In continued celebration of #JazzAppreciationMonth, today we drop in on Billie Holiday, the singer and artist who not only influenced peers and progeny alike with her innovative interpretation of and phrasing in songs, but also composed several of her signature songs which became jazz and blues standards in the decades that followed.
To read about Holiday, read on. To hear about her, press PLAY:
[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Tuesday, April 19th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Billie Holiday famously said she styled her singing after two major influences – blues empress Bessie Smith and jazz trumpeter and legend Louis Armstrong.
The alchemy Holiday found by combining her favorites inspired many of her contemporaries as well as subsequent generations of singers, who were impressed with her pioneering phrasing and improvisation.
What is less often praised about Holiday is her songwriting skill. She wrote several signature songs that are now standards. Let’s start with “Fine and Mellow,” which Holiday first recorded in 1939:
It’s Music Monday! In celebration of Easter and #JazzAppreciationMonth, here is a collection of Sacred Jazz.
When jazz emerged in the first half of the 20th century as music of liberation, entertainment and modernism, it provoked a backlash among cultural and religious-establishment figures.
Many of them went so far as to call it “the music of the devil.” By the middle 1950s, jazz had found its way into the church, sometimes employed in the ritualistic proceedings of liturgies and other traditional ceremonies, or presented in other thematic ways in overt religious homage.
Religion, in some respects, was there from the jump. Many African-American musicians grew up attending and performing in church services, and the imprint of that experience can be found in albums ranging from John Coltrane‘s landmark 1965 LP A Love Supreme to Miles Davis‘ Kind Of Blue.
It was inspired in part, in the words of Davis, “some other kind of sound I remembered from being back in Arkansas, when we were walking home from church and playing these bad gospels.”
This collection features Mahalia Jackson and Rosetta Tharpe contributions to gospel and sacred jazz, along with pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams, known for her Jazz Masses in the 1950s.
Duke Ellington, Kamasi Washington, Pharaoh Sanders, The Free Nationals and many others are on hand too.
In continued celebration of #JazzAppreciationMonth, today we drop in on the underappreciated yet cherished and deeply talented song stylist Nancy Wilson, who was at one time in the 1960s the second most popular act on Capitol Records behind only the Beatles.
To read about Wilson, read on. To hear about her, press PLAY:
[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Tuesday, April 12, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Ohio native Nancy Wilson claimed her gift early, knowing by age four she was meant to be a singer. Encouraged by jazz saxophonist and bandleader Julius “Cannonball” Adderley, Wilson moved to New York in 1959 and landed a contract with Capitol Records.
The success of Nancy’s debut single “Guess Who I Saw Today,” led to a rush of album recordings, and to that tune becoming one of the signature songs of her career:
[Excerpt of “Guess Who I Saw Today”]
Wilson’s classic 1962 album recorded with Cannonball Adderley [Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley] contained her first Billboard R&B chart hit, the gorgeous ballad “Save Your Love for Me”:
[Excerpt of “Save Your Love for Me”]
From her 1964 album of the same title, Wilson scored her first pop hit, reaching number 11 on the Hot 100 chart with “How Glad I Am”:
[Excerpt of “How Glad I Am”]
Wilson won her first Grammy for that song and had four top 10 albums on the Billboard charts between 1964 and 1965, becoming during that period Capitol Records’ second-biggest selling act behind only the Beatles.
Wilson released more than 70 albums in her five-decade recording career, and won two more Grammys 40 years after her first win, both for Best Jazz Vocal Album, in 2005 for R.S.V.P. (Rare Songs, Very Personal) and 2007 for Turned to Blue.
[Excerpt of “That’s All” from R.S.V.P.]
In 2004, Nancy Wilson was honored as a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts, and for her work as an advocate of civil rights, which included participating in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march in Alabama.
Although Wilson was lauded as a jazz vocalist, she preferred to think of herself a song stylist, as she drew from a variety of influences, which she spoke about in detail during an interview on grammys.com:
“So, consequently, I was exposed to male influences. From early on, I heard Nat Cole I heard [?????] Jackson and Louis Jordan – loved Louis Jordan. I heard Billy Billy, Mr. B. I mean, he was just, I mean, my father thought Billy Eckstine was like, couldn’t – he walked on water. He loved B. And I heard Little Jimmy Scott with Lionel Hampton‘s big band. I would imagine that was when I was around 10. So basically, it was all male. And, and not gospel. I heard Jimmy Cleveland, James Cleveland, and C.L. Franklin, and his choir from my mom used to play that. So, I got to hear it all. And I enjoyed all of it. And then of course, I became a teenager. I mean, I was allowed to go out.
