“Seltzer Boy”

Speaking of Jewish humor, those of a certain age will remember Allan Sherman, the parody songwriter and Jewish comedian. My parents had his albums when I was a kid.  Here’s my favorite of his songs: “Seltzer Boy”, which, as YouTube notes, is Allan Sherman’s great 1962 Jewish parody of folk singer Odetta’s recording of the […]

“Rockin’ Chair”

Roy Eldridge (aka “Little Jazz”) blows with the Gene Krupa Orchestra. Truly one of the greatest trumpet solos in the history of jazz. The song was composed by Hoagy Carmichael in 1929, and had words: a back and forth between and old man and his son. A vocal version was recorded by Louis Armstrong and […]

Fleetwood Mack fires Lindsey Buckingham

How is this possible? (Click on screenshot): Beyond what’s below (and a new piece on the band’s history of breakups), no information is given: Fleetwood Mac has fired Lindsey Buckingham after a disagreement over the band’s upcoming tour, Rolling Stone has confirmed. The band announced Monday that Mike Campbell of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and Neil Finn […]

“Don’t Get Me Wrong”

I may have put this up before, so sue me if I did. It’s my favorite Pretenders song, featuring the inimitable Chrissie Hynde on vocals.  “Don’t get me wrong” (1986) was also of Hynde’s composition, and I like it because it has some SCIENCE in it. But mainly I like it because it’s a real […]

“And When I Die”

“And When I Die” is the last song of Laura Nyro week and, I suppose, my favorite of all her compositions, despite its ranking as just #3 on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s “10 Essential Laura Nyro Songs“. It was written when she was just 17, which truly amazes me. In fact, I […]

“Stoney End”

Two more days remain in Laura Nyro Song Week (we’ve skipped a few days). Nyro had many good songs, and I’m just putting up my favorites. This one, Stoney End, was made famous not by Nyro, but by Barbra Steisand’s cover on her eponymous album. That version isn’t nearly as good as Nyro’s version—despite Streisand having […]

“Save the Country”

“Save the Country” is one of my favorite songs by Laura Nyro. Most if it is just her and her piano—no other instrumentation until about 2:23. And she makes a lot of noise—lovely noise! (You can see a live performance here.) Again, it was much more of a hit for The Fifth Dimension, who covered it, […]

“Sweet Blindness”

Laura Nyro released her song “Sweet Blindness” in 1968, when she was 20; it appeared on her well-known album Eli and the Thirteenth Confession. But it was a bigger hit for the Fifth Dimension—who recorded many of Nyro’s songs—in the same year, reaching #13 on the Billboard charts (their version is here). Nyro’s is better, but I doubt […]

“Wedding Bell Blues”

I forgot to post a Laura Nyro song yesterday, as I was busy trying to find my ducks (it was cold, and they didn’t appear). If you were of music-appreciating age in the Sixties, you either loved Nyro (as did I) or ignored her. To my mind, this is Laura Nyro’s best song, and it’s also number […]

“Blowing Away”

I want to start the week with a Laura Nyro song, “Blowing Away“, from her 1967 album “More Than a New Discovery”. The Fifth Dimension recorded this two years later, but I like Nyro’s version better. She was born in 1947, so the oldest she could have been when she wrote this song was twenty. […]