Boney Eyes McGee (1899-1952)

Boney Eyes McGee (1899-1952) was born in Moscow, Alabama, the fourth of seven children. After his parents died in a mule accident, Boney lived with his father's fourth wife in Lea, Mississippi. It was his stepmother who originally taught him the ukelele, which he would play on Sundays outside of the church where the rest of his family worshipped. Since he worked six days a week (sometimes seven) as a cotton farmer, he never thought of making music his career.

However, after he spent two years in prison for killing his stepsister's lover, Boney came to the attention of Frederick C. Watkins III, an audio historian from the Smithsonian who made the first field recordings of Boney. This resulted in a recording contract with Mortimer Zehnder's Field Sweetheart Records. While Boney recorded several sides for the label, Zehnder never paid him, citing business difficulties, and Boney eventually died penniless in Brooklyn.

While his talents were appreciated in northwest Alabama and among post-doctoral musicologists, he remained unknown to the world at large until Rebecca Black sampled Boney's song "That Woman Can't Cook" as part of Black's comeback single "I Want to Dance All Spring." The resulting royalties were paid to a descendant of Mortimer Zehnder, an unidentified woman who reportedly lives in Mississippi.

Musicologists agree that the early version of "That Woman Can't Cook," recorded by Watkins, is superior to the subsequent commercially released version. The original lyrics went as follows:

Oh that woman, she burned the corn
Oh that woman, she sleeps all morn
When that woman done cooked the hog
It tasted worse than a mossy log
No that woman can't cook at all
But she treats me fine

For some unknown reason, Watkins' recording ended in mid-song.

P.S. Regrettably, this item originated from a private Google+ share, so I cannot point you to the source that inspired this biography. However, I can direct you to a public posting of the "What's Your Blues Name?" calculator. And if you read the biography very closely, you may be able to figure out who let me know about this particular calculator...

Amazing Moments in Recording History - Breaking the Language Barrier

For those who missed the 1970s, you may not know the story of Silver Convention, a German group whose singers managed to master all of the words of this song, despite the fact that all of the lyrics of the song were in a non-German language. Hear for yourself.



Oddly enough, two of the three members of Silver Convention at the time adopted English stage names. Linda Übelherr went by the stage name Linda G. Thompson, and Gertrude Wirschinger went by the name Penny McLean. Ramona Kraft was using the name Ramona Wulf by the time Silver Convention became a band (previously studio singers had been used).

Apparently the song was subsequently covered by the band Static-X. I learned this via an entry at the songmeanings.net website.

Yes, the Song Meanings site has an entry for "Get Up and Boogie." Unfortunately, no one speculated about the meaning of the song. There is only one entry.

Sorry to say this but this is probably the worst song ever by Static-X or by any other metal band.

Metal? METAL? Yes.



Of course, Static-X had an unfair advantage. Unlike Linda, Penny, et al, Static-X are native English speakers.

And native English hearers. Presumably one of the reasons why Silver Convention's biggest hits had sparse lyrics was because the songs were intended for release not only in West Germany, but also in France, Spain, and a number of countries that spoke a number of different languages. In such an environment, it helps when the song includes easily-understood phrases such as "Get up and boogie" and "That's right."

(empo-tuulwey) How "Believe" by Cher Became an Auto-Tune Pioneer

I do not believe that tools are bad. I just believe that sometimes tools are badly used.

Take Auto-Tune. There have been some atrocious things done with that. But one of the first uses of Auto-Tune still stands up as one of the best - despite the fact that the tool was used on the voice of a singer who doesn't NEED Auto-Tune.

I am speaking of the Cher song "Believe." The song has an interesting history and took several years and a ton of songwriters to write it. But even after an acceptable version of the song was written, there was still something missing. Cher and her team got tired of struggling with the song, and took a break to listen to some music on a CD. (An explanation to my younger listeners: back in the 20th century, the "stores" at which people bought music were real physical stores, and music was sold on physical media rather than as downloads. Those were the days, my friend.)

On one song the vocals were processed through a vocoder to sound mechanical. Cher remembers suggesting that they add something like that to '"Believe.'"

English songwriter Mark Taylor tried doing something with the then-new Auto-Tune...and then he got cold feet. Anyone who has heard Cher knows that she has a strong, distinctive voice. How would she feel about her voice being altered?

"We high-fived," Cher said. "It was like some stupid 'Rocky' film."

