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Posts tagged as “#AAMAM”

MUSIC MONDAY: “Where I’m From” – A Free-Wheeling Celebration of African American Music Appreciation Month 2021 (LISTEN)

by Marlon West (FB: marlon.west1 Twitter: @marlonw IG: stlmarlonwest Spotify: marlonwest)

Happy Monday again, you all.

Well, it is always African American Music Appreciation Month (aka Black Music Month) around these parts! We celebrate Black music every week here at Good Black News.

It’s been more than a year since I started making weekly playlists honoring African American music in its many forms.

If you’ve been tuning in with any regularity, you know I am no stranger to a free-wheeling and hours-long playlist.

When it comes to a collection that tracks Gospel, Blues, Jazz, R&B, Rock, Hip-Hop, and everything in between, this one was bound to be a long one:

Have a great week.

Marlon West (photo courtesy Marlon West)

[Editor’s Note: ICYMI, below are links to some of Marlon’s most popular playlists from 2020. Enjoy!]

#AAMAM: “Black Parade” – Celebrating African-American Women Vocalists (LISTEN)

by Marlon West (FB: marlon.west1 Twitter: @marlonw IG: stlmarlonwest Spotify: marlonwest)

This is the last week of African-American Music Appreciation Month. And what a month it has been. 2020 is shaping up to be Black History Year.

I am honored to offer one more playlist for this final week of June. I hope you enjoy this freewheeling and eclectic collection of Black woman vocalists.

Here is almost a century of recordings spanning Blues, Gospel, Jazz, Soul, and Hip-Hop. Yes. You’ll find Beyoncé, Missy Elliott, Mahaila Jackson, Tina Turner, Chaka Khan, Erykah Badu, Big Mama Thornton, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Brittany Howard and more all on this playlist.

Coming in at over 9 hours, it is barely the tip of the iceberg of the musical offering and impact of African-American women.

We’ve been keeping it American musicians here in June, though next week I plan to sling some reggae music. Sistas and brothas from Jamaica, UK, and Africa have had a thing or two to say about protest and conscious music as well.

Until next time! Stay safe, sane, and kind.

#blacklivesmatter #goodblacknews #musicheals

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Marlon West (photo courtesy Marlon West)

#AAMAM: “Black and Proud” – Celebrating Black LGBT Musical Pioneers (LISTEN)

by Jeff Meier (FB: Jeff.Meier.90)

As June is both African-American Music Appreciation Month and Pride Month, and today is the anniversary of the beginning of the landmark Stonewall Riots marking the unofficial launch of the gay rights movement, Good Black News today brings you a musical playlist celebrating some of the Black LGBT musical pioneers of the contemporary music era.

Just last year, rapper Lil Nas X made history in multiple ways when his genre-bending country/rap tune, the infectious ‘Old Town Road’ (which, in remixed form, included country star Billy Ray Cyrus), launched on TikTok and headed straight to #1, where it stayed for 19 weeks.

In the process, the 1:53 minute song (which was the shortest song to hit #1 since the mid-1960s), literally became the longest running #1 in chart history, outlasting the 16 week #1 runs of  Mariah  Carey & Boyz II Men’s ‘One Sweet Day’ and Luis Fonsi/Daddy Yankee/Justin Bieber’s ‘Despacito’.

One year ago during Pride Month, in the middle of the song’s #1 run on the charts, Lil Nas X revealed himself to be gay and joined what has become a burgeoning scene of LGBTQ artists among the Gen Z crowd, many of them African-American. Frank Ocean, Kehlani, Brittany Howard, Azealia Banks, Janelle Monae, and Big Freedia are just some of the other artists that have broken through the pack in recent years, publicly claiming their respective LGBTQ identities even as their careers were still on the rise. 

And musically-talented TV personalities such as one-time reality star Todrick Hall, the now notorious, but nevertheless pioneering ‘Empire’ star Jussie Smollett, ‘Glee’ co-star Alex Newell and ‘The Flash’ co-star Keiynan Lonsdale have also helped pave the way, bringing Black, openly LGBT faces into millions of homes.  

Hopping around Spotify in the search for Black LGBT artists now leads to not just these artists, but dozens of other openly LGBT independent artists making it happen in rap, dance, soul, and pop.

It wasn’t always this way, however. So in today’s playlist, we are celebrating 15 significant, pioneering LGBT artists who got their starts between the late 1950s (when the contemporary pop/rock music era began) and the end of the 20th century. The truth is that we’ve always been watching and listening to LGBT artists – the general public just may not have known it at the time.

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Some of these artists we’re celebrating in our list were loud and proud right from the start. With others, we didn’t publicly know they were part of the LGBT community until after they passed away.  

