Tag Archives: Soul music

♫ R.E.S.P.E.C.T. ♫

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, History, music

I like to drag this one out of the archives and give it a bit of oxygen every couple of years, for it is a timeless song by the undisputed Queen of Soul!  This post is from back in 2018 when I first learned of Ms. Aretha Franklin’s imminent death … she died on August 16th 2018, the day after I first posted this …

I had another song planned for tonight, but when I heard that Aretha Franklin is seriously ill and not likely to live much longer, I knew I had to do this one tonight.  There are a lot of great singers in the world, but I know of none with a voice as powerful as Aretha’s.

From The Washington Post …

It was Valentine’s Day 1967 when Aretha Franklin sat down at a piano in the Atlantic Records studio in New York and recorded “Respect.”

The Queen of Soul, now gravely ill, took the song written and first recorded by Otis Redding and made it her own, transforming it into what would become an anthem for the civil rights movement and for the women’s movement.

“Respect” became a soundtrack for the 1960s. Franklin, then just 24 years old, infused it with a soulful and revolutionary demand, a declaration of independence that was unapologetic, uncompromising and unflinching.

The song was a demand for something that could no longer be denied. She had taken a man’s demand for respect from a woman when he got home from work and flipped it. The country had never heard anything like it.

“Aretha shattered the atmosphere, the aesthetic atmosphere,” Peter Guralnick, author of “Sweet Soul Music,” told The Washington Post in 1987, on the 20th anniversary of the song. “She set a new standard which, in some way, no one else could achieve.”

When Franklin’s version of “Respect” was released in April 1967, it soared to No. 1 on the charts and stayed there for at least 12 weeks.

“Respect” would become an anthem for the black-power movement, as symbolic and powerful as Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” and Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come.”

The song caught on with the black-power movement and feminists and human rights activists across the world. Its appeal remains powerful. In the last year, it has become a symbol of the #MeToo movement.

A toast to Aretha Franklin … 🥂

Respect
Aretha Franklin

What you want
Baby, I got it
What you need
Do you know I got it
All I’m askin’
Is for a little respect when you get home (just a little bit)
Hey baby (just a little bit) when you get home
(Just a little bit) mister (just a little bit)

I ain’t gonna do you wrong while you’re gone
Ain’t gonna do you wrong cause I don’t wanna
All I’m askin’
Is for a little respect when you come home (just a little bit)
Baby (just a little bit) when you get home (just a little bit)
Yeah (just a little bit)
I’m about to give you all of my money
And all I’m askin’ in return, honey
Is to give me my propers
When you get home (just a, just a, just a, just a)
Yeah baby (just a, just a, just a, just a)
When you get home (just a little bit)
Yeah (just a little bit)
Ooo, your kisses
Sweeter than honey
And guess what?
So is my money
All I want you to do for me
Is give it to me when you get home (re, re, re ,re)
Yeah baby (re, re, re ,re)
Whip it to me (respect, just a little bit)
When you get home, now (just a little bit)

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Take care, TCB
Oh (sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me)
A little respect (sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me)
Whoa, babe (just a little bit)
A little respect (just a little bit)
I get tired (just a little bit)
Keep on tryin’ (just a little bit)
You’re runnin’ out of fools (just a little bit)
And I ain’t lyin’ (just a little bit)
(Re, re, re, re) when you come home
(Re, re, re ,re) ‘spect
Or you might walk in (respect, just a little bit)
And find out I’m gone (just a little bit)
I got to have (just a little bit)
A little respect (just a little bit)

Songwriters: Otis Redding
Respect lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc, Universal Music Publishing Group

♫ In The Midnight Hour ♫ (Redux)

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, History, music

For some reason, this song has been swimming around in my head tonight … first time I’ve thought of it in ages, but it just doesn’t want to leave, so … you know what that means!

The year was 1965.  The artist was Wilson Pickett, and In the Midnight Hour would become his breakout hit, hitting #21 in the U.S. and #12 in the UK.  He went on to become a soul music legend and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

Pickett and guitarist Steve Cropper wrote this, interestingly, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where Martin Luther King would later be assassinated in 1968.  Said Cropper …

“I say in my shows that playing the guitar is real simple, you just follow the dots – the dots on neck on every guitar are in the same place. That’s how I came up with the intro for this. They go, It couldn’t be that simple,’ then all of them go home and get their guitars out and go, ‘Wow, it is!'”