Cher's admiration for the result, however, was not universal. But Cher has been around some forceful people in her life (Phil Spector, Sonny Bono) and knew how to wield power.

Cher said. "I said, 'You can change that part of it, over my dead body!' And that was the end of the discussion. I said to Mark before I left, 'Don't let anyone touch this track, or I'm going to rip your throat out.'"

And no one changed the track. That rough mix became the final version of the song.

And a successful final version it was. Hear it for yourself:



Once Cher's song became a hit, a lot of people began using Auto-Tune for a variety of reasons, so much that it became like the Comic Sans font - another tool that has its place in certain situations, but it not good for universal use.

This guideline from a Hometracked post has merit:

If an effect significantly changes the sound of a track, especially one so important as the lead vocal, be sure that change improves the song before committing it to the mix.

Take a look at this list of ten songs (including "Believe" and Daft Punk's "One More Time") and decide for yourself if Auto-Tune improved the songs listed.

Yes, Fab Morvan has some thoughts on auto-tune

A few days ago, Bruce Bates shared a Milli Vanilli video on Google+. I ended up doing some associated reading, and came across a two-year old interview with Fab Morvan. At the time, twenty years had passed since the revelation that Morvan and partner Rob Pilatus did not sing on the songs attributed to Milli Vanilli. But twenty years is a long time, so PopEater asked Morvan to share his thoughts on auto-tune.

I have to say something and be clear about it. When people say: "Well, you didn't sing on the record"... OK, cool. I didn't. But to be technical, when someone records in a studio and Auto-Tune does your job, it isn't you anymore. It could be anyone, because you're not doing it anymore, the machine is doing it. So, are you doing it? When it comes time to perform it live, you can't replicate it. So when people say 'You should sing on the record, man.' Well, yeah, but now technically a lot of the people who are singing on the record with Auto-Tune aren't doing their job.

I'm not criticizing anyone in particular, I'm just observing what's going on, that's all. I see some comments saying we didn't sing on the record, but I just want to be precise because I've never gotten a chance to say that clearly. It's like, what's the point of singing with Auto-Tune? It's not you! Then you got the video, but that's the way things are now. People don't seem to care. The new generation doesn't seem to care about music now, because a lot of people are stealing it ... but that's whole other thing.

Once your voice has been doctored to a point where we don't even know it's you -- I'm not talking about people who do it as a style or to fit a certain song, because the goal was to make it sound like that and it's a gimmick. I'm talking about singers, pop singers, who without it -- ain't nothing going, baby. I'm trying to have people look at them. I'm just trying to bring up another point for discussion. I'm tired of people always pointing the finger at me and criticizing when in fact, look a little closer at everyone out there and inform yourself more.

Valid point.

Spell Czech - knowing Billy Idol, perhaps Spinner got it right

Director David Fincher was interviewed at Moviefone, and portions of the interview were quoted at Spinner. Fincher has directed music videos, including one for the Billy Idol hit "Cradle of Love." Idol was in a motorcycle accident just before the video shoot, and Fincher commented on this. However, when Spinner reprinted Fincher's quote, they made a little typing error.

We shot him from the waste up....

Or maybe they didn't.

In Old England Town - a brilliant mess

I hate Jeff Lynne as a producer of other artists. Not as much as I hate Eddie Van Halen as a guitarist, but it's a close second. In my view, Lynne has the production "talent" to make artists as diverse as George Harrison and Roy Orbison sound like bad knockoff versions of the Electric Light Orchestra. And I like the Electric Light Orchestra; I just don't like bad imitations.

Electric Light Orchestra, or ELO, went through various phases in their career. Some of you probably recall the end of their career, when songs like "All Over the World" and "Xanadu" were pretty anthems for the disco era. But ELO's early pop songs were a little rougher.

And their earlier songs were rougher still.

I've never heard ELO's first album, but I used to own ELO's second album on cassette, back in the days when cassette was decidedly inferior to the then-dominant vinyl LP. ELO's second album contained five very long songs, and when CBS produced the cassette version, they didn't bother with things like proper sequencing - in fact, one of the songs began on side 1 of the cassette and ended on side 2 of the cassette. (At the time, no one realized that within a few years, with the appearance of the compact disc, albums wouldn't have sides any more.)

The second album is most famous for ELO's reworking of the old song "Roll Over Beethoven." With ELO's fairly unique lineup, they were obviously able to introduce classical elements into the song, but the final version was more than a rock-classical hybrid. It was, to use a technical musical term, a "mess" of various sounds, all merged together by Lynne's decidedly unsmooth voice singing "Roll over Beethoven!"

