A Lifetime-Plus of Music

         As the journey slowly moves forward to the music closest to my heart, a required stop is 1959’s “Moanin’ In The Moonlight”, by Chicago blues legend Howlin’ Wolf, a contemporary and blues rival of Muddy Waters.  Like many of the other blues singers of this era, these performances shaped the sounds of the British blues bands to follow, to include The Yardbirds and their evolved state, Led Zeppelin.

     “Moanin’ In The Moonlight” is the 477^th rated album on Rolling Stone’s Top 500 albums of All Time, and it also is rated as the 8^th greatest blues album of all time on digitaldreamdoors.com.  It is a raw collection of singles and songs Howlin’ Wolf recorded throughout the 1950s.  Although not quite as primitive in recording quality as earlier releases by Robert Johnson, it definitely has a rougher and less polished feel than most of the music being released at that time.  Almost all of these songs are original compositions, and many have emerged again through other artists.  “Smokestack Lightning”, perhaps his most well-known song, re-appeared in 1964 as Eric Clapton made his debut in The Yardbirds.  “How Many Years” was a direct predecessor of “How Many More Times” by Led Zeppelin, just as “Killing Floor”, which is not on this album but also highly recognized as a Howlin’ Wolf classic, shapes the “The Lemon Song”, also released by Led Zeppelin.  Howlin’ Wolf frequently collaborated with, or performed songs by Willie Dixon, perhaps the most prolific blues songwriter of their era.

     It’s difficult to process how challenging life was for aspiring black musicians in the 1950s, but thankfully for Howlin’ Wolf, he was able to live until 1976, and through the 1960s and 1970s, was appropriately recognized for his influence and catalog, defining and impacting the world of blues and rock and roll forever.  I’m grateful for his powerful voice, his intense delivery, and his authentic presentation of hard times through his music.

         As we have seen, by 1959, America and the entire world was exploding musically to the sounds of rock and roll music.  Despite this emerging craze, the safer sounds of popular music prevailed at the register.  The #1 selling album of 1959 is the soundtrack to the television show “Peter Gunn”, a private eye series that ran for approximately three years.  The composer of this work, as well as many subsequent successes, was Henry Mancini.

     I guarantee you, even if you don’t think you know the theme song to Peter Gunn, when you play it, you will.  It isn’t quite as recognizable as his most famous soundtrack success The Pink Panther, or perhaps as elegant as the beautiful Moon River, from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but I found this entire album to be an easy and enjoyable listen.  I think it would serve as an outstanding soundtrack to a late evening by the fire on a dark night, or even with less inspiration, perfect music for reading, studying or writing, when you can embrace the relaxing melodies without the distractions of lyrics and vocals.

     I would classify most of this album as a blend of classical orchestration with a heavy mix of jazz, horn-based with a warm vibe and beat through all tempos of song.  The song “Soft Sounds”, with its alluring xylophone and horn blend, lowers the lights and probably your pulse to just the right pace.  This music feels like a perfect time-stamp of the end of the ’50s, as the world of music was ready to burst into uncharted territory, while still clinging with one hand to the big band sound that reigned supreme at the beginning of the decade.

     Henry Mancini definitely understood cool comes in many shades, and you will too with this music on for your next mood-setting opportunity.  Familiar or not, expected or not, this album was just the right way to put an exclamation point on my work-week and my evening.  Cheers… and goodnight.

         As I have worked on this daily journey, I have occasionally determined through some sort of divine intervention, an absence or gap in my list that mandates an addition and deletion.  As we are rolling through the great rock and roll artists of the 1950s, my list would have been entirely incomplete without the inclusion of piano-singer Fats Domino.  Although chronologically I may be a day or two late, I have included “Fats Domino Swings”, another collection of releases from across the mid to late 1950s.

     Born and raised in New Orleans, Fats was on the early end of amazing and accomplished piano-based vocalists from the Crescent City, a long list that includes Professor Longhair, James Booker, Art Neville, Allen Toussaint, and Dr. John.  Fats Domino had more commercial success than many of these masters, and when you listen to this album, it is easy to understand his appeal.  Perhaps his most widely known single was “Blueberry Hill”, a song loved by many, to include Richie Cunningham on “Happy Days”.  Widely covered by many, including a questionable attempt by Led Zeppelin in concert, “Blueberry Hill” was Fats’ ultimate calling card.  That being said, his array of hits reaches much wider.  “Blue Monday”, “My Blue Heaven” (he loved blue apparently…), “I’m Walkin’”, and of course, “Ain’t That a Shame” are all required listening when revisiting the infancy of rock and roll.

