Nora Jones performs “Help Me Make It Through The Night” on 8/22/02. This classic ballad, composed by Kris Kristofferson in 1969,  not only spans all generations but all millenniums.

You can check out the original and a Motown cover of this song over at OSML.

“Without a piano I don’t know how to stand, don’t know what to do with my hands.”~ Norah Jones

Jimmy Castor (June 23, 1947 - January 16, 2012)

BY DOUGLAS MARTIN| PRINTED IN THE NYTIMES ONLINE EDITION 1/17/2012

Jimmy Castor, a singer, instrumentalist and songwriter whose mastery of genres from doo-wop to Latin soul to funk, and instruments including saxophone and bongos earned him the title Everything Man, died on Monday in Henderson, Nev. He was 71.

The cause was heart failure, his son Jimmy Jr. said.

Mr. Castor grew up in Harlem and Washington Heights with the legendary rock ’n’ roll singer Frankie Lymon. Possessing a pure, high voice like Mr. Lymon’s, Mr. Castor often filled in for him when Mr. Lymon couldn’t make a performance with his group, the Teenagers.

Mr. Castor soon started his own group, Jimmy and the Juniors, and wrote the first song it recorded, “I Promise to Remember.” Mr. Lymon and the Teenagers made it a Top 10 rhythm-and-blues hit for themselves in the summer of 1956.

By the 1960s, Mr. Castor, an African-American, had gained recognition for his version of the Latin soul sound that emerged as Puerto Ricans joined blacks in Upper Manhattan. In 1966 he had a hit on Smash Records, “Hey Leroy, Your Mama’s Callin’ You.” The melody was calypso-inflected, the groove was Latin and the liner notes were bilingual.

With another band, the Jimmy Castor Bunch, he moved on to funk, combining a big beat with spirited storytelling on records like “Troglodyte (Cave Man)” on RCA, which hit No. 6 on the pop charts in 1972 and sold a million copies. Another hit was “The Bertha Butt Boogie” in late 1974.

Mr. Castor’s greatest influence may have come with the advent of hip-hop music and culture, when disc jockeys began using snippets of his earlier funk hits. In the 1983 movie “Flashdance” a sample of “It’s Just Begun,” the title track of his first album, was used in the break-dance “battle” scene. His work has been sampled numerous times by hip-hop artists like Kanye West, Ice Cube and Mos Def.

Richard Colon, who is professionally known as Crazy Legs and who is president of the Rock Steady Crew, a premier break-dance group that used Mr. Castor’s songs, said of Mr. Castor in an interview on Tuesday, “People have been impacted by him and don’t even know it.”

James Walter Castor was born on Jan. 23, 1940, in Manhattan. (His son said that for years he had let others assume he was far younger than he was, by as much as seven years.) After his song “I Promise to Remember” became a hit for Mr. Lymon, Mr. Castor used his windfall to move his family to a better apartment. He graduated from the High School of Music and Art, attended the City College of New York for two years majoring in accounting and minoring in music, and started another band.

While melding Latin and African-American forms in songs like “Southern Fried Frijoles,” he played bar mitzvahs for Harlem’s still-large Jewish population.

Mr. Castor made 16 albums, some for major labels like RCA and Atlantic and some for smaller labels, including several of his own. But he began having trouble finding work in the 1980s. He lived in New Jersey before moving to Nevada in 1996.

In addition to his son Jimmy Jr., Mr. Castor is survived by his wife, Sandi; another son, Jason; two daughters, April Vargas and Sheli Castor; and eight grandchildren.

——————-

This is the Jimmy Castor I remember! I hadn’t thought about this track in a long while.

Remember this one?

Here’s one more.

Thank you Mr. Castor. R.I.P. My condolences to the family.

Related Articles

• Funk legend Jimmy Castor dies in Las Vegas at 71 (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Soul Bandleader Jimmy Castor Dies (rollingstone.com)
• Harlem’s Jimmy Castor, Dies at 71 (video) (harlemworldblog.wordpress.com)

Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968)

Dr. King had passed in 1968 before this song was released in 1970. I think he would have like it. I think you will too.

