What music are you listening to

[bluepunk18]

Tom Waits, Somewhere (from west side story), amongst others in a playlist.

[GDCarrington]

Mike Nesmith - Long Black Veil





Robert Michael Nesmith was born on December 30, 1942 in Houston, TX. His mother, Bette invented liquid paper and would later leave the $20 million estate to him. Affectionately nicknamed "Nez," he learned to play saxophone as a young child and would join the United States Air Force years later. After two years in the Air Force, he left to pursue a career in folk music. In the mid-60s, he left home to move to Los Angeles, CA, with the intent of getting into the movie business. During this time he formed the duo, "Mike & John" and recorded several solo singles under the name "Michael Blessing."


With hopes of getting a job as a songwriter, Mike auditioned for The Monkees in late-1965. While still a member of The Monkees, Mike's first solo album, "The Wichita Train Whistle Sings," was released in 1968 and reached No. 144 on Billboard's charts. Also in 1968, "Different Drum" a Nez written song, became a major hit for Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys. By 1970, Mike had left The Monkees to form The First National Band, which would begin his successful solo career as the "Father of Country-Rock." Mike and The First National Band would sign to RCA Victor and release two albums in 1970, "Magnetic South" and "Loose Salute." Along with the albums, "Joanne" reached No. 6 on the Adult Contemporary charts and No. 21 on the Pop charts, and "Silver Moon" peaked at No. 7 on the Adult Contemporary charts and No. 42 on the Pop charts. In 1971, The Second National Band was formed to release "Nevada Fighter" that year and "Tantamount to Treason" in 1972. In 1972 the band separated and Nez was left to record "And the Hits Keep Comin.'" After 1973's "Pretty Much Your Standard Stash," Michael left RCA Victor to form Pacific Arts in 1974, after the failure of his "Countryside" label. In 1977, the hit single, "Rio," and its accompanying album "From a Radio Engine to a Photon Wing" were released as was Nez's TV chart show "Pop Clips." The show further developed Mike's idea of music videos, which was later bought from him by Warner who developed it into MTV. 1978 brought "Infinite Rider on the Big Dogma," which would turn out to be his last album for over a decade. While he held off on his music career, Mike produced short films for "Saturday Night Live" and "Fridays" in 1979.


By the early-80s rolled around, Pacific Arts was one of the most successful companies in the country and Nez had won the first ever Grammy for "Best Music Video" in 1982, with "Elephant Parts." He even starred in his own comedy TV series called, "Michael Nesmith In Television Parts" that aired on NBC for eight episodes. After making two guest appearances with The Monkees in 1986 and 1989, he released his first album in over 10 years in 1992, titled, "...Tropical Campfires..." Nez supplied background vocals for Peter Tork's 1994 solo album as well as releasing his own solo album "The Garden," which was nominated for a Grammy Award in the new age category. For most of 1996 and early 1997, Mike participated in The Monkees' 30th Anniversary. During this time, he also formed a new company, Videoranch, which would be the home of his past and future projects. Nez showed he was a worth novelist in 1998 when his first novel, The Long Sandy Hair Of Neftoon Zamora, was released. He spent 1999 touring the country to promote the book, which would be released on audio CD in 2002. Also, near the turn of the century, Nez won over $47 million in a court case with PBS that had destroyed Pacific Arts.


Now Nez is keeping busy re-issuing his solo material on compact disk and video through Videoranch. In 2006, he's trying to find a publisher for his already-finished second novel, The American Gene, and will release his new solo album "Rays," which could lead to a promotional tour.


http://www.monkeesrule43.com/mikebio.html

[mdevine]

Smokey Robinson- My World: The Definitive Collection

[El-a-Menthol]

[GDCarrington]

Don't Get Around Much Anymore. Ukulele. Parker Coleman ala Lyle Ritz

[El-a-Menthol]

[GDCarrington]

Prisoner Of Love - Billy Eckstine And His Orchestra

[GDCarrington]

A Friend Of Yours - Glen Gray - Skip Nelson (Vocal)

[GDCarrington]

Me'shell Ndegeocello - I'm Diggin' You (like n old soul record)live at North Sea Jazz 1996

[GDCarrington]

Me'Shell Ndege'Ocello - Plantation Lullabies

[El-a-Menthol]

[GDCarrington]

Sting - Mercury Falling



Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner - Born: October 02, 1951

After disbanding the Police at the peak of their popularity in 1984, Sting quickly established himself as a viable solo artist, one obsessed with expanding the boundaries of pop music. Sting incorporated heavy elements of jazz, classical, and worldbeat into his music, writing lyrics that were literate and self-consciously meaningful, and he was never afraid to emphasize this fact in the press. For such unabashed ambition, he was equally loved and reviled, with supporters believing that he was at the forefront of literate, intelligent rock and his critics finding his entire body of work pompous. Either way, Sting remained one of pop's biggest superstars for the first ten years of his solo career, before his record sales began to slip.

