Okay, it’s not officially the end of the year, but next Monday we start this year’s Xmas Music Xtravaganza, so this is the last freebie of the year. So, I’ve put together an acrostic: the first letters all spell out "END OF THE YEAR."

"Electric Avenue," Eddy Grant: Electric Avenue is a street in the Brixton area of London, the first market street lit by electric lights. Eddy Grant wrote the song in 1983 in rememberance of the 1981 Brixton riots. The song reached #2 in the US and the UK.

"Nowhere To Run," Martha & The Vandellas: A Holland-Dozier-Holland creation, it’s one of their signature songs. It reached #8 on the Hot 100 and #5 on the R&B chart, as well as #26 in the UK in 1965.

"Daphne," Django Reinhardt: Django with La Quintette du Hot Club de France, recorded in 1947.

"One Fine Day," Carole King: Carole and her husband at the time, Gerry Goffin, wrote this for The Chiffons, who had a Top 5 hit with it in 1963. Carole recorded it herself in 1980 and reached #12. Is it just me, or does Carole remind you of Gilda Radner?

"Fancy," Bobbie Gentry: Title track from Ms. Gentry’s 1969 album. Bobbie only reached #26 on the Country chart in the US, but reached #1 on the Canadian Country chart. Reba McEntire’s 1990 cover got to #8 on the US and Canadian Country chart.

"Tenderly," Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong: A standard by Walter Gross and Jack Lawrence from 1946. No one does the standards like Ella.

"Harbor Lights," Roy Fox & His Orchestra: A 1937 standard by Hugh Williams and Jimmy Kennedy. Fox is the first person who recorded it.

"Englishman In New York," Sting: From Sting’s …Nothing Like The Sun album, a song in honor of Quentin Crisp, who had moved from London to The Bowery in New York that year.

"You Belong To Me," Patsy Cline: A ballad from the early 1950’s by Chilton Price, Pee Wee King, and Redd Stewart that had been done by Patti Page, Jo Stafford, and Dean Martin. From Patsy’s 1962 album Sentimentally Yours.

"Easy Livin’," Uriah Heep: Only reached #39 on the Hot 100, which surprises me, because this was all over the radio in 1972.

"All I Wanna Do," Sheryl Crow: From her 1993 début album Tuesday Night Music Club, this was released in 1994 and was her breakout single, reaching #2 on the Hot 100, won two Grammys in 1995 for Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, and was nominated for Song of the year.

"Red Hot," Marcia Ball: Marcia Ball is a blues pianist and singer from Texas who really deserves a lot more attention than she’s gotten over the years. "Red Hot" is from her 1989 album Gatorhythms.

And that’s Monday’s Music Moves Me for November 30, 2020.

Robin’s assignment for this week, it being Thanksgiving week and all, is to spell out "GRATEFUL" in song titles. Well, that’s eight letters, meaning eight songs, but ten is an official playlist (because I said so, so there), so I spelled out the phrase "I’M GRATEFUL" in song names. (The things I do to keep me happy…)

I: Nova, "Insensatez (How Insensitive)": I introduced all of you to the bossa nova group Nova back in July. Just to let you know, their Christmas album is available now.

M: B. W. Stevenson, "My Maria": Yes, Brooks & Dunn did this, but I prefer the original by B. W. Stevenson, who co-wrote the song with Daniel Moore. His original reached #9 on the Hot 100 and #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart in 1973.

G: Canned Heat, "Going Up The Country": Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson" adapted Henry Thomas’s "Bull Doze Blues" from 1928 and created this song. It reached #11 on the Hot 100in 1969, Canned Heat’s best-performing single.

R: Wes Montgomery, "Road Song": Title track from Wes’s last album, released in 1968, shortly before he died of a heart attack. Wes and his wife had seven kids and he was working as a welder during the day to keep food on the table…

A: Mark Lindsay, "Arizona": A song written by Kenny Young, Mark recorded this while still lead singer for Paul Revere & The Raiders. It readched #10 in 1970.

T: Eagles, "Take It Easy": Written by Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey, it was The Eagles’ first single when it was released in May 1972. It reached #12 on the Hot 100 and the Adult Contemporary charts that year.

E: The Beatles, "Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby": From Beatles For Sale in the UK (Beatles ’65 in the US), this is George covering a song by one of his guitar idols, Carl Perkins, who had a hit with it in 1956.

