The Sunday Six

I hope everyone is spending a great weekend and like to invite you to join me on another Sunday excursion into the beautiful world of music. As always, the travel itinerary includes six stops in six different decades with tracks in different flavors. Let’s do it!

Dexter Gordon/I Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Cry

Our trip today starts with relaxing jazz by Dexter Gordon, an American tenor saxophonist, composer and bandleader who fellow blogger Randy from Mostly Music Covers brought to my attention recently. Gordon is recognized as one of the most influential early bebop musicians. Between 1940 and 1986, he recorded numerous albums as a leader and as a sideman for the likes of Louis Armstrong, Benny Carter, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton and Herbie Hancock. Gordon included an instrumental rendition of I Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Cry, a 1944 torch song and jazz standard, with music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Sammy Cahn, on his studio album Go!, released in December 1962. He was backed by Sonny Clark (piano), Butch Warren (bass) and Billy Higgins (drums).

Joe Ely/Musta Notta Lotta Gotta

Let’s pick up the speed with a neat rock & roll song by Joe Ely, another great artist who was recommended to me a while ago, by Max, writer of the PowerPop blog. The Texan singer-songwriter and guitarist became one of the most influential artists on the Austin progressive country scene in the 1970s and ’80s. Musta Notta Lotta Gotta is the title track of Ely’s fourth studio album that came out in 1981. The fun song, penned by Ely, has a bit of a Jerry Lee Lewis Great Balls of Fire vibe!

John Mellencamp/Troubled Man

Our next stop takes us back to the current century. In September 2014, heartland-turned-roots-rock singer-songwriter John Mellencamp released his 22nd studio album Plain Spoken. Like the soundtrack to Mellencamp’s musical Ghost Brothers of Darkland County (2013) and his previous two studio albums No Better Than This (2010) and Life, Death, Love and Freedom (2008), Plain Spoken was produced by T Bone Burnett. During Mellencamp’s tour that supported the album, country singer-songwriter Carlene Carter was the opening act. Eventually, this led to their great 2017 collaboration album Sad Clowns & Hillbillies. Here’s Plain Spoken’s opener and first single Troubled Man.

Little Richard/Ready Teddy

Let’s jump back 57 years coz that how we roll on The Sunday Six; or rock & roll in this case. While he called himself Little Richard, the flamboyant artist was a giant of ’50s rock & roll. One of the most exciting performers, Richard also wrote and co-wrote gems like Tutti Frutti, Slippin’ and Slidin’, Long Tall Sally and Jenny, Jenny. These were all songs on his March 1957 debut album Here’s Little Richard. As was common at the time, it essentially was a compilation of Richard’s singles that had appeared earlier. One of four non-originals songs on the album is the amazing Ready Teddy. It was co-written by John Marascalco and Robert Blackwell and first recorded by Richard. Feel free to snip along!

Emerson, Lake & Palmer/Lucky Man

Let’s now head to November 1970 and the eponymous debut album by Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Aka. ELP, the English progressive rock supergroup had been formed earlier that year by Keith Emerson (keyboards; formerly of Nice), Greg Lake (vocals, bass, guitars, producer; formerly of King Crimson) and Carl Palmer (drums, percussion; formerly of Atomic Rooster). While much of progressive rock hasn’t been love at first sight for me, I immediately dug Lucky Man, which Lake had written as a 12-year-old on the acoustic guitar. Admittedly, the folk rock-oriented song is not what you typically associate with progressive rock. The Moog synthesizer solo by Emerson at the end is one of the first rock compositions to feature a Moog as a solo instrument.

Donald Fagen/Trans-Island Skyway

We’re reaching our sixth stop, which means time to wrap up another Sunday music mini-excursion. Let’s end it on a groovy note with a song by Donald Fagen from his second solo album Kamakiriad, released in May 1993. The concept album revolving around the the protagonist’s travel in a high-tech car, the Kamakiri (Japanese for praying mantis), marked Fagen’s first collaboration with his then-ex Steely Dan partner Walter Becker who served as producer and played guitar and bass. Here’s Trans-Island Skyway, penned by Fagen who also wrote most of the other songs by himself.

Last but not least, here’s a Spotify playlist of the above tracks. As always, I hope there’s something you like!

Sources: Wikipedia; YouTube; Spotify