A new Dean Martin passed by this month, and of course I thought it was a compilation of old recordings. Well, sort of.
Dean Martin with Big Bad Voodoo Daddy: Who's Got The Action?. The album Forever Cool takes Dino vocals and marries them to newly recorded duets, with vocals from an assortment that includes Joss Stone, Kevin Spacey, Charles Aznavour and Shelby Lynne. This is the track that caught my attention the most: a new backup from retro-minded swingers Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.
Mary Barry: Hurricane Charley. From her new album, Red Eye Tonight. Spot-on lighter jazz for winding down.
Tracey Thorn: Plain Sailing. Twenty-five years old, and still fresh: a song about "meetings arranged" that in this case did work out.
U2: Everlasting Love. From the B-sides album that came out a while back, a cover of a tune that has had many fingerprints over it; in fact, I had to look up who had the first big hit. (I guess it's The Love Affair, which would have been called a boy band, had the phrase existed in 1968.)
Three Dog Night: Black & White. A No. 1 from 1972, with an optimistic take on race relations that seems to fit the time. I didn't know until recently that the song dated from the mid-1950s, when things were very different indeed.
I post a playlist of five tunes each Saturday; click on the link below to see more.
Recent Comments