According to SongFacts …

When Pickett and Booker T and the MG’s first tried to record the song, nobody liked the result – then Jerry Wexler had the idea to change the rhythm so that the teenagers could dance The Jerk, which was a big dance craze at the time. To do this, Wexler had the rhythm section stress the “two” beat, which simulated the dance. Wexler also demonstrated the dance, which the band found amusing.

Steve Cropper explained on his website: “He was pretty adamant about how Jackson and I stayed really locked in, and that was probably one of the first examples of a song that has a really delayed backbeat, and strictly in the design of the jerk dance. And Al Jackson and I had both seen that dance – I think it was in Detroit – we were playing a show out there and we were noticing these kids doing this dance a little bit different from some of the other kids that we had seen dancing, and Al Jackson picked up on that right away, so he knew immediately what Jerry Wexler was talking about when he said ‘I want that jerk beat.’ So, it worked out pretty good, and of course Wilson fell right into it being a dancer himself.”

The song charted at #12 in the UK and #21 in the U.S.

In the Midnight Hour
Wilson Pickett

I’m gonna wait ’till the midnight hour
That’s when my love come tumbling down
I’m gonna wait ’till the midnight hour
When there’ no one else around
I’m gonna take you, girl, and hold you
And do all things I told you, in the midnight hour

Yes I am, oh yes I am
One thing I just wanna say, right here

I’m gonna wait till the stars come out
And see that twinkle in your eyes
I’m gonna wait ’till the midnight hour
That’s when my love begins to shine

You’re the only girl I know
Can really love me so, in the midnight hour

Oh yeah, in the midnight hour
Yeah, all right, play it for me one time, now

I’m gonna wait ’till the midnight hour
That’s when my love come tumbling down
I’m gonna wait, way in the midnight hour
That’s when my love begin to shine, just you and I
Oh, baby, just you and I
Nobody around, baby, just you and I
Oh, right, you know what?
I’m gonna hold you in my arms, just you and I
Oh yeah, in the midnight hour
Oh, baby, in the midnight hour

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Wilson Pickett / Steve Cropper
In the Midnight Hour lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc, Universal Music Publishing Group, Spirit Music Group, BMG Rights Management, Songtrust Ave, Warner Chappell Music Inc

♫ Let’s Stay Together ♫ (Redux)

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, History, music

A day or two ago, one of you mentioned Al Green and so I asked around and …

Al-Green… look folks, it’s our friend Al Green!  What you got for us tonight Al?  Ah yeah … that’s great …

Green was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. He was referred to on the museum’s site as being “one of the most gifted purveyors of soul music”.  He has also been referred to as “The Last of the Great Soul Singers”.  Green is the winner of 11 Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Let’s Stay Together … that tune turns me inside-out!  I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner!  Thanks Al!

Al Green wrote the lyrics to this song; the music was written by Al Jackson Jr., and Willie Mitchell. Jackson is a legendary soul drummer who recorded with Booker T. & the MG’s; Mitchell was Green’s producer. Green did about 100 takes before he got one he liked, and even then he wasn’t sure the song was any good. It was Mitchell who set him straight, telling him it “had magic on it.”

According to Rolling Stone magazine’s Top 500 songs, after Willie Mitchell gave Al Green a rough mix of a tune he and drummer Al Jackson had developed, Green wrote the lyrics in 5 minutes. However, Green didn’t want to record the song and for two days he argued with Willie Mitchell before finally agreeing to cut it.

Tina Turner’s 1983 cover of this song revitalized her career, returning her to the charts in both the UK and US for the first time for over a decade. Now, I am a big Tina Turner fan, but for this song, only Al Green will do.  However, since Tina Turner’s version was bigger in the UK, and I have a lot of UK friends, I will play her version too.

Barack Obama sang a couple of lines of the song during an appearance on January 19, 2012 at the Apollo Theater in Harlem for a fund-raising event. Al Green was the opening act and as the American president took to the stage, he noted the soul legend’s presence in the audience and surprised his staffers close by with an impromptu spot of crooning. “Those guys didn’t think I would do it,” he joked. “I told you I was going to do it. The Sandman did not come out.”  I have included that short clip just because … I wanted to.

