Posts Tagged ‘song of the day’

Spyro Gyra perform “Nu Sungo” on Arsenio Hall’s show sometime in 1987. 80s fusion, baby!

From a 1961 broadcast of Ralph Gleason’s Jazz Casual series, here’s The Dave Brubeck Quartet doing Brubeck’s legendary 5/4 composition “Take Five.”

Dave Brubeck on piano, Paul Desmond on saxophone, Gene Wright on bass and Joe Morello on drums. Enjoy.

From the same Dutch television program that Wednesday’s Brothers Johnson clip came from, here’s my favorite Blondie song, “Sunday Girl,” with Debbie Harry looking splendid in a suit and tie.

Sweet song from the summer of 1977, George (guitar and lead vocal) and Louis (bass) Johnson rolled out a funky mix of mind-bending soul. Along with George Clinton’s Funkadelic and it’s offshoots, the Brothers’ songs tended to be dreamy hallucinations set to a relentless funk beat. Both George and Louis were also highly in demand as session players, working with all the big names in 1970s and 1980s pop and R&B. They split up rather acrimoniously in 1982, but later reformed in the 1990s and in the last decade a few times to great acclaim from their longtime fans.

“Strawberry Letter 23″ is the funk cousin to The Beatles‘ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” I’m still not sure what’s going on in the lyrics of either song, but who cares? Enjoy.

KT covers The Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” in this live version from Jools Holland’s Hootenanny New Years Eve special, December 31, 2005.

Here’s a very nice cover of one of my favorite Gordon Lightfoot songs, “I’m Not Supposed to Care,” from 1976’s Summertime Dream. Since I couldn’t find a video version done by Gordon himself, this one is done by Tim, who goes by the screen name GordIsKing on YouTube.