Vocalists Archives | Jeff Meshel's World: Recent Episodes
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An immaculate union of the pristine and the passionate – The Real Group in a breathtaking take on ‘Nature Boy’. It’s just a little perfect.
The post 173: The Real Group, ‘Nature Boy’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
The greatest rendition of the greatest song.
Have your handkerchief ready.
The post 029: Eva Cassidy, ‘Over the Rainbow’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Women are a superior breed to men, but they sure like to talk. Girl Talk.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The post 168: Neal Hefti, ‘Girl Talk’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Nogah went and grew up. I still have the highest of hopes.
The post 185: Frank Sinatra, ‘High Hopes’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
"No musical instruments or mechanical devices used on this recording other than one guitar."
The post 169: The Mills Brothers, ‘Jungle Fever’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
We all have our weaknesses. For some it’s wine, for some it’s cocaine, for some it’s merely nostalgia.
The darker side of Valentine's Day.
The post 148: Andy Williams, ‘The Days of Wine and Roses’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Praying for peace after the pogrom.
The post 102: Netanela/Matti Caspi, ‘Shir HaYonah’ (‘Song of the Dove’) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
The Boswell Sisters had 20 hits in the early 1930s, and are arguably THE best vocal jazz group ever. Their 3-part harmonies are tighter than Aunt Bertha's girdle. An education and a delight, 90 years on.
The post 105: The Boswell Sisters, ‘Crazy People’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
You've never heard of the Norwegian singer Radka Toneff. Trust me, it's your loss.
Listen to her sing Jim Webb's 'The Moon's a Harsh Mistress'. Tell me you weren't moved.
The post 033: Radka Toneff, ‘The Moon’s a Harsh Mistress’ (Jimmy Webb) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Turns out 500,000,000 Amy Winehouse fans were right. Go figure.
The post 217: Amy Winehouse, ‘Back to Black’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
50,000,000 Amy Winehouse fans were right, after all.
The post 217: Amy Winehouse, ‘Back to Black’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Brazilian/American jazz/bossa pianist/singer Eliane Elias should be a household name – she is a serious musician, outstandingly talented, commercially appealing, and uncommonly pleasing to look at.
The post 138: Eliane Elias, ‘Baubles, Bangles and Beads’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Wordless.
The post 304: Luciana Souza/Paul Simon, ‘Amulet’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
In a perfect world, the best girls would go for the most talented guys.
Vilray is a most talented guy. Rachael Price is definitely the best girl.
And here they are, singing together.
The post 272: Vilray, ‘Do Friends Fall in Love?’ (with Rachael Price) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Noah’s dove, still searching for land.
A secular Israeli prayer for peace.
The post 102: Netanela, ‘Shir HaYona’ (Matti Caspi) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
In which the daughter of Louis Armstrong's musical director, Julliard graduate and studio singer par excellence, sparkles up an old Grateful Dead tune backed by a mandoline, string bass and tambourine.
Jerry would have loved it. So would Satchmo.
The post 069: Catherine Russell, ‘New Speedway Boogie’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
It’s early September, the leaves and the pages of the calendar are turning, a time for some sober and somber thoughts about whither we are headed. Here’s a great song about September and life and reflection.
The post 147: Frank Sinatra, ‘It Was a Very Good Year’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
My favorite May-December clip.
A man and a woman and the electricity between them.
Ah, Brasil...
The post 022: Roberta Sá and Chico Buarque, ‘Mambembe’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
I got a Plan A, and I got a Plan B
And if it's absolutely necessary, we'll go to Plan C
The post 297: Lake Street Dive (Rachael Price), ‘Hypotheticals’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
A fetching beauty with a catchy rock song in a first-rate jazz context. What more could one ask for?
Saxophonist Tim Ries toured extensively with The Stones, who sponsored his very fine, very varied Rolling Stones Project.
The post 080: Tim Ries w. Norah Jones, ‘Wild Horses’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
A beatnik musical (what??), an obscure jazz standard (oxymoron), and high school nostalgia (snore)--the convoluted paths we take to visit our past.
The post 065: Ella Fitzgerald, ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Anita O'Day at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival--so cool, so hip, so talented. Take a gander. She'll knock you out of your chair.
The post 057: Anita O’Day, ‘Tea for Two appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
At 22 Barbra Streisand traded guts for glitz and sacrificed her artistry on the altar of auto-adulation. She became a megastar cum décolletage, morphing from a talented loser into a loser of a talent. Here she is aged 20 –a truly stunning vocal artist.
The post 009: Barbra Streisand, ‘Lover Come Back to Me’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
How Julie London enticed Jeff into basshood
The post 045: Julie London, ‘Bye Bye, Blackbird’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
‘Lyrist’ Sammy Cahn and his composer partner Jimmy Van Heusen wrote 87 songs for Frank Sinatra.
