I’ve been prone to these songwriter series playlists moreso. This time we make a visit to our first team. While Burt Bacharach’s mix featured him not exclusively tethered to Hal David, and Sylvia Moy found herself working with a round robin of partners, this one solely focuses on Holland-Dozier-Holland. Brothers Eddie and Brian Holland and…
Tag: Dusty Springfield
Sylvia’s Work: Sister Soul Songwriter Standing In The Shadows of Motown 1964-1975
The music industry isn’t a kind place to women. Even now, there’s more hurdles that keep women mostly out of control of their artistic output rather than giving them the full creative reign of their male counterparts. The situation is more heightened for Women of Color, especially Black women. Often, and yet still, you are…
Once You Hit The Road: 35 Time Traveling Turnpike and Track Tunes
It’s getting to be that season where we all start making our travel plans. We all seem to set our sights a-far as the days get longer and the unofficial start of summer looms near Memorial Day. We’re all looking for those last minute deals on plane tickets and packages and wondering what does it…
Lady & Some Tramps: 32 Girlish Gems with Guy Support Systems
As you should know, there’s no such thing as gender binaries in Popular Music. Female and Male singers didn’t stay separate on stage, quite often, the blending of vocal harmonies across gender and range gave us our most beloved soul music. One of the most popular forms of this was having one female lead singer…
Live! Live! Live! Soul From The Stage To Your Stereo 1963-71
We’re decidedly blessed with continuous access to acres of studio recordings of our favorite soul artists. There’s the hits we know, and then even there’s alternate takes. Nevermind the LPs they released, the B-sides that end up being true gems, or the unreleased material that sees light of day more than a half century later….
Whisper & Screams, Lambs and Rams: The Aries Point Playlist
Here we are at Spring Equinox, and the beginning of the Astrological New Year. If you’ve been paying attention, I started this little Astro-DJ experiment last Spring with the sign of Taurus. I hadn’t intentionally thought of continuing it through all 12 signs. By the time I got to Gemini and Cancer I started linking…
Bacharach’s Brilliance: Burt’s Bevy of Beauties 1960-1975
The Post-War world of Rock and Roll and Popular Music didn’t lend itself to the type of standards generated by Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hart and Irving Berlin. Or we’re lead to believe. Of course, we would be remiss not to honor names like Leiber & Stoller, Goffin & King, Holland-Dozier-Holland, Gamble & Huff and…
Magic Brews and Spells For You: Halloween Harmonies Volume 1
I heard the clarion call for frightening soul when fellow DJ Miss Yes complained that she was already maxed out on “The Monster Mash.” Although there’s really plenty of Halloween specific songs to go around, there’s plenty of dark, thrilling and noir songs to go around for this season that thins the veils and gets…
Standard Snuggles, Classic Cuddles: Late Summer After Midnight Merging of Classic Soul and Songs of Old
It wasn’t just Berry Gordy’s dream to cross over to the meat of the performance market during the 1960s. R&B singers early as Ruth Brown and Dinah Washington took to covering songs associated with Tin Pan Alley pretty early in their careers. The natural relationship between musical genres has always been an orgy; Jazz informed…
I’ll Try Anything: The Master Vocal-Cultural Intersection Class as Taught by Dusty Springfield
Dusty Springfield, older I get, is someone that I love more, although she causes some grand complications being a fan of hers. She’s *that* Blue-eyed soul singer that reigns over all others. She’s *that* early queer icon that at least publicly identified as Bisexual far ahead of anyone else. She’s that British Invasion artist wholly…
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