumentally Yours project, you can eliminate real jazz and smooth jazz from this conversation. I'm not focusing on those tracks, except… Once in a while, a jazzy hit does crossover. "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" – Cannonball Adderly Quintet (1967) is an example. Another is "Rise" by Herb Alpert (1979). These and others instrumental gems delightfully dazzle the ears. With a challenge to put together something fresh, I went back and pulled some tracks that set a mood and tell a nice relaxing story. Every few months I create a mixed playlist of songs from my analog or digital sources and create a single wav/mp3 file. Real segues (mini cross fades) are included. I pulled out some of my favorite instrumentals to complete this playlist. You might try this on Spotify, or another streaming music service although you won't get the tight segues. Who are the Artists? MFSB Quincy Jones Brothers Johnson Kool & The Gang Con Funk Shun Love Unlimited Orchestra Ashford and Simpson Cliff Noble Crown Heights Affair Paul Hardcastle Flora Purim Earth, Wind & Fire There are fifteen songs. Two artists have repeats. Songs 1 & 2 by MFSB, Mother Father Sister Brother Three tracks are by MFSB. There's a reason for this choice. Philadelphia producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff pulled together a bevy of outstanding studio musicians backing the all-star vocalists who lived on their record labels. MFSB was so good, that their instrumental versions of several Philly International Records hits also stand out. Song one in my mix is "My Mood." You might recognize this tune as a theme that was used before late night movies on television. Song two is "Back Stabbers," arranged differently than the O'Jays hit, with stylized strings and sophisticated funk up front moving the track along. I have five MFSB vinyl albums. Too bad Motown never really featured their own house band 'The Funk Brothers' as reoccurring solo artists . Song 3 by Quincy Jones In 1971, Quincy Jones produced the music for the movie Dollar$ (also know as The Heist) starring Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn. I discovered the Little Richard vocal version first, which I have on a 45 RPM vinyl single (on the Reprise Label). Richard's version is called "Money Is." Quincy's instrumental version in the movie soundtrack is called "Money Runner." The instrumentation for both the Jones and Richard versions is identical. What you hear in the composition are production elements in the track that were popular for the time. The next song, also produced by Quincy Jones, shows how within a short period of time, a musical master can update his touch and stay contemporary with the times. Song 4 by The Brothers Johnson "Streetwave," the final track on the B side of their "Blam!!" record (above) features Louis Johnson on bass guitar and George Johnson on lead guitar. Harvey Mason gets a credit on drums. This 1978 instrumental has Quincy Jones written all over it. Mr. Jones produced all the tracks on "Blam!!" Seven years after "Money Runner," Quincy's signature sound is updated. His style with the Brothers Johnson foreshadows what's coming in 1979 with Rufus & Chaka and Michael Jackson under Quincy's watchful eye. Song 5 & 6 by Kool & The Gang New Jersey's Kool and the Gang transformed from local instrumental fame to funk hit purveyors Kool & the Gang later in their career. "Jazziacs at the Kool Jazz Café" comes from Kool's 2004 "Hits Reloaded" release. Group members are featured soloing through the track with clear hints of their "Jungle Boogie" song theme. This is used to cement the solo sections together. There is a quick spoken close by dj Vaughn Harper. "Jazziacs at the Kool Jazz Café" takes the band back to their routes. When "Light of Worlds" dropped in 1974," the album included "Summer Madness," a popular instrumental track that features Ronald Bell's haunting synthesizer and melotron and brother Robert "Kool" Bell's signature bass. The group has other instrumentals, but I chose these two. Song 7 by Con Funk Shun Vallejo, California gives us Con Fun Shun, a band lead by Michael Cooper (vocals, guitar), Felton Pilate (horns), and other group members. This crew defines what funk is. As with The Brothers Johnson, "Indian Summer Love" is the last track on the B side of Con Funk Shun's album "Secrets." "Indian