Joan Armatrading

One of my proudest musical accomplishment has been to introduce Joan Armatrading to so many people including both my sisters and my friend Kyle.

She is definitely in my Top Ten Favorite Artists of All Time. (Complete list one day.)

I also introduced my sister Christine (an out and proud lesbian) to Melissa Etheridge's music. Christine just wasn't knowledgeable about some lesbian rockers I guess.

While I was in Atlanta this past weekend, my other sister Claudia mentioned that she lost her Joan Armatrading compilation CD that I made her a few years ago. Christine wasn't sure if Claudia meant that she "lost" the CD or if she really lost it. Claudia then started singing Everyday Boy, an obscure song from Joan Armatrading's 1995 CD What's Inside.



I followed up her a capella version with a trip to iTunes to download the song to my iPhone - so we could all four (including Claudia's husband Jeff) listen to it.

Since returning from Atlanta on Monday, it's been a busy week. Tonight is the first night I have had to put together an update Joan Armatrading compilation. Pulling songs from her 20 albums from 1972 until the present to make 80 minutes of music was really tough, but here is the final compilation.

Get In The Sun
Kissin’ and a Huggin’ (see below)
Back to the Night
Down to Zero (see below)
Cool Blue Stole My Heart (see below for a live jazz version)
Everyday Boy
Heaven
Love & Affection (see below for a live version done at Abbey Road Studios for one of my favorite series Live From Abbey Road)
Kind Words (And A Real Good Heart)
Did I Make You Up - with Mark Knopfler
Drop The Pilot (see below for 2008 live version)
Wrapped Around Her
The Weakness in Me
Show Some Emotion
Can’t Stop Loving You
Me Myself & I
When I Get It Right
Mama Mercy
In Your Eyes
Whatever’s For Us
Flight of the Wild Geese

I tried to mix old, new, hits, non-hits, and so on. I do not have her three most recent CD's - 2004's Live All The Way From America, 2007's Into The Blues, and 2010's This Charming Life - so once I get those, I'll make an updated updated compilation.

Here are the videos of my most favorite songs from the compilation.











Don't know Joan Armatrading, but want to check her out now? Start with this CD and work out from there. You won't go wrong with any of her releases. (When I get some more time, I may go album by album, track by track, to tell you the best of the best.)

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I have seen both Melissa Etheridge and Joan Armatrading live. Those stories in a future post. For Melissa Etheridge, picture three guys and 3000 lesbians at the Saenger Theatre in New Orleans.

The 50 Best Gay Movies

For those interested, AfterElton.com did a poll of the 50 Best Gay Movies.

If you don't want the details on each movie, but only the list, here you go (with the ones in bold the ones I've seen):
1 Brokeback Mountain (2005)
2 Shelter (2007)
3 Latter Days (2003)
4 Milk (2008)
5 A Beautiful Thing (1996)
6 Get Real (1998)
7 Maurice (1987)
8 Were the World Mine (2008)
9 Trick (1999)
10 Juste Une Question D'amour (Just a Question of Love) (2000)
11 Big Eden (2000)
12 The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
13 Torch Song Trilogy (1988)
14 Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom (2008)
15 Broken Hearts Club (2000)
16 Angels in America (2003)
17 Longtime Companion (1990)
18 Jeffrey (1995)
19 Sommersturm (2004)
20 All Over the Guy (2001)
21 Mysterious Skin (2004)
22 Philadelphia (1993)
23 Burnt Money (2000)
24 Birdcage (1996)
25 Edge of Seventeen (1998)
26 My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)
27 Boy Culture (2006)
28 Parting Glances (1986)
29 Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
30 The Trip (2002)
31 Shortbus (2006)
32 The Boys in the Band (1970)
33 Yossi and Jagger (2002)
34 Another Gay Movie (2006)
35 The Bubble (2006)
36 The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
37 C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005)
38 Coffee Date (2006)
39 Making Love (1982)
40 Prayers for Bobby (2009)
41 East Side Story (2006)
42 Love Songs (Les Chansons D'Amour) (2007)
43 Mambo Italiano (2003)
44 Adam & Steve (2005)
45 In and Out (1997)
46 My Own Private Idaho (1991)
47 Rent Count (2005)
48 Eating Out (2004)
49 Mulligans (2008)
50 Transamerica (2005)

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How many of these have you seen?

I have been working on my own Top Ten Gay Movies of All Time list for awhile. I'll get around to posting it one day.

Atlanta Trip

My sister Christine and I travel to Atlanta once a year to visit our younger (35 years old) sister Claudia - and her husband and three kids (currently 6, 4 and 2).

