*But the feeling that you're under can really make you wonder...*

The White Stripes have been a part of my music collection for quite a while now, though, I think I first became aware of them because of an episode of Gilmore Girls. The first album I purchased was White Blood Cells because of the song loud, punk-like song, “Fell In Love With A Girl”. It wasn’t until a year later that I heard Get Behind Me Satan and quickly fell in love with the entire album – and it’s still my favorite of their albums.

 

But instead of going album by album today, I’m just gonna do a quick inventory of my favorite White Stripes tunes. “Truth Doesn’t Make A Noise” is fantastic for the amazing and addictive guitar riff and the piano’s response to the riff. “The Denial Twist” was my favorite for a very long time for the fun, dance-y, ‘60s feel. “I’m Bound To Pack It Up” is very reminiscent of Led Zeppelin to me – but I love the acoustic guitar and minimal percussion. “I Want To Be The Boy To Warm Your Mother’s Heart” is awesome because of the featured slide guitar (I do love slide guitar!). More recently, I’ve found myself entirely addicted to the noisy “There’s No Home For You Here”. I love the harmonies and the driving guitar, but my favorite part is the bridge – and of course, the guitar is pretty impressive as well. “Apple Blossom” is another song that sounds like it was ripped right out of the ‘60s and I love it. Of course, there are numerous songs of theirs I could include in this list, but I am a bit pressed for time today, so that will have to wait for a later date…

 

But the thing I really love about The White Stripes is how bare their recordings are. Those oddly rustic guitars, the boyish vocals, the simple drumming, it all sounds out of place in this era, as if Jack and Meg White stayed under a rock for a quarter century and then came out and started making music. I mean, it’s just what it is… it’s not over dressed, not over produced. It is just plain and simple rock and roll. Fabulous! Love the way Jack uses piano in so much of his music. And Meg? No, she’s not a great drummer, but what she adds is a raw quality, that any technically talented drummer would completely destroy.  Somehow, though, the band’s stripped-down sound and lo-fi production just works. Jack White combines his acoustic guitar strumming with lots of bluesy licks and riffs, and Meg's insistent drumming propels the songs forward effectively. The vocals are another high point, as Jack comes out sounding like Mick Jagger and at other times sounds boyishly innocent. Music made by two people, sounding like it was recorded in a garage, has no right to pack this much of a punch. But it does. The conviction the White Stripes bring to their music alone would be enough to give them a listen.

Dancin' Through the Decades

So… this post isn’t going to be strictly about music, but I do think music and dance do go hand in hand a bit.

 

I’ve been thoroughly infatuated with popular dances of the past 100 years or so. To me, it’s fascinating to watch how dance has evolved throughout history, and it evolves just as the music evolves. You also can see influences from earlier dances in more recent dances. It’s crazy to think about the fact that during the 1910s, there was a craze of Animal Dances, like the Fox Trot, Kangaroo Hop, Duck Waddle, Chicken Scratch, Turkey Trot, or Grizzly Bear. From my research, they all seem to be fairly similar, one-step ballroom type dances. What’s also rather amusing to me is that when the Fox Trot first came on the scene, it was considered shocking

 

The 1920s is one of my favorite eras – especially in dance. It’s just so much about letting go and having a good time – and The Charleston is so much fun (and a pretty good cardio workout). There was also The Black Bottom, The Shimmy, and The Varsity Drag. As I’ve gotten better at these dances, I’m finding they’re all pretty easy to combine, but of course when you’re dancing in this style, it’s helpful to have 1920s jazz on. It makes it a lot more fun.  In the 1930s, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers style ballroom dancing was at the forefront of popular dance and as “jazz” merged into “swing” through the late 1930s and early 1940s, a number of swing dances became popular, like the Lindy Hop or the Jitterbug. There were also a number of Latin dances, like the Rumba, that caught on while on the dance floors. I thoroughly enjoy swing dancing, though, it’s really hard to properly swing dance without a partner!

 

As Rock ‘n’ Roll became popular, the Jive joined the Jitterbug on the dance floor – most of the rock ‘n’ roll dancing was a more wild version of swing dancing from decades before. Also, the Hand Jive and the Stroll made some appearances throughout the decade. A hybrid of the Rumba and Swing evolved as well, known as the Mambo. The ‘60s is one of my favorite decades of dance, because it’s so bouncy and fun – kind of like the style in the ‘20s. And you don’t need a partner – which is good for me because I can’t always find someone willing to dance with me! The Twist is probably the most famous of the 1960s dances, but there were a ton of jerky Mod dances – like The Pony, the Watusi, the Swim, the Monkey, the Jerk, the Freddy, and the Mashed Potato.  As the ‘60s rolled on, Psychedelic dances started – which are completely experimental and freeform and all about “feeling the music”. And of course in the 1970s, we’ve got the explosion of disco. I don’t know too many disco dances, but I think I’ve perfected The Hustle! I’ve yet to do too much research on dances of the 1980s and 1990s (though, I think I can remember the Macarena), and I don’t know if I could ever bring myself to do the Gangnam Style dance…

 

I think, however, my favorite dance from a previous decade at the moment wasn’t even really a popular dance craze. While I was doing my research on dances from the 1970s, I ran across the music video of Kate Bush’s song, “Wuthering Heights”. I love the song, but had never seen the video before. I think her style of dance would fit more in the freeform, psychedelic area, and while it may look a little silly as I dance with Kate in my living room, it’s a whole lot of fun!

