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…
Tag: The Supremes
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…
Love-o-matic: Your Mid Century Auditory Personal Lubricant For Horizontal Dancing
Spring in the air, filled with love, there’s magic everywhere. Okay, we’re not all young and in love as Van McCoy wrote, but we all like to be amorous, and there’s no season like the blossoms of Spring, and Venus in Taurus season to get us to want to make like the birds and bees…
Forgotten Pearls, Unpanned Gold: Even More Motown Lady Tunes
They say Atlantic Records was The House That Ruth (Brown) Built. We never ever really give credit to the women who built an empire for Berry Gordy in the conjoined houses at 2648 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit. He Started with the business savvy of his sisters Anna, Gwen, Loucye and Esther. Early signings like Claudette…
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,…
Languishing On An LP: 33 Revolutions Not Found In Your Platter Pack
Vinyl DJs swear by the portability of the 45 rpm single. In a platter pack or any sundry 45 carrier, you’ve got up to 100 tunes, since most of those boxes can accommodate 50 of those little plastic discs. Most of my fellow DJs decry LPs, especially Soul LPs of the 1960’s as full of…
Heaven Must Have Sent You: Your Holland-Dozier-Holland History Lesson
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…
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…
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…
DJ Larsupreme 