Happy Music Monday! Halloween season is here again at Good Black News, and your Afroclectic ambassador of sweet grooves is back.
As your sonic chauffeur, I am delighted to share this seasonal playlist to help you celebrate All Hallows’ Eve.
This 5-hour collection features creepy soul, reggae, blues, jazz, and soundtracks covers an array of dark themes like Poison, Evil Ways, zombies, vampires, and Frankenstein.
You will find Halloween standards by Ray Parker Jr., Eartha Kitt, and Michael Jackson, alongside newer tracks from The Womack Sisters and Gorillaz.
Whether you are decorating, trick-or-treating, handing out candy, or hosting a party, or just out and about in those Halloween streets this playlist will set the perfect mood for the season.
Take good care, everyone. As always, stay safe, sane, and kind.
Another Music Monday is upon us, and I hope this missive finds you all smiling and well. Many of us were saddened by the news of Cassandra Wilson’s passing on September 1.
With her low, smoky, and intimate vocal style rooted in her Mississippi heritage, Wilson was a transformative figure in jazz who broke traditional genre boundaries by fusing jazz with blues, folk, and country music—though, like many artists, she rejected strict labels.
She reinterpreted songs by rock, folk, and pop artists such as The Monkees, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and Cyndi Lauper through her own soulful lens. Her relaxed yet thoughtful delivery made both familiar standards and modern covers sound freshly discovered.
I have gathered a playlist of her music to honor her legacy and to enjoy whenever you want moving, soulful vocals. It features over five hours of music by the artist Time magazine named “America’s Best Singer” in 2001 for her broad appeal and individual artistry.
Please enjoy this essential collection of music by the immortal Cassandra Wilson.
As always, until next time: stay sane, safe, and kind.
Happy Music Monday, you all. Hope that first weekend of August treated you well.
After watching the amazing documentary, Billy Preston: That’s The Way God Planned It, I was inspired to create this playlist.
Directed by Paris Barclay and co-written by Cheo Hodari Coker, the film chronicles the life, amazing six-decade career, and complex personal struggles of the legendary keyboardist, singer, and songwriter, Billy Preston.
The GRAMMY-winner started as a child prodigy backing his mother, his own gospel group, and the iconic Mahalia Jackson. I’ve included gospel tracks along with his hits, including chart-toppers like “Will It Go Round in Circles” and “Outa-Space”.
Billy Preston was a virtuoso keyboardist and powerhouse sideman who bridged gospel, R&B, rock, and soul. So no collection would be complete without his his iconic collaborations with The Beatles (earning him the moniker “the fifth Beatle” from John Lennon himself), The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Little Richard, Sam Moore and Eric Clapton.
I’ve gathered more than 100 songs by him as a solo artist, in duet, as sideman, and collaborator, defying genre. From “With You I’m Born Again” with Syreeta Wright to the “Warlocks” backing Red Hot Chili Peppers, you’ll find a wide-ranging collection of tracks by the often under-recognized maestro.
While reggae and dancehall are well-known when it comes to Jamaican music, not everyone may be in tune with its more electronically-minded cousin, dub reggae, and the sound system culture that accompanies it.
Dub music grew out of reggae in the 1960s and 1970s. The songs largely consisted of heavily-edited remixes of existing records, created by removing the vocal sections and placing increased focus on the rhythm section, or riddim.
Audio effects like reverb and delay would then be applied, often quite generously, and vocal snippets and other instruments from the original song (and other songs) can be worked into the track by means of dubbing or sampling. The term ‘dubbing‘ has also come to mean emphasizing the bass and the drums.
Included in this collection are works of influential figures including Lee Scratch Perry, Osbourne Ruddock (better known as “King Tubby”), and Hopeton Overton Brown (aka “Scientist”) and many others.
The influence of Dub can be heard across many genres of music, including rock, hip hop, techno, ambient, house music, trip hop and others
This collection features classic works and tracks across the decades. Hope you all enjoy this essential collection of Dub Reggae.
Happy Women’s History Month! Welcome to another Music Monday at GBN. Your monthly groove wrangler is back with a new collection for your musical pleasure.
When discussing Jamaica’s greatest reggae producers, names like Lee “Scratch” Perry, Clement “Coxsone” Dodd, King Tubby,Bunny Lee, and Joe Gibbs are frequently bandied about. However, Sonia Pottinger—the “First Lady of Reggae”—is seldom included in that conversation.
Against all odds, Pottinger became a formidable force in Jamaica’s male-dominated music industry as the country’s first female record producer, record shop owner, and label head. Today, we are shining an audio light on her incredible work.
Affectionately known as “Miss P,” she was one of Jamaica’s most noteworthy producers from the 1960s through the 1980s. She excelled through an individualized approach to production bolstered by keen business acumen, leaving behind a catalog of outstanding breadth and quality.
Reggae producer Sonia Pottinger (photo via reggaereport.com)
From the rocksteady craze of 1966 and ’67 to the classic roots reggae recordings of The Gladiators, I have gathered this collection of Sonia Pottinger’s essential tracks.
Please enjoy!
As always, stay safe, sane, and kind. See you next month for another dose.
It’s your friend and selector, Marlon West, with another collection for GOOD BLACK NEWS. GROOVE CHRISTMAS 2025 is an eclectic mix of Christmas music, much of which was released this year.
This collection features favorites from Donny Hathaway, Nina Simone, Lou Rawls and John Legend, alongside recent releases by artists like Rebel Rae, Aloe Blacc, Alex Harris and CoCo Jones. I’ve also included selections from Duke Ellington’s classic 1960 “Nutcracker Suite” as a unifying thread.
I hope this seasonal collection introduces you to new classics and favorites to enjoy this year and beyond.