And there was a jukebox where I heard Little Esther, and I heard Little Miss Cornshucks. I heard LaVern Baker. I definitely heard Dinah and I heard Ruth Brown – I used to love Ruth Brown. That was where I got the exposure to R&B females. Was a quite a while – I think I was pretty much almost grown like 15 when I became exposed to – Sarah had some hit pop songs and I heard Sarah Vaughan and that I loved. “I Ran All the Way Home” was my big song. Also one of my big numbers was the Ravens tune called “You Saw Me Crying in the Chapel.”
So I sang these songs in variety shows and I’m like ninth grade, 10th grade, so, these were the things that really made things happen for me. The fact that I did not I had no idea that you were supposed to be afraid, or that you needed to be nervous. Because to me that had no part of what I did. I was not nervous about it at all. Loved to sing – loved the lyrics to songs always. Yeah.”
Links to these sources and more provided in today’s show notes and the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.
Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
All excerpts of Nancy Wilson’s music included are permitted under Fair Use.
If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Happy #JazzAppreciationMonth, good people! For most the word “Jazz” conjures up images of the giants like Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan, and Louis Armstrong.
Though this collection, “Ear Food: A New Jazz Playlist“ features a new school of Jazz artists re-imagining and reinventing Jazz for today:
They are staying true to the game while infusing a spectrum of R&B, Hip-Hop and other influences.
Many will recognize names like Kamasi Washington, Robert Glasper, Meshell Ndegeocello, Esperanza Spalding, and the late Roy Hargrove, but this collection features some new talents that are not as well-known.
I hope you’ll dig artists like: Ezra Collective, Al Strong, Steam Down, Somi, Nubya Garcia, Tom Misch, and Moses Boyd, too.
It’s great to see and hear a new generation adopt and reinvent the sound of a timeless genre, proving that Jazz not only still lives, but thrives.
While I’ve generally moved to monthly offerings, I’ll be back during this month devoted to Jazz appreciation with another collection next week.
All due respect to Chuck D, some of our heroes actually did appear on stamps, the first doing so 82 years ago #onthisday. Question is, who was the first one? To read the choices, read on. To hear them, press PLAY:
You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Thursday, April 7th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing. It’s in the category for Black Trivia we call “We Got Game”:
Okay, so I’m going to read a multiple-choice question that you will get time to think about and answer.
What I’m going to do is read the question, read the choices — and they’ll be four of them — and then I’ll prompt you to pause the episode if you want to take longer than the 10 seconds that will pass before I share the answer.
Sound good? Ready to see if you got game? All right, here we go:
Who was the first African American to be featured on a U.S. Postage Stamp? Was it…
W.E.B. DuBois
Frederick Douglass
Harriet Tubman, or
Booker T. Washington
Now go ahead and pause the episode if you want to take more than 10 seconds before you hear the answer. Otherwise, I’ll be back in 10… Okay, time’s up.
The answer is… D: Booker T. Washington.
Although the other three have since been featured on USPS stamps — 1992 for DuBois, 1967 for Douglas and 1978 for Tubman — Booker T. Washington was the first Black person to be honored in this way 82 years ago on April 7, 1940.
After several petitions from African American supporters, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pushed to make Washington’s stamp happen.
Issued at a cost of 10 cents and celebrated with a ceremony at the Tuskegee Institute, Washington’s stamp was part of the U.S. Postal Service’s Famous Americans Series.
The most recent African American person celebrated on a postage stamp is sculptor Edmonia Lewis, who is the 45th subject of the USPS Black Heritage stamp series, issued in January of this year.
To learn more about the history of African Americans on U.S. postage stamps, check out the links provided in today’s show notes and the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
At yesterday’s Grammy Awards, power group Silk Sonic (featuring Anderson .Paak and Bruno Mars) and its signature song “Leave The Door Open” had a huge night, winning in both major categories for singles — Song of the Year and Record of the Year.