And that was one of the slicker songs on the album.

For a song that is the direct opposite of "Xanadu," take a listen to "In Old England Town (Boogie #2)". This live version, which is fairly close to the studio version, starts with an introduction that is nothing like what anyone else was doing in rock or even progressive music at the time. So enjoy the instrumental introduction, and brace yourself for what happens at about 1:40.



Now you may think that this is just a really off live performance, but again, this performance sounds pretty similar to what ended up on the studio recording. And what that studio recording had was Jeff Lynne, barking lyrics that sounded like they came from one of Monty Python's Flying Circus "Gumby" characters - you know, the ones that would scream "I hit me head on the table!"

So what the heck was Lynne barking about in the song? According to elyrics, the song begins like this:

Down, down, you can see them all
rising gaily to the top
keep on rising babe you know you got a long drop
you better cling cos it's the done thing

And then it gets really weird. Especially at the "ten thousand tons of waste" part. (Trust me on this one.)

For some reason, this song was not as commercially successful as "Xanadu." In fact, according to Wikipedia, the song appeared on the B side of an ELO single, but with the lyric portions omitted.

Going home? Gary, Indiana, home of the Jackson 5

While musing on the Randy Newman song "Baltimore," I ran across an account that claimed that by the time Newman's song was released, Baltimore was actually staging a comeback. Now the Baltimore of 1968 - THAT was bad. Kind of like a 300 year old version of Gary, Indiana, according to the account.

Which reminded me of the story of Gary's most famous residents - the Jackson 5. You will recall that the Jackson 5 hailed from Gary, Indiana, but left at the first opportunity. Which makes sense - one of the main reasons that Papa Joe put the band together was to keep his boys out of trouble. I'm sure it was an easy decision for the family to flee to southern California.

But the Jackson 5 were not done with Gary. As a publicity move (which resulted in a TV special and an album), they returned in 1971. The J5 Collector blog records the result. Excerpts:

It was reported with a photo spread in the March 22, 1971, issue of Soul. Check out the security guard looking directly at the camera on the far right side of the first photo, and again in the last photo on the far left side. It looks like he wasn't thrilled with the photographers.

Spec teen magazine reported on the return in their July 1971 issue, claiming it was "the happiest day of their lives!" All of the photos suggest otherwise. In fact, the J5 look about as happy as their security guard.

Someone visited Gary in 2010 with the specific intention of visiting sites crucial to the Jackson 5's development. However, the account sounds rather depressing in patches.

Michael and some of his siblings attended Garnett Elementary School. It was closed, then reopened as an adult education center called Martin Luther King, Jr. Academy. It was closed again, but appeared to be reopened as of March, 2010 as Images of Hope, Inc....

Horace Mann High School is reported to have housed the only contest in which the Jackson 5 lost. The school appears to be vacant now....

This is where Michael and his siblings were born. The building is now vacant....

Katherine, Michael's mother, worked at Sears in the late 1950s/early 1960s. The building appears to be vacant but looks exactly as it did when the story first opened.

For more pictures of abandoned buildings in Gary, see this 2006 collection and this 2011 collection. But you can expect this when a city's population declines from 178,320 in 1960 to 80,294 in 2010.

And even if ALL of the Jacksons had remained in Gary, that fact wouldn't have changed much.

Stuff you probably already knew about Elvis Costello's dad

I knew that Elvis Costello's real name was Declan MacManus, but I didn't know anything else about his family. Turns out his family was a musical one. Last month, The Music's Over published a post on Elvis' dad, Ross MacManus, who passed away on November 25. Highlight:

In 1997, he released the album Elvis’ Dad Sings Elvis, but in this case the Elvis he honored was Elvis Presley.

Dad and son appeared together on several recordings.

And yes, dad wore glasses also.

Two views on Bono's Band Aid line

It's been over a quarter century since Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" was released. While British musicians had participated in charity events before, Band Aid served as a catalyst for a whole raft of movements about famine, farms, and racism. Starving farmers who vowed not to play Sun City were bathed in attention.

And it all started with the Bob Geldof-Midge Ure song, which is discussed in this BBC article, which includes the following:

Bono did not want to sing the line: "Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you."

"It seemed like the most bitterly selfish line, and I think maybe it was the truth of it that unnerved me," he said. "I almost didn't want to admit to it."
But he relented and the footage of him singing the line still sends a shiver down the spine.