I used to believe that someday, some guy would sing this to me.  Sigh.  🐺

Let’s Stay Together
Al Green

Let’s stay together
I, I’m I’m so in love with you
Whatever you want to do
Is all right with me
Cause you make me feel so brand new
And I want to spend my life with you

Let me say that since, baby, since we’ve been together
Loving you forever
Is what I need
Let me, be the one you come running to
I’ll never be untrue

Oh baby
Let’s, let’s stay together (‘gether)
Lovin’ you whether, whether
Times are good or bad, happy or sad
Oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah
Whether times are good or bad, happy or sad

Why, why some people break up
Then turn around and make up
I just can’t see
You’d never do that to me (would you, baby)
Staying around you is all I see
(Here’s what I want us do)

Let’s, we oughta stay together (‘gether)
Loving you whether, whether
Times are good or bad, happy or sad
Come on
Let’s stay, (let’s stay together) let’s stay together
Loving you whether, whether times are good or bad

Songwriters: Willie Mitchell / Al Green / Al Jackson Jr
Let’s Stay Together lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc, Universal Music Publishing Group, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.

♫ Music with Soul ♫

Posted on by under music, Saturday Surprise

I’m doing something just a bit different for today’s music post!  This was a Saturday Surprise post back in January of 2018, over three years ago!  Since I didn’t do a Saturday Surprise post this week, and since I’ve had some of these very songs burning through my head all day, I thought I’d redux this one with a number of great songs!  You can think of it as a Sunday Surprise post and a music post combined!

Saturday kittensWelcome, my dear friends!  Once again it is the weekend and I’m sure you all have big plans for fun things, yes?  My weekend is beyond quiet, for daughter Chris is in Kansas City, Missouri, for a band competition.  Although she is not competing this year, she and some of her bandmates have gone for the fun and experience (I think a few go just for the barbecue!) Since Miss Goose and I are both quite reclusive, we have to set our alarms for every few hours so we remember to talk to each other.  The house is eerily quiet, and it is snowing outside, so a rather peaceful weekend.  That said, I am still under the spell of mind bounce, simply cannot stay focused, so I decided to just let it bounce and share a bit of this and a bit o’ that for the Saturday Sunday Surprise.  Let us start with a nice bit of music to set the ‘Saturday Sunday mood’ …

The live clips are never of the same sound quality as the studio recordings, but I like watching these guys.  The song was written by Robert Lamm, the keyboardist and singer for Chicago, after a particularly exhilarating 4th of July spent in New York’s Central Park, where there were steel drum players, singers, dancers and jugglers.

Like most Chicago singles, this didn’t make the charts in the UK. In the U.S., however, it was their biggest chart hit to that point and also their first gold single, which at the time meant selling more than a million copies. This song contains some of the most famous nonsense singing in rock: after Robert Lamm sings the line, “Singing Italian songs,” he sings some made up words approximating the Italian language.

Saturday in the park
I think it was the Fourth of July
Saturday in the park
I think it was the Fourth of July
People talking, people laughing
A man selling ice cream
Singing Italian songs
(Fake Italian lyric)
Can you dig it (yes, I can)
And I’ve been waiting such a long time
For Saturday

Another day in the park
You’d think it was the Fourth of July
Another day in the park
You’d think it was the Fourth of July
People dancing, really smiling
A man playing guitar
Singing for us all
Will you help him change the world
Can you dig it (yes, I can)
And I’ve been waiting such a long time
For today

Slow motion riders
Fly the colors of the day
A bronze man still can
Yell stories his own way
Listen children all is not lost
All is not lost
Oh no, no

Funny days in the park
Every day’s the Fourth of July
Funny days in the park
Every day’s the Fourth of July
People reaching, people touching
A real celebration
Waiting for us all
If we want it, really want it
Can you dig it (yes, I can)
And I’ve been waiting such a long time
For the day

Chicago

Hey Keith … you do like Chicago, right?

That was fun … let’s try another …

Sam Cooke … ah, they don’t make ’em like him anymore … King of Soul.  Did you know how he died?  At only 33 years of age, Cooke was shot in the chest by Bertha Franklin,   the manager of the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles, California.  Franklin claimed that she acted in self-defense after he broke into her office residence and attacked her. Her account was immediately disputed by Cooke’s acquaintances.  It’s a long and strange story, still an unsolved mystery, but one which I will not go into, for this is supposed to be a happy post.

Now that I’m into music mode, how about one more?