Please use the holiday to reflect. Listening to this song will get you started.

This post was intended for my Tumblr account,  but as is often the case,  I logged in only to get this error message. I wanted to discuss this song before bed so here is the chosen alternative outlet.

I generally treat myself to eat out on weekends at Ruby Tuesday’s and/or TGIFriday’s. The food is pretty much the same at either place, but Friday’s has the edge of the awesome music playing non-stop for this music lover. If you read my blogs you know I am partial to “oldies” from the late 50s to the late 70s –  and yet occasionally I have been turned on to an 80s or 90s song that I was not aware of, while dining at Friday’s.

I just got home from today’s late Sunday evening meal where I was re-introduced to a song that I hadn’t heard since the 70s — “Black Betty!”

This is  Ram Jam’s 1977 hit cover version that charted #18 Pop, and then again charted #13 Dance/Club in 1990. I keep telling you that everything old is new again and this is a great case in point. This jam has been remixed over and over again for decades, and always sounds great. This is the band, Ram Jam’s, one-hit-wonder music history claim to fame: if you could only have one hit — then this is a great one to have!

The three piece group from Australia, Spiderbait,  charted #32 Mainstream Rock state-side with their 2004 cover of “Black Betty.” This song was their first single to reach #1 on the Australian charts.

Now, if you were paying attention, you noticed I mentioned that the two hit versions above were both “cover” tunes. So to school you completely, here is the original, a capella, recorded version of the African American folk song sung by Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter. I love it and am so glad that it was recorded before Leadbelly’s death in 1949, and subsequently covered,  so that this important folk music remains  in the public eye for generations to come.

Related articles

• One Time for Leadbelly (cryinforthedyin.wordpress.com)

David Robert Jones AKA David Bowie, was born on Jan 8, 1947 in Brixton, London, England. Fans, of this currently reclusive musical icon,  are now calling for a comeback tour!  If the tour materializes and hits my state, I will be first in line for tickets: I have never had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Bowie perform live.

Many Happy returns to David Bowie today. We thank you sir for the many hours of entertainment you have provide us throughout your career … so far

These are some of my favorites from the past decades:

Young Americans (1975) #28 Pop.  I love the fact that I get to see and hear, in this clip, the young backup singer who would become a star in his own right – Luther Vandross!

Fame (1975) #1 Pop, #2 Dance, #21 R&B

Under Pressure (1981) #7 Rock

Modern Love (1983) #6 Rock

China Girl (1983) #3 Rock, #10 Pop,  #51 Dance

There are so m any more  i love — but you get the drift. Thank you again Mr. Bowie for sharing you talent with us. We are all the better for it.

Related articles

• Pictures of David Bowie Doing Normal Stuff (flavorwire.com)
• A Quiet Birthday For David Bowie (929dave.radio.com)
• David Bowie 65th birthday: 65 iconic images of the ever-changing star (mirror.co.uk)

Johnny performs his 1958 hit (charted #3 R&B) composition ” Willie & The Hand Jive”  while the “Three Tons of Joy”  demonstrate live on “The Johnny Otis Show.”  You see long before Sylvester had his “Two Tons of Fun” — Johnny Otis had his “Three Tons of Joy.” Everything Old is New Again!

Check out  Big Mama Thornton performing  “Hound Dog”.  This is one of my all-time favorite performances. Did you know that Mr. Otis produced this song for Big Mama in 1953? Elvis may have covered it but the original is the best. Everything Old is New again!

Did you know that Mr. Otis wrote “With Every Beat of My Heart” for Gladys Knight & the Pips in 1961?

Also be sure to check  out Johnny Otis & His Orchestra performing “Happy New Year, Baby” at EOINA’s sister site OSML.

Happy 90th Birthday Mr. Otis! We are wishing you many, many more!

Musically Yours,

SonDan

TMZ EXCLUSIVE

Heavy D died from a pulmonary embolism caused by deep leg vein thrombosis … and a long flight back to L.A. from a Michael Jackson memorial concert may have been a contributing factor.

A pulmonary embolism is a blockage of one or more arteries in the lungs — most often caused by blood clots which travel in from other parts of he body. In Heavy’s case, the clot was formed in his legs.