Well, perhaps it doesn't send a shiver down the spine of Tod Goldberg:

Ah, yes, the crux of it all. If there's one thing the Bible teaches, it's that you should thank god for other people's suffering. Now Bono is a g====== hero, we're told, since he's spent the last 30 years standing on moral high ground -- a moral high ground paved with the money of kids like me who, you know, didn't know what the f--- Sunday Bloody Sunday was all about, but who were, like, totally in support of it -- but one has to think he could have looked at the line before he sang it and suggested a rewrite. Maybe something along the lines of "Well tonight thank God you have food and clean water and a slight disposable income which allows you the opportunity to buy this great song on the latest technology...the cassette tape! Get thee to Sam Goody!" If this song were written today, Justin Beiber would certainly have something wise to say, like, I dunno, "Well, tonight thank God you're not a Kardashian."

OK, maybe primary sources AREN'T reliable (the Edgewater Hotel and Led Zeppelin)

There is a common belief that if you want to know about a particular topic, it's best to go to the original source.

Perhaps you've heard of the Edgewater Hotel in Seattle and its connection to the band Led Zeppelin. Maybe a story about a fish or something. Perhaps you've seen what Richard Cole wrote, or what other people might have written. So why not see what the Edgewater Hotel itself writes? After all, they have a page devoted to the history of the hotel. And here's how the hotel begins its section on Led Zeppelin:

•Stayed at the Edgewater in the late 1970s

OK, the band did play in Seattle in the late 1970s, but I think that people are more interested in what happened at the Edgewater in the late 1960s.

And on that particular subject, the Edgewater website doesn't say anything.

How the Dallas Cowboys got into the National Football League...for a song

I grew up in the Washington, DC area in the 1970s, and therefore am very familiar with the song "Hail to the Redskins," the fight song for the National League Football team the Washington Redskins. But I didn't know all of the history of the song.

The redskins.com website helpfully provides information on the song's origins:

"Hail to the Redskins" made its debut on Aug. 17, 1938 as the official fight song of the Washington Redskins. The song was written by renowned band leader Barnee Breeskin and the lyrics were penned by Hollywood movie star Corinne Griffith, the wife of team founder and owner George Preston Marshall.

The official Redskins site ends the story there...and doesn't continue the story. Other sources, however, do. ESPN.com:

[I]n 1958 Texas oilman Clint Murchison thought he was finally closing in on his dream of bringing pro football to Dallas. Two previous attempts to purchase teams had failed, but now word reached Murchison that Redskins owner George Preston Marshall was eager to sell his club because the team was doing poorly and Marshall needed money. Imagine! The 'Skins in Dallas! But that blasphemy was not to be. For just as the sale was about to be announced, Marshall demanded a change in terms. Murchison told him to go to hell and canceled the deal.

Unfortunately for Marshall, he was not only having problems with Clint Murchison. He had also fallen out with Redskins band director Barnee Breeskin. Breeskin saw an opportunity:

Breeskin, smelling an opportunity for revenge in the strained negotiations, approached Murchison lawyer Tom Webb and asked if he'd like to buy the rights to "Hail to the Redskins." Webb agreed, paying $2,500. He figured this would at least be good for an occasional joke on Marshall.

Meanwhile, Murchison was still trying to land an NFL franchise, and had decided to go the expansion route.

Murchison decided that his best chance of owning a team was to start one himself. In that endeavor he got support from the chairman of the NFL expansion committee, George Halas. Halas agreed to put the proposition of a Dallas franchise before the NFL owners. Unanimous approval would be required for the proposition to pass.

However, Halas and Murchison met a roadblock:

Marshall wanted none of this and he put up roadblocks to Dallas getting a franchise. He feared his Southern Dixie team would be under challenge from a Dallas team.

While a person of today thinks of Washington and Dallas as residing in vastly different areas of the country, a person in 1958 perceived the two cities as being southern cities. At that time (1959), the then-current lyrics for "Hail to the Redskins" contained the line "Fight for old Dixie!" This line was later discarded, along with other lines such as "Scalp em."

But with Murchison requiring some leverage to counter Marshall's opposition to a Dallas franchise, that song that was purchased by Muchison became VERY valuable. You'll recall that Marshall's wife wrote the lyrics to the song, so Marshall was very partial to it, and didn't like losing it.