It’s Music Monday and Halloween here at Good Black News! It’s your friend and selector, the groove conductor, Marlon West. I’ve returned once more during this Season of the Witch with another collection.
I am just back from a screening and discussion with Ryan Coogler and part of his creative team behind SINNERS. It was the fifth viewing for me, in whole or in part.
I saw it opening day laser projected, two weeks later on 70mm IMAX, streamed it twice, once with a sista in the lower right corner offering Black ASL, and today a 70mm print projected at the Directors Guild of America‘s theater with a very diverse and reactive crowd early on a Sunday morning. I was delighted to run into our GBN Editor-In-Chief Lori Lakin Hutcherson and her mother at the same screening.
As any of you that enjoy my Music Monday playlist knows, I love me some Halloween. This is at least the fifth All-Hallows Eve collection I’ve done for Good Black News.
The cinematic juggernaut that is SINNERS is a good reminder of just how much the blues has dealt with scares both supernatural and real-world based.
From Robert Johnson’s mythic trip the the crossroads to Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground,” the blues has provided its share of eerie moments. Bo Diddley’s iconic ‘Who Do You Love” opens with following boasts:
I walked forty-seven miles of barbed wire Used a cobra snake for a necktie Got a brand new house on the roadside Made from rattlesnake hide Got a brand new chimney made on top Made out of a human skull
Oh, that’s a Halloween song, all right! Howlin’ Wolf, Koko Taylor, RL Burnside, Norma Tanega, Gary Clark Jr., and so many more purveyors of the blues are present for this Halloween collection.
Whether your plans include handing out candy to hobgoblins of all ages, chillin’ with friends, or kickin’ at home with that porch light out, here is another autumnal offer to enjoy during this Halloween Season.
Happy Music Monday, you all. And welcome to this second week of Black Music Month.
Back in April, PBS dropped Independent Lens: We Want the Funk! Director Stanley Nelson and producer Nicole London’s documentary features the history, stars, themes and theory behind this most Blackest and inclusive style of music.
Everyone can shake a tail feather on “The One”. It is a celebratory film looking at one of history’s most important musical genres. It offers dazzling archival performances from James Brown, Sly & the Family Stone, Parliament Funkadelic, Labelle, Fela Kuti, and others.
This “Great Moments in Funk aka Funk 101” playlist offers the classic funk songs featured in the film and includes many hip hop tracks that sample them. I’ve also added modern funk disciples like Silk Sonic, Sam Pounds, Big Joanie and others.
Starting in the 1960s, through the Vietnam War, the struggle for civil rights, the rise of the Black Power movement, and right up to the current Black Lives Matter movement, there is no bolder and joyful celebration of Black identity than Funk. Please enjoy this hours-long celebration of decades of funky music.
See you all next month! And as always, stay sane, safe and kind!
Happy Music Monday, you all. I’m back a week late, if you are counting. I have been thinking about the life and career of the utterly original Jimmy Scott.
His voice conveyed such vulnerability, and had such a haunting sound. Jimmy Scott’s life was filled with emotional and physical challenges.
When he was 13, he tragically lost his mother in a car accident, and about the same time he was diagnosed with Kallmann Syndrome. The rare hormonal disorder all-but prevented puberty in him.
Leaving him with a voice all his own.
Sometimes his singing credit was given to a female artist. This happened on Charlie Parker’s live version of “Embraceable You.”
Jimmy Scott saw his suffering as his salvation and was liberated by it. This tenacity lay at the core of his artistry: “All I needed was the courage to be me,” he said. “That courage took a lifetime to develop.”
Scott’s unique style and passion led him to become one of the most influential vocalists in history.
He inspired a diverse set of artists including Ray Charles, Billie Holiday, Nancy Wilson, Elton John, David Bowie, Lou Reed and Madonna. I became a fan when he experienced a third-act resurgence in popularity.
Scott’s career had faded by the late 1960s. He’d returned to his hometown of Cleveland and worked as a hospital orderly, shipping clerk, and elevator operator.
In 1989, Scott sang at the funeral of his friend, songwriter Doc Pomus, the event reignited his career. He performed the song “Sycamore Trees” in the final episode of the original Twin Peaks television series in 1991, and sang backup on the Lou Reed song “Power and Glory” for the 1992 album Magic and Loss.
Scott would record several studio albums before his death in 2014. Much of the material in this collection is made-up of those wonderful recordings. Please enjoy.
Happy January Music Monday and MLK Day here at Good Black News!
It’s your friend and selector, your sonic chauffeur, your groove conductor, Marlon, back again.
I’m delighted to offer up this first of likely 12 GBN collections of the year. This is an “afroclectic” collection of tracks released in 2024.
It is more than half a day of excellent music to provide the soundtrack to your Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday. (You might be like me, and also taking 10 minutes of meditation at 12 Pm PST, in honor of legendary filmmaker, David Lynch, on what would have been his 79th birthday, had he not passed away last week.)
I have done a few civil rights-centered playlists in honor of this day. Though here is celebration of Dr. King having “been to the mountain top”, featuring dozens of artists performing any number of genres and styles.
R&B, hip-hop, classical, jazz, reggae, afro-beat, and more examples are included in this 13-hour collection of music from 2024.
I have gathered some of music’s biggest names with marquee releases, like Beyoncé and Jon Batiste.
There are plenty of newcomers and underground darlings, including Victoria Monét, Raveena, tendai and so many others, staking their claim among those giants.
I’ve offered an avalanche of new songs from last year. Some are even posthumous recordings by Alice Coltrane, Wayne Shorter and Prince.
There’s new tracks from quiet-for-a-minute artists like Sade, Stevie Wonder and Erykah Badu. Please enjoy the globe-trotting and genre-hoping collection. See ya next month!