Days before Heavy died, he was on a flight back from Europe, after performing at the Michael Jackson tribute concert in Wales.

Officials from the L.A. County Coroner’s Office say Heavy also suffered from heart disease, which could have been a contributing factor in his death.

The Coroner’s Office has classified the death as “natural.”

As TMZ first reported, Heavy died on November 9, 2011. He was 44 years old.

Deep leg vein thrombosis is often associated with long plane flights, in which a clot can form due to prolonged immobility.

Story developing …

By now I am sure you have heard the sad news that Miss Etta James is terminally ill with lukemia. Miss James is one of  my all-time favorite vocalists.  I have acquired every single one of her albums up to her last 2011 studio LP release.

I am just glad that I had the honor and pleasure of seeing her perform live. Miss James puts on a helluva show that I enjoyed tremendously (in spite of the nose bleed seats LOL). The performance of “I’d Rather Go Blind” (below) is from that particular tour that I attended.

Many years ago I read Miss Etta’s autobiography, “Rage to Survive – The Etta James Story,” and her life was certainly one big adventurous ride on this earth. I hope and pray that instead of making yet another unnecessary remake of a classic movie, that someone in Hollywood authority decides that an bio-pic of Etta James is long over due.

I would like to further suggest that one of the best teenage singers, since Frankie Lymon and Michael Jackson, play the part of the young Etta James  — thirteen year old Rachel Crow!

I hope the mistake that Nichole Scherzinger made, that resulted in Rachel Crow’s premature ousting from the X-Factor, brings good things Rachel’s way! An Etta James Bio-Pic would be awesome for  the young and talented Rachel Crow.

A Young Etta James

Rachel Crow 2011

First of all there is an uncanny resemblance between the two – - and this is without the benefit of  any makeup.  Check out the photos and you can see it for yourself

Secondly, when Rachel chose a song to sing on X-Factor it was my FAVORITE  Etta James song — “I’d Rather go Blind.” In fact she sang it twice — the second time as the “sing for your life” song when she was in the bottom two on X-Factor, and would have stayed on the show if not for Nichol Scherzinger’s notorious faux paux!

See for yourself and enjoy the talented young Rachel Crow performances of “I’d Rather Go Blind.”

Rachel Crow’s Top 11 Performance

Rachel’s final, tearful, performance when she was in the bottom two of the Top 5.  I love this little lady and wish her all the success the entertainment industry has to offer her.

Last, but not least, Rachel has personality plus. Check out her first interview after her X-factor elimination.

So do you think Rachel would be a perfect young Etta James in a Bio-Pic? If you don’t agree who do you suggest? I am open to hear who you suggest as long as it ISN’T  Beyonce.(GRIN)  Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

I pray for peaceful and pain free days ahead  for Miss James and all the best to her sons.

Elvis performs on his last Louisiana Hayride show, Saturday, December 15, 1956

Fifty-Five years ago today (12/15/1956) Elvis performed his last show on the Louisiana Hayride live radio program. It was then that Mr. Horace Logan announced the legendary phrase for the first time … “Elvis has left the building!” You may re-live that moment in history by listening to a podcast about it at the Elvis Australia Web Site.: this site is also the source for the above photo.

No quotation dictionary gives the origin of the common phrase “Elvis has left the building.” Who said it first?

— Nicole A., Palo Alto, CA

Funny you should ask. The guy who said it just left the building himself. Horace Lee Logan, founder and longtime producer of Louisiana Hayride, the country-music radio show that gave Elvis his big break, died October 13 at age 86.

In 1954 Sam Phillips of Sun Records sent Logan a demo recording of the 19-year-old Elvis singing “That’s All Right, Mama” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” touting this white kid who sounded black. Elvis was a radical departure from the country crooners who were the staple of Hayride lineups at the time. (To give you an idea, one of the acts that preceded Elvis on his first night was a yodeler.)

But Logan decided to take a chance. On October 16, 1954, Elvis debuted on the show, which was broadcast live on KWKH, a 50,000-watt station in Shreveport, Louisiana, that reached 28 states. The studio audience responded politely to the young singer–he had yet to develop his trademark hip wiggle or sultry sneer–but Logan and company saw his potential and signed him up for a regular gig. Soon teenage girls discovered him and Elvis was on his way.