     I have a special affection for the city of New Orleans and its rich musical legacy.  You will see this emerge on multiple occasions, and Fats Domino remained a resident and proud emblem of his city, even through the most tragic of circumstances to include Hurricane Katrina.  His grace and perseverance serve as an example to all of us, and his music can lift any sad spirit in just a moment’s time.

         There are so many different musical instruments that create the sounds we love, but for me, there is none more central to my musical world than the guitar, and perhaps more specifically, the electric guitar.  With that as an underlying reality of the music I love, I am grateful for today’s artist, and for all he did to pioneer and advance the use of the guitar in rock and roll music.  Today’s album, The Great Twenty-Eight by Chuck Berry, is the #51 album as rated on Rolling Stone’s Top 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

     While you will find the guitar in many of our previous selections, nowhere yet has it been more prominent and explosive than it is with Chuck Berry.  His sound and style revolutionized the electric guitar, and the songs he created to showcase his skills became popular covers, direct predecessors, or even exact musical duplicates with reworked lyrics (see Surfing U.S.A. by The Beach Boys).  His raucous sound and energetic power chords, building on the blues roots, opened the door for so many.  Keith Richards, Pete Townshend, Angus Young and of course Jimi Hendrix, among hundreds of others, drew greatly from what they were given by Chuck Berry.  If you have a spare moment, treat yourself to Hendrix covering “Johnny B. Goode” at his “Live From Berkeley” concert recording to hear how far Chuck Berry took us towards guitar Valhalla.  The Beatles were so directly influenced by Chuck Berry that the very first song they ever played live in concert in the United States was “Roll Over Beethoven”, with George briefly stealing the spotlight from John and Paul on lead vocals.

     The rest of this album is just loaded with great rock and roll songs.  “Maybellene”, “School Day (Ring Ring Goes The Bell)”, “Rock and Roll Music” (another highly popular Berry tracked covered by The Beatles), “Memphis, Tennessee” and my favorite from this collection, “No Particular Place To Go”.  There was just no match for the guitar solo and outro on this track, it simply rocks.

     Chuck Berry was able to avoid the early tragic endings of many of his contemporaries and performed nearly all the way until the end of his long life in 2017.  He remained relevant and influential all the way, and it always was, and always will be, in style and cool to be a Chuck Berry fan.

         With a second look, I was able to find the entire “20 Golden Greats” album by Buddy Holly, which is essentially a greatest hits collection.  After giving it a listen, I felt compelled to come back and re-emphasize how many outstanding songs he was able to produce in a short period of time.  This frenzy of hits reminds me of the unprecedented production of Lennon-McCartney and Brian Wilson in terms of volume and excellence.

     In many cases, Holly collaborated in the writing and production with producer Norm Petty.  Over this short window of time from 1957 to his death in early 1959, let’s re-examine this collection.  “That’ll Be The Day”, “Peggy Sue”, “Words of Love” (still my favorite), “Everyday”, “Not Fade Away”, “Oh Boy!”, “Maybe Baby”, “It’s So Easy”, and an inspired tribute cover to yesterday’s legend, “Bo Diddley”, among many others.  In an era of one-hit wonders, Buddy Holly was a true hit factory.

     And one last interesting note I’m shocked I never knew before, I learned who Buddy Holly’s bass player was who gave up his seat on that ill-fated flight so that the flu-ridden Big Bopper could fly instead… country legend Waylon Jennings.  It is uncanny how one little decision can change a life forever.  I’m glad I took a second listen through the Buddy Holly catalog, I hope you do as well.

         If there was a Mount Rushmore of Rock and Roll artists of the 1950s, I would probably offer up at least six names of significant stature for discussion.  And after some difficult choices and intriguing debate, when I cut down to the final four, I’m pretty sure Buddy Holly would make the final list.  In today’s album I look at album number 166 on Rolling Stone’s Top 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, “20 Golden Greats”.  As is the case with many of these early albums, I couldn’t find this exact album on my streaming service but did select a representative album chronicling the Buddy Holly catalog.