When word of Murchison's "dirty trick" leaked out, one Washington columnist wrote that "Taking 'Hail to the Redskins' away from George Marshall would be like denying 'Dixie' to the South, 'Anchors Aweigh' to the Navy, or 'Blue Suede Shoes' to Elvis." So a deal was struck. For Marshall's approval of the Dallas franchise, Murchison returned the song. Thus, Murchison's Cowboys were free to be born.

As I mentioned, the Redskins website doesn't tell this part of the story. But a Dallas Cowboys fan site, The Landry Hat, has a lot to say about it:

Marshall not only failed to prevent Murchison from starting a new franchise, but he also failed basic business economics because he did not get ownership rights of his own fight song. Doh!...

The Dallas Cowboys never used the fight song. They certainly did not STEAL the fight song.

The truth to the story is a fan and friend of the Redskins stabbed his own brothers in the back and sold it. There was no theft involved. The transaction was legal.

And the moral of the story is never, ever, ever trust a Redskins fan.

Incidentally, I discovered an alternative version of the story in a comment on this post:

Band leader Barnee Breeskin lost the rights to the song in a divorce. His estranged wife's lawyer also was a lawyer for Murchison... that's how that came about.

According to yet another source, the second version of the story is half right:

Murchison met bandleader Barnee Breeskin, who had written the song. The recently-divorced Breeskin was in need of money; Murchison just needed a favor.

I searched YouTube for more information on Barnee Breeskin, and this song was presented:



Somehow this song doesn't seem appropriate for the Marshall-Murchison story...

Get off my lawn for December 1, 2011

McCartney is a has-been.

Jesse McCartney has not had a chart hit outside of North America since 2008.

What - were you thinking of another McCartney?

Stella, perhaps?

Louis Armstrong's Hard Promises - Artist vs. Label on Pricing

Businesspeople know that a pricing exercise is tough. If you price a product too high, you may possibly alienate your customers or provide opportunities for competitors. If you price your product too low, you leave money on the table.

Pricing can also affect the image of a product, for good or ill. When dealing with rock musicians, a high price for a product could alienate fans.

This is probably part of what concerns Elvis Costello about the record company's pricing of his latest box set (H/T Robert Patton). In a blog post, Costello discourages fans from buying the box set, which has been priced at over 200 British pounds.

Unfortunately, we at www.elviscostello.com find ourselves unable to recommend this lovely item to you as the price appears to be either a misprint or a satire.

All our attempts to have this number revised have been fruitless....

Costello's camp then recommends that people instead purchase a Louis Armstrong box set that is much less expensive, or wait to purchase the Costello product until after the New Year.

If on the other hand you should still want to hear and view the component parts of the above mentioned elaborate hoax, then those items will be available separately at a more affordable price in the New Year, assuming that you have not already obtained them by more unconventional means.

Those unconventional means are outlined in the blog's title, a play on the name of a famous book by Abbie Hoffman.

But this whole episode between Costello and his label reminds me of another artist-label fight - one that happened thirty years ago. And my younger readers should note that the prices quoted in the excerpt below are NOT a misprint or a satire. That was really how much albums cost back then (although the albums were typically shorter, often not topping thirty minutes of music).


MCA executives planned to capitalize on the popularity of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers by raising the price on the band's fourth album, Hard Promises, from $8.98 to $9.98. An angry Petty refused to allow it and even threatened to rename the album $8.98. After a month-long standoff, MCA finally agreed to release the album at the lower price.

EMI R.I.P.?

I haven't really kept up with the doings at EMI - the last story that I read about them was when Mute was spun off from EMI (although EMI retained some of the more popular Mute acts). So I didn't realize that EMI is slated to be broken up and absorbed into two other companies:

Assuming it all clears the European Commission, US antitrust bodies and the aggressive lobbying of the independent sector, EMI's record music arm could now be folded into Universal Music (giving that company a global market share of over 40%) while EMI Music Publishing is absorbed by Sony/ATV to create a new publishing powerhouse.

Of course, that EC clearance is a big if, as recent events on this side of the pond have demonstrated with the AT&T/T-Mobile proposed merger.

Be sure to read the Guardian article to find out how EMI found itself on the chopping block.

We didn't forget about Dre, but we forgot about Mike Jones

There have been numerous examples of musical admiration societies. Gene Simmons admired Van Halen. Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and Prince all admired Joni Mitchell. Eminem, Dr. Dre, and others formed a mutual admiration society both in the recording studio and outside it.