Before the Police were officially disbanded, Sting began work on his first solo album late in 1984, rounding up a group of jazz musicians as a supporting band. Moving from bass to guitar, he recorded his solo debut, 1985's The Dream of the Blue Turtles, with BranfordMarsalis, Kenny Kirkland, and Omar Hakim. The move wasn't entirely unexpected, since Sting had played with jazz and progressive rock bands in his youth, but the result was considerably more mature and diverse than any Police record. The album became a hit, with "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free," "Love Is the Seventh Wave," and "Fortress Around Your Heart" reaching the American Top Ten. Sting brought the band out on an extensive tour and filmed the proceedings for a 1986 documentary called Bring on the Night, which appeared alongside a live double album of the same name. That year, Sting participated in a half-hearted Police reunion that resulted in only one new song, a re-recorded version of "Don't Stand So Close to Me."

Following the aborted Police reunion, Sting began working on the ambitious Nothing Like the Sun, which was dedicated to his recently deceased mother. Proceeding from a jazz foundation, and again collaborating with Marsalis, Sting worked with a number of different musicians on the album, including Gil Evans and former Police guitarist AndySummers. The album received generally positive reviews upon its release in late 1987, and it generated hit singles with "We'll Be Together" and "They Dance Alone." Following its release, Sting began actively campaigning for Amnesty International and environmentalism, establishing the Rainforest Foundation, which was designed to raise awareness about preserving the Brazilian rainforest. An abridged Spanish version of Nothing Like the Sun, Nada Como el Sol, was released in 1988.

Sting took several years to deliver the follow-up to Nothing Like the Sun, during which time he appeared in a failed Broadway revival of The Threepenny Opera in 1989. His father also died, which inspired 1991's The Soul Cages, a dense, dark, and complex album. Although the album peaked at number two and spawned the Top Ten hit "All This Time," the record was less successful than its predecessor. Two years later, he delivered Ten Summoner's Tales, a light, pop-oriented record that became a hit on the strength of two Top 20 singles, "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You" and "Fields of Gold." At the end of 1993, "All for Love," a song he recorded with Rod Stewart and BryanAdams for The Three Musketeers, became a number one hit. The single confirmed that Sting's audience had shifted from new wave/college rock fans to adult contemporary, and the 1994 compilation Fields of Gold: The Best of Sting played to that new fan base.

Three years after Ten Summoner's Tales, Sting released Mercury Falling in the spring of 1996. Although the album debuted highly, it quickly fell down the charts, stalling at platinum sales and failing to generate a hit single. Although the album failed, Sting remained a popular concert attraction, a feat that confirmed his immense popularity regardless of his chart status. Released in 1999, Brand New Day turned his commercial fortunes around in a big way, though, eventually going triple-platinum and earning two Grammy Awards. Issued in 2003, Sacred Love also did well, and Sting spent several years with the reunited Police before returning to his solo game for 2009's If on a Winter's Night.... One year later, he hit the road alongside the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, who added their own symphonic arrangements to his material. Symphonicities, a companion CD, and Live in Berlin, released in conjunction with the world tour, arrived that same year.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

http://www.starpulse.com/Music/Sting/Biography/

[GDCarrington]

Michael Sembello (born April 17, 1954) is an American musician and songwriter from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Career

Sembello was born and raised in Philadelphia. He studied with jazz great Pat Martino and began his career as a professional musician by becoming a session musician, working increasingly with high-profile artists as a studio guitarist. The list of pop music personalities he worked with, or wrote for, includes Stevie Wonder (from 1974 to 1979), The Temptations, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Chaka Khan, George Benson, Barbra Streisand, Stanley Clarke, David Sanborn, Donna Summer, Miguel Mateos and New Edition among many others.

He released his first solo album, Bossa Nova Hotel in 1983, and the song "Maniac" was selected for inclusion in the movie Flashdance. This song went on to become the third highest grossing song from a soundtrack. His contribution to that soundtrack was rewarded with a Grammy Award in 1983 for Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or a Television Special.

Sembello produced guitarist Jennifer Batten's first solo album, ''Above Below and Beyond'' in 1992. In 1994, he produced Argentine singer Valeria Lynch's album Caravana de Sueños (1994), and co-wrote the title song with Puerto Rican Wilkins Vélez.

Sembello has spent much of his career scoring music to soundtracks for movies and film, some of which have achieved blockbuster commercial success. They are featured on such movies as Cocoon, Gremlins, Summer Lovers, The Monster Squad and Independence Day, among many others.

In 2008, Michael Sembello worked with saxophonist Michael Lington on his album Heat,[5] which was nominated as Jazztrax Album of the Year for 2008. Michael and his brother Danny Sembello penned three songs with Lington for the project. Sembello travels to Brazil frequently and is good friends with Daniel Jobim, the grandson of legendary composer Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Sembello has recorded his vocals in six languages and is continually writing, producing and releasing albums. In May 2009 the allbum "Moon Island" was released on EMI Japan. The award-winning album consists of American pop songs given new arrangements with a strong Brazilian influence.

He is recording a new album set to be released in the Fall of 2011. He intends to include the song "Carousel," the missing track from Michael Jackson's Thriller album (Quincy Jones decided to replace "Carousel" at the last minute with "Human Nature"). On the 25th Anniversary Edition of Thriller a portion of the song "Carousel" was included (with the uncut version appearing on a few editions of the King of Pop compilations).

