My Favorite Music - 6

Our exploration of love found, love cherished, love strained and love lost in Part 5 ran too long, so we’ll start with a few stragglers before moving on to our final theme, which isn’t a theme.

Maybe you’ll forget that I’ve already shared a duet of Patti Labelle and Michael McDonald, followed by Michael McDonald singing solo, so you won’t notice a familiar voice in this next song by a band formed in San Jose, California, in 1970, when Moby Grape’s Skip Spence introduced drummer John Hartman to singer/songwriter/guitarist Tom Johnston. They became the kernel of a band they called Pud, and hired other musicians who rotated in and out of the band. As the band grew in size, they needed a new name. Their friend, Keith Rosen, observed that they were constantly smoking pot, so he suggested they call themselves The Doobie Brothers. The band thought it was a stupid name, but they adopted it “until they could come up with something better.” They signed with Warner Records and were sent on a national tour in 1971. They recorded a string of hit albums through 1975, when Michael McDonald joined the band. The band continued releasing hits, now featuring McDonald’s voice in the lead. Their 1978 album, Minute By Minute, included “What A Fool Believes.” The band hit “Pause” in 1982 and didn’t work together until 1987. Since then, they have toured continuously until now with most of their original members.

Not all my favorite artists were born more than half a century ago. For example, in 1982, in Indianapolis, the Lamberts, an ordinary couple gave birth to an extraordinary boy they named Adam. Shortly after his younger brother, Neil, was born, the family moved to San Diego, California. At age 9, Adam began performing with the Metropolitan Educational Theatre. After graduating high school and completing only 5 weeks at California State University, he picked up and moved to Los Angeles in pursuit of “real” entertainment work – and succeeded. I first heard of him when he competed in Season 8 of American Idol and lost (because he is gay) to Kris Allen from Conway, Arkansas. No matter. Lambert went on to be a superstar and Allen fizzled. Cher first released “Believe” in 1998, but I found her use of AutoTune on the verses distracting. Lambert’s version is, by far, more authentic and emotional.

It’s back to the “early years,” and back to Canada, Charlemagne, Quebec, where in 1968, Céline Marie Claudette Dion was born, the last of 14(!) children in a family where French was the first language. Her first public performance was at her brother’s wedding in 1973 and continued to perform at her parents’ piano bar, Le Vieux Baril, “The Old Barrel.” At age 12, she collaborated with her mom and her brother to write her first song. Her brother, Michel, sent it to René Angélil, a record producer whose name he found on the back of a record jacket in the house. Angélil was moved to tears when he heard Dion’s demo and decided then and there to make her a star. And he did. He also made her his wife in 1994. In 1996, Dion released her fourth English-language album, Falling Into You, which included among other hits, “All By Myself.” She has sold over 200 million records and is one of the wealthiest musicians on the planet.

Over in Manchester, England, a four-member rock band formed in 1972, although three of the members had been friends since 1963. Lol Creme, Kevin Godley, and Graham Gouldman went to separate art colleges, but stayed in touch. Eric Stewart grew up in a Manchester suburb. The boys rotated in and out of various bands that enjoyed modest success. Stewart was instrumental in setting up Strawberry Studios, which recorded for a number of bands. The band kept plugging away playing under different names until producer Jonathan King heard one of their songs and signed them to his UK Records naming them 10cc. They produced a few singles, then left King to sign with Mercury Records in 1975. The band left and signed with labels so fast, I can’t keep up. During this period, “I’m Not In Love” was released. As bands often do, 10cc broke up and reunited several times.

This would have been the end of Part 5, but Substack said, “Nuh uh.” Is the next group of songs a Grand Finale? Maybe. The series starts with some absolute favorites, then segues into a lineup that questions our actions as a society … as a species, and offers a feeble glimmer of hope. Continue. You’ll get it.

In 1940, in Simonton, Texas, a boy was born. Biographers are uncertain of his given name. It could have been Lawrence Darrow Brown or it could have been Leonard Victor Ainsworth; he used both at different times, plus two others, before he adopted Dobie Gray as his stage name. In the early 1960s, he moved to Los Angeles, hoping to be an actor, while singing to earn money to live on. His singing career fared better than his acting career with a few singles that sold fairly well. In 1972, he signed with Decca Records and released “Drift Away,” which became his signature song. He died in 2011 of complications from cancer surgery.