FYI, Silk Sonic was not nominated for Album of the Year — that Grammy went to Jon Batiste for We Are.
Black artists weren’t always so frequently celebrated in the key main categories. As recently as 2015, there were no songs performed by Black artists in the Song of the Year or Record of the Year categories. And wins for Black artists in the main categories have been infrequent through many of the past 6 decades+ of the Awards.
The Grammys, of course, have honored Black artists in the R&B and Hip Hop categories. And they did it with Silk Sonic and “Leave The Door Open” last night too, as it tied with Jazmine Sullivan for Best R&B Performance and won in one more singles category that wasn’t televised — Best R&B Song.
It’s a favorite sport of music fans to second guess whether the Grammys got it right or not, but, as you’ll hear in today’s list, almost all the winners have ended up being — like “Leave The Door Open” is already — truly classic jams.
If you’ve been watching the Grammys for years, you know by now that the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences gives awards in Performance and Record categories (which go to the artists) and in the Song category (going to the songwriters – but not the artist, unless they also wrote the song).
In the twists and turns of the Grammy Awards, a single R&B Performance of the Year honor has actually not been given out consistently through the years.
Although it was awarded up through most of the ’60s (completely ignoring Motown and Stax, by the way, in favor of Ray Charles), it was then discontinued in favor of separate performance categories for Male R&B Performance, Female R&B Performance and Duo or Group R&B Performance – three categories that awarded artists up until 2011, when they were combined once again into a collective R&B Performance of the Year Award.
So R&B Song of the Year essentially became a unique declaration of the Grammys’ top choice in R&B music, starting in 1969 with Otis Redding‘s “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay” and continuing to today.
It’s clear that the Grammys favored some trends and artists more than others. After ignoring Motown in the 1960s, Grammy jumped into Motown fandom in the 1970s with Stevie Wonder and The Temptations – but in the process managed to almost completely ignore Philly Soul.
The Academy began to embrace Disco, but while awarding a Donna Summer song one year, the Grammy voters managed to relegate all the biggest Nile Rodgers & Bernard Edwards compositions to runner-up status through the years, yet somehow ended up awarding the R&B Song of the Year in 1978 to Leo Sayer‘s “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing” over The Commodores’“Easy” and “Brick House,”Thelma Houston‘s “Don’t Leave Me This Way” and The Emotions’“Best of My Love.”
By the 1980s, the Grammys favored slick adult soul in the vein of Luther Vandross, Stephanie Mills, Earth, Wind & Fire’s “After the Love Has Gone” and George Benson over more funky fare.
In fact, Prince won the R&B Song Grammy for penning “I Feel For You” when it was a hit for Chaka Khan. But his first R&B Song of the Year nomination for one of his own recordings – for “Kiss” in 1987 – was defeated by Anita Baker‘s breakthrough “Sweet Love.”
The 1990s brought multiple wins for Babyface compositions for Boyz II Men and Whitney Houston, a win for Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis for their work with Janet Jackson, and yes, a win for R. Kelly.
And, if you wanted to win a R&B Song Grammy in the 2000s, you should have been writing songs for female performers, because the decade’s honorees were dominated by Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Destiny’s Child and Beyoncé tunes.
In the past decade, as hip hop has continued to dominate the story of Black artists crossing over to the mainstream, R&B crossover success on the charts has declined, along with the reach of R&B radio.
The Grammys have begun awarding more rootsy and alternative R&B fare. While the vast majority of all the winning songs for decades had been major R&B and often major pop hits, multiple winners in the past decade have not even hit the Top 10 on Billboard R&B charts, including songs from Robert Glasper, P.J. Morton, D’Angelo and John Legend with the Roots.
Grammy finally seems to be putting musical achievement over sales figures. We hope you’ll enjoy this chronological journey through R&B history.
Marvin Gaye is known worldwide as a key R&B, soul and pop music innovator from the 1960s on. But what may not be well known about Gaye is that his earliest musical ambitions were to sing and perform jazz.
