Carl

Last night I read a few chapters of a book called The Greatest Salesman In The World. I re-read it from time to time whenever I'm feeling disconnected. It's the book Maurice White made his associates read before they worked with him. I know this because Allee Willis, who co-wrote "September" and "Boogie Wonderland," told me. She also explained that Maurice was a singular songwriting talent who knew exactly how to fuse spirituality and groove. You can hear it in "Shining Star," a song meant to lure us into a positive state. It's also in "September" - yeah, it's a lot of "bada ya," but you can't let a lyric get in the way of a groove, and that groove means more than anything you'll find in the dictionary. In a way, EW&F ruined me for modern R&B. I would hear the latest jams and think, "Why would I listen to this when Earth, Wind & Fire did it so much better"? Well, that's because what they did was beyond compare - interplanetary, almost. Wherever he is, his star is shining bright.

I had The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane on a cassette when I was a kid. Came for "White Rabbit" but stayed for "Crown Of Creation," "Volunteers" and "Plastic Fantastic Lover."

I'm kind of partial to this one:

Ron, we Tweeted some of those lyrics. This is nuts - looks like his Blackstar album is very much about his impending death, and it's release was timed just so. A brilliant piece of performance art: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/12092542/Bowies-last-album-was-parting-gift-for-fans-in-carefully-planned-finale.html

Great find Ron. Here's what the Top 10 looks like right now.

Glen Campbell... I'll Be Me (9/10) I would have given this one a 10, but they spelled Joe Osborn's name wrong. This movie follows Glen Campbell from his Alzheimer's diagnosis through his Goodbye Tour and finally to 2014, when his mind had left him completely. It's candid and unadorned - a visceral look at what happens to an Alzheimer's patient and how it affects his loved ones and caregivers. The story is remarkable: Campbell toured despite having no recall of lyrics to songs he had sung for decades. With teleprompters positioned around the stage and three family members in his band to provide familiarity and support, he played about 150 shows over the next year before he could no longer perform. My beef with traditional bios is they rarely expose the dark side of a subject, which in Campbell's case was very dark. This one didn't have to, since it deals specifically with his condition. The talking heads are folks like Bruce Springsteen and Brad Paisley, many of whom tell personal stories about people they know who have suffered from Alzheimer's. It's also very pragmatic in the theme: the US government needs to make a push to cure this disease. There is no happy ending, just happy memories from those who enjoyed Campbell's company in his last lucid years. And in some ways, memories are all we have.

Love the way he plays guitar. I don't trust the "cloud" either, but maybe that's from watching Mr. Robot.

Powerful stuff. Thanks for sharing.

The most comprehensive (and accurate) story we've seen on Bobby Darin is now posted in one place on the Forgotten Hits site. Their webmaster, Kent Kotal, posted the original version back in 2003 when Forgotten Hits was still just a newsletter, and now the story is refined with all the added bits he's accumulated since then. A great read on one of the defining singers of his era. The Bobby Darin Story

Hope you are all off to a great 2016, and that your resolutions are still in tact.

Just got news that Lemmy, the embodiment of freewheeling hard rock, has died at age 70. Apparently, he learned two days after his 70th birthday that he had cancer, and he died two days after that. He left a huge impact as a songwriter and a rocker. http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-35192060

Yeah, that's one of the stranger Christmas song stories. It feels like the song is from 1863, not 1963.

When I hear references to sleighs or their bells in modern Christmas songs, I think it's a cop-out. It's a Christmas archetype, but it has nothing to do with anyone's actual experience with Christmas in the last 50 years.

Wonder if they need to update it with the story of how his kids got millions of $s from Robin Thicke and Pharrell. This could be interesting. His biographer David Ritz reported on some pretty freaky behavior from Marvin in his later years, which I'm not sure will translate to the screen.

This one can power Santa's sleigh.

I feel ya Jenny. It's weird when your friends get political on you. In Ireland they know better.

We started a category for Songs About Trends. Two examples: "It's Still Rock And Roll To Me" by Billy Joel "What is Hip?" by Tower of Power What are some others?

Your story is very similar to what Jason Michael Carroll went through. He sang about it in "Livin' Our Love Song."

Who is this Felice Navidad? She sounds nice.

Scott Weiland was found dead yesterday in Bloomington, Minnesota, where he was on tour with his band The Wildabouts. The top song on Songfacts today is "Plush," which may best exemplify Weiland's life. The song is part of Stone Temple Pilots debut album Core, which initially got some attention thanks to the first single, "Sex Type Thing," a rocker that positioned STP as a metal band and earned them an invite to Headbanger's Ball on MTV. Weiland appeared on the show with guitarist Dean DeLeo who brought his acoustic. Their plan: instead of gabbing, play some music. The show taped at the ungodly hour of 6 a.m. STP had just finished a tour opening for Rage Against the Machine, but DeLeo and Weiland flew to New York, got violently ill from the sleeping pills they took (among other substances), and dragged themselves to the studio, where they did an acoustic rendition of "Plush" that was startling. Radio stations started playing this version, and by the summer of 1993 it was everywhere. This was typical Weiland, at his best when he was feeling his worst. Success meant more problems because of his overpowering addictions - once he could afford heroin, he was on borrowed time. Weiland was the quarterback on his high school football team - that guy who could show up and throw touchdown passes without putting in the practice. He excelled at pretty much everything. There will probably be some chatter about his "wasted talent" and such, but it was clear that his destructive personality traits were in his DNA, and his environment didn't help: In his autobiography he claimed that he was both raped and institutionalized when he was a kid. His solace came from music and candles. He was an altar boy, and the candles gave him comfort. Wherever he went, he would light candles.

The one he did with Buddy Rich is better, but the drum off between Animal and Dave Grohl at the end of this clip is solid.

Wow. Unless you count Soundgarden's "Spoonman," I can't think of any other songs about buskers.

He's gotta know... must feel a breeze.

Wonder if it's this one - it's a 9/11 song:

This airs tonight, with a special before the show. Fun fact: when it first aired it bumped The Munsters and was followed by Gilligan's Island.