Back to England in the East Finchley section of London, in 1963, a Greek restaurateur and his English wife, a dancer, had a son they named Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou. In his early teens, classmates at Bushey Meads School called him “Yog” for convenience. There he met Andrew Ridgeley, who would figure prominently in his career. Georgios busked and played music where he could., until 1981, when he legally changed his name to George Michael. At that time, he and Ridgeley formed the duo, Wham! Their first album was a smash, with “Careless Whisper” reaching Number One in 25 countries. In 1985, Michael sang “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me” with Elton John at Wembley Stadium for Live Aid. Michael’s success made the breakup of Wham! inevitable, which happened in 1986. Michael continued a solo career until 2012 and died of heart disease on Christmas Day 2016.

I share a birthdate with the next singer/songwriter, although he would have been 12 years my senior, had he lived. Otis Ray Redding was born in Dawson, Georgia, in 1941. At age 15, he left high school to help support his family, as his father had tuberculosis and couldn’t work. Redding’s breakthrough came in 1958 when he won a local theater’s talent contest, and remained undefeated for 15 weeks, which got him invited to sing with several local bands. In 1960, he moved to Los Angeles. There, he recorded a few singles and was able to the South, performing at venues on the so-called “Chitlin’ Circuit,” venues that welcomed Black performers when segregation was still dominant. Redding’s success and popularity grew during the 1960s and he became a fixture at Stax Records in Memphis, even touring in Europe. In December 1967, he recorded “Dock Of The Bay” at Stax, much to the consternation of everyone around him. They complained that it didn’t sound “R&B” enough. Redding thought it was his best work and it would top the charts. He would be proven right and never know it. Days after he recorded the song, he and his band took off in his plane for a gig in Madison, Wisconsin. As the plane approached the airport, it went down in Lake Winona, killing all but one passenger. Redding was only 26 years old.

August 15, 1993 was three weeks before I turned “The Big Four Oh,” and a friend took me to what was then called Riverfest Amphitheater on the banks of the Arkansas River in downtown Little Rock, just 7 blocks from my apartment in a converted mansion on the Register of Historic Places.

We were there to see Tina Turner on her “What’s Love” U.S. tour. The outdoor venue was wall-to-wall people, sweltering in the 90º heat. But it didn’t matter. I had never seen a performer physically work a stage as hard as Tina did that night. It was an experience I’ll never forget. This video still puts a big dumb grin on my face. And yes, I bought the T-shirt and I still have it.

I can’t think of any other band that had as great an impact on the music of their time despite such a short lifespan than The Mamas & The Papas. In 1965, folk singers John Phillips, formerly of the Journeymen, and his wife, Michelle, teamed up with Denny Doherty from the Mugwumps, another folk group. Cass Elliot, another “Mugwumper,” joined the group despite her concerns about her obesity. John Phillips was skeptical that Elliot could sing his arrangements. The group traveled to the Virgin Islands to rehearse and built a repertoire, then returned to New York City before flying to Los Angeles for an audition with Dunhill Records. Dunhill signed them over Phillips’ objections to Elliot. Their release of “California Dreamin’” was the B-side of a single that didn’t chart. They released more singles that charted through 1967, but friction between Phillips and Elliot was a constant problem. They started a European tour, when an argument broke up the band. Too bad. They were good.

Back in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, Alicia Augello Cook was born in 1981 to Teresa Augello, a paralegal and part-time actress, and Craig Cook, a flight attendant. When Alicia was 2 years old, her father flew away and never came back. At age 4, Alicia made her acting debut on The Cosby Show. Her mother encouraged her to stay active in extra-curricular activities that would keep her out of trouble in their rough neighborhood. She was a brilliant student which netted her a scholarship and early enrollment at Columbia University at age 15, at the same time signing with Columbia Records. She took the name of Alicia Keys. Columbia tried to make her a corporate product and she wasn’t having it. In 1998, Arista helped her get out of her contract and signed her. The change was good for her. In 2009, she was featured in a recording of rapper Jay-Z’s song, “Empire State of Mind” which became a hit. In 2010, she released her own version without Jay-Z. I prefer it.

In 1963, my family lived in a one-bathroom farmhouse in a hamlet south of Erie, Pennsylvania. For Christmas, my Aunt Alice, who always sent the coolest gifts, sent me an 8-transistor pocket radio that had a “kickstand” on the back.

