Today’s Artist
Brand New Heavies 1985 –
Dream on dreamer, dream your life away.
Brand New Heavies brought acid jazz to the mainstream with "Never Stop" and "Dream On Dreamer." N'Dea Davenport's voice turned funk into something the 90s could call its own. ... the groove was the main character. More →
Back of the Catalog Selection
30 sec
Who Did It Better
You Can't Hurry Love
1966 The Supremes
1970 Diana Ross
The Temptations' 1972 twelve-minute epic 'Papa Was a Rolling Stone' was a monument built from bassline and bitterness with Norman Whitfield's production piling instruments on like headstones. Luther's 1994 version is the same monument visited by a son who has stopped kicking at the grave and started reading the dates on it.
Luther recorded 'Papa Was a Rolling Stone' for his 1994 'Songs' album and he had to find a way into a song that was already a cultural monolith. He dropped the tempo, removed the wah-wah guitar and the string section, and let the song breathe as a ballad where the anger of the original had settled into something like resignation. Where the Temptations' version was an indictment Luther's is a eulogy delivered by a man who never got to say goodbye and is not sure he would know what to say if he could.
Today’s Record
All Night Long (All Night)
I don't want to wait in vain for your love.
The fake lyrics -- tam bo li de say de moi ya -- were an ad-lib. Lionel Richie was trying to mimic a Caribbean patois and couldn't find the right words, so he made them up. They kept them. 30 sec is a song about a party so good you forget what language you're speaking. Number one on the Hot 100. Sometimes the wrong words say exactly the right thing.
Today’s Theme
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You’re Kidding, Right
Lalah Hathaway is the first-born daughter of Donny Hathaway. She was 10 when her father fell to his death from a hotel window in 1979. She carries the weight of her father's genius and his tragedy in every note she sings.
Lalah didn't just inherit his voice -- she inherited his story.
Soul in the Movies
Stand by Me 1986
Stand by Me is about four boys walking along train tracks to find a dead body and finding each other instead. Ben E. King's 'Stand by Me' was recorded twenty-five years before the film was made, but it sounds like it was written for this exact moment. I won't be afraid.
Stand by me. The song was always there. 