The goal with this list is not to stir up controversy, but rather celebration and re-interpretation – so we’re steering away from the numerous popular artists about whom there are simply rumors.  Perhaps time and the history books will reveal more about the stories of many other artists from an era of music in which most prominent artists remained in the closet.  

For now, it’s interesting to look back at these 15 Black artists and see the array of musical and personal journeys, and examine them anew. We present the artists in roughly chronological order of their career prominence, and feature five songs from each – trying to include early work, a big hit or two and something recent if they are still making music.  

We hope this playlist will both introduce you to some talented but unheralded artists, and help you re-evaluate some artists you may already know and love – and can now see in a new light.  

#AAMAM: Celebrating New Orleans Funk and Soul (LISTEN)

As Good Black News continues to celebrate African-American Music Appreciation Month, today we get regional. In GBN contributor Marlon West‘s words:

“This collection of New Orleans Funk features acknowledged masters next to some of the earlier artists who shaped the meaning of funk. It covers the period from the emergence of New Orleans Funk in the early 1960s through to the present day.

My third #AAMAM mix offers The Meters, Queen Ida, Eddie Bo, Professor Longhair, Lee Dorsey, Wild Magnolias and many more.

New Orleans is a port town. Originally owned by the French. Many of the Africans who ended up there came from Haiti and brought with them the religion of Voodoo and its drums and music.

The Crescent City became one of the first parts of America to develop a strong African-American culture leading to the invention of Jazz.

This playlist offers the sound of the New Orleans Funeral March Bands, Mardi Gras Indian Tribes and Saturday Night Fish Fries.

Enjoy. Stay safe, sane, and kind, you all.”

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(FB: marlon.west1 Twitter: @marlonw IG: stlmarlonwest Spotify: marlonwest)

Marlon West (photo courtesy Marlon West)

#AAMAM: “Summer Breeze” – Celebrating Soulful Summer Songs (LISTEN)

by Jeff Meier (FB: Jeff.Meier.90)

Through good years and bad, years of triumph and years of struggle, there are some things that remain steady.  Like the seasons (at least before climate change).

Today, June 20, is officially the first day of summer, the longest day of the year (for us folks in the Northern Hemisphere), and the welcoming of our warmest weather season.

Packed together this year with Juneteenth yesterday and Father’s Day tomorrow, this weekend can be a true kickoff to summer vacation. Even amid ongoing protests and social distancing rules, school is now over, the grill is now out, the pool is inflated, and maybe, just for a few days, the mood is a little lightened.

And with that, we offer this playlist of “summer” songs – and by that, we mean songs that literally tell you in the title they are about “summer.”

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From the swaying Isley Brothers cover of Seals & Croft‘s “Summer Breeze” to DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince‘s rap anthem “Summertime” to Sly & The Family Stone‘s warm, feel good “Hot Fun in the Summertime'” to the contemporary mellow moods of Childish Gambino‘s “Summertime Magic” (with over 156M Spotify spins), our list is packed with summer classics.

In the process we’ve also hopefully rediscovered some “shoulda-been” classics, like the mostly forgotten Nat King Cole standard ‘This Morning It Was Summer” (with arrangements by Nelson Riddle), the breezy Larry Graham album track “I’m So Glad It’s Summer Again” (trying to capture a little of the “Hot Fun In the Summertime” mood) and the driving ’60s Joe Simon track “Long Hot Summer.”

In the last couple decades, music archivists have uncovered hundreds of previously unreleased Motown tracks – many that measure up to the hits from the ’60s we all know and love. In that vein, we’ve included two sunny Marvelettes tunes “I Can’t Wait Til Summer Comes” (co-written by Gladys Knight) and “So Glad It’s Summertime” that both remained unreleased in the Motown vaults until a 2011 rerelease.

Finally, no soulful “summer” playlist would be complete without the haunting “Summertime” from Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess,one of the most recorded songs in history.

We’ve sprinkled our playlist with musically different takes on this classic, ranging from the ’60s pop hit version by Billy Stewart to the disco instrumental from MFSB to the recent American Idol revival by Fantasia, also including versions by icons like James Brown, Sam Cooke, Ethel Waters, Miles Davis, opera legend Leontyne Price, world music star Angelique Kidjo, and a funky treatment by Bobby Womack with The Roots.

Enjoy!

#AAMAM: “Just A Shot Away” – Rediscovering Legendary Session Singer Merry Clayton (LISTEN)

by Jeff Meier (FB: Jeff.Meier.90)

As part of Good Black News’ celebration of African-American Music Appreciation Month (#AAMAM), we are taking some time to honor quality artists whose music has nevertheless remained unappreciated.  Last week, we brought you a playlist from Ronnie Dyson.

This week we’d like to introduce/re-introduce you to Merry Clayton.