Our bathroom had a clawfoot tub with no shower, so I would set the radio on the toilet lid and listen to music while I took my bath. Almost every night, Petula Clark’s 1964 Number One hit, “Downtown,” would come on while I was bathing. I loved that song because it was a 3-minute escape from that godforsaken wilderness I was stuck in. The song and the radio are inseparable memories for me.

I’m stepping through a loophole to share a song by a performer we’ve already heard from, sort of. But he wasn’t the lead singer on this song, so it doesn’t count. I’m referring to the Commodores. In 1995, Lionel Richie had already started to drift away to his solo career. Drummer Walter Orange, provided lead vocals on the title track from the band’s final album, Night Shift. It was a tribute to Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye, who had both died the previous year.

Stevland Hardaway Judkins was born in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1950, six weeks prematurely. That, in combination with excess oxygen in the incubator, resulted in his blindness. Here was another artists who got his start in church, singing solos at age 8. When Stevie was age 11, Berry Gordy signed him onto Motown, where producer Clarence Paul named him “Little Stevie Wonder.” His first album was released a few months later. In 1962, he toured “the Chitlin’ Circuit” with a tutor to keep his studies up to date. His career exploded in the 1970s and his 1972 album, Talking Book, featured “Superstition.” He’s been going strong ever since, winning 25 Grammies.

Over the decades that I’ve been listening to music, my listening preference “parked” in different genres for periods of years, then moved on to something else. In the 1980s, I listened mostly to Smooth Jazz, which was the genre played by one of the stations at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock. Then is when I discovered James Ingram. Technically, he’s considered an R&B artist, but his songs tend to be relaxed with jazzy rhythms and his voice has a velvety quality that makes him at home in the Smooth Jazz space. In early 1985, he was nominated for his debut album, It’s Your Night, for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance, and for its single, “Yah Mo B There,” a duet with guess who, for Best R&B Song and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group, and won the latter.

I had just bought my first house in Edmond, Oklahoma, when Star Search, in its first season, was one of the most popular shows on TV. Ed McMahon introduced Sam Harris. this short, baby-faced kid from Sand Springs, OK, wearing a formal tailcoat and tennis shoes. He won the season as grand champion, clinching his win with his rendition of “Over The Rainbow.” It is worth your time to search for it and play it, but my favorite is his cover of “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

I’ve written in an old essay about my years in Charlottesville, Virginia, back in the late Seventies and early Eighties. In those days, “C’ville” was the sedate home of Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia … and the unassuming mansions of dozens of celebrities, who appreciated being able to go out in public without being mobbed or pointed at. Art Garfunkel was one of those celebrities. He and Paul Simon actually got their start ‘way back in the 1950s, as “Tom & Jerry.” In fact, the two singers released several solo singles each under a variety of names that were not their own. They were not the inseparable buddies we’d like to think; the professional relationship was fraught with friction. With the release of their 1964 debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., Simon was adamant that they had to perform under their real names.

Speaking of duos that didn’t stand the test of time, we mentioned Sonny in our mention of Cher a few weeks ago. In 1967, they released their third album, In Case You’re In Love, containing the hit single, “The Beat Goes On,” written by Bono.

In 1943, Rick Evans was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. A year later, Denny Zager was born in Wymore, Nebraska. They met at Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1962 and started singing together. They assembled a band of other Nebraskans and enjoyed modest regional success. In 1964, Evans wrote “In the Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus),” but it wasn’t recorded until 1968 with a small label called Truth Records. Stations in Lincoln and Omaha played it, then RCA Records picked it up and suddenly, it spread around the globe like wildfire, topping charts in the U.S., UK and Australia. The band released another album or two, which didn’t sell at all. Zager & Evans is the only “one hit wonder” on this list. There must be more to this story, but I don’t know what it is.

