Category: Music

Doing Doo-Wop

Upon retiring three years ago I bought a new car, a 2017 Toyota Camry XLE. JBL should be ashamed for putting its name on the entertainment system, because the sound quality is mediocre, but at least it includes an XM receiver (Sirius and XM merged, but their satellite technologies are incompatible).

Even before the Covid-19 lockdown I wasn’t doing a lot of driving because, like I said, I’m retired. So most of my SiriusXM listening is at home, online. Something I realized from listening to Cousin Brucie on “60’s on 6” is that his personal preference isn’t for the 60’s songs I heard him play on WABC as a kid. He’s big into Doo-Wop.

I’m still feeling stunned by the passing of Ian Whitcomb. His Luxuriamusic co-host Jim Dawson is someone who knows his Doo-Wop history. Andrew Sandoval, everybody’s friend in 60’s Production Pop music, is a big Dion fan. So put it all together and I’m enjoying a newfound interest in listening to Doo-Wop. Here’s one that Drew Carey played recently on his SiriusXM “Friday Night Freak-Out” show.

Rock and Roll!

Little Richard, one of the founders of Rock and Roll, has died. It’s worth remembering that between Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino, the piano was just as common as the electric guitar in the early days of Rock and Roll.

Tommy Smothers tells a dubious and funny alternate origin of Rock and Roll.

Personally, I think that the feeling behind Rock and Roll has always been present in music.

Springtime Cabin Fever Music

A 70’s collection of songs about avoiding crowds, either by choice… or not. I played all of these, except for ‘Isolation’, during my AM radio DJ days on an Adult Contemporary station.

Eric Carmen’s ‘All By Myself’ is based upon Rachmaninoff’s Concerto for Piano #2, featured 30 years earlier in the superb David Lean film, Brief Encounter. Written by Noel Coward, this deftly nuanced, devastating study of two married, middle-aged people who fall crashingly in love is the finest example of a truly adult film in the best sense of the term. Celia Johnson is beyond wonderful in this role.