Category: Music

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Recognize this tune?

A cover/interpretation of one my favorite classic songs  from 1970… or any year for that matter. The way the voices of this group blend together reminds me of possibly my favorite group of all time, Crosby, Stills & Nash.

Enjoy Laredo singing El Boxeador.

If you enjoyed El Boxeador, try this one: LAREDO – El Último Guateque (1977). Even if you do not understand the words, it has a nice beat. The song title translates as The Final Party. I do wonder if the gentleman in the middle was going for a Frank Zappa look.

Currently, I am reading a novel in Spanish, Gatos Callejeros by Juan Fernández, set in the  period just after the death of the Spanish dictator, Franco. The chapter titles are songs that were popular in Spain during this period.  All of the book’s songs can be found on YouTube. It has been interesting delving into another culture from another time.

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Señora Attends Allegro 2024 Summer Camp

Just in case you are not a long time reader (tehehe) of my silly little blog, Allegro is a choral group for persons 50 and over.  Señora repeatedly tells me that she just loves being around so many talented folks.

Señora is on the first row, second from the left in the opening shot.  She is also to be seen at various points during the video.  Enjoy the music.

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Allegro “We Will Rock You” 2024 Spring Concert

Allegro, a choir for those who are 50+, is one of the two choirs that Señora is currently singing in.  Señora is the very pretty lady just to the left of the choir director, generally the second person from the left, sitting.  They filled this large church – no association other than they can use it to practice and as a performance venue – to the capacity, with more than 600 souls.

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Raye live at SWR3 New Pop Festival 2023

If you got an hour to spend, this is an incredible concert Raye did in Baden-Baden, Germany.  She plays most of the songs off her debut album, 21st Century Blues, and a few more. She also talks in between offerings about the roots of each song which I found very interesting. She has hip hop/rap roots, so at times, the language is a little rough, but  that is the state of music now days.  Don’t let that put you off such an incredible talent.

I was reading an article that claimed she was creating her own genre of music.  She certainly does blend many styles into wonderfully different musical experience.  I love it when she goes off on those jazz riffs.

Yup, bit stuck on her music right now.

And so it goes.

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Raye… Oscar Winning Tears (Live at the Royal Albert Hall)

 

For many years Saturday Night Live had entered a trough that made it less than must watch TV.  Aside from that, over much of its history the music acts were far from my favorite part of the show.

This season seems to be a different story with the artists they are bringing on. I saw this young lady (same age as my oldest granddaughter) , Raye, on SNL and  enjoyed it  sufficiently enough to buy her CD 21st Century Blues, even though it is a little different than what I usually listen to. But then Señora and I both describe our musical taste as eclectic.  Raye mixes many genre and makes them all work together wonderfully.

This is one heck of a production, but my favorite part was her reaction at the end when she realized she and this huge orchestra and chorus had absolutely nailed the performance.

As mentioned in my post, My Musical Roots?, a while back I put Señora’s and mine combined CD collection (600) on a home server, and I am using media server software, Emby, to feed the collection to our various wi-fi devices around the house. The software tagged our collection with 72 different genre.  Eclectic, indeed.

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Brooks & Dunn – Neon Moon

Warning:  This song is a bit of an earwig.  I just want to share the delightful pain of that imaginary burrowing insect, although I suppose earwigs could apply to other things than songs.

I made reference to this song in my posting: My Musical Roots?, since then I have played this YouTube video about 20 times.  As mentioned,  back in the 90s, my pick-em-up radio had decided to only feed me AM stations, leaving me with nothing but country stations for music. I had experienced a double whammy I really do not need to get into here. At the time it seemed like they were playing this song at least once an hour. Talk about a crying in your beer song… does that still hold true if it is a dark ale instead of a Busch Light? Bud Light? Coors Light?  Cowboys and rednecks  like their light beers. I reckon, though, that sometimes a girl just needs to wallow in her nostalgia.

All that aside it is a great song, if you like country music.  This video has had 46 million views in the last two years.  Not bad for a song released in 1992.

Remember I warned you.

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My Musical Roots?         

A love of music is something that Señora and I share.  An important inflection point in our courtship story, Señora and the Curmudgeon, was our second date, an indoor Bluegrass music festival taking place in St. Louis that first winter of our romance.

Shared Musical Loves

Bluegrass seems to be a style of music that you either love or you look at the other person thinking, “WTF.”  Obviously, we both are fans.  Our other commonality in the realm of music is that we both have very eclectic taste, liking a wide array of musical styles.  Although, our favorite genres are folk music and a style of roots fusion music that is referred to as Americana.

 Musical Talent

One key musical difference between the two of us is Continue reading “My Musical Roots?         “

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One Sexy Video | Paradise By The Dashboard Lights

I fell down the Meat Loaf YouTube rabbit hole.

Oh… I remember why.  I made a comment to someone (DFR), “as Meat Loaf once famously said, ‘two out of three ain’t bad.'” This lead me to look up the song on YouTube: Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad I can’t hardly listen to this song without a tear or two coming to my eyes. But then again I have way too many ghosts of past relationships rattling around my psychic, soul, or however you want to express it.

More Than I Thought

Which made me wonder if Meat Loaf was still with us. No. He died in 2022 at 74, probably of complications of COVID.  To show my ignorance, I always thought of Meat Loaf as a one album wonder, Bat Out of Hell and a one film wonder, Rocky Horror Picture Show.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  He had a long career, both as a musician and as an actor of both film and theater.  He sold millions and millions of albums world wide.  His Bat Out of Hell alone sold 43 million, was certified platinum 14x, and spent almost a record of 522 weeks on the charts.

Paradise By The Dashboard Lights

I have listened to this song an unknowable number of times. It was and is a staple of rock radio.  However, I have never seen the video of him singing this classic with Ellen Foley, who is from St. Louis.  The video is more than a little sexy without being vulgar. The song by itself is just about a perfect encapsulation of the drama that is the relationship between men and women.  What is the conventional  wisdom? Women give sex to get love, men give love to get sex. As one my siblings commonly says, “true dat!”

The Video

And so it goes.

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