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  • Beatles Memory Battered

    I know better, you shoulda known better and Todd Rundgren sho’nuff knows better.

    Entering our National Park system tonight at DC’s Wolf Trap (if you pay taxes in the US, you’re a part-owner), is a monstrosity of an idea:  It Was Forty Years Ago Today.  The Beatles tribute concert is on national tour and features Rundgren, Foreigner’s Lou Gramm, Denny Laine, Christopher Cross, and Bo Bice.

    Where to begin?

    The Beatles landing in New York in 1964
    The Beatles landing in New York in 1964

    Rundgren is a public Beatlemaniac whose music is often infused with the Fab Four. By infused, I mean influenced by, not ripped off like he was a lost Gallagher brother prepping a new Oasis album.  He knew better than to tackle 1967’s (yes, that’s 41 years) Sgt. Pepper.  He must have known that mogul Robert Stigwood tried to do the same thing twenty years ago with artists actually on the charts and horribly failed despite Marurice White with EW&F creating the definitive version of Got To Get You Into My Life.

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  • Even Stevie Wonder Got Down Sometimes: John Legend’s “Green Light” Video

    So…John Legend and Anthony Hamilton are pretty much tied for the title of my favorite Male R&B singer right now, with Robin Thicke running third. All three gentlemen have albums being released this fall. While Thicke is first up to bat with the single “Magic” and the upcoming album “Something Else”, Legend is next out of the gate, and “Green Light” is yet another curveball from an artist who apparently enjoys keeping his listeners on their toes.

    While his debut album, “Get Lifted”, essentially posted him as the male version of Alicia Keys, his impressive follow up “Once Again” (which ran neck & neck with John Mayer’s “Continuum” as the best record released in 2006) was a more organic affair. He enlisted producer Craig Street (best known for his work with alt-jazz diva Cassandra Wilson), and channeled everyone from Marvin Gaye (on “Slow Dance”) to Jeff Buckley (on “Show Me”). For his third album, “Evolver”, Legend takes us to the clubs with the first single, “Green Light”

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  • LL Cool J: The G.O.A.T. No More(?)

    Remember this guy?

    His name was LL Cool J and he was the hottest, most versatile rapper around. Capable of appealing to the hard rocks and the ladies, the pop fans and the underground cats. His songs had choruses and hooks, but he didn’t sacrifice lyrical agility for commercial success. And when hip-hop fans started to think that he was about to fall off back in the early Nineties, he hit them with the album of his career: “Mama Said Knock You Out”. He was arrogant yet humble, dangerous yet approachable, undeniably talented…

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