Christine and I remark that we're not actually going to Atlanta for three days, but to Claudia's Backyard. This is my third year going (and Christine's fifth), and the furthest we have gotten into Atlanta is to Cosco three miles away to buy groceries. The rest of the time, we are playing with the kids - soccer, baseball, pushing them on the swing, drawing on the ground with chalk, playing in the sandbox, and repeat. For three solid days.



Our schedule is usually get up with the kids at 7 am, eat and relax until 9, play in the yard until noon, naps for all until 3, play until 5, eat then baths and bed at 7. We call Claudia Nazi Mama. She has the kids on such a tight schedule, but the kids love the structure.

All three siblings in my generation are very structured. We think it comes from our parents: They never gave us any structure (no rules, no curfews, and so on) growing up. We think we're compensating for it in our adulthood.

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Tangent:
When we were growing up, our parents had three rules for us kids:
1. You couldn't smoke in the house unless you had a friend over.
2. You couldn't go out on school nights - unless you were going to the library.
3. You couldn't have the car out overnight.

We never had a curfew, but usually came home at a reasonable hour because all of our friends had curfews.

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After the kids are asleep at 7, the three of us (plus Claudia's husband if he is home from work) retire to the back porch for wine and conversation. All three nights (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), we stayed up way too late for a morning that we had to face those kids.

But us adults were having such fun. Because Claudia lives in Atlanta and Christine and I live in New Orleans, we rarely have the opportunity to sit and catch up. Whenever I talk with Claudia (or Christine), it feels like we are picking up a conversation we just dropped - though it may have been six months prior.

I probably I don't discuss my sisters enough here (especially Claudia), but they're very important to me. I am very proud of them and, though all three of us are quite different, am glad that our friendships have evolved nicely into adulthood.

Paolo Nutini Revisited

Remember Paolo Nutini from this post?

Here's an updated picture of him. Too bad.

The Percussion Side of Town

Back in the day, my old friend Kyle and I used to spend hours in bars, feeding jukeboxes and playing one-on-one Tough Music Trivia.

Some examples...
I’ll name the drummer. You name the band. First one to miss buys the next round.
Sib Hashian...

I’ll name the Badfinger member. You name the year he committed suicide. An extra point if you can name the location and the method.

I’ll name The Pretenders member. You name the year he died of a drug overdose.

Fleetwood Mac has had a revolving list of members, but almost always only a total of five at one time. Name all 16 total members.

I'll name the record label. You tell me the artists that have been signed to it.
Apple Records...Swan Song...A&M...

We were constantly searching for the most arcane trivia to throw out.

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Visual Aide:

Besides Badfinger, Mary Hopkin was one of the Beatles's first artists signed to Apple Records. Here is Mary Hopkin's Those Were The Days.



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My point is that Kyle and I were constantly challenging each other toward learning about new artists - and sharing the knowledge.

My favorite artist that he introduced me to is Donny Hathaway.

Today, I was finalizing my February 2011 CD - my once monthly CD compilation that I create and make a copy for Carlos. When I was telling him the playlist, he remarked that I had another Donny Hathaway song on it and that I should blog about the reason for that.

So here we are.

Let's start at the beginning - and then skip around. Donny Hathaway's first hit was the Billboard 100 #87, Billboard R&B #23 song The Ghetto Part 1. Here is the live version of the Ghetto (all the parts) originally from his CD These Songs For You, Live.




The title of this post comes from that song.

His biggest hit was with Roberta Flack - The Closer I Get To You, reaching Billboard 100 #2, Billboard R&B #1.




You may know best Donny Hathaway for the Christmas standard This Christmas. The song, released in 1970, has become a holiday staple and is often used in movies, television and in advertising. This Christmas has been covered by numerous artists including The Whispers, Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, Chicago, Harry Connick, Jr., *NSYNC, and Gloria Estefan.




I remember first playing Carlos some Donny Hathaway. His immediate reaction was that he sounded like that guy who sang the theme to Maude. Good ear, Carlos: That is indeed Donny Hathaway too.




If you want an overview of Donny Hathaway, go with 1990's A Donny Hathaway Collection. Follow that link to a sample of all of his hits.

If you want to jump right in, I strongly recommend his 1973 studio album Extension of a Man or any of his numerous live releases.

Here is his song Flying Easy from that CD.



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On January 13, 1979, Donny Hathaway killed himself by jumping out of his 15th-floor room in New York's Essex House hotel.

Top 10...Classic Rock Bands

Now that I have tackled my Top Five Classic Rock Bands, I wanted to complete the list to Top 10.

I am still working on the list and the accompanying narrative, but I wanted to give you a preview.

