As you may know by now, Girl Group and Femme Soul songs are my bible. My first Astrology lecture is dedicated to this particular genre of music and how it unfolded around the Virgo maiden archetype during the 1960’s. Critically ignored by the dominance of white male musicians and music critics, the “girl group” genre…
Tag: Marvin Gaye
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…
Man Crushes and Masturbatory Materials: 36 + Faces of Sixties Soul
I do realize when I pull together these mixes that aren’t themed around Astrology, CIS-gendered vintage men kinda get the short end of the stick. It comes from my place that in the terms of music history, women in general don’t get anywhere near the equal coverage in their monumental role in shaping our pop…
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…
Delicious Together: The Delectable Art of the Duet 1952-1973
The other component of Libra season, beyond balance and justice, is relationships and partnerships. Who are your others? Seems a perfect time to round up a bounty of the beauty of the duet. The call & response between two players on Vinyl goes further back that Vinyl itself of course, as singing is basically the…
Hitsville Vaults ’66: The Top Twenty Motown potential hits you didn’t know existed.
You may or may not know, Motown records in its Golden Years from 1961 through 1968 was a constant hive of activity. The operations worked 24 hours a day each day of the year, some Motown gems were recorded and pressed on major holidays, some efforts saw release on others. Was December 31, 1965 a…
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…
The Magic of Marvin: Sovereign Soul and Sweetness, The Crown’d Prince of Motown
If you don’t have a special connection to Marvin Gaye, immediately I question your humanity. Chances are I’ll never like you. He left this earthly plane with a gunshot shortly before I turned 2 years old 32 years ago today, right before he turned 45. In just over 25 years, he evolved from being one…
Step Out From ’66 – Step Out Front in ’16. Your New Year’s Playlist
If you know anything about my vintage pop culture junkie ways is that I do ridiculous tie-ins to the eras I’m interested in. As we creeped into 2016, which makes 1966 50 years ago, I thought of an Oldsmobile slogan from that year as I started to craft the first mix I’ll be creating in…
DJ Larsupreme 