Of the various musical genres, rap seems to lend itself best to collaboration. It seems that most rap artists have appeared with at least one other rap artists at some point in their careers, and some artists continue to work together for years.

But in some cases, there is neither mutual admiration nor continued collaboration.

To me, Mike Jones is just a part of a ComaR mashup. But at one point, Jones was a big deal. Emerging from Houston, Texas, he scored some big hits on local label Swishahouse Records.

But then he left the label. Jones' story:

AllHipHop.com: Why did you leave Swishahouse?

Mike Jones: You see a lot of people give them too much credit. They say that Swisha’s the reason that I blew up. But it’s talent. There’s a whole lot of talent there that ain’t moving nowhere. It started out with Ice Age Entertainment. I was already big off the strip-club scenes, and they came to me. They had a bigger machine at that time, and I got down with them.

Swishahouse artist Paul Wall has a different take:

When he left Swishahouse, he was dropping salt on everybody from Swishahouse and not giving us any credit at all. He was talking down on a lot of us and he would never directly say our names, but he was still hating. There were times when I felt disrespected and I would call him out on it, and he’d be like, “Nah, I wasn’t talking about you. I would never do that.” I’m sure there’s a psychological term for this problem that Mike Jones has. He has a problem. His perception of reality ain’t the real perception of reality. In his mind he feels like he hasn’t done anything wrong to me, Trae, or Chamillionaire. He feels like everyone else is trippin’ and he’s the victim. But that ain’t how it happened. We always say there’s three sides to every story. There’s your side, the other person’s side, and then there’s the truth. But in his mind, he’s the victim and he never did anything wrong to anybody.

In the end, all that's left is the music.



In ComaR's mashup, Jones' lyrics are paired up with the melody from the Cure song "A Forest" - a song that I've liked for years.

Oh, and Jones' "American Dream" movie did come out - but perhaps the less said about the movie the better. Here's part of a review:

The scenes involving the chess match were especially pathetic. The chess boards are clearly set up wrong with pawns beside castles, they are moving the pieces all wrong also if you look. If you are trying to develop a character in a movie and show him as smart, don't make him move a bishop straight downwards through a pawn....This movie was actually hilarious but it's sad it was supposed to be serious.

Important people in musical history - Paula Vance

When a songwriter writes a song, he'll sometimes write it about the people around him. As a result, some people who would not otherwise be famous suddenly gain some level of fame - even if you don't know their names.

Perhaps you read about the recent death of composer Lee Pockriss. Pockriss wrote the music for the song "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini," a 1960 hit for Brian Hyland. The lyricist for the song was a man named Paul Vance, who was inspired to write the lyrics after watching his two-year old daughter, Paula.

Well, time passed, and the seemingly innocent early 1960's gave way to the seemingly guilty mid 1970's. However, there was one thing that the two decades shared in common - death songs. While the '60s certainly had its share of death songs, culminating with the over-the-top "Dead Man's Curve," the '70s certainly had its share, between "Seasons in the Sun," "One Tin Soldier," "The Night Chicago Died," et al.

Paul Vance was still writing songs and partnered with Jack Perricone to write a much darker song than "Itsy Bitsy." In this song, a young girl gets in a fight with her dad over something that couldn't be explicitly stated, even in the relatively free 1970s:

Daddy please don't, it wasn't his fault, he means so much to me
Daddy please don't, we're gonna get married...just you wait and see.

The plaintive plea, repeated at the end of the song when the girl's dad accidently shoots her, was sung by Paul's daughter Paula, now 15 year old. There's a picture of Paula recording the song on Paul Vance's website. However, a male voice was needed to sing the majority of the song, so Paul Vance contacted a law student, David Cole Idema, who had left the music industry (where he worked under the name David Geddes). Adrian Qiana describes what happened:

Imagine that you’ve given up on your musical dreams, you’re knee-deep in habeas corpus and a successful songwriter calls you up out of the blue to sing on one [of] his songs. But that’s what happened to David. I wonder if after he recorded Run Joey Run, he said, ‘Uh, yeah, thanks Paul.”, rolled his eyes and muttered, what a piece of crap.

Idema went back to law school, but when the song was actually released, it turned out that David Geddes had a top ten hit.

I'm not sure what happened to Paula Cole after "Run Joey Run" charted in 1975, but whatever did happen, she has her place in musical history.

