Category: Music

A no-skip commercial

The first brand-new car I ever bought was a 1988 Mazda 323. It was okay for the first few years, but then it started having problems. I kept if for ten years, sold it with 125,000 miles on it, and I haven’t bought a Mazda since then. With gas prices headed back over four bucks per gallon, I don’t see performance as being a big selling point, but I sure do like Mazda’s new commercial with Bo Diddley doing Road Runner.

http://youtu.be/aAwnN8n2_-E

Here’s the complete original performance by Diddley. I don’t know where this was filmed, but I’d say it was in England or Europe.

http://youtu.be/WOOFx9c6qyA

Emitt’s Merry-Go-Round

On my Logitech Media Server network I’m listening to Barnes Newberry’s online radio show, My Back Pages. Barnes played a couple of songs by Emitt Rhodes, who’s one of those musicians that seemed to have all of the ingredients needed to be a big name, and yet superstardom eluded him. Rhodes did some excellent stuff, and I remember alternative FM station WBCN in Boston playing his solo album, with the song Fresh As a Daisy.

Emitt was only seventeen when his band The Merry-Go-Round had a minor hit with She’s a Very Lovely Woman, and it holds up very well today.

British Band Before Beatles

Paul McCartney’s new CD, Kisses from the Bottom, features old songs that he knew from his father, who had been a musician in a Jazz band. From listening to Clare Teal, Sundays on BBC Radio 2, I know the names of two big name British band leaders that I assume must have been familiar to Paul’s father — Ray Noble, who I’ve mentioned before, and Benjamin “Bert” Ambrose, who did a really catchy instrumental version of Caravan.

I love that arrangement. It reminds me a bit of Raymond Scott’s sound.

http://youtu.be/tZACT4UgBog