I remember Merkel. She was in office a long time.

That’s proof she’s not going to come out of retirement, right?

Jürgen,

I have always, and will always, be a musician. I’m a bit out of practice currently.

I’m definitely more interested in seeing Mona and Lisa play, when it suits their purpose, than in getting another gig where someone can see me.

Jürgen,

Love is Blue was a big hit in America by Paul Mauriat. And I didn’t have to look that up. But I just did look it up to see where it charted – #1 for 5 weeks in the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1968.

When I was 12 years old in Music class at school at that time, the teacher had everyone take a turn at playing a song in front of the…

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Tim,

I wasn’t brought up with vintage R&B, I discovered it in the early ’70s when I got to college. But there’s a lot of it that I discovered and liked.

Another big hit from back in the day with her family band…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InYaB16xEd0

We’re losing so many great musicians that we’ve known and loved, but there are some that are still carrying on!

Mavis dropped a new album last fall and is out gigging in 2026 to support it and today she turns 87!

Most of the stops on her tour are in the States, but she’s got one in August in Amsterdam, 2 in London at the Union Chapel, and one…

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Jung,

I like that postcard, thanks. Ringo was a stabilizing influence on the performance, and maybe, stabilized the band a bit when they weren’t playing as well.

Happy birthday, Ringo. He just turned 86 two days ago.

Tim,

I know how at least some of these discussions get sidetracked. I do it. I’m the one who brought up soccer.

Well played, David.

This (hijacked) discussion reminds me of when someone asked in a Q&A what their favourite sides were, and, iirc, Mona said Liverton and Everpool. Something like that. I tried finding it, but no go.

Tim,

I never heard about a “friendly” until just recently. Hopefully someone in the Club comes along who does know something about the sport. I’m sure there are a few.

I know more about hockey than I’ll ever know about soccer. And I’m not a hockey expert either.

But I know they both have rules about offsides!

The sports I played were baseball…

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Tim,

A “friendly” is a game between countries’ national teams prior to the start of the World Cup.

It doesn’t count for anything. It’s like an NFL preseason game.

Of course they still take it seriously. I remember talking about the one that I saw which was from way back in the mid ’80s, to my niece’s boyfriend. He follows soccer and knew…

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Jung,

If people enjoyed it, I think that’s great. Especially our friends from Canada and Mexico who got a chance to host games in what is the greatest sports event in the world. And, I should mention, whose teams acquitted themselves very well. They stepped up.

I saw posts on a number of social media sites about it. In Boston, where…

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Tim,

I never played soccer, and we didn’t have it in High School. I have not followed this tourney at all; I just saw a news summary that England was going to face Norway this week. I remember going to a World Cup friendly, England and Yugoslavia, back in the ’80s at Wembley. That’s the extent of my experience with it. I didn’t even know…

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This is definitely off topic, but have you noticed how quiet it’s gotten in here from certain quarters?

Football’s a great game, and even better when your side is still in the hunt…

Bud,

I’ve just seen clips of them playing on the rooftop. I remember a couple songs where Billy’s taking a solo, like on Get Back, and he’s not in the picture. I’m not trying to make an issue where there wasn’t one, and like I said, I didn’t see the movie this was from. It is in the Get Back movie, right? Maybe I just saw a clip that had…

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Howard,

Yeah, when I wrote the other day about how I noticed he didn’t get in the picture very much at the rooftop gig, I was thinking about how it was in the ’60s. Was that a reason he wasn’t on camera? I have no idea. The band members certainly seemed welcoming to him, but otoh, it’s pretty common for someone taking a solo to be on camera,…

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I found a bio for Billy when I was looking around yesterday. He started very young, and had played with some big names before he met the Beatles.

https://musicminds.com/billy-preston-biography

Oh, you meant a place called “Alabama”?

I thought David was referring to a singing style —

she performed it, á la Bama.

Yeah, I know, all the bad Alabama jokes I could have tried, and this is the one I chose?

Billy Preston had his first hit in 1969, 5 months after the rooftop gig, with “That’s the Way God Planned It”.