After two years of touring the south and southwest and drawing increasing national attention, Elvis bought out his contract with Hayride for the unheard-of sum of $10,000, with the stipulation that he give one last performance, which turned out to be on December 15, 1956. By this time he was verging on superstardom. Ten thousand kids jammed the youth building on the fairgrounds in Shreveport and screamed at the top of their lungs for the duration of the King’s 45-minute show. (According to KWKH disc jockey Frank Page, it was sometimes hard to tell if Elvis was singing, or even if the band was playing.) After Elvis had given his final encore and left the stage, the crowd headed for the exits, even though many other Hayride acts were still waiting to perform. Logan took the microphone and pleaded with Elvis’s fans to return to their seats: “Please, young people . . . Elvis has left the building. He has gotten in his car and driven away. . . . Please take your seats.”

The words became part of the Elvis legend and were repeated at many subsequent shows. Now they’re a catchphrase whose meaning, usually tinged with irony, is clear to all: the show’s over, the curtain has fallen, the sun has set, that’s all she wrote, the fat lady has sung, our work here is done, move along, nothing more to see, disperse, beat it, turn the page, hit the road, don’t forget to tip your waitress, pack it up, turn out the lights, das ist alles, time’s up, toodle-oo, exeunt omnes, class dismissed, back to work, don’t let the screen door hit you where the good Lord split you, end of story, that’s all there is there ain’t no more, so long, hasta la vista, you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here, later gator, 30, buh-bye, get lost, ite missa est, the end, finito, Scotty, beam me up.

SOURCE: www.thestraightdope.com

Related articles

• Elvis Has Left the Building (elvistributeartist.wordpress.com)

… Michael Jackson arrived in Tokyo, Japan to perform four concerts at the Tokyo Dome and two at the Fukuoka Dome. This was MJ’s fifth visit to Japan.

This video footage is from MJ’s visit to a Tower Records Store (remember record stores?) in 1996 Japan.  OMGEE, what a wonderful smile MJ had.

This footage is an interview during the same 1996 visit to Japan. His laugh is infectious — isn’t it.

We miss you Michael.

Howard Tate ( August 13, 1939 – December 2, 2011)

By Dan DeLuca,  Inquirer Music Critic

Howard Tate, 72, an immensely talented soul singer who dropped out of the music business in frustration after the often brilliant albums he made in the late 1960s and early 1970s failed to reach a wide audience, died Friday of multiple myeloma and leukemia in his apartment in Burlington City.

Born in Georgia and raised in Philadelphia, Mr. Tate returned to recording and performing in the 2000s after a chance encounter in a South Jersey supermarket led to his rediscovery.

Working with Philadelphia producer and songwriter Jerry Ragovoy, Mr. Tate recorded one undeniably classic album: Get It While You Can, a 1966 release on Verve whose title track became much better known when sung by Janis Joplin.

With agile phrasing and a keen falsetto, Mr. Tate’s voice bears a resemblance to Al Green’s. But on cuts like “Look At Granny Run Run” (covered by Ry Cooder) and “Stop” (recorded by Jimi Hendrix) and “Ain’t Nobody Home” (later done by both B.B. King and Bonnie Raitt), Ragovoy skillfully took Mr. Tate’s down-home sound uptown, with sophisticated urban production.

Neither his debut nor the subsequent Reaction (1969) and Howard Tate (1972) earned him a large audience. Mr. Tate, who had sung early in his career with organist Bill Doggett and with his fellow North Philadelphia soul man Garnet Mimms (in the doo-wop group The Gainors), wound up disappearing from the music business altogether – an absence that made his legend grow stronger.

Without music in his life, Mr. Tate, who was raised in the neighborhood around 13th and Norris Streets, sold insurance and raised six children. He started drinking after his daughter was killed in a fire in his Wynnefield home in 1976, he told The Inquirer in 2004. After his marriage crumbled, his life took a harrowing turn.