In Washington, DC, pentecostal pastor Marvin Gay and his wife, Alberta, gave birth to their son, Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. in 1939. Even with two incomes, they had to live in public housing. Marvin started singing in his father’s church at age 4. According to family lore, Marvin’s father was a saint in the pulpit and a monster at home, regularly beating his sons and kicking them out of the house. As an escape, Marvin dropped out of high school and joined the U.S. Air Force. But it was the 1950s. White airmen worked on jets and Black airmen swept floors. Disillusioned, Marvin feigned mental illness and got a general discharge. He then formed a quartet that sang around the Washington, DC, area. After a few false starts, the group moved to Chicago, but they disbanded after struggling to find steady work. Berry Gordy signed Marvin to his Tamla label in 1960. The label released a single in 1961 with low sales, and Marvin decided to add an “e” to his surname. In 1962, his career took off. In 1967, he began recording with Tammi Terrell with great success. Tragically, she died of a brain tumor in 1970. This deeply affected Gaye, and he attempted to get a position on the Detroit Lions football team. The team management declined, citing risk to his music career. A few weeks later, he wrote and recorded “What’s Going On” after witnessing an episode of police brutality. When Gordy heard it, he refused to release it because it was “too political” and bad for business. Gaye responded by refusing to record any more material until the song was released. He won the dispute, the song was released in 1971, went to Number One in a month and stayed there for weeks.

Here comes our first musician actually born in “Music City,” Nashville, Tennessee. Charles Edwin Hatcher was born in 1942. His family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, shortly thereafter. Little else is know about his youth until in 1957, he formed a doo-wop group called the Future Tones. They released only one single when he was drafted into the U.S. Army. After serving, he returned to music and in 1965, signed with the small Detroit label, Ric-Tic, as Edwin Starr. There, he wrote and performed several hits. In 1969, Motown’s ruthless Berry Gordy eliminated competition by buying it, including Ric-Tic, its music rights and its artist contracts. In 1970, Motown released Starr’s biggest hit, “War,” protesting the Vietnam war first recorded by the Temptations. Starr’s music was increasingly popular in the UK, and in 1983, he moved there. He lived and recorded there until his death in 2003 at age 61.

In 2015, I had occasion to meet and work with Alvertis Isbell, known in the music business as Al Bell, in conjunction with my building a website. Bell, was a songwriter, producer and co-owner of the legendary Stax Records label. Later, he was president of Motown Records. One of his great accomplishments was signing the Staple Singers to his Stax label. He wrote “I’ll Take You There,” and produced the Staple Singers’ recording of it in 1972. It went to Number One and remains one of the best-selling Gospel songs of all time.

While taking a bath in February 1964, I listened to my transistor radio sitting on the toilet lid as a reporter breathlessly described the arrival of the Beatles at Kennedy Airport over a background of shrieking girls. I thought their first two American hits had catchy tunes, but the lyrics were absolutely stupid. I thought their hairstyle was cool, though. I never became a Beatles fan. I do like “Ebony and Ivory,” although technically, it’s not a Beatles song.

Michael Jackson was probably the most complicated entertainer in the history of entertainment. There is no imagining what the “King of Pop” might have given us if his parents, his family, his “friends,” his record labels, his doctors and the tabloid press would have left him alone. He was a creative genius, and had the physical and musical talent to express what his superlative mind created. But as I once wrote in an essay, “… the greatest strength is also the greatest weakness.” The more complicated a structure, the easier it is to destroy. Many of Jackson’s songs are on my playlist, mostly for entertainment value. “Man in the Mirror” goes a little deeper. It’s 40 years old and is still relevant to the problems we face today.

Every time I hear the next song, I think of the man I met on my first day at my first “grownup” job at the Montgomery Ward store in Butler, Pennsylvania. I had to work to pay my college tuition, so I switched to night classes and got a day job. That day in 1973, I was assigned to hang promotional banners above the aisles at all the entrances. As I hauled a heavy 12-foot stepladder down the aisle from the warehouse in the back of the store, a man closely resembling Burt Reynolds stood in the TV & Stereo Department at the far end of the aisle. Just then, Three Dog Night’s “Never Been To Spain” started playing on one of the demo stereos. When the bass kicked in, the Burt Reynolds lookalike “busted a move” with a smile. When I carried the ladder close enough for conversation, he said, “Hi. I’m Joe Savannah. What’s yours?” That was the beginning of a friendship that lasted 51 years until his death in 2024.

I don’t know if this 131st song qualifies as a “grand finale,” but it’s the last song. Pentatonix formed in 2011 and won the third season of NBC’s The Sing Off, which netted them a recording contract with Sony Records. Their YouTube channel has contributed as much to their success as their studio and touring work. Here, they cover the only other Beatle song I like.

And so concludes my Top 100 131 favorite songs. I hope you enjoyed at least some of them and discovered music and/or artists you’d never heard before.