I’ve mined the territory of checking in with women were doing in the recording studios through some random assortment of years during the 1960s. I started with 1965, jumped to 1961 and then did 1963. 1964 is an interesting year to ponder. Of course it’s mostly remembered as the beginning of the British Invasion that…
Tag: Lesley Gore
Pride & Allies – A Queer Mid Century Celebration Mix
I’m a firm believer in having to remember where you’ve been to see where you’re going. To root and meditate on our history is to build for a stronger future. As a society, the United States tends to make our collective memory disposable. This includes the evolution we’ve managed around sexuality in the last 50…
Spring Fling – A Playlist For Frisky, Frolicsome Fun
Welcome to the heart of Spring and Taurus Season! It’s rare that these playlists have a simple objective these days. This one, however, sort of arrived out of my own aroused interest in Springtime. Ready to hit the garden, plow some fields and plant some seeds, I thought of some of the most fun, coy…
That Seventies Show – Vol. 2: A Superfly Sequel Of Lady Soul From The Decade Of Me
About 18 months ago, I ventured out of the avenues of my typical fawning over 1960’s R&B and dropped the electronic needle on a bunch of 1970’s shadow classics. The 1970’s was also the first real era of the sequel blockbuster, so like any other producer, one looks at the returns of former successes and…
Strings And Things Pt.1: 36 Orchestral Soul Gems
I’ve been told by fellow DJs on the soul scene, quite derisively sometimes, that the soul music that I spin is too *sweet.* Not Funky, nitty or gritty, I tend towards pretty melodies, and… frankly, string sections. Violins? Cellos? Upright Bass? Why?!?! As I try to lean back into live DJing in a new town,…
Queen Bee of The Brill: Ellie Greenwich and 35 of her cha-cha-charms
In general, the creators of popular music rarely get the credit that they deserve. Although we all have dozens of tunes that we (un)controllably hum in our heads due to the genius of composers forever having something memorable tunewise to offer, we oft deride such content as fluff. When you’re one of the rare women…
Better Luck Next Time: 40 Hits that happened for someone else
Sometimes, it’s like, with a song, dust yourself off and try again. The perfect moment for a tune to become a success entrenched in the Pop Culture lexicon sometimes isn’t its first time up to bat. Sometimes it takes competition and revision to get things right. With this, I’ve gone a bit overboard, giving you…
Becky Has The Blues, Darth Susan Succeeds: Your Post-Election Playlist
And here we are, at the end of a tumultuous election season. Admittedly, I have to absolutely scrap everything previously that I wrote in the anticipation that we’d be here, November 9th, 2016, heralding our first female president. We’re not this morning, in fact there’s a number of us mourning in this reckoning, and I’m…
So You Wanna Be Dionne Warwick? 30 Tribute Tunes To The Titan Of Sophisticated Soul
The influence of Dionne Warwick is one of the most underappreciated in 1960’s Soul Music. Her smooth, sophisticated work on Scepter Records, especially with Burt Bacharach and Hal David showed a mature, nuanced and complex way that many soul stars imitated. Coast to Coast after she flew in on the spaceship that was “Don’t Make…
Lesley Gore “Look The Other Way”(Mercury 72867-B, 1968)
Lesley Gore “Look The Other Way”(Mercury 72867-B, 1968) There’s a hole in our collective hearts where America’s Sweetheart meets Queer Icon Lesley Gore doesn’t exist anymore. Since she passed away last year, not much has been done to cover the scope of her art or activism. It’s to be remembered that within 9 months time,…
DJ Larsupreme 