By Don Jacobson

The traditional thing here on Playlist is for me to hunt down someone’s song playlist so I can tell you what people who know more about music than me are pushing out there to their listeners, usually on podcasts or Web-based radio shows. But this time, I’m going to let you know what has made my own latest indie-rock mix CD, which is coming with me on my next cross-town bus trip. Everything I list here has recently been freely available on the Internet as promo MP3s from the artists themselves or their labels. Remember, NO file-sharing, you artist-dissing greedheads.

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Posted on January 23, 2009

By Don Jacobson

Nothing quite says bubblegum pop like The Cowsills. And that’s an accurate impression of the band of late ’60s teenyboppers . . . if you stop at their first album, the eponymous 1967 Cowsills, with its still-sickeningly sweet “The Rain, The Park And Other Things.” That song forever branded them – probably rightly at time – as the safest rock ‘n’ roll band in the land. I mean, my God, their mom was right there in the band, adding the fifth voice in their five-part harmonies and constantly casting quick looks offstage to Bud, the despotic, Navy man dad, who made damn sure they all knew their lines and got to the shows on time.
Yes, the sunshine is so intense on that first Cowsills album it probably spawned a whole solar-powered pop counter-revolution of sweater vests and sensible shoes at a time when things everywhere else were getting real hairy.

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Posted on January 19, 2009

By Steve Rhodes

One of the cleverest little ditties about the romantic push-and-pull ever written, though the gender politics may – or may not be – dated. The Betty Carter/Ray Charles version – provided below – is particularly recommended.
Released: 1949
Words and Music by: Frank Loesser
Charts: The version by Dinah Shore and Buddy Clark peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Best Sellers chart.
Also recorded by: Sammy Davis Jr. and Carmen McRae; Dean Martin; Barry Manilow and K.T. Oslin; Rod Stewart and Dolly Parton; Bette Midler and James Caan; Ray Charles and Betty Carter.

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Posted on January 15, 2009

By Don Jacobson

1. PRESS RELEASE –
From: Jamaica Ministry of Information, Culture, Youth and Sports
Re: The Passing of “Tata” Ford
The Honourable Olivia “Babsy” Grange, Minister of information, Culture, Youth and Sports has expressed regret at the death of Vincent “Tata” Ford, known to have been a close associate of Reggae icon, Bob Marley and who was author/composer of one of Bob’s greatest hits, “No Woman No Cry.”
“As the Minister with portfolio responsibility for music and entertainment, I was saddened to learn of the death of ‘Tata’ Ford, who was the latest of a magnificent group of music and entertainment personalities, to pass during 2008,” Miss Grange said.
The Minister described “Tata” as a brave, kind and creative person who did not allow his illness to prevent him from providing support to Bob Marley and using his creativity to pen “No Woman No Cry” and other Marley songs such as “Positive Vibration,” “Roots, Rock, Reggae” and “Crazy Baldhead.”
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Posted on January 5, 2009