Super Seventies Saturday #5 - 'Magic' by Pilot

...as that green soothsayer from the lily-pads of Sesame Street was known to utter from time to time...hi-ho...

today's 'S-cubed' (Super Seventies Saturday...three S's....) pick is 'Magic'...as in 'Oh-Ho-Ho, It's Magic', by those quintessential one-hit wonders, Pilot...

A very catchy, bouncy tune that should work as a nice 'pick-me-up' tune for ya...

...not anything 'earth-shattering', lyric-wise, but catchy and fun to sing along to, even if it's in the stratosphere in spots... but overall a great example of early 70's AM radio pop tunes, kept at three and a half minutes or less...

...as for posting...the next 'scheduled' post will be... Tuesday, or, Christmas Day...so... don;t be surprised if the Big Band Boys take the week off...hey, the 70's cats had an off week, so... it's the horn blowers' turn to lay out, I guess...

hope y'all have a wonderful Christmas!!!

Until next time,

Hu
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Big Band Tuesday #4 - A String of Pearls by The Glenn Miller Orchestra

...y'know, Tuesdays really 'sneak up' on me... well, anyway... WELCOME to the fourth installment of of the Big Band tunes Huey is fond of... this week, we have...a String of Pearls, performed here by Glenn Miller Orchestra...

...just an awesome tune, y'all... really catches the true essence of 'Big Band',  with the different horn 'lines' weaving within the melody, the neat 'bridge' in the middle with solos... in fact, if I had to pick a tune to 'introduce' someone to Big Band, this one would be a VERY likely candidate...of course, 'In The Mood' is arguably THE quintessential Big Band tune, but...y'all are pretty familiar with that one... as you may well be with this one, but... just in case... enjoy!
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Well, hope everyone has a great Holiday Season... I will probably keep these posts 'on track', but over at G-ology, I will be slaving away on the Roberta review, which WILL be completed...SOON...

Until then,

Hu
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Super Seventies Saturday #4 - Smoke On the Water by Deep Purple

...well, not sure if you knew this was the logical 'stream of consciousness' process that would unfold or not, but...it is... from the song 'Deep Purple' to the rock group 'Deep Purple', and their signature tune, 'Smoke on the Water'... which, in 'rock circles' is almost taken for granted, it's so ubiquitous... but truly one of the 'all-time' guitar riffs, which anyone who ever picked up an electric guitar ultimately picks out on it (myself included)... the song tells a 'true story' of how the dudes were in Montreux, Switzerland recording tunes, when the big old hotel they were staying in went up in flames... it was near a lake... thus, 'Smoke on the Water'... sometimes the best tunes are written from actual events...

...and yes, there is a cool connection between the song 'DP' and the band 'DP'... when the band 'DP' was starting up, they were searching for a good name for themselves... and one of the dudes had a grandma who had to be pretty cool, probably baked cookies and stuff for them... and also cool because the song 'DP' was one of her favorites... so much so that she always asked them if they were going to perform the song 'DP'...well, no, not really (although it WOULD have been pretty cool if they did a version of it...) - well, even though they knew the tune wasn't going to be in their repertoire, they DID dig the sound of the name 'Deep Purple' for the band...so there you go...

OK, hope everyone is having a great Holiday season!

Until next time,

Hu
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Big Band Tuesday #3 - Deep Purple by The Artie Shaw Orchestra, vocals by Helen Forrest

...well, installment #3 is upon us, y'all (dang...the weeks are going by quickly...when is Thanksgiving? :-] )...

Today, we bring you the loverly tune, 'Deep Purple', written by Peter DeRose, performed by the Mighty Artie Shaw Orchestra, and sung by the ethereal pipes of Miss Helen Forrest...

...is it just me, or does Artie Shaw look more than a bit like Lew Ayres? ...and speaking of Ginger, (???) (ALL conversations lead to Ginger in Hueyville, right?) - I always think about that scene in Roxie Hart where she says, "...and then, everything went - PURPLE..."  ...hmmmm...DEEP Purple, perhaps?

The first recording of this tune was by the Larry Clinton Orchestra, and vocalized by Bea Wain, and was a big hit in 1938...the version featured here was done in the early 40s, I do believe... another interesting note about this tune is that it was Babe Ruth's fav...so much so, that the composer DeRose performed it annually at the Bambino's Birthday Bash...

Several versions have been recorded over the years...Donny and Marie among others... in1963, a duo called Nino Tempo & April Stevens (which was another 'brother-sister duo') hit #1 with their version, and also won the Best Rock and Roll (???) Record for 1963...