Summer Love" is a great medium paced mellow groove instrumental featuring Pilate on synthesizer and producer Skip Scarborough. Scarborough also plays the instrument on the track. This instrumental creates the perfect atmosphere as you roll down the Pacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles to San Francisco and listen! Song 8 by Love Unlimited Orchestra Classically trained musician Barry White had quite a career playing with other people behind the scenes before he broke out big. His Forty piece Love Unlimited Orchestra had a monster hit with 1974's "Love's Theme," but that's not the track we are featuring. White gets credit for composer, executive producer, horn arrangements, mixing, primary artist, and string arrangements. The Orchestra had a masterpiece with "My Sweet Summer Suite." Unlike two other artists mentioned above, this track appears first on side A of the 1976 LUO album "My Sweet Summer Suite." A different album is shown above. The "My Sweet Summer Suite "instrumental sounds like George Gershwin (composer of "Rhapsody in Blue") on steroids, with an amazing score challenging the string section to go through some heavy gymnastics in the middle of the track. It's produced by Barry White with arrangements by Gene Page. This instrumental was a minor hit on Black radio. Song 9 by Ashford & Simpson "Bourgié Bourgié," a 1977 instrumental featuring Valerie Simpson on piano, Eric Gale on guitar, and Ralph McDonald on percussion & congas is an uptown urban sprint that gallops along nicely. Nicholas Ashford and wife Valerie were a vocal duo. "Bourgié Bourgié was a surprise on the "Send It" album, highlighting Simpson's excellent work on keyboards. I think Quincy Jones was listening. You can hear ideas from this track on 1978's extended "Brand New Day" from The Wiz soundtrack sung by Luther Vandross, Diana Ross and others. Song 10 by Cliff Nobles Ok. I had to go really old school and include 1968's "The Horse" by Cliff Nobles & Company. Nobles was the group leader and occasional vocalist. I wanted the tone of Instrumentally Yours to be more new school, and less throwback. What do I mean? I considered other tracks without lyrics including "Time is Tight" by Booker T. & The MGs, "Cissy Strut" by Louisiana's the Meters, and another classic "Soul Finger" by the Bar-Kays (1967). Some chanting in Instrumentally Yours is allowed. "Soul Finger" has some. "The Horse" is on the Phil-L.A. of Soul label. There's something magical about the resonance of this track that signals the future 'Philly sound.' The Philly sound of the late 1970s into the 1980s. It turns out that the horn section players on "The Horse" would later become MFSB members! You could hear their influence even way back when. "The Horse" was a smash hit. Song 11 by Crown Heights Affair From Philly we go to Brooklyn, New York for the contribution "Dreaming a Dream" by Crown Heights Affair. This instrumental was their biggest hit peaking at number five on 1975's R&B charts. Nailed it guitar, nice keyboards, neat percussion, and nifty horns make this a very enjoyable track. There's some minor scat chanting in the track, but this is allowed. The group's instrumental arrangement is very good. Song 12 by Paul Hardcastle "Rain Forest" offers a danceable but subtle hip hop instrumental groove by Englishman Paul Hardcastle. The track was a popular for hit for Paul in 1984. Song 13 by Flora Purim Flora Purim is a Brazilian singer synonymous with improvisational approaches to Brazilian and American jazz fusion. In 1978, her record "Nothing Will Be As It Was...Tomorrow" offered "Angels," an instrumental track written by Al McKay and Phillip Bailey of Earth, Wind & Fire. "Angels" is branded by Flora's magnificent voice. It glides along over a soothing instrumental beat. She's not singing lyrics. She's flowing along to the melody of the track using her light lilting cadence. Touchdown! It is very good. Song 14 by Earth, Wind & Fire When Flora Purim's "Angels" was picked, I knew that something by Earth, Wind & Fire had to follow it. EWF's 2004 Illumination album had several fine tracks. Selection eleven out of thirteen on the CD is "Liberation." Recorded and mixed in Santa Monica, California, "Liberation" feels like the west coast sprinkled with a hybrid of African and Latin percussion. It sounds like Purim's Angels," with Phillip