This band is definitely on the list...

Melismatic

Carlos and I will celebrate our 10th anniversary this March 23rd.

There are countless reasons I love him. One of the Top Hundred is that he consistently gives me a challenge in my pop culture knowledge.

He sent me the below article, knowing that I love music - especially the analysis of it.

Bonus: I have found a new word – “melismatic” – that I will try to work into a conversation this week.

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Trilling Songbirds Clip Their Wings

AS symbolic shifts go, two recent events in pop music couldn’t have been more illuminating. On Nov. 24 “Burlesque,” a big-screen musical starring Christina Aguilera, opened and landed with a thud, both critically and at the box office. On Dec. 2 came the Grammy Award nominations. Among releases up for the album of the year award are those by Lady Gaga and Katy Perry; Ms. Aguilera, who also released an album, “Bionic,” in 2010, was ignored.


Such turnover is part of pop’s constant process of renewal: out with the old idols, in with the new. But the ground shifted under pop in an even bigger way. As seen and especially heard in “Burlesque,” Ms. Aguilera has been one of the foremost practitioners of the overpowering, Category 5 vocal style known as melisma. The female pop stars who have dominated the charts this year rarely opt for that approach. Their ascent makes it clear that melisma has retreated, while pop, which has just wrapped up one of its best years in at least a decade, has benefited from a return to less frilly, less bombastic vocal showcases.

Although there’s nothing simple about it, melisma in its simplest form is a vocal technique in which a series of notes is stretched into one syllable. Its roots can be tracked back to gospel, blues and even Gregorian chant; Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder used it sparingly early in their careers.

But beginning two decades ago, melisma overtook pop in a way it hadn’t before. Mariah Carey’s debut hit from 1990, “Vision of Love,” followed two years later by Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You,” set the bar insanely high for notes stretched louder, longer and knottier than most pop fans had ever heard. A subsequent generation of singers, including Ms. Aguilera, Jennifer Hudson and Beyoncé, built their careers around melisma. (Men like Brian McKnight and Tyrese also indulged in it, but women tended to dominate the form.)

That melisma heyday is jarringly invoked on Ms. Carey’s current album, “Merry Christmas II You,” a collection of seasonal standards and originals. One of the tracks, a rendition of “O Holy Night” recorded in 2000, is a reminder of the days when Ms. Carey and her voice were in full melismatic overdrive.

Whether it’s because of public fatigue or the advancing ages of its mainstays, who can’t quite sandblast the high notes as they once did, those days appear to be over. Ms. Aguilera’s “Bionic,” along with recent releases by Ms. Carey (“Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel”) and Ms. Houston (“I Look to You”), have sold far below their usual multimillion levels. “American Idol,” whose contestants have long been clearly influenced by melisma, is in ratings and buzz decline.

Beyoncé and Pink, who embraced melisma early in their careers, have both left it behind. Pink’s new compilation, “Greatest Hits ... So Far!!!,” is dominated by her rock-leaning rasp, whether she’s taking a crack at a ballad (“Dear Mr. President”) or a party anthem (her current single, “Raise Your Glass”). Although she was fond of elongated syllables while a member of Destiny’s Child, Beyoncé gradually moved away from brassy displays. Her luminous recent hit “Halo” has only a suggestion of melisma. It’s telling that her most recent hit, the irresistible dance pop song “Telephone,” is a collaboration with Lady Gaga.

Starting with Lady Gaga and Ms. Perry the nonmelisma female performers who have taken over iPods and the radio couldn’t be more different vocally. On “California Gurls” and “Teenage Dream,” her ubiquitous 2010 hits, Ms. Perry opts for short, breathy gulps in her singing. Her voice occasionally glides into an upper register, as on the bridge of “California Gurls,” but it mostly aims to convey likability and approachability, not prowess and imperiousness.

As heard on her current single “We R Who We R” from her new mini-album, “Cannibal,” Kesha has a thin, often computer-manipulated voice that recalls ’80s new-wave pop acts. It’s often hard to tell when her singing voice ends and the Vocoder processing kicks in.

The technically best singer of the bunch, Lady Gaga, has a deep, mildly nasal delivery that, on hits like “Alejandro,” evokes a more tuneful Madonna. Her version of melisma is more visual than aural: her Broadway-inspired stage shows, arresting videos, Warhol-redux costumes and exploding bras are over the top, as opposed to her singing.