     I always take extra pleasure in the artists of this age who composed a majority of their own music, and this singer-songwriter produced a remarkable string of hits in a very narrow window of time.  Perhaps his most well-known song from that era is “Peggy Sue”, and this album also had the beautiful country rock ballad “Everyday”.   Other released singles from this album included “I’m Gonna Love You Too” and “Rave On”, and the first single, my favorite Buddy Holly song, “Words of Love”.  The guitar opening is a simple but stunning intro, reminiscent of 1960s folk rock bands like The Byrds.  Somewhat unique to Buddy Holly is his ability to shift gears from an upbeat rocker like “Oh Boy” to a touching masterpiece like “Words of Love”.  Among the 1950s icons, perhaps only Elvis has this same degree of versatility, but the authenticity Holly brings with his songwriting and every-man looks rings true for all of us.

     For all of these artists like Buddy Holly, it is heartbreaking to think what could have been had he not perished in that tragic plane crash.  He would 84 years old today, perhaps winding down what could have been a six-decade career of creating and performing.  While this abrupt ending is a commonly discussed last chapter of his short life, I believe the long-reaching influence of his performance style and catalog of songs set the stage for generations of singer-songwriters to follow.  If you listen closely to Tom Petty, Elvis Costello or a dozen other choices and you can see the Buddy Holly roots shining through as a permanent gift to all of us.

         We all have different ways of processing and reacting to emotion.  For some, it is the written word, for some it is visual art, for some it is food or exercise or movies or television or complete silence.  I have always equated music with emotion.  Whether exuberantly happy, explosively angry, or devastatingly sad, I turn to music as my outlet and my escape; the soundtrack to my feelings when up or down.  Today’s collection, “Lady In Satin” by Billie Holiday, which is rated as the 317^th Greatest Album of All Time by Rolling Stone, is one of those tragically captured moments in sadness, for many reasons.

     Billie Holiday, known by many as “Lady Day”, experienced a remarkable, yet heartbreaking life in her  short 44 years.  Beyond the cruel social conditions she and all other African-American artists were subjected to, her sultry and timelessly pure voice served as her gift and curse as a recording artist in the 1930s, 40s and 50s.  Confronted by deceptive management, abusive men and others who sought to take advantage of her vocal talents, Lady Day turned to a life of alcoholism and substance abuse to escape her harsh reality.  By the time “Lady In Satin” was recorded in 1958, her body was breaking down from this collective abuse, and she was only to withstand this pain for another year before dying in 1959 from cirrhosis.

     I don’t know if the song selection was intended to reflect her suffering, but this album is all about heartbreak and devastation.  “I’m a Fool to Want You”, “I Get Along Without You Very Well”, “You Don’t Know What Love Is”, “Glad to Be Unhappy”, “The End of a Love Affair”, and others… they all capture that pain we all have felt at some point in our life.  When you listen closely, you realize that her voice, while still beautiful in pitch and tone, sounds worn from the pain when compared to an earlier standard like “All of Me”.

     For me, my personal gold standard for sadness and heartbreak in a song is “Back to Black” by Amy Winehouse.  No other song has ever quite captured the feeling of painful loss as honestly and effectively, in my personal experience.  After listening to this album and doing a comparative to “All of Me”, I switched over to this much more recent song, and I was haunted by the similarities in voice and feeling, particularly as Billie Holiday was reaching the end of her difficult life.  I easily envisioned swapping the two, and contemplated the similar trails of abuse, from others and self-inflicted, that led to a sad and unnecessary ending for both, way too young.

     Life isn’t always happy and it isn’t always fair.  There are those amazing highs that keep us going and hoping, but in between, there are those moments of emptiness and loss, and this album and Billie herself, serves as an enduring reminder of what goes up most certainly can come back down.

         Back over to rock and roll, today’s selection is the “The Killer”, Louisiana’s own Jerry Lee Lewis.  While his career certainly has had its share of controversy, he remains an icon of rock and roll, country music and rockabilly.  The album “All Killer and No Filler” is rated as the #325 album on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.  Like other collections, I couldn’t find this exact set, so I went with a similar anthology and collection of hits, “Jerry Lee Lewis At His Best”.

     Simply, this album rocks from beginning to end.  Two of his biggest hits, “Whole Lot of Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Great Balls of Fire” kick off the album.  Like the original album title proclaims, there is no filler on this one.  Tributes to his home state of Louisiana include “When The Saints Go Marchin’ In” and Hank Williams’ bayou masterpiece “Jambalaya”.  The opening piano on his original, self-titled “Lewis Boogie” is phenomenal.  This is the kind of energy we all wish we could see every time we enter a club for some live music.