Bailey on the mic sans lyrics following the pulse of the instrumental. Both Purim's "Angels" and EWF's "Liberation" use the voice as an instrument to project hummable melodies without using actual words. Song 15 by MFSB MFSB is above. When thinking about this playlist, MFSB was the first group considered and three of their instrumentals were quickly selected. "Love is The Message" is a grand slam. It's an A+ production and closes out the mix. At eleven minutes + every second is worth it. "Love is The Message" was pulled off of the 1977 "Philadelphia Classics" double vinyl album. Many of the other Philadelphia International Records all-stars (The Three Degrees, Harold Melvin & The Blue Note, Teddy Pendergrass, etc.) are on the album in other tracks. Bobby Martin brilliantly arranged "Love is The Message." Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff wrote and produced this song that first appeared on the 1973 album "MFSB: Love is The Message." That version clocks in at six minutes, thirty-five seconds. The 11 minute version vamps along with punctuating sax solos. "Love is the Message" harmonies are sung by an occasional chorus of voices. A killer assembly of musicians keep the sound tight and hot. When you hear this song, it makes you feel joyous and happy. Just what we need through trying times in the modern world! The Playlist Here are the tracks again. Try this playlist out, Instrumentally Yours: MFSB - "My Mood" MFSB - "Backstabbers" Quincy Jones - "Money Runner" Brothers Johnson - "Streetwave" Kool & The Gang - "Jazziacs at the Kool Jazz Café" Kool & The Gang - "Summer Madness" Con Funk Shun - "Indian Summer Love" Love Unlimited Orchestra - "My Sweet Summer Suite" Ashford & Simpson - "Bourgié Bourgié" Cliff Nobles & Co. - "The Horse" Crown Heights Affair - "Dreaming A Dream" Paul Hardcastle - "Rain Forest" Flora Purim - "Angels" Earth, Wind & Fire - "Liberation" MFSB - "Love is The Message Hear how the transitions sound in this video: Previous Post
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0 Audiobook Assembly Anecdotes To Learn From
- Commentary
- by Kingsley H. Smith
- 12/11/2023
Plan 'B' might have to be your go to solution if plan 'A' fails! When producing an audiobook, your best made plan might lead you down an alternative highway if a wrong turn is taken. Five voice talents were auditioned for my project. The winner was a guy with FM broadcast experience. Great! He fit the bill. It was the second week in July, 2023. July is a long month. Four weeks later when the project was not delivered as promised, my voice talent asked for a two week extension. No problem. The middle of August had just arrived. I gave the talent a second two-week extension to record this nearly 40,000 word book as he had only completed: Opening credits Preface Chapter One Professionals have to meet deadlines. Since the Labor Day holiday had just arrived, and my talent could not meet deadlines, he had to go. Dude was released and fired. I received a full refund for a large deposit that was put into escrow. When your intuition tells you something is not right, you implement plan 'B,' your backup plan. Plan 'B' action came early On the day the first extension was granted to the talent at the end of 30 days, an alternative reader began to record the audiobook simultaneously. This was not disclosed to the first talent. The second voice talent took eight weeks working part-time to finish the read. Not bad! Once the audio level matching, editing, and fine tuning was complete, audio files had to be converted to ACX, Audible, iTunes and Amazon requirements. Powerhouse Radio: Rough Roads, Radiance and Rebirth; My True AM - FM -Satellite - And Audio Streaming Survival Story audiobook was finally submitted to those gatekeepers in early December, 2023 and approved on December 8. It is available right now. That's good, because the promised audiobook release date was January 3, 2024. A six month pre-promotion period was a perfect buffer zone for unexpected issues. The paperback version of the book was submitted to the publisher BookBaby on June 1, 2023. I hope you enjoy my story. If you didn't guess, the second voice talent who made the cut to tell my story was me. Previous Post | Next Post
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0 When do you and ChatGPT cross the Milli Vanilli Line?