As it’s #JazzAppreciationMonth in addition to what would have been Gaye’s 83rd birthday, we honor his contributions to the genre in today’s daily drop. To hear it, press PLAY:
You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a bonus daily drop of Good Black News for Saturday, April 2nd, 2022, based on the format of the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
The incomparable musician and artist Marvin Gaye was born #onthisday in 1939 in Washington D.C.
From the 1960s on, he helped define the sound of R&B, soul and pop music, as well as blazed a trail for singer-songwriter concept albums exploring personal and social issues in depth with his classic 1972 LP What’s Going On.
But what may not be well known about Gaye, even though he started his professional career in the 1950s as a doo wop singer in the New Moonglows with Harvey Fuqua, it’s that his earliest musical ambitions for himself were to be a jazz singer and player in the ilk of Nat King Cole.
When Fuqua moved to Detroit in 1960, Gaye followed and soon signed his own solo contract with Motown subsidiary Tamla Records.
And even though his maiden release was titled The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye, as Berry Gordy had other ideas in mind for Gaye than Gaye had, 9 of the 11 tracks on it were, at Gaye’s insistence, jazz standards, such as “My Funny Valentine”:
[Excerpt of “My Funny Valentine”]
“Witchcraft”:
[Excerpt of “Witchcraft”]
and “How High The Moon”:
[Excerpt of “How High The Moon”]
Even though Gaye’s first album and the singles released from it didn’t sell well, the title track of his next album, That Stubborn Kind of Fellow became a Top 10 R&B hit and the trajectory of Gaye’s musical path in the public’s – and Berry Gordy’s — perception was set.
But Gaye, still a lover of jazz, returned right to it on his 1964 release When I’m Alone I Cry, this time with way better production value and input from respected jazz musicians and arrangers Melba Liston and Ernie Wilkins. The album starts with Gaye’s smoldering version of “You’ve Changed”:
[Excerpt of “You’ve Changed”]
The LP also includes Gaye’s takes on “I’ll Be Around”:
[Excerpt of “I’ll Be Around”]
“I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face”:
[Excerpt of “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face”]
And “Because of You”
[Excerpt of “Because of You”]
In 1965, Gaye even did a tribute album to Nat “King” Cole after Cole’s passing called A Tribute to the Great Nat “King” Cole where Gaye covered “Straighten Up and Fly Right”:
[Excerpt of “Straighten Up and Fly Right”]
“Mona Lisa”:
[Excerpt of “Mona Lisa”]
“It’s Only a Paper Moon”:
[Excerpt of “It’s Only a Paper Moon”]
and, of course, “Unforgettable”:
[Excerpt of “Unforgettable”]
After this album, the majority of Gaye’s recordings were contemporary soul, pop and R&B, even though he still managed to include a gorgeous, bluesy remake of “One for My Baby (And One for the Road)” on his 1966 The Moods of Marvin Gaye LP:
[Excerpt from “One for My Baby”]
Only after Marvin Gaye’s untimely passing in 1984, did more of his jazz-influenced recording sessions from the late 1960s and 1970s come to light on the posthumous albums Romantically Yours, which was issued in 1985 and Vulnerable which came out in 1997. On those you can hear Gaye’s takes on “I Won’t Cry Anymore”:
[Excerpt from “I Won’t Cry Anymore”]
His experimental version of “Shadow of Your Smile”:
[Excerpt from “Shadow of Your Smile”]
“Funny, Not Much”:
[Excerpt from “Funny, Not Much”]
And the arresting “I Wish I Didn’t Love You So” which seems to capture every nuance of Marvin Gaye’s voice, style and innovations across all the genres he loved:
[Excerpt from “I Wish I Didn’t Love You So”]
Even though Gaye’s indelible legacy was forged from different genres of music entirely, Gaye also gave us much to appreciate about him in the realm of jazz.
To learn more about Marvin Gaye and his jazz leanings, check out the “Standards of Marvin Gaye” episode of WFIU’s weekly music show Afterglow hosted by Mark Chilla, read Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gayebiography by David Ritz and of course, stream or buy all of the albums mentioned during this drop to hear even more of Marvin Gaye’s forays into jazz.
Links to these sources are provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a bonus daily drop of Good Black News, based on the format of “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing. Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
All excerpts of music from Marvin Gaye are included under fair use.