One of my all-time favourites and I usually belt that one out as I mop floors on Friday, or in better weather when I walk ’round the track at the park … and I dance to this one, too!  No comments from the peanut gallery, please!  Shortly after recording Dock of the Bay, Redding was killed in a plane crash, and the song became the first posthumous number-one record on both the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts.

Well, it seems like this post had a mind of its own and decided to make this a musical Saturday Sunday Surprise.  Have you got time for just one more?  Please?

What’s not to love about Ray Charles, eh?

Well, friends, I know you have errands to run and things to be done, so I suppose this ends our time together for this Saturday Sunday.  Thanks for joining me for a brief trip down memory lane … I had fun and I hope you did too!  Keep safe and warm … until next week …

Happy Saturday.jpg

♫ In The Midnight Hour ♫

Posted on by under music

The year was 1965.  The artist was Wilson Pickett, and In the Midnight Hour would become his breakout hit, hitting #21 in the U.S. and #12 in the UK.  He went on to become a soul music legend and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

Pickett and guitarist Steve Cropper wrote this, interestingly, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where Martin Luther King would later be assassinated in 1968.  Said Cropper …

“I say in my shows that playing the guitar is real simple, you just follow the dots – the dots on neck on every guitar are in the same place. That’s how I came up with the intro for this. They go, It couldn’t be that simple,’ then all of them go home and get their guitars out and go, ‘Wow, it is!'”

In the Midnight Hour
Wilson Pickett

I’m gonna wait ’till the midnight hour
That’s when my love come tumbling down
I’m gonna wait ’till the midnight hour
When there’ no one else around
I’m gonna take you, girl, and hold you
And do all things I told you, in the midnight hour

Yes I am, oh yes I am
One thing I just wanna say, right here

I’m gonna wait till the stars come out
And see that twinkle in your eyes
I’m gonna wait ’till the midnight hour
That’s when my love begins to shine

You’re the only girl I know
Can really love me so, in the midnight hour

Oh yeah, in the midnight hour
Yeah, all right, play it for me one time, now

I’m gonna wait ’till the midnight hour
That’s when my love come tumbling down
I’m gonna wait, way in the midnight hour
That’s when my love begin to shine, just you and I
Oh, baby, just you and I
Nobody around, baby, just you and I
Oh, right, you know what?
I’m gonna hold you in my arms, just you and I
Oh yeah, in the midnight hour
Oh, baby, in the midnight hour

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Wilson Pickett / Steve Cropper
In the Midnight Hour lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc, Universal Music Publishing Group, Spirit Music Group, BMG Rights Management, Songtrust Ave, Warner Chappell Music Inc

♫ R.E.S.P.E.C.T. ♫

Posted on by under music

‘Twas almost two years ago that we lost the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin.  I am reduxing this song tonight because … R.E.S.P.E.C.T. is a) a great song, sung by b) a great lady, great singer, and c) it is something we have far too little of today. 

I had another song planned for tonight, but when I heard that Aretha Franklin is seriously ill and not likely to live much longer, I knew I had to do this one tonight.  There are a lot of great singers in the world, but I know of none with a voice as powerful as Aretha’s.

From The Washington Post …

It was Valentine’s Day 1967 when Aretha Franklin sat down at a piano in the Atlantic Records studio in New York and recorded “Respect.”

The Queen of Soul, now gravely ill, took the song written and first recorded by Otis Redding and made it her own, transforming it into what would become an anthem for the civil rights movement and for the women’s movement.

“Respect” became a soundtrack for the 1960s. Franklin, then just 24 years old, infused it with a soulful and revolutionary demand, a declaration of independence that was unapologetic, uncompromising and unflinching.

The song was a demand for something that could no longer be denied. She had taken a man’s demand for respect from a woman when he got home from work and flipped it. The country had never heard anything like it.

“Aretha shattered the atmosphere, the aesthetic atmosphere,” Peter Guralnick, author of “Sweet Soul Music,” told The Washington Post in 1987, on the 20th anniversary of the song. “She set a new standard which, in some way, no one else could achieve.”

When Franklin’s version of “Respect” was released in April 1967, it soared to No. 1 on the charts and stayed there for at least 12 weeks.

“Respect” would become an anthem for the black-power movement, as symbolic and powerful as Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” and Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come.”

The song caught on with the black-power movement and feminists and human rights activists across the world. Its appeal remains powerful. In the last year, it has become a symbol of the #MeToo movement.