P.S. If you're interested in such songs, check out the story about how Jack Lawrence ended up writing a song about the daughter of his lawyer. Lawrence's friendship with the lawyer ended when he found out that the lawyer ended up with the copyright on the song, simply entitled "Linda." Well, Linda grew up and had more songs written about her, but these were written by her husband, a musician named Paul McCartney.

Oh, and Jack Lawrence's song was eventually recorded by Jan & Dean - the same people who would record the parody death song "Dead Man's Curve" that I previously mentioned.

The music industry is small and incestuous.

Yes, fan is short for fanatic - Lady Gaga fans trash Adele

At times we become fans - perhaps rabid fans - of particular musicians, and perhaps believe that our favorite musicians are the absolute best musicians in the whole wide world.

So what happens when people champion another musician instead?

Pamela Owen of the Daily Mail recently reported that some Lady Gaga fans think that Adele needs to be knocked down a peg in the popularity department.

Twitter is filled with crude jokes, one of the most popular being: 'Confirmed: Gaga will not be wearing her meat dress because she is afraid Adele will eat it.'

Significantly enough, the title of Owen's piece uses the word "bully" to refer to the fans' treatment. Minic Rivera of the Inquisitr explained the significance:

In September this year Lady Gaga turned to Twitter to rally a call for the end of bullying.

She tweeted her call, saying:

“Bullying must become illegal. It is a hate crime.”

Unfortunately, recent actions by some of Gaga’s fans do not seem to fit with their idol’s call for end to bullying.

This one really was an "Oww!"

In my never-ending attempt to find some type of transcript of Dana Carvey's appearance as Neil Young in a fake Super Bowl halftime performance, I ran across a partial transcript of Dana Carvey as Neil Young at Oracle OpenWorld 2005.

I didn't see this particular performance, unfortunately.

"I've seen Larry Ellison and the damage done.
First to PeopleSoft and now to Siebel.
There's a little hostile take over in everyone
Every deal is like so much fun."

Yes, I wrote about Carvey's/Young's appearance in 2008. And 2004.

Try to categorize "Whiplash Smile"

In a previous post, I implicitly stated that Billy Idol both was a rocker and was not a rocker.

Allow me to explain.

Billy Idol was, in several ways, a punk. He emerged from the punk scene, a former Sex Pistols fan and former leader of the band Generation X. He was noted for castigating old stalwarts Led Zeppelin in a recording studio (the incident is recorded in at least one Led Zeppelin biography). And, of course, Idol had the spiky hair, the leather, and the punky pseudonym.

But when you start actually listening to his third album, Whiplash Smile, there's nothing punk about it.

For starters, punks usually don't align themselves with guitar heroes. But for a good chunk of his solo career, Billy Idol sought active collaboration from ace guitarist Steve Stevens.

Did that mean that Idol was going to rock out? Hardly. Take a listen to the songs on "Side Five" of Whiplash Smile. The punker and the rocker start with "Worlds Forgotten Boy," filled with drum machine beats and synths overlaid by Steven's solos. Then they move on to dance music with their remake of "To Be a Lover." The live/synth overlay formula continues on "Soul Standing By," except that this time the result is much more metallic. Then Idol and Stevens take a grand detour into my favorite Idol song of all time, "Sweet Sixteen," in which Idol sneers over a type of electro-folk. By the time the somewhat more traditional "Man for All Seasons" comes along, you've reached the conclusion that Idol/Stevens is the antithesis of punk. Move on to "Side Six," and just imagine Idol playing "Don't Need a Gun" or "All Summer Single" sandwiched between some Ramones and Pistols songs - he'd be booed off the stage.

However, it seems that "Whiplash Smile" is kind of like "Total Devo" - I seem to be the only person who actually likes the album. Allmusic's Johnny Loftus:

There's plenty to listen for on Whiplash Smile, and Idol's attempt to expand his palette is admirable. Unfortunately, there's nary a memorable hook here outside of the single and whatever mileage can be gained from his trademark sneer. In that sense, Whiplash Smile is similar to so much music of the decade, which got by with rayon flash and giddy video posturing but little in the way of reality.

Yes, I am at war with the professional reviewers. Some things never change.

Urgent

As time passes, your favorite songs from any particular band change.

When I first heard Foreigner, around the time of their first album, Dean Caulfield and I were listening to hits such as "Feels Like the First Time" (not that we knew how that felt) and "Cold As Ice." I also had a particular fondness for another Foreigner song, "The Damage is Done."