F: Ray Price, "For The Good Times": Written by Kris Kristofferson, Ray recorded this as the title track from his 1970 album. It reached #1 on the Hot Country Singles chart and #10 on the Hot 100. This is real country…

U: Natalie & Nat "King" Cole, "Unforgettable": Written by Irving Gordon and arranged and orchestrated by Nelson Riddle, this was the title track from Nat’s 1952 album. In 1991, his daughter Natalie recorded it as a virtual duet with her father, and it reached #3 on the Adult Contemporary chart.

L: Count Basie Orchestra, "Li’l Darlin’": Composed by Neal Hefti, who did many of the Count’s arrangements, and recorded for his 1958 album The Atomic Mr. Basie. It was an exercise in how to swing at a slow tempo.

I’m grateful for you all! That’s Monday’s Music Moves Me for November 23, 2020.

I have Claire over at Incognitus Scriptor to thank for introducing me to vaporwave music. As the title of this post suggests, I’m not sure that I totally understand what it’s about, which might not be a bad thing: I tend to get really into things and want to know everything about them, and particularly with music, the exploration sometimes keeps me from enjoying it.

Frequently, I’ll need some kind of background noise when I’m reading ot writing. I have a couple of sites that are pure "noise" (e.g. white noise, sounds of rain and thunder, coffee shop backgrounds) that I use frequently, but lately I’ve been seeking out vaporwave. I’ve found that a lot of the artists have channels on Soundcloud and/or Spotify, too, and I’m sure on platforms like Bandcamp.

When I started looking for vaporwave on YouTube, I found a user with the handle Kurdtbada who posts both individual tracks as well as mixes on his channel. K will usually tell what kind of music is in a given mix; in the case of "Pausa comercial", which follows, the music is identified as "vaporwave – electronic mix." There are twelve tracks in this mix, so you might want to go over to YouTube (the link is above) and see what they are. K has also linked to a number of other YouTube channels where you can find more music. Or you can just listen below…

And that’s Monday’s Music Moves Me for November 16, 2020.

To guest conductor Robin’s daughter (whose birthday is this month), my brother Kip and his daughter (and my niece) Aisling, and…

1. John Barry, composer, arranger, conductor, and, as you can see here, harmonicist, who did the music for eleven James Bond films and the movie Midnight Cowboy, the theme for which he plays here. He won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Theme for this in 1969. John passed away in 2011, but would have been 87 on November 3.
2. Marie MacDonald McLaughlin Lawrie, better known to the world as Lulu, a wee Scottish lass with a huge voice, who sang the theme song for the movie To Sir, With Love (1967), in which she had a small part. "Oh Me Oh My" was released in 1969 and reached #22 in the US, #16 in Canada, and #47 in the UK. She just turned 72 on November 3.
3. Peter Noone, who put the Herman in Herman’s Hermits, who turned 73 this past Thursday. And speaking of ’73, here they are, being introduced by Barry Gibb, and doing a medley of two of their hits, "I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am" and "Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter."
4. Funk Brother Dennis Coffey, who was part of the house band at Motown Records and played on many, if not most, hits from that studio. He turns the Big 8-0 on Wednesday. "Scorpio" was on his 1971 album Evolution and reached #6 on the Hot 100.
5. Buckwheat Zydeco, zydeco accordionist extraordinaire, who will celebrate #73 in Heaven, where he went in 2016. Here he plays "Hey Ma Petite Fille" and really gets the house rockin’.
6. The lovely singer and actress Petula Clark, who turns 88 a week from yesterday (and may she live at least as long as Dame Vera Lynn). "I Couldn’t Live Without Your Love" came out in 1966 and reached #9 on the Hot 100 and #1 on the Adult Contemporary charts, and reached #6 in Canada and the UK.
7. Blues guitarist and best friend of Howlin’ Wolf, Hubert Sumlin, passed in 2011 but would have been 89 a week from now. The host on this video of Hubert doing "Come On In My House," Buzz Kilman, was the news guy and sidekick to disk jockey Jonathon Brandmeier on WLUP in Chicago in the ’80’s. Just thought I’d mention it.
8. Bob Gaudio, keyboardist, singer and songwriter with dose Joisey boys, The Four Seasons, who will be 78 on the 17th. "Who Loves You," title track from their 1975 album, was written by Bob and Judy Parker and produced by him, and reached #3 on the Hot 100 in ’75.
9. The lovely Canadian chanteuse Diana Krall turns 56 next Monday. Jazz Artist of the Decade 2000-2009 according to Billboard Magazine, she has the distinction of having eight of her albums debut at #1 on the jazz album chart. This performance of Bobby Troup’s "Route 66" is from the 1996 Montreal Jazz Festival.
10. Felix Cavaliere, keyboardist and singer for The Young Rascals (later just The Rascals), turns 78 on the 29th. "Groovin’" was a #1 hit for them in 1967.