 

Top 40 of the '60s

For the past several months I’ve become a bit infatuated with Top 40 stations from the mid-‘60s, particularly a local station that I parents listened to while growing up. I found a website with a ton of airchecks between 1963 and 1968 and while you don’t hear much music (it’s mostly just the DJs talking and old commercials), it has caused me to branch out and hunt down some of the songs from the time period. Some were very easy to find, but some were songs released by local bands, and those were particularly hard to get my hands on.

As you’re probably aware by now, I have a pretty large music collection and have an affinity for the ‘60s, but there were a ton of songs released during that decade and I only owned a small fraction of it. Of course, I had all The Beatles songs and quite a bit of The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, The Mamas & The Papas, The Beach Boys, The Doors, The Who, The Kinks and The Monkees, but there were a number of songs that were pretty good sized hits that I had either not heard before or never paid much attention to.

“Red Rubber Ball” by the Cyrkle is one of those songs that I’d heard but didn’t really know. Co-written by Paul Simon with a happy tune, it’s a song I really enjoy. And the lyrics – I like the sentiment of being okay with the end of a relationship, particularly the chorus: “I think it’s gonna be alright. Yeah, the worse is over now. The morning sun is shining like a red rubber ball.”

“Sunny” by Bobby Hebb is another song that I’d heard and never listened to the various nuances of the song that make it so great – and one of the most covered popular songs. I think because the song has been covered so many times, I didn’t immediately make the connection that it was originally from the ‘60s. There were a couple other songs that I also hadn’t realized were from the ‘60s. One was “But It’s Alright” by J. J. Jackson and the other was “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” by Jimmy Ruffin – which has a very popular song on my playlist in the last few months. It’s really an amazing song – I really enjoy the last 28 seconds of the song, but I always enjoy the bits of songs that the vocalist is adlibbing a bit off of the original melody.

The Association’s “Along Comes Mary” is another one I’ve become hooked on in the last year or so. It’s got kind of an unusual melody and some pretty cool harmonies (though, it is The Association, so that should be expected)… And there’s a jazzy flute solo, which is something you don’t hear much these days. It’s also pretty fun to sing because some of the lyrics aren’t words you hear a lot and the rhythm of the words is kind of unique.

“Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me” was originally recorded in the early ‘50s, but Mel Carter’s version released in ’65 may be the definitive version.  “Cara Mia” by Jay and the Americans tends to make me giggle a little. Not because it’s a bad song or not well performed, mostly because it’s so different from a lot of what you hear now and even back when it was released in 1965. It was a pretty big hit… I think it topped out around #4 – and Jay could really hold those high notes. I really should look up the lyrics because there are pieces of the song that I just end up singing gibberish.

“I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)” by the Four Tops and “Get Ready” by The Temptations are great Motown tracks that I had kind of disregarded until recently – and I’m not quite sure why. I probably had just heard them too much on the local oldies station or something so I never stopped to really listen to them. I had originally only known the song, “You’re the One” sung by Petula Clark, but I’ve found that I prefer The Vogues’ version. “Because” by The Dave Clark Five is a lovely ballad and I ended up hunting down Chad & Jeremy’s song, “My How The Time Goes By” after seeing them on The Dick Van Dyke Show (in an episode that satirized Beatlemania). “Catch the Wind” by Donovan is a gorgeous melody with some very lovely lyrics. I think it’s a tune that’s often mistaken for something written by Dylan… and it is definitely Dylan-esque with the acoustic guitar and harmonica. “Nowhere to Run” by Martha and the Vandellas is a great, driving song – and love the snow chain percussion. It gives the song a pretty distinctive style. “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” by The Supremes is another song I seemed to have disregarded in the past. I do have a tendency to get a little bored with The Supremes sometimes, because all of their songs have a very similar sound, but this is a really like this song. I really appreciate the sentiment behind it – though last year, I related it directly to my job – at least the chorus. And there are a couple Barbara Lewis songs I really like - "Baby I'm Yours" and "Make Me Belong To You". She really does a very good vocal performance on both tunes, though, I think I may be a little more partial to the latter (and it has a nice little keyboard interlude).

“The Game of Love” by Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders is a song I was really infatuated with when I downloaded it this past spring. There’s so much in this song that I feel is noteworthy, the drum beat, the twangy guitar, and use of tambourine. And I really like how the tempo picks up during the bridge then stops and goes back into the original tempo… Yeah, I dig that. “I Go To Pieces” is my favorite Peter & Gordon song … I really like the piano bit during the chorus.

Paul Revere & The Raiders are very new to my music collection and were added specifically because of the airchecks I had found from the old radio stations. Up until then, I’d really only known them for “Indian Reservation” and that is not one of my favorite songs. Their stuff from the mid-‘60s is pretty good though. The first song of theirs I added to my collection was “Kicks”… Great guitar riff in that song. A few other songs that are worth mentioning are “Hungry”, “Him or Me, What’s It Gonna Be”, and “Too Much Talk”.

There were 2 groups that I did discover solely because of my aircheck research: The Excels and The Aerovons. The Excels were a Michigan based blue-eyed soul group… My favorite of their songs (the few I was able to locate, that is) is “Little Innocent Girl”. The Aerovons were a psychedelic - Beatle-esque group from St. Louis. The song “Resurrection” is my favorite.

Dino, Desi & Billy are the latest of the mid-‘60s groups I’ve gotten into. I’m quite aware that they aren’t the most talented band of the ‘60s – not by a long shot, but some of their songs, like “If You’re Thinking What I’m Thinking” are just plain fun, and in my book, it’s okay to have songs just for fun. And the video for the song “Thru Spray Colored Glasses” is something I find very amusing. I’m all about the transistor radio hanging from the rearview mirror and the random ‘60s dancing!