If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com,Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
There was a great moment that happened at last night’s Academy Awards, but because it happened directly after a shocking moment, it’s not getting the all the flowers and love it should.
So for this #MusicMonday, we are fully celebrating the fact that Summer of Soul, the feature documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival directed by The Roots co-founder and musical impresario Questlove, won a much-deserved Oscar. And if you (like so many of us) missed his acceptance speech, here it is:
https://youtu.be/IPbOF4wpEVw
Still streaming on Hulu and available on DVD, Summer of Soul is an education and gift to the eyes and ears and if you don’t currently have access to Summer of Soul, the movie, listening to the music from the acts featured in the film is the next best thing:
I’ve included the playlist of the official soundtrack album along with an extended playlist.
From Sly and the Family Stone to the Fifth Dimension,Stevie Wonder,Nina Simone, Gladys Knight and the Pips, The Edwin Hawkins Singers, The Staples Singers, Mongo Santamaria,David Ruffin,Mahalia Jackson,Mavis Staples and others, the music on display and the stories behind the event are close to (if not completely) mind-blowing.
And if you need another push to check it out (or revisit it), here’s the trailer of the documentary:
Thank you, again, Questlove and all the artists involved that helped bring the “Summer of Soul” into our lives for all seasons. You all truly made — and resurrected — important cultural history.
Today we celebrate the one and only Aretha Franklin, who was born 80 years ago #OnThisDay.
Franklin, whose voice was rightfully declared a natural resource by her home state of Michigan in 1985 is the focus of our Daily Drop podcast as GBN takes a brief look at her legacy through career highlights and offers sources to learn even more about the Queen of Soul.
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Friday, March 25th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
“Queen of Soul” Aretha Franklin was born on this day 80 years ago and offered a heavenly blend of gospel, R&B, blues, jazz, rock and pop (and even classical!) that this Earth may never see again. A piano prodigy from childhood, this Grammy-winning Rock & Roll Hall of Famer wrote and performed classics such as “Think”:
[Excerpt from “Think”]
“Dr. Feelgood”:
[Excerpt from “Dr. Feelgood”]
“Day Dreaming”:
[Excerpt from “Day Dreaming”]
“Spirit in the Dark”:
[Excerpt from “Spirit in the Dark”]
and “Call Me”:
[Excerpt from “Call Me”]
Franklin also used her musical genius to turn cover songs into signature masterpieces such as “I Say a Little Prayer” – first recorded and released by Dionne Warwick:
[Excerpt from “Say a Little Prayer”]
“Until You Come Back to Me” – originally recorded by Stevie Wonder, though Aretha released her version first:
[Excerpt from “Until You Come Back to Me”]
And, the mother of all covers and remakes, ever, originally written, recorded and released by Otis Redding… “Respect”:
[Excerpt from “Respect”]
https://youtu.be/6S1_skidDFI
Additionally, Aretha Franklin’s 1972 Amazing Grace double album remains the best-selling live gospel music recording of all time, and her rendition of the title track to this day remains superlative:
[Excerpt from “Amazing Grace”]
Aretha continued to define and redefine singing and the sound of music in the 1980s and 1990s with songs like “Jump to It”:
[Excerpt from “Jump to It”]
“Freeway of Love”:
[Excerpt from “Freeway of Love”]
“I Knew You Were Waiting For Me” with George Michael:
[Excerpt from “I Knew You Were Waiting For Me”]
The anthemic “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves” with Annie Lennox:
[Excerpt from “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves”]
and her 1998 collaboration with Lauryn Hill, “A Rose Is Still A Rose.”
Still going strong in the 21st century, in 2014 at the age of 72, Aretha scored a #1 hit on the U.S. Dance Charts with her remake of Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep”:
You can also check out a few Aretha Franklin playlists curated by me, one of the biggest Aretha Franklin stans around, on Spotify and Apple Music.
Links to these and other sources are provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.
Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot. Excerpts of songs performed by Aretha Franklin are permitted under Fair Use.