- Commentary
- by Mark Schaefer - guest author
- 08/15/2023
I recently engaged in an energized LinkedIn discussion with Frank Prendergast and Jason Ranalli. We were trying to discern the "Milli Vanilli Line" when it comes to personal disclosure and AI. Never heard of it? It's probably going to impact you soon, so let's dive into it ... How much authenticity can we lose? The debate began with Frank's comment on my recent blog post (Where humans thrive in the hierarchy of AI content): "If I read a blog post from someone on the assumption it's written by them, and I find out it was actually AI, I'll feel cheated," Frank said, "like I've been a victim of the old bait-and-switch. "But where's my line? Is 20% AI OK? 40%? 60? I have no idea. And how would it even be measured? "Will that question be a thing of the past when AI is ubiquitous?" How much authenticity are we willing to lose? ChatGPT makes everyone a competent writer, just like the calculator made everyone competent at math in the 1980s. We don’t feel compelled to declare to the world that we use a calculator to do our taxes or run a business. When does AI simply become … life? The Milli Vanilli Line Now let's get to the Milli Vanilli part. In 1989, Milli Vanilli rose from obscurity to superstardom almost overnight. Their debut album sold over 8 million copies and spawned three Number One singles. All of that was swept into the dustbin of pop history by disgrace. By the time Milli Vanilli accepted their Grammy award for Best New Artist in 1990, many in the music business had suspected something was wrong with this duo. It was soon revealed the two singers -- Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan -- never sang on any of their recordings and lip-synced live performances. The ruse torpedoed the act – radio stations stopped playing their songs, fans destroyed their records, and the Grammys rescinded their award for the only time in history. Milli Vanilli became cultural shorthand for hubris and deceit. Jason Ranalli provided his observation: "Anyone remember Milli Vanilli back in the 80s? BIG scandal because we all felt cheated that they didn't actually sing the songs themselves -- they had zero part in the production other than lip-syncing and dancing. "How did the world react? We rejected them entirely and stripped them of their Grammy. "What are we doing now with AI content? Well, the line is somewhere between singing yourself and a TON of auto-tune/effects. "Perhaps AI ends up drawing the same muddy lines of authenticity." The fellas in Milli Vanilli were clear-cut cheats. An absolute. But how do we interpret "cheating" in a world where everyone can get an AI-assist on their writing, their voice, their music, and even a LinkedIn headshot? Let's look at a couple of scenarios. Crossing the Milli Vanilli Line Weeks after ChatGPT entered the scene, a friend asked me to help promote his new book, which I discovered was entirely written by ChatGPT. Literally, he had just cut and pasted responses to prompts into a manuscript. There was no human commentary, editing, or insight whatsoever. Although he was transparent about the AI assist, he put his name on the book as the author. I told him I would not promote the book and observed that this was the very worst use of ChatGPT imaginable. In essence, he was lip-synching his book. He crossed the Milli Vanilli Line. Example two: I have a friend who, by her own admission, is a terrible writer. Once she discovered ChatGPT, she told me that she could put her ideas into this machine and create serviceable content for the first time in her life. "I can blog every day," she exclaimed, "I could even write a book!" This is the beauty of AI -- unleashing a new creative power in a person with a creative deficit. She's not lip-synching. She's the author of her work with a little auto-tune to keep her on key! In between these two extremes, we face nuanced ethical decisions about ownership, authorship, and authenticity. We face these decisions now Today, or in the near future, every one of us will have an opportunity to cross the Milli Vanilli Line. What percent of AI work can we still claim as ours, as "authentic?" I haven't used AI in any of my writing. My blog posts are my stories and observations and insights about our marketing world. It's faster and easier just to be "me" than try to prompt a bot into it! Could AI have written this post? No, at least not as effortlessly as me pecking on a keyboard for an hour. I am uniquely connecting dots, creating something unique, insightful, and connected to my own life experience. But what about my next book? Could I edge towards the Milli Vanilli Line? My last book, Belonging to the Brand was finished about a month before ChatGPT was unleashed. One of my first AI experiments was to ask ChatGPT to write an essay based on an idea from the book, in the voice of Mark Schaefer, with academic references. It did it. It did it well ... and in five seconds. It would have taken me a day to write that essay. So in the future, I'd feel stupid not to use AI to some degree and save days, or even weeks, of my life! But another choice might be ... to be stupid and keep doing it the hard way. Or, maybe it's the right way -- to just always be me. Perhaps my reward is in the toil that comes with authenticity. I never want to explain to somebody how close I am to the Milli Vanilli Line. Kingsley's thoughts (Kingsley H. Smith): Mark Schaefer is a speaker, author and marketing expert. His Milli Vanilli analogy is spot on! This picture was posted on my personal Facebook page in 2019 with me and the four Schaefer books in my library that I've read. Mark's article, originally written on August 8, 2023 is reproduced here with permission. From my perspective, I like his quote "I haven't used AI in any of my writing." My position is the same, as I haven't used AI in ANY of my writing either. I do have audio software that generates scores of AI voices from a text script that I have to write. I've used it less than an handful of times to add a few spoken words to a couple of my YouTube video voice tracks that I or a paid voice actor reads. I also own a