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Back in March 2014, as she was experiencing 50 years in the music business, legendary session singer Merry Clayton got one more chance at stardom when the documentary 20 Feet From Stardom, about the world’s most renowned backup singers, won the Best Documentary Oscar.

The doc brought renewed attention to performers such as Lisa Fischer, Judith Hill, Gloria Jones, and Clayton – whose voices you’ve undoubtedly heard, but whose names are a little less than familiar.

In the early ‘60s, Merry (who got her name because she was born on Christmas day) launched into a music career as a young teen, cutting a few one-off soul singles, and singing duet “Who Can I Count On?” with then 26 year-old pop hitmaker Bobby Darin when she was just a 14 year-old girl with a commanding voice.

Merry Clayton

By the late ‘60s, Merry Clayton’s role as a star backup singer hit its stride on The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” opposite Mick Jagger.  Her cries of “Rape, Murder/It’s just a shot away” are known to any classic rock fan. The story goes that she got the random session call late at night from one of the song’s producers during an all-night mixing session – and showed up in curlers, heavily pregnant, belting out the iconic vocals in just a few takes before heading back home (where she subsequently suffered a miscarriage).

During that same era, Merry Clayton was also one of the backup crew on countless legendary records by Carole King, Joe Cocker, Barbra Streisand, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Linda Ronstadt, Billy Preston, Tori Amos, and, as recently as 2015, Coldplay.

Her prominent rock backup turns earned the attention of rock music producer/impresario Lou Adler, who signed her to his Ode Records label (most famous for Carole King’s Tapestry LP).  In 1972, she further cemented her rock bonafides by appearing as The Acid Queen in the first London stage production of The Who’s rock opera, Tommy.

The very enjoyable 20 Feet (you can check it out on Netflix right now) essentially argued that if only these women had gotten the chance, they could have been big stars.

#AAMAM: From “Fight The Power” to “FTP” – Protest Songs for 2020 (LISTEN)

As Good Black News continues to celebrate African-American Music Appreciation Month, today we bring you a playlist reflecting our current times. In GBN contributor Marlon West‘s words:

“We are all in the midst of the largest demonstration for civil rights in history. People all over the globe have taken to the streets. 2020 has also brought new songs of protest by many artists including YG‘s “FTP,” Che Lingo‘s “My Block,” Tre Songz’ “2020 Riots: How Many Times” and others.

This playlist features those tracks, plus several hip-hop classics such as Kendrick Lamar‘s 2015 protest anthem “Alright,” Beyoncé’s “Formation,” Kendrick and Bey’s collaboration “Freedom,”  “U.N.I.T.Y.” by Queen Latifah, “Fight The Power” by Public Enemy alongside several civil rights anthems from the 1960s and 70s (Donny Hathaway‘s “Someday We’ll All Be Free,” Sam Cooke‘s “A Change is Gonna Come,” Marvin Gaye‘s “What’s Going On”).

Please enjoy. Stay safe and sane out there, you all.”

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(FB: marlon.west1 Twitter: @marlonw IG: stlmarlonwest Spotify: marlonwest)

Marlon West (photo courtesy Marlon West)

#AAMAM: “This Land” – A Psychedelic Soul Collection (LISTEN)

From Marlon West:

“Week 2 of African American Music Appreciation Month. I hope you all are safe and well during these trying times. As you know, much of African American music deals with social upheaval, and today’s offerings are no different.

Psychedelic Soul or Psychedelic Funk  is a genre that borrows overtly from the psychedelia of the late ’60s.

Pioneering acts included Sly and the Family Stone, Jimi Hendrix, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield.

Those grooves had a resurgence during the ’90s neo-soul movement, with Jill Scott, D’Angelo, and Erykah Badu, to name a few.

They’ve been creeping back into the musical zeitgeist since around the start of the 2010s with artists like Gary Clark Jr., Leon Bridges, and Black Pumas. This collection celebrates 50 years of Psychedelic Soul music.

Enjoy! Take good care, you all.”

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(FB: marlon.west1 Twitter: @marlonw IG: stlmarlonwest Spotify: marlonwest)

Marlon West (photo courtesy Marlon West)

#AAMAM: “Sign O’ The Times” – Celebrating Prince and his Protest Music (LISTEN)

We wanted to get this post up earlier, but today? Server issues. Thankfully, those are resolved and Good Black News is happy to grab a moment during African American Music Appreciation Month to honor what would have been the 62nd birthday of the one and only Prince.

His music is legendary, no question, and we could offer a playlist full of his genius output that could keep your ears busy into the end of next week.

But in light of current events – the literal revolution unfolding before us born in Prince’s hometown of Minneapolis – today we offer an appreciation and compilation of Prince’s protest music.

Ever since he started recording, Prince has composed songs addressing war, racism, gender issues, inequality, usury and police brutality.