Well, there ya go... Deep Purple... an enchanting tune that has stood the test of time...

Hope to be back soon with more information for you to glean nuggets of savory wisdom from...

Until that glorious day,

JW...OUT.

Super Seventies Saturday #3 - "Green-Eyed Lady" by Sugarloaf

Hi, y'all!!!

THIS week's Seventies tune is from one of the many 'one-hit wonder' bands from the early 70s, Sugarloaf... Green-eyed Lady.

THIS tune has a great 'tone-setting' intro to it, again, quite jazz-influenced with the 'herky-jerky' note signature...love the bass line... and pretty trippy drums as well. The lyrics? Well, in general they are in reference to a lady...with green eyes... yeah... not a heap of vocals in it, but, what's there sets the mood quite nicely. Didn't Ginger have green eyes more or less? I've seen a few places that reported as such...overall they look blue to me...

THE organ solo is pretty indicative of early 70s tunes, for better or worse...this particular one rocks, IMHO... but other tunes have a bit 'overbearing' organ section... and the instrumental section in general has the nice 'ethereal' feel a lot of these tunes had... cool stuff.

THIS is actually the 'long version' of the tune, which honestly, I'd not heard until I downloaded this vid...for all you whipper-snappers out there, back in the 60s, 70s, and even into the 80s, radio liked to keep tunes at 3 minutes or so, mainly to cram as many songs in as possible...so most songs had to be 'clipped' down to that standard length... it's good that that practice isn't still around, cause 3 minutes just ain't enough for most tunes... then, again, it may be TOO much for others...

AND, as for the video portion of this entry, I have no idea about it...it is just some stuff added by whoever posted the video...eh, works as well as most videos out there...

So, hope y'all dig this one... another one of my faves...er, I probably won;t post anything here that I DON'T like...right?

Until then,
Later!
Hu
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Big Band Tuesday #2 - Tuxedo Junction by the Glenn Miller Orchestra

Hi y'all! Well, here's the second of what hopes to be a ton of installments for Big Band Tuesday here at NBABOH!

THIS edition deals with a song that is pretty familiar to me... Tuxedo Junction, which was written by Erskine Hawkins and performed by the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

NOW, why is this one so familiar? Well...because on most days I drive home from work, I go right by the place that inspired the song, in the Ensley neighborhood of Birmingham, Alabama (which is not far at all from where Baby Huey spent his formative years)...there's even a 'historical commission plaque' right on the corner which I need to read one day... unfortunately the neighborhood is a bit on the sketchy side, so I might need to just take a pic and roll on...

ANYWAY, another cool aspect of this tune (for me) is that my lowly alma mater, UAB, plays it at football games...which I think is quite cool to hear, although I know 90% or more of the folks there have little or no idea why they are playing it... I try to explain it, but to no avail...

SO, with all of that, here is...Tuxedo Junction...which, all personal Huey-isms aside, is a classic jazz - big band tune which is VERY worthy of the slot allotted here...

...well, hope y'all are digging this feature...even tho y'all can just jump on YouTube and grab them for yourselves, hopefully I can add my thoughts to make it a bit more interesting, and also gather yours...so please reply! Tell your friends!!! RELEASE THE KRACKEN!!! ...or the Huey, anyway...

Until then,

Later...

Hu
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Super Seventies Saturday #2 - Diamond Girl by Seals and Crofts

...this tune is a fine example of how early 70's music blended jazzy blues style with basic rock-pop... to great effect!

I remember as a kid listening to this tune on the radio, and it being in the middle of July... I evidently had a transistor radio (er....look it up, kids...), because I remember riding my bike around while hearing it, under the blazing afternoon sun...and how the phrase 'Diamond Girl - You sure do shine' seemed to correlate well with that sun... so, it's a 'summer tune' for me, anyway... but I dig the bass lines to it, the horn section, which was prevalent in many tunes from the era...and a very well-placed jazz-tinged guitar solo at the end... just pretty cool stuff. These cats were trained musicians, as I remember, so they knew more than the average bear regarding arrangements...


These are tunes I grew up with, and are pretty cool in that they recall a 'time and place' for me, which is something music is really good at...doesn't even have to be a 'memorable' place...just a bike ride in the afternoon sun... and although this is 'Super Seventies', there may be a 'fudging' of the time frame from time-to-time, as cool tunes present themselves...

Hope you enjoy...and I do take requests! :-)

Until later...

Hu
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