license to use AI software that creates real-life-like-looking humans who appear on screen and speak in videos, but I haven't used it yet. My first book, Powerhouse Radio: Rough Roads, Radiance and Rebirth will begin shipping in January, 2024. You can trust that I wrote it myself, word by word! If you've never heard Milli Vanilli, here's a quick sample of "Baby Don't Forget my Number," from my personal song collection. Milli Vanilli is Turkish for 'positive energy.' Fabricators Rob Pilatus (from Germany) on the left, and Fabrice Morvan (from France) had 4 R&B hits in 1989. The real singers in the recording studio were Charles Shaw, John Davis, and Brad Howe, according to Joel Whitburn in his 2006 book The Billboard Book of Top 40 R&B and Hip-Hop Hits. Your browser does not support the audio element. Milli Vanilli's 1989 hits ranked in order of popularity according to Joel Whitburn: "Girl You Know It's True" "Baby Don't Forget my Number" "Girl I'm Gonna Miss You" "Blame It On the Rain" Read more of my thoughts about AI on my software blog... Will AI Create Your Next App? Previous Post | Next Post
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0 Mary J. Blige: Swings, Hits and Misses
- Commentary
- by Kingsley H. Smith and guest
- 12/22/2021
What's your favorite Mary J. Blige song? It might be: "Be Without You" "Real Love" "Family Affair" "My Life" There are scores more to choose from. Other than her own, Mary J. has a thing for Elton John songs. She's featured on "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues" live with Elton at Madison Square Garden in New York City (2000). Mary J. also sang the Elton song "Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word" from the 2004 movie Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. She does a wonderful duet "Being With You" on Smokey Robinson's 2014 CD Smokey & Friends. There's a lot of authentic gravity in Mary's live rendition of the traditional "Hard Times (Come Again No More)" as featured with the Roots on the multiple artist fundraiser collection album "Hope For Haiti Now." "Mary J.," has come a long way. From combat boot dilettante to co-headliner in the halftime show at the Super Bowl. The question remains, what lyric remembrance from her songbook had the largest impact? Antwane Folk takes an in-depth look back at this music icon's biggest single in the story "A Breakthrough: Mary J. Blige's 'Be Without You'" https://ratedrnb.com/2020/12/a-breakthrough-mary-j-blige-be-without-you/ Previous Post | Next Post
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0 Prince, The Time, and Jesse Johnson
- Commentary
- by Kingsley H. Smith
- 05/02/2019
We were lucky enough to be there for Celebration 2019 at Paisley Park (Prince's recording complex) in Minnesota last week and enjoyed Jesse Johnson's live performance. Shown above in our promotional copy of The Time album on the right is Jesse Johnson. In the past there was tension between Jesse and Prince. Jesse talked about trying to find peace with that relationship now that Prince is no longer with us. This was Johnson's first return to Paisley Park since Prince's passing. Here's more about Time guitarist Jesse Johnson airing his Prince grievances on the Celebration 2019 stage at Paisley Park. Read all about it. https://www.twincities.com/2019/04/25/time-guitarist-jesse-johnson-airs-his-prince-grievances-on-celebration-2019-stage-at-paisley-park Previous Post | Next Post
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0 Live365 - Powerhouse Radio Shutdown
- Commentary
- by Kingsley H. Smith
- 01/22/2016
Thank you, our thousands of listeners in the USA and around the world for your support of Powerhouse Radio. You made us the number one classic soul R&B streaming channel during most of our Live365 run. "Radio revolution" pioneer Live365 will pull the plug on all of their channels effective January 31, 2016. You can blame The Digital Millennium Copyright Act and very high online music streaming licensing fees for this surprise shutdown. We began our Powerhouse Radio journey on Live365 in 2001. For a couple of years (2004 - 2006) we also streamed the award winning Live365 Fabfoursoul channel playing all Beatles music by R&B, soul, and jazz performers. Read additional information on Kurt Hanson's Radio and Internet News service about the Live365 shutdown. Previous Post | Next Post
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- Commentary
- by Kingsley H. Smith
- 10/24/2012
Hot irons in the fire! Fiery classic soul. Lady T., Teena Marie didn't have to take a backseat to anyone. I was lucky enough to see her perform live one time. It was in a large Philadelphia arena. The size of the crowd did not distract from the intimate punch Lady T. hammered home that night. Teena Marie, March 5, 1956 - December 26, 2010. R.I.P. Previous Post | Next Post
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0 Grammy Boots Soul to the Curb
- Commentary
- by Kingsley H. Smith
- 04/06/2011
In a move designed to downsize the density of awards, the Grammys are streamlining their portfolio of potential winners for 2012. Categories are being sliced, diced, and reduced to 78 from 109. Some separate male and female awards will be combined into new categories. The R&B area was hammered pretty hard. 8 awards have been cut to 4. A review of the awards category restructuring page at Grammy.org reveals that "Best R&B Performance" will take the place of these 4 eliminated classifications: Best Female R&B Vocal Performance (dropped) Best Male R&B Vocal Performance (dropped) Best R&B Performance By a Duo or Group with Vocals (dropped) Best Urban/Alternative Performance (dropped) As a result of discontinuing the "Best Female R&B vocal performance" and "Best Male R&B vocal performance," "The Best R&B Performance" now becomes highly competitive. Hip hop lost only one category dropping from 5 to 4. A date for the 54th Grammy Awards in 2012 has not been announced. Look for the show in February. Hopefully it will be shorter, and more entertaining. Previous Post | Next Post
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0 Can Record Store Day Save a Sinking Ship?
