Brooklyn, Blintzes, Baseball and Ballads With Johnny Mercer (Field Notes From a Music Biz Life)

In chapters 6 and 7 of his memoirs, MICHAEL SIGMAN recalls his father CARL SIGMAN's songwriting apprenticeship with JOHNNY MERCER and how the rocky course of his adolescent years seemed to parallel his dad's hit songs.
by David McGee
 

 
 

Gordon Stoker Goes Home, and The Jordanaires’ Story Ends

With the death of GORDON STOKER on March 27, THE JORDANAIRES' story has come to an end. We pay tribute to one of the great men of the music world and a group that made a difference when Elvis called them on board.
by David McGee
 

 

 

The 2012 Album of the Year Trifecta & The 2012 Elite Half Hundred

The Method to Our Madness: Why we picked three recordings as Album of the Year, and the unveiling of our first Elite Half Hundred keeper albums of 2012, topped by the GIVING TREE BAND's powerful Vacilador.
by David McGee
 

 
 

‘It’s Like Someone’s Speaking Through Me’

Jamaican singer-songwriter BRUSHY ONE-STRING (so named because he plays a one-string guitar) evokes the likes of Percy Sledge and Louis Armstrong on his first studio album, DESTINY. 'It's like someone's speaking through me,' he...
by David McGee
 

 

 

The Elite Half Hundred of 2014 (Part 1)

THE ELITE HALF HUNDRED OF 2014 (PART 1)--Numbers 1-25 of our half hundred best albums of 2014, excluding the Albums of the Year
by David McGee
 

 
 

Beatles ’64: Surmounting Media Skeptics, Fab Four Carve Out a Career

THE BEATLES were greeted by a skeptical, sometimes dismissive mainstream media as Beatlemania broke out abroad. On Feb. 9, 1964, the Fab Four dismissed the naysayers. Plus: The Beat Alls on The PowerPuff Girls.
by David McGee
 

 

 

Dancing Bears: la danse de l’ours

Dancing bears have been around since at least the Middle Ages. Sheer Folk blogger SERGIO RIBNKIKOV GUNNARSON has been studying the rather obscure history of these mammalian hoofers and herein reports on his findings.
by David McGee
 

 
 

The Man In Black, In All Dimensions

In this the 80th year of JOHNNY CASH’s birth, Columbia/Legacy is celebrating with five new collections of vintage and previously unreleased Cash music that pretty much cover the waterfront of the Man in Black’s aesthetic.
by David McGee
 

 

 

‘Mission’ Accomplished

On her vaunted new album, Mission, CECILIA BARTOLI (this is her--really, it is) fashions the music of Agostino Steffani into a conceptual work brimming with passion, politics and intrigue. It is the opera great’s finest hour.
by David McGee
 

 
 

Hark the What? Ironies of a Beloved Carol

REV. MARK D. ROBERTS knows 'If you don’t want to tick people off, then don’t change the words of the hymns and carols.' As he explains, 'HARK! THE HERALD ANGELS SING' is a perfect example of this maxim.
by David McGee
 

 

 

Video Moment for the Ages

From January 21, 1965, LESLEY GORE with a knockout performance of the Jeff Barry-Ellie Greenwich tune 'The Look of Love' and Rodgers and Hammerstein's 'Hello Young Lovers.'
by David McGee
 

 
 

Serena Matthews Does ‘Moon River’

Deep Roots fave SERENA MATTHEWS kicked off the new year by sending us her distinctive take on Johnny Mercer's classic 'Moon River,' a beautiful version that brooks favorable comparison to Audrey Hepburn's original. You heard i...
by David McGee