From well-known singles such as “Controversy,” “1999,” “Pop Life,” and “Sign O’ The Times” to lesser-known album cuts like “PartyUp,” “Colonized Mind,” “Avalanche,” “We March” and “Baltimore,” his 2015 tribute to Freddie Gray, Prince constantly used his unparalleled talent and voice to highlight injustice.

To read more about several of his protest songs, click here. To listen, click below. Power to the New Generation!

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#AAMAM: “Just Don’t Want to Be Lonely” – Rediscovering R&B Singer Ronnie Dyson (LISTEN)

by Jeff Meier (FB: Jeff.Meier.90)

This month, as part of African American Music Appreciation Month, Good Black News will offer a set of playlists rediscovering some pioneering musical talents who should no longer be allowed to slip through the cracks of history.

For R&B music fans, it can be a true thrill to discover (or rediscover) an artist whose music has been sitting under our noses the entire time – the familiar production sounds of an era we love, but with songs we’ve never heard before – or barely remember.

It is in that spirit that today’s playlist honors the late Ronnie Dyson, who would have turned 70 this past week.

“When the moon is in the Seventh House, and Jupiter aligns with Mars…” – in 1968 at the age of just 18 years old, Ronnie Dyson sang the words that captured a generation when, as an original cast member of the the Broadway musical “Hair,” he was picked to solo on “Aquarius,” the hippie anthem that opens and sets the tone for the whole show.

Following his introduction to the world in “Hair” (which also featured such original Broadway cast members as Melba Moore, Diane Keaton and ‘Last Dance’ disco songwriter Paul Jabara), Dyson was immediately propelled onto a career trajectory designed to turn him into a soul star.Dyson signed to Columbia Records in the Clive Davis era and started putting out records – and by 1970, he had his first modest R&B hit, “Why Can’t I Touch You?,” from an off-Broadway show called “Salvation.”

Over the next dozen or so years, though, while he managed to hit the R&B Top 40 eight times, Dyson never really struck chart gold. Most writers discussing Dyson talk about him as an artist coming of age potentially in the wrong era.

With a boyish face and lanky frame – and a gospel-infused, higher register tenor voice that sometimes made you wonder whether a man or a woman was singing, perhaps Dyson (and his penchant for standards and big ballads) was out of place during a time of sexy, more traditionally masculine vocalists like Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes, Barry White and Teddy Pendergrass.

Nevertheless, in trying to find that elusive smash, Columbia teamed Dyson up with some very skilled producers, including Thom Bell & Linda Creed (The Stylistics, The Spinners and more) and later, Chuck Jackson & Marvin Yancy (who had launched Natalie Cole‘s career).  And in the process, they created some unsung classics.

Today, the Bell & Creed produced One Man Band album feels like a true lost Philly Soul masterpiece. It generated Dyson’s dramatic original version of “Just Don’t Want to Be Lonely,” later a hit for The Main Ingredient, as well as the beautiful ballad “Give In To Love,” later covered by such artists as Dee Dee Bridgewater and Sister Sledge.

Listening to the two albums Jackson & Yancy produced for Dyson, you’ll note similarities between songs like “Close to You” and the hits that Natalie Cole had that same year. (Late in her career, Natalie actually covered a Dyson tune from this era, ‘The More You Do It.’)

Across all his records, Dyson proves to have almost Luther Vandross-like interpretive skills in covering great songs of the era, from stunning versions of “A Song For You,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “Love Won’t Let Me Wait,” and Beatles standard “Something” – to more esoteric covers of Laura Nyro‘s “Emmie,” “Jesus Is Just Alright” (the Doobie Brothers song), and a soulful take on Hall & Oates “Sara Smile.”

Ultimately, after waning career fortunes, Dyson’s last major label release arrived in 1983 (though, ironically, this underperforming Brand New Day LP did manage to yield a prominent club hit, “All Over Your Face,” that is by far Dyson’s most streamed Spotify song today). Unfortunately, reported drug issues sent Dyson’s health on a downward spiral – he passed away of heart failure in 1990 at the age of 40.

In 1986, several years before he passed away, then rising young filmmaker Spike Lee recognized Dyson’s stellar talents, hiring him to sing the vocal version of the composition “Nola” for Lee’s debut movie ‘She’s Gotta Have It’.  Unfortunately, this song is unavailable on Spotify (seek it out on youtube.com).

But fortunately, most of Dyson’s other recorded work is available for you to rediscover now during the 70th anniversary of his birth. We’ve populated this playlist with all his hits, plus many other highlights that will have you reliving that nostalgic mid-70s sound, by way of a spectacular and unique voice that shouldn’t be forgotten.

You are not likely to find these songs on your local oldies radio station.  But they should be.  Enjoy!

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