The Singer & The Song

Episode four of “The Singer and the Song” is devoted to “Tequila.”  Released into the world as catchy little rock instrumental in 1958, that song’s astonishing elasticity over the last six decades has generated flavorful jazz, r&b, rap, ska, cumbia, movie soundtrack, and marching band versions by notable performers including Pee Wee Herman, Joeski Love, and Wes Montgomery and by lesser known devotees including Perez Prado, Los Bitchos, Ska Cubano, the Reverend Horton Heat, and the University of Washington’s Husky Marching Band.  Drink up!

Episode three of “The Singer and the Song” is a two-fer, devoted not only to “I’m in the Mood for Love,” which debuted in 1935, but to “Moody’s Mood for Love,” King Pleasure’s 1952 vocalese version of James Moody’s ground-changing 1949 instrumental interpretation of the original song.  “I’m in the Mood for Love” was quickly embraced by Alfalfa and Darla in an early “Our Gang” comedy, then by Louis Armstrong, Fats Domino, and the reggae artist Lord Tanamo during the succeeding decades.  “Moody’s Mood” was covered by Esther Phillips and Amy Winehouse even as it rolled into the hip-hop era with Slick Rick, MC Lyte, and Digital Underground all building tastes of it into their recordings.  And there's more!  It’s a rich history.

The second episode of "The Singer and the Song" is devoted to the curious history of "Red Red Wine," a song written and first recorded by Neil Diamond in 1968.  It was not a hit.  A year later, the Jamaican singer Tony Tribe cut a groovy reggae version of the song...which inspired the English band UB40 to cut their own reggae version of it in a tribute to Tribe, which became a global hit in 1988.  Eventually, even Diamond himself got the message and started performing it in a reggae style.  And there's much more, including a 21st Century update of "Red Red Wine" entitled "Green Green Weed."  Check it out.  

A singer or instrumentalist performing a song is like an actor bringing a script to life or a cook working from a recipe – every interpretation is going to have its own flavor.  And the vast and unpredictable range of those interpretations is of enduring interest to Bill Adler, the host of this podcast.  Episode one tracks the twists and turns to which a great song entitled “The Three Bells” has been subjected over the course of the last 80 years.  We start w/ Ray Charles in 1971, travel back to the treatment accorded it by a country music trio known as The Browns in 1958, then blast back to the song's birth in French under the name “Les Trois Cloches” as performed by Edith Piaf in 1946.   Reversing our steps, we shoot forward to a jaunty reggae version by the Jamaican singer Ken Parker in 1972, then to a post-disco dance version in French by Tina Arena in the year 2000, and ultimately to a present-day hip-hop version inspired by the rejiggering on YouTube of the soundtrack accompanying the scene of a murder depicted on the “The Sopranos” tv show. We invite you to sit back and enjoy the trip.  And if you’d like to listen to all of the episode’s songs in their entirety, kindly check out our playlist on Spotify.