- Commentary
- by Kingsley H. Smith
- 04/15/2010
Album sales are down 6.1 percent in the first 3 month of 2010 compared to the same period in 2009, according to Nielsen SoundScan. They add that for the first time, iTunes and CD sales online have passed the traditional big box retailers. Amazon and their digital brethren now make up the largest distribution channel for music, and for good reason. Big boxers like Walmart, Target, and Best Buy have dropped the ball when challenged with stocking a satisfactory variety of the newest music being released. You'll always find the A-list performers in their racks, but you are hard pressed to find a deep selection of new music representing a variety of artists from different niche genres. Jazz, soul, and R&B are frequent victims of this trend. Bookstores including Encore and Barnes and Noble do a better job stocking tunes, but as with the big box stores, music sales no longer represent a growth area. The digital music download world is hurting too. Nielsen SoundScan says that downloads experienced their first year-to-year quarterly sales decline ever, falling about 1 percent between January 1 and April 4. In the same period in 2009, digital download sales were up 13 percent over 2008. CD's will eventually go the way of the horse and buggy, just as electric vehicles will slowly take market share from gas engine cars. Computers inevitably crash, and unless you back everything up, there's still a better element of permanency when investing in compact discs. The CD for many is still an important part of their music collection. Once upon a time, the best place in town to salivate over new releases and bountiful catalogs was the record store. I worked in an independent record store for 3 years part-time as a teenager. Today, only the bigger cities can still support the few independent record emporiums that are left. In Philadelphia, my favorite is Sound of Market Street, surviving in 2010 with an awesome collection of CD's (and vinyl discs). ----- 2022 Update: Sound of Market Street finally closed in 2014 after 30 years in business. ----- A worldwide event has been created to spotlight stores just like Sound of Market (JazSound). Saturday, April 17 will mark the 3rd annual Record Store Day. RecordStoreDay.com says that the original idea for this promotion was "conceived by Chris Brown, and was founded in 2007 by Eric Levin, Michael Kurtz, Carrie Colliton, Amy Dorfman, Don Van Cleave and Brian Poehner as a celebration of the unique culture surrounding over 700 independently owned record stores in the USA, and hundreds of similar stores internationally." The website further amplifies the concept explaining "this is the one day that all of the independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music." "Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day and hundreds of artists in the United States and in various countries across the globe make special appearances and performances." Record Store Day is now celebrated on the 3rd Saturday every April. At RecordStoreDay.com, I did a random 'search by state' to see what was happening in Texas. Over 50 independent record stores came up in the Lone Star State, so there still is a heartbeat left in this disappearing institution that's now on life-support. Previous Post | Next Post
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0 Smokey Robinson Writes the Mighty Classics
- Commentary
- by Kingsley H. Smith
- 03/23/2010
You know you're a great song writer when your catalog of melodies includes hundreds of compositions. At last count, Smokey Robinson had over 460 songs registered in the official online song databases as author (or co-author). Without Smokey, how would Motown have had all of those early hits? Let's not even mention the scores of artists who have covered his songs. "Ain't That Peculiar," Marvin Gaye and George Clinton. "My Girl," the Temptations and the Whispers. "Tears of A Clown," the Miracles and Shalamar. One of your all-time favorites might just be a Smokey Robinson song. When it comes to love and romance, the pen of 'Bill' William 'Smokey' Robinson is number one. Previous Post | Next Post