     Two other songs, neither of which are Lewis compositions, are tunes that caught my attention due to their familiarity as performed by other artists.  I don’t think Iggy Pop (“Wild One”) or the punk band X (“Breathless”) hail from the swamps of Louisiana, but they all owe “The Killer” a big thank you for putting these songs up in lights a quarter of a century earlier.

     We have already spent time with Elvis Presley and Little Richard.  Jerry Lee Lewis, who broke out with Sun Records just as Elvis did, is every bit their equal in musical contribution, historical influence and showmanship.  I’m not quite sure what he is up to these days, but hopefully somewhere down south there is still a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on.

         As you may recall from my introductory post, I cast many different nets to ensure a diverse selection of music that chronologically reflected the evolution of popular music in the 20^th and 21^st century.  One of the collections I included was the #1 Billboard album in sales each year in America, beginning in 1956.  As the country and the world began to embrace the emerging sounds of rock and roll, musical theater continued to rule the day in overall popularity.  The number one selling album in 1957?  None other than the soundtrack by the original Broadway cast for “My Fair Lady”, a musical written by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe.

     This isn’t as big of a departure for me as one might expect, as I spent several years of my life fairly well immersed in the world of musical theater as my aspiring thespian son performed in show after show.  I have seen dozens of different musicals, at all levels of performance, from middle school to Broadway.  In all of that time, I have never seen “My Fair Lady”, so I enjoyed getting to know these songs that are probably far more familiar to others.

     Performed by the original Broadway cast, including the leads Rex Harrison and the legendary Julie Andrews, this soundtrack has all of the elegance, musicality and wit of a true Broadway classic.  That being said, I’m not too much of a musical snob to acknowledge that in aggregate, I’m not sure if I felt these songs fully matched up to some of the Rodgers and Hammerstein productions of the same era.  One song stood out above the others, for multiple reasons.  “I Could Have Danced All Night” is the signature song from this show, performed by Julie Andrews and the cast.  While it is a beautiful rendition, like another of my posts, I was immediately transported to another cinematic performance of this song, the absolutely ridiculous and unforgettable performance of this same song by Robin Williams, Dianne Wiest, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman, and Hank Azaria in “The Birdcage”.  It’s not easy to upstage Julie Andrews, but if you have ever seen it, I have no doubt you agree with me.

     This era of music was all about stretching boundaries and reaching new places, and yet with “My Fair Lady”, it is and was very popular to retreat to the safety of the Broadway musical.  For one, I welcome and greatly appreciate this unexpected turn.

         There is no mistaking Little Richard.  Whether it be in sound or in sight, he is most certainly one of a kind.  Thirteen days into this journey, I encountered my first real dose of what I would call rock and roll music.  Raw, gritty, loud vocals that were way ahead of their time, explosive piano jams and simple but masterfully constructed songs…  that is “Here’s Little Richard”, the album rated #227 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

     The album kicks off with HIS version of “Tutti Frutti”, co-written by “Little” Richard Penniman, as most of the tracks are on this album.  This is another transformative step forward in the energy and intensity of the performance.  You get the sense quickly that both you and Little Richard are barely holding on for the ride, and what a great ride it is.  “True, Fine Mama” and “Ready Teddy” keep the temperature sweltering, with the second major hit of the album, “Long Tall Sally” soon to follow.  There are few breathers on this album, although “Oh Why?” shows us a SLIGHTLY more reserved version of Little Richard.  Of course, that is followed by “Rip It Up”, a song bursting with the kind of dangerous energy that most assuredly had to terrify an entire generation of parents and authority figures.

     It is nearly impossible to overstate the influence on the music that followed in his footsteps.  Any early up-tempo rocker from The Beatles with Paul McCartney on vocals might as well be a Little Richard song, as they honed their skills playing his songs mixed in with their own material.  “Keep On Knocking”, which is not on this album, is clearly the blueprint for Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll”, and the similarities between Little Richard and Bon Scott of AC/DC are too obvious to ignore.  I greatly appreciate not only the musical talent and flamboyant performances of Little Richard, I also love that most of these songs are his… written, performed, and owned.  If we didn’t make a stop today at Little Richard’s juke joint, this entire exercise would be incomplete and lacking.