A toast to Aretha Franklin … 🥂

Respect
Aretha Franklin

What you want
Baby, I got it
What you need
Do you know I got it
All I’m askin’
Is for a little respect when you get home (just a little bit)
Hey baby (just a little bit) when you get home
(Just a little bit) mister (just a little bit)

I ain’t gonna do you wrong while you’re gone
Ain’t gonna do you wrong cause I don’t wanna
All I’m askin’
Is for a little respect when you come home (just a little bit)
Baby (just a little bit) when you get home (just a little bit)
Yeah (just a little bit)
I’m about to give you all of my money
And all I’m askin’ in return, honey
Is to give me my propers
When you get home (just a, just a, just a, just a)
Yeah baby (just a, just a, just a, just a)
When you get home (just a little bit)
Yeah (just a little bit)
Ooo, your kisses
Sweeter than honey
And guess what?
So is my money
All I want you to do for me
Is give it to me when you get home (re, re, re ,re)
Yeah baby (re, re, re ,re)
Whip it to me (respect, just a little bit)
When you get home, now (just a little bit)

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Take care, TCB
Oh (sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me)
A little respect (sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me)
Whoa, babe (just a little bit)
A little respect (just a little bit)
I get tired (just a little bit)
Keep on tryin’ (just a little bit)
You’re runnin’ out of fools (just a little bit)
And I ain’t lyin’ (just a little bit)
(Re, re, re, re) when you come home
(Re, re, re ,re) ‘spect
Or you might walk in (respect, just a little bit)
And find out I’m gone (just a little bit)
I got to have (just a little bit)
A little respect (just a little bit)

Songwriters: Otis Redding
Respect lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc, Universal Music Publishing Group

♫ R.E.S.P.E.C.T. ♫

Posted on by under music

I had another song planned for tonight, but when I heard that Aretha Franklin is seriously ill and not likely to live much longer, I knew I had to do this one tonight.  There are a lot of great singers in the world, but I know of none with a voice as powerful as Aretha’s.

From The Washington Post …

It was Valentine’s Day 1967 when Aretha Franklin sat down at a piano in the Atlantic Records studio in New York and recorded “Respect.”

The Queen of Soul, now gravely ill, took the song written and first recorded by Otis Redding and made it her own, transforming it into what would become an anthem for the civil rights movement and for the women’s movement.

“Respect” became a soundtrack for the 1960s. Franklin, then just 24 years old, infused it with a soulful and revolutionary demand, a declaration of independence that was unapologetic, uncompromising and unflinching.

The song was a demand for something that could no longer be denied. She had taken a man’s demand for respect from a woman when he got home from work and flipped it. The country had never heard anything like it.

“Aretha shattered the atmosphere, the aesthetic atmosphere,” Peter Guralnick, author of “Sweet Soul Music,” told The Washington Post in 1987, on the 20th anniversary of the song. “She set a new standard which, in some way, no one else could achieve.”

When Franklin’s version of “Respect” was released in April 1967, it soared to No. 1 on the charts and stayed there for at least 12 weeks.

“Respect” would become an anthem for the black-power movement, as symbolic and powerful as Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” and Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come.”

The song caught on with the black-power movement and feminists and human rights activists across the world. Its appeal remains powerful. In the last year, it has become a symbol of the #MeToo movement.

A toast to Aretha Franklin … 🥂

Respect
Aretha Franklin

What you want
Baby, I got it
What you need
Do you know I got it
All I’m askin’
Is for a little respect when you get home (just a little bit)
Hey baby (just a little bit) when you get home
(Just a little bit) mister (just a little bit)

I ain’t gonna do you wrong while you’re gone
Ain’t gonna do you wrong cause I don’t wanna
All I’m askin’
Is for a little respect when you come home (just a little bit)
Baby (just a little bit) when you get home (just a little bit)
Yeah (just a little bit)
I’m about to give you all of my money
And all I’m askin’ in return, honey
Is to give me my propers
When you get home (just a, just a, just a, just a)
Yeah baby (just a, just a, just a, just a)
When you get home (just a little bit)
Yeah (just a little bit)
Ooo, your kisses
Sweeter than honey
And guess what?
So is my money
All I want you to do for me
Is give it to me when you get home (re, re, re ,re)
Yeah baby (re, re, re ,re)
Whip it to me (respect, just a little bit)
When you get home, now (just a little bit)