What all those singers have in common is a delivery far less virtuosic than the melisma queens of old. (Some, like Taylor Swift, they may not be vocally capable of it either.) None is likely to inspire contestants who will stand before Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler on the next season of “American Idol.” Rather than wrestling the melodies to the ground, these singers adhere closely to them. The high notes Ms. Perry reaches for on “Teenage Dream” are the merest of vocal trills. One of the year’s most arresting hooks, Rihanna’s contribution to Eminem’s “Love the Way You Lie,” conveys sadness and regret in a beautifully understated manner devoid of vibrato.

What makes singles like “Telephone” and “Alejandro,” “California Gurls” and Kesha’s “Tik Tok” and “Your Love Is My Drug” stand out aren’t the voices at their core. It’s the combination of vocal personality, arrangement, hook and songcraft — the eternal, enduring ingredients of classic pop. Even their voices are turned into hooks: one of the most memorable parts of “Telephone” is the moment Lady Gaga’s voice imitates a busy signal.

Those songs were also central to this year’s invigorating resurgence of pop. From the teen-bop star Justin Bieber to the casts of “Glee” and the boy-band TV series “Big Time Rush,” dance-infused pop singles made a triumphant comeback in 2010. Beats and melodies once again became the stars — a welcome reprieve from the melisma era, when emphasis shifted from songwriting to Olympic-style displays of lung power. To test the damaging influence of melisma, one need only try to hum one of Ms. Carey’s vaporous hits all the way through; it’s virtually impossible.

Melisma may have also run its cultural course. Ms. Carey, Ms. Houston and Ms. Aguilera, to name its three main champions, are most associated with the period from the late ’80s through the late ’90s: an era now largely associated with money, ostentation and American power, especially during the latter half of the ’90s. Their brawny vocal approach and lush, widescreen records reflected their times as much as the Clinton-era Wall Street boom.

Pop’s new divas may not be able to ascend to vocal heights the way Ms. Aguilera still can in “Burlesque.” But in many ways they’re better suited for the post-crash economy. Every so often even pop music has to downsize.

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Here are some videos to go with this post.

Theme Dinners - Season 2

At the beginning of November 2010, we ended Season 1 (as I have come to call it) of our Wednesday Night Dinners - breaking for the holidays until January.

Before I describe the Dinners from Season 2 that we have had, let's recap the themes from Season 1.
Episode 1 - Cold Food
Episode 2 - Vegetarian
Episode 3 - A Dish That Rhymes with the Name of a New Orleans Saints Player
Episode 4 - Idioms
Episode 5 - A Dish That Reminds You of Your Fantasy Place To Live
Episode 6 - Three Themes Together: An Appetizer, That Rhymes With The Name of a Celebrity, On A Stick

Here's my slide show with Season 1's pictures:


We awarded first, second, and third place - based on votes - but I didn't keep track of the winners. I will this Season.

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Our Dinners resumed on Wednesday, January 12 with the theme Healthy Food. (After the gluttony of the holidays, we thought that was fitting.) Here are the top dishes so far this Season:

Episode 1 - Healthy Food
First Place: Curt's French Onion Soup
Second Place: Angela's St. Charles Avenue 12-Hour Egg Salad
Third Place: Marshall's Chicken, Feta, Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Spinach Wraps

Episode 2 - Dish That Reminds You of The Name of a Favorite Movie
First Place: Jason S.'s Potatoes au Grey Gardens (Movie: Grey Gardens)
Second Place: Julie's Moon Pie Banana Stars (Movie: Moon)
Third Place: Debbie and Bart's Wine Sampling (Movie: Sideways)

Come Up Next (on February 9): Episode 3 - In Honor of Valentine's Day, The Dish You Love The Most

Until then, Bon Appétit!

Car Issues

Last Saturday, I had my traditional every four month screwing at Speedy Oil Change. ("You see how dirty your air filter is? You really should have that replaced." "For a car with your mileage, you really should get the high mileage oil change - for an additional $20.")

They also said that I had a crack in my radiator. I trust Speedy to change my windshield wiper blades, but not to diagnose major issues. I have noticed that steam (steam, not smoke) has been coming out from under my hood for the past six weeks. As with most car issues, I figured that if I ignored it, it would go away.

This morning, I brought my car to The Radiator Shop on Jefferson Hwy, telling them only that "I think there's something wrong with my radiator". Sure enough, I have a crack across the top of my radiator. Todd, the owner, told me that it would be about five hours - and then offered me a ride home. Assuming the actual repair works out, I highly recommend The Radiator Shop. (I am also going to review them on my Poynt iPhone app.)

Ryan Kwanten: GQ Australia's Man of the Year

Ryan Kwanten is GQ Australia's Man of the Year.


Thanks to Carlos, I read the US version of GQ. Maybe I should start picking up the Australian version.





Here is my favorite picture of him.


For those who don't know who he is, here's his IMDB page.