Michael Sembello continues to tour, write, produce and perform all over the world. Over the last year he performed in Ambon, Indonesia, Barcelona, Rome, Milan and Paris. In the spring of 2010, Coca-Cola UK kicked off their new Diet Coke campaign with Sembello's version of "Maniac."
Discography
Albums

1983: Bossa Nova Hotel – #80 U.S.
1986: Without Walls
1992: Caravan of Dreams
1997: Backwards in Time
2002: Ancient Future
2003: The Lost Years

Singles

1983: "Maniac" – #1 U.S. #43 UK
1983: "Automatic Man" – #34 U.S.
1985: "Gravity" (from the film, Cocoon)
1985: "Talk"
1986: "Tear Down the Walls"
1986: "Wonder Where You Are"
1992: "Heavy Weather"

http://www.fireradio.co.uk/music/art...-sembello/bio/

[El-a-Menthol]

[GDCarrington]

Rendezvous in Rio - Michael Franks



Michael Franks occupied a uniquely popular niche in the world of soft jazz and pop music in the 1970s; he was one of those crossover artists who defied easy category on the radio (which made him ideal for FM radio of the period), and found an audience mostly among college students. He was born in La Jolla, CA in 1944, the son of Gerald and Betty Franks. His parents weren't musicians, but they were music lovers and he was soon immersed in swing music and vocal jazz and pop. Franks' early idols included such jazz-cum-pop legends as Nat King Cole and Peggy Lee, as well as composers and lyricists such as Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Johnny Mercer. His first instrument was the guitar, and he got the only formal instruction of his life -- a total of six private lessons that came with his first instrument -- at age 14.

He was drawn to poetry as a high school student, especially the work of Theodore Roethke,, and began singing and playing folk-rock during this period. Franks majored in English and then Comparative Literature at UCLA and also embraced the music of Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz, João Gilberto, and Antonio Carlos Jobim, among others. He never studied music in college, however, and seemed on track toward teaching American literature as the '60s drew to a close. It was during this period that he started writing songs, which led him to compose an anti-war musical entitled Anthems in E-flat, a piece that found life as a workshop production starring a young Mark Hammill. He also began to get some film work, including music for Monte Hellman's Cockfighter and Jan Troell's Zandy's Bride (both 1974), the latter starring Liv Ullmann and Gene Hackman. He also saw some success as a songwriter courtesy of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, who recorded three of his songs, "White Boy Lost in the Blues," "Jesus Gonna Make in Alright," and "You Bring Out the Boogie in Me," on their A&M Records album Sonny & Brownie (1973). Franks also played guitar, banjo, and mandolin on that album and the accompanying tour. That same year, he recorded his self-titled debut album for the short-lived Brut label (founded and owned by the men's cologne company).

It was three years before his next album, The Art of Tea, appeared. The latter, which featured the work of top jazz session players Larry Carlton, Joe Sample, and Wilton Felder, was his first serious commercial and critical success, its sales driven by the presence of the hit single "Popsicle Toes." It also established Franks' sound, with its smooth jazz textures and crossover pop appeal. He enjoyed a string of successes over the next few years, including the hit "The Lady Wants to Know" (on Sleeping Gypsy), "When I Give My Love to You," "Monkey See, Monkey Do," "Rainy Night In Tokyo," and "Tell Me All About It." His music also evolved over this period, embraced Latin (especially Brazilian) influences and, later, adopted a New York jazz sound in tandem with his move to the east coast, and he collaborated with more major players, including Ron Carter, David Sanborn, the Crusaders, Toots Thielemans, and Eric Gale. Meanwhile, he also became prominent as a songwriter, his material covered by the Manhattan Transfer, the Carpenters, Patti LaBelle, and Carmen McCrae, among others, while his own albums began featuring prominent guest vocalists, among them Bonnie Raitt, Flora Purim, and Kenny Rankin.

Franks reached his commercial peak with the album Passionfruit (1983) and the accompanying hit "When Sly Call (Don't Touch That Phone)." His later records showed a slackening of focus and a fall-off in both his appeal and sales, although 1990's Blue Pacific marked a comeback, after a three-year lay-off. He continued to mine his fascination with Brazilian music into the '90s, including one album, Abandoned Garden (1995), dedicated to the memory of Antonio Carlos Jobim, and cut a duet with his longtime idol Peggy Lee, near the end of the latter's career, on "You Were Meant for Me" from the album Dragonfly Summer (1993). He was still active in the 21st century, and in 2010, was even the subject of a tribute album, The Art of Michael Franks, by Veronica Nunn. He released Time Together on Shanachie in 2011.

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/micha...6526/biography

[kf4tqj]

The Moody Blues / Nights In White Satin.

[alex2363]

Prince, lady gaga, maroon 5, lil wayne, adele,bruno mars,rihana,nicki m,katy perry, kesha,drake

[GDCarrington]

Michael Franks - Love Songs

[GDCarrington]

Michael Franks - Previously Unavailable

[El-a-Menthol]

Gorillaz - November Has Come




Linkin Park - My Dsmbr