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Take care, TCB
Oh (sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me)
A little respect (sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me)
Whoa, babe (just a little bit)
A little respect (just a little bit)
I get tired (just a little bit)
Keep on tryin’ (just a little bit)
You’re runnin’ out of fools (just a little bit)
And I ain’t lyin’ (just a little bit)
(Re, re, re, re) when you come home
(Re, re, re ,re) ‘spect
Or you might walk in (respect, just a little bit)
And find out I’m gone (just a little bit)
I got to have (just a little bit)
A little respect (just a little bit)

Songwriters: Otis Redding
Respect lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc, Universal Music Publishing Group

Saturday Surprise — Music with Soul

Posted on by under music, Saturday Surprise

Saturday kittensWelcome, my dear friends!  Once again it is the weekend and I’m sure you all have big plans for fun things, yes?  My weekend is beyond quiet, for daughter Chris is in Kansas City, Missouri, for a band competition.  Although she is not competing this year, she and some of her bandmates have gone for the fun and experience (I think a few go just for the barbecue!) Since Miss Goose and I are both quite reclusive, we have to set our alarms for every few hours so we remember to talk to each other.  The house is eerily quiet, and it is snowing outside, so a rather peaceful weekend.  That said, I am still under the spell of mind bounce, simply cannot stay focused, so I decided to just let it bounce and share a bit of this and a bit o’ that for the Saturday Surprise.  Let us start with a nice bit of music to set the ‘Saturday mood’ …

The live clips are never of the same sound quality as the studio recordings, but I like watching these guys.  The song was written by Robert Lamm, the keyboardist and singer for Chicago, after a particularly exhilarating 4th of July spent in New York’s Central Park, where there were steel drum players, singers, dancers and jugglers.

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte victorian-paintings

Like most Chicago singles, this didn’t make the charts in the UK. In the U.S., however, it was their biggest chart hit to that point and also their first gold single, which at the time meant selling more than a million copies. This song contains some of the most famous nonsense singing in rock: after Robert Lamm sings the line, “Singing Italian songs,” he sings some made up words approximating the Italian language.

Saturday in the park
I think it was the Fourth of July
Saturday in the park
I think it was the Fourth of July
People talking, people laughing
A man selling ice cream
Singing Italian songs
(Fake Italian lyric)
Can you dig it (yes, I can)
And I’ve been waiting such a long time
For Saturday

Another day in the park
You’d think it was the Fourth of July
Another day in the park
You’d think it was the Fourth of July
People dancing, really smiling
A man playing guitar
Singing for us all
Will you help him change the world
Can you dig it (yes, I can)
And I’ve been waiting such a long time
For today

Slow motion riders
Fly the colors of the day
A bronze man still can
Yell stories his own way
Listen children all is not lost
All is not lost
Oh no, no

Funny days in the park
Every day’s the Fourth of July
Funny days in the park
Every day’s the Fourth of July
People reaching, people touching
A real celebration
Waiting for us all
If we want it, really want it
Can you dig it (yes, I can)
And I’ve been waiting such a long time
For the day

Chicago

Hey Keith … you do like Chicago, right?

That was fun … let’s try another …

Sam Cooke … ah, they don’t make ’em like him anymore … King of Soul.  Did you know how he died?  At only 33 years of age, Cooke was shot in the chest by Bertha Franklin,   the manager of the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles, California.  Franklin claimed that she acted in self-defense after he broke into her office residence and attacked her. Her account was immediately disputed by Cooke’s acquaintances.  It’s a long and strange story, still an unsolved mystery, but one which I will not go into, for this is supposed to be a happy post.

Now that I’m into music mode, how about one more?

 

One of my all-time favourites and I usually belt that one out as I mop floors on Friday, or in better weather when I walk ’round the track at the park … and I dance to this one, too!  No comments from the peanut gallery, please!  Shortly after recording Dock of the Bay, Redding was killed in a plane crash, and the song became the first posthumous number-one record on both the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts.

Well, it seems like this post had a mind of its own and decided to make this a musical Saturday Surprise.  Have you got time for just one more?  Please?

What’s not to love about Ray Charles, eh?

Well, friends, I know you have errands to run and things to be done, so i suppose this ends our time together for this Saturday.  Thanks for joining me for a brief trip down memory lane … I had fun and I hope you did too!  Keep safe and warm … until next week …

Happy Saturday.jpg