I just profiled The Ides of March’s Jim Peterik last Friday; his birthday is the 11th and he’ll be 70 years young. I’ve also profiled Joe Walsh, who turns 73 on the 20th; he shares the day with Dr. John (died last year, would be 79), Norman Greenbaum (78), and Duane Allman (died 1971, would be 73). Oh, and you might recall that The Four Seasons recorded on Vee Jay Records, which was The Beatles’ original US label; when Vee Jay acquired the rights to the Fab Four, they also got the rights to Frank Ifield, who will be 83 on the 30th. A full list can be found here. (What, you don’t think I knew all this off the top of my head, do you?)

And if your birthday is in November, Happy Birthday to you, too! That’s Monday’s Music Moves Me for November 9, 2020.

By now, everyone’s heard that Sean Connery, portrayer of James Bond in six of the first seven "James Bond" movies, passed away recently at the age of 90. Birgit suggested that I do a playlist dedicated to the Bond movies that Connery was in. Unfortunately, there were only six, but one of the movies originally had a different theme than the one that was ultimately used. That brought me up to seven, so I included three themes from the Roger Moore years that became Top 40 hits.

1. Monty Norman, "James Bond Theme": This was used first in the movie Dr. No (1962). Surf music was popular around this time, so Monty Norman included some surf guitar in this theme. John Barry, who wrote the music for most of the Bond movies, arranged the song for Norman, but didn’t receive credit. It is often rumored that Barry had written the song, and there have been a couple of court cases to that effect.
2. Matt Monro, "From Russia With Love": This was the first Bond movie with John Barry as the primary composer. The title track was written by Lionel Bart of Oliver! fame and sung by Matt Monro, though the theme that was played over the opening credits was a combination of the "James Bond Theme" and an instrumental version of the song.
3. Shirley Bassey, "Goldfinger": This was the first Bond film for which the title song was sung by a popular recording artist over the opening credits. The music was written by John Barry, the lyrics by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, and Dame Shirley provided the vocal.
4. Tom Jones, "Thunderball": The original theme song was "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," which is what an Italian journalist called 007 in a 1962 article. Barry and Bricusse wrote the original theme, which was sung by Dame Shirley and which they discovered was too short for the title sequence. A second version, with a longer instrumental opening and sung by Dionne Warwick, fit the sequence, but producers Albert "Cubby" Broccoli and Harry Saltzman were concerned that the title song didn’t mention the name of the movie. Barry and lyricist Don Black composed the theme that was used. The story goes that Tom Jones held the last note so long that he passed out.
5. Nancy Sinatra, "You Only Live Twice": Barry and Bricusse teamed up to write this theme, and Nancy Sinatra agreed to sing it after her father passed on it. I think she was the perfect choice.
6. Shirley Bassey, "Diamonds Are Forever": Barry, who composed all the music for the film, teamed up with lyricist Don Black and wrote the theme song for Dame Shirley. Barry later said that he told her to imagine that she was singing about a penis…
7. Dionne Warwick, "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang": This was the rejected theme song for Thunderball, as mentioned above.
8. Paul McCartney, "Live and Let Die": This was the first movie to feature Roger Moore as 007. John Barry was unavailable to write the music for the movie, so they asked Sir Paul to write the theme song. The rest of the music was composed by "The Fifth Beatle," Sir George Martin.
9. Carly Simon, "Nobody Does It Better": For the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me, Barry was once again unavailable to write the score due to tax issues, so they turned to Marvin Hamlisch. Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager wrote the theme song, which became the first theme song not to be named after the film; I guess they relented because the name of the movie is sung in several places in the theme. That, plus they got Carly Simon to sing the theme.
10. Duran Duran, "A View To A Kill": John Barry returned for this last Bond film to feature Roger Moore as Bond. Reportedly, Duran Duran got the job of doing the theme when John Taylor, bassist and a longtime James Bond fan, stumbled up to Albert Broccoli at a party and slurred out, "When are you going to get someone decent to do one of your theme songs?" They are credited with the lyrics to the song.

And that’s Monday’s Music Moves Me for November 2, 2020.