Check out some of the new music released this week:
Roberta Flack: Let It Be: Roberta Flack Sings The Beatles
Get it at iTunes
Van Halen: A Different Kind Of Truth
Get it at iTunes
Paul McCartney: Kisses On The Bottom
Get it at iTunes
Patrice O’Neal: Mr. P
Get it at iTunes
Brian Courtney Wilson: So Proud
Get it at iTunes
Shaggy: Summer In Kingston
Get it at iTunes
January 17, 2012 Santa Monica, CA: Roberta Flack the four-time Grammy Award-winning artist is back after an eight year absence with a brand new album, “LET IT BE ROBERTA: ROBERTA FLACK SINGS THE BEATLES”—a collection of Beatles song interpretations. The first single “We Can Work It Out” is currently being worked at several different radio formats including AC, Urban AC and Smooth Jazz. Buzz continues to build as key press such as NPR, Billboard, Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, AARP and More Magazine are already confirmed. Ms. Flack has also been planning a series of tour dates to coincide with the release of the album. The project has garnered the blessing of Yoko Ono who contributed the liner notes to LET IT BE ROBERTA. Newly signed to a partnership of 429 Records, Sony ATV Music Publishing and Flack’s RAS Records, the album which was produced by Sherrod Barnes, who has also produced Beyonce’ and Angie Stone, with contributing producers Jerry Barnes and Barry Miles, is slated for release on February 7th worldwide (Sony Music will release the album in Japan). (more…)
A bridge in popular music is defined as: an optional transitional period nearing the end of a song. Unlike typical verses, pre-choruses, and choruses, the bridge will only occur once in any given song, and is musically and lyrically different from the rest of the song. A bridge prepares for the return of the original material section.
Remember them? Well in case you need a little refresher I’ll be posting some of my favorite from time to time to break some of the monotony of this often 4-bar loop to infinitude world we have to deal with from time to time.
Up first to kick things off is one of my favorite bridges of all-time. Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway’s cover of The Righteous Brothers hit “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling”. Weighing in at about 1:05 listen to how the section just builds to Donny’s climactic note on the word love.
Obviously it can help if you’re lucky enough to have musicians as great as Flack and Hathaway accompanied by ultimate groove masters Bernard Purdie and Chuck Rainey and the adept arranging of Arif Mardin on strings. When I listen to music like this I sometimes take on my old man on the porch mentality yelling at the kids on the street. I don’t want anyone to be mimes of this music, it was a beautiful point in time, but can someone just take a lesson or two from what’s going on here and put their own personal 2012 spin on it? Is it possible? I think it is, you just have to spend the time and be willing to go there: The Bridge.
Over the two decade period from 1970-1990, Roberta Flack quietly opened doors for a new generation of female singers, making beautiful music but also making history. Her gentle amalgamation of Soul, Gospel and folk, combined with a message of both empowerment and love, created an intelligent, thoughtful pathway for modern singers such as India.Arie and Jill Scott.
Born in Asheville, North Carolina in 1939, Flack was attracted to music and became a talented singer and pianist at a very young age. In addition to her musical family, the members of which were involved in their church choir and orchestra, she was influenced by the great Gospel singers of her day, especially Mahalia Jackson. Amazingly, she was accepted into Howard University on a full music scholarship at age 15, and there she met future singing partner Donny Hathaway. Jazz pianist Les McCann heard her perform in 1968 and brought her to the attention of Atlantic Records, which signed her in 1969.
Her 1970 debut album, First Take, was a sparsely arranged, acoustic album that combined elements of soul, folk and jazz, and was a mild success until Clint Eastwood included the slow ballad, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” in his 1972 thriller Play Misty For Me, after which the song was released as a single and shot to #1. In the meantime, however she had released three other albums, including Chapter Two, Quiet Fire and her album of duets with Hathaway, Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway. The former two solidified her appeal to a new generation of educated, urban African Americans, while the latter became an unadulterated smash across the board and a critical favorite of a scope perhaps still unmatched by any subsequent album of duets. It became a radio favorite based on such great cuts as “Where is the Love” and “You’ve Got A Friend,” but became a classic because of the deep balladry and sensitivity of “Come Ye Disconsolate,” “I (Who Have Nothing),” “Be Real Black for Me” and a breathtaking cover of “For All We Know.”
Now you know I could not escape the countdown with posting this 1972 classic. Almost 40 years later I hope that someone is not still waiting on an answer. Sad truth is someone, somewhere probably is…
Here is the 1972 original by Lori Lieberman and as the story goes, Roberta Flack was on a cross country flight from New York to L.A. and heard this on one of the airplane’s in-flight music stations. As soon as she landed she phoned producer Joel Dorn and said she had “the” song that they needed to record. When Roberta arrived back in New York they put the session together and recorded in an hour and a half or two hours tops. As they say the rest is history. (more…)
Even though I’m considered a music writer, expert or whatever the hell you wanna call me, I much rather consider myself a student of music. No matter how much I think I know, I’m always discovering and learning new things from music. So in digging around for a post, I stumbled across this interesting find. Now the wonderful thing about music is it’s incredible ability to cross the boundaries of nationality, language and time. This is definitely shown through one of my favorite songs, “I (Who Have Nothing)”. Though this song has traveled from it’s Italian roots through actor and singer, Mr. Joe Sentieri, it has continued to move through the voices of Ben E. King, Linda Jones, Tom Jones, Donnie Hathaway with Roberta Flack, Sylvester, Shirley Bassey and many more. For this particular post, it was hard for me to chose which version I loved the most so I did a threesome. Ya’ll keep yo mind out the gutter – I ain’t talkin’ ’bout that kind of “threesome” :) . I wanted to stack the original version with the timeless voice of Luther Vandross and Martha Wash then bring it back with a live version with Ms. Gladys Knight. Hope you enjoy!!!
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This is what “covering” a song should be all about. It is no accident that this is the second time in this series that we have featured a cover that Donny Hathaway was involved with. In my humble opinion Donny Hathaway may have been one of the greatest arrangers ever in popular music.
If you make music you should take some time and analyze the similarities and differences between Aretha’s version and the Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway cover.
Interesting historical context is that these two versions were released within about a 4 or 5 year span of each other and of course all of the artists involved were labelmates on Atlantic. So, if folks who are on the same label around the same period time, arguably using some of the same musicians, studios, engineers, production staff etc., can come up with two strikingly different versions of the same song, what would be the excuse for so many people who have no relation to one another (save for the internet and homogenized media)sounding like clones?