Asked “Which comes first, the words or the music?” Sammy answered “The phone call."
The post 185: Frank Sinatra, ‘High Hopes’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
The lyric consists entirely of names of obscure baseball players from the late 1940s and early 1950s. You don’t have to be a baseball fan to feel here the magic that only music can create--what our adult heart does with the treasured memories of our youth.
The post 058: Dave Frishberg, ‘Van Lingle Mungo’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
The only #1 hit written by a sitting Vice President.
And it wasn't Mike Pence or Spiro Agnew.
The post 023: Tommy Edwards, ‘It’s All In the Game’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
‘Morrer de Amor’ as sung by Luciana Souza – the lyrics of this song are in a language I don’t understand, and I know almost nothing about its background. But the rendition is of such utter beauty and unspeakable perfection that its emotional eloquence transcends explication. I’m just going to turn off my analytical brain, close my verbose mouth, and hope that you’ll be as moved by it as I am.
The post 114: Luciana Souza, ‘Morrer de Amor’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
Don't try this at home.
The post 051: The Ross Sisters, ‘Solid Potato Salad’ appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.
‘Lowdown‘ (“Fade into Light”, 1996)
‘Harbor Lights‘ (“Fade into Light”, 1996)
‘Just Go‘ (“Fade into Light”, 1996)
‘Sierra‘ (“Fade into Light”, 1996)
‘I Should Care’, (“But Beautiful”, 2003)
‘Ballad of the Sad Young Men‘ (“Speak Low”, 2007)
I’m really tickled to be writing SoTW today, because it takes me right back to where I once belonged – blathering on about music that has me so excited I just might pop.
Boz Scaggs. I last heard Boz (on break from Steve Miller) playing with Mother Earth in 1969 at the Ludlow Garage in Cincinnati. The band was great, a favorite. Tracy Nelson was a wonder. I remember being moved to tears at the sheer beauty of the music – only time live music’s ever done that to me.
Groupie Jeff, Boz, 1969
Mike and Bill and I worked the gate at The Garage (and ran across the river to Newport to buy booze for the after-show bash). We got to hang out with luminaries such as Bo Diddley (tried to pick up my girlfriend), Neil Young (obnoxious), Leslie West (barely made it through the door) and Boz Scaggs–not exactly a household name, but he wore very cool Haight-Ashbury striped pants which were quite a rarity in good old Cincinnati and had great hair.
I could tell you that Boz and I got very close, dropped acid together, picked up some groupies together and discussed The Meaning of Life. There’s no one alive who could contradict me, not even photographer cum novelist Rod Pennington, who so graciously preserved this magic moment from another world.
The truth is, I was this affected, clueless, horny, poseur, preening, uninformed, unworldly, horny Jewish kid masquerading as, ahem, cool; and Boz was a bona fide Rock Star who deigned to give me the time of day.
I vaguely recollect Boz as a really sweet, articulate guy. The hazy impression that remains is that he was more than polite – warm and generous.
But then fate drew me to a corner of the world without radio reception, the decades passed, and our respective roads drifted apart – me to the wholly holey Holy Land, Boz to a long career of moderate success as a working musician. I had a vague impression of him as a blue-eyed soul guitarist/singer. Little did I know.
I’ve listened to no one else for near on a fortnight now, and it is my pleasure, my that’s-why-I’m-here duty, to inform you: Boz Scaggs is one fine, fine, fine musician. Run and listen to him. I can’t imagine anyone not deeply enjoying his music.
1965-75, Boz was playing electric blue-eyed blues, with critical but little commercial success. Here’s ‘Loan Me a Dime’ from 1969’s eponymous album, with Duane Allman and the Muscle Shoals rhythm section lending support. Not my cup of tea, but certainly admirable.
1975-80, he shifted to smooth, commercial R&B soul, hit the jackpot with his 5xPlatinum album “Silk Degree”, featuring hits such as ‘What Can I Say’, ‘Lido Shuffle’ and ‘Lowdown’, receiving 4 Grammy nominations including Album of the Year . A number of commercial hits followed (‘Breakdown Dead Ahead’, ‘Jojo’, ‘Look What You’ve Done to Me’ and ‘Miss Sun’).
Boz Scaggs 1982
He then went into a fallow period, resurfacing in 1988 with ‘Heart of Mine’ from “Other Roads”. In 1989 he did the first of a couple of tours (again in 2010 as the Dukes of September) with Michael McDonald (Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan) and Donald Fagen (Steely Dan). He has other gifts, but I’m not convinced by Mr Fagen as a soul persona. But the comparison with Mr McDonald is telling. MM is a great singer, with an incredibly muscular tenor. BS owns a pretty amazing vocal range, with control in the upper ranges that many a better-known vocalist should be highly envious of.