If you like our Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You could give us a positive rating or review, share your favorite episodes on social media, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
In honor of Academy Award-winning filmmaker Spike Lee‘s 65th birthday yesterday, we’re celebrating the music from his movies in today’s Music Monday playlist, “Mo’ Better Music: Spike Lee’s Greatest Hits“:
Lee first made his mark on the Hollywood scene in the summer of 1986 with his independently-financed debut feature, She’s Gotta Have It. From that start, it was clear that not only was Lee an original filmmaking voice, but also that he valued the role of music in his movies.
The body of musical work he has enabled through his movies spans the history of Black music, including Blues, Hip Hop, traditional R&B. His early career bloomed in the heyday of new jack swing, but he’s also served us gospel, jazz, and plenty of Stevie Wonder.
Lee’s usual composer of choice, Terence Blanchard, has earned two Oscar nominations for his work on BlacKkKlansman and Da Five Bloods.
There also have been Number One Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Hits, E.U.‘s “Da Butt” from School Daze and Teddy Riley & Guy‘s “My Fantasy” from Do the Right Thing.
Working with his father, jazz musician Bill Lee (still alive at age 93) through his first four movies, Spike’s soundtrack choices displayed a musical depth of knowledge from the start.
“Nola” – the song about Nola Darling, the central character in She’s Gotta Have It – was sung on the original soundtrack by legendarily unsung vocalist Ronnie Dyson (the subject of a previous GBN playlist and profile – https://goodblacknews.org/?s=ronnie+dyson).
Though that soundtrack is one of the few Spike Lee soundtracks unavailable on Spotify, we’ve included a fairly faithful rendition of the song from contemporary jazz vocalist Jose James on our playlist.
To celebrate his 65 years, the playlist is comprised of 65 original songs and score selections from all of Spike Lee’s scripted features films with tracks were available for streaming (all the rest of his movies are included except Summer of Sam and the recent made-for-streaming Pass Over).
We’ve focused on titles that were either newly released or recorded for Spike’s movies, not on classic hits that just made their way onto the soundtrack.
And there’s plenty of great material to choose from, including multiple tracks from Prince, backup singer turned indie soul darling Judith Hill, Public Enemy, Terence Blanchard, and Stevie Wonder.
The Spike Lee soundtrack for Bamboozled introduced the first major song ever released by India.Arie — “Always In My Head.”
Though the soundtracks to Girl 6 and Get on the Bus are also unavailable on Spotify in album form, we’ve located the original Prince track “She Spoke 2 Me” from Girl 6 as well as a number of songs from the Get on the Bus soundtrack from God’s Property, Stevie Wonder, and Curtis Mayfield.
While Lee has mostly worked with Black composers and musicians, rootsy White rock musician Bruce Hornsby has worked on multiple Spike Lee movies, including songs for Bamboozled and Chi-raq, and a full score for Red Hook Summer. He was also the composer for the lovely ballad “Love Me Still,” sung by Chaka Khan for the soundtrack to Clockers.
For his soundtrack to Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus, a 2014 horror film that Lee funded through Kickstarter, he issued a social media call for unsigned artists to submit songs and picked through over 800 submissions to find the songs he used – which included “As We May Dream,” another beautiful ballad from singer/songwriter Siedah Garrett of Michael Jackson duet fame.
Spike’s movies have also yielded some smooth new remakes of R&B standards – and we’re happy to include Stevie Wonder’s take on Bob Marley‘s “Redemption Song,”Erykah Badu‘s cover of Rufus featuring Chaka Khan’s “Hollywood,” Marc Dorsey‘s version of The Stylistics‘ “People Make the World Go Round,” and of course, Aretha Franklin‘s beautiful contribution to the Malcolm Xsoundtrack – her epic 8 minute rendition of Donny Hathaway‘s “Someday We’ll All Be Free.”
Most recently, Spike introduced his BlacKkKlansman‘audiences to a Prince rendition of the gospel classic “Mary Don’t You Weep” that had been originally recorded in 1983, but left in the vaults until its appearance in the closing credits of Lee’s movie.
In addition to all the above, you’re sure to uncover plenty of great but lesser-known material from Spike’s movies. With 24 scripted feature films under his belt, a Spike Lee film festival might take you a week of evenings to complete – but with our GBN playlist, you can cover all the musical memories from Spike’s movies in an afternoon.
Happy 65th birthday to Spike Lee! Though for many that’s retirement age, we hope to be updating this playlist with more great music from many more movies in the years to come.