“I turned to cocaine, and it was the worst thing I could have ever done,” he said. “It destroyed my willpower. I became homeless, roaming around those drug neighborhoods in Camden. I actually thought I was going to be found dead in an alley. It was like I was waiting to die.”

Instead, however, the Baptist preacher’s son turned to the Lord. In 1994, he founded the Gift of the Cross Church and began preaching in living rooms in West Philadelphia and South Jersey.

Presumed dead by many, he ran into a former member of Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes in a Willingboro supermarket on New Year’s Day in 2001, who told him that an oldies DJ, Phil Casem of WNJC in Sewell, N.J., had been making inquiries about his whereabouts on the radio.

Two years later, Mr. Tate returned with Rediscovered, an album that included “Either Side of the Same Town,” a song Elvis Costello and Ragovoy, who died earlier this year, wrote for Mr. Tate. With his remarkable voice miraculously preserved after nearly three decades out of action, he returned to performing, and released two more albums, A Portrait of Howard (2006) and Blue Day (2008).

Mimms, now pastor of the Bottom Line Revival Church in Cheltenham, recalled Tuesday the days when he sang lead and Mr. Tate sang tenor in the Gainors, the quintet that came together after Mimms got out of the U.S. Army in 1958.

“We were very close,” said Mimms, who introduced Mr. Tate to Ragovoy and had his own Ragovoy-penned classic soul hit, “Cry Baby,” in 1963.

Mr. Tate “was a very nice dresser, and very famous with the young ladies,” Mimms said. “He was an all outgoing guy, and his falsetto was unique. I had a high range myself, but I couldn’t do that falsetto stuff he did. He could come out of his natural, and go right into it. He had a great voice.”

Information on funeral arrangements was not available.

————

Contact music critic Dan DeLuca at 215-854-5628, deluca@phillynews.com, or @delucadan on Twitter. Read his blog, “In the Mix,” at www.philly.com/inthemix

Photo Source: soul-sides.com | Obituary Source: Philly.com

Exclusive Documentary Slated for Release in 2012

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 2, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — GPA Entertainment announced today the pending release of an exclusive documentary featuring 84-year old Joe Jackson, father of pop icon Michael Jackson and self-proclaimed architect of the Jackson family musical empire. Confessions of a Father is compiled from hours of interviews conducted over a two-year period.  The feature-length film will offer a fascinating and chilling look at one of the most controversial fathers in show business history. Told from Joe Jackson’s unique perspective, the film will cover the Jackson family history from the formation of the Jackson 5 through Michael’s tragic death and the subsequent trial and sentencing of his physician, Dr. Conrad Murray. The film’s release is planned for 2012, as is the publication of “The Architect,” Joe Jackson’s autobiography from Atria Books, a division of Simon and Schuster.

Confessions of a Father is produced by Johnny West and award-winning producer George Paige, whose credits include “Michael Jackson…the Legend Continues,” and scores of other TV programs and feature films. “For the first time, Joe Jackson lifts the veil and airs the dirty laundry, like it or not,” says Paige.  “If you think you know the Jackson history, think again.”

Filmed partially on location at the Jackson family Havenhurst estate, the documentary will give viewers a never-before-seen look at Michael Jackson’s personal theatre and the special room where the Jackson family and Michael’s children were home schooled.  “We filmed in Gary, Indiana too,” says West, who also directed.  “Seeing the Jackson house and hearing the voices of people who knew them before, during and after their rise to stardom sheds new light on this intriguing family.”

Of special interest will be the newly uncovered audio recording of the Jackson 5 in their first ever studio session.  “Big Boy” was recorded at Steel-town Records by Gordon Keith, who appears on camera to talk about guiding the dynamic young performers in those early sessions.

The documentary will have a theatrical release in 2012 before a nationwide home entertainment blu-ray and DVD release.

The trailer will be available shortly at www.jacksondocumentary.com.

Contact:     Irene Dean
Jane Ayer Public Relations
(818) 582-8481, ext. 501
irene@janeayerpr.com

READ MORE

… George Harrison died of lung cancer at only 58 years young.

I remembered his talent earlier today at my Tumblr Blog.