But what’s been filling my ears and mind and voice and heart for the last couple of weeks is the last 20 years of his career, in which he’s gradually morphed into an intelligent, soulful, gentlemanly, smooth-as-melted-butter R&Bster – looking commercial tastes right in the eye without flinching, without compromising one whit on the sincerity more commonly associated with his rawer bluesy days. It all started with 1998’s “Some Change”, with gentler materials such as ‘I’ll Be the One’, ‘Sierra’, ‘Lost It’, and ‘Time’.
But then in 1996 he recorded a laid-back, acoustic album which included new readings of a number of his later hits. It’s a 5-star album which I’ve been listening to more or less non-stop recently, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Cut after cut, this is finely-honed, emotionally engaging, sincere, intelligent commercial music. Admittedly, it’s not “John Wesley Harding”. But – honestly now – when’s the last time you listened to JWH?
‘Lowdown’, ‘Just Go‘, ‘Love T.K.O.’, ‘Fade Into Light’, ‘Harbor Lights’, ‘Lost It’, ‘’Sierra‘, ‘I’ll Be the One’, really every single cut – this is as good as pop music gets. I think of Norah Jones’ “Come Away with Me”, Alison Krauss’s recent “Windy City”, Linda Ronstadt’s “Heart Like a Wheel” years, perhaps even Carol King’s “Tapestry” – indelible, memorable commercial music that grabs you, pulls you irresistibly into its emotional territory, pleases you immeasurably and leaves you feeling those were 45 edifying minutes.
In 1997 and 2001 he released two fine R&B albums, “Come on Home” and “Dig” (‘King of El Paso’). In 1998, his 21-year old son OD’d.
There’s a video from 2004 that I’ve been really enjoying, Boz with an excellent 9-piece band (bass, great lead guitar, two keyboards, two horns, two outstanding backup singers). The man at the very top of his game. Do yourself a favor, spend some time with it.
Then in 2003 and 2008 (Boz now in his 60s), he recorded two albums of standards, “But Beautiful” and “Speak Low” which have absolutely nothing to do with the Linda Ronstadt, Rod Stewart, Willie Nelson, Paul McCartney or Bob Dylan forays into the genre. Boz is not a wrinkled pop idol looking for a new wrinkle to boost his record sales or grab at a bit of legitimacy.
Boz Scaggs is a first-rate, knockout jazz singer. The impeccable choice of songs; the intimate, relaxed arrangements; the utterly convincing readings–he brings to life for me songs that decades of (you’ll pardon the blasphemy) unconvincing (for my ears) readings by a myriad of uninspired singers (the whole pantheon, all the Tony Bennetts and Mel Tormes) have deadened my ears to. Check out ‘I Should Care’. Or ‘For All We Know’. Or ‘Save Your Love for Me’. Or ‘Skylark’. (Hey, I wrote a posting about that song!) Or the killer ‘Ballad of the Sad Young Men’. It’s a remarkable song, and I also wrote a posting about its sister piece, ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most’. The song is as daunting for a singer as Sonny Liston was in his prime for a pugilist. Listen to what he does to the last phrase. He hits that last note without taking a breath beforehand (equivalent to parachuting from a satellite in orbit), way at the top of a very high rising arpeggio–with utter calm, relaxed, confident, not a hint of strain, no sign of the enormous technical challenge in hitting it without a waver.
His voice is a wonder. Effortless, honest, expressive, technically the envy of many a crooner. It’s smooth and pure and controlled, at the service of what seems like a really nice, sincere guy reweaving well-known stories in a way that makes each and every one come to life.
But we’re not done. 2013’s “Memphis”, 2015’s “A Fool to Care”, and 2018’s “Out of the Blue” are all finely crafted Memphis roots music. Check out ‘Cadillac Walk’ or ‘A Rainy Night in Georgia’. As the excellent AllMusic pundit Thom Jurek says, “He delivers songs with an endemic empathy and intimacy that make them sound like living, breathing stories…He remains a song interpreter who has few — if any — peers.”
Yes, it’s commercial. Yes, it’s slick. And yes, I’ve been listening to it non-stop for two weeks. We need this music in our lives. It’s a rarity, intelligent entertainment. Not life-changing, not soul-scouring, but art that can inform and enlarge our souls. Real music by a real person, a prodigiously talented musician singing to us with his own personal, human voice. Still going strong at 73. You’re my man, Boz.
The post 267: Boz Scaggs, ‘Lowdown’ (“Fade Into Light”) appeared first on Jeff Meshel's World.