There’s a documentary out now, and in theatres, about him, by that same name. Here’re a couple links about it, if you’re interested, although it may only work for America, with “us” in the link. I hear it’s also available in Canada,…

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Tim,

I looked at the vid for that, the My Sweet Lord vid, but didn’t see anything saying when it was filmed.

But now that I think about it, George passed in 2001 and Billy passed in 2006, so it must have been in those 5 years.

Bud – When did you see Stevie?

I only saw him once. There was a long time when he didn’t play any gigs.

I may have mentioned this in the Club before, but I saw him at the Detroit 300th birthday celebration in 2001, down at Hart Plaza. There was also a feed across the river to a park in Windsor Ontario to show it there as well.

When he came out…

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Thanks David.

This was released in September 1966, complete with the intro rap by Bill Shatner. Not sure who’s doing that singing afterwards, or what planet she was from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWSp5ijOOfk

Interesting that in playing a hurdy-gurdy, it looks like the right hand supplies power.

The left hand has the detail work of picking the right notes to play. To a certain extent, you could say a guitar does that too, but picking a guitar is a lot more detailed than turning a crank.

Of course, I’m just basing that on watching this video, so…

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I’ve never seen that movie. I should check it out.

But I used to live with the Get Back album. I don’t remember who/where(?). Must have been in college.

When I’ve seen shorter parts of this, I kind of wondered a bit why the guy taking some of the solos in these songs barely gets on camera. Billy Preston was good. Of course, he was unknown…

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Tim,

I believe it is the same version. I never liked that song either, until I heard Mona and Lisa do it.

I love what they did with it, and I didn’t find out it was Bowie and Bing until after I’d heard Mona and Lisa.

I like that Simon and Harrison tune, and don’t remember hearing it before. There are quite a few on this thread that I’m not sure I heard before, like that Monty Alexander piece too.

Happy Canada Day all. So what do you do on Canada Day?

Besides wearing fancy hats. Nice hat Jacki.

Around here on the 4th it sounds like I got sent to the front; it’s time to dig a foxhole.

It gets loud. I don’t buy fireworks any more though.

I never heard of it. Maybe because it’s electronic music, which I’ve never been able to quite wrap my head around. My sister lives within a few miles of there too.

They have a big Electronic music festival every year in Detroit, and I looked at going one year, just to check it out, and they wanted real money for it. I understand, everybody…

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Jung,

Sorry, I didn’t make it clear. That song is not from Motown.

You’re right, in that top 100 R&B for the year, there are Stevie Wonder(7), Temptations(4), Supremes(4), Four Tops(3), Martha and the Vandellas(2), Miracles(2), Isley Brothers(1), and the Marvelettes(1). I may have missed someone, but those were all Motown.

But there were a…

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Howard,

Michaela helped me out one time when mine went missing, and that one was sent from a shop in the UK. They got it okay eventually though. I’m not sure what magic Michaela did.

I’ve looked at Amazon UK, but never used them. That’s mostly because I’m sending albums that are old, so Amazon doesn’t have them.

One time I did ship from the…

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Jung,

When I saw your post, I looked at the R&B top 100 for 1966. That is great that Mona and Lisa have covered so many of the songs mentioned on that video you put up.

I didn’t know much about vintage R&B until the ’70s. 7 of the top 10 on the list were from Motown, so, even if I leave out Motown, looking down their list, there are a lot of…

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Jacki,

I really like that version from Dusty; a great version of a great song.

Pino Donaggio sang it, and wrote it with Vito Pallavicini in 1965.

Lo che non vivo (senza te) was the title.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GWyZh2g9cc

Bud,

I would guess that the fact that we remember the melody easier than the metadata – the text about the song – is why music is baked into humans, and why we love it.

The melody/rhythm, is why, tens of thousands of years ago, when you wanted to pass important information on to the next generation, or the next town, it was a song.

We evolved…

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Doug,

That reminds me of something I used to tell people.

The only song you have to be able to play is the one you’re trying to play. It doesn’t matter if you can’t play something complicated.

There have been many great guitarists in the world. But only one could ever play like Jimi Hendrix.

I remember back in the early ’80s, I played in a…

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