By the 1980s, my favorite Foreigner song had become "I Want to Know What Love Is" - an incredible performance. Although I wish that the Altar Boys (a Christian punk-ish band) had covered the song - they could have come up with a great version.

As I thought more about Thomas Dolby's place in music history, I started gravitating toward "Waiting for a Girl Like You." And as a marketer, I've had an admiration for "Juke Box Hero," which (intentionally or not) ended up appealing to Foreigner's target audience.

But if you were to ask me today to name my favorite Foreigner song, I'd go with "Urgent." Why? Because, in my mind, it combines all the best of Foreigner (at least from the Lou Gramm era).

First off, you have Lou Gramm. I confess that I haven't listened to the subsequent vocalist or vocalists in Foreigner, but Gramm has a good voice for either the hard stuff or the soft stuff.

Not that this is soft stuff. "Urgent" is an odd song because it's supposedly a hard rock song, but in reality it's nothing like a hard rock song. Compare to Billy Idol's songs or to Depeche Mode's "I Feel You," songs that similarly have a hard feel, but would be very offensive to rock purists who run in horror when the synths come out.

Yes, the synths. Thomas Dolby had a hand in this song.

But there's one thing in this song that, to my knowledge, is not in any other Foreigner song - a sax solo. Think about it. You have Lou Gramm singing, and the rock sound going on, and Thomas Dolby dropping science everywhere (yes, Dolby was the original Louis Gray), and then all of a sudden a saxophone is added to it. From Junior Walker, no less, although to my mind the sax solo reminds me of guitar soloists such as Bob Mothersbaugh and Martin Gore - not your traditional solo, but it fits well into the song in question.

You can read about the song in Songfacts, which also includes an interview with Mick Jones. (No, not that Mick Jones.) Or you can see what Eric Andrews said:

The first single was the scorching rocker "Urgent", with a smoking saxophone from Motown legend Junior Walker & a vocal from master Lou Gramm that literally oozes sexual frustration. The unholy trinity of AOR [Styx, Journey & REO Speedwagon] could only dream of creating a song this delightfully raunchy. Peaking at #4, the stage was set for 4's full-scale assault on the pop charts for the next year or so.

Whatever happened to Deney Terrio?

Back when I was growing up, there was no MTV. If we wanted to see music on TV (other than the Partridge Family), we'd have to watch shows such as "American Bandstand," "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert," and (drop your voice down a couple of octaves) "Soul Train." Toward the end of the decade, a new music show emerged called "Dance Fever."

Here's how host Deney Terrio describes the impact of Dance Fever:

The [show's] format was the first competitive dance show to utilize celebrity's judges and award a weekly winner. This show is credited with being the show that inspired and helped bring Dancing with the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance, and others into the recent limelight.

Well, Terrio is still dancing, and now you can participate via the Deney Terrio Dance Party.

The Deney Terrio Dance Party is an exciting new concept in the entertainment industry. Backed by a dynamic 10 piece live band, Deney Terrio, the man who taught John Travolta how to dance in the classic film "Saturday Night Fever", leads an interactive Dance Party that gives people a chance to dance with the man who pioneered the
Disco Dance era.

While The Deney Terrio Dance Party Band performs club classics, Disco and R&B hits, Deney takes the crowd on an up close and personal Dance journey. A journey back to the days of Soul Train and Saturday Night Fever. A journey back to the days when people went to night clubs and discotheques like the infamous Studio 54 and danced the night away. A journey back to when couples got dressed up and spent the evening dancing to the sweet sounds of artists like, Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes, Earth Wind and Fire, The Jackson 5, Donna Summer and many many more. This is the concept of The Deney Terrio Dance Party.

So where is the Dance Party being held? In Manhattan? Not exactly:

This high energy, LIVE! Dance experience is a great fit for any venue. The Deney Terrio Dance Party is now available for corporate events, fund raisers and parties, fairs and festivals, casinos, cruise ships, theme parks and anywhere else people want to get up and dance.

For example, Terrio and the band were at the Kowloon Restaurant in Boston, Massachusetts on September 25, 2010. (More pictures here.) On October 22, 2011, they were at the Wonderland Entertainment Complex in Revere, Massachusetts. (More information here.)

However, I suspect that Terrio's parties do not include the BEST DISCO SONG EVER - Devo's "Disco Dancer" from Total Devo. Unfortunately, I couldn't find an online version of the original video (one of my favorites), but here's a live version.