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With this new format on this site, I’m experimenting more with Featured Images and such to make the front page a bit easier to follow…but anyway, I don’t have a lot of time because we’re off in a few minutes to go see a REALLY BIG TRAIN. So in keeping with that, here is my favorite train song of all time. Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

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One of my favorite James Bond theme songs is Gladys Knight’s title tune for 1989’s Licence to Kill. Both the film and the song tend to be underrated, but I think both are fantastic. The Licence to Kill song starts with the same horn riff that opened the song to Goldfinger, an homage which necessitated royalty payments to that song’s creators. But Gladys Knight’s singing is the real star of the show here. She has one of those big voices that can fill whichever room she’s in, and fill it here she does. This is one of the best of all Bond songs.Down the rabbit hole….

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Does this amazing song need an introduction? No, not really. I find myself increasingly amazed by the lyrical approach to a lot of the great songs that I’ve never really paid close attention to before. The singer here isn’t the one taking the “Midnight Train to Georgia”…well, she is, actually, but she’s not the one whose turns of life have made taking that train necessary. It’s her man who went to Hollywood with dreams of stardom, dreams that didn’t pan out, and now he has to return home. He can’t even drive himself, having pawned everything–he “pawned his dreams andDown the rabbit hole….

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I’m going to get back to my little series featuring Black Music From The 1970s soon, but this song has been living rent-free in my head of late, so that means it’s time to feature it here. It’s by Canadian singer-songwriter Tobias Jesso Jr., and it was featured in the final episode of the first season of the amazing show Shoresy. The song seems to me to be about two people who are accepting of their own limitations and each others, and they love each other anyway. I love the delicate piano-and-voice minimalism of the song. Enjoy! Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

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Continuing an exploration of Black Music of the 1970s, we have Minnie Riperton today. Riperton was a native of Chicago who tragically hit it big with her soprano voice, enormous range, and an airy tone that gave her songs an ethereal tone and then died of breast cancer when she was just 31. Her legacy endures, not just because of her music, but because of her influence on artists after her like Michael Jackson and Tupac Shakur. Her legacy also endures because her daughter is famed actress and comedian Maya Rudolph. Here is Minnie Riperton’s biggest hit, “Loving You”.  ShareDown the rabbit hole….

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I’ve been featuring Donna Summer the last few weeks, and then the other day The Wife and I were driving around doing errands and we were listening to 70s On 7 on SiriusXM, where a string of selections made me decide to expand the Donna Summer focus (and I’ll be back to Donna Summer!) to Black Singers of the 1970s. Why? Because a whole damn lot of really good music falls under that description. We’ll start with a one-hit wonder that’s so infectiously good, and sung so well, that every time I hear it, I wonder why this guy–a singer from Jamaica–onlyDown the rabbit hole….

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Last week I featured Donna Summer. This week, I’m going to do so again. This one’s pretty trippy: It’s a suite of three songs, joined together to make one big nearly eighteen-minute suite. The main attraction is “Macarthur Park”, a song that weds an amazing tune to some of the weirdest lyrics ever written. But the way Donna Summer sings this stuff…I’d listen to her sing the Alphabet Song, to be honest. And I’ve just learned that “Macarthur Park” is the music for figure skater Alysa Liu’s long program, so I might hear it tonight! Don’t spoil the results forDown the rabbit hole….